The Best Is yet to Come

By Roy Haymond Jr.

This is a bitter-sweet, blue collar love story. Brad is disillusioned as his “steady” girlfriend in the eleventh grade becomes unavailable. And a couple of dalliances along the way just complicates things. Then he watches as all too many of his high school buddies are trapped in unpleasant marriages. Ten years pass, and he finds himself almost manipulated into a disastrous marriage, only to be rescued at the last minute by the one-time sweetheart. He moves into the run-down house that she owns, and they are shunned by neighbors for “living in sin”. But they refurbish the house, take random college courses, then marry before the first of their four children is born. At a critical time, Brad reflects on all the ups and downs of their time together, some of it in silent dialog. The title? From Robert Browning -” Grow old with me, the best is yet to be...”, though as they quote it over the years, it becomes “The best is yet to come”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663221735

Roy Haymond Jr.

Roy Haymond, Jr. - Born in Mississippi, to South Carolina as a teen. Spent a year on a share-crop farm, then attended N. Charleston High School. Played clarinet in Charleston Symphony, Hitch in USMC, graduate of U. of SC. Career classroom teacher, then writer and briefly editor of small-town weekly. Retired to a rural enclave, writes and plays tenor sax.

Book preview

1

Despite what they were expecting, I had gotten a good night’s sleep. I was more refreshed and relaxed than I had been for some time.

But at the communal breakfast I was unhappily focusing on the hours ahead:

Same old church: altar rail looks new, but probably just a new coat of paint: and we’ve added an electric organ.

But his time I would sit on the front row facing a different preacher in the pulpit. And my mind just naturally drifts to that last time with me standing up there with Preacher Sullivan and Harry, looking out at the crowd, uneasy, even afraid.

Of course, I know they expect me not to talk. But I had a driving urge to talk to somebody, someone I didn’t know. I wanted to start at the beginning and outline all that led up to that painful time here thirty-odd years ago, and what came after, and then to see if I could articulate the turnarounds that led to today’s totally different gathering.

So instead of a silent monologue with myself, I invented a dialog partner. A woman would be best, so I wouldn’t wander into a masculine bull-session. And not a sexy woman. No, one who looked more like Mama when I was growing up. And it could not be a local woman, so I could describe our home ground and my family and all the people and events along the way

I did not give a name to this listening woman, but I would allow her to interrupt with questions and observations, much like one of those talk-show interviews where the right questions are asked in order to get the desired answers.

So, when we were milling about after breakfast, I got the un-named lady in tow, and right away she led off:

Tell me about where you grew up, the town, the neighborhood.

Southeast Broughton is not exactly the other side of the tracks, but it surely is a blue-collar district. Crenshaw Boulevard is the main drag, splitting the district for a couple of miles running north to south. The north end, where there are four lanes, is the industrial segment, with several plants always in operation, with the National Transport Terminal dominating the area during most of my lifetime.

Then there is the Crenshaw Baptist Church at the start of our small business district: grocery stores, especially Maxwell’s supermarket; a 5&10, Wilson’ hardware store, a bank, two department stores; Rose Family Clinic, with a couple of doctors and a dentist, barber shops and beauty salons; office buildings; and a few service stations. The old movie house closed years ago. But we had several eateries and an arcade. The Methodist Church was at the bottom end, facing a Salvation Army storefront building that served as a food bank and thrift shop.

Off to the east of the boulevard business section is a hodgepodge of neighborhoods on side streets. Most of the houses in these neighborhoods are simple cottages rented by working families, but occasionally a two-story building will pop up. The prize site is Beverly House on Oak Street – people often drove by to admire the place.

In my neighborhood there was always a lot of boys around, enough for ball games and hikes and bicycle rides and whatever. We got into fights that didn’t mean anything, and once in while our pranks led to trouble that would be resolved by parents who did not believe in sparing the rod. And the girls had their own little gatherings.

Tell me about your family.

My daddy, who never finished high school, was an army veteran, a skilled electrician, and in my growing up years he was employed in maintenance at National Transport, and he often did independent electrical jobs on weekends. He was a big man who spoke softly and tended to use short phrases. And some of my fondest memories were of the times he took me along on his weekend jobs.

Mama was the quintessential blue-collar housewife. She cooked and cleaned and ran the household. She was pleasant and caring to her family and neighbors. Like her husband, she was a staunch Baptist.

My sister Bess was eight years old when I was born. I thought she was pretty, but as a kid I thought she bossed me around too much.

I lived with them in a rented house on Cedar Street. We were regulars at Crenshaw Baptist, where I enjoyed Sunday school, but I always had a secret dislike for Preacher Sullivan.

Now, tell me about school.

Southeast Broughton Elementary School included kindergarten and the first seven grades, with eight-through-twelve in our high school. But by the time I was ready for the eighth grade, our high school was phased out, and we rode school busses to Broughton Central High School.

And, ready or not, this change ended my childhood.

How so?

At first, I was scared of the new surroundings. I knew there would be rich, uptown kids to deal with. But this fear was quickly eased. There were some rich kids around – easy to spot by their fancy clothes, but those kids were not necessarily hostile – they just looked through the likes of me like we weren’t there. And I was in classes with some of my Southeast buddies, and I was surprised to learn that there were actually blue- collar kids from Downtown Broughton.

The teachers were reasonable, and I enjoyed most of my classes. As time went on, I really liked algebra and literature. And when I reached the tenth grade, we had afternoon classes in the vocational wing, and over time I had courses in auto mechanics and electrical wiring.

So, it wasn’t Broughton Central that ended my childhood!

Oh?

Several school busses took Southeast kids to Broughton Central. But from the start, the bus rides troubled me. Until then I had just been to school with kids my own age, and with some from my own neighborhood around me. But here I was on a bus with people older than me, some of them I wouldn’t call kids at all.

And worse: I was at an age when I started noticing girls, and some of the voluptuous older girls on the bus were really grown women!

And the fact is I had never discussed this delicate subject with my folks. Mama was just a little too strait-laced to talk about such matters, and somehow Daddy never approached the subject. And by this time, Bess had married and moved to Florida. And among my buddies the only one I could confide in was Harry, but in the eighth grade he was already fixed on Gail – they knew even then they were going to get married when the time came.

Over the months and years, listening to the often blunt conversations of these older kids who seemed so adult to me, set my