Ocean Drive - I Hope you Know Such a Place

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Beaches are like the palettes on which life’s stories are sketched.  Each day, a new experience is carved into the sand, and when its course runs, the tide rises to wash the sketch away and leave the palette clean once again.

When I was young, family rituals in South Carolina always included a beach vacation.  Many in the upstate sojourned to Ocean Drive Beach, a popular spot just shy of the North Carolina border at the far north end of what has become the Greater Myrtle Beach Grand Strand.  Colloquially called “OD,” the area was famous for glistening wide beaches at low tide.  It also boasted a Pavilion with an old fashioned arcade, a merry-go-round, and a Ferris wheel that at its apex gave you the most spectacular view of the Atlantic Ocean – especially on a moonlit night when you were stuck on top.  Some say that the genre of Beach Music originated at “The Pad,” a rustic beer joint next to the Pavilion.  There’s little doubt that the “Shag” (now the state dance of South Carolina for which your Grandad Captain actually voted when he served in the SC House of Representatives – but that’s another story) came into its own at this iconic place.

We rented the same house at OD every time, one named Albejose which I assume was an acronym for someone named Albert and possibly his wife, Josephine, or maybe a brother Joseph.  Folklore rumored that Albejose once stood on the beachfront, but by the time we used her, the fury of Hurricane Hazel in 1954 had moved her lock, stock and barrel to the third row where she looked out over empty lots with unfettered access to the beach and ocean.

Our first visit to Albejose came in August of 1956, almost two years to the day of your great uncle Gene’s birthday.   I was eight and great uncle Bryant, ten.  The drive from Greenville to the beach took almost the whole day since there were no Interstate highways and very few four-lane roads.  We had no air conditioning, so all the windows were rolled down.   The time also predated seatbelt laws, and we passed Gene around in the car like a baby doll trying to keep him occupied.  Somehow, it didn’t matter.  The adrenaline from excitement flowed, keeping us from overheat, crankiness and exhaustion.

Once we arrive at the old draw bridge that crossed the Little River just outside of Conway, SC, we knew we were close to our much anticipated destination. Great granddaddy Schaefer always proffered a bet – Would there be a shrimp boat coming through the bridge or not?  Even though we were ready to get there, the clanging of the bell and lowering of the guard arms on the bridge always brought squeals from both the winners and losers of the bet.

By late afternoon, we pulled into Albejose’s oyster shell driveway.  The grey asbestos-sided house stood on stilts as was common after Hazel in an attempt to keep the main body of the house safe from any future storm surges.   This provided a convenient place for parking the car and storage rooms which housed folding chairs, umbrellas, crab nets, and other beach paraphernalia.  White wooden stairs angled up to the main door with a huge wooden boat wheel attached to the front of the banisters announcing the house’s moniker.  A showerhead, old and corroded from the salt air, perched in the crook of the stairs.

We literally burst out of the car, glad to be there, glad to be free from its confines.  Every square inch held something and it took a while to haul the suitcases, sheets, towels, toys and Gene’s folding playpen up the stairs.

I remember the interior of the house as if it were yesterday.  Not big or pretentious like some of the mansions on the coast now, Albejose broadcast a purpose of warmth, relaxation and fun.  Every wall was pine paneled with sturdy hardwood floors designed to withstand the wear and tear of beach-goers.  The living and dining rooms traversed the entire front of the house.  A huge circular Oak table with an enormous Lazy Susan dominated the dining area. 

The kitchen housed a hodge podge of tables and cabinets inserted among the appliances.  They appeared to be random, but each had a special purpose revealed over time as crabs were cleaned or shrimp peeled or fished scaled.  Every known size of pot and pan either hung from the wall or nestled in its assigned place. 

There were three bedrooms along the hall opposite the kitchen.  Bunk beds lined an enclosed porch on the back of the house off of the kitchen as well.  Great granddaddy Schaefer and Mamaw Mary slept in the back bedroom because it had a window fan.  Bryant and I always brought a friend so we each took one of the other bedrooms and hoped for a sea breeze to blow air through the house.  Poor Gene – as he grew older, he had to sleep in the bunk beds on the porch.  No amount of sea or breeze could get any coolness to him. 

I’m telling you all of this to set the stage for some beach stories.  Hopefully, over the upcoming years, we’ll have adventures of our own to add and I can’t wait.

The 550 Mile Walk Back Home

Dear Boo and Bubble,

In my last post, I mentioned an event in our country’s history called The Civil War. Any war by nature is tragic and unleashes horrendous consequences primarily born by the soldiers who fight and their families.  Society as a whole also suffers.  In the words of Brooks Atkinson in Once Around the Sun – “It is better to win a war than to lose it, but not much better.  Everyone dies a little when his neighbor is killed.  No society is sound and vigorous enough to sustain death on the staggering scale that wars make inevitable.  No one can win a war.  There are survivors but no victors.”  

