There are things that we detest as adults because of childhood
experiences, even though others love that very thing. I know. Believe me.
For example, I know someone from a wealthy family in a small
town whose father made his children work a garden each year so folks could see
that even kids born to comfort knew how to work. As adult, this individual
wouldn’t have lifted a spade or planted a seed for anything in the world.
With me, it is wood. I mentioned before that my father sold fire-wood in addition to operating, along with my sainted mother, a small country
grocery store. I may have made it sound like I enjoyed the loading of wood, along
with driving around delivering and unloading it. It wasn’t too bad. I had much
rather have been enjoying a game of “work-up” with my pals, but, since I had no
choice in the matter, I made the best of it.
It wasn’t the hauling of firewood to poor folks that turned
me away from the experience. It was just the opposite.
Once a year, you see, at Christmas time, my father would
purchase loads of what we called “fireplace wood,” i.e. split logs suitable for
use in rich folks’ fireplaces. All that had to be done was to load it, deliver
it, unload it and stack it in a picturesque fashion for retrieval by some
doctor, lawyer, banker, or, in one instance, the Chief Justice of the Arkansas
Supreme Court whose daughter was among the most beautiful and adored girls of
her class. Believe me. I know.
I would be during Christmas break as a pre-teen that my life would change. As I say, the wood was already split and cut to size. Daddy
had a group of men, among them Amos Fletcher, Roedock Tiggins, and John
Nathaniel who worked on occasion for him. John was slightly disabled as the result
of an untimely glance at a young girl walking down Highway 15 while he was operating
a saw, but they were all good men who tolerated me when in their presence
while, I’m sure, bemoaning, in private, the fact that we occupied the planet simultaneously.
Anyway. The wood is loaded. The truck is ready. The hired-hands
are in place. Things are in place for delivery of the wood to the wealthiest
families in Pine Bluff. Where, you might ask, did I fit in? There were strong,
grown men ready, willing, and able to do the job. I’m sure they would have
found my help more of a nuisance than a benefit. My father trusted them implicitly.
It was simple, you see. None of them could read. Further, strange “colored” men talking to white people whom they didn’t know in those days
was fraught with potential dangers. That’s where I came in.
It was my job to act as a 1950s version of a GPS system, and
minor jefe. I was to find the
addresses of our rich patrons, arrange the unloading, help with the unloading, and
arrange an inspection when the work was all done. This I did while hoping to whatever
gods might be that the patrons’ daughters, who were my classmates in another life,
didn’t come out to take the air and ask me how I was enjoying the Christmas
break.
Often, they did.
I think back about it and realize that I learned a lesson
from all this. That lesson was that one should never be ashamed to be found in
the presence or company of honest men who work for a living against greater
odds than I could ever imagine. It is a lesson that I hope has molded my life
for the better. It certainly is a lesson that taught me the benefits of my
race, sex, upbringing, and social status, none of which I did a thing to deserve but
which gave me a huge step up in life. I can only hope that somehow it helped me
to understand that folks are “… not to be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.”
Yes, it was a lesson well worth the learning.
I still don’t care to own a fireplace, though.
 |
| All things considered, I would have rather been practicing climbing, or torturing farm animals with pals Boogie Shannon and Jim Fletcher, son of Amos. |
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