“Love at first sight. How romantic.”
“I reckon so. We was married for twenty-five years, and I couldn’t have asked for better. Gave me ten beautiful children. I was right about them hips. She kept a clean Christian home and worked like a field hand to help me sharecrop enough to get this place. After she died, I never married again ’cause it didn’t feel right, no other woman living off what she died to bring about. I asked the doctor what killed her. He just shook his head. I figured same thing that kills so many colored women: she just wore out. Body got tired and just stopped. But she ain’t never complained. Ain’t never seen none better. Don’t reckon I ever will. Harriet, my sweet Harriet.”
Later, when Grandpa went into the house to take his nap, I sat in his chair under the tree to see if I would feel any of the magical wisdom that seemed to surround his seat.
“Lorraine Harriet, granddaughter of Harriet Burney.” I guess this chair was magical ’cause stuff was even starting to sound different. “Lorraine Harriet,” I said it again. Even better. “Well, old tree, I think it’s starting to fit. I may wear this name after all.”
AFTERTHOUGHTS
“It is through our names that we first place ourselves into the world.”
—Ralph Ellison, 1969
Like so much of our history, the right to name ourselves has been a struggle laced with heartache and pain. We have been called Boy, Auntie, Uncle, Nigger, Boot, Colored, Sambo, and Pickaninny. These are but a few of the titles that were bestowed upon us without our consent. From the very beginning of our American existence, whites had the power to call us whatever they wished without reprisal.
During the days of slavery, the master often made the decision as to what our names would be. Even when parents’ wishes were apparently different, in the end it was the master’s right as property owner that prevailed. Sometimes a slave’s name was changed as he or she was sold from plantation to plantation, with the new master having absolutely no regard for the person who stood before him. From time to time, a slave would choose his own nickname, insisting that during private moments only this name was to be used. It was never used openly, and it had no legitimacy, but it was one small and significant act of rebellion that enabled slaves to reclaim themselves for themselves.
When freedom came, the use of only our first names by whites when addressing us was a constant reminder that we didn’t merit the same simple respect and courtesies as they did. Sometimes we solved this dilemma by naming our children Lady, Mister, Captain, Sir, or Mayor. It was our way of saying, “Call me by my first name if you so insist, but you will respect me whether you want to or not.” The Civil War did finally win us the right to name ourselves. We didn’t have much, but now we had that. It was our way of recognizing that “well, we ain’t what we ought to be, we ain’t what we gonna be, but thank God we ain’t what we was.” At the turn of the century, we began choosing European names, but we varied the spellings and the pronunciations to make them truly our own. For example, Alvin (European) became Alven, Alvan, or Alvyn, and Alberta (European) could become Albertha.
Dr. Newbell N. Puckett, a college professor, sociologist, and folklorist, has been central to our understanding of African American naming practices. Puckett searched through birth certificates, school records, armed-service rosters, and census data to document some 340,000 names used by blacks. He traced the history of African American names from 1619 to the 1940s, paying particular attention to the names that were the most unusual and that showcased most evidently African American creativity in naming practices. Myself, I don’t have to look for the unusual and off-center. I grew up around wonderful folks like Linwood, Alrutheus, Salathia, and Bessida.
In addition to African American names’ representing the creative, the humorous, and the sociopolitical thought behind our struggle to establish an identity, our names for our children often paid homage to those African Americans who made us so very proud. We named our children George Washington Carver and Martin Luther King because we recognized greatness and wanted a little bit of it for them. We named our children after the biblical folks because we were always hoping for some of God’s saving grace, and we now give our children African names because we are regaining something that was taken from us. I guess that’s why I carry the name Lorraine Harriet like a badge of honor. It was meant to be. So if you want to get my attention, then just call me by my name, and you’ll know exactly who I am.
Sorrow’s Kitchen
“Aunt Bessida Lee. It’s me. It’s Lorraine, Auntie,” I yelled as loud as I could, walking through the front door as if I had already been invited in. No answer.
“Aunt Bess, did you hear me?” I yelled again.
