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!)