Tocky on 18/11/2017 at 05:16
You asked for it. You are gonna get it. Not all of it is going to be scintillating literature. Hell, some of it may be rambling boring mess, but you get what you pay for. I figure I have to start at childhood and lessons learned so here goes.
At around three to four I had a nanny. A black nanny named Lara pronounced Lay-rah. Both my parents worked and she lived close. I loved her. We shelled purplehulls together and watched soaps. She made fried apple pies and home made ice cream and told me what a good boy I was. When she arrived in the morning I would run to her arms and be smothered in her love. Almost literally. She was a big woman and she had big love. Big love and shining dark eyes that let me know it.
These days folks wash regular but in those they worked hard and sweated and in winter bathed less. She smelled of wood smoke and bacon grease and always always of that burned copper so very distinctly a mark of black folks. Blacks and whites smell different. It just is. It must be on some genetic level or a function of greater melatonin but whatever it is it is undeniable and I would be able to point it out in a smokey juke joint blindfolded. Like I say, you would never know it these days.
One evening after hugging her goodbye and running to my mom I overheard my parents talking about how I smelled just like her. Great! What a wonderful thing. She was one of my favorite people and I was pleased as punch to smell like her. I proudly told her of it the next day. It never crossed my mind there would be anything wrong with that. I hadn't a clue of the civil rights issues of the day or how some tried to shame blacks with the way they smelled. My parents would never do that but they did make note of it.
I could not figure out what had gone wrong. The world was alright the day before. Perfect in fact. Now my favorite person was upset and hurt and I couldn't figure out why. There were undercurrents sweeping through that I couldn't grasp. My parents would never call her a name, would never insult or belittle. Nevertheless I knew she was hurt. And every day thereafter I got a bath before my parents came home. I hated that. Not long after spring came and my sisters stayed home and babysat and the next year I was babysat by a woman who made me sit on her couch and not move all day long like some torture. It took a long time to fully understand what had happened.
In my teens I found out she moved to Jackson with her children. I had never even considered she had any. I thought then of how it must be to leave them to babysit a little white boy and how she cried that day. The things she gave up for a meager pay and me. I hoped she understood my parents enough to know there was no slight meant but knew it was a hard time and she likely did not. I wondered if she ever thought of her little white boy who loved her so. I thought of all the stupid misunderstandings and stupid people who find a way to inject themselves and their misguided opinions into the lives of good people they never even meet. I wished I had gotten to tell her the little boy still remembered her and always would.
Chade on 18/11/2017 at 14:04
You know, I didn't seriously expect you to take the suggestion up, but I'm glad you did. :)
You read about colonialism or civil rights, and it's so easy to forget that this isn't ancient history: it's just a few decades ago. I remember seeing a video of my dad as a young boy growing up in Nigeria, a bunch of white families recreating middle-class England in the middle of Africa, native servants underfoot everywhere, almost invisible to the people who were there at the time but so painfully obvious to modern sensibilities. Thanks for the story!
scumble on 18/11/2017 at 14:13
Fascinating story there Tocky. The innocence of childhood and the barriers adults put up later. I don't want to grow up.
I wish I could get stories of my life to come out like that. My life seems a fragmented mess when I look back on it.
Tocky on 18/11/2017 at 16:32
I don't think I ever did grow up. I don't think anyone ever really does. What we do is get older. When I was a kid I thought there was some magical dividing line where we suddenly became wise. I've been very disabused of that notion.
I'm blessed and cursed with a very good memory. I recall sights and sounds and smells and they trigger other ones and on back it goes. All it has to be is important to me and what has always been most important is people. What is most difficult to do is cull memory down to a point it can be put down coherently. There is too much and I wander wide afield. Within one paragraph I've culled many other stories I've thought of and have to wrangle myself back to just the essentials. I may think of a flower print dress and it goes on to become my grandmothers basket of fabric squares or her hands as she sewed them into a quilt on a frame let down from the ceiling when all I wanted to do was recall the way that print dress looked stretched across the hip of a beloved woman making biscuits.
We all have the most amazing stories if we can just dredge them up and cull them down. I fully believe that. One of my favorite times as a kid was when storms drove us into a shelter on my Aunt and uncles farm nearby. All the locals, many of them family, would crowd inside and without TV or any distraction just talk about things past. I once called this place my storm shelter. I often wander in drunk on a weekend and still make it so.
I feel so grateful to have lived my life with all the wonderful folks in it. It feels so much as if I should have learned something but it eludes me and this is just another way to chase it.
Starker on 18/11/2017 at 18:16
Life was very different on the other side of the curtain. Our parents would just leave us home alone if it was for a day or two or drop us off at our grandparents or aunts or uncles otherwise. I remember one of my professors from America talking about how they cleaned their own toilet, as it would be too weird to let the cleaning lady do it, and being strangely proud about it. Well, we would never have a stranger come in our home to do the cleaning or to look after the children.
Craeftig on 18/11/2017 at 22:00
Is this the leaked plotline to Get Out 2?
Tocky on 18/11/2017 at 23:27
There really aren't any strangers in a small community. When I went trick or treating anywhere I went and no matter where I went was someone I knew. I would like to hear your stories of life behind the curtain Starker. It would be a peek into another world. I would appreciate it not being some east west contest or even comparison but more of a straight experience sort of thing.
Part of the reason I wasn't left with a grandparent all day every day was they were so old and young children are tiring. The aunts and uncles are often working as well or a distance away too far. Part of it too was that Lara needed the money and it suited both purposes. There are always a hundred things that go into any decision and nearly all of them are positive.
This is the only response of this kind I'm going to make. This thread is for stories. Straight out personal stories. Yours. Mine. No judgement laden crap or I will have the admin wipe it. So although I've yet to see Get Out I will certainly say it. And you will be. If not then I will be. This is MY story thread. I was urged to write it. You may of course post your own stories and I would love to read them. What I will not have are snide comments from the peanut gallery (about my stories or yours) and it turn into a shit fest. Such things are a vexation to the spirit and certainly to the intent of the thread. An honest story from YOU, from YOUR perspective, about YOUR life. Can you do it?
Starker on 18/11/2017 at 23:45
No worries. No more comments from me. This is your thread about your life and it was rude of me to post in it.
PigLick on 18/11/2017 at 23:48
I dont think Tocky was talking about you Starker.
One story I would like to hear Tocky relate is how he came to TTLG forums in the first place. I understand you arent really a gamer as such, and pretty much everyone here found this place through love of TTLG games, then stayed because its awesome.
Tocky on 19/11/2017 at 00:11
Sigh. I just want stories. I thought perhaps folks had read the thread this came from- (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148428) - and could go with that. And no, the last paragraph was not about you, Starker. I seriously would like to hear your stories. I mean that. What I don't mean is any offense. And I warned others about about posting offensive things about any story of mine or yours or anyone's. Any comments I insist be encouraging or informative in order to spur others forward with their stories. That I say not for you but for everyone.