Pa Pa Says

By W.H. Bill Smith

Pa Pa Says, is a non-fiction story chronicling the world (circa 1945-1960) as seen through the eyes of a developing mind. A romance with the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights reflecting societys acknowledge and sometime un acknowledge threads that weave its fabric, including a strong male presence, family cohesiveness, patriotism, discrimination and plotting in the spirit of Catherine de Medici.

From the age of four years the narrator grows grammatically, intelligently, independently and of course physically. Resulting in a complete person and citizen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 14, 2003
• ISBN: 9781477164259

W.H. Bill Smith

The author has been a San Francisco Bay Area resident for the last thirty odd years. A native of Texas whose rearing was rooted in a Roman Catholic Southwestern Middle-American continence. A strong believer in justice, fairness and an unabashed pride in the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights even when it (and its intent) is blindly, sordidly interpreted thereby compromising its purpose. Besides writing the author loves to paint and read. He has found great solace in reading works writings, especially history and has been mired in the Civil War for years: Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan are favorites. Most selected reading material have been very rewarding and fundamentally educating. This exposure has contributed to him keeping his life’s navigation mostly balanced.

Book preview

Copyright © 2002 by W.H. Bill Smith.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

16246

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

THOUGHTS OF,

FIVE AND BEFORE

CHAPTER 2

THOUGHTS OF MISS LANGSTON’S

CHAPTER 3

OF

MISS SMITH THE TEACHER

CHAPTER 4

THOUGHTS FROM MISS JONES’ ROOM

CHAPTER 5

MISS CHASE AND OTHERS

CHAPTER 6

OF

SUMMER AND MISS CHASE

CHAPTER 7

OF

MERNERVA JONES AT CHRISTMAS

CHAPTER 8

OF

MISS JACKSON

CHAPTER 9

OF

RUMPELSTILT SKIN

CHAPTER 10

OF

THE YEAR AT CENTRAL

CHAPTER 11

OF

THE FIRST ELECTION

CHAPTER 12

OF

GIVE US OUR COLORS

CHAPTER 13

CHANCES ARE

TO

THE OAKEYS

CHAPTER 1

THOUGHTS OF,

FIVE AND BEFORE

Why did I have to fall? I hate to do things that make me feel like this, the blood taste yuck … ky, and my head hurts. mama says my lip will heal and all will be alright. she always says that. I guess she knows.

no mama … I won’t leave the poach. dorthi mae felt bad cause she was watching me. wasn’t her fault because I ran down the stips, I mean steps, to meet mama.

what is work? one day, pa pa says, I will go to work. it so long from now.

old macdonald had a farm … e … i … e … i … oooo what’s a farm like? cow, pigs, horses … chickens, eggs, hay; that’s what aunt (sounds like hunt) mary says. I don’t like pigs. aunt mary knows everything I ask her. pa pa is everything.

I will just go down the steps and see those flowers. yellow is real pretty. bees, big flying bees! I better git on the poach.

I can git … get stung again, then mama will say I don’t listen. I just wish I could see what will happen when I grow up. there goes miss lucil.

hi miss lucil … she inside … see you later. I guess she and mama don’t have any stamps. cause they wouldgo shopping. pa pa say the war is far away, but we still have to do what we can. I try to save my nickels but I don’t get enough. chick … chick there … and

I like to hear about the indians war better than the one with the notzs. cause indians ride horses and paint there faces and yell and wear mockisins.

daddy promise me a book on indians. my little indians and cowboys are over pa pa’s. mama say we get them tomorrow.

