One of my favorite places at uncle Earl’s house was the Oak tree.  It was no ordinary oak tree.  It was huge, even in the nineteen forties when I was very small.  Writing this in 2021, it seems almost dreamlike, those days of tree climbing, over seventy years ago.  The tree had two fairly low limbs that grew out southward, toward the house. They had growth together to form a nice sized platform, about eight feet above the ground.  It was a perfect nature made treehouse!

The tree is located at the end of what is now named Segrest Lane, and marked the place where, coming from the “big road,” we turned right to go to the Little House where I was born.  

The picture shown above was taken southeast of the tree, so Segrest Lane is to the right, and the lane to the Little House is to the left. The “natural” tree house is on this side of the tree.

The tree has a story.  The story is that it grew from a sprout on a stump.  The tree that preceded it had been cut down, but, as often happens, grew sprouts from buds.  My great-grandfather removed all the sprouts but one—and that one is now the tree!  And quite a tree it became.

Here is Uncle Earl and the tree.  The “tree house” is composed of the limbs to the right.  At one time it was considered the largest black oak tree in Alabama! 

Uncle Earl sold many watermelons (and other vegetables) from beneath this tree.  Thousands of watermelons enjoyed its shade!

The only heat we had at the Little House was a single fireplace in the front room.  Daddy usually cut the wood for the fireplace with an ax.  Often, he would bring long trunks of trees to the yard in a “woodpile,” and would cut them into firewood length with his ax.  He laid the trunks across a “chop block” to hold them in place.  The chop block was a fairly large piece of oak or hickory.  Chopping wood produced “chips,” and it was my job to gather the chips in a bucket.  They were useful in getting the fire started.  They went just above the paper and kindling, in the fireplace and then came the firewood that Daddy had cut.  When Daddy cut trees for firewood, it was usually oak or hickory.  But we also got other kinds wood from time to time.  I remember “slabs” from some sawmill, and I remember cutting up pine tops after timber had been harvested.  “Lightwood”—very flammable wood from pine stumps—was plentiful, and that is what we used to start fires.  Daddy would painstakingly split it into “splinters”—very small pieces, using his ax and the “chop block.”  He used only one hand on the ax, about halfway down the handle (like “choking” a baseball bat) and hold the lightwood with the left hand and split the “kindling.”

I remember at least once getting to go with Daddy and a whole bunch of men into the swamp for a wood cutting.  They used cross-cut saws, axes, and wedges.  They used an interesting device for rolling large logs.  The log rolling tool is still available:

There were mules and wagons.  A fascinating project for a five or six year old!

My older brother, Wade, was born in 1938.  Before his birth, the B & SE Railroad crossed the 80 acre tract on which the Little house was built, about a quarter of a mile below south of the Little house, next to Calebee Swamp.  The railroad had been closed and rails removed in 1936, but the right of way, with cross ties was still very open.

In 1940, Uncle R. V. and Aunt Ruby lived over on the road that ran through the swamp.  We called Uncle R. V. “Uncle Snap.” Mama and Daddy had no means of transportation other than walking at that time, and Wade was two years old. The shortest way to get from the Little House to Uncle R. V.’s house was to walk the quarter mile from the Little House to the old railroad right of way, and then west on the right of way to the road where Uncle Snap lived.  The total distance was probably a mile and a half or two miles.  Mama and Daddy and Wade had made that walking trip several times. 

Wade had a cat. One day, Wade and the cat decided to visit Uncle Snap!  So, Wade, age 2 made the trip, walking alone, with most of the journey adjacent to the swamp!  The cat accompanied him.  Uncle R. V. or someone there saw Wade coming from a distance, and sent his son, Ralph, running to find Mama and Daddy.  Both of them thought Wade was with the other.  All ended well, and Wade and the Cat made it back home safely.

When I think about the story, even now, it gives me chills.

The Encyclopedia of Alabama, which can be found on the internet, reports that, “By 1930, when the mule population peaked, mules outnumbered horses 332,000 to 65,000. In monetary terms, Alabama mules were valued in 1930 at $32.4 million, or about $97.00 per animal, whereas horses in the state were valued at only $4.3 million, or about $66.00 per animal.”  By the time I was born, Alabama’s mule population was diminishing, but almost every farm in our community had one or more.  Daddy’s mule was named Pete, and Uncle Earl’s mule was Molly, and the stayed together at Uncle Earl’s barn, or in the pasture.  Uncle Earl had owned Jack and Rody before my time.

Mr. Frank Pierce owned Dan and Queen.  Queen was the skinniest mule I ever saw.  Her vertebrae protruded a lot, and her ribs were very visible.  I don’t know how old she was, but she was probably ancient.  Uncle R.V. owned Pet and Emma.  The bus driver, Mr. Frank’s brother, Mr. Mortie Pierce, owned Minnie.  There were lots of other mules.  They were the power of the rural farming tradition in Alabama. They were, for the most part, very gentle docile creatures.

I remember the harnesses, the bridles, single trees, the way they hitched to the plows, the way they hitched to the wagons.

But times were changing. In the late forties, Daddy and Uncle Earl bought a Super A Farmall Tractor.  Daddy sold Pete to a Black man named Henry McClaney, much to his regret.  Pete starved to death.  In time to come, Henry McClaney killed three of the women who lived with him.  I think he was a mental case, but Daddy had no idea how things would turn out.

Just think about 332,000 mules in Alabama in 1930.  A way of life.  Loving relationships.  But each of them came to the last end of the last row.

During the entire time that I lived in the Little House, Aunt Ida and Uncle Willie lived in an even smaller two room shack that was bout one hundred yards behind Uncle Earl’s house.  They were brother and sister or Grandma Segrest.  There father was the Reverend J. E. D. Braswell, a Civil War veteran, and a Methodist Circuit Rider. Aunt Ida had been married, but her husband, Charlie Wynn had died.  Aunt Ida and Uncle Willie were very old, although they were about the as old as I am while writing this account and creating a website!  But in those days, families cared for the elderly.  So, Grandma’s family was taking care of them.  What is now evolved into the Alabama Department of Human Resources was known then as the Welfare Department.  Aunt Ida and Uncle Willie were “on welfare” and received a very small monthly pension.  Neither was eligible for the then recently invented Social Security, as best I remember.

One of the family concerns was how they would pay for a funeral for Aunt Ida and Uncle Willie when that time came.  So, they “took out” a burial policy.  I think the company was called “Brown’s Service.” Burial policies were popular back then; a part of the way of life.  All of Daddy’s family contributed a few cents every month, and the “policy-man,” who was Foy Thompson, I think, came around every month for the payment.  It must have worked.  They got buried.

