 |
John Argo spent 42 years
as a hide buyer for the Genesco company before retiring
to McLemoresviile. He is now a consultant and community
volunteer as well as a proud grandfather.
Dressed in a red flannel shirt, time-faded jeans and
cowboy boots, John Argo is definitely a country boy.
Long and lanky, with an easy going manner and ready
smile, when he dons his white cowboy hat (that these
days offsets his own silver locks) he is easily
recognizable as a wrangler, nicely weathered over years
of cowboying of a different sort.
While ordinary cow pokes spent cold evenings hunkered
in a bedroll beside a fire, John's respites were spent
in airports during travels that took him to diverse
places within the borders of the United States as a
buyer of hides for the Genesco company, a tannery that
once held the contract for making 95% of the leather
that went into military combat boots.
Born in Trezevant, he claims the issue of where he was
born in the small town is moot.
"Trezevant 'is' out in the country, there's no 'in
town' to it," he insists, "and I'm going to go so far
as to say McKenzie is, too... Small towns, you can't
beat 'em."
Folks in town pretty well know each other's names, he
continues, and if you don't know it, somebody else
will.
He qualifies that statement later on, when his train of
thought is inadvertently interrupted, saying it could
be a week before the thought returns. When he and his
wife, Linda, go out, he chuckles, they try to stick
close by each other: "Now that we're retired, it takes
both of us to remember somebody's name."
The couple moved back to McLemoresville in 1999, where,
to John's amusement, they have an Atwood address and a
Huntingdon phone number. Their homestead is located on
the farm that once belonged to Linda's parents out on
Clay Farm Road; land that is either hallowed or
haunted, depending upon the story he chooses to spin.
Story telling is another handy cowboy trait that one
comes to expect from John when his grin gets a little
crooked and his eyes take on a mischievous glint.
John and Linda knew each other most all their lives,
growing up in neighboring small towns where
McLemoresville students attended Trezevant High School
after finishing up the eighth grade.
John, the youngest of two children born to LA and Ruby
Argo (his sister is Ann Davison of Trezevant) grew up
working with his father, a heavy equipment contractor,
building lakes, ponds and roads and clearing ground.
"When I was young, you worked outside with your daddy,"
John says with authority. "Now kids get to spend maybe
Saturday afternoon with their father and that's about
it, unless they fish and hunt. They had a lot better
control when you worked with them and when they brought
home the groceries we knew what they went through to
buy them."
In high school, John played football for Trezevant
where he was an end and running back for the team that
competed with schools like McKenzie, Huntingdon, and
Bruceton.
"Pretty good schools," he nods. "They had a lot more
money than we did here, but we were competitive; we did
pretty good in sports."
The year after John graduated in 1956, Linda started
high school in Trezevant.
"It seems like yesterday," John reflects.
Born in the Terry Store community, Linda's family moved
to McLemoresville when she was four years old, living
just down the road from the couple's current abode.
Her mother, Verdie Mitchell, now a resident of the
LifeCare Center in Bruceton, at 96 years old, is the
oldest McLemoresville citizen. She enjoys all the
activities offered at the center and even started a
library at the facility, a continuation, perhaps, of
many years as a schoolteacher. After growing up hoeing
and picking cotton, Linda followed her mother in the
career.
Even though he was busy driving a bulldozer in his
father's business while also furthering his education
at Bethel College, John had time to notice the petite,
baton twirling majorette in "little white boots" who
marched with the Trezevant High School band.
"She was a majorette and had pretty legs; as a matter
of fact, she still does," John declares to Linda's
discomfiture, adding he thinks the white boots are
still classy.
John graduated from Bethel in 1960 with a degree in
business and a minor in education and psychology.
"A poor old country boy sitting under the tree shelling
peas," John set out to find a job and went to work with
Genesco in Milan.
"You know, I liked it and never changed jobs in 42
years," he marvels.
He started as an "expediter", making sure whatever
needed to go out, went out, and that anything needed
was brought in.
"In other words, I worried hell out of people; my wife
says I still do," he guffaws, enjoying the joke.
