It didn’t make sense to build such a formal sanctuary in an older, poorer neighborhood, where many of the residents were lower-income and black. The church membership was dependent upon drawing from other communities because whites and blacks didn’t worship together. By the time Pastor Smith arrived, attendance had plunged to three or four hundred people. It was on a slow but steady decline. The church that was home to so many for so long struggles to keep its doors open today.
If it had been solely up to him, Smitty would have welcomed the neighbors with open arms. Prior to taking the job at Rose Hill, Smitty was pastoring a church in Quitman, a rural town in South Georgia, where he’d been for thirteen years. Smitty and his wife, Betty, came to Columbus with their two kids, Steve and Sharon, in the summer of 1970, just prior to Steve’s senior year of high school. He pastored Rose Hill for seventeen years. When he arrived, the church already had a good number of problems. Other than declining attendance, there was the issue of that ostentatious sanctuary located only blocks from the low-income projects. The youth program was lacking. As the father of two teens, Smitty was committed to building a strong youth program. He supported Charlie Wells and his wife, Gail, in their endeavors, even when it put him at odds with some of the church’s staunchest supporters.
Today Smitty laughs at all the things that seemed so important during the 1970s that seem downright ridiculous now. For instance, segregation was not an idea saved solely for blacks and whites in the churches of that era—men and women were segregated, too. We could pray together for hours on Monday nights, but on Sunday mornings, the teen boys were taught in one classroom and the teen girls were taught in another. “Under the old Sunday-school system, it was considered a very dangerous thing to teach mixed sexes,” Smitty said. “Even the married people were separated for Sunday school.”
And there was always a group of folks who thought it wrong for churches to sponsor car washes or bake sales or hot dog feeds. It’s a matter of bringing moneychangers into the Lord’s house. That group of naysayers became very vocal when Charlie Wells held such events to help us raise money for the choir trips we took every summer. We called our choir Prophecy, and we took our first trip during the summer of 1971, through Southern Georgia and into Florida.
“When we came to Rose Hill, there was a handful of youth already there,” Smitty said. “But when Charlie came, that youth group really took off. The kids really loved old Charlie, and he really reached out and touched a lot of people. Rose Hill’s youth choir was probably the best in the area at the time.”
There’s no question that with Smitty and Charlie at the helm, Rose Hill was taking some bold steps. And everyone agrees that perhaps the pluckiest thing Charlie Wells ever did was to enlist us teens to begin a tutorial program for kids at Peabody, the neighboring housing project for some of Columbus’s most disadvantaged families.
“I was already in college when Charlie started that program,” Steve Smith said. “But I’ve remembered it because I thought it was such an excellent idea. Nobody else was doing much for Peabody at the time. It was extremely innovative, very cutting-edge.”
I remember it vividly because it put me in touch with kids who were without a doubt far more disadvantaged than I was. And given my trailer park existence at the time, I often felt like I had a pretty sorry life. I soon learned otherwise. It was also the first real encounter I’d had with blacks, other than Thelma.
We would go once a week to the church, after school, and work one-on-one with elementary school kids. We weren’t well trained, but the kids came in droves. They gobbled up Kool-Aid and cookies and then opened their books and began to read to us. Or they listened as we read books to them. We didn’t whisk out church pamphlets or thump Bibles. We simply read library books together and sometimes shared a smile or a hug. I don’t recall the name of the girl that I worked with every week, but I remember her lightning smile. And I loved the colorful plastic clips that she wore in her braids. She would sit on the edge of her chair as we read together. Stories were manna for both of us.
Sadly, it was the constant bruising Charlie Wells took for this and other programs that drove him away.
“There were people unhappy about it,” Smitty said. “The kids were black, and they just didn’t like that. They would say, ‘I don’t want those—and they would use the n-word—kids running through the church halls.’ That kind of thing. We tried to overcome it, but you never really eliminate that sort of thing.”
Smitty always felt churches shouldn’t be so class-conscious. Mama would’ve been welcomed into the Rose Hill community by any number of people, but she refused to attend. Regardless, most of the people at Rose Hill embraced me, even though I could offer them nothing in return. No money. No talents. Nothing but sure trouble brewing.