A civil war, where sections of the same country fight each other, is doubly insidious because it represents a nation tearing at itself, ripping apart the very fabric that binds it together, sometimes literally pitting brother against brother on the battlefield.  

There is some debate about the ultimate causes of our Civil War, but according to Pulitzer Prize-winning author James McPherson, "The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South (South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas) seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries."

The war began when Confederate warships bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861.  After the bombardment and Lincoln's subsequent call for 75,000 volunteers, the states of the Upper South (North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas) seceded from the Union, rather than participate in the invasion of their fellow slave states. Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland - though they were slaveholding states in 1860 and contributed men to the Confederate cause - never seceded.

For four years, the war raged. Approximately 620,000 soldiers died from combat, accident, starvation, and disease during the Civil War.  To put this in perspective, the United States has lost 645,445 lives to date in all other wars combined.

Furthermore, 400,000 soldiers were captured over the course of the Civil War. At first, captured troops were regularly exchanged, but as the war progressed, that practice faded.  The plight of prisoners of war became so bleak that nearly as men died in captivity during the Civil War as died fighting in Vietnam.

Among those held as a POW in Point Lookout, Maryland, was your great, great, great grandfather George Franklin Robinson.  A typical southern gentleman from the small town of Pickens in the upstate of South Carolina, he answered the call to take up arms for the Confederacy.  He left his wife Elvira, ten children and all things comfortable to go and fight against the Union over the right for states to break from federal control and continue the practice of slavery.  He owned no slaves, but he believed in the Confederate cause.

I don’t know how or when he was captured and I have no direct knowledge of his experience at Point Lookout.  My research leads me to surmise that it could only have been horrible.  No barracks were ever built.  The Confederate soldiers were given tents to sleep in until overcrowding became so bad that there were not even enough tents to go around.  Approximately 50,000 Confederate enlisted men were contained within the walls of Point Lookout Prison Camp during its operation from 1863-1865.  Prison capacity was 10,000 but at any given time, there would be between 12,000 and 20,000 soldiers incarcerated there.  The extreme overcrowding, Maryland's freezing temperatures, shortages of firewood for heat, and living in tents took its toll and many lives were lost due to exposure.

When the war ended in the spring of 1865 with Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendering the Confederate troops to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomatox Courthouse, VA, the prisoners of war were released form Point Lookout.  George Franklin left the camp and began the 550 mile trek to Pickens – walking.  It took him over a month to get home.

The story goes that Elvira was sitting on the front porch of the house when she spotted a figure in the distance making his way down the road.  At first, she didn’t recognize him, but as he drew nearer, Elvira realized that it was her husband.  She screamed at the top of her lungs for the children to come out of the house.  Their father was finally back. 

The group raced towards George Franklin.  He yelled back for them to stay away.

“I’m filthy and full of lice,” he called out.  “Go bring a tub out into the yard and fill it with hot water.  I need to take a bath with lye soap before I can touch any of you.”

I can’t imagine the restraint that it took – after four years of not knowing where he was or whether he was alive – to have to wait for a lye soap bath before a hug. 

It was a scene being repeated all over the country in both the South and North - thousands of families reunited after such a devastating, costly, divisive conflict.  Yes, I agree with Brooks Atkinson -  It is better to win a war than to lose it, but not much better.  Everyone dies a little when his neighbor is killed

A Steel Magnolia in the Family

Dear Boo and Bubble,

This is a story Grandpa Captain wants to tell you about his grandmother Lucile Tally.  She played a very important role in forming his principles and faith as an adult.

“We need civil rights in this country.” A forthright statement that today is a foregone conclusion.  But in 1948 when Hubert Humphrey spoke those words at the Democratic National Convention, they set off a firestorm that raged across the political landscape of the South. 

Over 80 years had passed since the end of the Civil War yet the wound of losing had no more healed in the South than if it had been the day before.  The reaction to the war manifested itself in the populist philosophy of States Rights – a stance that railed against the interference of the Federal government in matters within the borders of a state.  Even though African Americans gained their freedom from slavery because of the war, they continued to be denied full participation in the society, particularly in the South.  They could not vote or access public facilities or engage in a fair judicial system.  The locally codified rules of segregation dictated that even though they were no longer slaves, they were not citizens.  To suggest, as Humphrey did, that civil rights should be extended to them was heresy against States Rights. 