I sure am tired of being little. I wish I could be ten tomorrow, and go to school like robert, or baby joe. we are going to the football game tonite, uncle sunny, baby joe, and daddy. I like to go to the game … peanuts and hot chocalid. so many people, and bright lights, bands, and when I get bigger I can go by myself. oak … ka mama … here I come … I hope she don’t have any of that tomatoe on my hamburger, no onions either. daddy wants me to eat all those things I don’t like, but he at work. she always do it right, no manayes or mustard neither.

why did god not make us so we did not have to brush our teeth, and go to the bathroom. I hate to go and wipe my butt. it would be so easy if we did not have to go.

good night mama … yes I said my prayers. I pray for everyone, pa pa, mama, daddy, mama adlene, robert and aunt mary. maybe tomorrow I will see aunt mary and pa pa. dreams make me tired. I wish I could dream of what I want.

daddy say I to big for my teddy bear. I still miss him. dog, I want a dog. where is the sandman, I wish he would hurry. it looks like they are peeing in, daddy in mama, and mama in daddy underwear. it will get in the bed. I won’t let them know I see.

when I had a fever and mama and daddy rub me with that mustard stuff, it was so hot. and they let me do anything. glad that over.

old mackdonald had a. when I pee on myself it’s bad and wet and smelly, maybe if you pee in somebody else’s underwear it’s okay. I have to see about that.

CHAPTER 2

THOUGHTS OF MISS LANGSTON’S

left … right … left … right … up … down why can’t I remember left from right? when I stand this way, left is on this side of the sliding board and right is the other one. but I always get mixed up. ever since the first day at school I have one problem after the other.

I like choca-lite milk but I keep throwing it up. just the other … then there was the time I messed up myself. aunt mary was nice but I know when mis langston took me to her class after school mary did not say much. then, when we by ourselves she say, william ask to go to the toilet … do you understand? I think aunt mary hates it more than I do when she has to get me for something. it takes away from our play time.

then that day when the whole room and school moved. whowl! when the room started movin; chairs and tables, toys sliding across the room. the room just seemed like a big sliding board.

everyone started screamin and runnin. I looked around and miss langston was runnin out the back door of the class room. it was closer to the door outside. we all started runnin to. I got outside and they told us to get together with our class. the man over the loud speaker said we should go home. I looked for aunt mary.

on the way home, we, aunt mary, me and some other kids, did not know what to think. the whole world must be ending. we walked home, straight down avenue m.

then, later we, aunt mary and I, went down to broadway, wide broadway. the trucks were comin from texas city with all kinds of bleeding men piled all on top of each other. lots of white bandaids with blood. it looked so bad. sirens and smoke everywhere. aunt mary said it was a shame that this had happened.

a ship or something exploded in texas city., oil or something. so it wasn’t the germans. pa pa said this was another disaster. like the storm of 1900.

pa pa always tell of that. it sounds real exciting. the bay and the gulf met and everybody, or those who lived, was on boats or on top of houses waiting to be resqued. it all sounds exciting, except the part about the snakes. hee, hee!

pa pa says you’d be on top of a house and a snake would come swimming up and you’d have to beat it back. boy, I glad I wasn’t there.

these short pants make me look like a little boy. mama says I can get some long pants like robert’s the next time we go shopping. I can’t wait. nickers don’t count.

boy, staying in this class while all my friends have gone to first grade, is real bad. mama told a lie about my age, but they found out anyway. I guess I get to go to first grade one day.

I hope miss langston don’t call on me to tell her left … right, right … good she call somebody else. I like to count and say my abc’s, and she can call on me anytime for that.

miss langston is real pretty. she is tall and skinny with long black hair, and real light skin … bright. if her hair was not way below her shoulder she’d be a skinny aunt mary.

my rug, four … for our naps is always nice to be near. but I hate naptime. I like story telling time best. we sit around miss langston and she tell us stories and ask us to tell them too. boy, everybody laugh at you if you don’t do it right … so I try and do it right.

