MOMENTS IN TIME, INNOCENCE LOST

It was November 22, 1963. I was a 20 year-old college junior working as a reporter for a central Kentucky weekly newspaper. My working hours were scheduled around the times of my college classes so on that particular day, I was alone in the news office  working on an assignment during the lunch hour. The rest of the staff had scattered to wherever they  chose to eat...home...the lunch counter at the drug store or the bus station or the college cafeteria. The phone by the editor's desk  rang, I answered it , and with that  one act......lost  the innocence and naivete of childhood. I no longer remember who called...male....female....known or unknown. The name...the voice...have faded into the nothingness of obscurity. The question I was asked will never fade...."Is it true, my God, is it true? They're saying on the radio that someone shot the  PRESIDENT!   In Dallas! Is it true?"

There was no radio in the office and the closest wire service was not accessible.  I called the dorm where I lived and asked for my roommate.  She had a class soon...in the same direction (across campus) as the newspaper office.  I wanted my radio.....I needed some way to check this frightening information.  Finally (after some back and forth conversation) she agreed to bring it on her way to class.  By the time the radio was operational....I think every one was back from lunch and in  the office listening  in shocked silence, What could we think? Presidents didn't get assassinated in the 20th Century....did they?  This couldn't possibly be true....could it?   I honestly don't remember the reaction of the older folk. I do remember that students gathered together in clumps of friends..maybe hoping for security in numbers...I don't know.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the first President I ever saw  in real life.and I remember his campaign coming through the mountains of West Virginia....stopping in Fort Gay...visiting the high school...talking to teachers...talking to students...knocking on neighbor's doors. I remember John Kennedy. his brother, Robert...and his mother, Rose.  They seemed like real people which is what I told my grandfather and my uncles later that day. ..By the time I graduated high school..some one my family knew sent me a picture of President Kennedy...a picture that was a cherished possession for many years to come  An event and a person that to my (as then unborn)  children would be only a footnote in a history book...became real life.

Was the death of the President a shock?  I don't think the word, "shock"  adequately describes the emotional bomb that whipped across our campus. No event in the personal lives of young adults  (in 1963) could have prepared us for the news on that day.  Multiply the shock of the totally unforeseen, sudden, unprepared for death of a close family member and maybe...just maybe if that upheaval was multiplied by  100...there would be some approximation of our feelings.   Many of us walked to class in groups instead of singly...probably feeling  there was a nebulous "safety in numbers".  Little did were really know  other than....we were scared...not overtly...but down deep in the pit of our stomachs deep...in a winter afternoon....thousands of miles from where we lived, our sense of quasi safety had been torn from our psyche and we would never again see the world in the same way.

Many faculty and staff reached out to the students with a phone call....a strongly worded "invitation" to "come to the house.: The college dentist was from  Fort Gay and sensing the distress in our very souls...gathered a group at his house...a five minute walk from the dorm. There we sat huddling together in front of his television set...not talking much...just watching history unfold..the aftermath of Kennedy's death...the swearing in of Lyndon B.  Johnson....the death of Lee Harvey Oswald...the state funeral of President Kennedy.  The numbness slowly began to ebb away. We stashed newspapers which covered the events....we went to class....we moved on as the country  moved on...never expecting...never dreaming that we would see   two more assassinations before the end of the decade.

NEVER SHARED MEMORIES

ThomasWolfe's final novel  (title) is one of the most misquoted phrases in American English..."You can't go home again!"  Physically..... the words are probably a profound truth but emotionally...that single phrase is the biggest lie perpetrated on generations of  readers.  How so?

Home, for me, is the holler (hollow to you non Appalachian language purists) in a small western  West Virginia town, the same town my great-grandparents settled in  nearly 150 years ago , the head  of the  holler once exclusively owned by family members...a place where many family now sleep in eternal rest.  I grew up in that holler...running the surrounding hills accompanied by the beagles  that my father raised and the black collie that my uncle brought home one day. For almost the first two decades of my life, I waded the creeks to catch crawdads, picked buckets of wild strawberries, blackberries and dewberries to carry  home to my grandmother, cut and picked flowers to lay on my mother's grave, watched  the turn in the road for visiting relatives, and daydreamed about the world outside...a world I knew only from books and my father's collection of National Geographic magazine. 

