Not long after Spence Hatley and his family moved to Meadowbrook, another family moved into the house two doors down from us on the Old Concord Road. In that time of Dick Clark and Kilgo’s Canteen, this family’s particular religious standards prescribed what was, and was not, acceptable for social recreation, and for them dancing was taboo. This was no big deal to me since I couldn’t actually dance anyway. What to them was a sacrifice for faith in my case represented something already lacking in my DNA. Later on, I “slow danced” (which was more fun anyway) at the proms of East and South Rowan, a little at Appalachian, and with my late wife at a dance sponsored by American Legion Post 89 in Yanceyville to celebrate the incoming of the year 2000.
When I heard that the head of this new family drove for Roadway Trucking Company, I thought about my Uncle Eustace in North Wilkesboro, who had driven many years for Virginia-Carolina Trucking Company.
The daughter was a couple of years older than me, she being around 13 to my 11. Both she and her mother wore long dresses like those of frontier days. The mother’s slightly graying hair was done up, as was her daughter’s, but sometimes the girl would free her hair from hairpins and braids to wear it long, so long that she could have sat on it. (I only saw my grandmother Williams’ hair in a bun, but recall stories to the effect that her hair was just as lengthy.)
As well as dance being restricted by their particular denomination, the mother’s and daughter’s lack of makeup was also faith-prescribed; but as I remember both of them, such decoration was unnecessary, as they were possessed of natural beauty without, and inner beauty within. One thing which I particularly remember about the mother was that she had the same kind of naturally dark shading around her eyes as that of my mother. (At Statesville High in the late 1920s, my mother never had to use eye makeup to achieve the Theda Bara or Pola Negri “look.”)
The girl took piano lessons, as I did, and we both had upright pianos. The difference of the placing of the pianos in our homes meant that my practicing was done where people take their meals, and hers where guests formally visit.
I had a slight crush on the daughter despite her being several inches taller than me. She was at the age where girls’ height begins to soar toward the heavens, while I was at the age where boys’ height is still more “earthbound.” Even when my own growth spurt finally arrived, it only boosted me to 5 feet, 6-and-one-quarter inches. I always mention the quarter, because it makes me feel as if I might have been on my way to 5 feet 7. I’m sure that gravity has had its way over the past 62 years and has pulled the length of my extended skeleton down a quarter-inch or so to about 5 feet 6, or maybe even a little less, but those same bones will one day achieve 6 feet, or rather minus 6, although in a somewhat recumbent state.
One time, for some unfathomable reason, the neighborhood bully said he was going to dig a large hole and hurl me and the girl in (but at least there was no mention of shoveling the soil back in afterwards). Since, as previously mentioned, I had a slight crush on her, the idea of us both being in that hole lessened my fear.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, I remember visiting with the family two doors down and our discussing that possible man-made world’s end. I recall being impressed by their faith-inspired outlook on the situation.
The way things turned out, we didn’t have to worry about either World War III or being thrown into a hole, because Krushev backed down, and I don’t think the neighborhood bully ever completed his excavation.
Not much later, this family moved away to a two-story, country farmhouse-type home (I remember an impression of Norman Rockwell) a few miles farther south, but still on the Old Concord Road. For the move, a pickup truck and a former Sunbeam bakery truck were pressed into service. The “Sunbeam” logo had mostly been painted over, but the truck still had that “bread truck” shape. I rode along on both the old truck and the pickup several times, helping in the move, lending whatever assistance my meager muscles could muster.
It might sound funny, but the thing which made the greatest impression on me in my assisting that family in their move was getting a chance to ride in the flatbed of a pickup truck on a very warm day. Growing up in the South, I had seen other Southern boys riding in the backs of pickup trucks, and now a special appreciation of my own rural “Southernness” hit me.
Heading down and up the Old Concord Road in the truck-made breeze on the back of that pickup, I was now doing the same as those other Southern boys had done; but being “modestly” Southern in nature, my shirt remained upon my back.