These are my mother's parents from northeast Mississippi. This grandmother died before I was born although I believe my mother may have been pregnant with me at the time. My grandfather lived well into his 90s. I don't recall when he died. But I knew him well enough.
It is difficult for me to view these photos with any bitterness and certainly I harbor no hatred. After all, had they not conceived my mother, the konagod blog would not exist. However, it really sucks having to admit coming from a long lineage of racists which fortunately, was severed with me... but not until I was about 20.
Having known this grandmother only through photographs (and I suspect both of these photos were taken by my father in the late 1950s) it's impossible to know what she was really like. I must rely on stories told to me by my mother who is 83. I haven't even seen very many photos of this grandmother but of the ones I have seen, she usually had a scowl on her face and I assumed she was a mean and cranky woman. As a child I even remember being relieved that she was dead so I wouldn't have to be alone around her.
Actually, she just had that sense of humor: faux cranky. I'm told she was very sweet. In my maturity now, I can see similarities between her and my mother, and all my uncles.
We used to visit them at least twice a year when I was growing up. When I was a child it was fun. My grandfather had chickens and I loved going into the chicken yard. He had some other quirks.... like a major sweet tooth. He would hoard sugar, especially if he thought prices might go up. On one occasion I recall him showing off his pantry which was stacked floor to ceiling with 5 lb. bags of sugar. As if that wasn't enough, he had a metal cabinet against a wall next to the pantry. He flung open the doors, and that was also packed with bags of sugar on every shelf.
He would also drink water from a ladle he kept hanging on the wall. In the old days before they had indoor plumbing I'm sure he would dip the ladle into a bucket of water he'd pumped from outside. Old habits are hard to break. The old hand pump still worked when I was young. But then it served as a post for the gate into the chicken yard.
His house was quite old and the living room was always closed off. I used to sneak in there occasionally and it appeared to have never been used. It was furnished but always dark and it had a very musky odor.
My grandfather slept on a feather bed in what was probably a den. And by feather bed, I'm not referring to those down-filled comforters. This was a mattress stuffed with feathers and was very unshapely due to feathers all bunching up in sections of it. I seem to remember there only being one bedroom and apparently that's where his subsequent wives would sleep.
Visiting him in the summer months was always confusing because he refused to observe daylight savings time. My watch never matched his clocks. He wasn't gung-ho about government interference with God's time. (Neither am I, but I do love those long summer days.)
He would go to bed as soon as the sun would set. Sometimes we'd sit in the yard visiting, and when the sun sank below the horizon, off he'd go to bed. Sometimes we'd stay just for a little while longer visiting with his wife. I'd amuse myself by chasing fireflies.
Pop, as he was known, kept a small radio on a table next to his bed. He would awaken long before the crack of dawn and turn on the radio and listen to evangelists for hours. He couldn't hear well as he got older so the radio would be cranked to a painful level for those of us with good hearing.
He loved telling stories. Unfortunately, he would tell the same ones over and over. He was definitely what most people would call a racist. Thankfully he was never mean to black people as far as I know. There were no white robes hanging in his closet. But he had an aversion to black skin. One story he'd always tell was when a black man wanted to shake his hand. Pop reluctantly shook the man's hand but wasn't comfortable in doing so. He explained why: "their palms are whiter than the rest of their skin." I guess that was just too freaky for the old man.
By the time I was a teen-ager and becoming more aware of things, I began to feel less comfortable with these visits. I never recall a conversation coming up about homosexuals but I probably knew in my core if this man thought black people were untouchable because their palms were a lighter tone than the rest of their skin, he certainly wouldn't be proud to have a grandchild who liked to sleep over with a friend of the same sex who educated me on the pleasures of having my dick sucked.
It was also becoming more apparent to me that his immediately family were certainly no friends of Dorothy either. One of my uncles had several kids close to my age. One boy was perhaps a year older, and there were 3 girls all within several years of my age. On one of our visits to Mississippi, I took along a few records -- not just for my own entertainment, but I thought my cousins might like to hear some music. They never seemed very exposed to the ways of the world. I took out a 45 rpm and popped it on the turntable. I have no idea what it might have been but Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the Sky is one possibility.
I was quickly informed by one of my older cousins that I should turn it off and hide those records before her dad heard it. He didn't allow that kind of music or any kind of dancing in the house.
This was one of those defining moments in life when I realized I did not fit in with this group of people.
The last 3 or 4 years of visiting there were agonizing for me. And at some point my grandfather got rid of the chickens. I was never so relieved when I turned 18 and went off to college. I never wanted to go back to see the Mississippi kin. I'm sure I did go one or two additional times with my parents, but I've certainly not been there since I was about 22. Not only did they all have recist tendencies, but even the cousins and now their children are all the same. Hardcore Republican Bush supporters too.
One troubling memory I have was a brave drive to visit my grandfather... alone, while in college. We never ever had much to say in a one-on-one situation anyway, and I'm not sure why I wanted to go alone. It's all a bit of a blur. I remember my grandfather being moved that I came to visit him for an hour or so.
What's even more strange is that I'm not convinced it ever happened. There's no reason why I would have gone alone. Maybe it was a dream. I'm not even sure. It feels like a real memory, and yet something about it seems so implausible. It haunts me.
But I do keep a photograph on the mantle above our fireplace of one pleasant memory: the chicken yard.
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Part 2 in a series on Parents/Grandparents
Part 1: Father and Son
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