By the time I finally went to school  (at 11 after the Brown vs. Topeka  Supreme Court decision), the mile and a half hike out of the holler was a respite from the  drunken shaving strap wielding rampages of my stepmother because by then I was old enough to take charge of my own well being. The day I emancipated myself was the day she swung the shaving strap at me and I caught it in mid strike with the admonition that she would never in life hit me again...I was taller than she was, weighed more than she did and could outrun her. I walked out of the house and went the 75 yards down the hill to my octogenarian grandparents house......HOME.   I thank GOD every day for that home...a place of peace  and safety..and a place where I could find answers or a path to answers for the questions of my heart.

With the support of my mother's family, the next five and a half years were survivable.  My grandfather "schooled" me on family history  and mountain "smarts". I learned to make a flute from a branch of a pawpaw tree. how to scout out the root of a sassafras tree (to dry for tea in winter) and how to make a "hotbed" for growing tomato plants for planting in May  and how to straw late growing tomato plants (the runts of his hotbed) so we had fresh tomatoes on Thanksgiving day. Through his eyes I learned to watch my  environment for weather changes and what to do for "swimming in the head."   Had my grandmother not been blind...there was much more I could have learned from her. Her important lessons focused on the value of "FAMILY"  and traditions  and maintaining the "ties that bind" families (and communities) together. 

My senior year in high school was challenging in personal ways. My father had a massive heart attack and nearly died,  his best friend (my mother's younger brother) died suddenly of pancreatic cancer and my mother's older brother was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  The family tried to shelter me from the storms that were gathering on the horizon because they wanted my focus on graduation and getting into college. No distractions would be permitted.   For nearly two months I struggled trying to complete my college application. Each version was rejected by my stepmother (my father..who was now retired and at home...trusted her judgement). Finally I voiced my frustration to my grandfather and my uncle because my stepmother refused to mail my application because it "wasn't right.)  Grampa had the solution...get another copy of the application...fill it out and mail it!  His pronouncement finished with "Do it now!"   I  did exactly that and Grampa handed me the application fee. A month later I was headed out of the holler  into town and met my father. he had one question...had I finished the application to my stepmother's satisfaction?  To my NO answer came the question..what was I going to do ?  I looked at him and said..."Nothing" and pulled the acceptance letter from my pocket and handed it to him.  In essence I told him that I had gotten tired of being told that what I wrote was not good enough...so I did it on my own. He folded the letter, put it in his pocket and told me he would give Grampa back his money. He walked home and I went on to town.

Three weeks after my 18th birthday....I left HOME. Unforeseen (to me) many changes  were in the wind.  Home was fast moving from a physical  place to a place I could only visit in my memories.

HISTORY - LOST, IGNORED, or JUST PLAIN HIDDEN

 I came across a message from Henry Louis Gates Jr. regarding his newest PBS project, "The African Americans..Many Rivers to Cross," recently. In the message was a request for input from African American families regarding their interest in our history.  Those  that know me know that many years ago I started researching my personal family history, an interest that was created by my mother's father as he sat in his rocking chair in  front of the fireplace..in our West Virginia home. To me , the child that sat with closed mouth and open ears - the stories he told were simply that .."Grampa's stories." Only later  as an adult, as a parent, as a newly minted  grandparent, would I recognize that these "stories" were the ripe kernel of history as it directly impacts a family and its development over the years.  Those stories were the connecting point which joined the history of these United  States with the individuals who made up my FAMILY. Only in this realization did HISTORY become alive for me...it was no longer the dry facts chronicled (truthfully or untruthfully) in a textbook.

As a writer, I am NOT primarily a historian The facts of what I write are handed down by my elders and they are not colored by the brush of "propriety."  My brother (the historian) would often omit and or ignore certain occurrences because of :propriety...his or some one else's. Historians are prone to that error...if the fact is not socially or politically correct...ignore it or probably edit  it.  Thus what textbooks tend to say about some of the darker moments in our country's times has been "cleaned up" or sanitized for the sake of "appropriateness."  Journalists (reporters)  retell  what they see or experience, editorialists react to events and most  people don't know the difference.  Historians tend to blend the roles without clearly defining the viewpoint.   As a writer (storyteller)I mix the method of telling the story with the facts because my goal is to provide a hook for my  listener to remember the reality of the occurrence. As I tell my story...the facts are as I heard and or experienced them...the characters may be blended.