“’Course I heard you,” arose a reprimand from behind a closed door. “The whole neighborhood can hear you, the way you screaming. What you trying to do, wake the dead? This ain’t New York, you know. Folks don’t run around here raisin’ a ruckus. Now hush all that fuss and go in the kitchen. I made a peach cobbler. I’ll be out directly. What are you doin’ here, anyway? Last I heard you was somewhere in Virginia.”
I smiled at my scolding. As long as she was fussing, she wasn’t ailing too badly. Aunt Bess knew why I was here. She was my mother’s oldest sister, and in recent years she had developed kidney trouble. She was on dialysis but still managed to get around a good bit. Still, whenever I was passing through, I stopped in to check on her to make sure she was all right. She had six children of her own, a large church family, and a loving community that were also completely devoted to her, but I didn’t feel right if I didn’t look in on her myself. She had assured me time and time again that my worrying was for naught, because, as she put it, she was too stubborn to roll over and a mite too busy to die. She and the Lord had it all worked out, and the rest of us looking at her growing feebleness and ever-thinning body just weren’t privy to her and God’s greater understanding.
Peach cobbler. It wasn’t my absolute favorite, but it looked too good to pass up. She must have just made it, because it was warm to the touch and hadn’t even been cut yet. Actually, you didn’t cut one of Auntie’s peach cobblers; you scooped. Underneath the top layer of mouthwatering flaky crust were big hunks of sweetened peaches wallowing in their own juices. I had gained fifteen pounds in recent months and really didn’t deserve this treat. With any luck, Aunt Bess wouldn’t notice, and we would get through the visit without any unpleasantries.
The bowls were kept in the cupboard, right above the sink — her “everyday dishes.” None of them matched, and the designs were faded. The style was also quite dated, but Aunt Bess refused to throw them away, insisting it was foolish to toss perfectly good stuff aside just because you could afford new. As long as they could serve, they could stay. I picked out a pretty one with a floral design; at least it looked as if it had been floral at one time. I scooped a big helping of peach cobbler into the bowl and sat down to eat.
I looked around the kitchen. Everything in its place, as usual. If this kitchen were in a brownstone in Greenwich Village, it would be called eclectic. Nothing really belonged with anything else, yet all managed to live together quite comfortably. Everything was old and worn but a treasure all its own. The peach cobbler was delicious. Auntie had given me the recipe several times, but it never came out quite right when I made it. Maybe you only get peach cobbler like this if you make it in an eclectic kitchen. I smiled at my own witty humor. Eclectic. Aunt Bess wouldn’t have any idea what I was talking about — best to keep my wit to myself.
There was a faint scent in the air besides the delicious aroma of peach cobbler. The windows were open, and the spring breeze had already come in and swept most of it away to mingle with the sunny afternoon, yet some of it had stayed behind, lingering leisurely in the … oh, yes, I recognized it now. How could I forget that smell, or the memories associated with it?
“… Ouch! Aunt Bess, that hurts! Must you torture me this way every time we visit? I swear, you must really not want our company if this is
the way you insist on treating us when we come to see you.”
“Quit that foolish talk, and ain’t I told you ’bout swearin’? — it can’t be helped. If your mama did what she was supposed to ’fore you got here, we wouldn’t have to go through this. She just packs you up and sends you down here, nappy heads and all. You ain’t going to church with me with a head that looks like this. Now bend your head and hold down your ear. I got one more little piece here in the back and I’ll be ’bout through.”
The hot comb would sizzle its way through my resistant locks, determined to bend the stubborn strands. The grease would come in contact with the steam heat and hiss in anger, threatening to pop little hot drops all over my neck and shoulders.
“There is nothing wrong with my hair,” I protested. “It is clean and combed. Just because it isn’t straightened doesn’t mean it’s not acceptable. I prefer my hair natural and not altered to fit some white man’s standard of beauty.” That ought to get her attention. Who could deny the validity of such a sociologically sound argument?