IT WAS DURING those afternoon tutorial sessions and the Monday-night gatherings that I struck up friendships with Karen Mendenhall and Lynn Wilkes. Karen was two years behind me, while Lynn was a year older and a grade ahead of me. Both went to Columbus High. Lynn and I couldn’t have been more different in personality, and Karen and I couldn’t have been more alike.
Lynn’s parents both worked for the school district. Her mother was a business teacher at Baker High School. Her father headed up transportation for the schools, one of the most demanding jobs in the district once integration was implemented. Lynn was like Mama in that she didn’t display her emotions. All the Wilkes kids were responsible, but as the eldest girl to three brothers, Lynn set the standard. She earned straight A’s throughout high school, and she was the only girl in her physics class.
Lynn had naturally wavy hair that she wore cut short, during an era when most girls wanted long hair like Cher. She didn’t worry herself over the latest style of make-up or clothes. She was meticulously organized and a born nurturer who attracted strays of all sorts—dogs, cats, girls like me.
We did most of our hanging out together at church or school functions. On occasion, Lynn’s mother would invite me to stay for dinner. Lynn’s father was an imposing man, large in both stature and personality.
I was on my best behavior around him. Eating at Lynn’s home was like watching a ballet of chaos. There was lots of frenzied motion as plates of biscuits, platters of chicken, and bowls of mashed potatoes were passed back and forth among the family of six. Lynn’s mother was always hopping up to get one more item.
Once, as we were all about to enjoy a piece of blackberry pie, Lynn’s daddy got up from the table and started pulling out all the drawers in the kitchen and riffling through them. “What are you doing, Guy?” Lynn’s mama asked.
“I’m trying to find the hammer,” he replied.
“Why do you need the hammer?” she asked, baffled.
“So I can eat this pie,” he answered. His laugh bounced around the room like a basketball. Lynn and her brothers doubled over their plates in fits of laughter. Mrs. Wilkes rolled her eyes at me and at her husband.
Karen Mendenhall and I occasionally, meaning whenever we had extra change, ate lunch at Dinglewood Pharmacy. Lieutenant Stevens, the main cook at the lunch counter, prepared his renowned Scrambled Dawgs from extra pink hot dogs layered under a heap of onions, dill pickles, chili, and oyster crackers. During the summer or early fall on sunny Saturdays, we’d walk from Karen’s home on Birchfield Drive to Dinglewood; along the way we shared the latest in Mary Jane jokes: “Mary Jane was walking down the street one day and she saw a fly sitting on top a pile of turds. Mary Jane she just laughed and laughed and laughed, because she knew that fly couldn’t do all that.” Most often, however, we talked about our mothers and what they’d done to drive us crazy that week.
Karen’s mother, Donna, was an Italian Catholic from Boston. Her father, Hunter, was a hillbilly Baptist from Alabama. Karen had three brothers and an older sister. I once asked Hunter where he was from in Alabama. “Plumnealy,” he answered.
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“Plumb out in the sticks, nealy out of the count
ry,” he replied with a chuckle.
A World War II veteran, Hunter was on the USS West Virginia when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He claimed it was hunger that kept him alive that day. He’d been on laundry duty all night. When morning came he headed to his bunk for some shut-eye, but just as he started to doze off, the call for breakfast came. Hunter decided to get up and have a bowl of cornflakes. He was at the top of the ladder on his way to the mess hall when the first bomb hit the ship. Had he been in his bunk, he would’ve likely been killed.
Hunter loved all his children, but he and Karen had a special bond. She possessed her father’s easygoing, good-natured manner. She didn’t have the blond hair or blue eyes commonly associated with Southern coeds, but she was unquestionably beautiful. Her Italian heritage had gifted her with strong features: full lips, hazel eyes, a definitive nose, olive skin, and thick russet hair that fell way past her shoulders. Because her hair was naturally wavy, Karen would often sleep with it pulled atop her head in a ponytail and wrapped around an orange juice can. She covered the can with a pair of silk panties to keep it in place. And if that didn’t take the wave out, the next morning she would spread her locks out across the ironing board and, with the iron set on low, press her hair straight.
