For anyone who has read my posts, you can see that I am a northern transplant that moved to the South. I was going into the 2nd grade when we left New England, so I already had adopted New England traits such as privacy and liberalism. The ways of the South were a little jarring to me. One of the things I noticed was that segregation was still happening. Even though Charlotte began the cross-town school bussing to integrate its schools in 1970, it didn't change the fact that bussing happened because black and white people lived in separate parts of town. I guess I should mention that where I lived in CT the most ethnic it got was Puerto Rican, yet I knew New York City wasn't far away, and I knew everyone mixed together there (thank you, Sesame Street).
So, I mentioned in my last post that the county was being eaten up by developments. I went to a private school near my subdivision from 3rd to 9th grade. It was 2 miles from my house, so I could walk there. I never rode my bike there, which is odd, since I rode everywhere else. Anyway, my parents didn't like the idea of a 3rd grader riding the bus for an hour and a half each way every day so I could go to a crappy school on the other side of town. The school was over by the Lance cracker factory. My mom and I drove over there to take a look, and it was pretty decrepit, so they made their choice. In 6th grade, our PE teacher was taking a group of about 12 girls for a cross-country run on the newly purchased land that our school had acquired. It was great. There were some woods, then a big open field, then some more woods that surrounded a winding stream. We were slowing down, cruising under branches and around bends, when we rounded a stand of trees, and our coach stopped, and motioned for us to stop and be quiet. I was up front, and I saw before us, with his back to us, an old black man, his arms outstretched, sitting on a rock by the stream, with a bottle next to him, singing a sad, old song. He was shaking his head as he sang, and I was transfixed. The girls seemed shocked, scared, whatever, and our teacher turned us around and we tiptoed out of there. The old man never turned around. I could still hear him singing. It was one of those moments that left a huge impression. I thought to myself, "Who are we to encroach on him now? He's probably been coming here for years, just to get away and commune with nature, have a little nip, and do his thing." It is one of those things that wouldn't happen in the north or out west, but maybe on the Mississippi River or near Chicago.
Every now and again I think of that man. Sometimes something happens and I find myself singing, "OH lawd, mm-hm-hm..." like Howlin' Wolf or some gospel singer. Then I realize that's what that man on the rock was singing. I don't know what his name was, but I imagine it was Rufus or Otis or something. So I call my inner bluesman Otis, in honor of the man on the rock. Blind Otis, Cryin' Otis, Lonely Otis; I don't have an adjective for him, but all these adjectives could describe the man I encountered on the path that day.