Uncle Willie was a bit of a preacher himself.  But his health was not good.  He had suffered with a hernia since childhood.  He explained that he got caught between a wagon and a gate post while the family was living at Oaky Streak in Butler County, and that caused the hernia. But he loved the Bible.  His eyesight was so bad that he could no longer read.  After Wade learned to read, one of his daily chores was to go and read the Bible for Uncle Willie and Aunt Ida.  He would also read the funny papers for them.  They loved “Little Orphan Annie” with her dog, Sandy, her benefactors, Daddy Warbucks, Punjab, etc. 

There was no running water and no well at the house where Uncle Willie and Aunt Ida lived.  Taking them water in a bucket from Uncle Earl’s well was a daily chore.  And, of course it had to be drawn from Uncle Earl’s well.

They were regular customers of the rolling store.  Often someone had to make their purchases for them.  Uncle Willie’s shopping list always included Brown’s Mule Chewing Tobacco, and Dr. Hitchcock’s laxative.  It came in a yellow can.  Aunt Ida dipped snuff, and I think she preferred Bruton.  It came in a neat little glass jar.

One of the more memorable events of my early childhood at the Little House has to do with baling peanut hay.  Uncle Jody owned and was still living in the house that Daddy and Mamma eventually bought up on the “big road.”  Across the big road and southwest of his house was a big field, maybe sixteen or eighteen acres.  He planted peanuts there.

When time came to harvest the peanuts, the plants—vines— were pulled from the ground, with the peanuts still attached to the roots.  They were then “stacked,” using poles that were upright, with a couple of cross pieces nailed at right angles across the bottom.  The peanut plants were placed on the stack, roots and peanuts outward.  There the peanuts and the plants dried.  After the peanuts dried, they were picked off, and that was the main harvest.  But the vines made pretty good hay.  Now I may have some of that wrong, you understand.  They may have harvested the peanuts, and then stacked the hay.

In those days, the hay baler didn’t run around the field making hay.  The baler was placed in the middle of the field.  I don’t remember exactly how it was powered—maybe a power take off from a tractor. The vines were manually brought from the stacks to baler, and stuffed into the baler.  I think that there was a lot of manual labor in the process of tying the baling wire, etc., but I was only four years old, and was excited to be involved.  The square bales, about three or four feed long, and maybe fifteen inches on each side, came out of the end of the baler.

Several men were involved in the process.  Some were getting the vines from the stacks, some running the baler, some feeding it into the baler with pitchforks, and some stacking the hay.  I don’t remember if they were actually picking the peanuts off the vine at that time or not.  I don’t remember who the men were, with one notable exception. Twig Ray was there.  Everything went well for me, until I had a call of nature.  Since we didn’t have a bathroom at that house, and I was accustomed to going “out of doors,” as the expression went, that was no particular problem.  The only problem was choosing the location.  Behind the hay stack seemed ideal, and seemed to work well.  Seemed to.  But then Twig Ray accidentally discovered the site.  REALLY accidentally.  His words, “Who S— where I was going to step!” are indelibly etched into my memory!

Memorable indeed.  Mortifying!

In 1936, Daddy bought the one hundred sixty acres that included the spot where the Little house would be built.  Later in 1936, he and his siblings built the Little House.  That is also the year that Daddy and Mama were married.  While building the Little House, they lived in the little two room house where Uncle Willie and Aunt Ida would be living after I was born. The one hundred sixty acres also included the place that I am calling “Uncle Earl’s place.  Uncle Earl’s place was a place where their family had lived in the past, but I do not know the history of its ownership before Daddy bought it, other than that he bought it from the bank of Tallassee, in the heart of the depression.

Interesting thoughts occurred to me while writing this essay.  Nineteen thirty-six was also the year that the B&SE Railroad that went across the one hundred sixty-acre place was taken up.  Roberts Blount was one of the owners of that Railroad, and he was also president of the Bank of Tallassee.  Daddy did not deal with Roberts Blount, but that does not exclude the possibility of a connection.  The bank had probably been involved in financing the property, and owned it as result of foreclosure.

The one hundred sixty acres was a traditional quarter section of land.  Daddy sold the east half of the section to Uncle Earl.  The old residence where Grandma and Uncle Earl lived was on that Eighty acre tract, as was the two room house where Uncle Willie and Aunt Ida lived.

In those days there were names for the fields.  The field between the Little house and the old railroad bed was “Eleven Acre.”  In our southernese, that was pronounced “lemacre.”  The filed across the railroad and next to Calebee Swamp was “cross the track.”  On the east eighty that Daddy sold to Uncle Earl, there was, south to north, “salt bottom,” “hickory  cut,” and “the level.”  There may have been other names that I don’t remember.

An interesting bit of history of the place is that an old stage coach road traversed the place from east to west.  It crossed Eleven Acre, on Daddy’s eighty, and was between salt bottom and hickory cut on Uncle Earl’s eighty.  Although it had left very defined right of way evidence of usage, and was extremely hardpacked, I know of no written history of that stage coach road.  Knowledge of it seems to be totally oral, and came through the family.  They knew that it was a stage coach road.  I strongly suspect that it was one of the many manifestations of the Old Federal Road, which is recognized as such on the south side of Calebee Swamp, at the approximate location of US Highway 80.

Of course, all of this area was a part of the Creek Indian Territory, and was not vacated by the Indians until the 1830’s.  We frequently found arrowheads in the fields.  I remember a lot of them turning up in Eleven Acre, near the old stage coach road.

Daddy and Uncle Earl farmed cotton and corn.  They also raised gardens for food. The corn was mainly for food for the mules and cows.  Cotton was the main cash crop.  There were lots of tenant farmers in Macon County, but not in our part of the county.  A finger of blackbelt soil extends into Macon County, and there was a lot of tenant farming there.  Over the years I have learned that a “one horse tenant farm” was generally considered to by 7 acres of cotton and 14 acres of corn.  A tenant farmer and his family could manage that much.

Daddy and Uncle Earl were not tenant farmers, but they both managed about what a tenant farmer would have managed.  They worked together, so the total amount may have been the equivalent of two tenant farms, during my early years.  Later on, in the fifties, they farmed separately, although they shared the Super A Farmall tractor for a while. 

My earliest recollections of picking Cotton go back to the mid-forties.  I remember picking cotton on Uncle Earl’s place, on the field called “the level.”  Everyone was involved.  At four or five years of age, I probably spent as much time laying in the mule drawn wagon, looking at the cumulus clouds in the September skies as I did picking cotton!  Those were non-stressed, comfortable days for me.  I was still sorting out the things that I saw, or imagined.  In the sky, I could make out all kinds of shapes and forms in the late summer clouds.  But there is something else that I remember.  Crooked, silvery objects, that moved through the sky.  Uncle Earl said they were “crooked ladies.”  I think they were actually some kind of sediment on the surface of my eyes, but they were fascinating, and I remember those days with nostalgia.

