I stepped into my grandfather's top notch condition ’08 Cadillac. The air was thick.
DADDY FRED: “Now you can adjust the temperature to whatever you like...you have your own vent control on your side. I don’t particularly like it that warm, but your grandmother gets hot as soon as she gets in the car.”
I felt borderline suffocation, but said nothing but, "ok" in response. I just laid back and waited for the air to begin circulating as he slowly and cautiously backed up the car.
For the emptiness of the land around us, it was a wonder at how many cars seemed to pass just in the short distance from the house to the road.
As we turned onto the narrow road Daddy Fred immediately began to FLY. 0 to 60 in a matter of minutes. Not so bad, except we’re going through the sticks…swamp lands….. “deep creek”….ditches on either side… one wrong move and....
I shook my head. What was I worried about? This was Simons Land. Nearly all of it, farm fields and forests on my either side. It had been Simons land for over 100 years….acre after acre. Every cotton plant, soybean sprout, and corn ear. My grandfather knew every inch of this road…every speck of dirt. My grandmother knew every person that lived in each of the far spread houses. She knew who lived in them before them, and even the people who were dead and buried on little plots of land next to each house. So again…I sat back in my seat to enjoy the ride from Winfall to Eatonton…to pick up Great Aunt Amy, my grandmother’s older sister.
Rain began to fall, and DaddyFred and I just cruised.
Finally I asked, “DaddyFred…Why out of all this land, is there one or two trees that haven’t been cut down, just sitting in the middle of the fields?”
“We’ll (cough cough) back in the days they would leave one tree planted to sit under, in order to get some shade in the summer time during work. They would also need shade for their mules after plowing….Its hard to believe it huh…that we plowed all this with mules…they couldn’t go into aircondition back then…oh no. I don’t know how we did it…things sure have changed.”
“Yeah…wow….I understand now, things definitely have changed.
“yeah, It does something to you…they tear all these trees down, the animals don’t have anywhere to go, It really does something to you sometimes. But everything must change…”
-We drive for about twenty more minutes as DaddyFred points out buildings on land that were once empty fields... we drive up to the corner of a small road… Coke Rd and Oakland Dr.
Now your grandmother’s sisters use to live in each of these two houses. Amy lived in this one.
He parked the car. “Ok, go on up to the house and get her… call out to let her know who you are, because I don’t think she’ll know”
I walk up to the door….which is slightly ajar. ….”Aunt Amy! Are you in there? Its Renee?”
Great Aunt Amy (mid 90's) “Im heaareeee!”
A tiny pale skinned old woman hobbled over to the door as I let my self in. She was wearing a dark red blouse, mustard colored scarf, and a tan and brown bucket hat.
“Hi Aunt Amy…”
“well hello ….now which one are you? Are you the 25 year old?”
“Yes, Im Gerald’s Daughter. How are you?”
“Im fine, Im just about ready, hmph, 25 huh...are you married? Now I was married with children at 25."
"Ahhh....no mam, Im not married yet." PAUSE.
"Oh alright, well you can go on now, Im ok, let me just lock the door behind you.
-I leave with her behind me, and DaddyFred gets out to help her into the car-
"Its Fred! Oh hi Fred!"
We drive….
“I was just telling Renee how much things have changed around here… and how it only use to be you, Hattie, and the school principal that lived on this block…”
“hmmhhmhm Yess indeeedy yes, all these houses weren’t here. …you try to get away from it all, but it seems to just come back to ya”
“I use to come down here, see that house over there? I use to take my car down there to be fixed. Hmmhmmh yess indeedy…and remember that place over there Fred?" Aunt Amy points to a run down shack, "We use to go there ta dance!”
“Uhh huh yes we did, Bo, You, Greg, and Alice. You didn’t think I could dance now did you, Ne?”
(cackle, laugh hahahha)… "Yes indeedy we did dance! ...and that little place over there too, we use to dance at. It was nice over there, not to many people, more people began to come, but it use to be nice."
"Yes, things where different…and that use to be the liquore store over there on the corner…We couldn’t go into the liquor store…we could work there but we couldn’t go in there to by liquor…. I remember I had my friend Jefferson over to study some agriculture books, and we wanted to get some liquor…so I sent him over there…the next day the whole town was saying, Teacher Simons has a white man staying with him!!"
"Im confused… You couldn’t go into the liquore store because you were black?"
No, it was before integration but, we couldn’t go in there because the church people would talk about you! Black folks were worse than the white folks….the white folks didn’t care if you drank yourself to death or not….”
“So why did they talk about Jefferson?”
"Well, he was one of those black-whites? You know what Im talking about? Jefferson was so light, he could pass for white nearly all the time… so we knew if we sent him in there they would think he was white and no one would talk about him. But you know black folks, they’ll talk about you no matter what. (small laugh)
"….yes sir there use to be a whole area of just black-whites. Rt between Eatonton and Winfall…. They all lived together right around here"
They were so light, us boys couldn’t even take their girls into town… couldn’t take them into Elizabeth City…cause it was against, you know, the law to walk with a white woman, and even though they were black, they looked so white, no one could tell.
Yes…times have changed, this was definitely before integration.
Aren’t you Glad you Came Along at Right Time?"
...We continued to cruise along home in silence.
