Well, I wish that were true, but time moves on. Mahlon Vickery passed not long ago, and Harold is living in retirement near Atlanta. I do communicate with him occasionally.

In a small town or city like Columbus, families like the Vickerys are the building blocks of the community, the soul of a place.

Mahlon Vickery Sr., many years before I knew them, was the Columbus chief of police. As I remember, Mrs. Vickery had been a nurse at one time.

Mahlon was my best friend all through high school at S.D. Lee and all of us young aspiring musicians (and troublemakers) hung out at their home on Third Avenue North for thousands of hours. Usually listening to the latest rock and roll albums and eventually trying to learn all the songs.

It was there that I first heard The Who’s “Tommy,” Rod Stewart and the Small Faces, every Otis Redding song ever recorded. We actually wore out the first copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band that Summer, gorging ourselves on the cookies and treats Mrs. V would provide our gang of misfits. We loved that woman. She was my third Grandma.

Momma Vickery was kind of our “band mother,” counselor and spy. Using her behind the scenes contacts with local law enforcement, she would warn us where not to be and when not to be there. Our deep woods beer parties were never visited by the po-leece… at least when we were there.

Chief Vickery was a different story. We were scared to death by the mention of his name. Never mind the rare occasion when he glided through the house like an iceberg floating through the night looking for the Titanic, in a white tee shirt and boxer shorts, silently and ominous.

In all those years, I never heard him utter a single word or even glance our way. We would be in the living room laughing, joking, playing the stereo (not too loud), and if he happened to pass by, you could hear a pin drop until the crisis was over. Our secret name for him was “Buddha.” (We would never have said that out loud.) He probably weighed 300 pounds, looked the part. The Vickery clan were some big boys. How big, you ask?

When he was police chief, he had fired a Columbus officer for some offense and the man came back carrying a .38 caliber pistol. Shot him six times in the stomach at point blank range. His body mass acted like a bullet proof vest. Not only did he not go down, he grabbed the guy by the throat until the other cops ran over and subdued him. And then walked to the ambulance! But he had to retire as a result of the incident.

I guess I would be in a bit of a cranky mood too.

Mahlon was a great drummer, and Harold’s instrument was the Hammond B-3 organ, and we played in bands around Columbus for years. Long after my exile to South Florida, the Vickery boys continued the legacy all over the Columbus area and eventually toured the South.

They were not only big fellows, but giant personalities. If you were with the Vickerys, you were going to have a lot of fun. And a lot of great memories.

Later in life, Mahlon went to work for years as a designer for a big Georgia sign company. He was a fabulous artist. And Harold went into law enforcement and security work as many in his family had done.

Last December when I saw that Mahlon had passed, I read in the funeral home’s obituary that his son was named Mahlon Vickery III.

I wrote on his obit page.

“I feel a little bit better knowing that there will always be a Mahlon Vickery.”

Thom Caraccio ([email protected]) is a retired musician and retired motion picture scenic artist living in West Palm Beach, Florida who hails from Columbus. He graduated from S.D. Lee High in 1968 and still considers Columbus his real hometown.

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