Melvin Cunningham got his first leaf blower in 1990. It was a Homelite from Lowe’s, red and bulky, $79.95 — he still has the price tag.
It would be the first of many.
At the time Cunningham was working in the finishing department at Johnston Tombigbee Furniture Company and living with his mother.
Their house — the house Cunningham has lived in since he was 9 years old — on 23rd Avenue North near the intersection with MLK had 15 pine trees in the backyard and nine in the front. The trees produced a lot of pine straw for Melvin’s mother, Tennie Cunningham, to rake and burn.
With his new leaf blower in hand, Melvin took over the yard work.
Melvin was captivated by his new “toy.”
“It was wonderful,” he says about the blower. “I would blow the carport, front yard and adjacent street.”
He did this every day after he got off work at JTB.
“I thought my neighbors would catch on and do it, but they didn’t,” he said
Then one day an elderly across-the-street neighbor, Otis Henry, suggested to Cunningham he do for the entire street what he was doing every day at his house.
The section of 23rd Avenue Cunningham lives on — slightly more than a city block long — consists of 15 small, single-family homes.
“I thought it was enough doing my own property,” Cunningham said.
“He planted a seed, but it didn’t grow,” said Cunningham.
Until it did.
A year later Henry died from a massive heart attack.
“Out of respect for him (Otis Henry), I’m going to try to do this,” Cunningham thought.
He blew the entire street he lives on, from corner to corner. He was surprised by how quick he could do it and how good his neighborhood looked afterward. The hook was set.
Since the mid-90s Cunningham, barring inclement weather, has turned his leaf blower on his stretch of 23rd Avenue every day.
He usually hits the street around twilight, when it’s less intrusive.
“People are inside getting dinner; school children are doing homework,” he says.
Ollie Harris, 86, lives two doors down from Cunningham and has lived on the street for decades.
“He believes in keeping it clean,” says Harris. “If everybody would be like that, it would be nice.”
To refer to Melvin Cunningham as meticulous is a bit of an understatement.
As one would imagine, his yard is immaculate. Same for the inside of the house. He speaks in a quiet, precise manner. Every day he turns out in Dickies work clothes, matching shirt and pants.
He polices his street for litter — “police call,” he calls it, a term (and practice) he learned in the military. Cunningham served in the Army, in Germany where he worked as a dental assistant.
For his indomitable work ethic Cunningham credits the Army and the example of two older working men, Joe Brooks and Roosevelt Lee, who he watched as a child.
A woman from a nearby neighborhood told Cunningham, “I wish I had someone like you on my street.”
Who wouldn’t?
“You’ve got to care about your street,” he says.
Cunningham, 61, though retired, says retirement from his self-appointed role as caretaker of his street is not an option.
“I’m going to continue until death takes me out or my health deteriorates to the point I can no longer do it,” he said.
Birney Imes ([email protected]) is the former publisher of The Dispatch.
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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