It's hard to believe that it's been 20 years since my grandfather, Alton William McLean Sr. (nickname was Mack), passed away. Both my cousin Emily and myself would lovingly refer to him as MacDaddy. He passed when I was 17 years old, but I only have 11 years of memories of him, and they were few and far between. Growing up in Carrollton, TX and him living in Wilmington, NC put a ton of distance between us, but I usually saw him once a year when my family would go to Myrtle Beach, SC during the summer months.
In 1982, he suffered a stroke that would paralyze him on the right side. We went to see him, not knowing if he was going to pull through this. Once we were assured of his recovery, we headed back to Dallas. It was mid-January, the roads on I40, just outside of Knoxville, TN, were iced over. We were on the French Broad River Bridge, stopped due to an accident at the end of the bridge. My dad got out of our van, walked over to another vehicle to see if they knew what had happened, since back then, most cars that were traveling had CB radios in their cars. All of a sudden, an 18 wheeler hit our van from behind, sending our vehicle to flip onto another vehicle in front of us. Back in 1982, there were no "child safety laws" and vans like ours didn't have seat belts in the back, but it had a sink and cabinets. My head smashed against the sink and cabinets and my body was flown to the front of the van. My mother was in the front seat and, lucky for her, only suffered glass in her wrist. I, unfortunately, wasn't so lucky. I had suffered major head trauma and was rushed to the nearest hospital, which back then, wasn't fit to handle head trauma cases. After two weeks in a coma, and two-a-half months of not walking or talking, I made a full recovery. However, the lingering effects of the accident were still present. My left eye would wander a bit and since I had suffered a left sided head injury, my right side (the creative side) took over and I appeared to be all over the place. Why am I telling this story when I doing a tribute to my grandfather? As it turned out, in his staggered state since suffering the stroke, he was the first person notice how different I was. Mom and Dad saw me everyday and didn't see how different I was. My parents didn't know when to tell both of my grandparents about the accident, but apparently MacDaddy pulled my mother aside and said, "Something's wrong with Trey!" At that point, my parents told them and both me and him were close.
I loved that guy! My dad would always say that I was the only person who could get money from him. Every time I visited him, he was real quick to hand me $25, and one time, handed me his watch.....which I lost within the span of a month. In his latter years, he would sit in his chair, watch Sanford & Son, All in the Family, court shows, and a little pro wrestling (interesting on my end).
While I won't say the same for my grandmother, he never had a racist bone in his body. Living in the Carolinas, racism was second nature to most people back then, but not him. He used to be a steel worker and worked side by side with many African American men. In fact, there is a bridge that leads from Conway, SC to Myrtle Beach, SC that he helped build. Dad was always real quick to point that out to me.
In the end, he suffered another major stroke, one that he couldn't recover from. We buried him April 11, 1993.
The name Alton William McLean has run in my family for three generations. My grandfather, my father, and myself were named it. While I never liked the name Alton as a first name, I have never changed it because I respect the man it came from. As a joke, I used to tell my wife that if we ever had a boy, we can name him Alton William McLean IV and nickname "Quad". Yeah, that was shot down real quick. The two men before me who bared the name became great men during their lives. To this day, I wish my kids could of gotten to know their grandfather like I got to know mine.
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