Meanwhile, Linda started her own college career at
Bethel, attending classes at night while working days
at the Milan Arsenal.
"It took a little longer to get that way," she recalls.
The couple started seeing each other socially around
1965, their dating hampered somewhat by Linda's
out-of-state career moves.
"When I graduated from Bethel I couldn't get a job
around here," she explains. "About 17 people from
Bethel went to teach in Jacksonville, Florida."
She then moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where she taught
four years before moving to Nashville.
The two married the first year she was in Nashville, on
December 7, 1970, when John was 33 and Linda was 28.
John was then transferred from the Genesco plant in
Milan to the company's headquarters in Nashville,
which, the couple agrees, "worked out real good."
John ran the tannery for Genesco plants in Whitehall,
Michigan and Milan, buying hides throughout the U.S. as
well as Canada, Mexico and other countries.
"We went through about 2,000 head of cattle a day,"
declares John, who says the price per pound of cow
hides is greater than that for boston butt, at around
$100 per hide. "And I remember when we used to throw
them away! Very expensive."
Linda had continued her education at Murray State
University and Athens, Georgia, where she accomplished
her master's degree, later obtaining her "above 30" at
Middle Tennessee State University in Nashville.
"I went to school a long time," she offers, with John
adding, "Wherever we were, she was taking courses at
the time."
Linda taught computer programming and keyboarding to
Nashville students in grades 9-12 while also teaching
adult classes at Nashville State Technical Institute in
the evenings.
She retired from Glencliff High School after a 30-year
teaching career.
John is uncertain when he actually retired, since he
remained a consultant with the company in the years
following their 1999 return to McLemoresville, "and
still does," remarks Linda.
"I wound up as vice president of operations with two
plants reporting to me," John says, "and I went through
everything in between. I was even plant manager once
but I can't brag about that because the plant manager
reported to me and I fired him."
He speaks of the evolution experienced by many American
industries as foreign companies assumed the bulk of
production, citing companies in China, Taiwan and Korea
could purchase raw hides in the United States, ship
them to their countries, tan them and ship them back to
the U.S. cheaper than Genesco could tan them.
Contributing to the high costs of doing business in the
United States were changing environmental protection
standards that elicited millions of dollars in clean-up
efforts from companies, some of whom were forced to pay
for the sins of previous industries in prior-owned
plants.
The Genesco plant in Milan, John relates, shut down
three or four years ago.
"He loved the plant," Linda says with a mixture of
nostalgia and disdain for the "old, wet, nasty hides"
that were a part of the business. "It smelled to high
heaven; you could smell it on him when he came home."
"It smelled like money to me," smiles John, explaining
that, in the tanning process, it is necessary to remove
flesh, hair and all the oils from the hides. "Naturally
when you're doing that, it's kind of like being around
a hog killing: it smells!"
Living in the countryside was hard for the pair who had
grown used to the noises of urban dwelling. "We
couldn't sleep at first; all we could hear is coyotes;
I'll bet it took us two months!" John maintains,
recalling sleepless nights when he would ask, "What's
that?" followed by Linda's response, "It's nothing,
John."
"That was just it!" he guffaws, "It was too quiet."
The coyotes, however, are real, he declares. "You go
outside and hear those things holler and it'll make
your hair stand up on back of your neck."
In fact, "the whole plantation down here is haunted;
this front part," John angles, the glint in his eye
taking on that story-look. The pre-Civil War Clay
plantation, he maintains, encompassed 18,000 acres
along Clay Farm Road. The family's holdings included a
brick mill, whiskey stills, and slave quarters that
housed their servants, now all destroyed.
The once majestic house still stands, however, minus
its separate cooking quarters. The top story of the
home has been removed and the lower section re-roofed,
leaving a wide staircase that leads nowhere in a foyer
between two main rooms, each flanked by a fireplace. In
one, walls painted in a rich theme negated the need
for, or perhaps predated, wallpaper.
When the Union troops came through the area, the old
man buried his gold, and it hasn't been found yet,
tells John in a convincing tone. "They tried to get all
their stuff but they didn't quite do it," he boasts.
