About My Grandfather and Poker

In 1916 the fit young volunteers who were members of the Richmond Light Infantry Blues were dispatched to Brownsville, Texas, to watch over the border and chase Mexican bandit/revolutionary Pancho Villa, who had crossed the border to stage a few raids on American soil ... or, so people said.

To do the job the Richmonders were quickly converted into a cavalry unit. My grandfather, Frank W. Owen (1893-1968), seen at the age of 23 in the 1916 photo above, was one of those local boys in that Richmond Blues outfit.

Following that campaign, in 1917 the Blues were sent to Fort McClellan, located in the Alabama foothills, near the town of Anniston, for additional training. Then it was across the pond to France to finish off the Great War -- the war to end all wars.

Frank Owen grew up in South Richmond in what was then called Manchester. Before his active duty he had mostly made his living as a vocalist. The stories I remember him telling from his years as a soldier were all about his singing gigs, playing football and poker, and various other adventures.

Owen is on the right in the photo above. Like other men of his generation, who saw war firsthand, he apparently saw no benefit in talking about the actual horrors he'd seen. At least I never heard such stories. However, he was always quick to point with pride at having been in the Richmond Blues, then seen by many in Richmond as an elite corps.

F.W. Owen depended completely on his own view of life. He passed what he could of that self-reliance on to me. My grandson's middle name is Owen. It's a name he should always wear proudly. A long way from home, almost a century ago, his great-great-grandfather certainly did.

The story below is about my grandfather. A previous version of it was published in SLANT in 1990. This version was published in Style Weekly in 2000.

*

The Cheaters
by F.T. Rea

Having devoted countless hours to competitive sports and games of all sorts, nothing in that realm is quite as galling to this grizzled scribbler as the cheater’s averted eye of denial, or the practiced tones of his shameless spiel.

In the middle of a pick-up basketball game, or a friendly Frisbee-golf round, too often, my barbed outspokenness over what I have perceived as deliberate cheating has ruffled feathers. Alas, it's my nature. I can't help it any more than a watchful blue jay can resist dive-bombing an alley cat.

The reader might wonder about whether I'm overcompensating for dishonest aspects of myself, or if I could be dwelling on memories of feeling cheated out of something dear.

OK, fair enough, I don't deny any of that. Still, truth be told, it mostly goes back to a particular afternoon's mischief gone wrong.

*

A blue-collar architect with the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway for decades, my maternal grandfather, Frank Wingo Owen was a natural entertainer. Blessed with a resonant baritone/bass voice, he began singing professionally in his teens and continued performing, as a soloist and with barbershop quartets, into his mid-60s.

Shortly after his retirement, at 65, the lifelong grip on good health he had enjoyed failed; an infection he picked up during a routine hernia surgery at a VA hospital nearly killed him. It left him with no sense of touch in his extremities.

Once he got some of his strength back, he found comfort in returning to his role as umpire of the baseball games played in his yard by the neighborhood's boys. He couldn't stand up behind home plate, anymore, but he did alright sitting in the shade of the plum tree, some 25 feet away.

This was the summer he taught me, along with a few of my friends, the fundamentals of poker. To learn the game we didn’t play for real money. Each player got so many poker chips. If his chips ran out, he became a spectator.

The poker professor said he’d never let us beat him, claiming he owed it to the game itself to win if he could, which he always did. Woven throughout his lessons on betting strategy were stories about poker hands and football games from his cavalry days, serving with the Richmond Blues during World War I.

As likely as not, the stories he told would end up underlining points he saw as standards: He challenged us to expose the true coward at the heart of every bully. "Punch him in the nose," he'd chuckle, "and even if you get whipped he'll never bother you again." In team sports, the success of the team trumped all else. Moreover, withholding one’s best effort in any game, no matter the score, was beyond the pale.

Such lazy afternoons came and went so easily that summer there was no way then, at 11, I could have appreciated how precious they would seem looking back on them.

On the other hand, there were occasions he would make it tough on me. Especially when he spotted a boy breaking the yard's rules or playing dirty. It was more than a little embarrassing when he would wave his cane and bellow his rulings. For flagrant violations, or protesting his call too much, he barred the guilty boy from the yard for a day or two.

