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.

Remembering Linda

Sixteen years ago I met a high school freshman who, for the purpose of my story, I will call Linda. She was barely five feet tall and had a quiet little girl voice. Before long I found out that for most of her life, she had lived in a nearby city…until the spring before…when the court had placed her with a family in the neighbor hood surrounding the inner city high school where I worked. Linda was NOT a social student…I don’t ever remember having to ask her to listen quietly or pay attention. As she grew more comfortable with her surroundings, Linda opened up just a little….but, her focus was always on her school work.

School was a challenge for her. As the year progressed, her educational gaps became apparent. I pulled her school file and discovered that she had been to many different schools and that continually her instructors noted the lack of parental involvement. I was to discover that Linda was basically her own parent….not because she lacked a parent….because her mother was and had habitually been a drug user who more often than not ended up on the street. Linda, at 15, was a streetwise child struggling not to end up as her mother had. I don’t know where she lived during the first half of her sophomore year in high school but she was back with our school the second half of the year because I looked up one day as she walked in to my home room as a “transfer” student.

Her grades were not the best, but she rarely missed school. Sure, there were days when she hit my classroom closet at lunch time, but she was not alone. Many of my home room girls did the same. The closet always had “stuff,” stuff like peanut butter cracker packs, cheese cracker packs, microwave popcorn, pre-packaged juice packs, etc. along with paper cups, hot chocolate mix (that I mixed and put in a sealable canister) . There was usually a basket on my desk that many days held fruit…..and other such “illegal, contraband.” The girls knew my rules..if you find it, you can have it, reseal the container you opened, clean up any mess, tell me when you need more cups, keep the coffee pot full of hot water and don’t tell anyone out of this home room what is in the closet.

During my “off” period , if you need a quiet place to do your homework (and you do NOT have a scheduled class) , you are free to come into the room and work and listen to quiet music (I taught a foreign language along with English so my boom box/tape/CD player was part of my standard (personally owned) equipment. Linda was often there…sometimes to finish homework….many times to put her head down and catnap. By that time, I knew she was living out on her own and working at the gas station down the street. By junior year…many kids were out on their own…living in questionable conditions…in rooming houses…in apartments …wherever they could find a “safe” haven. I knew that some children were “push outs,” simply put out by their “parents” or “families.”

Linda, on the other hand, was a foster child caught in the situation where she was 18 by senior year. There was a program where these kids received a stipend for living expenses if they were high school seniors and actively trying to finish school. Combined with a somewhat meager pay check, Linda had rented a small apartment. True, the apartment was in a crime ridden neighborhood….but it was HERS. There had been a boyfriend involved but she had decided to end the relationship. The why and wherefore of the bust-up…I do not know. Graduation was less than two months away.

Linda had the weekend off from work and she decided to contact her mother. I would guess that she wanted to tell her mother about the child she was expecting…but I really do not know. The mother came from the town where she lived (caught the bus) and apparently was excited that Linda had her own place and would soon graduate from high school. The weekend was not to go as expected.

The angry ex-boyfriend showed up to confront Linda. He showed up with a gun and shot Linda on the sidewalk in front of the apartment. Then he ran….while Linda was dying in her junkie mother’s arms.

The news traveled through the school community like a too sharp knife. On Monday morning, the two faculty members who were “class sponsors” called an emergency meeting. The message was this….you are Linda’s family…you are her brothers and sisters…and as her family…there is only one thing you can do for her. The class was told…it is up to us to bury her..that is all we can do. It was spring and the flowering bushes outside the school were in bud. I had broken off a small limb and held it up before the class.

“This large branch represents you as a class. A thief came in the night and stole a budding flower from this branch, “ I snapped off a small branch, “a flower which was Linda.” The students were told what a “proper funeral” would cost. Within two days, by gathering nickels, dimes, quarters, dollars from each other and from the neighborhood…the students had raised the money and dispatched the principal to the funeral home to pay.

On the appointed day and the time, school busses pulled up in front of the school and the entire senior class climbed on the busses to go bid farewell to their classmate and as they marched out of the building, they warned the underclass students, “If you all come, you all better act right…because this is our sister!”
That spring was almost 13 years ago. Linda’s child would have been nearly 12 years old this fall….the school building has been torn down and replaced…and those of us who were her teachers have retired and/or moved on. I still feel her loss and I often wonder…what could we have done,,,to keep Linda…alive?

