On the Sunny Side of the Street

I was not born into a wealthy family. As a child of a Protestant Methodist minister, I learned early that I lived on the "other side of the tracks." We had enough food to eat because my parents always had a garden and church folks were generous especially during holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. My mother was a very good seamstress and made many of the clothes my sister and I wore. She would knock herself out, staying up all night sewing, just so we'd have a new dress to wear to church at Easter or for our piano and voice recitals. We also received "hand-me-downs" from folks in the community. I'll never forget the skirt I had to wear to school that had been "donated" to the "preacher's family." It was a beige corduroy and had large prints of Disney's "Lady and the Tramp" all around it. I thought it was grotesque and hideous, and I was ashamed that some child might recognize it as one she had got rid of.

My father gave my sister and me each an allowance of a nickel each week. With that, we could buy a big dill pickle at the local drug store right across the street or five pieces of penny candy from the nickel-and-dime store just a block from the parsonage. We'd traipse over to the store and drool as we eyed the aisles of candy, trying to decide which tasty morsels we'd spend our pennies on. Or we could go to the High's Ice Cream store and get a cone of ice cream for a nickel and sometimes we did that instead. My favorite candies were Mary Janes and Tootsie Rolls and, of course, bubble gum. I also liked "fire balls."

By the time I got to middle school, we had moved from Highland Springs to Petersburg where, for some reason, I had been designated "leader" of the pack from the other side of the track. We had lots of fun getting together after school at the parsonage and playing pranks on our adversaries and rivals, classmates who lived in a wealthy section of the City called Walnut Hill. We'd pull innocent stunts like telephone one of them and ask if their refrigerator was running. "Well, you better go and catch it," we'd say real quick and hang up. Then we'd holler and howl and roll on the floor laughing. Of course, they retaliated in kind. I didn't have a boat load of fond memories of my preteen years, but at least I had a few. Sometimes my family would get out in the backyard and play crochet. We'd set up the tins and see who could knock each other's balls out of bounds with our mallets and who would make it all around the backyard through all the tins to the final goal post. On Sunday afternoons after church, our father would take us for a Sunday ride in the country and treat us to a fudge ice cream bar before we'd go back home. As the preacher's kids, we were very much isolated in the communities where we'd relocate every four years. After all, who wants to play with the preacher's kids? Still, we did have a few friends along the way--two sisters--Marilyn and Linda--who lived right across the street from us in Highland Springs. They became good friends. They had a chicken coop out back of their house and we formed a secret club and had club meetings in our "club house." I don't think we had much business to discuss. It was just an excuse to get together and play. I don't remember having any girlfriends in middle school. I was pretty much a loner, but I did have a boyfriend in middle school. He and I were in the same advanced algebra class in 8th grade and we had pocket mirrors we would set on our desks at just the right angle so we could stare at each other. We had an excellent math teacher, an older petite woman with a metalic sounding voice and tiny, thin red lips. She rolled the ends of her white hair up all around her head. We called her George Washington because she looked just like she had on one of those colonial wigs.

to be continued...