F.W. Owen’s hard-edged opinions about fair play, and looking directly in the eye at whatever comes along, were not particularly modern. Nor were they always easy for know-it-all adolescent boys to swallow.

Predictably, the day came when a plot was hatched. We decided to see if artful subterfuge could beat him at poker just once. The conspirators practiced in secret for hours, passing cards under the table with bare feet and developing signals. It was accepted that we would not get away with it for long, but to pull it off for a few hands would be pure fun.

Following baseball, with the post-game watermelon consumed, I fetched the cards and chips. Then the four card sharks moved in to put the caper in play.

To our amazement, the plan went off smoothly. After hands of what we saw as sly tricks we went blatant, expecting/needing to get caught, so we could gloat over having tricked the great master. Later, as he told the boys' favorite story -- the one about a Spanish women who bit him on the arm at a train station in France -- one-eyed jacks tucked between dirty toes were being passed under the table.

Then the joy began to drain out of the adventure. With semi-secret gestures I called the ruse off. A couple of hands were played with no shenanigans but he ran out of chips, anyway.

Head bowed, he sighed, “Today I can’t win for loosing; you boys are just too good for me.” Utterly dependent on his cane for balance he slowly walked into the shadows toward the back porch. It was agonizing.

The game was over; we were no longer pranksters. We were cheaters.
As he carefully negotiated the steps, my last chance to save the day came and went without a syllable out of me to set the record straight. It was hard to believe that he hadn’t seen what we were doing, but my guilt burned so deeply I didn't wonder enough about that, then.

*

My grandfather didn’t play poker with us again. He went on umpiring, and telling his salty stories afterwards over watermelon. We tried playing poker the same way without him, but it didn’t work; the value the chips had magically represented was gone. The boys had outgrown poker without real money on the line.

Although I thought about that afternoon's shame many times before he died nine years later, neither of us ever mentioned it. For my part, when I tried to bring it up, to clear the air, the words always stuck in my throat.

Eventually, I grew to become as intolerant of petty cheating as F.W. Owen was in his day, maybe even more so. And, as it was for him, the blue jay has always been my favorite bird.

-- 30 --

The Battle of Monument Avenue: Report No. 7

In spite of alarming news of the incidents at the Lee Monument, involving the confiscation of guns -- but no shooting -- early Friday morning, the grassy circle at the intersection of Monument Avenue and Allen Avenue in the Fan District continued to be a gathering place for photographers, graffiti artists, sign-makers, tourists and you-name-it.

In fact, from what I've seen, personally, the scene is more like a crowded park than the site of protests. Kids pose in front of the base of the monument wearing graduation gowns. Activists hand out free bottles of water. Looking at the garishly decorated pedestal through the lens, the combination of markings and signs on and around it take on the feel of free-spirited abstract expressionist paintings from the 1960s and '70s.

-- Words and photos by F.T. Rea

Epiphany at a Stop Light

My depiction (2007) of Fred Monihan's sculpture of J.E.B. Stuart fading into the mists.

Facing east on Monument Avenue I was waiting for the stoplight to change. It was about 35 years ago. The sights were as familiar as could be. Through the windshield I could see the J.E.B. Stuart monument. To the right was the hospital named for that place on the map -- Stuart Circle. I was born in that hospital and so was my daughter.

Suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, a fresh thought struck me. It felt like an epiphany.

Background: Not too long before this moment, in 1984, I had run for a seat on Richmond's City Council. The task of campaigning had exposed me to some neighborhoods in my home town that had been mostly unfamiliar to me before I decided to run for office.

Why I took that plunge, with no chance to win, is another story, for another day. But the reason for mentioning it here is how eye-opening that experience was. For one thing, I don't think I had ever spent any time in Gilpin Court before the campaign trail took me there. It was part of the Fifth District, which also included the part of the Fan District that was behind the equestrian statue before me. As Richmonders know, Virginia Commonwealth University's academic campus is sprawled out in the blocks just beyond the statue.

