Growing up Colored

Chapter 4 ? How I found out

	Photo/Coutesy Culpeper Historical Society Old Town Culpeper, Virginia, where I attended my first 'walk-in' movie, "The Parent Trap" - starring my childhood idol, Hayley Mills.

Hayley Mills was by far my favorite actress as a child. Talkabout having a schoolboy crush, I was barely in school when Disney?s ?TheParent Trap? came out. Raymond and Bajean spent hours begging daddy to take themto the walk-in to see it. What?s a walk-in, you ask? Well, it was the oppositeof a drive-in. You could actually walk up to the ticket booth, pay for a ticketand go in to the theatre, sit down in comfortable seats and watch a movie. Ihad never been to a walk-in movie theatre before. All the other movies I?d seenup until then were shown at the drive-in, we?d back our station wagon towardthe huge screen, take out a blanket and lie outside enjoying the movie whilewatching the comings and goings of all the patrons. I often wondered why no oneever got run over out there, I think folks actually looked out for one anotherback then. At least until that time when it began pouring down raining and oneguy whom we had seen sneak in on foot came up to my mother?s window and askedif he could sit in the car with us and finish the movie. Mom instinctively rolledup her window and turned her back on him, he finally moved on after staring inon us. He dejectedly left the place after going from one car to another andfinally realized no one was going to let him in. The last movie we?d seen priorto that was ?The Tingler? with Vincent Price and that left me quite terrifiedfor years to come, it gave me plenty to think about on many a sleepless night.

It took some doing but my begging paid off because originallyDad had felt I was too young to go, but then he decided to let me go along. Soonce we got there, I was in awe of the place, we walked up to the building andof course, my first inclination was to walk through the front entrance, but dadgrabbed my arm and escorted me to a small side entrance with the words ?Colored?written over the door. I didn?t pay much attention; I was too excited aboutseeing Hayley Mills. We got our tickets and walked up a single flight of stairsand onto a balcony. The entire balcony was filled with loud boisterous kids,throwing popcorn, leaning over the rail and yelling at the people down below. Iglanced over the edge and realized what a great view I had up there. I was gladwe weren?t sitting where those other poor saps were, who didn?t have such agreat view and were being pelted with popcorn by the people who were seatedupstairs with us. The movie was great, Hayley Mills was cute as a button and itfelt good to be in that elite club called ?Colored?, if it meant always gettingperks like this seating arrangement we had. But, of course, the feeling didn?tlast. ?

On most summer morning?s mom would send us outside to getsome fresh air, ?Y?all don?t need to be cooped up in the house all day?. Andthen off we?d go straight outside to the well. We got our drinking water froman electrical well that dad had dug by hand using picks, shovels and dynamite.He tells the story of how one day when the charge hadn?t gone off after he?dset the stick in the well and he?d gone back above ground. He turned the knobon the ignition switch and when it didn?t go off, he waited for what he feltwas an appropriate amount of time, then climbed back down the ladder to reattachthe wires, he climbed back up, hit the switch again and the blast went off thistime. (I wonder if I was born by then).?

The area around that well was ourofficial playground. We had a young elm tree that we bent just right, so wecould use it as our hobbyhorse. There were plenty of trees to climb and youcould usually find us hanging upside down from a limb or the swing set bar. Butwe derived most of our pleasure from building roads in the dirt. We wereexperts at it and whenever a new toy car or garage was purchased with ournickel-a-week allowance, we were out the next morning in the dirt making roadsby placing the palms of our hands on the ground and moving through the dustuntil we?d had a complete miniature highway built.

We were on our hands and knees right in the middle of one ofour great interstate constructions when one of us looked up and yelled, ?Oh no,here comes Johnny Arstino!? Barbara Jean made a quick dash to the house. Firstof all, if we had any male friends stop by, Bajean wouldn?t be allowed to stayoutside and play with them unless they were our cousins Dewey and David Robinsonwho would come across the field on a daily basis to play with us and end upchasing us around the house trying to pee on us. They seemed to get a great thrillout of trying to urinate of us, we got to the point where we hated to see themcoming across the field as well. (Excuse me, I had to stop and laugh rememberingwhat our mother taught us to call our privates, I was probably married before Ifound out it wasn?t really called a ?Ding-Dong?)

After an hour or so of us screaming from one end of the yardto the other, our mother would finally catch wind of what they were attemptingto accomplish and send them back across the field.

