The Suave Gentleman

Almost always, he wore a hat, either a fedora, occasionally a Panama or, most of the time a Ben Hogan-style cap. Haskins almost always wore a tie in public. No one remembers him without his pencil-thin mustache. 

Haskins was also a camera buff; he took it everywhere. The family would head off for Panama City or Daytona Beach on vacation, and Haskins would always be snapping pictures. He even set up a darkroom in the basement of the club. Noticing Paddy was interested, Haskins taught her to develop black-and-white photographs. He also taught her poems that he learned to pass the time in the trenches of World War I. 

He loved poetry, particularly Rudyard Kipling and Robert Burns, as well as mystery novels, especially Agatha Christie. His favorite poem was “The Green Eye of the Yellow God.” by J. Melton Hayes, and he would often recite it to her (Mary Fay “Paddy” Blackmar) as they walked to and from the theater. She can still recite it with ease: 

‘There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Katmandu,

 there’s a little marble cross above the town.

There’s a broken-hearted woman tends to the grave of north Carew,

And the yellow god forever goes down.

Excerpt from:

Ledger Enquirer Newspaper

Ed Miles

June 29th, 1952