The "rivers" are symbolic of many things....rivers, mountains, oceans, time spans, social attitudes and prejudices, religious beliefs and convictions.  The first documented ancestor in my knowledge of family arrived on these shores in the 1700's. He was a Quaker anxious to leave the old World (England) for the freedom to worship as he chose.  Another ancestor (a Catholic)  headed westward to the Greater Ohio Valley again for the freedom to worship as he chose.  Another set of ancestors fled across the mountains for the freedom to marry and raise a family with the person they chose. Over the next 200 years..the lifeblood of all three sets of ancestors merged into one bloodline..a portion of the DNA mix  of .one family.   Am I interested in connecting the ancestral lines further back...to the African motherland. Absolutely! The probabilities/possibilities  are mind boggling and this inquiring mind wants to know!

JUSTICE? HELL NO!

So, the "criminal" trial is over and some person  thinks the "justice" system worked?  That statement is laughable and believe me, there is no laughter in this house or in any other similar house in this country. There is instead, a profound silence, a shared gut wrenching  grief that forces each of us to reach out and embrace our sons, our grandsons and  all the young men of our families. There are those who claim amazement that inner cities did not burn. That amazement alone proves a gross lack of understanding of the minority mindset in the U.S. of A.

As the black mother of six sons, grandmother of one, I have much to communicate, but little to verbalize. It was no shock for Zimmerman to be found "not guilty." Why?  My sons and  my grandson are threatened  daily because they are black men. Their lives, their livelihood, their very existence could be forfeit because they spend their daily lives in a society that culturally fails to recognize its own deepseated and entrenched bigotry as racism. A young man runs out of gas three blocks from his home of 31 years, in front of the elementary school that he and his siblings attended. The cops are called ("Black man on foot in the neighborhood!) and they (the cops) come running.  ( Who called? Don't know and don't really care.)  This particular black man has lived in this neighborhood...in the house his family owns outright for 31 years. He and his family have paid a small fortune in taxes to support this town, this county, this state, in those 31 years.  This black  man can't even jog/run through his own neighborhood  without being accosted by the police ("Black man on foot in the neighborhood!). 

Isolated incidents? I am afraid not. The narrative could go on and on with other incidents added. The illustrative incidents do not matter a much as  the facts that  the incidents themselves are common to the experience of  growing up black in America. That will not change until all people are willing to face the fact that there is something inherently wrong  when a nearly 30 year old man (over 200 lbs.)  carrying a concealed weapon can use that weapon to shoot and kill a not quite 17 year old child (nearly 50 lbs. lighter) and get away with it.  Was the "not guilty" verdict a surprise to black families in America? Unfortunately not. We desperately  wanted to be surprised  and even a watered down "guilty" verdict would have been a surprise.....but reality struck once again....no surprise.

Reminds me of a conversation I engaged in years ago with a man I consider  a friend. We were discussing an incident when a young cop  (mid-twenty age group) had manipulated  situations with the intention of making himself  look competent.  His last "victim" was a member of a black family in the community and the young man stretched the truth (lied)  about the situation.  His stretched truth unraveled rapidly and hit the community grapevine within the hour.  Was the young man an overt racist? Don't know. What I do know is that he thought he had picked a safe "victim" and the so-called "arrest" would enhance his self-view as a "competent" officer of the law.  He assumed (wrongly) prejudice aimed at his "victim" would automatically shift "public opinion"  in his favor. In less than 24 hours...his whole scenario had collapsed and the small  town he  worked in could have been  facing a major lawsuit....which they would have lost. The young man's error was that the racial stereotype that he thought would play in his favor....boomeranged back on him costing him a job.

