Ed Grisamore: Cupid could learn a thing or two from the Blackmons

WARNER ROBINS --

Zell Shaw Blackmon Sr. is 95 years old today. He will receive his usual share of "happy birthday" and "happy Valentine's Day" cards on the same day.

His mother named him after a country preacher by the name of Zell Shaw. She called him her "Valentine's baby" when he was born on Feb. 14, 1921, in the northeast Georgia community of Royston.

The Blackmons lived in the same hometown as baseball great Ty Cobb, known as "The Georgia Peach." Zell's mama, Tabitha Jane Blackmon, used to play stickball with Cobb and some of the other boys her age when she was growing up.

Zell's father, Joseph Albert Blackmon, was a dirt farmer in Franklin County and ran the local drugstore. He also was the justice of the peace in Royston.

He married half the folks in the county. The local ministers handled everybody else.

"Some of them would come to our house, so I witnessed a lot of weddings when I was a boy," Zell said. "My father married them in the living room and out on the porch. I remember when he married a black couple standing next to a car."

His own wedding journey took him 230 miles to the wiregrass country of south Georgia, where he met his forever valentine, Gladys Wacaser.

They dated just three months before they tied the knot.

Next month, they will celebrate their 74th wedding anniversary.

Over the years, I have been honored to tell many love stories of "the greatest generation." I have written columns on couples who, like the Blackmons, turned brief courtships into everlasting marriages.

They said their vows. They kept their vows. They lived through sunshine and storms, darkness and light. They worked to make it work.

None of them had lavish engagement parties or destination weddings. They exchanged rings wearing plain, cotton dresses and white, starched shirts. They carried their nuptials to the courthouse, often across the hall from where you can get a marriage license and gun permit in the same office.

After Zell graduated from Royston High School, he attended business college in Atlanta, then kept the books for a wholesale grocer in Royston. He later moved to Albany, where he lived in a boarding house and worked a civil service job at Turner Field, an Army Air Corps base.

His cousin, Phil, had met a young lady named Addis Wacaser. Zell tagged along to meet her younger sister, Gladys, who taught in a two-room schoolhouse down the road in Colquitt.

It didn't matter that Gladys had been going steady with another young man.

It was love at first sight.

Sometimes, you know you've found the girl of your dreams before you can even pronounce her last name.

They married on the last Saturday of March in 1942, fewer than four months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and America went to war.

The ceremony took place at the ordinary's office in Leesburg. The bride wore a gold dress. The groom shined his shoes and put on his finest Sunday britches.

They never got to go on a honeymoon.

Zell served his country in World War II as an aircraft supervisor with the Army Air Corps. He island-hopped in the South Pacific, with duty in Australia and the Philippines. He was in New Guinea when Zell Shaw Blackmon Jr. was born. The oldest of his three sons was almost 2 years old before his father saw him for the first time.

Gladys taught school in her husband's hometown of Royston while he was half a world away. One of her students was Terry Kay, who later became a well-known Southern author.

While he was in the Philippines, Zell had to have an emergency appendectomy. He was discharged and sent back to the States. On his flight home, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, ending the war.

The Blackmons had two more sons, Al and Billy. They moved to Warner Robins in 1954 and have been devoted members of Central Baptist Church for more than 60 years.

They have 10 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. Their oldest grandson, Zell Shaw Blackmon III, is a first-term state lawmaker, representing House District 146.

Three years ago, then-Mayor Chuck Shaheen proclaimed March 28 as Mr. and Mrs. Zell Blackmon Day in Warner Robins. He praised them for setting a "standard of marriage and commitment for others to follow."

After nearly three-quarters of a century, Cupid is still slinging his arrows.

When you're in love, every day is Valentine's Day.

Ed Grisamore teaches journalism and creative writing at Stratford Academy in Macon. He can be reached at edgrisamore@gmail.com.

This story was originally published February 13, 2016 at 7:53 PM with the headline "Ed Grisamore: Cupid could learn a thing or two from the Blackmons ."