A NAME AND A BARREL OF NICKELS

When I was a child, I was called "Jesse," although my birth registration card said "James."

My father's name was James, and he had a favorite older brother named Jesse who lived in Seat Pleasant MD and came to visit us in Ahoskie at least once a year. Jesse and his wife were estranged.

Uncle Jesse was a friendly, easygoing old man and he told me on one occasion that he kept a barrel in his kitchen with my name on it, into which he threw a nickel every time he went by.

He said that when the barrel was full of nickels he was going to bring it to me because we both had the same name.

That prospect kept my spirits up all through the tail-end of the depression.

He had been buried for two years before I learned (at the age of 14) that he was even dead. (My father also was dead.)

I never heard a word about my barrel of nickels.

I had never been to his home in Seat Pleasant, but I often considered going there to see if I could locate anything that might belong to me ~ or "Jesse."

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TRAVELIN' ON WITH FDR

Between 1937 and 1942, while personal bankruptcies and the ravages of time were cutting down on the number of operating automobiles, FDR's New Deal and WPA were improving streets and highways in the Roanoke-Chowan counties.

In 1942, the War Production Board ordered a complete halt to production of new civilian cars, and all the tires and most of the gasoline were requisitioned for military use.

The dwindling number of cars and the increasing acreage of pavement prompted a strong comeback of an earlier mode of transportation -- the bicycle -- which supplemented buses and steam-powered trains in rural areas and electric trolleys and ferries in the cities.

But around Donoway, 99 per cent of us walked to wherever we needed to go ~ on the WPA's newly paved roadways.

Until I was 12 years old, the only place I really needed to go was the schoolhouse, a half-mile from home.

~~~
FDR in open car on inauguration day
Library of Congress photo

FRANK D. ROOSEVELT

Our school at Ahoskie NC was an 8-month 11-grade school.

When I went to the first grade in 1933, they put a picture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our president, on the wall.

When I graduated in 1944 on my 17th birthday, that picture still was on the wall and Franklin Delano Roosevelt still was our president.

It is hard to explain the kind of attachment that can grow on you over that many years of looking at that picture next to the flag, singing "God Bless America" and saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

As an old man I am still inclined, when I rise and look toward the east in the morning, to say a silent prayer of thanks for that fellow, and for his Social Security.

~~~
Photo from "State" magazine
year unknown

The magazine's caption under this photo read: "Ahoskie High School . . . is one of the best equipped schools in the state. The usual clubs, courses and extra-curricular activities are to be found here, and the school paper, 'The Pow Wow,' is one of the best high school papers in the state."

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BOWEAVER'S NEW BRITCHES

When Boweaver went to the first grade at Ahoskie School in 1933, he met Betty.

For 11 years ~ because "L" and "P" were close to each other in the alphabet ~ they sat within arm's length of each other in the schoolhouse. They may have had occasional differences of opinion, but generally they operated at the same wave-length.

Betty was very, very intelligent, probably the smartest female ever to attend Ahoskie High School. (Boweaver always thought of himself as one of the smartest males.)

Betty and Boweaver always were Nos. 1 and 2 when the test scores came in for classwork.

When the time came for them to be promoted from the 7th grade to the 8th grade ~ "high school" at the time ~ they were told they would appear together on stage to accept some type of award attesting to their apparent over-abundance of brains.

As graduation time neared, the only thing Boweaver had to wear for this momentous occasion was a flannel shirt and a worn-out pair of corduroy britches in which he had been attired for the entire preceding school year.

Somehow, Betty's daddy and uncle ~ who ran a department store in Ahoskie and advertised in the Hertford County Herald ~ found that Boweaver really didn't have nice-enough clothes to wear on stage in front of a whole lot of people.

One of them took the occasion of Boweaver's visit to the store with advertising proofs to persuade him to try on a suit from one of their clothing racks.

The suit fit ~ but Boweaver said, "I can't buy it. I can't pay for it."

"You don't have to pay for it," said Mr. Lipsitz. "Just take it ~ and wear it."

So at the age of 13, Boweaver dressed up in his first good clothes since his mother had sent him off to Sunday School at the age of seven in a white cap, white shirt, white tie, white short pants, white socks, white shoes and a black belt ~ starched to such an extent that he barely could wiggle.