Donna Mendenhall didn’t know what to make of me at first. She was a disciplinarian who didn’t tolerate much foolishness from her brood. I was about as foolish a girl as she could abide. She was worried, and rightly so, about what kind of influence I would have on her daughter. Karen was a good student, unfailingly polite and respectful. I, on the other hand, was a constant challenge.
When Mr. Smith, my chemistry teacher, explained that all matter is made from atoms, I scoffed aloud at him. “You mean to tell me my eyeballs are made of the same thing as the walls of this room?” I asked.
“Your eyeballs and the walls are both made of atoms,” he replied.
“How can that be?” I pressed, absolutely befuddled by the concept.
“It just is,” he said.
“Well, I don’t believe it,” I replied.
“It’s true whether you believe it or not,” Mr. Smith remarked, his round cheeks now inflamed at my impertinence. “I’ve heard about you from Mr. Barfield.”
Mr. Barfield was my algebra teacher. I’d gone head-to-head with him over the idea that A + B = 0. I didn’t understand why all of a sudden math was about mixing up numerals with the alphabet. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, stung by the idea that two male teachers, both single, would be discussing me at all.
“I know you have an issue with men,” Mr. Smith answered. The entire class was silently watching the two of us, eager to see who would back off first.
His remark angered me. It was obvious that the conclusions reached by Mr. Smith and Mr. Barfield were based upon my not having a father around the house. “That’s not the problem,” I replied heatedly. “It’s just that I simply don’t believe in atoms!”
“What do you mean, you don’t believe in atoms?” Mr. Smith said, challenging me.
“Some people choose not to believe in God even though he’s there,” I answered. “I choose not to believe in atoms!”
In a fit of sheer frustration, Mr. Smith chucked the eraser he was holding in his right hand directly at my head and stormed out of the room.
I ducked swiftly and the eraser struck the wall. SPLAT! A cloud of white dust erupted as atoms mingled with atoms.
Part III • 1971—1975
the years of plenty want
CHAPTER 23
moving on up
ON JUNE 8, 1971, OFFICIALS AT COLUMBUS COLLEGE BESTOWED ASSOCIATE’S DEGREES IN NURSING TO thirty-seven people. Mama was one of the honored. Her graduation from Columbus College was cause for celebration. She was the first person in her family and my father’s to obtain a college degree. Lewis told Linda and me to order Mama a store-bought cake, with lard icing. It had pink flowers and the inscription CONGRATULATIONS SHELBY, R.N.
Mama received a new nursing cap with her diploma. It had a black velvet ribbon across the edge of the brim. I loved to rub my fingers across the velvet on that stiff, starched cap. After the graduation ceremony, Lewis took us all out to dinner. Then he and Mama went dancing while we stayed home and ate all the roses off the store-bought cake.
The following weekend Mama took us on a family vacation with one of her nursing buddies. It would be the first of several annual trips we would make to Panama City, Florida, often referred to as the Redneck Riviera.
Mama had always loved the beach. While on Oahu, she had lived in bathing suits. If she wanted to dress up, she’d put on a pair of shorts, a sleeveless top tied around her waist, and a pair of flip-flops. Sometimes she’d take the pink rollers out of her hair or tie a scarf around them. Other times she’d just run a brush through her lush brunette curls and call it good enough. Daddy would fish from the rocky cliffs of the North Beach, while Mama slathered baby oil on her thighs and watched us chase after the foamy waves.
In Panama City, Mama rented a room for $18.99 a night in one of those stucco-pink motels with a name like the Surf-n-Sun so common along the town’s strip. There were so many and they all looked nearly identical, Mama would often forget which one was ours. Especially if she’d been lying out in the sun all day. Mama could afford only one room, with two double beds, so she and Linda shared a bed, I slept with her nursing buddy, and Frank slept on the floor. The sheets and towels always had traces of sand in them, as did the green carpet covering the floor.
