James Louis Johnson Sr. was known by many names. His friends called him James or Jim. His work colleagues called him JJ. His family called him Dad or Grandpa or Unc. All those are easily understood.
But he also was known as Honeyboy. That one takes a bit of explanation.…
James, who died August 12 at age 88, liked to bestow nicknames. For instance, his wife of 64 years, Odessa, was Doll to him. He once had a sometimes-ornery car that he labeled “Send Help.”
He owned a lot of cars over the years. And he worked on a lot of cars — he was a valued mechanic at the former Vincel Buick dealership in Springfield for 42 years, he kept the rides of family and friends on the road, and he restored classic cars for himself.
James’ favorite was a 1963 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport that came from the factory with a peppy V8 engine and a four-speed manual transmission. Chevy billed the exterior paint color as Ermine White but, in flattering light, it gave off a soft golden glow.
James thought it looked like honey. So he dubbed the car Honeyboy.
And many who knew him best transferred that fond nickname to James.
Born in Arkansas; one of 10 siblings
His official birthplace in 1934 was listed as Imboden, a town of a few hundred residents in northeast Arkansas. But James felt his true hometown was Birdell, an even tinier community seven miles away, between Imboden and Pocahontas. His father was a preacher, and James was one of 10 siblings, six boys and four girls.
James and Odessa counted six sons as well, plus one daughter. They had met when she was 19 and he was 23. She lived in Neelyville in the southeast corner of Missouri, and was working at a cotton mill operating a ginning machine that removed seeds from the fibers of freshly picked cotton. James drove a truck the 50 miles up from Arkansas to pick up loads of cotton seeds.
“I asked Miss Odessa, ‘What did James say to you to get you to talk to him?’” recounted the Rev. Sheldon Williams, while officiating at James’ well-attended, spirited funeral August 20 at East Grand Church of Christ.
“She just started smiling. She never did tell me what he’d said — but it must’ve been good, because 64 years later she’s still smiling about it. She did mention that he could really dance and really dress.”
The couple married in November 1957. “He proposed to her in front of her grandparents, who had raised her,” Rev. Williams told the assembly. “That’s an example of how a respectful gentleman shows class and chivalry.”
Moved to Springfield and specialized in fixing used cars
The newlyweds migrated to Springfield and began raising their family in a house at 1011 N. Clay Ave. as James signed on at the Vincel car dealership, specializing in fixing and maintaining the used car inventory.
“JJ was a good man,” recalls Robert Vincel. “He could fix anything. If he couldn’t get a part, he’d still figure out a way to make it work. Anything that had an engine in it, JJ could make it go. He was a hard worker — he showed up early every day. A good guy, really.”
Phil Davis, a longtime service rep who moved to the Thompson Cadillac-Buick-GMC dealership when Vincel closed, agrees:
“From my years of dealing with him, I can tell you that JJ had a heart of gold. He’d do anything for anybody who needed something; he was the first man to offer to help. I know that he worked on cars for others, in the garage or driveway at their houses. Even after he’d retired, he’d come by seeking information from me. That happened as recently as a year ago.”
Such professional compliments are no surprise to family.
‘He was a master mechanic'
“My dad was blessed with a gift — he was a master mechanic,” says eldest son James Jr., who moved back to Springfield about a year ago after a career in California. “He didn’t have much schooling. He learned it and did it all on his own.”
Jamar Johnson, one of James’ 21 grandchildren, lauds James’ personal traits, too:
“My grandfather was a room-changer,” says Jamar. “He could not go into a room without you feeling his presence … Grandpa didn’t say much; he didn’t have to. You knew who he was because of his character.”
When James did speak, his kids knew to listen. They also learned to listen for his cars’ distinctive exhaust notes.
“If we were in the wrong and we heard his car pipes coming, boy, we were gone!” recalls James Jr. “Our house on Clay was just one street over from Summit and the Drury College campus. That was our escape route. Poof! Gone!”
Another son, Joele, who lives in St. Paul, Minn., told the funeral gathering two of his favorite stories involving his father:
“In high school, a friend and I skipped school one day. At five minutes to 12, my dad would come home to eat lunch and watch (the TV soap opera) ‘The Young and the Restless.’ We heard his car coming. I told my friend to jump under the bed.
“I said to my friend, ‘Don’t you move a muscle!’ We hid under that bed for Dad’s whole lunch break. You talk about somebody shaking in their boots!
“We never skipped another day of school again.”
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Joele said that when he was about 10 years old, he was watching James work on that ‘63 Chevy in the driveway one day.
“I saw him close the hood on the car. And everybody knew, when he closed the hood, what time it was.
“First thing, he says, ‘Get in.’ I got in — no seatbelts going on back then — and he floors it, straight up Clay. Everybody knew the rule: When you hear those pipes coming, nobody better be in the street!
