PAST DAYS 25 CENT SHOE SHINE
We left College Hill Courts in a hurry. They were also called the Westside Projects. This was Tennessee, River City at the Moccasin Bend.
Why was this such a wretched Valley and what had turned so many people mean?
World War II had ended and the blaze now burned in Korea, as many still went and died to war. I saw the trains moving things of War and knew not for what purpose.
Man still does not know peace as he tries to find wealth in violence.
West 9th Street was the next stop. There we rested over a storefront business that faced 9th Street. These were steep steps for a young boy.
Many people recently sent to the wind moved as Gypsies and vagabonds throughout the land.
We entered our place on Cypress Street along the side. I swept the sidewalks with Ms. Mabel who lived right behind us on Cypress Street for a quarter.
The seeds were sown, as the natural flatfoot hustler would one day shine a few shoes.
I also hustled clothes hanger's and swept out the lobby for Salmon who operated a Dry Cleaning business across the street. Then Colored folks had all types of neighborhood businesses that provided the needs of situated people.
The situated folk were ordered into place and the back was the door.
Ollie who later became Pat Patrick Patton worked at a Fish Market down on 9th Street. However I think the Jews owned it. If I recall correctly the Colored folks and Jews owned most of the businesses in the Colored neighborhoods. I guess many White folks then did want any situation with Colored folks even in business. But boy that would change.
As the forsaken and disenfranchised to mend their own fences a few peddlers who had a history of peddling after the slave parades came among them.
Meanwhile the street was booming and there was always a great hustle and bustle as I recall. So all types of businesses flourished on West 9th Street and the Colored folks were involved in being self-sufficient and providing for self. But so-called progress and upward mobility would soon reverse Black and Colored economic development and enterprise.
Did the Black business go with progress and the so-call end to the situation?
Carver Hospital where the Colored folks went was north of where we lived way up on 9th Street. I had first attended West Main Street School when we lived at 1214 Cypress Street Court in the Projects.
Then many claimed to be affluent in Public Housing because now there was hot and cold running water and the outhouse was now something only the Po could afford.
Now I was right down the street from James A. Henry Elementary School. I believe I was still in the 1st grade or I had just entered the 2nd grade.
I lost the basics of reading not so much writing I saw some but arithmetic was gone forever.
We soon moved to Fort Wood on the East side but not across the viaduct. East 5th Street was where we now lived and I also looked upon the 2nd grade at East 5th Street School.
New neighborhoods brought new friends and memories of days gone.
I have recalled in verse how I first smelled the delightful honeysuckle vines in bloom early one Spring morning during recess at East 5th Street School.
I am grateful for the inspiration that I went back and grabbed more than 50 years ago.
Meanwhile there were many in our family but I never knew it then. Where did we all sleep? Mamma, Daddy, Ollie, Catherine, Bay-bro, Grace Lee, Carl Allen, Gerald as Barbara and Vanessa had not entered life yet.
Did any shoeshine boy know that he was poor?
Ollie worked at the Bowling Alley for the White folks, setting up the pins Things were not automatic then. He loved to scramble money (quarters, dimes and nickels) he said he received as tips. However I later concluded that Ollie was developing his skills as a crap (dice) shooter. Let the record show that Ollie became an expert with the pad roll and an accomplished gambler. Any way we often fought for the scrambled money and Ollie loved that.
Gamblers won and lost, many also died as they took a chance on one's life. But the dice on the pad rolled like two wheels.
Cont. Part 2
About the Author
Peace be unto you. The righteous know no other way as the Wind has sent them to testify of the birds and things that are not seen.