The reaction at the convention was swift and dramatic.  Led by Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, the delegations from all the southern states walked out of the hall amidst much anger.  Waving state signs to show their solidarity, they shouted “Dixiecrat, Dixiecrat”, the name of a new party they intended to form and nominate Thurmond as its candidate for president.  In doing so, they hoped to foil President Harry Truman’s bid for re-election against Republican Thomas Dewey.  This would be payback for the treason they felt at his stand that civil rights for blacks was inevitable, right and in the best interest of the United States.

In the middle of the turmoil on the convention floor stood your diminutive, grey haired, great-great grandmother Lucile.  She was a very prominent Democrat from Florida and in June just the year before had met with President Truman in the White House.  At the convention, she was serving as a national committeewoman and Florida which in that day and time was an extraordinary accomplishment for a woman.  Sensing the agitation from the other southern states was about to infect the Florida delegation, she hastily organized a response with another delegate.  Together, they grabbed the sign designating Florida’s place on the convention floor and when the state’s delegates tried to leave and join the “Dixiecrat” parade, they physically held them in.  It gave the state’s Democratic leadership enough time to calm everyone down and talk them through the situation.  Florida voted to stay in the convention and not officially become a part of the “Dixiecrat” movement.

Lucile was what is known as a “Steel Magnolia.”  She had every bit of the gentility and charm of a southern lady, but her spine was of steel especially when it came to her family, her faith and her politics.  There was no equivocation when it came to fairness and, even though her understanding of African Americans had not evolved to full acceptance as equals, she knew that it was inherently wrong to deny them their civil rights. 

Many political pundits of the day didn’t give Truman a chance and some newspapers across the country prematurely printed headlines declaring “Dewey Defeats Truman.”  In the end, Truman won with over 24,000,000 votes, 28 states and 308 electoral votes.  Florida was one of those states.  Strom Thurmond and the “Dixiecrats” garnered only four states – South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.

It took almost twenty more years for the Civil Rights Act to pass Congress.  Lucile lived to see it.  By then, she had retired officially from politics.  She continued to be active in her community of Tavares, Florida, selling insurance, managing orange groves and being the matriarch of her family which had grown from a core of three sons to a brood with nine grandchildren.  She died in 1971, but the nuances of her influence surface regularly in your extended family, especially your Grandpa Captain who took up the political banner years later, serving as the Chairman of the Democratic Party for Cherokee County in South Carolina and as a legislator in the SC House of Representatives.  The irony was never lost on him that he publicly served the very state that led the revolt in 1948 to form the “Dixiecrats” when his grandmother Lucille stood firm, sign in hand, and held the Florida delegation in the convention.

Don't Ever Fake a Sick on Wednesday

Dear Boo and Bubble,

In 1955, my family moved from 29 University Ridge Apartments to 3 Lakecrest Drive in Stone Lake Heights off of Chick Springs Road in Greenville, SC.  Your great grandparents built the house and it brought significant changes for us.  Great uncle Bryant and I no longer had to share a room.  Baby brother Gene had his own nursery - up until then, his bassinette sat beside mother and dad’s bed in the apartment.  We had a big yard in which to play and fireplaces in both the living room and kitchen. 

And…..we gained a maid. Nancy Holloway came to the house every Wednesday because that was the only day your great grandmother had access to our one car, a concept that I’m sure you can’t quite imagine.

A pencil-thin black woman who wore a crisp blue shirtwaist uniform, oversized circular glasses, and a waxed pageboy hairdo, Nancy presented quite a force in our household.  Incongruously, she didn’t clean the house or cook meals or wash clothes.  She had two notorious proficiencies – ironing…and talking. 

Every Wednesday morning after breakfast, mom would leave Bryant and me to look after Gene while she took dad to work and went to pick up Nancy.  We had about 20 minutes to get ready to go to school.  There was no doubt when mom returned.  You could hear Nancy the moment the car door slammed.  As she came up the back steps, her constant prattle sounded very much like the rat-tat-tat of a verbal machine gun without so much as a perceptible breath taken.  When she opened the back door, we hastily exited, glad to be going to school.  We wouldn’t be caught dead having to stay home with Nancy.

A couple of years later when I was in Mrs. McCraw’s third grade class at Summit Drive School, there was an outbreak of bronchitis which Bryant and I both caught.  We spent a lot of time coughing our heads off until the antibiotic that Dr. DeLoache, our pediatrician, prescribed finally kicked in and we began to mend.  As I recall, we missed a week of school. 

Over the course of that week, though, I had become pretty adept at the deep croak that the illness produced with its corresponding flurry of concern and attention generated by each hack. Sometime later, certainly long enough for me to have fully recovered but still within the realm of memory on how sick I had been, I decided that I really didn’t want to go to school for a couple of days.  No particular reason, just didn’t want to go.  So, on an afternoon, I began to cough and continued pretty steadily until early evening and at supper time.  My ruse elicited the desired response. 

