Hooray!

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Well, here it is December 31 again with another year gone by so quickly that it seems just yesterday we were starting it. It's been a pretty significant year for the two of you what with Boo breaking the tooth fairy bank by losing seven teeth and Bubble starting pre-school already. It's hard to believe the changes that can occur in a 12-month span of time and I find that this particular day - New Year's Eve - always begs for recollection. For me, that means returning to the deepest, warmest, most comforting recesses of my memory to a time when I was your age and all of my closest friends convened at 3 Lakecrest for a celebratory evening that included a traditional rip-roaring battle of Up Jinks between the girls and boys, then the annual race around the house with sparklers at midnight followed by a bowl of Mamaw Mary's famous chili before heading to bed.

No New Year's Eve could ever be complete, however, without Granddaddy Schaefer's telling of a One-legged Dragon tale. Every year, as soon as Up Jinks was over and right before the countdown began to midnight, Granddaddy would take a napkin and wrap it like a diaper around the index finger of his right hand. Then, he'd fold his thumb and other fingers back into a fist, leaving only the covered digit pointing outward.

"All right, children," he always began. "I want to tell you a story about the One-Legged Dragon." And he'd move his finger across the table.......poor dragon......limping along with only one leg......and the story would begin. I've written to you about this before (See Sunday, December 30, 2012 - "The One-Legged Dragon."), but the other day, I ran across some information in one of Granddaddy's editorials that was news to me. It shed some light on the history of the dragon and I wanted to make sure you knew.

Enthusiasm Encountered In Its Pristine Form

(Sunday, March 6, 1994 - The Greenville News)

I love enthusiasm. In fact, if I can find an enthusiastic mortician I'm going to ask him to bury me, but on condition he won't get carried away by his enthusiasm and take me before I'm scheduled to go.

I hate sourpusses, the ones always rummaging around hunting something unpleasant and doomed shaped for a topic of conversation, who see no beauty in a magnificent red sunrise, but want to talk about the unwanted rain it portends, one who shuns laughter as though it is the mother of plagues.

The other morning, I saw enthusiasm in its pristine, crystal pure form. It bathed me with the soap of joy and injected high octane into my outlook.

This epiphany, of a sort, occurred at Blythe Elementary School. I was asked to read my story of the "One-Legged Dragon" to my granddaughter Chelsea's class. Through a misunderstanding, instead of a small classroom of 20 third graders, I found myself on the stage of the lunch room before 150 first, second and third graders sitting on the floor with their teachers. I nearly panicked. But then I realized that, after all, I am a grandfather and these were simply Chelsea and Natalie multiplied by 75. The thought calmed my fears.

As I looked down on their bright and expectant little faces I became inwardly pensive. Here I was an emerging octogenarian looking tomorrow squarely in the eye; the past, of which I am so fond, suddenly lost its relevance.

Here was enormous potential embarking on a voyage over the vast sea of knowledge. Before my very eyes were the future scientists, doctors, philosophers, theologians, lawyers, architects, builders and statesmen.

My optimism denied the presence of a single future criminal or failure sitting on that floor waiting to hear about the one-legged dragon.

The thrust of the story is that everybody is different and it is these differences that define who we are. Hooray was the dragon's name. He had one leg and 99 stubs where legs used to be. Every morning, Mrs. Dragon would help him put his 99 crutches in place and he would take his morning walk. Everybody would laugh and make fun of Hooray with all the crutches and just one good leg.

One day, the people learned how Hooray lost his 99 legs. He was crossing a vast ocean on his way to seek his fortune when he ran across a shipwreck with 99 children aboard. They were sure to drown. Hooray turned his back, told the children to grab a leg and he swam them to safety. But the children has held onto his legs so tightly he lost them for lack of circulation.

When the people heard this they cheered Hooray, for he was a hero.

Because it was Hooray's 675th birthday, we all sang Happy Birthday to him with such enthusiasm and gusto it caught the attention of Old St. Peter, even as he was checking credentials and consigning eternal fate to the multitude who had just been processed by the world's morticians.

What and experience!!

Of Ribbons, Paper and Tape

Dear Boo and Bubble,

My goodness, what a whirlwind since I last wrote you!!! Captain and I have literally been across the ocean and back - and when we returned tot Dulles Airport a week ago, we landed right down into the middle of the delightful chaos of Christmas. For the first few days, shopping was a challenge due to jet lag. The malls didn't seem to want to open at 4:00 AM and by the time they were in full swing, I was back to bed and sound asleep. Thank goodness I'm adjusted back to good old Eastern Standard time now and filled with the Christmas spirit, which has me reminiscing a bit.

Yesterday afternoon, I went into our room and starting wrapping some of your gifts. When I finished my frenetic flurry of cutting, folding, taping and ribbon-zipping, the bed lay covered with packages - the remnants of the activity strewn everywhere - and the sight of it all transported me back to a time when I was your age, to my old dining room which every year in December joyously morphed into wrapping headquarters for 3 Lakecrest Drive. I've written about Christmas at 3 Lakecrest before (See December 2012 - "It's All Sugar" and "Cha-Ching - a Christmas Story), but I've never fully explained the details that make its memories so absolutely delectable....all magically orchestrated by your great grandmother Mary. Oh, how I wish you could have known her in this earthly existence.

For Mamaw Mary, Christmas was a 365-day-a-year project. It started as soon as December 26 when she would hit the stores in search of bargains on wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, tags, cards, tape and any other holiday paraphernalia that might be slashed for sale. She had a special spot in the attic where these things would keep until the appropriate time. All during the year, she bought small odds and ends figuring that she would match them up with a deserving person later on. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, her special stash included all of these things plus several Whitman Samplers and LifeSaver cartons (the Butterscotch was always my favorite) - it was a treasure trove of unassigned gifts for bag boys at the grocery store or car mechanics who worked on her car or attendants who filled up her gas tank or just in case somebody showed up unexpectedly at the door and she didn't want them to think they weren't on her list. (It was actually amazing how often this last situation occurred and she would say "Wait just a minute, I have something for you, too!" and would run to the dining room where these odd pieces were already wrapped with a tag that only needed to be filled out.)

By the first week of December, the dining room was completely converted to the purpose of wrapping gifts. I will never forget how she and I spent hours hunched over the table working on first one box then another. My first job was to tear the Scotch tape into small pieces and stick them in a row on the table so that they would be ready when she needed them. Next, I threaded the tags with their little strings and tied knots so that when she finished a package, she could identify whose it was. I then graduated to measuring the gift on the paper and cutting an appropriate size. When I mastered the art of folding the paper and taping it, Mamaw taught me how to secure ribbon around the box and fasten it, leaving enough length to tie down a bow which she had deftly crafted. The pièce de résistance came when she showed me how to zip the ribbon into tight curly-ques......how frustrating it was when I zipped the wrong side of the ribbon and it lay limp and straight as an arrow over the paper, with no chance of curling ever again! (Later on, with the advent of stick-on bows and tags and wide satin ribbon, a whole new era of wrapping was introduced.)

