Mama Tell Me A Hard Time Story

Book excerpt: “That Old Man” “‘That old man. That old man.’ Those were the first words out of your mother’s mouth every evening when I dragged through the door from a long hard day in the field. She was so bitter about our life as sharecroppers, and it was tearing the family apart. I worked from sun up to sun down to take care of my family and provide income for my landlord. The white man don’t work us like mules anymore.” Dad talked, leaning over in his recliner. In a few months he would be seventy nine years old. He reminisced about his life experiences as a sharecropper. The old sharecropper’s steps were getting slower by the day. His oversized head was full of gray curly hair and his thick black eyebrows, I knew as a child, were snow white, but as eye-catching as ever. I moved close to him to make sure he could hear me. "Dad," I asked, “Why didn’t you move north and get away from the south? Why didn’t you take us and move away from the cotton fields of Mississippi for a better life?” He looked up at me, flushed, and he slowly began to tell his story: One day I came home and your mother had packed her things and left for Illinois with all of y’all. I should have seen it coming; she has asked me so many times to pack up and go north, but I refused. I knew times were hard and jobs were scarce in the north because everybody was running there to get away from the cotton fields. She wrote me and begged me for weeks to come to Alton. Folks like us with little or no money didn’t have a telephone back then, so we had to write letters. I was farming with an old broke down tractor that would turn over. One day the landlord came to the field to threaten, to curse, and to blame me for the tractor turning over. Even though he knew the tractor was old and worn out, he continued to blame me. Eventually, I gave in and moved to Alton, Illinois, to keep the family together and to get away from the abuse of that old man. I was in Alton for about five months or so with my wife and three girls at that time, living with my brother and his family. I couldn’t find a job for nothing in the world that paid enough money to support my family. It was the mid-fifties and times were hard, even in the North. That was when Eisenhower was President. I had to drop out of school when I was fifteen to work the fields. I only made it to the fifth grade. Besides farming, the only work experience I had back then was working on a logging camp. I made twenty-five to thirty-five dollars a week on the logging camp minus a dollar and fifty cents a day room and board. I had to quit; I was away from my family six days a week! I only saw them on Sunday and my wife was really unhappy about that. Your mother and I argued a lot because money was so scarce when we were in Alton. I wanted our own place for my family; I didn’t like staying with other folks, even though it was my brother and his family. I have always been an independent man and took care of myself and my family. So, after a few months of being in Alton, I moved back to Mississippi by myself. It was in the spring and time to plant the crop. So, I decided to move back and to give it another try. My landlord was glad to see me return, even though he tried to hide his feelings. That happy kind of a look was all over his face. He refused to buy another tractor for me to work the farm. Trying to work the fields with a broke down tractor was hard. My wife was right, “That old man,” she would often exclaim about the landlord. It’s a wonder I didn’t fall dead to the ground. Your mother refused to move back at first. She stayed in Alton for several more weeks. One day I looked up and my wife, Essie Mae, and my girls were walking in the house. She looked at me and said, “I have to keep the family together.” Even though my wife returned on her own will, she was still unhappy; she continued to complain. One evening a truck came through picking up folks for revival. We got on that truck and went to church. Your mother got save