“Schaefer, do you think she’s getting bronchitis again?” 

“I don’t know, Mary, it sure sounds like it.” 

“Well, maybe we should keep her home from school tomorrow, just as a precaution.” 

“I think that’s a good idea.  If it persists, then we’ll call Dr. DeLoache.”

It was all music to my ears.  I didn’t even have to ask if I could stay home from school.  THEY were the ones suggesting it! 

They put me to bed and, as long as I could keep myself awake, I periodically coughed – with such dramatic emphasis, I almost fooled myself.  Finally, I wore myself out with my theatrics and my eyelids shut. 

The next morning, mother came into my room to check on me.  “How are you feeling, Beth?”

Hack, hack.  “I still feel pretty bad,” I lied.  Hack, hack.

“Well, you need to just stay in bed and we’ll see how the day goes.”

“Okay.”  Hack, hack.

“I’m going to take Bryant with me and drop him off at school after I take your dad to work and pick up Nancy.”

Nancy!….Nancy!…I thought to myself.  Holy Moley…the day was Wednesday!  I had totally forgotten.  If I could have rewound my plot, I would have, but I was too deeply into it to undue the mess.

“No, thanks.”  Hack, hack. I knew for sure that Bryant suspected I was faking things, but he didn’t say a word.

They left and for the next thirty minutes, I took the opportunity to rest my throat and steel myself for Nancy’s arrival.

As soon as I heard the car pulling into the driveway, I restarted my charade.  Hack, hack.

Nancy’s chatter resonated through the walls of the house even before she opened the door. 

“Yas’m, Miss Mary, I’s takes care o’ her.  Don’t you be wurryin’ ‘bout dat, now.”

I heard Nancy’s feet padding down the hall to my room.  Hack, hack.

“So, young lady, whut’s you coughin’ so fur?”  She stuck her head through my door.

“I think I have bronchitis again.”  I tried to look as pitiful as possible.

“Well, we be seein’ ‘bout dat this morning’.  Reckon I bettah git you some water.”

She walked back to the kitchen to retrieve me a glass of water.  Hack, hack.

All morning, I lay in bed reading my Katy Keene and Archie comic books, hacking away as frequently as I thought I should to sound legitimate.  I could hear Nancy in the kitchen where she busied herself with the ironing.  She hummed some unrecognizable tune as she pressed a shirt and I was very grateful that she wasn’t talking to me.  A feeling of confidence grew inside – maybe my thespian interpretation of bronchitis was after all honest and believable.

Hack, hack.  Hack, hack.  Hack, hack.

Next thing I knew, Nancy stood in my doorway, arms akimbo, staring at me and sort of grinding her teeth in a contemplative way.  I upped the ante adding a little melodrama to my cough.

“I kin see rite now, we gon have ta do somefin’ ‘bout dis here cough,” she said.  “You jes stay where you is.  I be back.”

Uh-oh! My blood froze.  I sensed that the entire scene, not to mention my life, was getting set to unravel.

In a few minutes, Nancy returned.  She balanced a tablespoon delicately in her right hand.  It had something in it, but I couldn’t see what.

“Okay, Miss lady.  You ope’ yo mouth wide here and swalluh dis here spoonful.  Dis here’s either gon’ cure you or kill you.”

She put her left hand on my forehead and pushed my head back making my jaw jut forward to give her a better angle for the spoon.  I shut my eyes and opened wide.  Into my mouth went salt, pepper and sugar mixed together - dry - no water, nothing to wash it down.  My mouth reacted incredulously by shutting off the saliva.  Somehow, I didn’t gag and finally, with a lot of effort, pushed the mass down my throat.

Nancy stood there, patting her foot, waiting.  She stared at me intently.  Because I could see her and was still breathing that must mean I wasn’t dead which left the other of the two alternatives for this medicine - I must be cured.  It was a downright miracle.  My cough was gone!

I don’t recall having another cough over the next fifty-four years.  Some primordial fear, I guess.  But, I certainly did learn a lesson that day – if you’re going to be sick, real or otherwise, better not make it on a Wednesday. 

Bertha's Biscuits

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Your great-great-great grandmother, Mamie Peninah Robinson Bryant, was mother to nine children – Mittie, Mattie (your great-great grandmother), Ressie, Jessie, Annie Mae, Wade, Gene, Jamie and Little Frank who died.  Although she was diminutive in stature, the power of her persona grew to such legendary proportions that even now, as I repeat these stories to you, she continues to influence her offspring.  Affectionately known as Grannie Bryant, she performed the role of matriarch to the family, dispensing love, wisdom and jocularity from the front porch of her home on S. Pendleton Street in Greenville, SC. 