The tale made convincing fodder for stories told a
visiting group of around a dozen youngsters who, after
a round of stories - none of which were true, John
grins - the troupe walked down to the homeplace in the
dark, accompanied by the Argo's black labrador that
succeeded in bounding happily from the fields at just
the right moment to terrify the kids that ranged from
12 to 18, all of whom were trying to hold John's hand.
"That old lab would be out there, then all of a sudden
he'd come flying out," John roars, slapping the arm of
his chair in delight.
The plantation was broken up in 1865 after the Union
won the war, an event that was a misunderstanding,
according to John.
It seems General Grant invited General Lee to
Appomattox simply to discuss the war. When Lee entered
the building, "gentleman that he was," John tells, "he
took off his sword and pistol and handed them to
Grant's butler.
"Lo and behold it was General Grant" to whom Lee had
delivered his weapons; Grant mistook the proffering for
surrender.
"And Lee was too much of a gentleman to tell (Grant) he
thought he was a servant, so he went along with it,"
John finishes, belied by his grin.
He and Linda had two daughters of their own along the
way, Niki (Susan Nicole) Millrany, who lives in
Alabama, and Cindy (Cynthia Lee) Couey, who lives in
Smyrna.
Niki is the mother of the Argo's two-year old
granddaughter, Lindsey Grace - who John declares is at
once the prettiest, sweetest, and meanest little girl
anyone has ever laid eyes on - while Cindy is the mom
of Avery Thomas, their seven-year-old grandson.
"He spends about a month out of the year with us,"
smiles Linda, recounting spring breaks, Christmas
vacations and summer-time visits.
"We take him camping," she goes on, listing other
pastimes the couple enjoys, like swimming and bicycle
riding. She also goes hunting and fishing with John,
she says, as he sits back, watching her in silent
amusement.
Chuckling, he breaks his silence. "The big deal is, the
grandson likes it, so she goes. We bought a camper so
he'd come with us, and my wife put in a swimming pool
so he'd come."
The pair attends church services at McLemoresville
Baptist Church, where John is one of a group of men
pledged to assist people in chores they are unable to
do for themselves.
"If anybody needs anything done, they call us," says
John. "In the last three years, we've done three
things; nobody will call and ask for help!"
He also builds ramps for the Carroll Benton Baptist
Association and helped install banisters for an older
gentleman who broke his hip after falling while putting
up Christmas lights.
"And he takes hospital beds to people who need them,"
adds Linda. "He does a lot of volunteer work."
"No I don't; that's no big deal," John protests.
He admits to a special fondness for one outside
activity, however: Habitat for Humanity, though he
insists his reasons are purely selfish.
"People say they like to do it because it's something
they can do for somebody else; that's not why I do it.
I'm happy; I do it for myself. I'm making myself happy,
if that makes any sense."
Service to others is an oft-touted path to happiness,
however, and John's comments reveal his real pleasure
in seeing the fruits of his and other Habitat workers'
efforts. He recalls children so happy to have their own
rooms that they roll in the floors in delightful
abandon.
Working with Habitat also provides a chance to practice
another favorite pastime developed over years of
waiting in airports: watching people. "I really like to
watch people; you can't believe how fun it is," shares
John, "every type of person; every dress you can think
of. I try to visualize what they're doing, what they're
not doing."
At Habitat events, he reveals, "there are a few doctors
and lawyers around."
He was amazed recently when a group of Mennonites or
Amish citizens came out to put the roof on a Habitat
home in McKenzie. "They had the whole roof on in 35
minutes!" he wonders, "It sounded like somebody was
shooting a machine gun."
He was enthused, as well, with the men's and women's
basketball teams from Bethel College who donated their
Saturdays to help build the home.
"Of course those kids didn't know which end of the
hammer to use, but they worked hard," he says
admiringly, recalling the tall girls holding up sheets
of sheet rock while others hammered in the nails. And,
he continues, when the more experienced builders needed
something, all they had to do was ask. "When you looked
around, it was there."
"It went up twice as fast and they were really enjoying
it," he continues appreciatively. "It was a social
event for them. Well, it was a social event for me." |
|
