“Oooooh no, Joey, you gone let her talk to you like that?!”
I’m almost certain I accused my cousin Joey of Oedipal acts in my carefully strung-together cluster of expletives. I probably seasoned every syllable so the gathering crowd of children could laugh and drawl out this surprised exclamation.
He was equally caustic with his reply, and they chanted and encouraged him to taunt me,
"Daaaaaaaaamn Dekera, how you gone let him say that!?
We stopped in the middle of the orange carpeted Black lined court, first cussing, then tussling.
Grandma Alphair was the Supervisor of the summer lunch program at the Alvin Recreational Center (affectionately known as “the Gym”). She was also big sister to Joey’s grandfather, Uncle Ulysses.
Grandma broke up our battle and kept us at bay with her choice words:
“Y’all ch’lrn1 know better than this.
And y’all family.
You ‘pose to love one another and get along.”
As Grandma expressed her disappointment, Joey and I nodded, “Yes, ma’amed,” and even apologized.
Still, we promised to meet each other with fists and fury at Vacation Bible School later that night.
Grunted blows grew into panting headlocks where we continued our earnest attempts at destroying one other on the hot Black asphalt near the back door behind the old sanctuary of Bethlehem Baptist.
(The new church building extension came about 20 years later).
Ms. Sharon separated us, eight and nine-year-old combatants, fussed at the small crowd gathered to watch us fight, and sent word for our mothers to leave the inside of the church (where they were surely engaged in more meaningful work than our skirmish) to force us to explain to them why we were making shame on a weeknight, at church, for the second time that day.
This is a fond memory of mine.
Joey and I laugh about it sometimes, and Ms. Sharon teases us about our epic Gym/church fight. It was probably a couple of years before his mom’s first cancer diagnosis and several years before she left us.
Some of the most cherished memories of my youth were at the Gym and Bethlehem, and I associate the two so closely that it is hard to imagine those physical manifestations of work, service, God’s love, and community symbiosis and self-determination existing independently.
The buildings themselves were community pillars and representations of our Black excellence.2
Here's a picture of my Grandma, Mommy, and me standing outside the old Bethlehem church building.3
Summer vacation was as much an oasis as an opportunity to reflect on how the coming school year would be different.
As a child, getting out of school for summer felt like Christmas, and school’s return felt like New Year’s Day. We reveled in the gift of summer’s initiation and made resolutions towards a better, banner year at its close.
Summer was communal.
It was car shows and fireworks at Alvin’s Fourth of July Festival and Parade at the Gym;
it was recitations and repasts at Vacation Bible School and Children’s Day at Bethlehem;
it was bunks and bug juice at Girl Scout Camp in Ladson;
it was sweet juicy watermelons outside Grandma’s back porch;
it was Greene family reunion electric slides in hotel ballrooms in either Charleston or Baltimore (since we alternated each year);
above all, summer was the Summer Lunch program at the Gym.
Grandma was 1/3 of a trio of women that rotated throughout the years in their supervision of the Summer Lunch Program at the Gym.
She served at least 55 years.
She started as an assistant to Ms. Rosa Bell, and once Ms. Rosa Bell got sick, she became supervisor, and Ms. Daisy and Ms. Carolyn served with her.
The Summer Lunch program was only supposed to be one hour, every weekday where children would receive lunch. But Grandma opened the doors to the Gym each morning by 9am, and closed them by 2pm. She also was able to facilitate a Senior Citizen program that another group of ladies managed.
Not until she died last fall, and one of the Recreation Board members made it clear that the senior program would not have happened without her willingness to keep the building open, did I realize this.
So children (and their parents) and seniors benefitted from someplace to go through a small group of ladies keeping a community center open.
And my Grandma was a central part of this, a community fixture, for over half a century.
I used to ask her when she was going to retire, since she was getting older, and she would always say, “Maybe next year baby, we’ll see.”
I used to get annoyed sometimes when I would hear her talk about ill-mannered kids and breaking up fights (like mine decades ago), and wanted her home.
We knew she didn’t do it “For that little piece of money,” as she would say. Now I have a much better idea of how important it was to her to give this service that she and these ladies were able to give. She saw that as part of her identity, even as she was well into her eighties.
Here is a picture of Grandma and my eldest child five years ago (Grandma 84, my baby 3) when Bethlehem honored her for her years of community service at the Black History Month program.
Here is a picture of Grandma and my cousin Shea with her award.
Here is a picture of Grandma with my mom, my brother, my son, three of my aunts, and two of my uncles.
The history of the Summer Lunch Program growing out of the Black Panther Party Free Breakfast program really brings home this tradition for me. It’s something I’ll explore in other issues.
The beauty of how a Black liberation movement gave birth to nourishment, play, and safety, for millions of generations of children. And the American government co-opted that as a measure to stop recruitment into the movement.
My Grandma was not a Panther, but through her intentional service to her small community, she made a magnitude of difference.
This week, this summer especially, my first without my Grandma, I really feel her presence with me. Like Summer Lunch, I almost feel her love as a physical presence, one that feels like a retreat, a special and loving oasis.
Pronounced churn is how many Southern folks, especially Gullah-Geechie folks, say, children.
I like to think Black excellence can mean many things, and often not just the capitalistic representation of “having made it” or the reference to intellectual or academic achievement in making the ancestors proud or being their wildest dreams. These things would impress them, but community determinism and cohesion would be even more impressive. My friend Preston talks about why the term Black excellence is sometimes irksome and usually classist, but how it can be redefined as single mothers successfully raising her children.
The first church, across the road from this building, was Laurel Hill. It was converted into a lodge for the Masons to meet but hasn’t been used for many years.
Beautiful. I could feel your Grandma's love radiating from your words and in the photos of your family. Your writing is a gift. Thank you for sharing