CHAPTER 3

OF

MISS SMITH THE TEACHER

yes miss smith …

well, look like I’m off to george washington carver elementary school. I hate leaving all my friends … but aunt mary is being transferred and mama wants me to go to the same school she at.

last year in miss nash’s class was real exciting, even though she has a bad foot. didn’t help me much that she was a friend of aunt mary’s either.

we seem to get talking about airplanes all the time. we did those farm animals too. but I like drawing airplanes and stuff best. adding, reading ok, but it doesn’t seen to come magic like other things. and that play; tom thumb wedding. I was best man to bobby’s groom. I like tommie dell. she is a pretty bride. if bobby sick on day of play, I will be the groom.

well, he wasn’t sick. all those people in the audience and mama came. of course aunt mary was there with her class. they say I did good and looked real good in a suit. I liked the bow part best. you put one hand in front of you and the other one behind you and bend at the waist. everybody clapped, that was fun.

miss smith is passing out books but I don’t get any. today my last day here. miss smith’s son is in the class for now, too. he and bobby and linda, I will miss the most. but mama say I be ok.

I won’t be able to go to aunt mary’s room and watch bobby and his sisters go home to bayview anymore. aunt mary taught one of bobby’s sisters last year. that was a sad part of the day. now I be sad once, when I leave booker t. I be sad all day at carver.

I hope at carver, I, my class on the second floor and not like here. here the only time first and second graders go upstairs is to the auditorium. there are only so many plays. lines, I am so sick of lines, but pa pa say that’s the way to keep order. he says he believes I could do it myself but I have to do what they say at school. grown ups know everything so I can’t wait to be one.

boy, bobby better stop pulling mary margaret’s hair. she will think I do it. everybody at the house say I should say words one way then another. it all hard to remember when to say did or don’t and have and had but they get real upset with me when I don’t do right. aunt mary say, it’s have william not had!

since we moved to the big house I have lots of company. mama adlene, its adalene as pa pa say, calls me honey all the time but then she calls everone honey. its her way of saying she friendly. I already know, since she everybody mama or as pa pa say, that’s your gramma, boy. hee hee, he so much fun.

we all have a really secret fear of mama adlene. she like a queen and you do what she says, and try and stay on her good side. which is usually easy.

she told some neighbor lady about when daddy hit me and knocked me out of the chair. I hate it when trouble starts. and I hate it when people are talking about you. especially when you hear it.

guess we are at the big house for good. they say my daddy and mama are getting a divorce. when people separate there is something about child lotment. I guess it like when men go to service and they send lotment to their wife or mother. like little roy send to ant gertie, mama adlene’s sister. mama adalene has so many sisters. aunt gertie has lots of children. this a big family.

lillian and henrietta—mama’s, mama pauline’s sisters—like to tell about the old times. they remember everything. like when they were little and all oakeys got together. the nichols would always get blamed for any trouble.

especially the time they went to the fourth of july celebration at grama’s, gramma oakey, mama adlene’s mama. she wasn’t blind then. anyway, when the nichols arrived, everybody was having a good time and after having been there a while the nichols were accused of putting salt in the home made ice cream.

the other oakey adults said, it wasn’t salted until the nichols came. did no good to deny it, but they were innocent.

catherine, the youngest, was bad enough to salt ice cream. she was a school fighter, but, she was always good around mama adlene.

as you learn, you tried to stay on mama adlene’s good side. except when catherine was a little baby and mama adlene had spank, spanked her for something, later on when she was sitting in mama adlene’s lap being rocked, catherine said, look mama, see pretty light, and when mama adlene looked up, catherine slapped her.

this story we listened to with great respect for catherine’s nerve. we know she would do anything. but the nichols were not guilty of salting the ice cream.

although gramma oakey was blind, she knew the minute you stepped into her bedroom. ant sis or ant elnora would take us into her room and she’d say, robert how have you been, how is school? then she would turn to my side of the room and say, william, you’ve been a good little boy?

I would be scared with fear of doing something wrong and take some time being okay—a little—to notice her two long white braids hanging over her shoulders or her white gown and big fluffy white pillows. I never understood how she knew robert from me.

where gramma oakey lived was the real big house, although our house was bigger. I don’t understand that either.

one good thing abut moving with