A Hundred Year Story, Part 11

Childhood in the early 1940s

By Elton Camp

It’s as if I “woke up” at Fayetteville. I don’t remember anything before that, nor
do I recall moving there. From that point onward, I retain a continuous memory, likely
from just under a year old. Naturally, I don’t recall everything that took place, but there
are no big gaps in time in so far as I can determine.

Although I naturally don’t remember it, my mother tried to breast feed, but when I
continued to lose weight, her doctor told her that her milk wasn’t nutritious enough and
that I must be bottle- fed. Later, my father repeatedly smirked about it. “She was like a
cow that made lots of milk, but it was no good.” He enjoyed any opportunity to demean
her. Putting her down appeared to be a means he used to elevate himself. An informed
guess tells me that the real problem wasn’t milk quality, but that my father insisted that
my feeding be on a spaced-out schedule convenient to him. The result was that I wasn’t
getting enough to eat to thrive. He adopted that same standard when I was moved to
bottle-feeding. I recall my mother later telling me about it.

“He wouldn’t let me feed you except at scheduled times. When you were hungry
and cried, I sometimes slipped and did it anyway,” she said with barely-controlled anger.

“On demand” feeding wasn’t acceptable to him. What he wanted overrode any
other considerations. In his defense, selfishness and egotism were the examples his own
father set. People usually imitate their parents’ child rearing practices, no matter how
flawed. Perhaps he couldn’t help being the way he was.

I unmistakably recall drinking from a baby bottle. My parents used a large safety
pin to enlarge the holes in the nipple so I could get the milk more readily. This isn’t
something I only think I remember from having been told about it. It’s a genuine
memory.

Also, I plainly recall moving around in a baby walker before I was old enough to
walk on my own. I rolled in it from our area of the house into my grandparent’s area,
especially their kitchen and the well shelter. Sometimes my mother borrowed items from
their kitchen. I pestered her to let me return them on the walker. Somehow, this seemed
important to me.

I slept in a baby bed in the same room as my parents. It was one of those with
vertical slats and a side that could be lowered. That type, in later years, was condemned
due to multiple deaths of babies who caught their heads between the bars and suffocated.
The bed was borrowed, over a twenty-year period by relatives with new babies. Each
time, it was returned in good condition. No child was ever harmed. We left it in the barn
loft at Mountain View when my parents moved to Russellville. I wish we’d destroyed it
to eliminate the possibility of further use.

Every morning at Fayetteville my father walked up the hill toward the barn. I
watched him as he carried a heavy bucket, probably water for the cow. It was interesting
to note how he extended his left arm far out to balance the load on the right. Since I
wasn’t aware of the weight of water, I wondered why he did that. My guess is that he fed
the cow and cleaned up after her, but that it was up to others to milk her. He was never
lazy, but some jobs he just didn’t do. Milking was one of them.

I don’t remember it, but have been told by my mother that my grandmother
sneaked and gave me coffee at way too young an age. “I came into the breakfast room
and there she sat, feeding you coffee by the spoonful,” she reported. “Her embarrassed
look showed she hadn’t heard me coming.” That violation of her daughter’s specific
instructions created ill will that lasted for several days. She naturally resented such
interference by her mother in her child rearing preferences. Mother repeated that story to
me many times over the years, always with a degree of anger.

I’m forced to compare it to what happened decades later. My mother covertly

gave our daughter,Maria, bananas when she knew we wanted her to have nothing but
breast milk. Events tend to repeat. That time her actions resulted in immediate
consequences. Maria cried for hours with an upset stomach. I doubt that the coffee did
me any harm.

When my father worked the night shift at the powder plant, he had to sleep during
the daytime. He used the hallway in an area that was as wide as the original dogtrot from
which it’d been taken. It had no windows and so was dark and quiet. He always snored
extremely loud. I’ve been told that my grandmother led me where I could hear him and
told me in a scary voice “Bugger, bugger.” She didn’t like my father and used that as a
way to try to make me afraid of him. I retain no memory of her having done this, but
believe it’s true.

