I have lived within 25 miles from where I was born except for six months in the year 1983.
I was nineteen and decided to get married. We then decided it would be a great idea to move down to North Carolina to live near my brothers-in-law. All in all, it was a horrible idea. Six months after moving there I jumped in my $300.00 car, packed with everything I owned that would fit, and drove home. Yet that is not what this story is going to be about.
While living in North Carolina I saw things I had only seen in movies. Movies that are fiction or so I thought.
I still remember the feeling of pulling up to my new house which happened to be a very old single-wide trailer in the middle of a trailer park. Not a brand new one like I was shown in photos. An old owner of the trailer had added on a tiny front porch.
After taking two horrendous days to get to this new house of mine I wasn't ready for what greeted me when I opened my new front door.
The trailer contained one black and white cat, two black tire innertubes blown up, and six thousand pieces of cat food which the cockroaches were eating until we had opened the door.
I walked into the kitchen to see how that was. The tiny double sink was avocado green under all the black slim. I could not even make myself open the refrigerator. Turning, I grabbed my purse, said I was going to walk the three blocks to the payphone to call my parents and let them know we had arrived safely.
My mind had shut down. I talked to my parents and they knew something wasn't right but I never said what was wrong. I did say I had a lot of cleaning to do over the next few days and I would write a letter soon letting them know how things were going. In 1983 a five-minute phone call from North Carolina to Wisconsin cost around $5.00.
Our wedding money went toward cleaning supplies, kitchen supplies, food, a card table with four matching chairs, a pretty green plastic tablecloth, curtains and sheets for the bedroom, and a downpayment for a pullout couch and a chair.
I did not have to sign the loan papers in North Carolina in the year 1983 because I was female. I was told females did not know how to handle money. It was the male's job to take care of the finances. There wasn't even a place on the loan form for the wife to sign.
For the first time since I was sixteen, I did not have a job. Little did I know not working for six weeks healed my back enough that it took another ten years before my first back surgery.
We were very poor. Dinner was beans on toast most nights. Our neighbors would find excuses to bring 'leftovers' to the house so we could eat. I would drive a neighbor lady to the grocery store if she wanted to go. The first time I did she filled up my tank of gas for me and paid for it. That became an ongoing argument we had each time she needed to go to the store. It still makes me smile to this day.
The person I married had a job but he was the new guy and a Yankee so while he worked, he received the lowest paying jobs each day. I tried to find a job but no one was hiring a foreigner.
Yes, North Carolina is in the USA same as Wisconsin is. I found myself living in The Twilight Zone.
Always one to pick up on accents very easily I proceeded to talk just like a native. Once this happened people started answering my questions honestly. I was given good directions to places I wanted to drive to but were not on the paper map.
As luck? would have it a friend of a friend new an old guy that ran a gas station/convenience store. He was looking for help. She told me she put in a good word for me. I just had to go apply for the job and it was mine. It was a part-time job working three nights a week.
Unfortunately, I learned a lot from that job. I learned how to mop floors while keeping one eye on an old white man that had grabby hands. I learned how not to get stuck in a corner with the same grabby man. I learned how to run a till too.
I liked the job best when old Guy had paperwork to do and I just chatted with customers while checking their orders out. Those nights were one of the few times, while I lived there, I smiled and laughed.
But...
The gas station I worked at was on a corner. If you followed the road passed the gas station you came to a neighborhood that would have been condemned in Wisconsin. One night I was early to work and did not feel like being chased any longer than I had to. I decided to keep going down the road to see what was there.
Not much passed the gas station the road became very narrow and not maintained. There were dirt roads with street signs that ran off of the main road. The houses were shacks. Real shacks. No paint boarded up window shacks.
Now I knew why the gas station sold so much kerosene by the gallon. It was getting close to Autumn and turning cold. The people that lived in the shacks were using kerosene space heaters to keep warm. I had already heard about a few houses catching on fire when checking customers out. Seeing the houses I was shocked more didn't burn down.
I also knew I was driving in an area I should not be but the road had become so narrow I could not make a U-Turn. I kept driving until I saw a church parking lot. Turning around, I made my way back to the gas station and worked my shift. All the while realizing my roach-infested trailer home was better than I thought. Prospective.
I worked at that gas station for about a month. The straw that sent me over the edge was being told I could not smile and laugh with the customers. I was told I was asking to be raped by being so nice to our customers. He proceeded to tell me he wasn't going to have a fight break out at his gas station over who was going to line up and have the first crack at me.
I quit. I told him the only person I was in danger from was him. That all of our African American customers were normal humans just like us. As soon as I said those last words he fired me.
I made the person I was married to go get my last paycheck. We needed the money. No one was willing to stand up to old Guy for me. I was a woman after all. You could not believe a thing I said. I was just overreacting.
During my six months of living in North Carolina, I saw first hand and heard so many horrible injustices being done to African Americans it affects me to this day.
You might think you know what it is like to live in the USA as an African American. You might think you would do things differently if that was you. You can surmise all you want how things should be but unless you are African American you will never truly know.
I saw a small glimpse into what it was like for African Americans. How they were treated by everyone around me when I lived in North Carolina. It was not a pretty sight. I was horrified people were still treated this way in 1983. Something tells me not much has changed.
All photos are mine unless otherwise stated.
photo found here