I had a “cotton sack” to pick cotton in, just like the grownups.  Mama made my sack out a the cloth sack that 25 pounds of flour came in.  Near the top one side of the sack, they put two small rocks, and folded the cloth over them, and then tied the cloth around the rocks with strings.  The other ends of the two strings were tied to a cloth band.  The band went over my left shoulder, and the sack on my right side.  I don’t remember if I ever got a sack full!

My other job was packing the cotton in the sacks of the grownups.  They put me in the top of the sack, and I packed the cotton with my feet! When the cotton sacks got full, they would be emptied onto a “sheet.”  The sheets were composed of four fertilizer sacks, that had been “ripped” (seams removed on three sides) so that they were approximately square pieces of cloth, about 3 or four feet square.  Four of them were sewn together to make a sheet, about six or eight feet square.  After a big pile of cotton had been dumped on the sheets, the opposite corners of the sheets were tied together, and then the sheet could be hung on the steelyard scales to be weighed.  A sack held 40 or 50 pounds; a sheet a couple of hundred, as best I remember.

Here’s a picture of what was identified on the internet as “antique” steelyards:

The long shaft was called the steelyard, or balance.  The top hook went over a tree limb or some kind of scaffold.  The sheet hung on the bottom hook, which is actually to the left of the top hook in this picture.  There were two balance weights that were called “pees”; a “big pee” and a “little pee.” Both were used for weighing the cotton at the same time. The long end of the steelyards was calibrated with numbers to give the balance weight.

Daddy’s last cotton crop was in 1954, after we had left the Little House.  I was twelve years old.  Uncle Buddy, Daddy’s brother, who was in his mid-fifties, challenged me to a cotton-picking contest.  I picked 210 pounds that day, and that was a lot.  Many grownups could not pick that much.  But Uncle Buddy picked 211!  Black women who sometimes worked with us were very good at picking cotton. Lola Story and Eugenia “Pie” Menefee sometimes picked four hundred pounds or more in a day.  I remember at one point in time, the going wages for picking cotton for hire was 2 cents per pound, so they could earn a whopping $8 per day!  As best I recall, it took about 1500 pounds of “seed” cotton to make a five-hundred-pound bale at the gin.  The seeds were two thirds the weight.  They were valuable, and often paid the cost of ginning.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Pierce, “Mr. Frank and Miss Jo,” were the next nearest neighbors to the Little House, other than “Aunt” Pinini, Uncle Earl and Grandma, and Uncle Willie and Aunt Ida.  Mr. Frank and Ms. Jo lived on what is now Segrest Lane, a couple of hundred yards in front of Uncle Earl’s house.  Their house was northeast of the Little House, with only a field owned by Mr. Frank in between.  They were older and had reared a houseful of children, all of whom did well in life.  But Mr. Frank and Ms. Jo were colorful and entertaining old people!

Like everyone else, they were farmers.  They were self-sustaining with gardening, milk cows, pigs, and chickens.  Unlike anyone else in the community, they also raised turkeys.  They would kill, dress, and sell he turkeys, especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  My wife, Betty’s folks were regular customers for turkeys.  The older they got, the more colorful, and we enjoyed many stories and laughs at their expense. The stories were many!

Mr. Frank’s dad had been a Union Naval Officer in the Civil War, but married a local girl after they met in New York—at least that was our understanding of the story.  At one time, he had extensive land holdings.  But I think Mr. Frank owned only about 100 acres.  Mr. Frank’s brother, Mortie, the school bus driver may have owned a little more.  And they had siblings who had inherited some of the land.

One story that I heard again and again was about the segrest household (Uncle Earl’s place, but in his childhood) ran out of matches.  One of the kids went to Mr. Frank to borrow a match.  The response was classic: “I ain’t got but two, but let me light the lamp, and I’ll let you have both of them!”

Another story had to do with Mr. Frank’s cows getting into Daddy’s corn patch.  He was a poor fence keeper.  The cows did a good bit of damage to the corn, and Daddy went to talk to Mr. Frank about keeping his cows up. Mr. Frank told him, “Cows won’t eat corn—they may knock a little down…”

And then there was the story of Mr. Frank reading Gone with the Wind.  The book had obviously only recently been published, and one of his kids checked it out from school.  It had been left on the mantle piece, next to the lamp.  This was before electricity was installed in the 1940’s.  Mr. Frank got up to blow out the lamp, picked up the book and started reading, and read all night!  Only while writing this piece did I remember the interesting fact that his dad was a Union Naval officer. 

The relationship with the Pierces was great.  I remember one time when I was very small, one night Mr. Frank came to see us.  That was a little unusual, but he showed up to “set a spell” as the saying went.  By the time that he knocked on the door, I had already undressed—buck naked, as they say.  About 3 or 4 years old.  So, I dived under that bed.  I never realized how long he would stay, and eventually I apparently started making noises.  So, he took it upon himself to look under the bed and find me. Wow!

I’ll be posting several stories about Mr. Frank and Ms. Jo!

Unlike the school bus, the mail did not come to our door at the Little House.  Back in those days it was known as RFD (Rural Free Delivery).  A letter addressed to F. C. Segrest (my dad) RFD Milstead, Alabama would have made it to us.  Mr. Charlie Shaw, the “mailman” knew everyone on the route. We had an actual Box Number.  “Rt. One, Box 45,” Milstead, Alabama was the official address.  But the mailbox was up on the “big road” where what is now Segrest Lane turned off the big road.  The big road was an unpaved, clay, gravel top road.

There was no vehicle, we had to walk to the mail box, and long before we moved from the Little House, I was “big enough” to go to the mail box.  So, to get to the mail box from the Little House we first had to go past Uncle Earl’s house, which was due west of the Little House, maybe three hundred yards.  We could either follow the foot path through the pasture, or we could go “around the road” that our infrequent visitors with automobiles and the school bus used.  Then departing from the big oak in front of Uncle Earl’s house we walked past Mr. Frank’s house, then on up the lane to the big road.  From Uncle Earl’s oak to the big road was about a half mile.

Naturally, whoever went for the mail got our mail, Uncle Earl’s mail, and Mr. Frank’s mail.  There were two huge magnolia trees in front of Mr. Frank’s house that figure into this story, not to mention what was once considered the biggest Sassafras tree in Alabama, in Uncle R.V.’s field to east of the lane to the big road, but that is another story.  But occasionally when we would go by Mr. Frank’s place on the way to the box, his mule, Dan would be available. We would climb onto one of the huge magnolia limbs to mount onto Dan, and he would give us a ride to the mailbox!  Of course, who ever had to get off for the mail had to walk back home.