“He turned on Division and stopped at the Solo market. He got out and opened the hood up again — and the engine was on fire! He said to me, ‘Take off your shirt!’ I did. And he put that carburetor fire out with my shirt.
“You talk about a kid being proud! To my mind, I’d put the fire out! I’d saved Honeyboy!
“So when we got back home, I’m thinking I’d really done something. I was smiling big. But he was just mad.”
Joele says his dad used the backyard swing set’s A-frame to hoist the engine out of the car for repairs.
That Honeyboy Chevy is undergoing repairs again today, in Dallas, Texas, under the care of James’ great-nephew, Joseph Lamont Johnson.
“I used to visit him when I was younger,” Joseph, now 49, says of his uncle. “I would always ask him, ‘Unc, got any old cars for sale?’ He mentioned Honeyboy one day. I thought I’d misheard him — but he said it.”
That was about 10 years ago. Joseph trailered the Chevy to Texas, and soon after began a lengthy, loving restoration of the car.
Inspiring a new generation of mechanics
“I drove it a little bit when I first got it, to some car shows and such, but I could tell there were things that needed to be upgraded.” He’s about three-fourths along on his to-do list, having thus far revamped the brakes, the steering and the suspension system, rebuilt the engine and gearbox, and installed a replica dashboard with digital gauges.
Joseph did much of the mechanical work himself. “A lot of the newer mechanics today, if you take a car like this to them today, they don’t know what to do — they’re used to just plugging cars into computers to fix them. So I decided that I’d just better learn how to work on it myself.”
Joseph has had one big advantage over James in teaching himself to be a mechanic: “YouTube on the internet helps a lot these days. I learned a lot of stuff off my uncle, but I’ve learned a lot off YouTube videos, too.”
Joseph has left bodywork repair and painting to professionals. But he decided against keeping the distinctive paint color that bestowed the Honeyboy nickname. Now the vintage Chevy boasts a pearl white paint job.
“It has a touch of silver in it, so the color changes according to the angle the light is hitting it,” Joseph says, figuring that James would approve.
He was protective of his only daughter
James’ only daughter, Jannice McDonald, says her father treated her differently than her six brothers.
“I was what you might call a ‘kept child,’’ she says, explaining: “I wasn’t allowed to go out as much as the boys. My dad was very protective of me, being the only girl — although at the time I thought he maybe was a little overprotective.”
Nevertheless, she emphasizes: “We all had a great upbringing. We had everything that kids could want to play with — swings, a trampoline, basketball goal, you name it. The neighbor kids and our friends were always hanging out at our house.”
The past couple of years, Jannice got into a routine of stopping by to fix supper for her dad when she got off work at 4 p.m. at Timken Belts (the former Dayton Rubber or Dayco plant), where she is a machine operator making drive belts for heavy equipment.
“He loved brown beans,” she says. “And Thursdays were always pizza night. He wanted a ‘supreme’ with everything on it.”
In retirement, James liked watching baseball, especially the St. Louis Cardinals, on TV, and recently he’d developed an interest in watching golf tournaments. He enjoyed watching reruns of the old “Andy Griffith Show” and “Gunsmoke” television programs, and playing card games with family members. Not surprisingly, he also enjoyed going to car shows.
However, James’ favorite pastime had been daily visits with cousin Tommy Lee Johnson until Tommy died in 2017.
“He would go visit Tommy at his house near Central and Fremont,” recalls Jannice. “In nice weather, they’d sit outside under a tree. In wintertime, they’d sit in a car in the driveway, with the motor running.”
Tommy’s son, Ray, has similar fond memories:
“James was everything to us. He would come and sit with my dad for hours. They were cousins, yes, but they were the best of friends. They’d talk and talk, mostly about things they’d done in their lives.”
Watched the world from his front porch
Since Tommy died five years to the day before James’ death, James did his outdoor sitting — and pipe- and cigar-smoking — from the front porch of his house.
“He was on that porch by 8 in the morning, and he would sit there until sundown,” says Jannice.
So when she stopped by to check on him the last Saturday in July, “I knew something was wrong when I saw the front door closed and he wasn’t on the porch.” Inside, she discovered that he’d suffered a stroke. He died in the hospital two weeks later.
When James Jr. thinks of his dad, an early-1970s song by James Brown, “Papa Don’t Take No Mess,” comes to mind.
Some of the lyrics include these lines:
When Papa gets uptight
he knows he’s right
and you’ve got yourself a fight
I saw Papa cry when he thought that I would die
He says something was in his eye
I knew it was a lie
Mama said, “Papa’s smart”
Papa got a whole lotta heart
And Papa would do his part
when the game get hard