Mamaw Mary's goal for Christmas day was to make it last as long as possible. She saw no sense in spending all of the preparation time only to have it over with by breakfast. In order to accomplish this, she developed several techniques that turned into traditions that I insisted we utilize when your mom and Aunt Bee were little ...... and I try to make sure that they are followed in your household whenever I can. First of all, your great uncles Bryant and Gene and I had to stay in our rooms on Christmas morning until Granddaddy Schaefer verified that Santa Clause had actually come the night before. Once he signaled that there were gifts left under the tree, we raced down the hall to the living room where we could see our initial bounty. After that, we went through our stockings but had to pause then for breakfast - which you might think to be unfair. Trust me, it was no burden. By this time, the smell of sweet rolls and cinnamon buns warming in the oven, coupled with that of bacon and sausage on the stove, overtook our senses. It was no sacrifice at all.

After breakfast, we reconvened around the tree to open presents and, boys, I must tell you that opening presents on Christmas morning at 3 Lakecrest could only be defined as an experience. Mamaw's most fundamental technique for extending the day centered around the presents. The sheer volume of them stacked half way up the tree, almost swallowing it, and she achieved the effect by making sure that everybody in the family had gifts both to and from everybody else in the family - including the dog and cat. If there were socks to be given, they were dispensed separately. If something had a bottom, its top would appear later. Granddaddy's carton of cigarettes was broken down into individual packs, each wrapped with its own bow and tag. (Thank heaven Mamaw didn't wrap each cigarette or we'd still be there!)

The number of presents was one thing. But the real culprit in making Mamaw's goal a reality was her rule that we open gifts one at a time. It would take us forever and every year, when the last package came out from under the tree, Granddaddy Schaefer would proclaim - "I think we have a record!!!"

What fun it is to remember these things with you.....and I'll be happy to have you blame me on Christmas morning when you are so eager to tear into your presents and be done with it......and your mom makes you sit still and watch and wait ......while all the gifts are opened.....one at a time.

Old Age and Sissies

Dear Boo and Bubble,

I have a birthday coming up and with its approach, the conversation inevitably seems to turn to a discussion about growing old.....well, maybe old-er.....not old quite yet. As I watch the two of you with all of your boundless energy, it underscores the point even more - the day will come when I won't be able to keep up with you. Perhaps time will help sort it all out. As I age, so will you.... and the expectations of my joining in on your running and jumping will give way to the satisfaction that I am in the bleachers spectating while you play your sports of choice; or, maybe that I am in the audience as you perform on stage.

The prospect of getting old, with all of its limitations and challenges, has yet to hit me. Quite honestly, I feel about the same as I did years ago. The fact that your mom is now in her 40's and Aunt Bee isn't far behind stuns me. How could they have aged so much when I haven't changed at all?!?

There are harbingers out there, though, and one of them comes from your great granddaddy Schaefer's thoughts on the matter. He obviously had no use for old age when he wrote the following.

"Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be; The last for which the first was made." - That is pure unadulterated hogwash all dressed up in rhyme and meter. I have been told Robert Browning wrote that ditty when he was close to 50 years old, so he was still eating on the first half of the pie. If he had really been old, the verse probably would have read: "Grow old, oh my, oh me, the worse is yet to be; Just wait and you shall see." If age were an exercise in double entry bookkeeping, you can bet your bottom dollar (if its still under the stack) the entries would be out of balance on the debit side. Grandchildren are powerful credits, but they will not offset arthritic joints, loose fitting dentures, squeaking hearing aids, impatient bladders, moribund memories, brittle toe nails, dripping noses, aching backs, fluttering hearts, quivering muscles and wrinkled skin.

The other night going to bed, I went to the dresser; took off my glasses, took out my hearing aids, removed my bridge work, slipped off my knee brace, took off my orthopedic corset, and the thought struck me that about as much of me would be sleeping on the dresser as in the bed. And what was on the dresser would sleep a lot better than I would because it wouldn't have to get up three or four times during the night to pee.

So far in the double-entry bookkeeping ledger of my life, the credits far outweigh the debits because I have the two of you and I have yet to suffer the litany of frailties that Granddaddy describes. I guess the day will come, but hopefully not with this birthday -- or the next few at least. Until then, I'm just going to keep being amazed at how much older everybody else is getting while I'm not.

Will You Wear The Water?

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Your lineage is riddled with preachers - starting with quadruple-great grandfather Joseph Benson Cottrell and then triple-great Uncle Wade Bryant and then double-great Uncle Bob Poerschke and then great Uncle Bryant.  With the exception of Cottrell, they were all Baptists, that sect of Protestantism which utilizes the immersion in water to symbolically repent of sins (or wash them away) and emerge with a new commitment to God.  I grew up a Baptist and, at the young age of 10, was dipped in the baptistry of First Baptist Church in Greenville by Rev. Dotson M. Nelson in front of a packed sanctuary.  Perhaps I was a little too young then to understand the going down and the coming up….and to be honest with you, I’ve continued to struggle with the ritual’s applicable meaning beyond the imagery.

Well, fortunately…..your generational, ministerial chain remains unbroken and the current iteration is Bob Stillerman, your second cousin once removed.  (Your mom is a true second cousin and everybody goes back to Mattie Bryant Kendrick).  Bob graduated from Wake Forest Seminary and is now the pastor of Sardis Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC.  He’s been sending me his sermons and recently, one caught my intrigue not only because it dispelled some of my skepticism as to the necessity for baptism but also because it delved into baptism’s transformative properties.  I want to share some excerpts with you.

“Wearing the Waters of Baptism”

(Relevant scripture:  Mark 1: 9-11 – “And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.  And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven saying Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”)

…….In today’s passage, Jesus is baptized.  And Jesus wears the waters of his Baptism every day of his ministry!!  It seems Jesus never does get completely dry from that dip in the Jordan River all those years ago.  In his every action, Jesus drips with God’s love and God’s joy and God’s purpose. 

So how and why did this baptism happen?  And what does it mean for us?

Mark’s Gospel tells us that a prophet named John lives in the wilderness.  John senses that God is near, very near.  And John senses that God is about to usher in a new era, a state of being known as the Kingdom of God, the place where Israel lives in right relationship with God and its neighbors.

