Looking back in retrospect (for as long as I can remember), I have been gifted with a keen memory and vivid imagination. Perhaps this is the reason why when I was growing up and picking cotton, sitting in class at school, or attempting to do other things that had been assigned to me, I would almost always find it quite difficult to focus or stay on task. Frequently, I would find myself daydreaming or revisiting some event or episode I experienced while growing up. Even now, at the ripe old age of thirty-nine (just kidding), I live and transition between two realities. Although I am physically positioned in the sphere of the present and tangible reality of the domains of sight, sound, smell, and taste, my mind is often somewhere else. Invariably, at the speed of thought, I make journeys back to a simpler time – a time of adventure and excitement when I was but a mischievous lad growing up in Newtown; a time of conflict and challenges when I struggled to understand and deal with the negatives of being Black in a small southern town during Jim Crow; a time of uncertainty and anger due to witnessing my mother being the victim of domestic violence.
This piece today is but a smidgen from the saga of my upbringing by way of my memory. Undoubtedly, the first and most memorable place that took me back in time is the little house at 210 Lucius Road in the Newtown section of Dillon County. It was on this spot that I spent fourteen years of my life. From 1953 to 1967, Lucius Road was the place where I had many adventures and experiences growing up in a family of eleven people. My eight siblings and I lived in a small four-room house with our parents. I make it my business to occasionally ride down Lucius Road and to pass the little blockhouse that, back then, had no running water, bathroom, or any of the conveniences and comforts that we now take for granted. Every time I make this journey down memory lane, I am taken back to the days of my childhood. I go back to when six of my brothers and I had to sleep in one little room with two beds. I slept in the bed with three of my brothers. We called it “two up and two down”. There was a little fireplace that kept us quite warm in the wintertime, along with our body heat. When it was really cold, we would put old coats on top of our quilt to help keep us from getting too cold, as the coals in the fireplace would lose their glow and heat. I remember those special times like Christmas, New Year’s, and when a special relative would come down from the city to visit us. I will never forget the drama and adventure of living with so many brothers and one little sister, who we nourished and cherished back then. What we lacked by way of space, comfort, and convenience was more than compensated for through our comradery, sibling rivalry, brotherly love, and loyalty. However, there are also some sad memories and stories that transpired at 210 Lucius Road that I’ve had to deal with, even to this day. Memories of watching my mother being beaten by my intoxicated father and saying to myself as a child, “If he hurts my mama, I’m going to kill him when I grow up.” Yes, when I ride by the house where I spent most of my childhood, I am taken back in time to the good, the bad, and the ugly experiences and episodes of my upbringing that helped to make me who I am today.
There is another place that truly takes me back in time every time I ride pass it. It is now called Gordon Elementary School, but when I was growing up, it was the site for both Gordon High as well as Gordon Elementary. I went to school there from the first through the twelfth grade. When passing by or occasionally visiting Gordon Elementary School, I am temporarily taken back to the days when I was a student during various stages of my development. I am reminded of some of the outstanding teachers who impacted my life at this site. Most are deceased and only a few are still alive. In the section of my mind wherein lies my memory, I can still see Mr. Herbert Crawford walking across the yard at the elementary portion of the school ringing his old cowbell. The ringing of his bell was a signal that it was time to stop what you were doing and head for your homeroom class. I can see Mrs. Robinson, my first grade teacher, along with Mrs. McBride and Mrs. Jones, my third and fourth grade teachers respectively. As I progress in my journey in time, I am now in the junior and high school section of the school. In my mind, entering into the building, I see the principal’s office on the right. Down the hall on the left, Ms. Leola Bethea’s typing class and a little further down in the last class on the left is where I meet Mr. James Moultrie, who at the time was a young teacher who really inspired me about history. On up the hall where I entered the building is the library on the right, where I spent too little time. As I continue my journey back in time, I see Mrs. Lucille Belin and Mrs. Florea Cagle talking, as their classes are right next to one another. These two, who also impacted my life as well as those of nearly every student who attended Gordon High School, were certainly two of the pillars of the school. After passing Mrs. Belin and Mrs. Cagle’s classes, I turn left and on the right I pass the home economics class that Mrs. McGill taught for many years. Continuing my journey down this last hall in the building, I pass the class of Mr. Charles McClellan, arguably our greatest teacher of mathematics. My journey down this hall comes to an end as I come to the exit doors; however, before I leave the building, I pass the last classroom on the left that belongs to the brilliant and iconic Mrs. Rosanna King, our greatest instructor of biology and natural sciences, barring none. As I leave the building, Mr. Benjamin McTeer’s agricultural shop is right in front of me. To my left, is the cafeteria where women like Mrs. Barnes, Mrs. Green, Mrs. Crosland, Mrs. Queenie Washington (my neighbor), and several others worked underpaid and underappreciated to feed the entire school scrumptious lunches. To my right, is the gymnasium that contained many stories of the Gordon Trojan teams that the late great Coach Paul J. Glenn, who also served as athletic director, booster club president, and head coach of all three athletic teams (football, basketball, and baseball), single handedly made champions. Dillon’s winning tradition owes its origin to him. As I finish my journey down memory lane at my Alma Mater, how can I forget perhaps the one person who had the greatest impact and influence on the majority of the students of Gordon High School, Mrs. Ruby Carter. As the only guidance counselor we had back then, she did an outstanding job in helping to prepare us for college, the military, or the workforce in our locale and beyond.
My journey back in time now takes me to the little church on Dargan Street in Newtown. It was there that I received my Judeo-Christian foundation that my life is built upon today. When I pass this site, as I often do, I am taken back to my childhood and the many memories that I often revisit about this important place. I find myself sitting in the old handmade wooden pews and watching my pastor, Mother Katie Sanders, bang away on the old out-of-tune piano that someone had given her for the church. As Mother Sanders, who really could not play the piano well, kept repeating her old familiar tune, my Aunt Bertha and a few of the other elderly women are beating on their nearly worn out tambourines. One lady is playing an old scrub board, while another is beating a tin tube. Then all of a sudden, being touched by the Spirit, Sister Louise Gurley starts to shout (dance) and another lady joins her. The dancing and celebration continues for a while until it finally stops. Mother Sanders tells Sister Sadie McQueen and my Uncle Russell Bethea to heist up the windows because all of the shouting and dancing has made it hot in the place.
I am caught up in the excitement, until at last it is time to make my final stop back in time on this voyage to special places. There is a memory and place that I find myself often revisiting. A terrible account of domestic violence that my siblings and I witnessed happened when I was around eight years of age. This horrible beating of my mother at the fury and rage of my drunken father had forced her to make preparations to leave him and to take her two youngest children with her to Camden, New Jersey where three of her sisters lived. When the day of their departure finally arrived, I was fortunate enough to see them off. As we waited at the train station, a great sadness gripped my tender heart. I tried to be tough and not cry, but was broken-hearted and crying on the inside. When the northbound train finally arrived on that Sunday afternoon, my mother, along with baby Cynthia and little Charles, boarded. I felt like my world was coming to an end. She had hugged, kissed, and told me good-bye. It didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t right and I could no longer hold back the tears as I watched the train pull away from the station. “Bye-bye, Mama,” I whispered as the train disappeared from my sight, carrying the most important person in my life far away from me. After all of these years, I am still temporally disturbed by the memory of that awful event almost every time I ride by the train station.
I have shared just a few of my precious memories and places that I find myself revisiting from time to time. If you are like me and are a person who, although you live in the present and have an eye on the future, nevertheless find yourself making frequent trips to a by-gone day via your memories, may your journeys be as joyous and fulfilling as mine are in the shadowy world of yesterday.