Mr. Frank and Ms. Jo had a couple of dogs.  He didn’t think they would bite, especially old “Blackie” who was old and almost toothless.  But once when I was delivering Mr. Frank’s mail to his house, old Blackie bit me, maybe with the only tooth he had.  Mr. Frank looked at the place, and decided that Blackie didn’t get me.  But by the time I got to Uncle Earl’s place, I was bleeding in my socks.  Uncle Earl’s wife, Aunt Daisy, was “fit to be tied,” as they used to say when someone became very angry.

Aunt Willie was Daddy’s sister, and Uncle Raymond Butler was her husband.  They had no children.  In my earliest recollection, Uncle Raymond had been drafted into the army in World War II.  He was a medic, and on his return, it was not unusual for family, and maybe others to ask him medical questions. I am not sure, at this point where all he may have served. 

When he completed his military service and returned home, he and Aunt Willie acquired a place in the community, and their home was about a quarter mile east of where the lane from Uncle Earl’s house entered the big road.  They lived on the big road, and owned land owned land on both sides of the road. I think, about 100 acres.  I also believe that the acquired it Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard.

There was a little store building very close to the house, and they expanded the building and opened a country store.  There were lots of country stores in those days.  All of them were somewhat similar in operation and content.  In this particular store, the groceries were behind a counter.  Purchasers stated what they wanted, and Uncle Raymond or Aunt Willie got it for them and placed it on the counter, and eventually bagged it up in brown paper bags, or put it in a box.  The groceries had been delivered from a big truck that came from a wholesaler, and the boxes were what the cans of groceries came in.

There was bologna and cheese to be sliced.  There was a glass case on top of the counter, that held all kinds of candy: Brock, Peter Paul mounds and Almond joys, Hershey bars, Mars and others.  And there was chewing gum—Spearmint and Juicy Fruit.   If you happened to have a nickel, you could have a feast.  The drink machine was just as you came in the front door.  It was cooled with water.  All the soft drinks—Coca Colas, R.C. Colas, Pepsi Colas, Dr. Peppers, and all kinds of Sunkist “knee high” fruit flavored drinks were in there.  And the customers could just reach in and get them.  I think that eventually health department people got wise to the idea that it was not a very sanitary operation:

Uncle Raymond added a room on the east side of the building for a corn mill that ground up corn into meal.  I think it was powered by amotor outside the building with the use of a band that came through an opening in the wall.

There were Pure Oil gas pumps out in front of the store, and my earliest recollect of the price of gas is twenty-five cents (25c) per gallon.  The gas tanks were underground. There was also a kerosene tank, that was square and sat above ground, and that’s where we got kerosene for the stove for the Little House.

When the B&SE railroad was taken up in 1936, the section from the Milstead station on the Western Railroad of Alabama to Tallassee, Alabama, with its cotton mills was left in operation.  An engine that was called the “Dinky” went back and forth on that section.  Uncle Raymond was “engineer” on the Dinky for a while. Eventually, Uncle Raymond went to work as overseer for Mr. Ben Walker, who owned a very large amount of land nearby.  The walkers owned thousands of acres, and, of course, Mr. Ben Walker had his own country store.  Aunt Willie continued to run the store.  It was a pure delight to get to “go to the store.”

During my eight childhood years in the Little Houses, the country side in rural Macon County was peppered with country stores.  I have mentioned the fact the Aunt Willie and Uncle Raymond actually opened a store during that time.  Uncle Raymond’s parents had owned and operated a store perhaps a quarter of a mile east of the store that Uncle Raymond opened.  And just beyond that, Mr. Albert Reynolds owned a store.  And there was another very small store west of Segrest Lane, where the “Big Road.” Thus, there were four country stores in very close proximity to the little house.  The closeness of these stores reflects the lack of transportation.  Many people had to walk to the store.

In another series of essays, I will be writing about the Shorter Public School.  It served the population of whites living on the west side of Macon County.  I would meet my wife to be—Betty Menefee—when I started the first grade at Shorter.  Her Dad ran a store next to her house.  He also operated the “rolling store.  His store was located near U.S Highway 80.  There were at least four other stores in close proximity to his store. U. S. Highway 80 traversed Macon County east to west, and the Shorter community was located on that Highway.  I remember at least 13 stores, including a “Truckstop,” on or near Highway 80 during that time.  The Shorter School served other local communities that had their own names.  There were 6 or 8 stores in Milstead, 3 or 4 in Hardaway, and 2 or 3 in Chesson.  So, as I said, the area served by the School was peppered with country stores.  There must have been 30 or 40, during my eight years in the Little House. 

The stores began to thin out in the fifties, and rapidly disappeared in the sixties and seventies.  A number of factors were involved in the decline.  First, a lot more families owned vehicles, and could travel further to make purchases.  Secondly, roads were upgraded.  U. S. Highway 80, was upgraded during the fifties.  But then Interstate Highway I-85 was constructed in the sixties, taking a lot of traffic off of Highway 80.  Traffic that might have stopped and shopped earlier moved on through.  But most important of all, the agrarian economy was changing.  Many of the stores had been operated either by landowners who had tenants, or by individuals who made a business of financing the subsistence farming operations.  In short, during the first half of the twentieth century, these stores were an important linkage in the rural social system.  The change brought significant changes in person-to-person relations.  This change was particularly significant for race relations, which were also affected by other factors as well, notably the Civil Rights movement and Voting Rights Act.  Local community was significantly weakened by these combined factors.

Perhaps the biggest event that occurred during my eight years at the Little House was the birth of a younger brother.  Like my older brother, Wade, and me, Forrest Chandler Segrest, Jr. was actually delivered in the Little House.  He arrived on August 3, 1946, when I was four years old.  Again, Dr. Malcolm Lightfoot came to the Little House for the delivery.  We had no vehicle, but Granddaddy Mote’s car was at the house.  I’m sure that one reason it was there to enable Daddy to reach the Dr.  But it also helped with other things.  Wade was parceled out to Aunt Runie’s house to visit with cousins Montez and Zenoma who were a little older than he was. 

The plan was for me to stay with Grandma Segrest over at Uncle Earl’s house, but I was a bit of a Mama’s boy and would have none of that.  So, I wound up sitting in Granddaddy’s automobile at the Little House!  I was pretty high strung as a small child.  Very shy, very sensitive, and not very sociable.  I actually remember standing by the water bucket for a drink of water, and insisting that Mama had to dip it: nobody else could dip it for me!  I don’t remember whether anyone was with me in Grandaddy’s car during the delivery.  Daddy may have had to stay with me.

In those days of home deliveries, usually a woman assisted the Doctor.  I think that when Wade was born, in 1938, Mama’s sister, Aunt Sue, who was trained as a nurse was there to assist.  Aunt Runie, the wife of Daddy’s brother Marvin (Uncle Bud) assisted with my delivery in 1942.  Our neighbor, Ms. Jo. Pierce was there to assist with Chan’s delivery. 