Grannie had a maid named Bertha who was legendary in her own right as our folklore goes.  Aside from rudimentary duties of cooking and cleaning, Bertha coddled grandchildren, counseled the heartbroken, commiserated over family situations and provided overall good company to whomever might be sitting in the kitchen as she peeled potatoes.  She implemented all of Grannie’s directives with the efficiency of a drill sergeant yet with the humility of knowing her place in the racial hierarchy of the times.  She always entered the house from the back door since coming to the front was considered slanderous if not illegal.  Even so, Grannie and everybody else knew that the household could not function without Bertha.

Although Bertha’s particular culinary talents lay in the preparation of that staple Southern meal of fried chicken, rice, gravy and butter beans, her true specialty was biscuits.  They were something to be savored, rising full and high, light as feathers, and sponge-like in their absorption of butter or gravy or preserves or whatever else one might choose for sopping.

On a particular occasion, Grannie’s daughter Annie Mae and her husband Richard Skinner had come to visit from Jacksonville, Florida.  It was no secret that, of all her children’s spouses, Richard was Grannie’s favorite and when he was there, she dictated that nothing be spared to make his stay special.  This included at least one go-around of Bertha’s fried chicken and biscuits. 

I never saw Grannie’s dining room, but I speculate that the table was set to perfection with a fine, lace tablecloth, the good china and crystal, silver place settings correctly spaced and the entire mood accentuated with a vase of freshly cut blue hydrangeas adorning the center.  Once everyone was seated, Bertha began bringing the food through the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the dining room.  Out came the steaming crispy chicken, the fluffy rice with a boat full of gravy of perfect consistency, and the butter beans seasoned delicately with salt, pepper and a slice of fatback – but no biscuits.

“Bertha, where are the biscuits?”  Grannie asked.

“Yas’m, Mrs. Bryant.  I be brangin’ dem biscuits directly,” Bertha replied.

The group served their plates and began to eat.  Still no biscuits.

Underneath the table at its head was a button on the floor.  When pressed, it activated a buzzer in the kitchen signaling to Bertha that Grannie desired something.  This was a much more gentile way of communicating than yelling back and forth.  Grannie pressed the button with her foot.  The door swung open and Bertha stuck her head out of the kitchen.

“Bertha, where are the biscuits?”  Grannie inquired again.

“Right, right, Mrs. Bryant.  Dey be out shortly.”

Everybody went through the first helping and began to replenish their plates.  Still no biscuits.  Grannie stepped on the button again.  Bertha poked her head from behind the door.

“Bertha, we are almost through the meal.  You need to bring those biscuits now or there won’t be any need.”

“Lawd, Mrs. Bryant, I wush I could bring dem biscuits.  But, I cain’t.”

“What’s the problem, Bertha?”

“Well, Mrs. Bryant, I cain’t brang dem biscuits ‘cause dem biscuits dey done squat afore dey riz and gone done browned on the squat.”

The momentary shock of not tasting Bertha’s biscuits quickly gave way to hilarity as everybody laughed heartily at Bertha’s very succinct description of her fallen biscuit dough.  Until this day, when plates of biscuits hit the hundreds of tables in Grannie’s lineage, you’ll hear someone say “Well, at least they didn’t squat afore dey riz and brown on de squat.”

Now That's a Christmas Carol!

Dear Boo and Bubble,

As I mentioned before, when I was a little girl, the interaction between the races was confined to individual relationships, most of which centered around Negroes, as they were routinely called,  performing some service to whites – maids, waiters, chauffeurs, yardmen, or janitors.  The larger communities operated in separate orbits whose paths rarely crossed.  However, there was one time every year when the two came together and we were allowed a rare glimpse into the Negro world.  It was the Christmas parade in early December.

My father’s best friend, Sweetie Sterling, worked at The Greenville News.  He always invited us to come watch the parade from his office which was on the second floor of the News building facing Main Street. A window ran the entire length of the office which gave us an unfettered view of the parade route as we were higher than the people on the street. I vividly remember waiting for the two things that made the parade special – Santa Claus and the Sterling (no relation to Sweetie) High School Band.  Santa is, of course, self-explanatory.  The band needs some clarification.

Sterling High School was the only “Negro” secondary school in Greenville.  As such, it was allowed to enter its band and a float in the parade but neither could vie for the prizes in the two categories.  Those distinctions were reserved for either Greenville or Parker High School, the two white schools that existed then.  It was particularly fortunate for those bands that Sterling couldn’t compete because if they could have, they would have won every time.

