by Diamond
No, ma’am, we sure couldn’t.
In 1973, Mother had two more children who were ten months apart: my brother, who is the third oldest, and my sister, who was the baby girl. All four of us are ten months apart.
Yes. We were considered stepladders. Eight years later, Mother and Father gave us another brother. He was the baby boy. About five years after that, Mother and Father adopted a girl, which gave us another sister. That made me the oldest of four girls and two boys.
When Silk turned five years old, she went to school while my brother, sister, and I stayed home with Mother. On that day, our father decided to cook oatmeal for everyone before Silk left for school. I never got the chance to eat any of the oatmeal because once I saw the expression on Silk’s face, I didn’t want to eat any of it. Silk is the reason I don’t eat oatmeal to this day.
Hahaha… yes, you are right. I love to eat, but it has to have some flavor. When Daddy sat that bowl in front of me, I didn’t know what it was, but one thing I did know is it didn’t look good at all. It was lumpy and very thick. Everyone was waiting on me to taste the stuff before they would eat it. Finally, I braved up, opened my mouth, and tasted a little bit. Oh my, it was horrific. Was my daddy serious? How did he expect me to function in school with that awful gook in my stomach? My face had a sour look on it, and my sister knew that it was a big fat no to oatmeal.
That oatmeal had nasty all in it. It looked nasty and it definitely tasted nasty. I think Daddy may have forgotten to add some sugar or honey—something to sweeten it up. From that day until just a few years ago, I wouldn’t dream of trying to stomach oatmeal. Now, I only eat instant oatmeal with raisins, dates, walnuts, berries, and sliced bananas.
Silk is also the reason why I don’t have buckteeth today. As a baby, I sucked my thumb. When Silk was five and I was four, she said, “Don’t suck your thumb; suck your baby finger.” It was my saving grace. I still suck on my finger today, but I don’t have buckteeth.
So I guess you can call me your dentist because I helped save your teeth. Hahaha.
Mother was a stay-at-home mom. She made sure the house was clean and food was cooked. I remember how, at the age of four, I would follow her around to try and help her clean. All I was doing was getting in her way. I remember one day Mother was sitting in the den, eating her Honey Graham crackers and watching the soap opera, I believe it was The Edge of Night. I was staring at her, and she said, “Why are you gazing at me? Do you want a cracker?”
I said, “Yes.”
And she replied, “When you want something, you don’t gaze at it; you ask for it.”
I was four years old, and I’ll never forget that. It was a defining moment.
When Daddy got home from work, all he had to do was wash up, have a seat, and eat.
Yes, he did. And I remember when Daddy would sometimes stop by the garage to drink him a beer. Out of respect, he made sure that he took his sip outside of the house. He would not drink inside of the home; Momma wasn’t having that.
By this time, Momma had given her life to God, and she didn’t want any drinking going on in front of her or her children.
So this one particular time, I remember jumping up in my father’s lap to get a hug. The hug was a little, clever cover-up to see if I could smell alcohol on his breath. Sure enough, I did, and I yelled out, “Momma, he’s been drinking again.”
Daddy was so undone; it wouldn’t surprise me if that was one of the reasons why he stopped drinking beer.
We had some memorable times when we lived on Keystone. I remember when our grandmother—our mother’s mother—came to visit us in Detroit. This particular day, Grandmother had to babysit us because Mom had an appointment.
Yes.
So she allowed us to go outside to play, and while we were outside playing, a group of children came on our side of the street to start something.
Yes, I remember.
We went into the house and told our grandmother what was happening outside, and she was like, “Not my grandbabies.”
She found a few wire coat hangers, opened them up like sticks, and sent us back outside. We went back out there like superheroes, and let’s just say that it wasn’t a good day for the other side. They didn’t cross back over to our side of the street again.
Hahaha, yes. We showed them, didn’t we?
We sure did.
Our father worked at Kroger Bakery, which was a factory that made bread. He made good money and got paid every week. It was nothing for him to bring home $600 or $700 a week, which was good because it was needed to take care of a family of six.
After staying at the house on Keystone for a few years, our family had outgrown our 898-square-foot home, so my father and mother purchased another house, on the West Side of Detroit, Michigan. I remember when he drove us to the house; it looked really huge. It was totally different from the three-bedroom home we had been living in. We had a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a kitchen nook. A slew of steps led to the four bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs. It was bigger than what we were used to living in, and it was beautiful.
Yes, gurl, I remember. It was the year 1976. The house was a 1,649-square-foot home, on a 4,792-square-foot lot, built in 1951. We thought we were the Jeffersons. We had moved on up, but it was to the West Side from the East Side.
It was totally different from the smaller home. Everything was bigger, including the backyard. A few years later, Daddy even put up a pool for us. And let’s not forget the basement, where the washer and dryer were, down the stairs that led from the kitchen. The house even had a laundry chute: you could put dirty clothes in it from upstairs, and they would slide down the chute and drop into a wooden cage in the basement.
We had moved from a single-level home to a three-level home, and the change for the better was drastic.
