Humble Beginnings

COLE LINE

Cole Line, USA. West Shawmut, Alabama. 1954. An assembly line, cookie-cutter sheet of three-room shotgun shack, sardine can, see straight through shanties, packed matchbox houses. A tin top, wooden frame, tenement community of twenty or more row houses strung together in da hood of West Shawmut, Alabama, deep south Lower Alabama below the Mason Dixon line right across the Chattahoochee River, not even a small dot on the "Sweet Home Alabama" map.

West Shawmut, the loving, nurturing, and caring community village in which I was raised, thrived and mentored to believe and achieve. This is one black community's memoir of struggle, hope, love, decline, restoration, triumph, victory, and generational reconstruction restoration.

One of my fondest and earliest life memories was that of me at around three years old sitting up under a gigantic oak tree in our front yard on Cole Line "playing teacher" with my Big sister Betty.

Of course, Betty was the almighty, authoritative, all-knowing, stern teacher with her ruler-rod in hand looking mean and tough. I, as Betty's willing student, sat attentively focused, concentrating upon her every instruction or correction.

All Betty lacked was some eyeglasses and an old-fashioned bun hairstyle to complete her schoolmarm character look. She already looked and acted the part of a strict schoolteacher in every sense of the concept.

This was the very beginning of my growing, thirsty, hunger love for knowledge.

"Kerry, you're going to learn how to read or I'm going to spank those legs." Betty meant business. I sat erect.

"Yes, mam," I answered obediently in my best schoolboy voice.

I was wearing shorts and definitely didn't want to feel the scorpion sting of Betty's ruler. Betty was a stern taskmaster who expected excellence returned from every school lesson she taught.

First Teacher's Lessons

IN SPITE OF

Of course, there are those who would vehemently argue that your mother is always your first teacher, but I had to somewhat swerve from that course. Mama was usually overwhelmed with maternal responsibilities of taking care of my elder brother Roger who had been born with the birth defect of cerebral palsy, the year before in 1953. Being naturally bright and discovery minded, I was often left to fend for myself early in life.

When I was three years old, my Big sister had the bold, bright idea to play school teacher with me. She was thirteen years old and a tough teacher and taskmaster who enjoyed spanking me on my legs and hand when I didn't get something right or do it just the correct way she wanted me to.

Very early, Betty taught me the lesson of doing a thing over and over until you got it right. Mama would often tell me, "Son, if you have time to do it wrong, you have time to do it over." This went from making the bed to sweeping the floor. Between Betty and Mama, I quickly learned and applied valuable early age lessons of diligence, industry, perseverance, and achievement.

Betty was a brilliant student herself, only receiving all A's in every subject area. Learning came very easy for her. She was naturally gifted. My brilliant Big sister recognized early that I too was an eager beaver and sponge learner. I soaked up knowledge and mastered academic concepts with ease.

Super thanks to Big Sister Betty's strict nurturing; I learned to read fluently at the ripe, tender age of three. Swiftly, I became engaged in comic books that fueled my fertile imagination. My favorite comic book characters were the Flash, Hawkman, the Martian Manhunter, Dr. Fate, and Dr. Strange. Of course, the Justice League of America (JLA) and Marvel's entire super "kreeative" universe. The High Evolutionary, the Watcher, and Galactus were just a few of my uncanny interests.

Of course, I liked the common ordinary stuff like Batman and Superman; but the extraterrestrial, bizarre, odd, quirky characters and story lines perked my mental interest and got my "kreeative" juices flowing.

My mother recognized my love for reading at an early age and began to introduce me to classic novels. I don't really know where she got them from, but every time she went uptown to West Point, Georgia, she would bring back a four or five-hundred-page novel. Mama started me out on some good stuff like Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Anna Sewell's Black Beauty was perhaps my favorite novel of all time, and I enjoyed Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Of course, I immersed myself in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Before the days of instant video, movie, book adaptations, I imagined myself sailing down the great Mississippi with Huck, Tom, and Jim or soaring across the universe on the planet Thanagar with the Hawkman or even surfing the cosmos with the Silver Surfer.

Of course, in my young developing adolescence, I loved Wonder Woman for her amazon curves and curvaceous physique. Linda Carter only catapulted my imagination to new heights.

Mama would allow me to immerse myself in enjoyable classic literature for hours of undisturbed mentally stimulating pleasure. If any of my numerous neighborhood playmates came calling to engage me in play, she would quickly meet them at the door and say, "Wayne is reading right now. As soon as he finishes, he'll be out to play."

Perhaps dependent upon what mood I was in, I would emerge a few hours later to go outside to join in a rousing neighborhood game of softball in Ms. Mattie Walker's huge yard. Every neighborhood kid far and near would be gathered in Ms. Mattie's yard to yell, scream, and whoop up a stone good time for hours on end. Even a book nerd like me enjoyed the camaraderie of a whole line of playmates.

