Crossing Into a Summer State of Mind

Reflections from a 60's Childhood on the McEntire Farm, Shingle Hollow, NC
============

We are driving across country.  The stops will be limited. Dad likes to say he "drove straight through."  Mom likes to echo, "three days, three nights." For me, the California rows of sprawling tract housing are now forgotten.

In the back of the pink Rambler wagon, we three children rotate seats.  Two, side by side, atop the bench seat.  One in the floor on a sleeping bag, confronting the hump in the middle of the car.   At night, I swap seats with mother to serve as wing to the driver.  "Map girl," that's me.

On day two, we feed our red dachshund green and purple grapes. The dog gets gas - and worse. Dad has to stop. He swears. Mom is ordering us out of the wagon to clean, yet again. I watch her pour water from a milk jug into a towel. When she wrings it, the water marks an impression into the shoulder of the road and trickles a run toward the blacktop edge. Mom in her fitted black skirt and lilac blouse, bending and leaning and bending and leaning to wash the seat. The sleeping bag is ruined. I watch a beetle crawl across her white tennis shoe. Every other week mom washes these shoes. She always adds a half-cup of bleach into the machine.

 In the car, we are always hungry. No more grapes. We reach into the bag mom passes us and pull out cans of sausages and sleeves of saltines. I am no longer interested in the novelty of a bad picnic in the car. I visualize my grandmother's plank table in the hollow piled high with a summer's bounty.

  We travel along Route 66. Traders on the highway get a few of our dollars at restroom stops. I buy an "Indian doll" and hold her while peering out the window, suffering the heat of the desert. My sister, straddling the floor hump, is crying. Mother is "shussssing" her. My brother is making faces at me, and we are kicking each other while attempting to share the back seat. He is gesturing that he is twisting my doll. I think I may break his arm somehow this summer.

We cross into the deep south where some roads in the towns are made of old and crumbling brick. The skins of people walking the streets are a duskier shade of dark. My dad sucks juice from boiled peanuts and spits the shells into an empty bag. My mom's head now reclines to rest. My sister now sleeps as if in a well, avoiding the hump. My brother presses his face to the window on his left. I press my face to the window on the right. At a yellow light on a corner, I connect with a girl's brown eyes.

We cross Hartwell. Mom wakes. Dad talks foundations stories of the dam. All stories lead back to his hours at Hoover. I think about one of his crew, a small, Japanese laborer who always wears tan work clothing. It is his size that sets him apart from the other burly workers. Dad says he is the best of the men. When we have cookouts, the man always pats my head and pulls wrapped candy from his pocket. His English is hard to understand. All the men from work are drinking beer with Dad. Cans are tossed like rockets into a waiting barrel by the grill.

Towards the third day's end, we see red dirt, green trees, and rolling foothills. Mom's voice goes up an octave saying, "We're close!" Dad's arm is now bent, resting upon his lowered window. I think he is pretty proud of his effort. The space in the car is unbearable. The food is gone. The dog's tongue is hanging out. Mom suggests, "We should fill the jug." Dad shakes his head "no!"

Just past Gunwiper, we turn left on the final stretch. Mom starts to cry. My brother kicks me in the stomach. My sister rouses.

We pass my Uncle Elzey's home and several of his grown children's homes. Dad begins to tell us we'd "better behave this summer." I'm anticipating a red dirt hill round the bend on the right with my grandparent's two-story white house looking down.

Beyond the house there is a barn where I'll soon build my private spot complete with a library in the corner of the third floor. No one ever finds me there. I'm watching for the swirl of the creek at the turn. I'll play in that creek every day.

I'm spotting the cagey rooster as we crest the drive. I see my tall Grandpa, stooped at the pump with a bucket in hand. There is no indoor plumbing. How old is he now, ninety? Grandma is pushing open the screen door at the back, smoothing her flour-dusted, blue-printed apron. Dad exhales. Mom is wailing, "we're home."

     

A World of Color

I grew up in California, visiting the Carolinas in the summertime. It was much later in my life that I realized I did not learn about racism in California, although my classmates and I were all blended. I learned about racism in the county where I now live. These were my lessons:


4th grade. Mitchell Company. My mother is buying cloth, pulling it from a bin. A young black girl runs up to me and touches my summer olive skin. “You mixed?” she asks me. Later, I ask my mother. “Mom, what’s mixed?” My lovely mother tells me, “We are all within us a world of beautifully, blended colors.”