The wallpaper was made of velvet and painted with designs; the house was carpeted all the way through; the gas stove was built into the counter; and the oven was built into the wall.
That’s right.
Silk, my baby sister, and I slept in the pink room, with pink paisley wallpaper. Mother bought us all new bunk beds with beautiful linens. Silk had her own bed, I slept in the top bunk, and my baby sister slept in the bottom bunk.
Yep.
My brother slept in the blue room, where he had his own bed, and my parents had the master bedroom. The last bedroom was turned into a guest room.
Mother had the house decked out. She bought all-new furniture for the living room, dining room, and kitchen. She had everything in its place, nothing was out of order, and the house was so immaculate that she did not allow us to walk inside with our outside shoes on.
That’s right. You had to take off your shoes at the door. Mother didn’t care who you were.
Mother was so thrilled about her new home; she and Father were now proud homeowners. It was a big step up for Mother because it was a long way from living in the shack house with a wooden floor, the tin and wooden roof, and no lights or running water.
Daddy was still working at Kroger and, although he could work as many hours as he wanted, he wanted more for himself: he wanted his own business. He had never owned a business before. He and Mother did not know the ins and outs, but there’s an old saying, “Nothing beats a failure but a try.” So he was on the hunt for a business venture.
One day, in 1978, he was riding down Fenkell Road in Detroit, Michigan, when he saw an old-looking laundromat. It had all of the washing machines and dryers intact, but the place looked run-down. So he inquired about it.
After speaking to the rightful owner, he realized the place was being mismanaged and had become a drug den for addicts and dealers. Father asked the owner if he was willing to sell it, and the guy said yes.
Father was shocked and excited at the same time. The owner agreed to $7,000 for the equipment: $3,000 down and $200 a month until it was paid in full. Father also agreed to take over the lease and pay an additional $200 a month. The deal was done, and Mot
her and Father were the proud owners of a laundromat, which they named “Freeman’s Neighborhood Laundromat.”
Yes, that was the name.
I don’t know about Silk, but I loved the laundromat.
Well… I didn’t have a problem being at the laundromat, but there was no love lost here. But continue on…
It was interesting seeing people wash their clothing using quarters and needing dimes to dry them. I was infatuated with watching people put dimes in the dryer to start them. Hearing the dimes go into the slots and the knobs being turned was like listening to the sound of making money. The smell of Tide detergent and Downy fabric softener sheets bombarded my nose. The yellow dryers, which looked like machinery with windows, were lined up on both sides of the wall, and all of the washing machines were in the middle. The laundry tables, where customers were able to fold their clothing before leaving, were set on the sides of the washers.
Mother and Father also opened a pick-up store for dry cleaning inside the laundromat. Customers could drop off clothes to be dry-cleaned and then come back in three days to pick them up. Everything was convenient and at the customer’s fingertips.
There were also snack and drink machines. The snack machine held up to nine items; all items were twenty-five cents. The snack machines back in those days were simple to operate, and we would get a kick out of putting our quarter through the slot, pulling the knob outward, and watching the candy be released. If we were good during the day, Daddy would let us get a snack and soda pop.
I can remember being outside and we were all playing behind the laundromat when, out of nowhere, this boy started picking on us. We didn’t know who he was. Father came outside to check on us, and the boy continued to taunt us. My father told the boy to leave, and he wouldn’t.
The next thing I knew, the boy threw something at us and took off running. Our father ran right after him; we didn’t know Daddy could run that fast. The farther Daddy ran, the shorter Daddy looked. He brought that boy back to where we were, talked to him, then he let the boy go.
That day, our daddy was our hero.
After closing, Father would show us how to assist him with cleaning out the dryers and washing down the washing machines. We would help sweep the floors and wipe down the chairs. He would have us clean the windows on the dryers and take the lint out of the lint traps while he took care of the bathroom.
This is what it took to make sure the laundromat maintained a certain quality that was inviting to customers.
We would follow Daddy to every washer and dryer, watching him empty out the coin box—the box that catches the coins when they go through the slot—into a bucket. The coin box was always locked, and Father kept the master key. In order to get into the coin box, you had to unlock it with that key only.
I remember that funny-looking master key. It wasn’t a regular key. It was flat at the top and round-shaped at the bottom, with a little, funny edge. The key only fit in that one lock.
The dimes would go into one bucket, and the quarters would go into another bucket. He would use coin rolls to roll the dimes and quarters, and sometimes he allowed us to help. Fifty dimes in a coin roll equaled five dollars, and forty quarters in a roll equaled ten dollars.
Mm-hmm. I bet you the average Millennial today would look at you as if you were crazy if you asked them to roll some coins. It’s small learning curves like this that are missing from today’s society.
Our mother and father taught us at an early age how to appreciate a business by showing us that cleanliness is next to godliness and to make sure to keep things clean.
Yes, they sure did.
Mother and Father didn’t make a lot of money in the laundromat. It was a way for them to get their feet wet and experience being business owners. Though Father was always grateful for his job at Kroger, he was tired of working twelve-hour shifts and not being able to spend enough time with his family. He would pray to God to bless his business so that it could become his full-time job.
