Always came down the alley to get there.
The street in front of 813 was a bit busy, as it was a main road in Woodlawn.
Up the five or six steps to a small landing and in the backdoor.
A wide dog trod hallway went through the middle until a wall went up next to the main bedroom.
One of my earliest memories is running down the front steps, falling and busting open my bottom lip.
The scar is there still.
Old gas space heaters sat on the floor in each room. I can remember standing in front to get warm as I listened to the adults speak.
The high ceilings prevented it from ever getting really warm.
An egg-shaped empire table sat in the entrance hallway. I remember it as the telephone table as I grew up.
That same table sits in my house today….
it carries a great deal of character and if it could speak it would tell tales.
East about five miles was 7721.
Five large oak trees lined the front of the yard by the street.
The lot was about 50% larger than the others on the block, sitting on the corner.
The large front porch was the center of activity whenever the family gathered.
My grandfather would sit in his rocker, beat all my uncles at checkers…and then tell the grandchildren he would give them a chance.
We thought we had one because he would play left-handed.
The phone was a “party line”.
If you are over 55 you understand that phrase.
My grandmother was forever cooking.
She gave of herself to so many people. I lived with her as I finished college, after my grandfather passed away. She had never paid a bill nor written a check.
Many times she looked lost when I would help her pay the bills.
She was the most giving woman I have known, outside my wife.
When she was 80….I had to tell my mother that her mother was beginning to see and imagine things. She told me one evening that “the kids” we’re coming to dinner. She had cooked a meal for 8 people.
I was the only other family member in town.
We sat there and I saw the confusion rise in her eyes as no one came and it got to be 8pm.
When I was 8, I stayed there, at 7721, one summer and would bounce a rubber ball off the high side of the house to catch flyballs….
many years later when my youngest brother did the same thing I realized how loud and annoying it was.
They never told me to stop.
When I was young I wanted to buy that house. I still drive by it once a year or so.
My grandfather sat outside with me
that Summer, next to his grape arbor, and told me about his life.
There was no air conditioning.
I never remember it being oppressively hot.
There was a large window fan and with the windows cracked a bit…it cooled the whole house.
These spaces hold memories that fashion my thoughts and life.
In traditional Southern Literature…
place, holds great meaning and affectation.
These places do.
At 813, death came to my fathers mother when I was eight months old.
It was hard and drawn out and caused all of my uncles and aunts great pain and hurt. I
I heard, once in a while, about the pain he felt during that time from my father.
He carried a sense of guilt and insufficiency because he could do nothing to ease his mothers pain.
It affected him the remainder of his life.
It has affected all of them.
Out of the pain and loss in that house came lessons that have given rise to accomplished athletes, teachers, principals, ministers, coaches, leaders, successful businessmen, authors, decorated military officers….
and a family and families that are glued together by the love and character which developed within those wooden walls.
At 7721, there seemed to always be laughter and fun. Playing games, seeing my family members dress up, be loud and embarrass my grandmother. There was no alcohol, but plenty of outrageous laughter and behavior.
There was love and learning there, at 7721…..
but not with the lessons of 813.
There was laughter, but always a lesson…at 813.
Once, my father and I were sitting at another large empire table in the dining room with the ever present sugar bowl my grandfather always kept full.
My grandfather was sitting there also.
I stood to warm myself in front of the space heater as my father said something rather direct to me.
My grandfather spoke to him and said….”Don’t talk to my grandson that way”.
My father replied…
” Daddy, he is my son”
To which my grandfather answered,
” Yes….and you are still mine.”
I said not a word.
These spaces and places taught me who I was and where I arose from.
Any character I possess today has grown out of the balance between these two houses.
These two houses were about five miles apart but in the mid-twentieth century they were not easily accessible to each other.
No young person had a car.
The “right to drive my car at 16” had not become a teenage prerequisite…..
therefore my parents wrote long and involved letters to each other from those houses, when they were in school and dating.
I read them after my mother died.
Their writing was full of longing and hope.
The letters were in today’s terms, mushy and romantic to the hilt.
Because everything was not at their fingertips…….they had to stretch themselves and reach out toward their hoped-for future.
They did not talk on the telephone, they were not easily accessible to each other.
Because it was not easy to be together, they built their romance on the pillars of dreams and longing …things did not come easy then.
Things DID NOT come easy then.
Delayed gratification developed a committed relationship.
Commitment was slowly grown out of longing and hope and it forged a relationship that was solid…
their every whim was never answered early.
It had to develop.
These people and places are mine.
Everyone has them…if you can remember.
I urge you to recall and remember.
They will better help you define and understand who you are.
Because of these earlier places my life occupied at times….I trust the place I now live in is the better for it.
The lessons from these other places make my life what it is today.
I trust that I can contribute to someone an ounce of what was given earlier to me from the people in those places.
Terry Bethea 