I distinctly recall my mother taking a dangerous fall in her kitchen. She was
mopping the floor so it was wet and slick with soap. My father was sick in bed with strep
throat and started demanding more crushed ice. While rushing to placate him, she took a
very bad spill that made it hard for her to get around for days.

It was during this time that my father was injured in a car accident. While he
walked on the shoulder of the road, a car struck him. He and Uncle Gaston stopped to
gawk at a wreck that had just occurred. A man, who was distracted by the crowd, hit him
from the back and threw him over his car. He went home a bloody mess, but not
seriously injured. With his typical lack of couth, he planned out a scheme to keep her
from getting upset when she saw his condition. He drew a glass of water and walked into
the room where she was standing. Before she could say anything, he threw the glass of
water directly into her face. He had so little judgment as to think that he’d done a good
thing. Years later, he continued to boast about how well he handled the situation.
 Relatives often made short visits, but I remember only two specific individuals:
Uncle Harvey, my grandfather’s brother, and Aunt Ada, Harvey’s wife. Uncle Harvey
was mostly bald and very friendly with a broad smile. For some reason, I began calling
him “Puddin”. This was the nickname of a local Negro who was mildly retarded, so
somebody must’ve prompted me to use that name. Whenever he came, somebody asked
me whom he was. When I replied “Puddin,” they all laughed. I was puzzled because I
thought that really was his name. The way he grinned and turned red showed me they
weren’t making fun of me, but somehow at him. I knew it was strange, but never insisted
on an explanation.

It wasn’t until decades later than I learned the identity of the real “Puddin.”
Racial bigotry was all but universal in the South at that time, even among people who
should’ve known better. Although a large number of blacks lived in Talladega County,
most were in the city of Talladega that we didn’t visit. I don’t recall seeing any Negroes
until years later after we’d moved back to Marshall County.

When Aunt Ada dropped by, she always made a rush to pick me up. Her unruly
mop of hair stuck out in every direction, numerous deep wrinkles marked her face, and
her eyes were wild-looking. I thought that she was horribly ugly. To make matters
worse, she continually moved her lips in a strange way like she was chewing. I thought
of her as a lion, although I knew full well that she was a human. I screamed in fear every
time because I didn’t want her to come near me. She picked me up just the same.
Children are seldom accorded the right to determine who’s allowed to touch them. I was
relieved each time when her visit ended.

My grandparents had a black and white dog by the name of Pudgy. A family story
arose about the two of us that was mostly false. It made such a good tale that I didn’t, at
the time, tell them any different. The report was that I was outside on the sidewalk toward
the garage where I started to fall. Pudgy got under me to keep me from being hurt. The
adults saw only the end of the incident with my lying partly across the dog. I remember
the entire incident clearly. What actually happened was that Pudgy got hold of one of my
socks with his teeth and pulled upward. This jerked me off my feet and I fell down
across him. He had pulled at my socks before, but that was the only time it threw me
down. For a long time, I didn’t try to clarify what happened because it was evident that
they enjoyed telling the story. Decades later, I tried to correct the story to my mother, but
she didn’t believe me. The truth isn’t needed or wanted when a fictional version is so
much more fun.

My grandparents had their clothes washed, first at home by Negroes, and later at
the commercial laundry in town. Their first home washing machine appeared about
1949.

“Washing clothes is nigger work,” declared even the less prosperous white people
of south Alabama. Only desperately poor whites washed their own clothes. The foolish
idea was a holdover from the days of slavery. In north Alabama, nobody viewed clothes
washing that way. The self-sufficient rural families washed their own clothes in a wash
pot outside. That part of the State hadn’t been the location of many slaves.

Practically everyone, even other blacks, used the offensive “N” word at that time.
Its use didn’t indicate the extreme bigotry and ignorance that the word reveals today.
That was the normal term for black people. Their sensibilities dulled by countless
repetitions, the blacks apparently didn’t take offense. Or if they did, they were afraid to
say anything. It was what they were called even when no reason demanded racial
identity. People would say, “A nigger robbed the store,” but never would they say, “A
white man robbed the store.”