Another important event occurred in 1946.  We got electricity, and a refrigerator.  The refrigerator replaced the ice box.  Chan’s milk bottle’s could stay in the refrigerator.  The electricity was furnished by the utility company of the City of Tuskegee.  Frank Carr, who actually owned a large farm just up the road from the Little House was mayor of the City of Tuskegee, and he was actively involved in marketing the utility services to our community.

Some time after Wade’s visit to Uncle R. V. in 1940, Uncle R. V., who was somewhat older than Daddy, bought a place on the big road just beyond Aunt Willie and Uncle Raymond’s store.  They built a house and barn, and operated a farm.  They had five children: Ralph, Donald, Joyce, Bob and Bill.  All except Bill were born before the bought the farm and built the house.  Bob was just older than me, born in 1940, and Bill just younger than me, born in 1945.  When we lived at the Little House, Bob was a favorite playmate.  And Bill was close to Chan.

To get to Uncle R.V.’s house “around the road” we would have to go past Uncle Earl’s, up to the big road, turn right, go about a quarter of a mile and turn right into his 150 yard driveway.  But without a vehicle, the footpath was a better choice.  From Uncle Earl’s house there was a path through the woods that went to Uncle R.V.’s place, and we used it often!  Sometimes, we would meet Bob half way, all with BB Guns, to hunt for birds.  Occasionally, we actually killed one.

We would spend the night with Bob, and he with us.  Uncle R.V.’s place was fascinating.  Of course, Pet and Emma, the mules were usually in the barn, or in the pasture.  There was a concrete back porch, and on that porch there was a shower.  Of course, the water had to be put overhead, so the shower probably didn’t come until there was an electric pump for the well.  And there was no water heater for the shower water, at best it was heated by the sun.

But Uncle R.V. had an outdoor privy.  Initially, it was a two-holer, east of the scuppernong vine behind the house. But later, a really first class one-holer, that actually had what I remember to be a store-bought seat.  It was west of the scuppernong vine.  Uncle Earl had an outdoor privy also, but we didn’t have anything except the woods behind the bus body, except slop jar for Mama that went under her bed.

About the time that we moved from the Little House in 1950, Uncle R.V. with family help built a house for Aunt Ida and Uncle Willie, a two-room house east of his house.  The family installed a bell up on a pole in the yard, so that if either Aunt Ida or Uncle Willie “got down,” Aunt Ruby could ring the bell for help.

During the eight years that I lived in the Little House, the United States had entered World War II, and was struggling still to overcome the Great Depression.  Depression conditions were still very apparent in rural Alabama.  One of the programs that geared up during the Roosevelt Administration to assist farmers was the Federal Land Bank.  In 1933, part of the New Deal was revamping that institution which had been created in 1916, but was in serious trouble by the end of 1942.  But the rejuvenated Federal Land Bank provided low interest financing of many farms with 40-year, low interest loans. 

Of course, the Federal Land Bank loans were not the only sources of financing.  Daddy borrowed money from Ms. Carrie Carr to “make a crop.”  Ms. Carr owned a country store and also operated a cotton gin.  I think that Ben Walker also financed crops for Daddy.  He too had both a country store and a gin.  The crop loans occurred in the Spring and were repaid after harvest.  Later Daddy borrowed money for crops from banks in Tuskegee, and the Opelika Production Credit Association, another federal farm finance organization.

I suspect that Uncle R.V., Uncle Buddy, and Uncle Jody all financed the purchase their farms with loans from the Federal Land Bank.  But, unfortunately low interest, long term loans could not empower subsistence farming as a way of life.  There was over production of cotton, and the federal government had programs to underwrite the price for cotton, but to do so, cotton was allotted, and farmers not allowed to plant more that the allotted acreage.  Like country stores, the small acreage cotton farmers gradually faded from the rural scene in our area.  And the rural farm children were able to get a better education than was available to their parents and choose more productive work than subsistence farming.

The Great Depression had made it clear that the work force had to be organized differently.  Subsistence farming—40 acres and a mule—was not a workable paradigm.  Neither Uncle Jody nor Uncle Buddy were able to sustain the farms that they bought.  Uncle Jody sold his farm to Uncle R.V.’s son, Ralph, when Ralph returned from World War II.  Uncle Buddy held on to his farm for a good while, but eventually had to let it go.  Daddy, Uncle Earl, and Uncle R.V. were able to hold onto their farms, but not with the proceeds of farming operations.  All took on other jobs.

All of this is background for the importance of the important mission of the Shorter Public School.

Church was part of my life from the beginning.  We attended Bradford’s Chapel Methodist Church in what was then the Milstead Community.  It was the only Church in the Milstead Community.  There is a cemetery there, and many of my ancestor’s are buried there.  My Daddy joined there on profession of faith in 1944. 

Like many rural Methodist Churches then and now, it was on a Charge, named the LaPlace Charge.  The LaPlace Church is another Church on the Charge, and was the first Methodist Society formed in Macon County.  When I was born, I believe that there were six churches on the Charge, including Bradford’s Chapel, LaPlace, Neal’s Chapel, Union, Mt. Meigs and Chisholm. 

Worship services did not occur at Bradford’s Chapel every Sunday in those days.  “Preaching” only occurred on the fourth Sunday of every month. I have to confess that I was not wild about the preaching, but I made it through.  But Sunday School was different.  The Church building had been erected in 1868.  It was a typical Methodist Preaching House with two front doors, four walls with windows, a side door.  There may have been a back door; there is a backdoor now.  But that is where the pulpit was located.  There were no Sunday School rooms.  There was no bathroom.  There was no running water.  That’s what it was like when I was born.  It has been remodeled and updated since.

Mr. Frank Pierce was Sunday School Superintendent.  After a general gathering, during which we sang songs, and had a responsive reading out of the Cokesbury Hymnal, we divided into classes.  Mr. Frank would have the morning prayer, kneeling at the altar.  At the close of the general gathering, Mr. Frank always said, “The students will retire to their places and the teachers will take charge.” That’s exactly what he said. Every Sunday. 

Mrs. Emma Sheppard was the matriarch of the Church.  I think she had mothered 12 kids who were older and younger than my parents.  She was the kindergarten teacher.  I loved it.  She always had cool aid and cookies!  We met in a tent like structure in space separated out of the big rectangular preaching space with a cloth divider for walls.

After classes we would reassemble for a final song, and reports from the classes.  Then Mr. Frank would call on Mrs. Sheppard to dismiss us with prayer.  I don’t remember the whole prayer, or even if she said the same thing every time.  But she always ended the prayer the same way: “Watch over us, care for us and keep us, and at last in heaven save us, in Christ name. Amen.”  The unique thing was that she always ran out of breath and had to stop and inhale at the same place: “and at last in—(inhale)—heaven save us….