Looking at that glorifying depiction of a man on a horse, resting on a plinth, a question exploded in my head: What would I have thought of that so-called "monument" if I had been born black, instead of white? What if I had grown up in Gilpin Court?

The thought that followed made me laugh. I said to myself: "By the time I was 16, I probably would have blown that damn thing up." Answering my own question had provided me with a momentary walk-in-the-other-man's-shoes.

That prompted me to be amazed that it hadn't already happened. Boom! For the first time, I wondered how it had survived in that public space since the early 1900s. 

Folks who remember the 16-year-old version of me should be laughing now. At least a few of them know there would have been some chance, indeed, that I would have really done it ... had I been a headstrong black teenager, who, like me, got thrown out of school regularly.

Before that flash of empathy, I don't think I had ever tried to imagine myself as a black Richmonder looking at those looming statues of Confederate generals, day after day. Ever since then, I've seen those memorials to the Lost Cause in a different light.

Now, in June of 2020, Monument Avenue is being subjected to a mind-boggling transformation at the hands of young people who have seen to it that the spell those damn Confederate memorials have had on Richmond is kaput.

Art and words by F.T. Rea

-- 30 --

The Battle of Monument Avenue: Report No. 6

Let it be said: Just a few blocks from VCU, with its much-celebrated art school, Gen. Robert E. Lee lost his last battle ... to graffiti artists in June of 2020.

The Battle of Monument Avenue: Report No. 5

How fast will the Confederate memorial removal process ordered by Gov. Northam proceed? A telling first clue to answer to that question may be have been revealed by a fresh batch of signs that has been dropped off at the site of the Lee Monument. (See closeup below.)

There could be some good strategic reasons to begin to get ready for the removal job. First, I'm assuming a huge scaffolding needs to be built. Then the Sons of the Lost Cause, or some group, will probably initiate legal action to stop it, soon. If that comes, it could take a few weeks to get past that. So if Northam wants to do the physical work in early July, after the law will actually allow for it, maybe getting started now makes more sense.

Shortly after 7 p.m. on Saturday night a  group marched in led by the man in the bow tie.

Now is also the time to begin a constructive conversation about what to do with the empty spaces. My take is that Richmond needs to use this unique opportunity, following the historic peaceful demonstrations on Monument Avenue, to do the right thing in the same public spaces where we, the people, have seen the wrong thing being done for way too long. 

Rather than merely cheering on the process of removal -- and yes, there will be parties! -- Richmond's mayor and councilpersons should launch a project to use those empty spaces wisely. After all, something remarkable has happened in the Fan District in the last week: Truth and atonement won the Battle of Monument Avenue.  

Thus, rather than shrug off the integral role that marching peacefully and messaging -- signs and graffiti -- played in affecting a long overdue change, the City of Richmond should own it. The spell has been broken. 

At long last those Confederate memorials have lost their mojo. The Lee Monument was the first to go up. It was unveiled on May 29, 1890. Now it seems it will be the first to come down. 

That circle the bronze of Lee on horseback loomed over for 130 years should become a shrine to truth and atonement. It should be the centerpiece of an outdoor museum documenting what has happened here this week. Displays ought to further document the history of Richmond's struggle to throw off the cruel grip that "massive resistance" and Jim Crow once held on Richmond. Maybe a small amphitheater should be established in that circle for performances and speechifying. Maybe the four green median that flank the circle could be used, too. 

All that would become a nice tourist attraction and serve the neighborhood well. For a city that was once the second largest slave market in the USA, it would be a noteworthy step toward atonement. 

Rather than try to minimize the role of the demonstrators the city government should call for a celebration of the great victory that Richmond has won. The role of the demonstrators should be praised. Let's face the truth: They acted as modern patriots who dared to make their city a more likely place in which to pursue happiness and justice.  

-- 30 --

The Battle of Monument Avenue: Report No. 4

Kennedy George and Ava Holloway celebrating the moment.

Friday, June 5, 2020: The culture developing around the much-photographed base of the Lee Monument has continued to evolve. The metamorphosis of the milieu during the week, from threatening-and-perhaps-dangerous to loosely-organized-and-peaceful, has been remarkable to watch.