John invites folks to a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Too often, I think we misinterpret John’s call for repentance, as a warning against personal sin.  We imagine a long, spindly finger coming out of John’s camel-haired-robe and pointing down at us, tell us, “Get right, fly straight.  I can see it, I can see it. Uhm, uh-uh!!  You are rotten, rotten, rotten to the core.  I see it and God sees it, too!!  Repent, repent, repent!!”  And after being thoroughly scolded by John, his followers rush to the waters of the Jordan to wash away all that ick and sin and evil.  Transaction complete.

Well, friends, I will not and I cannot read Mark’s gospel this way.  John, like Isaiah and other prophets before him, is not telling the people that they are fundamentally flawed individuals, that their DHA is corrupt.  John is telling them that they’ve made poor choices.  They’ve turned away from God’s love because they’ve put their trust and their hope, not in God, but in the abilities of earthly institutions: governments, armies and other entities of power and wealth and privilege.

John says, “Come back to God.  Enter these waters, and renew your commitment to YHWH’s ancient covenant.  For in this covenant, there is a God of steadfast love and grace.  Repent!”

Translation:  “Renew your relationship with God.  Live into the people God has created you to be!”

And the call to enter water is a great symbol.  Water is fluid, and without limits.  And it’s messy.  It seeps and drips and spreads.  It’s a lot like God’s love.  It covers everyone.  Water is in stark contrast to the firm order of earthly power.  Enter the messiness of water, and wash off all those restrictions and disclaimers and regulations. 

…….So Jesus travels to see John, and to fulfill God’s calling for him.

But here’s where it gets a little tricky.  Lots of people want to ask, “Well if Jesus was so perfect, why in the world, would he 1) need to be baptized in the first place and 2) allow John, someone with less stature, to do the baptizing?  Shouldn’t it be Jesus that baptizes John?

Jesus’ Baptism, nor anybody’s baptism, yours, mine, or anyone else’s, these baptisms are not about a cleansing of our genetic makeup.  Baptism is a commitment, a statement, about how we’ll live a life that is God-centered.  Not just on the morning of our baptisms, but every morning from this day forward. We surrender a life consumed with self-promotion, for one that is wholly attuned to God’s desires for us.

……So up from those waters Jesus comes, reborn, recommitted into a life that prioritizes God above all else……

…..Jesus is like a big dog you put in the bath tub.  Upon being soaked and removed from the tub, the dog shakes its fur, and beads of water fly everywhere – there’s no escaping it.  You get soaked, too.  And Jesus is just like children who track pool and ocean water into an old beach rental. From the moment of his baptism, the waters of the Jordan are evident, everywhere he goes.

…….Imagine Jesus.  He’s come up from those Jordan waters.  Water beads on his arms and legs and robe.  It’s been two thousand years, but ever so slowly, those water droplets from the Jordan, they begin making their way through time and space, over vast oceans – they ricochet all the way to Charlotte.  When those droplets hit us, what will we do…….?

Will our baptismal waters be transactional?  Once we’ve been immersed, will we simply towel off, pull out our Bounty paper towels, perhaps even some Thompson’s water seal, throw on our raincoats and remove any sign that baptismal waters have soaked us?  Will the silence of our dryness speak?  Will our love for community only extend to the walls of this baptismal and doors of this sanctuary?

Or, will our baptismal waters be transformative?  Will we too, follow Jesus into those Jordan waters?  Will we remove the garments of status and pride?  Will we place our dependence solely on God, and follow in Christ’s path?  Will we emerge from those waters with a new resolve?  Will we, just like a careless child, leave tracks of justice and mercy and reconciliation with every step we take?  Will we wear the waters of our baptism, so that in every corner of the city, our tracks are evident?  Will floors squeak from wet sneakers of love, of hope, and will droplets of care and concern rattle the gutters of forgotten homes?

…… The water, friends, is waiting.  Will you enter it?  And once you have, will you wear it?

Ode to An Older Brother

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Today would have been your great Uncle Bryant's 70th birthday and in just a few short days, he will have been gone for fifteen years. The Bridge Project is riddled with stories of him. In fact, the very foundational post of this blog (see Monday, October 29, 2012 - "Sermon on Beirut and Lebanon) is the only copy of one of his sermons that I have. Because he was such a pivotal person in my life and that of Captain, your mom and Aunt Bee, it is extremely important to me that you know as much about him as I can possibly impart. After wrestling with how best to accomplish my goal, I've decided to just unleash my memories and hope you get caught up in their flow of nostalgia.

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

The trip to Houston, TX, to visit your great, great grandmother Bethany when I was almost three and he was almost five and great granddaddy Schaefer raced our car along the highway against the train engineer on the paralleling tracks in Louisiana....with honks of the horn and toots of the engine answering each other for miles until the tracks and the road crossed....and we had to stop....waving as the train roared passed.

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

How we came back from Texas with his burning question to great granddaddy of the difference between a bull and a steer. How great granddaddy answered that a steer was a bull who had lost his ambition....and I piped in "Yes, Bryant, a steer is a bull who has lost his ammunition."

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

How, when coerced by great Mamaw Mary to let me "play" with him and his friends, they concocted a game of "Cowboys and Indians" whereby I became the cowboy and they tied me up to a tree and left me all the rest of the day while they went off engaged in other pursuits. It all fell apart when Bryant forgot totally about me and, as I was missing at the table for dinner, really got into hot water when Mamaw found me after dark at the tree completely eaten up with mosquito bites.

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

The World Series competition we had where Mamaw and I would pick a team with Granddaddy and Bryant selecting the other. The losers had to take the winners to the S&S cafeteria for dinner. (As a child, we had no concept that Granddaddy was paying for it regardless.) If losing were Bryant's fate, he would traverse the entire S&S food line ending up with only a glass of water on his tray.

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

The day that he gave me a chance (again coerced by Mamaw Mary) to join his baseball team in the field at University Ridge Apartments. He relegated me to the out, out, outfield and told me to stand there, not expecting that I might have any impact on the game at all.......until I miraculously caught a fly ball to win the game!

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

How I rolled with convulsive laughter on the floor in the back of our VW Beetle while Granddaddy taught him how to balance the clutch while shifting gears.......and the car coughed and hiccuped all the way down the parking lot of Stone Manufacturing....bucking like a bronco....and he got so mad at me.

And, conversely....when Granddaddy tried to show me how to hold the clutch at a stop sign on a hill and I rolled all the way down to the bottom before it caught....and Bryant guffawed from the back seat in revenge.

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

How he dedicated himself to football and the conditioning necessary to play the sport. And, how, the summer before his senior year, he took a lifesaving course......and then, we went to Ocean Drive for our annual week-long vacation.....and, because he was trained and physically capable, he swam for almost a hundred yards, dove to the bottom of the ocean and saved a person from drowning, for which he won a Carnegie Medal. (See Friday, December 14, 2012 - "Greater Love Hath No Man.")