7th grade, age 13? I have moved to NC. Each day I am up very early to ride a bus from the hollow into town. This is a first in this community, this act of desegregation busing.

My friend, also a Teresa, spills something on her shirt. She is embarrassed because of the large stain. I tell her I have a spare shirt in my book bag that she may wear. She gratefully accepts. Before riding home that day another friend asks me, “What will you do if she returns your shirt, throw it away?” I look at my friend confused. It is only later, I realize the full intent of the remark. My happy friend, Teresa, returns my shirt, clean and pressed, and I wear it the rest of the year without pause.


11th grade, age 17. A friend loves someone white, and he loves her, but with the reservation that he cannot take her to his home. Later, when the love does not leave them, his father threatens to disinherit him if he continues the relationship.


Married. Age 25. I now have a young son in preschool. My son’s favorite friend is Yolanda. I frequently ask Yolanda’s mother for a play date. When she finally acquiesces, we sit together one afternoon while our children run in and out of the house and about the yard. She looks at me and “thanks me,” for having them over. She apologizes for the delay in bringing Yolanda to play, and she remarks, “she hasn’t had a white friend before Luke.”


Age 32. My oldest daughter is a recreation league cheerleader. I become aware that one of the other cheerleaders, whom I’ll call Shan for this share, may have to quit the squad because transportation has become an issue. I offer to pick her up on the way to the practices and games. Shan’s mother accepts my proposal. The first day I take them, the girls run together ahead toward the gymnasium. Another mother comes walking up and asks me if I gave “Shan” a ride. I say, “yes.” This mother, whom I liked, quips, “Aren’t you afraid your children will get lice?”


1990. 36. Life has been good. We have a large swimming pool in our backyard. I am teaching a summer-school class in town in one of the (now) “Section 8” apartments. I invite my class to come swim as a reward for good attendance. The students all show, and we have a great day together. A “friend” who observed the gathering asks me if I plan to “drain” the water after…


At 46: I make friends with a small, neighborhood lad, Tyson, who wants to sweep my drive for a quarter. I thank him, pay him, and offer him a snack. He looks at one of my youngest child’s books. “Read it if you’d like,” I offer. “I can’t read,” he replies.
The next time Tyson drops by for another chore, I respond, "Only if we practice reading first."  He agrees. Soon after, I have Tyson's grandmother’s permission for my husband and I to read with him together a few times a week. As a treat, we walk sometimes to the nearby playground at a church on a corner. Not long after we make this a habit, Tyson and I find the gate around the play area now regularly locked. I wonder….but I cannot fathom.


About a year later. I am 47. A young biracial girl comes to live with me, Si. Her mother is dying. She begins attending church with me. Same church from previous story. Around the third time we visit, one of the deacons stops me on the way out of the door. He tells me he has always “liked” and “respected” me, and that he likes my children. “But I am not in agreement with mixing races,” he says. Today, I ponder the life of my friend, the deacon...his grandchildren are both beautiful and bi-racial.


2001 continues. I have not been successful in finding a home for Si. I refuse to let her slip into a foster system, and although I wonder if I have the energy to fully raise another child, my husband and I have met with an attorney to begin the adoption process (before the miracle and a family for Si comes forward). This is background and not part of this telling.

I am in a store at the mall near our only movie theater. The older gentleman, a clerk, states to me as Si and I are “checking” out our items, “Your grand? Terrible what our children do to us these days.”

Last night. A conversation at Sacred Ale about racism.  We discuss and ask, "Are we making a difference?"  This morning, I read friend Steve's FB post.  I read the article Steve shares: “My White Friend on Facebook Asked Me to Explain White Privilege.”

I feel this flood of memories. I read Steve’s closing comment on his post, “We need to lookout for it in our own lives and not be complacent when we witness it. Plus if you make some of these remarks to my kid....I'll put some grass stains on you…” Steve and his wife Mary, and their beautiful blended family.


I am almost 61.

I hold fast to my mother’s lines. “We are all within us a world of beautifully, blended colors.”