Ms. Mattie Walker and her daughter, Ms. Odessa, might even, from time to time, make a big silver bucket of red Kool-Aid and baloney sandwiches to pass out if it was real scorching hot.

The softball games were noisy neighborhood affairs from beginning to end, with lots of rooting, cheering, OOOOhhhs, and Aahhhhhhs! As neighborhood heroes, like Eugene Walker, we smacked the cover off a softball, sending it soaring and whoever was in the outfield running. There were several guys in the hood who could knock — slamming, hammering homeruns, and crushing them murderously across the main road clear across the railroad tracks.

Young children such as my little sister Nat-Nat who loved to hunt doodle bugs under our house and most pre- teens weren't allowed to play in neighborhood softball games unless they had exceptional skills. If you were eleven or twelve with super skills, or an emerging teen, you might be allowed to play. Every so often an older twenty something year old might n steal his or her way into a rousing mixed gender rivalry. Teams were chosen on ability, skill, and personality. Substitutions were made often if you happened to show up late or happened to own your own glove as I did.

Big hulking guys like Tommy Lewis Barrow, Willie Barker, and Eugene Walker were community favorites who could knock the leather off a softball. Of course, girls could play if they had skills and weren't too cute and girly-girly.

Neighborhood softball games were played almost daily in the heat of the day around three o'clock until sundown on sunny, hot, summer days. Almost no one stayed inside, even the old folks who came out of their bat caves to watch, spectate, talk about the bad ways of the young folks, and catch up on community gossip which was always juicy and spicy.

"Girl, you know I saw Jimmy Lee Hopkins coming out of Ms. Emma's backdoor last night round midnight."

"Was she at home?"

"'Course, she was at home. She let him in. They been doing that thang a long time."

"Doing what?"

"Is you slow, retarded, or both?"

Ms. Mattie Walker's family owned the only TV on Cole Line at that time. We lined up after school over to her house to watch The Rifleman starring Chuck Connors, Lawman, The Andy Griffith Show, and Shotgun Slave which was one of my favorite TV shows. We could only stay over to her house until eight o'clock on schoolnights and maybe ten o'clock on the weekends. Watching The Untouchables and Elliott Ness was one of my favorite pastimes during this seemingly glorious season of life.

Daddy would often say: "You know son, the cycles of time will often play tricks on your mind." I surely didn't know what he meant by that saying at the time but I knew Daddy had a reason for saying it.

These were genuine simple times of real fun, inexpensive pleasures, and wholesome happiness. After playing a rousing, heated, closely won or lost game of softball, we would flock to Mr. Howard's general store that was located at the front of the neighborhood.

You could get a cold Coca-Cola for a quarter, potato chips for fifteen cents, a slice of baloney for a nickel, some Big cookies and still have enough left out of fifty cents to buy candy. Howard's store still had penny candy. Of course, old man Howard who happened to be white and his no-good sons, Bobby and Ferrell, watched you like a hawk whenever you entered their store if you were black.

Now they knew me as my Daddy William's son. Daddy still sharecropped a Big garden for them next to the store right outside of our middle room window. Daddy had a magic green thumb as they say. Everything he planted was good, productive, fruitful, and sweetly ripe.

Every workday evening and even some weekends, Daddy came home from work to work again in the gardens until sundown or dark. Daddy was a hardworking man who abundantly supplied for his family. We never went hungry or lacking for food a day that I can remember.

Mr. Howard had sharecropped Daddy a small, little parcel of land to work and tend of his own. Of course, Daddy took that mini piece of land and made it multiply to be abundantly fruitful.

The good book says that if you're faithful over a few things, GOD will make you ruler over many.

Daddy not only produced an abundant harvest out of Mr. Howard's garden with the surplus going to his family. Being richly blessed above and beyond with godly favor, Daddy also took his green thumb and planted, tended, and magically twiddled butterbeans, okra, tomatoes, collard greens, butterbeans, corn, watermelons, peanuts, sweet potatoes — you name it, we had it in our garden.

I remember Daddy mentioning that he was missing several roasting ears of corn. Daddy wasn't too much of a talker, unless it was me and him sitting on the front porch talking about shonuff stuff back in the good old days when meat was thirty or thirty five cents a pound. Gas was twenty cents a gallon.

On this particular day, Daddy casually mentioned to me that he was beginning to miss several ears of corn from the Big garden. Later that night, I saw him oiling up "Old Betsy", his twenty-gauge bolt-action shotgun. I wondered, was he going hunting or something or another? Daddy rarely hunted because so many community hunters, trappers, and woodsmen brought us fresh animal game from the woods in exchange for a glass or two of homebrew or a mason jar of white lightning or moonshine.

In fact, the very time I tasted turtle was when Mr. Nine Hicks, a Big hulking rugged trapper, brought Daddy a twenty-pound rusty shell turtle in exchange for some white lightning.

