In 1958, when I was age 4, our mother was hospitalized in Selma, Alabama, 40 miles away from the backwoods of Wilcox County.
Our maternal grandmother took me and two of my sisters to live with her during mother's hospitalization.
The older girls were in school, so I had the long, lonely days to myself - no TV, no radio, no telephone, and worst of all, no books!
My father taught me how to read at age 2, so I had to content myself with reading from the old newspapers and magazines with which g'ma plastered her walls. Since wallpaper was unaffordable, that was the way it was done in those days. However, the articles were not sequenced, so you can imagine my frustration at trying to piece together an interesting story.
Each Wednesday afternoon, the little town would close down, and the plantation owner would come down to look over his property. It was rumored that he was very rich.
Each Wednesday around mid-morning, g'ma would give me a scrub down in the #3 tin tub and dress me in my Sunday-go-meetin' finery. She would braid my hair and put snow-white ribbons at the end of the braids. White lace-trimmed socks and black Mary Janes, made smooth and shiny by applying a little lard, completed my ensemble.
I was told by g'ma to sit on the little wooden bench on the front porch and threatened with a skinning if I so much as thought about disobeying. I was terrified of her, so I did just as I was told.
When the owner drove by in his big car, he saw me and braked to a halt. He backed up and called to me to come to his car. I looked at g'ma and when she nodded approval, I skipped to his car, happy for a break in the monotonous day.
The man asked my name and age and a couple of other things, which I readily supplied. I noticed that he had copies of several newspapers lying on the front seat - The Selma Times Journal, The Montgomery Advertiser, and The Wilcox Progressive Era.
When he noticed my interest, the man jokingly asked if I would like to read the papers. I nodded enthusiastically. When he gave me one of the papers and I read the headlines to him, you could hear his peals of laughter a mile away.
Staring at me as if I were a specimen in a laboratory, he ordered me to hold out both hands. I did, and he filled them with silver dollars. How many? I don't know; I gave them to g'ma, who passed them on to her son.
That was how it went during the course of mama's hospitalization.
My grandmother pimped me.
Syl