“What’s the white man got to do with your head? If the Lord wanted us nappy, he wouldn’t have given us the straightening comb. Now be still and hush. Look at your sister: one hour and I was done. Two hours with this head and I ain’t made a dent.”
“It’s a natural, Aunt Bess,” I continued. “I go to the barber once a week, and he shapes my hair to fit my face — natural and feminine. This way there’s no fuss, no bother. I just wash and go. Besides, a lot of sisters are wearing their hair this way.”
“A barber? Ain’t never heard tell of such. A woman ain’t supposed to visit no barber. I didn’t even go inside when I used to take the boys. Why don’t you just shop at the men’s store and use their toilet, too?”
“Let’s just change the subject, Aunt Bess, because you’ll never understand. I just wish that you could see what this is really about. My hair makes a statement about me and my dignity. It speaks of pride. It’s more than a haircut. I wear my hair natural for the same reason you refused to dye your premature gray. Why didn’t you color your hair when you were only sixteen? Now look at it — so beautiful, I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”
“Gray hair and nappy hair ain’t the same. ’Least I look like the woman God made me. I just don’t understand you. I spent years growing that head, and now it’s all gone. You all mixed up, that’s what I say. Young folks, you all just plain crazy… .”
I never did get Aunt Bess to understand a great many things I had to say, despite the fact that I spent years trying. To me, it was understandable, symptomatic of two black women reared in two different times and two different places. How many of my contemporary sisters have heard echoes of this same dialogue between them and their older kin? But misunderstandings should never be allowed to chip away at the love you have for one another, and for Aunt Bess and me, they never did.
• • •
When the phone call came from my mother, I was expecting it but was in no way prepared for it. “Your aunt Bess has passed. You need to get ready to travel. The funeral will be at the homeplace on Saturday.”
The funeral was short and sweet. I was determined to be strong. I was scared that if I let one teardrop fall, there would be no end to the avalanche of my sobs. When it was over, I waited until everyone filed out of church and went to look at Aunt Bess one last time. “She looks like herself,” Aunt Maribelle had said, as if that were any consolation. Her gray hair had been brushed so that it was shiny like silk. It had even been greased, I noticed with a smile, the first glad feeling on a somber day. Aunt Bess would have liked that. Somebody had been crazy enough to suggest that we bury her in a wig because her hair had thinned out quite a bit at the end. “Never!” I argued. “Her hair was her crowning glory, and her personal statement deserves its final voice.”
I went back to the house. I refused to go to the burial. I didn’t think I was up to that. The funeral had been trying enough, and I was holding myself together by fragile, fraying threads of strength. I walked into Aunt Bess’s bedroom and checked my face to make sure my makeup was still fresh and my hair was still in place. The short natural really did flatter my face in a way no other style had ever done. I patted down a few runaway strands and was quite pleased with my overall reflection. I even looked presentable by Auntie’s standards.
It had been quite some time since I had been in her bedroom. Sparsely decorated with a select few furnishings, it hadn’t changed much. I sat down on the bed, something I would never have dared do if she had been alive. The same quilt, the same old nightstand that held the now-ragged family Bible, and the same old rocking chair that had been my grandmother’s. Once, in my foolish youth, I had suggested that she get rid of this junk and let us all chip in and buy her some new furniture. Why had I said that?
“‘Junk’!” she screamed as she threw my carelessly tossed label right back in my face. “I will have you know that these are family heirlooms. This Bible has been in our family for five generations. This nightstand was given to me when I first got married, and this here quilt belonged to your great-great-grandmother. Don’t you know the story of this quilt?” I knew the story by heart, but I also knew she would welcome the chance to tell it to me once again.