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

How he left high school as the all-American boy, captain of the football team, president of the student body, and pride of any parent..... and entered Washington and Lee with the specific desire to become a bio-chemist.......only to emerge in his senior year as a soulful, pipe-smoking Philosophy major with such a profuse beard that, when we all flew to Houston for your great, great grandmother Bethany's funeral, none of us recognized him (except for Mamaw Mary --- a mother always knows her child) and walked right by him at the Atlanta airport.

How this beard created such consternation for Mamaw Mary at the service, one of her closest friends Katherine Nance, felt compelled to create a conciliatory explanation ---- "You know, all of BeBe's favorite men had a beard. Abraham Lincoln had a beard.....even Jesus had a beard!"

How he and I had a conversation on the plane coming back from Houston (I was a freshman at Furman) where he candidly explained to me that he had changed.....and I naively told him that he needed to understand "we had not."

When I think of Bryant, I remember-

How the steady drip, drip, drip of the Viet Nam war wore on him until he felt compelled to resign from the Navy's Officer candidate program and apply for conscientious objector status....for which he was rejected and so, he enlisted in the Navy and requested to be assigned as hospital corpsman (with a life expectancy of fifteen minutes on the battlefield) so that he could serve in a humanitarian capacity. How his first tour was at Camp LeJeune where he was attached to the marines and was taught Viet Namese.....and his second tour, in Jacksonville. How, in anticipation of being sent to Viet Nam for his third tour, he wrote Granddaddy Schaefer and reiterated his opposition to the war and how, if he were ordered to Viet Nam, he would go to jail instead. His conviction on the issue was solid, but he did not believe in fleeing to Canada, as so many people did to avoid sentencing. Miraculously, he was assigned to New Jersey for his third tour. (I believe it was divine intervention - God knows the sincere heart.)

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

How he left the service and went to Duke University to gain his Doctor of Divinity Degree.

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

How Captain's and my wedding was his first as an officiant..... and he had to suffer with my shoulder-shaking giggles through the recitation of my vows. Unbeknown to Bryant, the week before, Captain insisted that we go over what we were going to pledge to each other. Being a lawyer, Captain wasn't going to say anything he didn't mean. As he perused the words, he came to the phrase "I plight thee my troth....," and he asked me what that meant. I had no idea, so we went to the dictionary, where we found the literal translation of "I pledge thee my fidelity." But, there were additional offerings for derivatives of the phrase, such as "trothplight" which means betrothed, but sounds a little like a witch with a wart on the end of her nose. Captain started calling me "his little trothplight" and I began laughing uncontrollably. Poor Bryant, at our ceremony.....when he asked Captain to look at me and repeat..."And, thereto, I plight thee my troth".....I totally spewed my cookies.....Beyond that point, all I could do was nod my head when Bryant tried to administer my vows with some semblance of decorum.

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

How he grew in his ministry and profession and ended up at Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem (now known as Wake Forest) ...... initially as the chaplain to the medical students and ultimately on the academic faculty attached to the Department of Gerontology with an expertise in holistic medicine. At the time of his death, he was administering a grant to study the power of prayer in the healing process.

When I think of Bryant, I remember -

How he salved the wounds of a colleague through intuition and his own special barbecue sauce. (See Thursday, November 6, 2014 - "The Healing Power of Barbecue.")

How he loved music, starting in high school playing the bass in a trio with Paul Surratt and George Wrigley......and continuing until the end in a blue grass band with a group of doctors from Baptist Medical Center.....may the circle be unbroken.

How he enjoyed the annual men's week of trout fishing on the Toe River at the foot of Mt. Mitchell.

How he was intrigued by fishing lures, especially antique ones, and traveled many miles to uncover their secrets and talk to their makers.

And, at last, when I think of Bryant, I remember -

How he found true happiness and meaning to his life when he met and married your Great Aunt Doris. I hope that as you grow older, you will take the time to visit with and get to know her.......for she is the one who can help you understand Great Uncle Bryant at his fullest.

Of Trash and Treasure

Dear Boo and Bubble,

It seems that the political season never actually ends…..it may simmer on the back burner or heat up to a boil, but it’s always on the stove no matter what.  We are getting ready once again to move it to the big eye for the next twelve months which means debates, ads, charges, counter charges and enough bluster to power the likes of Hurricane Katrina.

One of the merry-go-round issues that always surfaces is the budget of the country – how much or little there should be; what amounts should be apportioned to which items; which Paul will pay what Peter; and whose ox will be gored and whose spared.  The arguments reflect various priorities and perspectives.  For the most part, it’s simply East and West and never shall the twain meet.

This is nothing new, for sure.  Where one sees boondoggle, another sees necessity - thus the rise to such phrases as “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”   I ran across an article written by your great granddaddy Schaefer the other day which illustrates my point pretty well.  Thought I’d share it with you because I happen to totally agree with his premise.

Narratives are Rare Jewels of National History

(The Greenville News, Sunday, December 12, 1993)

 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt worked more combinations on the alphabet than the skilled fingers of a busy safecracker doing a job on the First Union National Bank and all of its branches.  Just to launch the idea, there was the SEC, the NRA, the CCC, the WPA, the FTC, the FDA, the FHA, the FDIC, the FSLIC, and many, many more.

All of this was happening when I was in high school in the ‘30’s, and I was satisfied to let the grown folks of my family do the thinking on all matter political.  I was busy trying to figure out how to beat Parker High School in basketball which the Greenville High Red Electrics had never done, and didn’t do during my tenure.

My people were conservative Democrats, which back then was not an oxymoron.  The particular agency that exhausted their inventory of scorn was the Works Progress Administration.  Like the Civilian Conservation Corps, its primary object was to put people to work.

My folks fired their biggest cannon of derision at the program designed to put unemployed writers to work.  One project had these writers to take the field to interview Negroes who lived during slavery.  The project was directed by the Library of Congress, and the writers recorded verbatim what these former slaves had to say – now called The Slave Chronicles.  What was viewed by my family as a folly and a waste of money produced a chest of rare jewels of our national history.  These oral histories are preserved by the Library of Congress, and presumably are available to the public.

Belinda Hurmence has collected 27 of these narratives of former South Carolina slaves and edited a book entitled Before Freedom When I Just Can Remember, published by John F. Blair of Winston Salem, NC.  Her book reproduces these narratives without comment or editing, just as they were recorded by the WPA writers.

Being a lover of Southern history, and of humor (wherever originated), the very first narrative snagged my fancy for humor.  A portion of it now follows.