One special memory is vacation Bible School.  I suspect that I attended several, but this one is fixed in my memory.  Ms. Maryann Sheppard, the wife of Hoyt Sheppard, came to the Little House in her blue Mercury, and carried us the vacation Bible School.  Workers were there from Huntingdon College to help teach.  I am sure they taught us something about the Bible and Jesus.  But what I remember is learning the dove soap would actually float, and you could make a toy duck out of it.  It had a paper head, of course, and for the life of me, I can’t remember what made it float with its head upright.  Maybe we put thumbtacks of the bottom, or something like that!

The memories are absolutely beautiful, and if you think I am poking fun—forget it.  I am crying as I type.  These are precious memories, the name of a song we often sung.  That was my barefoot start to a lifelong career in lay work in the United Methodist Church, and a very good one.

I have told of Mr. Frank Pierce’s mules in other essays.  We enjoyed Mr. Frank and his mules.  But eventually Mr. Frank got a tractor, and that may have made even better stories.  We were use to hearing him give directions to the mules.  “Gee”—go right, or “haw”—go left, or “whoa”—stop.  He did that for years.  I don’t remember what happened to Dan, but think maybe Queen died.

Then, in a ripe old age, Mr. Frank got a tractor.  It was a cub—a very small tractor.  It was equipped with rear end cultivators.  One day, he was plowing young cotton in the patch in front of Uncle Earl’s house beyond the Oak Tree.  An interesting event occurred. We couldn’t help but notice that, after turning around at the end of the rows, and heading back on another row toward his house, the tractor began to stall.  It was running, all right, but just couldn’t move forward.  First one wheel would spin and then the other.  Strange.  But on closer inspection, we noticed a “V” shaped disturbance of the soil behind him, with the point of the “V” at the back of his tractor!  He had let the plow down across the fence, and pulled a strand of barbed wire, mostly underground, pulling staples out of fence post, and destroying about a quarter acre of cotton!

But even more interesting was the way old habits hang on.  Driving the tractor.  “Gee”  “Haw”, but the tractor didn’t turn.  And then at the end of the row, “Whoa,” and into the fence the tractor went!

As I think back on those stories from my own twilight perspective, they are not nearly as funny now as we thought they were back then.  One does not get away from one’s “raisin,” as the saying goes.  In my retirement, I have a little garden.  And a little tractor.  And the garden has a fine eight-foot deer fence around it.  I haven’t torn it down yet, but……  I think I become more of Mr. Frank everyday!

My first four years in the Little House were without utilities.  Electricity and Telephone came in about 1946, when I was four years old.  Those years were also the years of World War II.  Interesting times.  I think that electricity had to come first.  The City of Tuskegee had a utility company, and Frank Carr, who had strong connections with our Milstead community, was mayor.  He was an advocate for the expansion of the utility company, and instrumental in extending it into our community.  The other opportunity for electricity would have been Dixie Electric Cooperative out of Union Springs.  It extended its serves into nearby Shorter, just south of us.

Electricity was a huge addition even at the little house.  Electric light bulbs replaced the kerosine lamps, including the Aladdin lamp that actually produced pretty good light.  Electric appliances became possible.  I think that we had a battery powered radio before electricity was installed, but afterwards the radio was “plugged” in.  Chan was born that year, and I think that Granddaddy helped with buying a refrigerator, so that milk was a lot more secure.

Country humor attended new events like coming of electricity.  I haven’t heard electricity called “juice” in a long time, but back in those days, that terminology was fairly standard.  “The refrigerator is not running.”  “Is there any juice getting to it.”  And then the inevitable jokes that country folks poked at themselves. “If the juice runs out in the floor, and the dog drinks it, will it hurt him?”

And after we got electricity, the telephone came.  An eight-party line.  You could not use it if any of the other seven households were “on the line.”  Naturally, that gave rise to some conflict.  A few people could be very talkative, and that could be very irritating to other customers! Direct dialing was not available; calls had to go through an operator.  You gave the operator the number, and she dialed it.  Our number was 985r2.  Our party-line was the 985 line. I think that Uncle Earl was 985r1.  Uncle Buddy was 985 r 3.  I think that Mr. Frank Pierce was 985r4.  I don’t not remember the other four residences on that party-line.  Uncle R.V. was 899r2, and that was a different line.  When you picked up the phone, the operator would come on the line and say “Operator.”  If we wanted to call Uncle Earl, we said “r1 on this line.”  If we wanted to call Uncle R.V. we said “899r2.” To call anyone not on our line, we had to say the whole number.  When we moved away from the Little House in 1950, I think the story was that no line was available.  But whatever the reason, we did not get a phone again until after I had finished high school, and well into the sixties.  I suspect that finances were part of the problem.

During the years that I lived in the Little House, there were no weather satellites. There was no weather radar.  We may have heard “weather forecasts” on the radio.  There may have also been forecasts in the newspapers.  But given the state of technology the forecasts didn’t improve a lot on whatever the Farmer’s Almanac said!  So, there was concern, and actual diligence about weather.  The old folks—well they seemed old to us—watched the sky, and they made the forecasts.  They could read the signs—the cloud formations and make predictions a few hours, or even a day in advance.  And they definitely knew when, as they said, it was “coming up a cloud.”

The country folks well knew that the wooden frame houses could not withstand a tornado.  The word “cyclone” was used about as often as “tornado” back then.  But whatever you called it, it was not good; it was a fearsome thing.  So, many residences had a “storm pit” close by.  Uncle Earl built a nice storm pit that you could get into from his back porch.  It was partly underground, and had concrete block walls.  We affectionately called it “the hole.”  The weather usually came from the west, but the east side extended maybe two feet above the surface of the yard.  He left a couple of openings on that side, so that if you were tall enough, you could look out.  He left a sledge hammer in the storm pit, so that if the need arose, you could knock the concrete blocks from between the openings, and crawl out of there.  We never had to do that.

We never had a storm pit of our own.  We didn’t need one. Uncle Earl had one, and it was always close by.  If Daddy decided it was “coming up a cloud,” we would “head for the hole.”  From the Little House, we would head out across the branch, by the cow pen, and often Uncle Earls would meet us half way and carry us when we were small.

Aunt Willie and Uncle Raymond had a storm pit, as did Uncle R.V. and Uncle Buddy.  Uncle Buddy’s wife, Aunt Runie, was terrified by bad weather. Their storm pit, during my Little House years, was out in fron of their house, in the edge of the big road.  It was on the top of a hill, and at that point the banks on the side of the road were high.  The storm pit was dug into the road bank.  Timbers were place along the sides, and tin sheets nailed on to form a roof. 

