Over the years I’ve bought dilapidated houses in what are described generously as transitional neighborhoods … first in Charlote then St. Augustine, and now in my beloved little village, Lockhart. In all cases I have ultimately contributed to change in the neighborhoods, but more than that, the neighborhoods have changed me. No question about it … I always go native.
In St. Augustine I bought a large house, once grand, built by Flagler’s railroad guy. From what I learned, the original owner was a leader in the emerging Black middle class Flagler created with his investment in the town. When I bought the crack house on Oneida Street, it had no windows, holes in the floors, no wiring, but remarkably, one working bathroom. In any other community this house would have been raised. But not in St. Augustine … gotta love that! So I camped in the house while I restored it. My neighbors, most Black, considered me to be the craziest white woman on the planet. They worried about me …. no kitchen, no electricity (at first), no air conditioning. Every evening a child would show up with a foil covered paper plate …. my supper.
The Johnsons were my closest neighbors … Larry and Dotty, their four daughters, and five grandchildren. (I painted all of them.) And as certainly as my supper would arrive at 6:00, Larry (below) would show up in the morning and start working on the house with me. He rarely said anything, just started working. Finally I began paying him. Eventually, he became my best friend. He would explain the world to me in ways I would have never even imagined.
Now, in my little village of Lockhart, population 621, I’ve gone native again. I’m one of two college educated people living here … the other is a writer, Chic, a close friend since 7th grade. Interestingly, Chic has never integrated into the town … after ten years, he barely knows anyone here. Conversely, after two years I’m a “local”, proudly the town’s “very own artist”.
Yesterday evening I sat outside for a few minutes, safe distancing, with a couple of neighbors and listened to their stories … of childhood in the then-thriving mill town, of family, of cheating spouses, of crazy pranks, and, yes …. of politics. I heard, “I didn’t go to college like you, and I understand that … you are from a different world … but let me tell you how I feel and why …” I love these neighbors of mine, and they love me. By the end of the evening I had traded a painting for a tiny baby kitten. If you’ve never gone native, you should try it … you will never be the same.
Like many people, I worry about my country on this 4th of July. But with only a very few exceptions, I don’t worry about her native sons and daughters. Our differences are not real. We want the same things. We just don’t know how to listen to each other.
