Search This Blog

Saturday, January 25, 2003

Daine's Definition of "Martin Luther King"
I know who is Martin Luther King is, mom. Once dark people got to sit at the back of the bus, and all the white people had to sit up front. He changed the laws, now, because I am light, I can sit at the back of the bus if I want, and the dark people can sit up front. Isn't that right? mom, mom mom......

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

26th of May 1963, 11:30pm
Welcome to the world. I was the 4th of 5 children, first boy born to very traditional parents in the rural farm country of western Tennessee. I was born at the Nautilus hospital in Waverly, TN, with Dr. Walker delivering me. My parents were thrilled to finally have a boy after 3 failed attempts. It must have been a very warm spring because Dad says that the corn was already high as his head by the time I was born. Mom told me that my being a boy made them both very proud, especially Dad. Dad gave Mom something very special while she was still in the hospital because she had given him a boy. I know this because she later gave the special item to me, but I can’t remember what it was. I was to be the one to carry on the family name. That’s too much pressure to put on a small boy. I didn’t realize it then, but I was always under that pressure. As a matter of fact I was named exactly as my Dad.
Wallace Buford West II, is quite the name for such a little boy. At the “West” family functions, I was always called “little Buddy” and Dad was “Big Buddy”. Too much for a little boy to live up to and too demeaning as I grew older. Even though I am now over 40 years old, I’m still “little Buddy”. As fine of a man as Dad is, I am not a smaller version of him. I am my own self, with completely different wants, needs and desires. It took me almost 40 years to figure that out. I had always tried to be just like him. I respect Dad, but I no longer strive to be just like him. He is a wonderful man, and trying to be like him has made me more successful than I could have imagined, but I can’t be like him. I have discovered that there are many things that I thoroughly enjoy which Dad would’ve found to be a waste of time and effort. After almost 40 years of striving, I am now stuck in a life that is falling apart because I’ve made it something other than mine and it’s not what I really wanted. My mistakes, not anyone else’s. I haven’t much of a clue as to who I am and what I want to do now.
Some of my earliest memories.
We lived in an old farm house on a small farm. It had three bedrooms, Mom & Dad had the front room, Kathy and Kim shared a room, as did Beth and I. I think all the kids slept on bunk beds and I was on the bottom, but I’m not sure about that one. The only heat source was an in floor furnace that was just outside the bathroom door. On cold winter mornings, we would all crowd around that furnace and wait for the bathroom. On real cold nights, we would hang blankets over part of the doors and we would all sleep in one room, the dining room I think. The doorway between the living room and the hallway had beautiful French doors.
The first TV I remember was black and white. It had something wrong with it and we’d have to stomp on the floor every few minutes so it would shake. If that didn’t work, someone would have to get up and give it a good whack to make it work again. That was the only way to keep it working. Us kids were the remote control. Turn it up, turn it down, change channels, were the orders when Dad wanted it changed. It only had 3, maybe 4 channels and even then the antenna had to be adjusted fairly regularly. Dad would climb up on the roof to move the antenna and someone in the house would yell “Better” or “Worse”. On stormy nights it was just worse.
We had pigs, cows, horses and a dog and maybe chickens, I’m not sure. The dog’s name was “Snowball”, because he was all white. He was a mix between a shepard and a collie. He would always greet visitors at their car door and gently bite them on the wrist and lead them to the front door. Some of the horses names, Nabby, Bess, Chigger, High Pockets. It’s funny, I can remember all those, but I can’t remember my own pony’s name. Why not?
Duke’s store was just up the road and we would beg Mom for a dime, so we could go to the store. I can remember during the hot Tennessee summers, burning my feet on the sun heated pavement while walking up to Dukes. Mom told us that when she was a kid they would cut off a piece of the road tar and chew it for chewing gum. Her tar must have been different than ours, cause I tried it and yuck.
I think we could buy either a candy bar or a coke for that dime, but as I remember it, cokes were primarily a grown up thing. Duke’s had everything, groceries, hardware, plants for the garden and lots of other stuff. I can still remember the smell of Duke’s store. There was an antique store next to Duke’s and I can still remember it’s smell too.
We either burned our garbage or fed it to the pigs. I was afraid of the pigs. We didn’t have much garbage because we didn’t throw anything away. We used paper grocery bags for garbage bags because we couldn’t afford the plastic bags. At the dinner table, we would pass the dish towel because we couldn’t afford paper towels or napkins. We grew a lot of our own food in a garden and I suppose we may have raised beef and pigs for slaughter, but I don’t remember doing this real early. I know we raised some beef when I was several years older.
My three sisters
Kathy Sue is the oldest and her birthday is the 26th of March, 1959. She and I were the closest. I’m not sure why, but I can speculate that it’s because she was the oldest and kinda looked after me. Even though I’m almost 40 years old, it’s still that way too.
Kimberly Jane is the middle girl and she was born on the 3rd of March, 1960. She was always “Little miss goodie two shoes”. She was Momma’s little girl.
Mary Beth was the youngest girl and closest to my age. She was partially named after Mom. She was born on the 19th of November, 1961. She and I were rivals, we constantly fought, played and fought some more.
Benjamin Corey was my much anticipated little brother. He was born on the 8th of October, 1973, ten years younger than I. Finally, a brother, I’d always wanted one. I remember the day he was born. It was a school day and I was in Miss Spicer’s fifth grade class when someone came and told me that Mom had the baby and it’s a boy. As it turned out, he came too late to be what I wanted. We aren’t and never have been very close, just too many years between us and I had left home by the time he grew up. We really grew up in two completely different situations and even different generations. I was the 4th of 5, while he was much closer to being an only child.

Blog Archive