The Apple Tree Adventure

Granny’s not lookin’! Good.” Five-year-old legs and feet flew across the yard to the picket fence. Nomie pulled up on the bottom rail then looked over her shoulder at the house. “Granny’s still not looking.” Nomie pulled herself from the bottom rail to the top of the fence post. She didn’t remember the ground being so far away. She closed her eyes and jumped from the top of the post to the ground three feet below. Tumbling to her knees on the gravelly path, Nomie wanted to cry from the scrapes but if she cried, Granny would hear her…. And then she would be in trouble. “I’m not gonna’ cry. Only babies cry and I’m no baby.” She picked herself up and started across the alfalfa field. Ole Jim, Uncle Tom’s black collie, limped after her on his three good legs. She spotted a four leaf clover and stopped to investigate. A bumblebee buzzed nearby. Nomie did not like bumblebees.

She looked up the hill at her Daddy’s house. Daddy of course was not home. He was at work driving his big yellow Kentucky Power Company truck. Nomie knew that if Daddy didn’t work, lots of people would have no ‘lectricity and they would be calling 117 and asking for Harry. She didn’t like it when Daddy had to go back out to work at night just ‘cause people didn’t have ‘lectricity. Up ahead here was a nice place to sit under the walnut tree and if she sat there, Granny couldn’t see her and make her come back to the house. Nomie didn’t want to have to come back to the house…not yet. Ole Jim laid down in the alfalfa next to her and she put her chubby arms around his neck and hugged him. “Good Jim…you’re my favoritest playmate…. except for Nancy and Sue…and Paul…but I can’t go to Daughtry Hollow by myself. Anyway…I’m scared to walk by the graveyard…even with you. Some ghost might jump out the grave and get me!”

Nomie wondered if her stepmother was home. Having a stepmother meant that Daddy had a new wife but she guessed that was okay…after all her momma was in heaven…had been gone to heaven a long time. Granny had explained all that and after all…Granny was her Momma’s momma. Still Nomie didn’t feel right about the stepmother. She didn’t know why…she just didn’t …but she didn’t have to worry…she had Granny and Uncle Tom, and Uncle Carter, and of course, Grampa.
Her eyes wandered to the field by the creek where the well house stood. Then she looked up the hill toward the Daddy house and saw the apple tree. Daddy had sawed a limb off the apple tree but he didn’t quite cut it all off. Sticking out was a piece of limb with a sharp point . It sure looked like a good limb to turn a flip-flop on. Could she do it? Maybe if she held on to the pointy limb and the one next to it…that would work? Nomie headed toward the tree. Ole Jim stayed where he was, his tongue sticking out as he panted for breath. He laid his head on his paws and continued to watch the little girl.

Nomie looked up at the tree. It wasn’t very high so she started to climb up so she could reach the pointy limb. Now how could she turn this flip-flop? She turned around facing the tree trunk and thought of a way she could try. As her body turned, the sharp point of the limb caught the waistband of her shorts and tore a hole in the seat! There Nomie swung …stuck on an apple limb …bobbing from her shorts. She yelled for help. There was no answer. Finally her stepmother came out of the basement door with a dishpan full of water that she threw in the garden. Her father’s new wife did not look Nomie’s way and then she turned and went back in the house. What could Nomie do now? She yelled for help again and again and nobody came. The bees kept buzzing from blossom to blossom in the tree and….still, nobody came. Nomie waited. . Granny couldn’t see the back of Daddy’s house…. and besides, Granny didn’t know where she was. Nomie hung in the tree bobbing like a big apple. She didn’t like this…. Not a bit.

What could she do? Nomie reached out and grabbed the trunk of the tree and pulled herself closer. She heard the rip in her shorts. Granny was going to be mad…real mad. Nomie wiggled and her shorts ripped further She kept on wiggling and finally fell half way to the ground. How could she get out? Maybe…..if she pushed backwards? Nomie pushed away from the tree and fell backwards toward the ground….her feet caught in what was left of her shorts legs! She kicked harder and …one foot came out….she kicked again and….at last…she was free!

Her legs hurt…..Granny would be mad…..Maybe she ought to get her torn shorts from the tree…Nomie wanted Granny. She grabbed the torn shorts and ran through the alfalfa field toward the fence gate and her Granny. Nearly there…she started crying and screaming at the top of her lungs ”Gran…nee……..Gra…nee…Gra..neeeee!” Tears rolled from her eyes as she screamed and ran across the field…through the hay grass…toward the house…toward her Momma’s Momma screamin’ and …cryin’. Ole Jim limped along behind her his lame hind leg tucked up.Climbed down the wet creek bank, slid under the woven wire fence at the back of the garden, ran through the peanut patch all the way to the back door, Nomie screamed every step of the way. Gran…….nee, Gran….eee, GRANNEE!