Spring has come, fall has fell
Summer is here,
And I hear no cowbell.
Just another, sad farewell.
I'm saying sad farewells to so many of my friends these days, and I've just hung up the phone. Another one of my Central High Classmates has gone on to Heaven.
We Central ladies have met once a month for lunch for over 40 years. Going back in time, I think there were about 30 of us. And now, we're down to five or six.
With these thoughts, “Me thinks the time has come,” I say.
I bend over, smooth back hair from my doggie's face, wrap my arms around her neck, and press my cheek against her shoulder. I was pondering on doing a few articles for the Sun about growing up here in Jackson when I came along, in the forties and fifties. I've been around awhile, but there are places, moments and people I can still recall.
Lettie Lou blows her hot breath into my face, then pulls away and begins licking her belly as if she had found something that tastes good.
“I think you need to go outside Miss Lettie Lou, and I need to get on with the program.”
I let the doggie out, go to a bookshelf in the hall, and pick up our 1952 Central High Annual, the Cotton Boll. Book in hand, I return to the den.
There are so many treasured layers of life here in my lap, and so many of those memories are as elusive as a soft whisper across a high-ceilinged room. You get up and run to hear, but they like the whisper are slipping through window cracks. But I still hark to the days gone by and still hear a few fading and familiar noises; whirring attic fans, record music from an old windup Victrola, droning window air conditioning units.
I sprawl back in the lounge chair and close my eyes.
There was the hum of a small city coming to life.
The loud, buzzing propellers of DC3s landing at the old Hawkins Field off Woodrow Wilson; the Panama limited and the Rebel trains as with keening wails they roll into a busy downtown station; city buses shifting gears on North State and Capitol Street; whirring tickets as they slide through the Paramount window; the popping of wooden seats and creaking floors at the old City Auditorium where the Jackson Symphony Orchestra performed; the rattling of Jack’s Hot Tamale cart as it rolled noisly across bumpy pavement; the pageantry and music of Carnival Balls; yells and whistles from the crowds at wrestling matches and Golden Glove boxing tournaments; the grinding noises made by the legless man as he rolled himself down Capitol Street on what looked like a wooden drink crate; deep organ tones that pealed from Kennington's elevators; and the shoeshine boy at the Capitol News stand as he sang “Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy” and popped his cleaning rag.
In front of our school, early morning sounds drifted through the open windows; the hissing of school radiators; the altos and sopranos of the choral music class; the music teacher playing “Pretty Red Wing” on the piano; horns and cellos grimly blowing out twisting metal tunes from band practice; and the soft murmurs of Youth for Christ students who had permission to enter early and pray for the rest of us. When the 8:15 bell rang we quickly and obediently turned toward the building.
Saddle Oxford shoes tied tight, long skirts dipping, the just-washed hair of girls gave off an aroma of fresh pine needles as we hurried past boys wearing short-sleeved cotton shirts and baggy khaki or gray pants. Randy males lining the front foyer wolf-whistled, laughed and called out what would now be thought of as sexist remarks.
“Hotty toddy, what a body.”
Swishing our pompadour-crowned hair, we females self-consciously pretended anger, and lifted our chins. Lips coated with Pink Lightening lipstick, and grinning like Cheshire cats, a giggling gaggle of girls whispered, “He was whistling at me, not you.”
To be ignored would have meant hurt feelings.
Once we girls passed this noisy welcoming gauntlet, heavy books from our lockers would soon perch on our smooth, swaying hips, and everyone slowly scuffled down the marble-floored halls to their classes.
Though there was no awareness of it, the secure and familiar were changing, even as we moved in a crush through the school.
Like so many other secrets whispered on a summer night, those raucous young voices that echoed against plastered walls have almost, but not quite, vanished.
***
I set the Cotton Boll annual on a table, and push the down arrow in my recliner. Once the chair's locked in place, I slowly get to my feet.
It's time for me to put on, not my “Sunday go to meeting” finest outfit, but a beaded headband and a pair of britches that match my v-necked, scalloped hem, flowered blouse.
“We're always the same age inside,” I read somewhere.
True sounding words, so I'll try to find a pair of sequined, rhinestone-studded, shoes as I go to meet my Central High friends for our monthly lunch meeting.
My face doesn't sparkle anymore, but my feet can.
And, I have big feet.