We never had a tornado directly in our community that I remember.  In 1975, many years after the Little House years, hurricane Eloise came through.  Uncle Bud and Aunt Runie, by then, were living in a little house on Uncle Earl’s place, between his house and the house where Aunt Ida and Uncle Willie had lived during our Little House years.  Aunt Runie was trying to make it from that house to “the hole” at Uncle Earl’s house, had a heart attack and died.  I suppose her fear of weather was fulfilled.

Before Uncle Earl built his storm pit, Uncle Willie had improvised one in what we called the “big ditch” just east of Uncle Earl’s house.  The big ditch was a favorite play ground.  It was deep enough we could slide down the sides to the bottom.  But Uncle Willi covered the top end of the ditch with tin, and called in a storm pit.  If it the storm included a flash flood, any occupant of his “storm pit” might have drowned!

At the time I was born, Uncle Bud (Marvin L. Segrest), Daddy’s oldest brother owned a 200 acre farm that adjoined the place where the Little House was built, and lay west of the Little House.  Uncle Bud’s place went all the way from the swamp, and the old B&SE railroad right-of-way to the big road.  The home that he had built was near the big road, perhaps one hundred yards from the road.  I strongly suspect that he had financed the purchase of the place with a Federal Land Bank Loan.  I do not know when he bought it and built the house and barn.  His mule was named Henry.

Uncle Bud and Aunt Runnie had eight children, and by the time I was born, several of them were already adult, married and not living at their home any longer. But Aaron, Virginia, Franklin, Montez and Zenoma were all still living at home.  Juanita may have been there too, but the best I remember, Minnie and Vernon were not there.  In any event, Vernon went into the army during World War II.  Aaron, if I remember right, went into the Army shortly thereafter.

We did a lot of visiting from and at the Little House with Franklin, Montez and Zenoma.  In the summer, there would be watermelons at out house, and Aunt Runie, Montez and Zenoma came often to cut a watermelon. We played house with Montez and Zenoma in the pine thicket between the Little House and Uncle Earl’s house. We raked pine straw into lines for the walls.  Dolls were often envolved.

Franklin, Wade and I played baseball.  In the absence of a bat or a ball, we improvised with a stick for a bat and tin can for a ball.  Franklin and I were one team and Wade the other.  The ballpark was in the pasture between the Little House and Uncle Earl’s house. 

Uncle Bud had a cane patch down next to the old railroad right of way.  He had a cane mill, and “cooked” syrup.  I remember going there with Mama to help with the cane grinding and syrup making.  I don’t remember the details his cane and syrup operation.  I was very small. 

Not long after we moved from the Little House, Uncle Bud and Aunt Runnie had to give up there place, either foreclosure or a forced sale.  I did not know the details, but Wade and I were big enough to help them move to the Carr place—the large farm owned by Frank Carr, where Uncle Bud lived and worked for him for a while.

Uncle Jody—James Woodrow Segrest, Sr—was Daddy’s youngest brother.  In 1942, he bought the place up on the big road, across the road from the mailbox where Segrest Lane comes into the big road.  It was a hundred acres in all, with 60 acres north of the road—except for a little corner of the sixty that was south of the road because of a curve in the road—and 40 acres south of the road.  His wife, like my Mama, was named Ella.  The children of all other aunts and uncles had two Aunt Ella’s.

Uncle Jody and Aunt Ella had 4 children.  James, Fay, Roy, and Betty Jean.  James was born in 1941, before Uncle Jody bought the farm and built the house and barn.  After buying the place, Uncle Jody built the barn before he built the house.  They lived in the barn while the house was being built. Fay was actually born in the barn.  Roy was born in the house, and Betty Jean after they moved away from that place.

James was my favorite playmate.  He was a year older than me.  We frequently “spent the night” with each other.  Our friendship continued for his lifetime, and I will likely write more about him and our relationships as we moved through our lives.  There were lots of stories, and I can’t tell them all!

I suspect that I know that Uncle Jody financed the purchase of the place through the Federal Land Bank.  But in 1946, probably under financial pressure, Uncle Jody and Aunt Ella sold the place to Uncle R.V.’s son Ralph, when Ralph returned from military service in World War II.  They moved away, and were located at several different residences after that.  They remained in the community until after James completed high school, but moved to Montgomery sometimes early in the 1960’s.

Ralph, and his wife, June lived in the house that Uncle Jody Built for two or three years, but by 1950, they had moved elsewhere, and we moved there when we left the Little House.  After leasing the place for a couple of years, we moved for a year to the Carr Place, adjacent to Bradford’s Chapel.  Then we moved back to the house that Uncle Jody built, and Mama and Daddy bought the 100 acres that uncle Jody had owned.  I lived there until I started college, and it was actually my home until Betty and I married in 1964.  The place has been in our family from the time that Mama and Daddy bought it in the 1950’s.

Daddy, Uncle Earl, and Uncle Jody were the youngest siblings in their family.  Their best friends, growing up were the “Richardson boys”: Will, John Henry, and Floyd.  They hunted, fished and played together, and many stories were generated.  I think all three were still around when I was born, but John Henry and his wife, whom we called “Aunt Agnes,” lived in the Milstead community where I was born.  I do not recall where Will and Floyd were at that time.  The Richardson boys had two sisters, Mary Charles and Annie Jo, but I never knew them.  I think Will would up in Wisconsin, and do not know about Floyd.

But John Henry and Aunt Agnes were a part of our community.  They either already owned, or bought a small farm there. I remember at one time they lived in Tuskegee, and we visited them there.  John Henry was Daddy’s “best friend.”  Aunt Agnes was not our Aunt, but many of the women in the community, particularly those that we saw most often, were actually our Aunts, and I think that practically all my cousins called her “Aunt Agnes.  It was her title of respect.  The Richardson home was on up the big road past Uncle R.V.’s house, but we could get there through the woods.

John Henry and Aunt Agnes daughter, whose name was “Nona Ruth,” was about a year younger than me and was always a very special person and playmate.  We would walk through the woods to visit the Richardsons.  They may have owned a vehicle—I don’t remember.  I remember one occasion that the Richardson’s visited us at the Little House.  They came for lunch.  Mama had made lemon pie and that was mine and Wade’s favorite.  I quickly finished mine, and for some reason, Nona did not want to eat all of hers and the decision was made that I could have it.  I dug in.  But then I realized that I was eating with Nona’s spoon, and everybody else figured that out too!  Total embarrassment.  That was a total taboo.  It would have been bad enough if she had been a boy.  But she was a girls.

At the Bradford’s cemetery, there is a row of little graves, where John Henry and Aunt Agnes buried babies who were either still-born, or that lived for only a short time. 

When we started school, Nona was in the class behind me.  Very smart.  And we always attended church together.  She learned to play the piano, and often played at Church. 