Playing to  stereotypes might not be an  indicator of overt racism..but when allowed to fester and grow can become the seeds of bigotry. As a nation the seeds of stereotypical assumptions and behaviors  should be targeted for elimination from our collective psyche. 

Fate, Faces, Friendship. and Futures

Many "F" words  (not necessarily those from street vernacular) confront one during the passage known as living. Ironically, and it truly is an irony, all those words have a connection and that connection is not the expected and predictable union. Interested? Follow my rambling thoughts for a while.

Lets start with felines.  My birth sign is Leo, the lion(ess). If you are astrologically interested or inclined, feel free to research the sign.  It is easily accessible, thanks to the internet...but that really doesn't have much to do with my story. So, here goes.

It was a chilly, but not cold, and rainy March night. As a family. we had dealt with a devastating house fire, the death of  Bradley, my  autistic son, as a result of that fire; living for two and a half weeks in two hotel suites (three adult sons and two parents) and on that day...we had moved into  a three bedroom rental house. Thanks to our homeowner's insurance and a long time neighbor (a real estate agent) we were finally under one roof.  C.J. was in the master bedroom unpacking whatever clothes we had managed to replace and our three sons were in various spaces...trying to organize their possessions (fourth son was away  in college). The storm outside increased in strength...as proved by the increased sound from the rain hitting the metal awnings over the windows and the back patio cover.

C.J. yelled.....I was to come quickly..he saw a raccoon just outside the window!  I remember thinking...you have got to be kidding....I've never seen a raccoon in a window...or anywhere off the ground..unless he was up a tree. I went to look. Sitting on the outside window ledge was a fairly large furry  gray animal. "No," I told him. "that's no raccoon.  Looks like a cat to me."

He was sure it was a bobcat then....I assured him that whatever it was..it was a domestic cat.  Grumbling that he had never seen a cat that big...he was sure I was wrong...so he called the three sons in to look. The resulting consensus......it was a cat. He closed the window and the curtains...still grumbling.

Next day....I looked across the street and saw this huge gray cat sitting  on the curb grooming its fur. As the week progressed...I talked with a couple of the neighbors and found out that the street  had an uusually large number of cats who were thrown out, kicked out, dumped, and thrown away by their previous "owners."  The huge gray was a "dumpee" who had appeared a few weeks before. Sincce we had lost our cats as a result of the fire (one died, the tom cat ran away) I was not pleased. Then I went down the hill to the dollar store....we needed canned dog food for our elderly lab mix (who managed to escape the fire along with her wild son) so,  before I left the store..I bought some canned cat food.

The next night...I opened a can of food and left it on the porch for the stray gray. Though I never saw  her eating , the can was empty next morning. By the next weekend...she would come out of whereever she hid at night....when she saw me come out of the house with her food. She wouldn''t come too close...but she seemed to understand that she would find food and eventually water...on the corner of the porch.

March is a funny month...especially weather wise. A cold snap came along and one evening  when I came from work and parked in the driveway...the gray was sitting on the corner of the porch near where ahe was fed...looking at me...just looking. That evening..I looked back and said to her, "Aren't you tired of being out in the cold?" I opened the door, "Come on in this  house!"  She looked at  me as if she understood, stood up and regally walked in ahead of me. Once inside, she flew through the house and hid under the futon  where my older son slept.

From then on, she would ask to be let out early in the day (with the lab), We wondered where she went...but she wss always back at night. Then one day...C.J. saw her walking along the sidewalk. He got in his car and drove slowly down the street...shadowing the gray. She walked the half mile to the end of the street (which deadended into a corn field), looked around carefully, then slowly and sadly walked back to the rental house. It was obvious,,,she was looking for her  people...but she never found them. Every night (for months) she would come back to us to be fed, sheltered, and by that time loved.

When we moved from that rental....the boys wrapped her securely in a towel and got in the car with her and when they got to our new residence...she was presented with her food dish, her water bowl and her own litter box. At that point...she finally realized that whereever we lived, she lived, and we were her people.

That was eleven years ago, Smokey knows she is home but there are still days when she "tests" us. She will run out of the house...go about ten feet from the door....stop and roll in the grass...then look to see if we are coming to scoop her up to take her back in the house. She is never disappointed.