But not even David and Dewey struckabsolute dread in our hearts as did the sight of seeing Johnny Arstino walk upthe road dressed in his full Roy Rogers regalia; cowboy hat, bandana, checkedshirt, holstered six guns, blue jeans, chaps and cowboy boots. I guess I don?thave to mention that Johnny was white, and he was coming to play Cowboys andIndians or good guys and bad guys and I also don?t have to mention that wenever got to be the cowboys or the good guys. Raymond and I were his designatedIndians and Mom would send us outside to play with him after he stood in thefront yard yelling for us to come out for over 15 minutes and it was obvious hewasn?t going to leave. And why should he, he knew we never went anywhere. Sooff we went to play. Here?s how the dialogue of our play went:

Johnny ? ?BANG, BANG!! You?re Dead!!?

Either Raymond or I would fall to the ground.

Raymond ? ?BANG, BANG!! You?re dead, Johnny!?

Johnny ??No, you missed me?.

Raymond ??Yes I did, I got you?

Johnny ??No you didn?t, Bang! You?re dead again Raymond!? Raymondwould fall

Stanley - ?Bang, I got you Johnny!?

Johnny ??Nope, you missed me, I was ducking behind the tree?

Johnny ??BANG! Stanley I got you?

Stanley -?Na-uh! You missed me Johnny?

Johnny ??No I didn?t, I got you in the arm? ? then I?d fall obedientlyto the ground.

Repeat dialogue fifty times, with Johnny climbing on thechicken shed and jumping from tree limbs, ducking behind the wood pile him never once getting hit, much less getting killed and usfalling and dying every time he pointed his gun in our direction. We were the most frustratedgunfighters in the West, but we did our part, we just didn't enjoy it as much as he did.

Then Johnny would head back home or up the road to his grandfather?shouse. Johnny lived on the blacktop (the paved road) most blacks that I knewlived on dirt roads. And the only time we ever saw paved road was during themile long trip to town. All of ?our? roads were dirt and gravel and they werealways the last to have snow cleared in winter or the last to be plowed andgraveled in the summer. Once or twice we were blessed to have the chain gang goup our road clearing out the ditches and picking up debris. Mom would make usstay inside when that gray bus would drive up, armed guards would have theconvicts file off. As they went to work on our roads, we stayedglued to the window and watched in awe while they were out there.

	Photo/Coutesy Brown Family Collection Earlene Brown and allow her children relax between playing Cowboys and Indians with lifelong friend and neighbor, Johnny Arstino.

Johnny was the only kid in the neighborhood who could getaway with anything he wanted. If we were caught on top of our shed we knew we?dget skinned alive. Johnny would hide up there and we?d say, ?Johnny. We aren?tallowed to play up there? and it was as though no words had come from ourmouths. He completely ignored our warnings and our father ignored his completedisregard for the rules that we were bound by. At first I thought it wasbecause he was white and maybe that did have something to do with it. But Ialso know that my father and his mother were really close friends when theywere growing up. My dad would say that ?Nita would always have her goatsfollowing along behind her everywhere she went and you never saw her withoutthem. So, just maybe his loyalty to his friend ?Nita was the real reason Johnnycould get away with anything he wanted and that?s why we were obligated to be Indiansor bad guys to his perpetual good guy/ cowboy. This went on almost everydayduring the summer. Johnny was at least six or seven years older than us and wehad nothing in common other than our little western gunfights. So when it cametime for the annual Fireman?s Carnival and Raymond and I were walking throughtown to get to the carnival grounds. It was natural that when I saw Johnnywalking towards us with a few of his friends that I, being a na?e six year oldwould ring out with, ?Hi Johnny!?. But he didn?t say anything; he just walked right passedus as though we weren?t even there. So, I tried again after he passed by. ?Hi Johnny!?still no answer. I turned to my older brother and asked, ?Why won?t Johnnyspeak to us Bay Ray? Didn?t he hear me??

Raymond just kept walking and looking straight ahead andsaid, ?Because we?re Colored Stanley, that?s all, just because we?re Colored.?As we continued on down the street, I overheard one of the boys ask Johnny, "Do you know them?" To that he quickly replied, "Nope, I don't know who they are."

And that?s when I first learned what it really meant to be Colored.I still didn?t know exactly what all it entailed, but one thing I did know, isthat it didn?t feel good.

And that?s when I first learned what it really meant to be Colored.I still didn?t know exactly what all it entailed, but one thing I did know, isthat it didn?t feel good.