Pepper’S Seasoning: A Man of Seems and Wonders, and You

By Donald Paul Rice

Before one knows anything, one must first know ones self and what one brings to existencegood or bad, right or wrong, hope or despair. What we are is the end product of all the ingredients added to an environment of a lifetime of observations, experiences, and hopes up to any given point while we live in this world. How we are seasoned by them is what makes us palatable or not to our sisters and brothers in our lives and also around the world and, most importantly, just how tasteful we are in the eyes of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524506940

Donald Paul Rice

Donald Paul Rice, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, was a member of the Eighty-Second Airborne Division from 1961 to 1964. As a registered nurse, his career spanned forty years. A lifelong love of poetry has led him to write his first book. His life’s environments include the projects of Cleveland, Ohio, rural northeast Ohio, and Orlando. He currently lives in Winter Park, Florida, with his wife and vacations in coastal New England.

Book preview

Leaving his garden

The earliest memories that Pepper has are ones of truth and love. Happiness in a home shared by many facets of his family. A closeness and sharing, combining incomes to make living there equitable for all members sharing the home. All adults sharing in the responsibility of caring for the young. The children respecting the expectations of older and elder members. This was Pepper’s life and world, before he realized that there was another life and world beyond the front door. But for that time being, his life was inside the front door. He had no sense of time, he just watched his older brother and sister come and go from what he understood was someplace called school. Pepper really had no idea of what work was, where most adults went and returned at different times of the day. His Uncle Dave was especially interesting to him, going and coming home in the clothes other family members called a policeman’s uniform. The most special time of the day was when it was just Mommy, who was Pepper’s grandmother, him in the house. The radio seemed to be on all the time with different radio soap operas, and other programs and music. He did develop an early love for Big Band, Blues and Country music. His frame was small for a child his age, and it allowed him to crawl under tables and chairs and hide at times. Pepper often just stared at the outside world from the living room window, what a big place, he thought at that time. He explored the upstairs rooms, going up the steep stairs on all fours. The potbellied stove on the second floor fascinated him when the the lower portion would get red hot and the heat radiated across the room from where it stood.

At different times of the day, family members would begin to return home from what they called work. Usually it was Uncle Otis and Aunt Florence first. Aunt Florence was his mother’s older sister. Then Nina and David, Pepper’s two older siblings, coming home from school and sharing with Pepper what they had learned that day. The next individual to come home was Uncle Paul, Pepper’s mother’s older brother. Pepper knew whenever Uncle Paul got home, it would be playtime in some fashion. His Uncle Paul had no children of his own, but thoroughly enjoyed taking time with his sister’s children. Then Uncle Dave came in, wearing his policeman’s uniform. Uncle Dave was Pepper’s mother’s oldest brother. A very strict, no nonsense type of guy, but very kind to his sister’s kids. Uncle Dave had a wife and son, but the wife and son seemed to only be there from time to time, they were aunt Octavia and his cousin David jr. Pepper’s brother was also so a David junior, so it seemed to Pepper that that is why they called his cousin David Little Bud, because Pepper’s brother was also called Buddy. Then there was JoAnn, a very tall and buxom woman, but Pepper never did know just where her place in the family had originated. All Pepper knew about her was that she had a booming, deep throated voice, at least to him, and she always had a smile for the kids, and was always taking what Pepper learned later in life to be Bromo Seltzer. This was Pepper’s world during the day.

Evening was a transitional period for the family. Focuses on the outside world were turned to matters of the family. Pepper didn’t understand much of what was being said, but it seemed to him that it was strictly for adults. The older sibling would be busy with pencils and paper, and periodically answering questions from Pepper as to what they were doing and why. Sometimes Pepper could be quite the irritant to his older brother and sister, and they would realize the need to chase him away or call for their mother’s assistance in ridding them of his presence. It seemed that everyone had something to occupy their time, except Pepper. He would often entertain himself in the kitchen by watching his grandmother putting the finishing touches on dinner, and she often strongly encouraged him, verbally, to stay away from the stove. The wood burning stove looked enormous to Pepper and kind of frightening when his grandmother opened the door to put more wood in the fire section. Mommy would finish preparing dinner and call everyone to the table. He had the best seat. He sat next to mother, Mother is what the kids were told to call her, his biological mother. After dinner the adults shared the newspaper and the kids sat on the floor, looking at the radio and listening to stories: stories such as Suspense, The Fat Man. and The Shadow. After the radio programs, and until it was bedtime, he was into everyone’s business, because bedtime was an exercise in avoidance for Pepper. His Mother put his siblings to bed first, since they had school tomorrow, he would hear her say. Pepper had business in every other part of the house and with everyone that he felt could delay his bedtime. But his turn to be put to bed always seemed to come too soon. Pepper never really seemed to be sleepy or tired.