(Narrative of Violet Guntharpe, age 82, taken by W.W. Dixon in Winnsboro, SC, 1936)

“My mammy stay on with the same marster till I was grown, that is fifteen, and Thad got to looking at me, meek as a sheep and dumb as a calf.  I had to ask that man right out what his intentions was, before I get him to bleat out that he love me.  Him name Thad Guntharpe.”

“I glance at him one day at the pigpen when I was slopping the hogs.  I say, ‘Mr. Guntharpe, you follows me night and morning to this pigpen; do you happen to be in love with one of these pigs?  If so, I’d like to know which one ‘tis.  Then sometime I come down here by myself and tell that pig about your affections.’”

“Thad didn’t say nothing but just grin.  Him took the slop bucket out of my hand and look at it, all round it, put upside down on the ground, and set me down on it.  Then, he fall down there on the grass by me and blubber out and warm my fingers in his hands.”

“I just took pity on him and told him mighty plain that he must up his tongue and ask something, say what he mean, wanting to visit them pigs so often.”

“Us carry on foolishness about the little boar shoat pig and the little sow pig, then I squeal in laughter.  The slop bucket tipple over and I lost my seat.  That ever remain the happiest minute of my 82 years.”

(I, for one, wish we would go to a system whereby I could dictate how my personal tax money is spent.  On the tax forms, just let all of us allocate our contributions to the government in line with our priorities.  It would be an interesting experiment……and, I bet, we would end up with a budget reflective of the will of the people with everything being funded adequately that matters to all of us.  It certainly might get rid of some of the haggling!)

That Was Not You

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Although I couldn't sustain it beyond a year's time, I have great admiration for the teaching profession. Those who make it their career should be praised, thanked, honored and well-paid because they are essential to one of the most fundamental building blocks of our society - education. I don't see how they do it year-in and year-out, but God love them for it.

For me, one of the major frustrations was seldom seeing the fruits of my labor. Teachers rarely know their impact because they often are not privy to the later outcomes in their students' lives. The incubation period for influence, planted in a time of unrivaled hormonal chaos and impishness, can sometimes stretch years before coming to fruition. For the most part, there's no need to wait by the mailbox for a letter of recognition. It won't be coming.

However, there are moments in teaching (even if you can only count them on one hand) when you know without a shadow of a doubt that you have touched a student and helped transform a life. I had one such experience during my year at Eastside.

There was a girl in one of my American history classes that I will describe, for lack of a better term, as a stereotypical "redneck." Her hair was dyed black and somewhat greasy with bangs so long they covered her eyes. She had a haughty countenance with an expression of a constant sneer, her lips raised on one side very much like Elvis Presley used to do. Although her classwork indicated she was plenty intelligent, she went out of her way to project a disinterest in anything I said or did. I would have pegged her a loner, but she had a posse of friends. Whenever I saw them around campus, they were to themselves, always standoffish and suspect of the normal goings on.

One Friday evening, the Pep Club was holding a "sock hop" to raise money for its various projects. As the faculty adviser, I stayed after school to assist in getting the gym decorated and setting up the sound equipment for the music. Once the time came for the dance to start, Frank Sutherland, the assistant principal, and I took up a post at the front entrance of the school to sell admission tickets. The school policy was to hire a police officer to monitor all night functions and he joined us there.

From somewhere in the dark of parking lot, we could hear a commotion and the officer ventured out to see what was going on. All of a sudden, my student came rushing towards us, her posse not far behind, yelling profanities back over her shoulder at the officer. He broke through the group and caught up with her, grabbing her arm just as she made it to the ticket table. She writhed in his grasp and spit in his face.

"I told you, you're not going into the dance," he yelled at her.

"Why not?" she spewed back. "Am I not good enough?"

She continued to struggle and I was amazed at her strength.

"No, you're drunk," he answered.

I came out from behind the table at this point and tried to intervene. "You're going to have to leave, now," I said. "We can't let you in.....you know that."

At which point, she rattled off a litany of terms towards me that would make a hardened sailor blush. The officer held tight as she tried to lurch at me.

"Come on, little lady. You're going with me," he told her as he pulled her away and towards his car. She continued to scream at me and I stood there horrified at what I was seeing.

Her friends interceded at this point and begged the officer to let her go with them, promising that they would leave and get her home safely. He and Mr. Sutherland discussed the matter and decided it was best to let them do so. The officer escorted the group back out into the parking lot and made sure they kept their bargain. I must admit, the entire episode really shook me. I had never experienced such anger and venom in my life.

The following Monday, she did not report to class and I marked her absent. On Tuesday, I happened to see her in the hall and as I passed by, she literally turned to face the wall and slunk along it until I was well gone. When my class started, she waited until the very last second of the bell before slinking into the room and slouching into her seat. She never looked up the entire hour and bolted out the door as soon as the class ended.

This went on for several days. Finally, on Friday, I asked her to stay after class.....that I wanted to talk to her. As the other students filed out, she sat frozen in her desk, head down with her eyes closed. I approached quietly.

"Listen," I started, "I don't know who that was on Friday night, but it surely wasn't you. The person I know is smarter than that, would never disrespect me like that."

She began to look up, but still couldn't make eye contact with me.

I continued. "And, furthermore, I don't want to see you slinking around the hall anymore, or crawling into my classroom. I want you forgive yourself, because I have surely forgiven you."

I had to take her chin and make her look at me.

"More than anything, though, I want you to understand your potential. You are a very bright person. If you apply yourself, you can do anything you set your mind to. Do you hear me?"

She slowly nodded her head. For the first time, I could see the clarity of the blue eyes that had always been hidden beneath the greasy bangs. They were welling with tears.

"Now, get on out of here. I don't want you to be late for your next class."

A year later, no longer on the faculty at Eastside, I decided on a whim to go to a basketball game and see who of my teacher friends might be there. After buying my ticket, I took a seat in the bleachers and scoured the crowd for familiar faces. There was a tap on my shoulder. When I turned in recognition, I couldn't believe my own eyes. It was her face, but the whole appearance had changed. Gone were the bangs and sneer replaced by a softer short haircut and a pleasant smile. More than that, though, there was a definite aura about her that had not been there before.....a confidence that I had never seen.

"Hey, Miss Kendrick, how are you?"

"I'm great. How are you?"

"I am doing just fine. My grades are good," she replied. She paused for a second. "And.....because of you.....I'm thinking about going to college."

Boys, I will never forget the sense of gratification I felt at that moment. It gave me validation as a teacher, even though I was no longer in the classroom. As you grow, you will have teachers to guide you and help unlock the many mysteries uncovered by knowledge. Who knows? Maybe one day you will decide to wear the mantel of teacher yourself. There is one thing for sure......teachers are indispensible....and when you have one that means something special to you.....for heaven's sake.....let them know!

