There are stories in the Arkansas Delta that would make a
person cry to think about. Here is one. My late father-in-law related it to me,
as he did so many others.
It concerns what is known as a “shotgun shack.” Most folks
agree they called them that because they consisted of three rooms, one leading to
the next, with no hallways. A shot fired through the front door would go straight through and out the back door. Some scholars assign the source of the name to an African word. That seem a bit of a stretch to me.
It really doesn’t matter. The truth is that they housed the
poorest segments of the rural South, sharecroppers and others who couldn’t
afford better. They dotted the cotton fields when I was a young boy. With no
shade about them and with uninsulated tine roofs, one can only imagine their
discomfort. Only a few remain today.
A solitary man occupied the one in question. My
father-in-law, Julius Cole never furnished much information about him. He was,
as so many occupants of this type housing were, an African-American who worked
picking and chopping cotton in season, and doing odd jobs at other times. Seems
to have minded his own business and interacted with others as little as
possible.
He died, and the shotgun shack that had been his home, sat
unoccupied. Eventually, so it seems, some folks entered it and were amazed at
what they saw, utterly amazed and astounded. Word spread, and soon everyone in
the neighborhood had come to see.
Drawing covered the walls, elaborate and detailed drawings
of churches and other buildings. A veteran of the 79th Infantry
Division in the European Theater in World War Two, Julius always described the drawings
as “like the building we saw in France and Italy.” The man in question had
obviously produced them.
What an amazing story. There is a concept in economics
called “location quotient” that postulates a given geographic area will account
for a quotient of goods produced. Some social scholars have expanded that to
include individuals of specific talent or genius.
It doesn’t account for those whose talent and genius were
lost to poverty, prejudice, or deprivation of opportunity.
Who can imagine what must have passed through the mind of
this remarkable man on lonely nights filled with the sounds of Delta insects
just beyond the thin walls of his home? What motivates a man to produce beauty
he thinks will never be seen, by the light of a kerosene lamp in the middle of
nowhere? Did he ever wonder what might have been, or curse his fate for denying
what should have been?
We read about people born to wealth and who build upon that
wealth and, somehow, we assign them great talents and abilities. What name
could we assign to smothered talent and deprived ability? All we can do is
wonder what about the insensitivity of fate. Oh, and in weaker moments we might
find ourselves abhorring the smirking faces of those born into unlimited
opportunity, who blame the poor for their failures.
A made up a short story once using this legend as a source
of inspiration. I called it, The Last
Cotton Boll and one may click here to open a copy of it. I dedicate it to
all those whose talents lie buried with them in their graves.
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| High living, Arkansas syle. One of the few remaining to remind. |
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