Be cautious about what you ask for because you just may get it.
You got that right.
It was 1979. The laundromat had been open for almost a year when Daddy received a phone call that made his heart drop and put him in panic mode.
Mm-hmm.
A friend from the job by the name of Hendrick called him to let him know that Kroger was closing for good and going out of business.
It seemed to our father that our lives flashed before his eyes: there was his new home, the new business that was not pulling in a lot of money, and now he was about to lose his biggest source of income—his full-time job.
There was nothing Father could do; he prayed that God would bless his business so that it could become his full-time job. God did one better: He fixed it where it would become his only job. Mother and Father had only one person to lean on—and that was God—and one thing to rely on—and that was faith.
Chapter 2 Defining Childhood Moments
We have to say, our upbringing had a lot to do with what we’re able to handle today. We always felt a little bit separated from the crowd. Even though we all stood in the same line for the same Focus Hope cheese, other people thought we had more.
Our earliest memories, without a doubt, revolve around the holidays.
That’s right.
We never missed Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Easter.
Mm-hmm.
Growing up, Mother and Father made sure we had beautiful Christmases…
Oh, yes, I do remember the beautiful Christmases: the tree, the lights, the snow. Yes, I do remember…
Father made sure we had a live Christmas tree every year; I can remember the fresh smell of pine. Once Father got the tree into the house, he would stand it up on the tree stand, then Mother would pull out the ornaments to decorate it.
Strings and strings of one-color Christmas lights would be bundled together, like a necklace with knots. Our job was to help Mother unravel the lights so that she could plug them in to see if they still worked from the year before.
Yes, she would. One string at a time, one bulb at a time. I remember plugging in the string of lights to see if they flickered. If they did, that meant that the string was live, but one bulb was loose. I would have to twist each bulb to make sure it was screwed in tight enough for the rest of the lights on the string to stay lit. Twist, next; twist, next, until the weakest link was found.
Of course, if I plugged the string of lights into the socket and got nothing, that usually meant one or more bulbs on the string needed to be changed. This was a bigger challenge for me, but, 99.99 percent of the time, I figured it out one string at a time.
After the lights were sorted and put on the tree, Mother would allow us to help her hang the ornaments. Afterwards, she would place garlands around the tree and then put the star on top.
And, just like that, the tree decorations were complete.
Christmas was always a great time. Leading up to the big day, Mother would demand that we be good because Santa Claus was coming. If we didn’t behave, Santa would pass right over our house.
Mm-hmm.
We would start practicing how we would get up on Christmas morning and sneak down the stairs to see what Santa had brought us.
We sure would.
We would go to our bedrooms, and Silk would practice how she would wake me up, then I was supposed to wake my baby sister up. Slowly and quietly, we would move to the blue room and wake my brother. We all snuck down the stairs by sitting on them one at a time and lifting ourselves onto the next stair without causing any squeaks or making any noises. After the practice run, we had our routine perfected, and we were ready.
Yes, we were.
On Christmas Eve, we would start preparing for the arrival of Santa Claus. Father would make cookies.
Oh, my… I do remember the sweet smell of those cookies.
He would bake cookies for us and Santa.
Mm-hmm. He’d tell us Santa was going to be eating them too, so we would
sit there and watch him make them.
Smelling the cinnamon settling in the air made us so giddy, we couldn’t contain our little selves. We were always overexcited. We would take our baths while the cookies were baking—I think Father made that rule to calm us down.
After our baths, Father would let us taste the cookies, which were always baked to perfection so that they would melt in your mouth.
After our snack, it was time for bed.
We didn’t want to go to bed.
We never wanted to go to sleep.
We were so eager for Christmas morning to arrive that we were too anxious to go to sleep.
Don’t forget about the thought of Santa coming down the chimney. And, guess what? We had a fireplace with a chimney.
And that’s how Santa was going to bring our presents. We had it all figured out. Of course, it never dawned on us how Santa got a bicycle down the chimney. We just prayed that the chimney was big enough for him to fit in without getting stuck.
Remember the time we woke up, and you told me that Santa had kissed you on the cheek?
Gurl, yes. He kissed me on my right cheek. I woke up just slightly and saw his white beard and red suit.
You were so excited about that kiss, you made me excited too. So, you can imagine the disappointment we felt when we found out there was no Santa. Didn’t matter to Silk. She still believed that was Santa who kissed her on the cheek.
Of course, years later we found out it was really Mother and Father, but just thinking about that moment now, I guess that started the dreaming process for me. You know, being able to dream, being in the magic of it all, I realize it all started with Santa.
As sure as the sky is blue, there we’d be in the wee hours of the morning, just as we practiced, sneaking downstairs to see what Santa had brought us.
Mm-hmm.
After getting down the stairs, we’d all stare in unison over to the right where the Christmas tree was. All of the toys that Santa had brought us were there: baby dolls, bikes, you name it, we had it.