Liz Abrams
6.29.2017
Summer Vacation 1946 in the Country of North Carolina
Today,
Summer of 2017, I write of summer 70 years ago, when it was a ritual of
black families in the 30s and 40s to send their school age children to
the South (NC), that is those families who made the diaspora to Philly
from the sluggardly farm lands, tobacco/cotton fields and sharecropping…
THE RITUAL: Send me to my relatives down south for the summer
My
first exposure to country life, my grandmother, poor but dignified
lived in a 3 room wooden elevated house, no indoor plumbing (meaning
outhouse) and no electricity (meaning oil lamps at night) ughhh
My
first morning, I heard flies and bees buzzing, loudly, outside the
screen doors, my grandmother slamming the screen door pumping the water
pump for the days supply of water, WHAT??????
She
left treats on the porch table of a box of frosted donuts and sunning
green tomatoes for dinner, yummm, my grandmother dipped Peachtree snuff,
my grandfather smoked a corncob pipe. I’m walking around outside
investigating. I was put on the run from the flies and bees and gnats,
stepping on caterpillars, and a lady bug landed on my arm, I’m screaming
BLOODY MURDER, as I almost ran into a tree, slapping my arm wildly, and
she (the bug) held on like glue.
After my
hysteria ended, I realized I lived in another world of the animal
kingdom. A neighbor boy demonstrated how to use salt on a snail shell to
come out and show his head. Tadpoles and frogs, dancing, hopping
noisily, hiccuping up to the front porch.
My
grandmom always carried a switch to swat flies and me (if or when I got
out-of-hand). Sundays came around. She walked me to a catholic church. I
had to sit in the back (Jim Crow) maybe?
Weekdays,
grandma would rise early and leave the house to walk down the train
tracks. Curious, I followed her to the clearing. Surrounded by tall
trees, her head and hands uplifted, for a long time. I realized later
she was worshipping in her own very natural way. At night, a new attack
from the deadly giant-sized mosquitos, which caused my grandpop to fire a
smokestack near the house to keep them away, and he always checked the
lightning rod outside the bedroom door for height and erectness. Oh,
that OUTHOUSE was a horrible experience, particularly at night, carrying
a flashlight to find the shack. Inside – worried that I would fall in
the hole (it was made for adults). Moths, spiders, and every other
crawling insects lived in that shack, of course, I didn’t get much
business done there, plus the fear of falling into that deep hole of
hell. Another nightmare grandma, cooked a chicken and cooked him whole,
feet, eyeballs, heart, butt, and all… BOY WHAT A FIRST SUMMER
VACATION!!!!!
