let you read things that have been written since the invention of fire. Blue and Winfrey, though, can lay down a line of rap about five minutes long. Too bad they don’t give grades on rap. They’d be tutoring me.
Granddaddy gets along with Blue and Winfrey. Blue’s father worked at the plywood plant that used to be in Geddie, he said. He refers to them as “colored folks” when they’re not around. At least he doesn’t call them “niggers” like about everybody else around here seems to. We go to church every Sunday morning, and last week we were out front afterward. That’s where people seem to do most of their socializing around here. And I’m standing next to Granddaddy, who’s talking with two old guys who are also elders in the church. They’re talking about this “nigger” who used to play for North Carolina, and it’s“nigger” this and “nigger” that, except that Granddaddy uses “colored” instead. Around here, I guess that makes him a liberal. He doesn’t say “colored” in front of Blue and Winfrey, although I guess they’re probably used to worse.
CHAPTER SIX
August 8
N ot too long ago, Miss Effie Horne come to my house one afternoon. Miss Effie left East Geddie in 1937, when she was about twenty years old. She didn’t have much family, and what she had didn’t give her much showing. I think she lived with an aunt she didn’t get along with. I used to buy her Cokes at the store when she was a young-un, because she seemed so pitiful.
So when she got a chance to go to California to live with some relatives out there, she left and never came back. But here she was, fifty years later, with one of her daughters driving her. Said she’d got the daughter to fly across the country with her, to Raleigh, so they could come down here and see the place where she growed up before she got too old to travel. And I reckon I’m one of the few folks still around that she remembered from back then.
I made them some iced tea and we sat on the back porch under the ceiling fan. Miss Effie and me, we talked about old times, and her daughter would look at her watch every ten minutes or so. I offered to put them up for the night, but the daughter said they already had reservations at the Motel 6 out by the Raleigh-Durham airport.
I never have been much of a talker, and when Miss Effie and her daughter got to arguing about how far it was from where they lived to the Pacific Ocean, I picked up the paper without thinking, pulled out the sports section and turned to page three to see how the Minnesota Twins had done last night. I had read the three or four paragraphs the
Post
saw fit to grace me with when I looked up to see Miss Effie staring at me, and her daughter staring at her.
“Why, Littlejohn McCain,” Miss Effie said. “You can read!”
The first thing I remember is Momma’s clock. Daddy bought it for her for Christmas in 1897 with the money he made selling a couple of hogs. It sat on the mantelpiece over the fireplace for near-bout sixty years, until Momma died in 1955 and Lex took it down and toted it up to the attic. We just brought it back down again three years ago.
When I wasn’t more than four years old, maybe three, I can remember just sitting there on the floor, looking at that big old clock with all the wooden curlicues and that big gold pendulum swinging back and forth, back and forth. Momma used to say that if I was being contrary, all she had to do was put me in front of that old clock, and I’d hush right up. She said sometimes she’d leave me and come back in a hour, and I’d still be perched right there, watching the minute hand catch the hour hand. The funny thing is, after we got it fixed and running and put back on the mantel, behind the oil heater, I’d catch myself doing the same thing. I reckon babies and old folks are all that’s allowed to just sit and watch time fly.
Daddy would work all day in the field during good weather. He’d come back in for dinner at
Granddaddy gets along with Blue and Winfrey. Blue’s father worked at the plywood plant that used to be in Geddie, he said. He refers to them as “colored folks” when they’re not around. At least he doesn’t call them “niggers” like about everybody else around here seems to. We go to church every Sunday morning, and last week we were out front afterward. That’s where people seem to do most of their socializing around here. And I’m standing next to Granddaddy, who’s talking with two old guys who are also elders in the church. They’re talking about this “nigger” who used to play for North Carolina, and it’s“nigger” this and “nigger” that, except that Granddaddy uses “colored” instead. Around here, I guess that makes him a liberal. He doesn’t say “colored” in front of Blue and Winfrey, although I guess they’re probably used to worse.
CHAPTER SIX
August 8
N ot too long ago, Miss Effie Horne come to my house one afternoon. Miss Effie left East Geddie in 1937, when she was about twenty years old. She didn’t have much family, and what she had didn’t give her much showing. I think she lived with an aunt she didn’t get along with. I used to buy her Cokes at the store when she was a young-un, because she seemed so pitiful.
So when she got a chance to go to California to live with some relatives out there, she left and never came back. But here she was, fifty years later, with one of her daughters driving her. Said she’d got the daughter to fly across the country with her, to Raleigh, so they could come down here and see the place where she growed up before she got too old to travel. And I reckon I’m one of the few folks still around that she remembered from back then.
I made them some iced tea and we sat on the back porch under the ceiling fan. Miss Effie and me, we talked about old times, and her daughter would look at her watch every ten minutes or so. I offered to put them up for the night, but the daughter said they already had reservations at the Motel 6 out by the Raleigh-Durham airport.
I never have been much of a talker, and when Miss Effie and her daughter got to arguing about how far it was from where they lived to the Pacific Ocean, I picked up the paper without thinking, pulled out the sports section and turned to page three to see how the Minnesota Twins had done last night. I had read the three or four paragraphs the
Post
saw fit to grace me with when I looked up to see Miss Effie staring at me, and her daughter staring at her.
“Why, Littlejohn McCain,” Miss Effie said. “You can read!”
The first thing I remember is Momma’s clock. Daddy bought it for her for Christmas in 1897 with the money he made selling a couple of hogs. It sat on the mantelpiece over the fireplace for near-bout sixty years, until Momma died in 1955 and Lex took it down and toted it up to the attic. We just brought it back down again three years ago.
When I wasn’t more than four years old, maybe three, I can remember just sitting there on the floor, looking at that big old clock with all the wooden curlicues and that big gold pendulum swinging back and forth, back and forth. Momma used to say that if I was being contrary, all she had to do was put me in front of that old clock, and I’d hush right up. She said sometimes she’d leave me and come back in a hour, and I’d still be perched right there, watching the minute hand catch the hour hand. The funny thing is, after we got it fixed and running and put back on the mantel, behind the oil heater, I’d catch myself doing the same thing. I reckon babies and old folks are all that’s allowed to just sit and watch time fly.
Daddy would work all day in the field during good weather. He’d come back in for dinner at
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