Ironically, in order to show no prejudice towards either Greenville or Parker, their position in the parade lineup would alternate every year.  Whoever went first one year would go last the next.  Sterling was always somewhere in the middle and you knew they were coming long before you could see them.  The first sign was the drumbeat.  Unlike the predictable, steady drone of the white bands, it resonated with a deep syncopation that literally sent a vibration up the street, block by block.  There was a discernable buzz in the crowd on the street.  Children sitting on the shoulders of their fathers strained their eyes for a glimpse of the second sign – the two-foot tall fluffy white shako of the drum major bobbing and weaving above the heads of the crowd in time with the throb of the base drums.  As he came into full view, his choreographic gyrations and struts left you thinking that he didn’t have a bone in his body. 

For at least five minutes, we would watch the Sterling band weave its magic in complicated patterns to and froe, leaning up and back, shifting from quick to high step along the Main Street pavement.  The drum corps pounded out the beat while the horns blew jazzed-up versions of Joy to the World or Silent Night or We Three Kings. It was an amazing sight, a purely ethnic interpretation of storied carols that I knew as more muted with occasional crescendos that strained my young vocal chords.  There was a rudimentary layer of life to this interpretation, something primal in the celebration.  Why wouldn’t the birth of Christ generate such powerful happiness in the soul that the beat of the music would demand a corresponding and irresistible desire to dance?  For a few minutes, once a year, I was mesmerized.

Once the maneuvers ran their course, the band settled back into its rhythmic strut and marched on up the street out of sight and out of my life until the next year.    

So much has changed, of course, since then. Sterling High doesn’t exist anymore, nor the policy of segregation that sustained it. The forces at work to deny full participation in the life of the community have vanished.  Today, if you stroll down the beautifully restored Main Street area of Greenville, there are bronze statues strategically placed along the sidewalk commemorating the strong influences on the history of the city.  One is of two students at Sterling High School, immortalized in the youthful appearance of Negroes of that time.  They appear to be naively chatting with each other, eternally unaware of the fact that once a year, at Christmas time, they had brightened and broadened my life.

Understanding Changing Times

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Even though we seem to struggle with it still, your world is an integrated one where discrimination based on race is against the law.  As you grow older, you will have classmates, friends and colleagues of all races – Blacks, Whites, Latino, Asian.  Seeing faces of color in positions of leadership will be commonplace. Your very first U.S. President is the epitome of integration being 50% Caucasian and 50% African-American.  And statisticians tell us that in the next forty years, Whites will be in the minority in our country.

You probably can’t comprehend that when I was a child, even up until my senior year in college, I had no personal interaction with black people other than the acceptable relationship between a child and a maid.  We didn’t eat in the same restaurants, nor sleep in the same motels, nor, heaven forbid, swim in the same swimming pools. When the laws of the land began to knock over the obstacles to equality like dominoes, making it illegal to deny black people access to public places, my hometown of Greenville, SC, officially closed the Cleveland Park swimming pool, filled it with dirt and converted it into a rose garden rather than run the risk of blacks and whites sharing the same water.

Even churches were resistant to embracing the concept of integration, but they subliminally laid the groundwork for God’s broadmindedness.  In every Sunday School class, you could hear little angelic voices singing the poignant words of a children’s hymn -“Jesus Loves the Little Children…all the children of the world.  Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.  Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

As is the case with humanity in general, love for the individual seldom translates into acceptance of the group.  But make no mistake - in the South when I was young, the African-American community played an integral role in the personal lives of our families as well as the society at large. 

My next blog posts come from recollections of that time.  Some are handed down, some are my own personal experience.  Hopefully, they will be illustrative of what I mean.

Alan Shepard

Dear Boo,

I watch you now at just over four years old and am amazed at how much you already comprehend technology.  Even though you’re too young to have your own computer, you certainly know how to navigate around mine.  You have to explain to me which remote does what with the television and you even use your own IPhone to play Angry Birds and Zombies  and all those other “free” downloads that your folks allow. 

Your world is one of the Internet and SKYPE and IPhones and Ipads.  Isn’t it grand that we can talk to each other from anywhere in the world and it sounds like we might as well be next door?  All of this is possible partly because of the hundreds of satellites whirling around the earth above your head.  The Space Station is there as well and people go up and come back.  Parts are delivered and repairs are made.  It’s all very commonplace and unspectacular unless something goes wrong.  But, it hasn’t always been that way. 

Let’s see – it’s been sixty-one years since I was four.  I know that sounds like a long time to you, but honestly, it’s not even a blink of eternity’s eye.  Until I was 10, the only things in outer space were those put there by God.    That all changed on October 4, 1957, when the U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – more specifically its largest state, Russia) put the first satellite into space that we called “Sputnik.”  This triggered what became known as the “Race for Space” between the United States and the Soviet Union, the only two world powers at that time capable of such achievements. 