Note: I didn't witness firsthand any of the fires and violent battles of last weekend in Richmond. They happened in other parts of town. I'm only reporting what I've seen.  

The 1600 block of Monument Avenue and the green circle around the Lee Monument have become a particularly cool place in the Fan District to party in the beautiful weather. Several small tents were standing at Happy Hour time. Cars rode by and drivers blew their horns. In response, young people who had been drawn to scene cheered.

Music was in the air. In short, the celebration was in full bloom.

Each day this week more graffiti has been added to the pedestals of the J.E.B. Stuart and Robert E. Lee monuments. All up and down the long block between those looming statues, the residents in the old townhouses have posted signs in their front windows in support of the marchers.

Like it or not, thousands of demonstrators seeking justice for George Floyd, who died of asphyxiation May 25, 2020 -- with a cop's knee on his neck -- chose this site in Richmond to express their outrage. That, as well as their hopes for a better future. Most of the demonstrators have been young.

Now the four police officers who executed Floyd in Minneapolis are in jail. And, Richmond's most well known/infamous Confederate propaganda in bronze is about to be 86-ed.

They are students at the Central Virginia Dance Academy.

Saturday: Unlike many cities, coast-to-coast, in Richmond the demonstrators who came to the neighborhood each night of the week ending today, something noteworthy has already been accomplished. The call for removing Monument Avenue's five statues of Confederate heroes has been answered. On Thursday, Richmond's mayor and Virginia's governor both announced they will be acting in the days to come to remove the monuments.

Apparently, Gov. Ralph Northam can order the six-story-high Robert E. Lee statue taken down on his own volition. The grassy circle on which it rests, between the 1600 and 1800 blocks of Monument Avenue, is an island of property owned the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

The other four Confederate memorials on Monument Avenue are on city property. So Mayor Levar Stoney's ambitious plan to remove the others needs City Council's OK for it to happen. However, word has already begun to spread that the nine-member Council will follow the mayor's lead with unanimous consent.

So it's reasonable to guess that before the summer is over the five Confederate "monuments" on Richmond's Monument Avenue will have been dismantled and moved elsewhere. What will happen to the empty spaces?

Since those spaces were for so long devoted to elevating myths of the Lost Cause it is important for Richmond's future to take care to do the right thing with filling up those publicly-owned spaces. Therefore, I'll be writing about that tomorrow (Sunday). In the meantime, the spontaneous party is still happening.

*

Note: My photos.    

The Battle of Monument Avenue: Report No. 3.

All day long people posed for pictures with the Lee Monument as a backdrop.

8:45 p.m.: This morning I watched Richmond's mayor, Levar Stoney and Virginia's governor, Ralph Northam, both say plainly they want the bronze generals on Monument Avenue gone. Local television carried their remarks.

"Yes, that statue has been there for a long time," Northam said. "But it was wrong then and it's wrong now. So, we're taking it down."

Outdoors it was another beautiful day. As June 4th wore on lots of visitors came to the neighborhood to bask in the collective sense in the air. In short, that sense was that the multitude of peaceful protestors won yesterday's battle. Friendliness was plentiful.

What will happen after dark remains to be seen. Mayor Stoney and Gov. Northam announced they were moving to rid Monument Avenue of its statues of Confederate heroes on pedestals. Northam can apparently order the Lee Monument removed on own volition. A recently passed Virginia law now allows for it.

On the other hand, Stoney has to convince City Council to see it his way. It won't surprise me if some of them drag their heels. Maybe a faction would like to watch to see how it goes for Northam's bold plan to 86 Gen. Robert E. Lee, sometime after July 1, 2020, when the change in the state law will take effect.

The Lee Monument, six stories tall, was unveiled in 1890, which was 25 years after the Civil War ended. So Lee, depicted as aboard his horse, Traveler, has loomed over the Fan District for 130 years. It was the first of the series of five statues of Confederate heroes to be placed at various intersections along Monument Avenue.

The Battle of Monument Avenue: Report No. 2

Not all the political messages were painted on the monuments.

