My grandmother lived on Cloverleaf Circle in my early years. Her home was located just a few blocks west of Bailey Avenue, just off Palmyra Street. Homes on her street were wood- framed, simply- built houses of no more than 1,000 square feet.
My family would go for an obligatory visit each Sunday, following lunch at Morrison’s cafeteria in the old Milner Building on South Lamar Street. My brother and I quickly became bored with the small talk and heavy cigarette smoke from the adults in the tiny living room and would retreat to her backyard.
Her property line backed up to Town Creek, a tributary of the Pearl River that flowed through downtown Jackson and often flooded in the spring. Across the way, separated by the deep creek, stood a neighborhood that we were told was inhabited by “colored people.” A barricade erected at the end of their street prevented errant cars from driving into the ditch.
We were ordered to never walk down the creek bank, lest we fall into the often-stagnant water. Nearly 70 years later, I have come to conclude there was more to it than worry about falling into the ditch.
The chasm between the two sides of the ditch could just as well been the Grand Canyon or the Red Sea. I had absolutely no comprehension…nor real concern…on what took place on the “other side.” And, as a 7- or 8-year-old, I really gave it no thought. I just obeyed my parents and stayed “on my side” of the ditch.
Town Creek physically and philosophically separated us until the day my grandmother moved away to a retirement facility.
I have come to realize…and experience…many more “ditches” that separate people today.
There is the “Ditch of Neighborhoods.” I grew up near Battlefield Park in an area of town we called “Doodleville.” It was a great place to grow up. But even in Doodleville there were several socio-economic groups represented. At George Elementary, we envied the kids with “yellow” lunch tickets that sold for $1.40 per week. (You got a salad and a large dessert with a “yellow” ticket.) The rest of us used the more modest “orange” ticket that went for $1.25.
I can still tell you the names of the kids that got “Yellow” tickets, while I had to settle for an “Orange” ticket and a small dessert.
Then, even today, there is the “Ditch of Religion.” In Doodleville the dominant churches were Griffith Memorial Baptist and Grace Methodist. I was a Baptist. But it seemed to me more of the “big lunch ticket” crowd were Methodists!
We are all big kids now, but let’s be honest. Many of us still harbor suspicions of other faiths and denominations. I believe those “ditches” are growing wider. Just like water systems in aging cities, pollutants of politics and education have been added and are eroding the banks of the “religion ditches” and allowing for more mistrust and skepticism than ever before.
And perhaps the biggest “ditch” of all…which can most likely be termed a “river” now, is the “Ditch of Politics.” You know how this goes… “you either agree with me or I can’t be your friend anymore.”
Preparing for this article, I drove over to the Georgetown neighborhood and found the street on the west side of Town Creek. I parked for a moment and stared across Town Creek and looked at my grandmother’s house “from the other side.” I wondered what the “colored kids” saw and thought as they gazed to her house? Were they envious? Did the yhate us? Or, like me at an early age, did they just not care?
And I’ve been thinking. What if someone could have designed a “bridge” that spanned Town Creek that my brother and I could have walked across to talk to the Georgetown kids? Or what about a “bridge” that would open up conversations between different faiths…their differences, but their commonalities?
And now the hard one…what about a “bridge” that allowed honest conversations, expressions of beliefs, and did not end with allegations of ignorance and insults.
Would I walk across such a bridge?
Would you?
Kendall Smith is a Northsider.
