Photo by Kamp Fender.
Frank Morgan shares his usual infectious smile inside Mark’s Joint on 18th Street South. A familiar face in Homewood, Morgan works at the Piggly Wiggly and Mark’s Joint during the week and also for the Homewood Parks and Recreation Department as a security guard on the weekends.
When 48-year-old Homewood resident Frank Morgan posted on Facebook last year that he would be transferring to the new Piggly Wiggly opening along U.S. 280, the responses he received were, as his friend Bill Jacka Jr. recalled, “incredible.”
Longtime Homewood families posted how much they would miss him, and frequent shoppers urged him to stay.
“There was a crazy amount of responses that said, ‘Frank, you can’t leave Homewood!’ and he changed his mind after seeing all the love. … It almost brought tears to my eyes. I told him the same thing: Frank, you can’t leave Homewood,” Jacka said.
Morgan, who many people call “Mr. Homewood,” ultimately chose to stay and keep serving the community he knows and loves best — a decision he doesn’t regret for a second.
“I know a lot of people, some of them I’ve known ever since they were kids, and now they got their own kids going to school, some of them even got their own kids,” Morgan said, chuckling at the memories and people he’s come to know over the years.
Each morning, Morgan wakes up and arrives at the Piggly Wiggly by 9 a.m., where he bags groceries until 5 p.m. Then, he heads over to 18th Street South to one of Homewood’s newer eateries, Mark’s Joint, where he works as a cashier and server from 5:30 to 9 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays, he gets up and heads to the Homewood Parks Department to work from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on the fields as a security guard.
Jacka said it was “a genius idea” for Mark’s Joint to hire Morgan, since he is always beckoning people in to say hello and get some food.
Photo by Kamp Fender.
Morgan, far right, poses with his co-workers at Mark’s Joint. Morgan said the longer he lives in Homewood, the more he realizes it’s not just a community, but an “inherited family.”
“He knows almost everybody, from Edgewood to the Shades Cahaba, the Hollywood area and everyone shops over there who comes to the Piggly Wiggly. There’s not a male or female that he does not know,” Jacka said.
When Morgan works on the weekends in the park, he said he makes sure the kids are safe and “doing right,” and many of them have come to know him by this point.
“It’s my civil duty. I live in Homewood, I work in Homewood, I got the key to the city,” Morgan joked.
Over the years, he said, he’s worked everywhere from grocery stores to restaurants to landscaping to warehousing, mostly in the city of Homewood.
“Some guys get a job, and they work that one job, and then by the time they get to their second job, they’re tired. But that’s not me,” Morgan said, “I’m not too tired.”
Morgan said it’s all about knowing what motivates a person, doing that and gaining energy from it. For him, he knows how to pace and motivate himself through seeing the familiar faces of the people in Homewood he’s come to know and love.
“I don’t think he goes to work. That’s not work for him, that’s who he is,” Jacka said. “If it was work, he wouldn’t be doing it.”
Morgan said his dad used to leave for work unloading trucks at 4 a.m. and be gone all day until 4 p.m. Hard work, Morgan added, “runs in the family.” He said his children are much like him and that his older sons maybe even outwork him.
Photo by Kamp Fender.
Homewood’s Frank Morgan inside Piggly Wiggly, where he’s done a little bit of everything — including stocking and bagging — since he was hired in March 1990.
Plus, at the Pig, Morgan said, he knows what he’s doing by this point, and it’s fun for him. His manager, Johnny Miller, said Morgan always helps out wherever they need him and he’s been in just about every department. Miller said Morgan is also one of the employees who has been there the longest.
“He’s always been friendly; everybody knows him,” Miller said. “He’s a good worker. He usually does what anybody asks him to do.”
Morgan, who started working at the Homewood Piggly Wiggly on March 13, 1990, said it was his first job right out of high school. When he started working there, he worked the night stock shift.
“I went from night stock to produce to the meat department to the dairy department, then being the frozen food manager, then the deli,” Morgan said. “It’s more like a learning field. … It’s like a kid, when you’re riding a bike. When you are born, first thing you learn is to crawl, step by step. That’s how I take it, step by step.”
Jacka, who met Morgan when he bumped into him at the Piggly Wiggly one day about 15 years ago, said they became friends and eventually started going to the Homewood High School football games together. Jacka said his kids even call Morgan “Uncle Frank.”
“We just would talk because we were always bumping into each other. He has that infectious smile, you’re going to end up talking to the old boy eventually if you go there,” Jacka said.
Jacka said he has seen Morgan carry that same positive, friendly attitude ever since he met him. For years, Jacka has watched adults, children or entire families “light up when they see him at the Pig,” and he always greets them and gets to know them.
“He’s got a great heart,” Jacka said. “He’s always looking out for everybody; it’s in his DNA.”
Photo by Kamp Fender.
Piggly Wiggly Assistant Store Manager Samuel Jolly Jr. makes bunny ears while he and Morgan cut up during a photo shoot.
Jacka said he’s known Morgan to take care of the children and “make sure that they’re safe and that they’re doing the right thing,” including his own kids. Morgan said his wife died in 2011, which left him as the sole caretaker of four children.
Before he first met his wife and had children, Morgan said he got all of the partying out of his system, so that he could be a role model and provide for his children.
“I know I’m not working for me, I’m working for my kids,” Morgan said.
After his wife died, he said every time he thought he wasn’t going to make it through the hard trial, God helped him through it, and still does. Morgan said the longer he lives in Homewood, the more he realizes it’s not just a community, but an “inherited family.”
Morgan said he’s got about six years before he retires from the Pig for good, which he’s sure a lot of his friends and the locals who have known him for years won’t be too happy about.
“Everybody is a supporter; they’re there for you like family, all my friends. … I would not trade Homewood for nothing,” he said. “When you know them, they’re part of your heart.”