Pepper slept at the foot of his parents bed nightly, at least it seemed so to him. But sometimes night was not a time of sleep, but was a time of childish thoughts in the dark of his parents bedroom. Sometimes thoughts encouraged explorations of the darkness of the stairs leading from the upstairs rooms to the darkened living room at the bottom of the stairs. On more than one occasion Pepper did see things, living things that he didn’t recognize as part of his world. Some things he experienced during the night, but on a few occasions experienced things during the day also in his teen and adult years. But that just seemed to be the way his world was developing. Some things that he saw encouraged his curiosity, others fear, and some even peace and resignation. This became his world; one of truth and acceptance of what is and what can be, and to expect new things, at any given time. These standards are the ones he would take with him when he ventured on the other side of the front door. He knew that he would soon be part of that place because he overheard adults saying that they thought Pepper is ready for school, the place where his siblings went most days. He looked forward to reciting numbers and words the way the two of them did to him, it meant being a big kid, going to school.

Pepper was allowed to play in the front yard in good weather, but never more than a few feet from the stairs leading to the front door. This day was special, he was starting school. Sadly though, he doesn’t remember much about that day, it was all just a blur. It was a long walk, longer than he had ever experienced, crossing streets, passing stores from which there emanated various odors. There was one smell that he did really like, it was the smell of sweets, he looked through the window and saw what he would come to know as a donut.. He reached the place called school, with his mother, the place where Buddy and Nina went most days. This was the place his siblings called school, a very big house of bricks. Where Pepper lived was made of wood. There were what seemed to him, more children than he had ever seen before in his life, and they were everywhere. There were many adults, and his mother seemed to have to talk to many about Pepper being ready for school. His kindergarten years seemed short lived; first grade was fun, learning now what his brother and sister talked about frequently when they talked about school.

Pepper excelled in school, never really knowing any learning limits. To him, if he thought of it, it would be somehow. He loved meeting new children and teachers, making friends with all types of children his age or older, rarely younger. Teachers that other kids feared, Pepper felt very comfortable. Three things that helped him do so well in school are things he learned at home before starting school, they were, to listen to what is being said, to watch to see how things are done, and to try his best. Whether at school or play, he gave all he had into performance, nothing in his efforts was ever held back. All through school he associated with all groups of students. Most teachers, but not all respected his untraditional views of what should be and what shouldn’t be in various aspects of society. In high school, John Adams High in Cleveland, Ohio, Pepper had good periods and bad, pertaining to his desire to respect the educational views espoused during the period of history as it was taught. What was being taught and what he experienced and observed in society didn’t match what he was being told while in the classroom. These discrepancies, guided his assessments and opinions of people and of the world around him.

The world around Pepper was one of discreet segregation. He noticed that only a few white children lived in the projects in Cleveland, known as Miles Heights, where his immediate family had eventually ended up living, mother, mommy, Nina and Buddy, his father had removed himself from the family by this time. Most white families lived in totally white neighborhoods. Later Pepper learned the term and meaning of Redlining. Redlining guided certain people to certain areas by realtors if buying a home or renting apartments or houses. This led him to become especially observant of what was promised by society and what was delivered by the world he lived in.

Painful was his first experience at rejection due to his skin color. When Pepper was eight or nine years old and went to visit a school friend at the friend’s home, he was stunned by a neighbor of the friend that told Pepper to Get out of here and go back where you belong. The face of the man and his words remain with Pepper to this day.

Contradictions between the Constitution and reality of daily life loomed larger year after year, through his teen years and young adulthood. A major blow to Pepper’s belief in what the Constitution guaranteed, was an incident experienced while traveling by bus. The military had chartered buses for the trip from Fort Benning,Georgia to join the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg North Carolina. The stunned Pepper had to eat in the kitchen, standing with the other black soldiers, while the white soldiers ate in the restaurant’s dining room in, in July of 1961. This is another experience that lives with him even today. Painful occurrences in different degrees continued as he matured into adulthood. It seemed at that point in his life that it was just the way the world would forever be. Some claiming superiority and privilege, as evidenced by a comment overheard by him by a physician stating that all black people are lazy. Pepper thought to himself If educated individuals believe such things, what hope is there for this country. It seemed to him that higher education didn’t translate into a high level of wisdom. Many facets of his life had been shaped by negative interactions observed and experienced, but he always seemed to rise above what he felt was a lack of couth by many in the society he faced daily. Pepper chose to carefully evaluate any relationship, whether it be a group or an individual. This philosophy served him well in youth, as a young adult, and as a mature person. Though lack of understanding, he really didn’t like the word ignorant so not understanding seemed more appropriate, did sadden him at times, but those times were made more bearable with something that had been a part of him for a very long time. What had been part of Pepper from childhood was his ability to find solitude within a group or to retreat to find it, and in his prayers.

Over the years Pepper did have a comforter in times of his sadness, it was a prayer he had memorized as a very young child from the inside cover of a bible that his mother had brought home from work. She said that a priest had given it to her where she worked as a presser at Peerless