Some of the beaches were marked “private,” which meant they belonged to the people with money. We’d walk to the areas marked “public access” early in the morning and lay out big towels to mark our spot before the crowd arrived. We’d take turns during the day running back and forth, bringing one another sodas and bologna sandwiches, getting Mama another pack of cigarettes or the suntan lotion that somebody, not me, had left in the room.
The sand at Panama City is white and fine, not like the gritty, coral sands of Oahu’s North Beach. It looks and feels as if somebody, maybe God, dumped over one of heaven’s sugar bags. And the water has that turquoise tint of Depression-era glass. Postcards of the beach label it “the Emerald Coast.”
During one of my trips between the beach and the motel, I passed a vendor’s table stacked with airbrushed T-shirts. Plucking through a pile, I picked out one of the colorful, cheap ones—$3.99—and forked over four one-dollar bills. Then I rushed on back to the motel room, grabbed a couple of Cokes, and headed back down to the beach, wearing my new shirt. I hadn’t even bothered to read the inscription: FREE SEX. GOT A MINUTE? written above the face of a bulbous-nosed character that looked ever so much like Mr. Magoo.
A group of college boys, perched on a couple of chrome fenders, wolf-whistled as I strode past. One of them yelled out at me: “A minute? Honey, I got a whole half hour!” Then the group of them howled as I walked on by, red-faced and confused.
When Mama saw my new shirt, she laughed and pointed out the inscription. She told me that I’d better take it off, unless, of course, I was begging to be assaulted. I never wore the shirt again.
That night Mama took us out to a fish house called Allen’s for supper. We ate two baskets of hush puppies—cornmeal mixture, deep-fried—and emptied the tall glasses of sweet tea before the heaping plates of fried catfish and French fries arrived. Allen’s sat on the bay, so we could stare at the boats and the fishermen out the big picture windows that surrounded the dining room. We’d never eaten at such a fancy place before.
When we got back to the motel, Mama and her buddy went out, and we sprawled across the bed and the floor and watched television. Frank and I were as red and hot as peppers. Our freckled features didn’t tolerate Florida sun as well as Linda’s bronze skin did. We wet down rags with cold water and held them over our faces and thighs. We didn’t know about the soothing qualities of aloe vera in those days. We were all asleep when Mama and her buddy came stumbling in. It was the sound of one of them vo
miting that woke me up. “Food poisoning,” Mama said.
Alcohol poisoning was probably closer to the truth.
On Sunday we shook the sand from our towels, shorts, and heels and drove back to Columbus. Our two-day family vacation had come to an end. We didn’t know it then, but all sorts of new adventures awaited us, down the road a bit.
FRANK STARTED ATTENDING Rose Hill with me that summer. He and Patsy had become good pals. And even when he wouldn’t go to church, he was always willing to take me. This was great, since I still couldn’t drive and we lived so far out.
I had two distinct personas that summer: the one I displayed at church and the one that surfaced at home. At church, I was the cutup, the quick wit. I could not sit through a sermon or a prayer meeting or a training-union class without popping off with some remark that would cause others around me to burst into fits of giggles. Grabbing a hymn book, I’d open it up and randomly pick a title, something like “There’s a Fountain Flowing” or “Amazing Grace,” and poke the person sitting next to me, usually Karen Mendenhall or Beth McCombs, and add on the following line: “Between the sheets.” “Look, Beth, Just as I am between the sheets!” I’d say, choking back a laugh.
On down the pew the joke would travel, until soon coughs filled the sanctuary as everybody tried to suppress laughter. Charlie Wells would glare at us from the pulpit as he led worship. The kids at Rose Hill usually filled up the first three or four rows of the church. We couldn’t escape Charlie’s glares, but he couldn’t do much about our irreverence, either. After all, Charlie was probably the one who taught us that little ditty.
At Rose Hill I never used swearwords, and I acted like the virgin I was. Curious by nature, I wasn’t afraid to question folks much older and wiser than me. The adults at Rose Hill encouraged this in me.
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