FIRST"RACE"MEMORY

excerpt from COLORS OF MY WORLD (see Aug. 31, 2010 blog)

Red clay, green grass and blue sky; blondes, red heads, brunettes; pink, red-burned, white, freckled, tan and olive - those were the colors of my childhood.  In the very early years I did not miss the other colors - the browns, mahoganies, ebonies and the almost blue-blacks.  You have to experience something to miss its absence.

I must have been about three, maybe four.  Sunday, after church, my family always ate dinner (Noon) at Grandmother Hunter's house.  The dining room was a pastel green.  The dining table, which seated 14, was a rich, dark mahogany as was the long buffet.  The buffet always had a fresh bouquet of flowers from the yard.  On the wall hung still life paintings of flowers, which Aunt Leona had painted.  They called her the "black sheep" of the family.  I wondered why.  She was not black nor was she a sheep.  She was definitely more fun than all the rest.  Her laugh was boister, she lacked the "gentility" of a lady, but Grandmother thought she was wonderful even if she didn't wear a dress and did smoke.  Grandmother loved everyone, even Aunt Martha.  Anyway, back to Sunday dinner.  Lunch was the noon meal every day of the week except Sunday.  Sunday dinner was golden fried chicken, white and tan biscuits, home churned, sunny butter, fried green okra, sliced red tomatoes, chips of cucumber soaked in vinegar, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes or potato salad and thick, creamy light brown gravy.  I was stuffed and restless watching my aunts, uncles, Mother. Daddy, my older brother Billy and my baby sister Sara Frances.  We were gathered after the meal in the sitting room, which was also Grandmother's bedroom.  Even though Grandmother had a lovely formal parlor across the hall, no one used it, at least not that I ever saw.  Grandmother's room was huge and cozy.

I wandered into the kitchen, past the wood burning stove and the work table in the middle of the room, past the counter full of mason jars and crock pots full of interesting leaves, seeds and stuff, back to a little corner table next to the kitchen window.

Coffee, yes, like Daddy's, without cream - that was the color of old Essex eating in the corner, hidden away behind the tall wooden churn and the big white porcelain stove.  His eyes were black and wary.  I leaned my four year old, skinny body against the small wooden table he used as a dinner table.  What was this manner of man!  He did not look dirty but he was so dark!  Grey hair in tiny coils hugged his head.  The palms of his hands looked faded and pink, not dark like his arms.

Dark brown eyes softened and twinkled.  I edged closer.  Without dropping a single crumb, his gnarled hands continued their journey through the biscuits and gravy, slowing down for the chunks of ham, then speeding up with the soft, bacon-flavored green beans, and lingering over the orange sweet potatoes.  A mason jar of iced tea washed down the remains.  I leaned against the little table, completely absorbed in his wrinkled, brown face.  No words - just watching.  He seemed tired in his worn dusty faded overalls.  Quietly, without a word, he returned my gaze.  His face was gently, patiently smiling as I stared.

"Anne!  Get out of here.  Come back to the sitting room!" sharply jarred my spine and sent me back out of the room.  This Aunt Martha, who never saw the good, who seemed bitter and abrasive, domineering and hateful, shoved me into the room with the others.  My aunts and uncles, my daddy and mother, my sister and brother sat mute, unable to defend or protect.  They never challenged her.  She was the one who inherited the personality of my grandfather.  He died before I was born but the stories of his brutal parenting made me glad I never knew him.

As a child, I watched as my aunt screamed at the elderly, gentle, sweet, dark-skinned laborer on her farm because he smiled at me.  I knew she no longer belonged in my heart family from that day on.  "You know better, Essex!  Now get out of here and get back to work," came from the kitchen in angry tones as my aunt shooed old Essex out into the screened-in back porch and through the back door.  Bent and subdued he went back to the barn and  to chores that rightfully should have been done by my stronger, younger uncles.  They spent their time telling jokes and put downs sprinkled with the "N" word.  I could not allow myself to even say the word it was so cancerous to me.

"Stay away from him," she said as she came back in.

Thus began the journey to get to know all the colors of my world.