This was at a time when malefactors, who made the newspaper, were regularly
identified by race if other than white. Blacks who wrote letters to whites or to
companies, always wrote “colored” after their name. Black people looked at their shoes
when speaking to whites and never disagreed with them. To do otherwise was being
“uppity” and invited violence.

“Yesuh, you’s right ’out thet,” was the only acceptable response of a black when
talking with a white.

There once was a person of doubtful racial ancestry in the Fayetteville community
who claimed descent from Pocahontas, the noted Indian princess. Local people smirked.
She’s “Niggiehontas.”

Crude racial jests like that have to be view in the context of the times. That part
of the state had more planters and slaves than had been in north Alabama. They had
heard such talk all their lives. Only one long lifetime separated them from the Civil War.
A fair number of people even had known former Confederate soldiers.

I recall only one occasion when the Morris family washed its own clothes. My
parents, grandparents, Uncle Gaston, and Aunt Edee all went over to the farm, built a fire
under a metal wash pot, filled it with water from the creek, and washed clothes. It was
undertaken more as a family outing than to get the clothes clean. “This sure takes me
back,” my father declared. “This’s the way we used to wash when I was living at home.”

At that time, a huge foot log spanned the creek. It even had a strong cable to act
as a handrail. To walk over it was scary, but fun. The log had been flattened on top to
make it safer. In later years, a flood destroyed that crossing. The special washday
remains one of my favorite memories of the Morris cattle farm.

Near the farm’s creek is a natural spring that provides a constant branch of water
a couple of feet wide. My grandfather built a poured concrete wall around it, but left
space at one side for the water to exit. That protected the spring from pollution due to the
presence of cattle. They were unable to stand in the spring or to drink directly from it.
 “What are those little snails all over the walls down in the spring?” I asked as a
young child. “They’re periwinkles,” my grandfather explained. Their presence didn’t
stop people from drinking the water. It had to contain feces from the snails. The bottom
of the reservoir was covered with shells of snails that had died. Their decaying bodies
must have polluted the water. None of the adults seemed to take those factors into
account. When offered a drink, I always declined. “I’m not thirsty,” I responded. That
wasn’t exactly the case. I thought the water wasn’t clean.

That spring was the source of drinking water for a house that stood up near the
road. Uncle Harvey Morris, Tommy’s brother, had lived at that location with his family.
He stayed in a tent erected on a raised wooden foundation rather than in the shabby house
itself.

For most of its existence, the house served as a crude renter place. It had a small
front porch. Only the living room was sealed. Other rooms had exposed studs with the
vertical outside boards plainly in view. Substantial spaces between the boards provided
glimpses of the outside. Yellowed newspapers tacked to the walls helped block the wind.
It had no plumbing. Such heat as was available came from a fireplace and a wood cook
stove in the kitchen. A tiny outhouse stood a few steps from the back porch. It was a
woefully unsatisfactory residence, but nearly always occupied. “The poor you always
have with you,” Jesus said.

“Mr. Morris, I needs a place t’ stay. Kin I rent yore lettle house,” a man asked on
behalf of himself, his wife, and their four children. Tommy was embarrassed to rent it,
but reluctantly agreed when approached by someone without a place to live. It was hard
to turn away a person in such dire straits. He set the rent extremely low and often didn’t
actually collect anything. When the renter got so far behind that he was worried about
being evicted, he usually moved without giving notice. “I wish that house wasn’t there,”
he often told family members. “I ought to tear it down.”

Eventually, he installed an electric pump in the spring with a buried pipe leading
to the house. The Negro woman cried with joy when she saw that she had, for the first
time in her life, running water in her kitchen.

“I’m not going to rent that place anymore, no matter who asks,” he ultimately
explained to his family. “It isn’t a fit place to live.” Only scattered decayed boards and
stones from the chimney marked the location for a long time. No trace now remains.

Sameness to life at Fayetteville and the fact that I was young has left a clear
recollection of that general time period, but not all daily events. The last thing I recall is
the day we moved back to Marshall County. I didn’t realize at the time, but my mother
was living in her parents’ home without her husband. He’d quietly disappeared, but
because I was a toddler, I didn’t question it. He just vanished as far as I was concerned.

(Story to be continued.)