Monkey Business

Dear Boo and Bubble,

After hearing about some sort of clever shenanigans perpetuated by young people in order to waste time, great granddaddy Schaefer would always say “If we could just harness the interest and ingenuity of youth and funnel it properly, we could solve all the problems of the world.”  Or, as early 20^th Century radical and playwright Floyd Dell put it –

“Children are notoriously curious about everything, everything except... the things people want them to know. It then remains for us to refrain from forcing any kind of knowledge upon them, and they will be curious about everything.”

Teachers are uniquely positioned to experience the tenets espoused in both of these propositions and I was no exception in my brief career at Eastside High School.  On a daily basis, I witnessed enough monkey business to make me salivate at the possibilities of what might be achieved if only the energy were re-directed. 

Everyday during the third period, I oversaw a “study hall,” a term which I choose now to italicize and place in quotation marks because the concept was totally bogus.  For one hour I was charged with keeping the lid on twenty-five or so 15, 16 and 17-year-olds and monitor them as they allegedly “studied” their assignments.  As far as I was concerned, the more proper description was “Lack of Study Hall.”

One particular day, I found myself engrossed in a book and wanted to use the time of third period to pull it out and read.  When the bell rang, the students filed into the classroom and took their seats.  I had arranged the desks in a “U” formation which left an open space in the middle giving me space to walk around while I lectured my American History classes.  As they settled in, I proffered them a proposition.

“Okay, kids,” I said.  “I am really into this book and I want to read it during this class.  So here’s the deal.  I’m going to keep my head down and my nose in the book.  You can do anything you want to do as long as you don’t make a sound.  If I hear anything and have to look up, then it’s all over.  You will have to stop whatever you are doing and I will go around the room to see that you are working on your school work.  Is that clear?  Does everybody understand?”

They were non-plused at first and then a murmur of amusement filtered through the room.  With a quiet chorus of “yes ma’ams” and nods of the heads, we had a deal.  I took my chair, opened the book and was quickly absorbed into its pages.

For the next hour, there was not a peep, not even a cough or a squeak of desk movement.  I never heard the first sound and before I knew it, the bell rang signaling the end of the period.  At which point, all hell broke loose as the students grabbed their book bags and furiously scooted from their desks and vanished out into the hall. 

The fracas made my head jerk up quickly……..to find a five-foot tall pyramid of wadded up notebook paper balls standing in the middle of my classroom.  It was a marvel – and even more marvelous was the idea that somehow, without making even a hint of noise, they had miraculously organized and executed it right under my nose. 

I left it there for the remainder of the day for my other students to see.  Of course, my hope was that they would see it as a model of what could be accomplished when concerted effort, coordination and cooperation were applied to a situation.  I rather suspect, however, they saw it for what it was – monkey business.   

Vanish Into the Darkness

Dear Boo and Bubble,

When I became a faculty member at Eastside High School in 1970, I joined many of my former teachers at my alma mater, Wade Hampton.  My principal, John Durr, taught me English.  His assistant principal, Frank Sutherland, had been a math instructor.  Catherine Austell and Betty Beane Workman came over from the English department.  Mrs. Workman oversaw the publication of our yearbook, The Trevilian.  As you can see, there were many teachers with vastly more experience than I had just coming out of college.  That fact, coupled with the requirement of full integration of the faculty under the Supreme Court ruling, made it very difficult for Mr. Durr to consider me at all for a position in the History Department.

The only way he could justify hiring me was to have me accept some additional responsibility over and above my classroom hours.  He suggested that if I became the Pep Club advisor, he would give me the job.  I had served as president of the Pep Club my senior year at Wade Hampton, so this seemed to fit quite well with my skill set.  I agreed to do it.

The charter of the club stated that the group would support the athletic endeavors of the school.  This included the selection of cheerleaders, coordination of a Booster Club and organization of events for students to increase attendance at games of the various sports.  The athletic department had successfully fielded a football team during the summer, once it became known which existing schools would supply the students for the newly-formed Eastside.  When classes started, I had no time to waste setting up elections to decide cheerleaders and the name of our team name (ultimately decided as the Eagles). 

As I’ve explained before, this was the first student body ever assembled for Eastside and reflected a diversity never before seen in the public schools.  It was a blessing in many ways to be in a brand new school with no established traditions.  There were no outsiders.  But the situation did present its own challenges.  Those of us in any leadership capacity need to establish fair ways for any election process to reflect the makeup of the body.  For me, this was particularly true in establishing a cheerleading corps as they would become one of the most visible symbols to the broader community of how things were going at the school. 

The applications came in just as I expected – an equal number of white and black students.  We held open tryouts in front of the entire student body so everyone could display their talents.  On the ballot, however, I divided the candidates by race.  Students were instructed to vote for four of each, regardless of class year.  The top eight vote-getters would be the regular squad.  The next four would vie for two alternate spots in a run-off with no restrictions on voting.  My methodology might not pass muster today, but my underlying goal was to eliminate cliques and encourage the students to get to know one another.  For the time, the process worked fine and Eastside’s first cheerleaders were chosen without any consternation.  The only loose end to tie up was that of the alternates. 

As all of the football games would be that year, the first one was away.  In the tradition of my experience with high school football, I secured a Greyhound bus to take students to the game for a nominal fee.  That’s what we did all the time at Wade Hampton.  The bus filled up quickly, mostly with white students, but there were three black boys who also bought tickets.  In what I thought was a stroke of genius, I decided to use the occasion to let the four girls vying for alternate cheerleader to ride for free and lead cheers on the bus going down to the game.  They would then temporarily join the regular squad at the game and have another chance to audition.

We were all to meet at 5:00 PM in Eastside’s parking lot and head out.  Since school didn’t let out until 3:30, I just decided to stay and grade papers rather than go home and come back. In a show of typical chivalry, Great Granddaddy Schaefer asked if he could ride along.  He was concerned that the bus would return after 11:00 and he didn’t want me driving by myself that late at night.  I was delighted to have his company……and it was quite providential that we would share the experience of that night together.

Among the four girls vying for alternate cheerleader was a Sophomore who had come from Lincoln High School, one of two all-black high schools in the county up until that year.  I don’t remember her name, but I will never forget that about ten miles into the trip, she began shouting cheers traditionally used at Lincoln.  At first, the white students just observed.  By the time the bus arrived, however, the entire load loudly joined in – stomping and clapping to a raucous beat so much that I thought the wheels would rock off the axles.  Granddaddy and I were right in there with them.

The ride home, however, proved to be a little more somber.  The Eagles lost the game quite badly.  No cheering, just quiet murmuring.

