Now for the record let me say, you can imagine the blow this was a twelve-year-old kid, being raised in a relatively small town. This was my daddy’s daddy, and we were all named Glynn Jones. My grandfather was well known because he owned a successful local company, Glynn Jones Co. He advertised on television and radio, billboards and even sponsored a team in my Little League. We sat in the fourth-row pew of the First Baptist Church on Perry Street every Sunday, and he parked the Rolls Royce right out front of the church.
Basically, the whole town was aware of this marriage. It became the talk of the town, both to my face and behind my back. Imagine being dropped off at Bellingrath Junior High School in the morning with all the students standing out front, watching me get out of a Rolls Royce. I was a Sunday School member and the Reverend Dr. J.R. White baptized me as a kid. He also presided over the marriage of my mother and grandfather, and I held that against him personally.
Needless to say, I rebelled, became reclusive, and was only close to a few friends. Once I even scratched the whole driver’s side on the Rolls, knowing it would have to go to Atlanta or even New York for repairs, but at least it would be unseen for a while. My life definitely was not easy for me to handle.
I knew my Grandfather Glynn loved my brother and me and supported us; but I held this against him until his death in 1964. But he was a helluva man, even though he was a bad alcoholic. He had been known to park the Rolls on the riverbank and drink the squeezings out of a Sterno can, with the winos. I was told they found whiskey bottles hidden in his front yard when he was only twelve years old.