Last night, at approximately 7:20 p.m., thousands of demonstrators were assembling on the 1600 block of Monument Avenue. The grassy areas of the median and the circle around the Lee Monument were completely full of people. More people were marching in on the street. the sound of it was hair-raising. The sight of it was stunning.

Chanting as they marched, the participants were not being restrained by any concerns about social distancing. Still, many wore masks.

From my vantage point there was no sign of violence being directed toward anyone, or toward property. But the crowd was so large, I can't say that nothing like that happened, since there were thousands of marchers. In general, they appeared to be young and quite purposeful. At quick glance, it seemed every skin color was well represented.  

Almost magically, by 8:30 p.m. the vast majority of them had moved on. Since I didn't stay to watch what happened next, I'm only guessing the demonstrators proceeded west toward the Davis and Jackson monuments. There were still a few hundred people lingering in the area. They were peaceful and seemed to be leaving.

Day 6: This morning the good weather continued as I examined the peaceful block and photographed some signs left over from last night's demonstration. So, not all the political messages have been applied to the thoroughly abused monuments. Some of my young neighbors have been giving out supplies free from tables set up on the front steps. Water. Fruit. Masks. They have signs on their porches supporting the protests, as do several other neighbors.

No doubt, a culture is forming around these events. Each day the doings seem more organized. And, remember, I only know firsthand about my own neighborhood. So my reports don't speak for what has happened in the rest of the city. 

At 2:50 p.m. today I heard the telltale sounds of a growing crowd. So went back outside to see what the noise meant. A much smaller group than last night's was marching east on the median. All seemed quite peaceful.

When I came back inside I learned from news accounts that the charges in Minneapolis against George Floyd's executioners are about to change: "second degree" for Chauvin, the maniacal cop with his knee on Floyd's neck; "aiding and abetting" for his soulless accomplices.

The Battle of Monument Avenue: Report No. 1

Tuesday, June 2, 2020: As I toured the 1600 block of Monument Avenue with my morning coffee in hand I noticed the signs on front porches and in windows. Mostly, they supported Black Lives Matter and decried police brutality. There were plastic bottles of water on front steps still waiting to be picked up by demonstrators who were defying the curfew last night. I saw parked cars that had been painted with slogans.

As I stopped to shoot photos of the graffiti-laden Confederate memorials (Stuart and Lee), I decided to move in closer, to be better able to read the messages left for our consideration. As I live in the neighborhood, I've seen those same monuments decorated with outlaw art before.

Then it struck me how different the graffiti looks this time. This time many different hands did the painting. And, for what it's worth, the messages were varied, in terms of what they seemed to convey.

The first thing that came to mind, as far as what to compare the look with, is the way the graffiti-covered remnants of the Berlin Wall appeared in photos I remember seeing, once the hated wall had been dismantled, to no longer divide the city. 

*

Yes, the 1600 block of Monument Avenue has been established as an epicenter of the ongoing series of battles between mostly young demonstrators and various brands of cops. The stark difference between day and night has become routine. We're now living in Day 5.

During the daytime's beautiful weather, along the celebrated wide thoroughfare's grassy areas it's like a happening, out in the public way, during the long-gone hippie era. At night it's a tense conflict over who controls the turf adjacent to Richmond's most famous/most despised Confederate memorials -- Lost Cause monuments that in recent years have become magnets for troubles.

People running between houses and down alleys, with a soundtrack of yelling mixed with hovering helicopters. So far, so good: it seems nobody has been killed or hurt badly. But it's easy to believe that will change if it keeps going every night. There's a lot of frustration in the tear-gas-spiced air.

Monday night (June 1), just minutes after Trump's publicity stunt in which some sort of cops on horseback routed a gathering of peaceful protesters around the White House, in Richmond a few cops lost control and set off tear gas in order to run off a group of peaceful protesters that were gathered in the neighborhood.

The mayor has apologized. The explanation for why the cops did it – a half-hour before the mayor's published curfew for the city! – was that they came to believe some in the crowd were trying to topple the monuments.

To the pull bronze statues off of their pedestals?

Really?

-- 30 --