By 1961, the race escalated to see which country could first get a man in space.  In April, the Soviets seemed to gain the lead when they sent the first human, a man named Yuri Gagarin, into space for a complete orbit around the earth in 108 minutes.  

The United States wasn’t far behind.  By May of that year, America followed suit and launched Alan Shepard on a fifteen minute, 116 mile-high and 302 mile-long journey into space.  The liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida (now known as Cape Kennedy), was to be televised.  I was in the 7^th grade at Greenville Junior High School when this happened.  My mother and father decided to let me stay home from school so I could watch it live.

At the time, your great, great grandmother Mattie (whom I called Nonnie) lived with us in an apartment in the basement of our house.  She had a small black and white television (you can’t even imagine such a thing) and invited me to come downstairs to watch with her.  The apartment was truly minimalist in that there was only one room except for the bathroom.  Her piano was on one wall.  There were a couple of chairs comprising a sitting area.  Her double bed rested against the wall across from a small set of cabinets with a sink, stove and refrigerator which comprised her kitchen.  The TV sat on the kitchen cabinet, so we curled up on her bed as the countdown to liftoff started.

I honestly believe that the entire country held its collective prideful breath as the rocket engines fired and the smoke billowed out from under like an angry dragon fiercely blowing his nose.  Ever so slowly the rocket rose from the launch pad, freeing itself from the launch tower.  Nonnie and I sat mesmerized as the TV camera went to a telescopic lens and we could see the capsule holding Alan Shepherd break away from the main fuselage with a set of booster rockets.  

As we watched, Nonnie said something that I will always remember.  I don’t really think she was even talking specifically to me – just sort of saying it aloud to the universe.  “Just imagine – in my lifetime, I’ve seen the first flight of man and now the space flight of man.”

You see, Boo, she was alive in 1903 when Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the first airplane in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  It only took two generations to go from that singular step to space travel.  And now, you’re two generations from me and the world has absorbed so many technological advances that it’s hard to comprehend or imagine what could be coming next. 

In no time, you will be marveling with your grandchildren – as I do with you – the world in which they live.  You will talk about how things “used to be,” and in doing so, you will help them understand something that is very significant -  Everything of today is founded upon the past and the past should be studied, revered and never disparaged for its lack of sophistication.

The World Series

Boo and Bubble,

You guys are growing up in an amazing world when it comes to sporting events.  Through the power of the television, you can witness football, golf, tennis, soccer, basketball, baseball, even poker – sometimes all at once and all over again with the magic of the DVR.  You can monitor scores on your IPhone, get updates to your IPad and watch live streaming on your computer through WiFi.  Sometimes I think all of this access to sports diminishes the fervor with which we celebrate our teams.  There are so many teams out there now, if one isn’t doing well, we just jump on the bandwagon of another.

I want to tell you a little bit about how it used to be when I was your age.  You may not know it, but the sport of baseball has historically been dubbed “America’s Pastime.”  I’m not sure if that still holds true today, what with all the choices out there, but for the purpose of nostalgia, I’ll say it does.

Today there are 30 professional baseball teams.  They dot the map of the US like measles and have markets ranging from small to mega-big.  It’s not always been the case.  In 1950, there were only 16 teams -three in New York, two in Chicago, two in Philadelphia and the rest located somewhere in the right-hand, upper quarter of the US north of D.C. and east of Missouri.  The national championship for professional baseball became known as the World Series, a title which implied quite a significant status in the sphere of sports.  Before Super Bowls, NBA Playoffs and Ryder Cups, the only event that could come close to the World Series was either a winter or summer Olympics.  Every October, late in the month, across our nation, households would stop whatever they were doing and listen to the radio or TV broadcasts of the World Series. 

In 1936, the New York Yankees started an ascendancy of dominance in the sport that lasted for two decades.  Between 1936 and 1956, they won the World Series 13 times.  Of the seven times they appeared in the Series from 1949 to 1956, they won six times.  Their opponent five of those years was cross-town rival, the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

Sometime in the early 50’s, your great granddaddy Schaefer came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea.  He decided that our family needed to have a bet during the World Series.  He and your great-uncle Bryant would be a team and your great grandmother Mary and I would be another. The losers would have to take the winners out to dinner at the S&S Cafeteria on Main Street in downtown Greenville.  There were a couple of points to be made here – the concept of winning and losing; and that if you bet on something, losing had consequences.  The fact that dad would be paying for the dinner at the S&S regardless didn’t dawn on us until we were much older. 