The Sheppard family had moved into our Milstead Community a good many years before I was born.  There were 13 siblings in the Sheppard family, and some of them were already adults before the family moved into the community.  Ruby, one of the siblings had married Mr. Albert Reynolds, a prominent farmer and land owner in the community.  The entire family relocated from Tallapoosa County. 

The Sheppard family immediately became a leading family in the Bradford’s Chapel Church.  Many of the siblings lived in the community as adults, but several married and lived elsewhere.  Hoyt Sheppard married Maryann, and they made their home in the community.  He was a prominent farmer.  Ralph Sheppard was a teacher, but bought and owned land in the community for a period of time.  I do not remember if he actually lived on the land that he bought at any time.  I do recall that Miller lived for a time on that place.

Jewell had married and lived in Tallapoosa County, but in 1941, her family moved into the Milstead Community.  She was mother of the Ledbetter Boys, who were our good friends. Her husband died while some of their children were still small.  Her sister Ruby, who had married Mr. Albert Reynolds, also died.  Mr. Albert in due course of time married Jewell.

In the essay about the Sheppard family, I mentioned the Jewell was one of the thirteen siblings.  She and her husband moved into the community close to Mr. Albert Reynolds and her sister Ruby, and also close to her parents and younger siblings.  She raised six sons.  Thomas, Clifford, John Milton, Earl, Forrest and Lamar.  I’ve often wondered if the names Earl and Forrest were borrowed from my Daddy and Uncle Earl.  There was also a girl who died very young. 

I never knew Thomas while I was growing up.  He was a good bit older than me.  Clifford married my cousin Joyce, Uncle R.V.’s daughter, and they had 6 children.  The marriage ultimately ended in divorce, but while I was growing up, Clifford was very active with us.  We loved to set out hooks for catfish in Calebee Creek.  He was also an avid hunter, and we hunted together as long as he lived.  John Milton was also a few years older.  I think he may have been a senior in high school when Betty and I started to school.  But after a stint in the Army, he married one of Wade’s classmates, and as adults, we had good association with them, through church and otherwise. 

But when I talk about “the Ledbetter Boys,” I am mostly referring the Earl, Forrest and Lamar.  Earl was about 5 years older than me, Forrest 3, and Lamar 2.  We were closely associated in church and school activities, later on, and I first came to know them while living in the Little House.  While living in the Little House, my closest contacts were members of the Segrest family—Daddy’s siblings and their off-spring.  But Church, and then school expanded the circle, even while we were still living at the Little house.  I was still at the Little House for the first and second grades.  The Ledbetter boys, like us, rode the school bus.

Mr. Charlie Shaw was the Milstead mailman.  He delivered mail on a rural route for fifty years or more.  He drove his own car, I think.  He knew everyone on his route.  Our mailbox was Rt. One Box 45, Milstead, Alabama.  I never heard of a route two.  The mail was brought by train to Milstead Station, a depot on the Western Railroad of Alabama.  The depot was four or five miles from the Little House.  Time came when the train allegedly didn’t even stop—the mailbags were just thrown off!

The post office itself was in Ben Walker’s store, across the road from the depot.  There was a postmaster for the Milstead Post Office.  I think that the postmaster and mail delivery man, Mr. Shaw, were the only two employees, but they did an incredible job.  My first and second grade teacher, Ms. Rossie Pierce, who had also taught my father, retired soon after I completed the second grade, and she became the Milstead post Mistress.  Mr. Shaw delivered our mail at precisely the same time every day.  We knew that at any time after 10:00 A.M., the mail would be available in the box up on the big road, and we could set out for it.  In those days, The Montgomery Advertiser, a daily newspaper, was delivered via the postal service, so Mr. Shaw brought not only regular mail, but also the Montgomery Advertiser.  Daddy read the Advertiser every day.

Mr. Shaw was quite a character, in his own right, and there were stories about him that we all enjoyed.  For instance, on one occasion, when he arrived back home, Mrs. Shaw was very excited because she had killed a snake.  When she started telling Mr. Shaw how big the snake was, and where she had found it, Mr. Shaw was reported to have said, “I’ll bet, by God, that you’ve killed my white oak runner.”

He retired after fifty years on the job.  He received an award—from the postal service, I think—for fifty years of driving without a single accident.  You know it: a few days later he had his first fender-bender.

When I was about 4 years old, I acquired a doll.  It was not just any doll.  The way I remember it may Aunt Willie Butler was involved.  She carried us to a store, I think in Tallassee, AL.  It must have been Christmas, but all that was a long time ago.  She was apparently buying us Christmas presents.  I don’t remember what Wade got—probably a baseball, or some other boyish toy.  And Chan was probably not around, and in any event, to little to be making a choice.  But I could make a choice!

All my female cousins had dolls, so I was dead set on getting a doll. So, they finally agreed to let me look at dolls.  I vaguely remember a box full of dolls.  They weren’t too keen on me getting a doll, me being a boy and all.  But I persisted, and began to examine the dolls in the box.  I finally zeroed in on the one I wanted.  It was black! Of course, they tried to convince me that it was not the one I wanted—but they were wrong.  And we wound up getting the black doll!

I loved my black doll.  I took care of it like a baby—most of the time.  Its eyes would open when it was upright, but close then when I laid it down on its back. My brother Wade remembers our Grandmother Mote–Mama’s mother–helping me dress the doll.  I remember playing with the doll, but not many details.   I don’t really remember how long I had the doll.  It must have been for a year if two.  But one day, I was playing in the front yard of the little house, and decided to put my baby to bed on the concrete steps. Apparently, I laid him down a little too hard, and cracked its plastic head open.  I cried plenty, but crying did no good.  The eyes closed, but the head was cracked.  But at least I could finally see the weighted mechanism that made the eyes close.

Somehow, I found it very ironic when I learned that the United States Supreme Court used the “psychological” fact that black kids preferred white dolls and somehow that showed the effect of racial prejudice as part of the basis for its decision Brown v. Topeka. 

 The evidence for doll preferences was created by Psychologists named Clark, and the following is quoted from an article on the internet:

“For the Clarks, the results showed the devastating effects of life in a society that was intolerant of African-Americans. Their experiment, which involved white- and brown-skinned dolls, was deceptively simple. (In a reflection of the racial biases of the time, the Clarks had to paint a white baby doll brown for the tests, since African-American dolls were not yet manufactured.)” https://www.history.com/news/brown-v-board-of-education-doll-experiment

I can personally attest to the fact that African-American dolls were manufactured in the forties, at about the time the Clarks were conducting their experiments.  Moreover, my judicial circuit included Roanoke, Alabama, where the Ella Gauntt Smith factory manufactured black dolls long before that. 

This essay is not written as a critique of the work of the Clarks, nor is it a criticism of the Supreme Court decision; it is a description of my personal experience, and the irony of my choice.