When the bus returned to the parking log, students disembarked and headed towards the cars filled with waiting parents.  As they filtered out, the lot emptied and the bus pulled away, Granddaddy and I stood there alone with the cheerleader and the three black boys.

“Miss Kendrick, is the office open?” she asked.  “We need to call our parents.”

I found myself in a very awkward assumptive situation – I assumed because white students took buses to football games all the time, it must be universally true.  Come to find out, this was the first time these kids had ever even heard of such a thing.  I had foregone the conclusion that they would know to tell their parents to come to the parking lot to meet them.

Since this all happened before the cell phone was even a concept, I had to tell her “no.”

Thank heavens, Granddaddy was there. 

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll take you boys home.  Beth, you take her.  Does that work for everybody?”

Realizing that this solution was the only option, they nodded their heads.

Granddaddy and the boys piled into his car - she and I into my little two-door Mustang and off we went.  The night was steamy and before long my windshield began to fog up.  I turned on the defroster and the wipers so I could see where we were going.  It was pitch dark.

“Miss Kendrick,” she said, “I am so sorry.”

“For what?” I asked.  “You didn’t know how this works.  I’m the one who should be saying I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s not that.  It’s about the cheering.  I just couldn’t help myself.  I didn’t mean to just take over. But that’s what we do at Lincoln.”

“Are you kidding me?”  I replied in shock.  “It was wonderful!  You had everybody so fired up by the time we got to the game, it was amazing.”

We rode along is silence for a while, only broken by her directions on where to go.  Finally she told me to stop, that she could get out and walk the rest of the way.  I couldn’t see any distinguishing markers, but I figured she knew her own neighborhood.

As she opened her door to get out, I stopped her and said, “Listen, the greatest thing about Eastside is that it is brand new and you students from Lincoln will bring your best traditions to the mix and all the other students will do so as well.  It’s not my school, their school or yours…..it’s our school.  So don’t you worry.  Be yourself.  You made a real contribution tonight.”

She thanked me, shut the door and vanished into the darkness.  I turned around and started making my way back.  I honestly would have hated to see in daylight where I was. 

As it turned out, she was elected as one of the alternate cheerleaders and I felt a little sense of pride at possibly having helped that to occur.

Trapped

Dear Boo and Bubble,

While on the faculty of Eastside High School, I had one other run-in with someone of Bob Jones University persuasion.  This one was not as surprising and revelatory as the incident with Mr. Knighton’s student teacher.  In fact, it reinforced my own surmises as to the nature of Jones’ influence on his followers.  As it goes, I found myself caught in a very predictable trap and thought I had extricated myself quite cleverly from it.  But, I was wrong.

It was on a Friday as I recall which only becomes significant at the end of this story.  My American History classes had slogged through their textbooks into the turn of the 20^th Century and the time leading up to the Great Depression.  One of the sub-chapters in this section of the book covered a driving business philosophy of the era known as Economic Darwinism.  In a nutshell, governmental regulatory controls over large companies were non-existent which meant they could dominate markets and suppress competition.  It was an attitude that adapted to commerce the basic tenet from Charles Darwin’s scientific Theory of Evolution – survival of the fittest.  If you could survive, you could thrive.  Otherwise, you would be eliminated.

Let me give you a little context.  Since its origin, Darwin’s theory on evolution has been one of the most controversial issues ever debated by man.  Its scientific premise that all creation has evolved over billions of years in a natural order of survival comes in direct conflict with the fundamental religious interpretation of divine creation accomplished with the wave of God’s hand only beginning some 6,000 years ago.  The argument over it reflects the often unbridgeable deep divide that some people have between religion and science.

As an American History teacher, I knew that the domain of Darwin belonged in the science classroom.  All of my education classes at Furman underscored that questions about the man and his theories needed to be deferred to those equipped to answer them.  I had been forewarned.  Yet, here in my classroom, guiding my students through the approved text provided me by the authorities, I felt I might be drawn into the dreaded rabbit hole with the discussion of Economic Darwinism.

Sure enough, as I explained survival of the fittest and how it applied to business, one of my students raised her hand with a question.

“Miss Kendrick,” she said, “Do you believe in evolution?”

I knew I wasn’t supposed to answer, but how do you not?  She was my student, an innocent, inquiring 11^th grader - not some subversive, devious intruder planted in my classroom to get me in trouble.  I reflected for a moment on what to say in response and thought I came up with something so profoundly unarguable that it didn’t matter her motivation, she would agree.

“It makes no difference to me,” I said, “whether we evolved like Darwin says or whether we were put here in an instant.  The important thing to me is that in the beginning there was God and our creation is miraculous.  And equally important is that we know who we are now and what needs to be done in the world….so, we need to be about solving problems and doing God’s work.”

She seemed satisfied, or so I thought, since nothing else was said.  I returned to my lecture feeling quite content with myself.

School dismissed for the weekend and, other than feeling I did a masterful job with the situation, I didn’t think about it.  Come Monday morning, Mr. Durr, the principal of Eastside, intercepted me on my way to my classroom and asked me to come to his office.

“WHAT IN THE WORLD DID YOU SAY IN YOUR CLASS ON FRIDAY?” he yelled in as controlled a fashion as he could muster.

“What are you talking about?” I answered, quite shocked because he was normally very calm and affable.

“Did you tell your students that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was the only way we could have been created and that the story in Genesis is hogwash?”

“No, sir, I absolutely did not!”  And I proceeded to explain to him what had happened, how it had all started with the explanation of a term in the textbook and how I had handled it. 

He relaxed then. 

“I didn’t think that you could possibly have done so, but I’ve been getting calls all weekend from several Bob Jones families and they want your head.”

I was mortified, not so much as to what might happen to me, but for the unnecessary barrage he had endured for two days. 

“I am so sorry,” I said.

“Don’t worry about,” he chuckled slightly.  “I can take care of this.”

As I walked down the hall towards my classroom, he shouted out, “By the way, I like your answer.  And, I think I’ll suggest that, from now on, we skip over that part of history!”

The Nature of Prejudice

Dear Boo and Bubble,

So many times I think I just might have run out of stories to tell you, and then something crops up to trigger another memory – like this quote a friend shared with me the other day.

“You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man with logic.”    Robert A. Heinlein

When I first read it, my inclination was to say “amen” and project its meaning onto others and the current situations they create.  But, my own conscience nagged me ….quite persistently nagged me……to the point of needing to confess to you that I, too, have fallen victim from my own prejudice and had a rather rude awakening when confronted with the facts.

