By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Melissa Marshall’s nephew holds her hand as she waits to get tattoo. Her brother Gerald Haught chats with her.
Broad Wing Tattoo artist Jaime Mullholand sketches out design.
Jaime Mullholand, of Broad Wing Tattoo, starts inking on Melissa Marshall’s ankle.
As a leathersmith, Glenn Haught knew something about needles.
Haught, a longtime fixture in Bowling Green where he repaired shoes and leather items of all sorts, died Jan. 27.
On Tuesday his daughter, Melissa Marshall and his son, Gerald Haught, got a taste of a different kind of needle when they visited Broad Wing Tattoo in downtown Bowling Green to get matching tattoos to honor their father’s legacy.
Marshall credited her brother with the idea. He’s no stranger to the shop nor tattoo artist Jaime Mullholand. She’s worked her craft numerous times on Haught’s arms.
The memorial tattoo is his seventh. He has an autobiography in ink on his arms. He already has a tattoo to honor his father, one depicting his signature hat and boots. There’s an image for each of his family members, including his mother, Linda, who assisted her husband with jobs requiring stitching on bags, purses and other items.
Marshall does have one tattoo. It dates back before her marriage. Her husband, Jack, is not fond of tattoos. But, she said, he made an exception for the one that will adorn her right ankle.
The image replicates the metal silhouette included on the community mural on the corner of East Poe Road and College Street. It shows Glenn Haught at work at his bench.
When asked about their father, both Gerald Haught and his sister recall him as a man who worked hard at a job he loved. While known for shoe repair, his craft wasn’t limited to footwear. He repaired hockey gear, the bellows for an antique furnace in Pemberville and the top for the gear shift on a BMW.
Though suffering from the leukemia and lymphoma that would claim his life, Glenn Haught still planned to go back to work after the Christmas holiday. Haught, who was born in West Virginia in 1941, never returned to his bench.
The family will close the business and sell the equipment. Some pieces of gear, including a 100-year-old sanding and polishing machine that Marshall referred to as “the monstrosity,” are no longer made.
Haught didn’t start his working life in the leather trade. Marshall said he was a repo man with Signal Finance. That’s how he came to Bowling Green.
But “he wanted to be his own boss,” she said. First he owned a Western wear shop with boot repair as one of its services. Then the leather work became his focus.
Gerald Haught said it’s strange to see old photos of his father – clean shaven and short hair, dressed in a suit and tie. That’s not the way they remember him.
His shop had several locations before settling into a space on Clay Street.
Barb Rothrock, owner of Calico, Sage and Thyme, said they enjoyed observing the passing scene along Clay Street with its mix of permanent and transient residents. They also watched out for each other. “We old timers had to stick together.”
She also benefited from “the bounty of tomatoes” from his garden. “I’ll miss him.”
While Glenn Haught’s figure will no longer grace that shop on Clay, it will remain a fixture on the skin of his offspring.