“Why, this quilt is made of precious scraps pieced together by your great-great-grandma’s own loving hands. This piece right here is part of the calico dress her sister was wearing the day that she was sold away. Those two sisters vowed they would try to find each other again one day, but in the meantime they never wanted to forget, so they ripped their dresses right then and there and exchanged rags. Years down the road, the slaves were freed, and she hoped that she and her sister would be able to find each other again. This scrap would be like a beacon bringing her loved one home. After a while she reckoned she would have to be content to meet up with her sister at the Lord’s pearly gates, but as long as that scrap lasted, her sister would never be forgotten here on Earth. That story’s been told a hundred times, but the message ain’t never changed and it ain’t never lost its meaning. This quilt is over one hundred years old, and it’s worth ten of them fancy bedspreads you keep buying me. ‘Junk’ indeed!”
Aunt Bess taught me a lesson that day that I would not soon forget. I never again made mention of redecorating or replacing her “junk.” I guess sometimes we can get a little ahead of ourselves, and folks got to take us back a step and teach us a thing or two, but I pride myself on being a quick study and on never having to be taught the same thing twice.
• • •
Everybody would be coming in soon. Better give the kitchen one last look to make sure everything was perfect. The church missionary circle had brought over enough food to feed an army and had it all set out so the family wouldn’t have to do a thing. This kitchen, I thought sadly, would never be the same.
Peach cobbler: someone had brought over a big dish. I reached up and pulled down a bowl. I got out a big spoon and was ready to scoop, only this one wasn’t made like Auntie’s. This one you had to cut. Disappointed, I decided to pass. I heard a car pulling up, and the voices alerted me to an impending intrusion. I was ready to sit down and wait on the others, but it was then that I saw it, just lying there on the stove’s front burner. She must have forgotten to put it away the last time, in the wooden cabinet like she always did. The hot comb. It had to be at least ten years old, or maybe older than that. Rusted and corroded, but it still worked, and as long as it could serve, it could stay.
I fingered the teeth on the old hot comb. It still had a few droplets of grease on it, and some silken gray strands. I wrapped it in a napkin and put it in my purse. It was a family heirloom now — another of those ever-present, gentle reminders. Goodbye, Aunt Bess, I whispered as I gave the comb one last shove to make sure it was secure. I reckon I’ll see you at the Lord’s pearly gates, but in the meantime, I’ll make sure you’re never forgotten here on Earth.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
The Africans believe that there are
three phases of existence: the living, the living dead, and the dead and gone. The first phase, defined as living, is self-explanatory. I hope all of you who are reading this book are in that category; if not, well, I don’t want to know about it. The second category needs some clarification. The living dead are those who have moved on to another spiritual place but will not be truly gone from this world so long as there is one person still alive who remembers their voice, can picture their smile, or can tell their story. As long as there is even one person remaining whose life has been touched by that individual in a very personal way, then there is still something left here to hold on to. The last category, the ones who are dead and gone, are the folks who have completely moved on from this world to the next. There are no longer personal connections that exist to link us to them. Their very essence has been completely removed, so that though we can hold on to them through a spiritual understanding, they are quite simply no longer a part of our world.
My aunt, God rest her soul, still has a place in this world if we look at her passing the way the Africans do. I can still hear her voice, visualize her smile, and tell her story, and I do all three every chance I get. My children have no memory of this wonderful woman who played such an important role in my life, but I try to keep her and others just like her as real as I possibly can for them because I want her to touch their lives in the same way that she touched mine. Memories are so important for African Americans because so much of what we know has never been written down — all we have left of some folks is the memories that we’ve tucked away in our hearts.
The Freedom Garden
The potted plant peeked out over the windowsill to watch the goings-on of the crazy folks on the front porch. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the little thing had started to look kind of shabby. Not that it seemed to be doing poorly, mind you, just a few dying leaves round the edges. The plant was just like the haughty old woman who had cherished it to her last — its back was still strong and straight despite a few frailties and some distressingly droopy cleavage. It probably wished that it could speak up and give me a piece of its mind, but today it would have to be content if I got the message that it needed a glass of water. There was no doubt about it, this little plant was one of us. Spunk to the backbone: It was obvious Aunt Clo hadn’t left us after all. Only a Burney would have the nerve to make demands while its dignity was hanging raggedly around its knees for all the world to see.
Just Plain Folks Page 3