Ed West

 

I just saw on Facebook that my late friend Ed West would be 83 today. 

Ed was a loveable character.  I remember in my teen years he smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes.  He kept offering me a smoke and I finally took him up and the next time and the next time.  Then one day, before he offered me one  I asked him for on and said something like, “No!  Buy your own!”  I was hooked, I bought my own.

His whole family was funny and lovable just like him.  I got to know his family when they lived in the Marietta Place Apartments.  I carpooled with their neighbor Ben Renfroe to work in Atlanta and most mornings sat in their living room.  I go to know his mother Roxie, step father Frank, brother Alfred, and a sister called Bob.

I remember Ed used to “court” a lady that lived on Boulevard in Atlanta in some apartments about half way between the Federal Prison and Grants Park.  Me and our other friend(s) would wait in the car in front of the apartment while he was romancing inside.

I lined Ed up on a date with his first wife Sue.  A few years later they called me up and first Sue chewed me out for introducing them and then Ed took the phone and chewed me out also.  I think their spat was just temporary.  They got along great after that.

Ed and someone worked on the brakes of my Volvo, PV544, in front of their house when they lived on Marrs Hill Road.  About a week later we took the Volvo to Nashville to the Grand Ole Opry.  This was 1963, just before I went on Navy active duty.  Between Chattanooga and Nashville, then before expressways, were some very steep inclines, up and down.  Going down a steep hill, me applying the Volvo’s brakes, the brakes failed.  Our speed increased.  Back then, on some of the highways going up they had “Runaway Ramps”, which saved our lives.  I don’t remember how my friends in the car fixed the brakes, but they did.  When we were going down the highway hlll at a high rate of speed Ed was screaming.  I remember the late Johnny Pascoe hollered, “SHUTUP ED!!”

My late mother was crazy about Ed.  She and he were always playing telephone tricks on each other..  The lady with Ed in this is my late mother, Ethel Janie Petty Hunter.

Ed was a good person.