Archive for the ‘Lincoln, Alabama’ Category

The House I Lived In   2 comments

My Grandparents Home In Lincoln, Alabama (Late 1940s) 

My brother and I lived with our grandparents from 1946 to 1950.
They were some of the best years of my life.
Our Grandmother made pies for which to —
Those were the days.

— kenne

Grandparents Home   Leave a comment

Grandparents Home in Lincoln, Alabama — Image by kenne

My brother and I live with our grandparents
in Lincoln while our mother was in business college.
It was during this time, the late 1940s,
that I started school, and discovered girls. 
Plenty of childhood dreams 
happen in this little country town.

— kenne

I, Too   3 comments

Alabama2006-11-13-25Lincoln web-EditLincoln, Alabama (Old Downtown Lincoln Station By The Railroad Tracks) — Photo-Artistry by kenne

When my brother and I were in elementary school
we lived with my grandparents in Lincoln, Alabama.

My grandparents had sold the farm and moved into town.
Grandfather bought a two-pump gas station out on the Highway.

All the years since the person I remember most was Dacey Bell.
She was a young black woman who would help take care of us.

We loved Dacey Bell, and she loved us, therefore making it difficult
For us to understand why she was not allowed to eat with us.

We would ask why, but never got a clear answer — it just was.
Then one day, Dacey Bell stopped coming to be with us.

Again we would ask why — “Where had Dacey Bell gone?”
We were told Detroit, she had gone to work in Detriot.

Years later when I first read Langston Hughes’s poem, “I Too,”
The line that stood out was, “They send me to eat in the kitchen.”

. . . again I thought of Dacey Bell

— kenne

I, Too, Sing America by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well, And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed–

I, too, am America.