Mr. Tommy Cummins (Photo courtesy Joe and Jane Vanhooser)

I saw Mr. Tommy almost weekly as a kid. I grew up “between the tracks” in Princeton. He stayed over near the shirt factory in those days.

He worked at the Creamery, which sat for years on the corner of Cadiz and Hopkinsville streets. A place I spent considerable quarters over the years on their ice cream to “die for.”

He was always a friendly and engaging fellow. When we would say hi, he would talk and talk and talk to me about his latest adventures.

He had a speech impediment. I credit him for teaching me to “listen” as carefully as I do these years later.

In my teens, more than once on a late-night walk home from a ballgame, chorus practice, or sometimes even church, I would see Mr. Tommy doing his “job.” We’d wave at one another.

He shook the doorknobs of downtown businesses. To make sure, he said, they were locked. My job, he said. I never knew if he was employed to do that or just being Mr. Tommy.

He often carried a small suitcase. Later, I learned that he kept his skates in it. He’d hitch to Hopkinsville, Benton, and even Murray to skate.

More than once, he offered to teach me.

My Mom thought that was not a good idea. I never owned any skates. My one attempt in an “all skate” at Fountain Ferry Park in Louisville one summer wasn’t pretty. But I did meet and get my first kiss from Joan Cowles that summer.

She kissed away my “boo-boo” more than once.

When I got my license and had a car, I’d offer him a ride home on those hot, memorable summer nights.

He was always dressed in a suit, tie, and hat, no matter how hot the day.

Then, one day, he got himself or built himself, for lack of a better word, a “Tommy Cummins cart on top of a lawnmower politikin’ machine.” He’d load it in flags with campaign cards, stickers, flyers, and “politick.”

And if he liked you and your politics, he determined that by hanging around city hall and the courthouse, he’d “campaign” for you.

Knowledgeable and seasoned politicians knew he could relentlessly get out the vote for them.

One Halloween night as a teenager, as I was running from the policeman, my “Uncle Orlean ‘Fat’ Drennan,” Mr. Tommy, stepped out from a doorway and told me my Momma would be so sorry if I got caught.

I “learnt” that night that hiding at Big Springs in the “bottoms” was a reasonably good, if not wet, idea.

When Mr. Pool and Mr. Hobby had the Caldwell County Times offices on Main Street, Mr. Tommy would stop in to say hey.

He always seemed proud that I worked there. We were, after all, friends.

As we say in the South, Mr. Tommy got called home on January 22^nd, 1995. He was 74 years old.