Howard, Taylor, and Me

A friend and fellow GOBAGER , David Cain, lent me a
the dvd movie MELVIN & HOWARD, directed by Jonathan Demme; starring Paul Le Mat, Jason Robards, Mary Steenburgen, and Michael J. Pollard. It was filmed in 1980.

When David handed me the dvd to me he said, “I remember when it happened.”

The movie is about Melvin Dummar and Howard Hughes. The movie starts with an aged Howard Hughes driving at a high speed on a motorcycle in a western desert. He is grinning like a mad man as he takes risks jumping small pits, ponds, and whatever. Then he crashes.

Melvin drives by in a truck, stops to take a leak and see Howard Hughes lying there. He helps Howard Hughes to his feet, not realizing it is really Howard Hughes. He thinks the old man is a bum. As a private joke Howard asks Dummar for some money and Dummar gives him the last couple of dollars he has.

That is the first and only time Howard Hughes (Jason Robards) is in the movie. Melvin lived the type of life that sometimes that every dollar counted and it easily slipped through his fingers. It was almost as if he had the “easy come, easy go attitude.”

Howard Hughes died and mysteriously left Melvin a handwritten will giving him over $150 million.

Melvin Dummer was accused of forgery, lying under oath, and whatever else they could accuse him of the break him. He kept his story. He was dumb with his money but he was kind and honest.

That is the jest of the movie. I thought it was a good flick. It portrayed the hard working people that have a hard time making ends meet and some of the things they are willing to do to get ahead.

Ironically, David lent me the dvd the same day I was emailing a blog friend of mine, http://joeb-tallyho.blogspot.com/Joe Stewart, about Howard Hughes. I think he and I were at one time fascinated about Howard Hughes and his eccentricities. Check out Joe's blog. He has a lot about musicians, the Delta, writers, and travel.

This movie reminds me of another segment of my life. I worked the midnight shift at the Atlanta Post Office in the Data Collection Site, or PSDS Office. I worked with a guy name Taylor. Taylor was a retired Braves pitcher.

Taylor and I both read a lot about Howard Hughes then. When one of us read something, the next night at work we would share our latest Howard Hughes findings. One day we were working and one of us suggested we should write Howard Hughe a letter and just plainly ask him for a lot o money. We added,” not to be hoggish about it, maybe about $10 million each would help us out.”

We decided to write the letter. We would tell him how much we admired him and what a trail-blazer he was in every enterprise he touched, and so on. And then we would bluntly tell him we wanted some money. No loan or conditions. Just gimme the dough!

The worse he could do was to ignore us. We could live with that.

But what if Hughes' assistants intercept the letter? They could mess up everything! Well, they will. Or they won’t. We wouldn't know unless we tried.

I first grafted a letter and carried it to work and Taylor looked at it and added some stuff. Then I went home and typed the new version… and brought it back within a day or two. It went like that for about two weeks.

We mailed it. And we never heard a word. I bet somebody enjoyed reading it.