Daddy took that live turtle out to his wood-chopping block and busted him up by cutting his neck off and then busting the shell with the blunt part of his sharp ax.

As I watched in awe, Daddy then commenced to chopping that bad boy into pieces like a mad serial killer. Next, he put the pieces of meat into a scalding pot of hot water in our old Big black four-footed cast iron pot to clean all the blood away.

Finally, Daddy sprinkled and seasoned that turtle with his special blend of herbs and spices like Colonel Sanders of KFC fame. I asked Daddy, "What kinda seasoning you using, Daddy?"

Daddy looked at me and smiled. It was good to see him smile because most of the time, he was all-serious-looking and serious-minded. Guess that's where I got my serious nature from. "If I tell you that, son, I'll have to put you in this pressure cooker with the turtle meat."

That old turtle was inside Granny's pressure cooker, and I didn't want to join him. Daddy was a master chef in the kitchen. He rarely shared his secrets. He told me he had been a special cook for generals and high-ranking officers in World War II. I know one thing he knew his way around the kitchen just a little bit better than Mama.

When Daddy put on his chef's hat and apron, we knew he was ready to throw down. As children, we actually preferred Daddy to cook. This made Mama just a little bit jealous. Mama could shonuff hold her own in the kitchen department, but Daddy was just a tab bit better. They were both great cooks.

The pressure cooker on the old wooden stove commenced to jumping like it was gon' run off the stove through the kitchen.

"Daddy, why the pressure cooker jumping?" I inquisitively asked.

"Well, son, that's the turtle reflexes. I got to cook them reflexes out of him."

Daddy's explanation was good enough for me at that time. After cooking that jumping pressure cooker turtle overnight, Daddy asked me and Lorraine, my baby sister, if we wanted to taste that turtle meat. Out of pure curiosity, I bit into a piece.

That piece of turtle was delicious! Some parts of it tasted like chicken; another piece tasted like beef or fish. I know one thing: It was some of the best meat I had ever tasted.

Daddy made some of his famous light-as-a-feather biscuits with thickening gravy and rice. We feasted for days on that turtle. Many thanks to Mr. Nine Hicks who later died in a tragic train accident. But that's another story for another chapter.

Struggling

In Spite Of! ... But Because Of!

Struggle= to make strenuous or violent efforts in the face of difficulties or opposition-to proceed with difficulty or with great effort

Fredrick Douglass, the brilliant orator, writer, and abolitionist once wrote or said: "Without struggle there is no progress." Well, as a family we sure as helicopter had our share of struggle. I'm not really sure about the progress part.

When I remember myself I remember that Daddy worked as a pulpwooder cutting and hauling trees from in the woods. Whenever it rained or snowed Daddy couldn't work. I saw the frustration written all over his face when he couldn't go to work. Daddy was a provider and a doggone good one at that.

Daddy had once told me: "Son, I became a man at twelve years old the day my own daddy died. I had to help your granny out with my three younger brothers. Learned how to plow a mule. Hitched myself up to the plow when we didn't have a mule. Taught myself how to hoe a row, slaughter and skin wildlife, do all kind of stuff. Son, if you ain't never plowed a old stubborn mule or picked a bale of cotton you ain't never worked a day in your life" I noticed there was a gleam of inner pride in daddy's eyes when he spoke on these things.

Daddy got up to go to work day in day out six days a week with rest only on the Sabbath day Sunday. Daddy NEVER complained about being tired. Looking back I know his life load was heavy and his cross heavy to bear. Seemingly those were dark and dismal days.

On days daddy was off from work I can see him getting out in the cold and rain managing to get down to granny's house. Daddy ALWAYS came back with a live chicken from Granny's chicken pen.

Momma and Daddy performed Jesus turning water to wine miracles with those granny provided chickens. Both Mama and Daddy could work wonder of wonders with some chicken. We had chicken seven days a week seventy different ways with seven hundred self-made Mama-Daddy recipes.

Fried Chicken! Mama could cook good tasting fried chicken but nobody cooked fried chicken like Daddy. He had a fried chicken recipe that would have put Colonel Sander's KFC to shame. Sad to say Daddy took that special seasoning fried chicken batter recipe to his grave with him.

Mama would do up-stew up-serve up a pot of chicken and dumplings, chicken thighs and rice, chicken necks and rice, chicken feet and jars of preserved tomatoes during shonuff lean times, chicken noodle soup, chicken salad, fried chicken legs, chicken gizzards, chicken livers, chicken slivers, chicken backs, chicken booty, chicken tongues, chicken hips, chicken lips, chicken noses, chicken eyes, chicken thighs, chicken ears, chicken fingers, chicken slenders, chicken breast, chicken beaks, chicken squeaks, chicken toe nails, chicken fat, chicken skin, chicken butt, chicken guts, chicken chittlings, chicken toes, chicken nose anyway a chicken goes and grows I've had it. It's a flying wonder that I eat the barnyard pimp-yardbird at all nowadays.