[i]Waking up at noon.
Oranges. Cinnamon Brown Sugar Oatmeal Square. Hot Green Tea
with Honey.
I’m still here in North Carolina at my dad’s place. We all
drive out to my great uncle JW’s farm in Greenville. I haven’t seen him in
years and years, not since I was a little boy. I’ve got a few memories of this
place.
He pulls out a bunch of old textbooks and children’s books
ranging from the 30’s to the 60’s. My dad and I discover red lips splotched on
the introduction page of an arithmetic book. Underneath it says, “a friend.”
My dad pokes fun at JW, “You recognize the lips?”
JW: “No.”
[Ha-ha-ha]
Patty: “Maybe girlfriend.”
JW: “I had so many when I was coming along I can’t remember.
All the girls loved me.”
Patty: “What happen wit ya girlfriend?”
JW: “I run them off...one at a time.”
JW gives us the tour of the farm. Inside the big barn that’s
now renovated into a car garage.
JW: “This used to be dirt in here. This is where we would
bring the wagon cart in and bring the corn and put it in the barn.”
Across the field sits a small graveyard. JW describes a
ghost occurrence: “There’s a house right over here...across the field. And in
front of it, down close to the highway, there’s a graveyard. And they
[neighbors] swear that they see lights, ball of like a moon of light, leave
that graveyard and go to that one and disappear. And they also say that they
see it go out of that graveyard and go to that one.”
My dad chuckles and says, “Make you wanna come out here and
sleep one night and check it out.”
...
Hanging out in the kitchen and cracking open freshly fallen
Pecans from the tree. JW concocts a homemade cocktail sauce. I warm up one of
the Tamales to eat with it. JW educates us on some not-so-well known information.
JW: “You know the American Indian lived on corn and
potatoes. That’s how in Europe they didn’t have it. They didn’t have corn or
potatoes. And did not have tomatoes. They talk about Italian sauce like it was
created in Italy. The damn tomatoes were found here! Now I know that from
reading the history books.”
...
JW: “We have let things get so far out of hand it’s
ridiculous. It’s a joke and nobody can laugh at it. It’s a damn shame. In 1950,
a person that made $50 a week could make payment on his house, could buy a car,
raise three children, and...live. $50 a damn hour now is what it almost takes.”
He continues his rant on moon conspiracies and the
crookedness of our government officials. I never knew I had such an enlightened
great-uncle.
JW: “See, the government thinks if a man is working with the
government he has no reason to lie so therefore you s’posed to believe him
regardless how ridiculous it sounds. That’s the truth.”
Dad: “Boy our government’s a joke. Both parties to me are a
disgrace.”
JW: “All of em’ a disgrace. They need to be replaced.”
Dad: “I guess all these other countries laughin’ at us.”
JW: “Yeah. We’re a joke!”
Dad: “Look at them stupid Americans.”
JW: “And I tell ya something else, Wayne. You can betcha
last dollar if you live another twenty years you gon’ find out that J. Edgar
Hoover had the mafia to kill John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and...what’s the
black guy’s name?”
Dad: “Martin Luther King.”
JW: “Had him killed. All of em’. Hoover was so uptight cause
Robert had more goin’ than the president did and he was cuttin’ that man’s
power and he didn’t like Robert. And Johnson was a crooked man. You couldn’t
trust him. He knew that Kennedy was gon’ be killed! And he was in place at that
given time. And then Hoover hated black people. Okay? So he had King killed.
You can believe that’s the way all that happened. I’ll believe it and I always
will believe it. And the day that Kennedy got killed I came from fishin’. I
came ashore wavin’ in myself. And they said that Kenney had been shot and
killed and Johnson’s on the plan taking the oath – the sonuvabitch was waitin’
to get on the plane to do it. I knew right then what had happened.”
Dad: “Yeah. It was a conspiracy.”
JW: “But I see a lot of damn things that’s wrong. When you
sit down and things don’t look right, if you investigate you’re gonna find out why
they don’t look right...because they aren’t right. I’ll tell ya this. The more
that you try to do right and be right the more your government will not like
you.”
My dad turns to us with a grin and says, “You come out here
and get educated. Well children, let’s go.”
I say my goodbyes and give my hugs. It was a pleasant little
Carolinian vacation. I drive off down the road up highway 13. Catching up with
my mom on the phone.
Back home in Virginia Beach.
Snacking on Cinnamon Peanut Butter Crumpets and Milk.
Cleaning up and getting some chores done.
Garlic, Lentil, Mushroom, and Carrot Soup for dinner.
Watching Murder By Proxy: How America Went Postal
(2010).
Sleep 4 a.m.
[i] All images
by me.
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