The year was 1970, my first year out of college and teaching 11^th grade American History at Eastside High School in Greenville County.  I explained to you in my post of March 9, 2015, entitled “Separate, But Not Equal,” it had been a tumultuous time for the educational system.  The January court-ordered integration of the schools in the district had uprooted faculty and students, creating uncertainty and confusion all over the county as they reconvened for the new academic year beginning in the fall.  As I wrote in that post:

“It would be the first full year of integration and Eastside became sort of an oasis in the chaos swirling around the entire school district. Because it was new, every student there had been uprooted. There were no school colors or mascots already established. The yearbook had no name. All of the athletic teams started from scratch. In other words, it was a clean slate on which the black and white students could write their joint destiny.”

Likewise, the faculty gelled into a cohesive unit.  Young, old, black white – all sought to establish a strong foundation on which Eastside could build. This isn’t to say that there were never any lively discussions in the teachers’ lounge about the circumstances that affected us.  To the contrary, many a day found us expounding on our own personal perspectives, bearing our feelings quite openly.  But, let me get back to my story, although this fact plays a part in it.

My classroom was in the middle of a three-class grouping.  It had portable walls on either side, provided for the purpose of occasional team teaching.  Ben Knighton, the head of the History Department, held his class next to mine.  This was most unfortunate for him because on Monday’s, my running assignment allowed students to bring their records which we would play - provided the lyrics had some social relevance to current events. Much of the music reflected the times – the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the assassinations of American leaders. After listening to a song, we discussed the meaning of the words.  A great teaching tool for me, but quite an annoyance for Mr. Knighton because the portable walls provided no insulation from the sound. (They were flimsy and ill- constructed and by the end of the year had come unhinged.  Perhaps a great concept gone awry!)

I will never forget that Monday morning when, right in the middle of a bellicose chorus of “WAR!” by Edwin Starr, someone knocked on my door.  Leaving the record playing, I went to open it and there stood a very pleasant, yet plain looking young lady who introduced herself as Mr. Knighton’s student teacher……..from Bob Jones University!

Boys, you would have no reason to know this, but in the genealogical tree of right-wing fundamentalism, Bob Jones, Senior, is the tap root.  Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson pale in comparison in their impact on ultra-conservative influences today.  Had the original Jones had access to 24-hour cable, FaceBook, Twitter and other social media available today, I’d hate to think how far-reaching his shadow might be over our cultural landscape.

As a moderately liberal citizen of Greenville who loathed the unsolicited, bold approaches of Jonesers on Main Street asking me if “I’d been saved,” my perspective of anyone associated with the institution of Bob Jones University was that of narrow-mindedness and bigotry.  This was true particularly at this time with the upheaval of forced integration.  Daily diatribes emanated from behind the rifle-guarded gates of the university’s campus on Wade Hampton Boulevard, quoting verse after verse from the Bible as to how God intended us to be separate and that blacks were inferior and the whole Civil Rights Movement was a communist inspired plot spawn straight from Satan himself……not to mention the moral decay of our society as indicated by the lyrics of modern day music.

The meek, unthreatening presence of this young lady at my classroom door immediately sent shudders down my spine and raised the hackles on the back of my neck.  Within a nano-second, I had her sized up, catalogued and categorized - not to mention that I nearly broke my neck getting back to the record player to screech Edwin Watts to a halt.  Actually, she wasn’t there to convert me, or to complain about the music.  Mr. Knighton had sent her over to get me to sign a form notifying me of a History Department meeting later in the week.

I didn’t have much occasion to be around her.  Part of that was my instinctive avoidance of anything Bob Jones.  Every now and then, she would show up in the faculty lounge while I was there.  She never said anything, perhaps out of respect for her place as a student teacher, but she listened intently as regular faculty discussed and debated the issues of the day. 

On one occasion, after some comment I had made (which totally escapes me now), she spoke up.   “Have you ever read the book The Nature of Prejudice by Gordon Allport?”

“No, I haven’t,” I replied, a shroud of suspicion overtaking me.

“Well, I have it and will bring it to you tomorrow.  I think you’ll find it very interesting.”

“I bet I will,” I thought to myself, assuming that it must be some ideological dogma promoted by Bob Jones.  “Sure, that would be fine.  I’ll look forward to reading it,” I lied.

She brought the book to me the next day and I began reading it during my study hall.  In preparation of our discussion, I even prepped a pen and paper to make notes on the points with which I disagreed.  Allport began with the premise that prejudice is a natural by-product of life and used fried chicken as an example – one would naturally be prejudiced towards a mother’s fried chicken rather than someone else’s because that is what he knows.  As humans, we favor those things that we know.  It would be unnatural otherwise.  The more I read, the more I agreed with what he said.  But, how could that be?  How could I possibly be in agreement when this book…….this epistle of evil….came to me by way of a student at Bob Jones University?

Over the duration of her tenure, we engaged in very deep discussions and I came to know her for who she was, not my pre-conceived notion.  She was an extremely bright woman whose father was on the faculty of Bob Jones University, thus she could attend there for free.  As she explained to me, this was the only way she could afford to go to college.  She further told me that she could hardly wait to graduate and leave.  Acknowledging that she could never intellectually accept the official doctrines of her father and the Bob Jones community, she confessed her intention to get as far away as possible from the oppression under which she lived.  Until then, though, she must lay low and walk the prescribed path to her degree. 

I asked her if her father knew she had Allport’s book.  He did not.

The last time I saw her was late in the spring of that year.  Mr. Knighton called a planning meeting of the History Department faculty to determine the future curriculum.  He graciously invited us to his home for a more social affair, rather than have the meeting at school.  As a student teacher, she was included and I suggested that she could ride with me since I lived close to the campus of Bob Jones.  She agreed and gave me instructions to come to the main gate where she would meet me….that it would be impossible for me to actually come on campus to her home.

When I pulled up, she raced to the car and opened the passenger door quickly.  Unfettered tears rolled down her face and she buried her head in her hands.  I reached over to console her.

“Go!  Please just go!” she urged; and I wheeled the car around and drove onto Wade Hampton Blvd.

“What in the world is wrong?” I asked.

“I can’t wait to get out of there,” she sobbed. 

“What happened?”

“My father accused me of going to a Communist meeting to set up a program of Satanic studies that will ruin the minds of our children.”

There was nothing I could say in response to that.  We drove along in silence. 

In recollecting all of this, I am reminded that we were only a year apart in age…..she, being a Senior and I in my first year out of college.  With the truth of her being, she personally pierced through my shield of stereotypical prejudice and taught me a very valuable lesson.  I would give anything to remember her name and find out where she is today.  I sincerely hope she realized every ounce of her dreams for freedom of expression and thought.

(Originally written in 1954, The Nature of Prejudice has had several editions since then.  If I remember correctly, Allport purports that prejudices occur from familiarity, but can become a negative force when logic is denied.  I think I need to read it again…..just for old times sake.)