Every once in a while I share a story from my youth. I know... This is a real estate site- not a personal journal. I do this though to get a story out of my system. Why this is, I don't really know. Maybe it's to document the past. Though my childhood was a very happy one, there are a few experiences that are unshakable. This is one of those experiences.
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"Don't be scared- the storm's at least three miles away."
That's what my sister told me as a reassurance. She was the oldest and her word was to be trusted as fact.
If you haven't heard of the thunderstorm tracking system it works as variation of this: As soon as you see the lightning you begin to count, "one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi" and then when the thunder claps you've managed to calibrate the distance. Each Mississippi equals one mile. Naturally, you want greater distance between the lightning and the thunder. Bonus: If you're especially frightened you can cheat the system by counting faster, thus making the storm feel less dangerous.
I had supposed the counting method seemed even more authentic because we actually lived in Mississippi- having just moved there from California. Our father had been transferred to the Air National Guard Base in Memphis and the closest housing we could find was twenty minutes down the road, in Hernando.
It’s hard to make a place your home when you know it’s just going to be a stopover. We couldn't have felt more alien. Our accents were too California for the Deep South. To some we were a curiosity. To others we were Yankees. Though the Civil War had ended a century earlier Jim Crow laws had only recently been struck down- and the National Guard was on constant alert to quell any problems that could arise as people found it difficult to let change happen. When tensions reached a certain temperature the Guard would be called in to attempt to lower tensions.
I was too young to know yet the full extent of the politics. I was just a second grader heading off to a new school- which presented its own drama. And I'm not too proud to admit it. I did not like thunder storms and the thought of a new school and the knowledge that my dad would soon be shipped off to Vietnam.
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The lightning flashed again.
One Mississippi, Two Miss... boom.
The storm was a mile-and-a-half away.
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We lived in a trailer park. I suppose this is nothing to brag about but all the neighbors lived similarly so there was no need to count our current station as anything different than the rest. Our neighbors did tell us though that to go to school we'd want to go out to the main road, take a left and then another left and that's where the school was.
This seemed to be an inconvenience. Looking across the railroad tracks we could see that the school was an easy walk. Of course we'd have to cross the tracks, jump across some rocks in the stream, scamper up the dirt road and we'd be at school twice as fast. Now that was an adventure worth having.
But doing so meant we'd have to go through "the colored section". And this was not to be done. Unconvinced, my older brother and sisters and I opted for the action route. It was an obvious choice.
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Since my last name starts with "W" I sat in the last row between Charles White and Lizzy Young. I felt a kinship with Charles since he was the first person my age with the same name. His father was the janitor as well as the cafeteria monitor. When he wasn't mopping or doing some hall monitoring he could be found standing by the trash can in the lunch room. He wouldn't allow anyone to throw out food. If you didn't finish your vegetables he'd tell you to go back and see if you couldn't clean your plate. Facing this obstacle you either ate your vegetables or stuffed them in the milk carton while he wasn't watching.
Charles was the most meticulous dresser I had ever met. His shirts never had a wrinkle and his pants had creases. He was quiet, as was I. However, when you put two quiet people together the two can have a tendency to bring each other out of their shells. This turned out to be somewhat true in our experience.
Lizzy sat in a wheel chair. She didn't always have to use it. She also had some hand/wrist crutches but, if the distance to travel was too far she'd opt for the chair and take a spin. Although she was proficient, she didn't mind if I pushed her to lunch. Her wheels glided on the polished tile in a smooth rumbe that I enjoyed.
I must admit; I was pretty happy with our back row arrangement and thought nothing odd of it until one kid told me I shouldn't hang around Charles. Another agreed. A third person offered a compromise position saying, "leave the yank alone- he's best off keeping the colored boy and cripple entertained and away from us."
There's a paralyzing feeling that one has when one realizes that the world around you does not match the one that has been in your head.
I didn't realize that I was less than. And I hadn’t thought that my friends were a subject of scorn. This was too much to take in all at once. True, Lizzy was disabled but she was easily the best artist in the class. As others were sketching stick figures she could draw horses. And Charles? He was dignified. He never had a bad thing to say about anybody. He never mentioned that my clothes could use some ironing. If anything, I was lucky to be treated so well by both of them. I was the new kid and they were my personal welcome wagon.
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On the way home from school I walked too slowly to keep up with my siblings. They ran down the hill and jumped across the stones. My brother had dislodged one of the stones and, distracted by the earlier events of the day, I misjudged the new distance. Slipping on the rock I had no choice but to venture the rest of the way by wading through the water. Rather than get both shoes wet- I took off my sneakers and finished barefoot.
I don't know what I stepped on but the pain was instantaneous. The water began to turn red and I didn't want to look down. I had a large gash deep enough to see the bone.
My brother helped me hobble back home and mom drove me to the nearest clinic.
Doctor Young had the tremors but still he managed to thread a needle. He rested his hands against my foot and began to sew up the wound. Feeling tragic I needed his comforting words. He said, "You’re lucky to be so long legged. If you had stepped just one inch shorter you'd be fishing a couple toes out of the creek."
In the course of conversation we discovered he had a daughter in my grade. Turns out he was Lizzy's dad. On the discovery of this fact he said, "It’s an honor to sew up your foot young man. Her best friends in the world are both named Charles and I was wondering if I'd ever get to meet you." He told my mom not to worry about the bill and the next day he delivered a bag full of candy to me through Lizzy. "He's a good doctor, isn't he?" she asked.
He had bandaged my foot- which some noticed. Now we were two cripples and a colored boy sitting in the back. To make matters worse I made a mistake during our art assignment. I had colored the giraffe black with yellow spots instead of the other way around.
I hadn't noticed this but many in the class did- which they found to be hilarious. Charles told them all to “leave him be.” It was the only time I had heard Charles speak out.
I admired him for it. He didn’t have to do that. But he did it anyway.
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Within a few weeks we had located suitable housing closer to dad's work and my days in Hernando were coming to a close.
I would miss a few things. For one, I had learned to like the storms.
My dad had bought a record album that we would play endlessly. It starts with the sound of gentle rain and the soft horn blast of a distant train. Then the rain intensifies and the train’s rumble becomes more persistent. There's a beautiful piano track that joins these sounds to make a collection of seemingly ominous noise assemble into music. As the record nears the end, the train passes and the rain subsides. To this day I love the patter of the rain on a metal roof. Storms- we will always have them. Yet, in all this, the train travels through. The piano, a percussion instrument, offers beauty born by hammers striking the wire.
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My last day at school was too sad for words. Lizzy was there and she told me she would miss me.
I confessed that she was the best artist I knew and that her kindness meant a great deal to me. She said it gave her joy when I would watch her draw. She said it made her want to be a better artist.
I told her it was too bad Charles wasn't there that day. I wanted to tell him that I would miss him too. She told me, "if he were here he would probably tell you what he told me."
"What's that?" I asked.
She replied, "He would tell you that he liked the way you color the giraffe."
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