Somehow, Dad and Bryant took the Yankees every year.  It couldn’t have been fair, no coin toss or anything like that.  I think Dad followed sports and knew what was going on.  He probably declared at the beginning of every season that he and Bryant would put the Yankees up against anybody.  That left Mom and me with 15 other options which sounded pretty reasonable at the time.  Hah!  What did we know?

The strategy worked great in 1950 through 1953.  The Yankees didn’t make it to the series in 1954 so we didn’t have the bet.  In 1955, though, our fortunes reversed.   

It was truly a magic time for baseball.  The Yankees had players like Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Marv Throneberry and Enos Slaughter.  On the Dodger’s roster were Tommy LaSorda, Sandy Koufax, Roy Camponella, Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson who broke the racial barrier of professional baseball and was the first black player to ever play at that level.

The 1955 series went down to the wire.  The Yankees and Dodgers traded wins until they both had three.  The night of the deciding seventh game, we gathered at the kitchen table in front of the TV.  Mom and I sat on one side, Bryant and Dad on the other.  The atmosphere tensed considerably inning to inning.  Finally, the Dodgers prevailed to capture their first championship in franchise history.  It would be the only Series the Dodgers won in Brooklyn.  The team relocated to Los Angeles after the 1957 season.

Mom and I were elated.  We had never won the bet before.  But I found out in the experience just how competitive Bryant truly was.  We went to the S&S cafeteria the next week.  I made my way down the line and selected my traditional favorites – trout almondine, mashed potatoes, green beans and a bowl of red Jello.  Bryant followed along behind me.

At the end of the line, we came to the cashier where Dad waited to make sure she included all our meals on the ticket.  He looked at Bryant’s tray….on it was a glass of water and utensils wrapped in a napkin.  A sad, solemn expression covered Bryant’s face.  It was the raw agony of defeat. 

Of course, Dad sent him back to get some food and we ended up having a fun evening.

That was our last World Series contest, though.  Dad decided that if Bryant would rather go hungry than pay up, maybe the lessons learned had gone a little too far. 

   

The Great Train Race

Dear Boo and Bubble,

    

Sometimes it’s funny what runs across your mind.  I was thinking the other day about your great, great grandmother, Mattie, who suffered in her latter years from what was called “hardening of the arteries.” We never heard of Alzheimer’s when I was growing up and, from what I know, I don’t think that was what happened here.  Her personality never exhibited the negative mood swings.  She just gradually lost her memory.  It became very obvious one day when she met us at the door with two sets of clothes on, her second pair of stockings pulled on over her shoes, a dainty white slip covering her purple shirtwaist dress.  No confusion registered on her face.  She merely forgot that she had dressed. 

 I find myself musing now about memory and how important it is to us.  I decide to conjure up my earliest memory, if possible, and my mind titillates with the exercise as if saying “Gee, we haven’t been here in a while.  Why don’t we stop on this brain cell and see what pops up.  Want to?”

In a split second, I am riding in the back of a 1948 Chevrolet with your great-uncle Bryant.  Great Granddaddy Schaefer is driving with Mamaw Mary riding in the front passenger seat.  It’s hot, all the windows are down.  There are no seatbelts nor any air conditioning and I’m standing with my head resting on my folded arms pressed against the back of the front seat.  This is the best place to get some sort of cooling breeze.  The road is two lanes and straight, forever straight for miles and miles ahead.  We are somewhere in southern Louisiana about three-fourths of the way from South Carolina on a visit to see your great, great grandmother Bethany in Houston, Texas.   If I’m three years old, it’s not by much.

Paralleling the highway is a railroad track.  Before long, a freight engine pulling an endless chain of cars rolls along beside us heading in the same direction.  He stretches a nose beyond us and Dad speeds up a little to catch up with him.  Bryant and I shriek with laughter as we both hang our heads out of the rear window on the track side. 

Dad honks the car horn.  The engineer blasts back from the train. 

“Keep up with him, daddy!” we implore. 

Dad presses the gas pedal a little harder.  I have no idea how fast we are actually going, probably a snail’s pace by today’s standards.  But, in my mind we are flying.

We wave at the engineer and he waves back.

Dad honks.  The train toots.  This goes on for miles.

Finally, we come to an intersection between the highway and the tracks.  Despite our profuse encouragement, Dad prudently decides not to see if we can beat the train across the tracks.  We stop and watch as it goes by, squealing and waving and honking all the while.  We count the cars.  It seems like a thousand until the last one rollicks down the track and absorbs into the landscape to the west and indelibly into my memory.

  

If there is anything earlier than this in my brain, I haven’t recollected it.  I will keep trying, though, to remember as many things as I can before the time comes when I’ll be the one standing at the door with two sets of clothes on merely having forgotten that I’d dressed already.