An old friend’s birthday was a time for remembering — and sharing with young guests | Opinion
Aug. 5, in Jonesboro, Georgia, was a wonderful weekend of celebrations. I, along with friends from the Bahamas, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and other parts of Georgia, was in Jonesboro to help Juanita Manuel Mond, my junior high school friend, celebrate her 85th birthday. What a happy occasion it was.
The weekend started with the decorating team getting the venue ready for the celebration. Lead by Juanita’s goddaughter Keitha Gipson, who drove from Charlotte, North Carolina, with her car packed with decorations, other members of the team included another goddaughter Dr. Karen Edwards, who flew in from Laurel, Maryland, and from Juanita’s older daughter Dr. Yulinda Rhodes Tatum, who drove with her husband Darryl from Beaufort, South Carolina. The decorators worked from Thursday evening through early Saturday morning making sure the venue was fitting for an 85-year-old diva’s party.
Other out-of-town guests included Juanita’s “Nassau Family,” Emma Pickstock and her daughters Dr. Joyous Pickstock, and granddaughter Jasmine; Dr. Janet Pickstock and Ruth Pickstock. They arrived Thursday evening, bringing with them fresh conch and grouper for a Bahamian-style breakfast on Friday morning.
With everyone settled in, there was time for remembering. It is hard to believe that so many years have passed since those junior high and high school days at good old Booker T. Washington Junior/Senior High School (BTW) in Overtown. Juanita and I lived at a time when life wasn’t so great for Blacks in the South. But we made do. We lived in our own world where our “village keepers” squeezed out the ugliness of the real world, allowing us to have as happy a life as possible growing up.
We had school plays that turned into real productions, often running two or three days to allow the community to attend and cheer us on. Our football games were held at Dorsey Park, dubbed the Dust Bowl because of all the dust our marching band kicked up while performing at halftime. And we celebrated our big games with a parade starting and ending at BTW.
We reminisced about many things from those early years… about marching down Northwest Second Avenue (Overtown’s main drag), also known as The Strip, where we “Showed out”, by putting on our best performance for the crowd that had gathered to see the BTW Marching 100. I reminded Juanita about her days as a member of the Girl’s Drill Team and how they marched in perfect precision.
There were the after-game dances at the high school gym, featuring a live band. We danced “the swing” to music like the “Woodchoppers Ball”, we “walked the floor” to the sounds of “Night Train” and we wiggled our bodies to the Calypso sounds of the to the Caribbean Islands.
We laughed as we shared stories from our memory bank. And Juanita’s children and younger friends listened and laughed.
Now here we are decades later, with grandchildren and great-grandchildren to pray over and brag about. We are so blessed to have lived to see these times. As I write this column, I can hardly contain myself; the deep gratitude I feel is interrupting my thoughts as my heart overflows with thankfulness.
Looking back at those days and thinking of how far we have come as a people, it was enough to bring tears our eyes. While we have come a long way and have experienced many things — good and bad — the shadow of the knowledge of knowing that we still have a long way to go lurks around us. And we wonder if we have done enough to preserve the good memories, as well as the bad ones, for our grandchildren and their children.
Recently, there is more to be concerned about. Our history being threatened with a shutdown. Books containing our stories are being banned and it could be that soon, we won’t be able to continue to pass along our stories verbally to our future generations. That is why celebrations like Juanita’s birthday, where multi-generations are present, are so important to us. We gather for the celebration, but we also gather to pass on our stories. It is a way of preserving our history. It is our hope that somebody at the gatherings will remember some of the stories and perhaps they will pass them on to their children. That’s the way it is done. We must tell our stories at every possible opportunity.
At Juanita’s celebration, we told stories of the old days when we were young. The older folk remembered and smiled and bowed in recognition of the memories. The younger guests laughed when we spoke of our boyfriends and movie dates at the Liberty Theater (dubbed The Shack) in Liberty City, and “taking company” (that’s when a young man asked your parents if he could court you).
It was so fun to watch the faces of the younger guests as I spoke about the days when Juanita and I were teenagers. But the best part is that they listened.
Bea L. Hines can be reached at bea.hines@gmail.com
