Truckin' on the Western Branch

daffodils and weeding. Mother told me we had to work to exist. We worked for survival, mostly for money for food and not much left for anything else. She told me that we had no father to take care of things, so we had to work. Everything we made went to our mother. We’d pick baskets of beans and they’d be lined up at the end of the row. Mother would get our pay—we never saw the money. Never had money for even a soda pop.

We ate healthy—probably the reason I’m still alive. We kept chickens, and my uncle would kill a hog and we’d all eat pig meat. I never knew I was poor until I left home.

There were quite a few children in the neighborhood even though people couldn’t afford them, and I had quite a few friends here.

We played baseball, football, and basketball, but we didn’t always have the real stuff. We used sticks for stickball and made our own basketball goal. We had a good time, but Sunday was church all day. We’d get up early, have breakfast, and get ready for Sunday School. We walked to Grove Baptist. Then after church we’d walk home for dinner and walk back for afternoon church. All the walking kept us in good physical shape. I went to Churchland School for Blacks and walked a half a mile there and back. Since we were still in Norfolk County, I went to Douglas Park where I graduated at the age of 17 in 1947. My scores were high enough to qualify for the Air Force, and I went to Lackland Air Force Base and into the Air Force on July 22, 1947. Integration had started, but you could see where the White and Colored signs over the fountains and at the heads there had been painted over but you could read though the paint.

Old Love and Charity Hall

Between WWII and Korea, I went to Guam for 15 months, and while I was out in the hot sun I saw mechanics working in the shade. So when I got back to the States with the Air Force, I went to mechanics school and became a senior automotive technician. But sand fell in your eyes under the cars and you could never get your hands clean—time for a career change.

After five years in the Air Force, I went to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard as a laborer and became a messenger, a shop learner and apprenticed for four years in woodworking. I was there for 35 years, retired at 58, and then did volunteer work for the church where I was a deacon for 50 years.

Back in the day, there was a fair amount of bootlegging in Twin Pines. My stepfather was a bootlegger, but he taught me how to take care of a family. Some of the law enforcement officials in Norfolk County bought up land from the bootleggers at very low prices.

Mother’s people were in Baltimore, and when I went with her for a visit while I was still in the Air Force, I met Shirley at a Daddy Grace church service. I was 21, she was 18 when we married.

Twin Pines came as a surprise when Shirley Gibson arrived as a new bride.

Twin Pines was full of mud holes—mud all over my little saddle shoes! I lived with his mother while he was in the Air Force. We had an outhouse and no running water. There were chickens in the yard and a wood stove to cook on—no heat at all in the house at night. I was shocked. I was young, and it was a big difference from Baltimore. But I learned to love the outside water pump and carrying the water into the house. I learned to cook from Olanda although his mother did all the cooking. His sister taught me how to cut up a chicken.

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