Guillermo Calvo Mahe
Leon Theodore Kokkins was my step father. I called him "Pop". These are some of my memories of him. I regret no one else seems to remember him. He deserved better.
Crumb buns, jelly doughnuts and Kaiser rolls on Sunday mornings along with the NY Daily News and perhaps a ride along the causeway in Miami Beach in our black Pontiac convertible, circa 1949, with the top down (1952 through 1955). Then, on to Charlotte. We had a different car, perhaps a 66 Chevy, but it was not memorable. Charlotte the city, on the other hand, certainly was. I became Billy Kokkins there, long story but it never stuck.
In New York, years later, the routine was similar but the car was a blue 1959 Chevy with a sort of split trunk and a hard top. I liked the Pontiac better.
Then, … way too soon, everything was gone and we were scattered, barely still a family. Disfunctionality had fast become the norm and we were trend setters.
1973, Pop’s final year. He passed away very young, a beloved enigma.
_______
© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).
Crumb buns, jelly doughnuts and Kaiser rolls on Sunday mornings along with the NY Daily News and perhaps a ride along the causeway in Miami Beach in our black Pontiac convertible, circa 1949, with the top down (1952 through 1955). Then, on to Charlotte. We had a different car, perhaps a 66 Chevy, but it was not memorable. Charlotte the city, on the other hand, certainly was. I became Billy Kokkins there, long story but it never stuck.
In New York, years later, the routine was similar but the car was a blue 1959 Chevy with a sort of split trunk and a hard top. I liked the Pontiac better.
Then, … way too soon, everything was gone and we were scattered, barely still a family. Disfunctionality had fast become the norm and we were trend setters.
1973, Pop’s final year. He passed away very young, a beloved enigma.
_______
© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).
