"SUMMER CAMP"

Daddy had just settled into his favorite chair to read the paper and Momma turned on the radio. It was exactly 2:30 p.m. - the "Sammy Kaye Serenade" had just signed off and the announcer was introducing the next program. Suddenly, another voice broke in:

"From the NBC Newsroom in New York- President Roosevelt said in a statement today that the Japanese have attacked the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii from the air. I'll repeat that...President Roosevelt says that the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii from the air. This bulletin came to you from the NBC newsroom in New York." - I was six years old.

In the months that followed, my parents sat by the radio every night listening intently to the news. One evening at the supper table, I noticed that Mamma's eyes were full of tears. I looked at Daddy and he was crying too. I had never seen him cry and was instantly afraid.

He smiled at me and said: "It's O.K. Mike, your Mamma and I are just sad. Your brother's going to be in the War and he has to leave soon." - "Yeah, squirt, and I'll bring you back a souvenir!" my brother said, locking his arms around my head.

Not long after Clyde left for basic training, Daddy was made an Air Raid Warden. When he put on his armband and official helmet, I thought he had become a policeman. When he put on the big belt with the nightstick and flashlight, I was sure of it.

I loved the Air Raid Drills. The siren would go off sometime after dark and Mamma would quickly put black cloth over our living room window, light a candle and turn off all the lights. It was spooky sitting in the candlelight and Mamma told me stories until the siren went off again.

Daddy got a letter one morning from Washington, D.C. that said he had been accepted to train as a Firefighter at the Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia.

In the fall of 1942, we left Lynchburg, Virginia and set out for Norfolk with visions of living near the beach and seeing the ocean every day. Reality hit hard when we arrived and found that our new home was in the middle of a crowded housing complex. It was called "Broad Creek Village". Our ocean was a big creek that ran through the middle of the complex.

The "houses" were not much more than long boxes with four small apartments crammed into each box. There were rows and rows of them, all exactly alike and filled with people from places I'd never heard of.

After a few weeks, I made friends with a couple of kids but we had very little in common and there was no place to play. Mamma was unhappy, cried a lot and we were both homesick.

Daddy on the other hand, loved his new job. After all, he did see the ocean every day and also the big ships docked at the Naval Base. He was making more money than he had at the shoe factory in Lynchburg and he got to stay overnight at the fire station every other day.

I was enrolled that fall in Broad Creek Elementary School, which was built from more of the long boxes and a group of "Quonset Huts"- long tubular buildings with round metal roofs.

The "teachers" were mostly volunteers who often brought comic books and crayons to keep us occupied. The War had taken nearly all of the qualified teachers and my education suffered.

On the last day of school the following spring, Mamma smiled at me and said: "Michael, I have some wonderful news! You're going to have a terrific summer!" She told me I would be spending six weeks on her uncle's tobacco farm in Gretna - a tiny hamlet in Central Virginia.

I'd always loved to visit Uncle Allie and Aunt Mary and I was thrilled with the thought of spending almost the whole summer with them. They had three sons fighting in the Pacific and my brother Clyde was now on a Merchant Marine ship somewhere in the North Atlantic. Curtis, their youngest son, was 12 and he was in the same boat I was - no one to play with and nothing to do all summer.

It was a 200 mile drive from Norfolk to their farm, and it seemed we would never arrive. Finally, I saw it. "There it is Mamma! There it is!" I said when Uncle Allie's country store appeared in the distance.

His gas station and general store had brightly colored metal signs nailed to the sides of the building - signs for Grapette Soda, Orange Crush, and Dr. Pepper and "Piedmont Tobacco" was painted across the metal roof in large blue letters.

I loved this store, and always begged to go inside whenever we visited. The main attraction, of course, was the penny candy case ! It had red and green "watermelon slices" made of coconut; red and black licorice twists, and small taffy-like candy bars called Mary Jane's.

There were miniature ice cream cones with marshmellow "ice cream" inside; red-tipped candy cigarettes; root beer flavored barrels and my favorite of all- the little wax bottles filled with sweet colored syrup.

With five pennies in my hand, I stared into the case for 10 minutes or more before Uncle Allie cleared his throat and said, "You want to come back tomorrow?"
"No Sir!" I blurted, "I want two of these, one of those, and two Mary Jane's!"

Even though the candy counter got most of my attention, the entire store was a magical place for a small child. It smelled of country hams that hung from hooks overhead, salt pork, cheese boxes, pickle barrels and lamp oil.

The groceries were stacked on shelves that covered one entire wall from floor to ceiling. You could roll the ladder on wheels along the floor and reach anything you wanted. Their large victorian farmhouse was about 100 yards behind the store.

At suppertime we all sat down to Aunt Mary's long farm table and I was amazed at the sight of so much food. There were pans of hot biscuits and cornbread and a big bowl of her home churned butter -a special treat for us- butter was one of the many rationed foods back home in Norfolk.

After a long prayer by Uncle Allie, we filled our plates from platters of fried chicken and country ham, bowls of string beans and mashed pototoes, fresh corn-on-the-cob, fried apples and sliced tomatoes. A large bowl of white gravy sat at Uncle Allie's end of the table- he insisted on having it at every meal.

I ate until my stomach hurt and then Aunt Mary smiled and said: "Who's ready for peach cobbler?"

My parents left the next morning and as they turned onto the highway, Aunt Mary said: "Time to get ready for church Mike, into the tub you go!"

It was a deep bathtub with feet that looked like eagle claws. She had heated a bucket of water on the kitchen stove and poured it into the water left in the tub after Curtis had finished his bath.

I'm not sure now how clean I got washing with used water, but to a nine-year old boy, I was clean enough. I was puzzled though, that in spite of having so much land and fruit trees and a store, there was no water in the house.

The outhouse was a place to get into and out of as quickly as possible. There were spiders and wasp nests everywhere and I pinched my nose the entire time I sat over the hole in the wooden box.

The next day we got up at dawn. Curtis and I each drank a large glass of cold buttermilk and then got in the back of the pickup truck. Uncle Allie drove us to the tobacco fields across the highway and we joined some of the other farm workers to "pull suckers".

Curtis told me suckers were small shoots that grew from the tobacco stem and literally sucked the life from the plant if they were not pulled off. He showed me how to strip them off so I grabbed a sucker and pulled.

"Aaagghh!" I said, and shook off the remains of a nasty, gooey worm I had squeezed between my fingers.

"Forgot to tell ya bout them tobacco worms Mike, be careful!" he laughed. It only took one worm for me to begin paying strict attention to my job.

After a few hours, someone rang a big cowbell and we all stopped work to have breakfast. Most of the field hands had brought food from home, but Uncle Allie drove us back to the house.

On the table were large platters of fried eggs, thick slab bacon and country ham. There were fried apples, fried potatoes, grits and sliced tomatoes. At home our breakfast was usually cereal and fruit or oatmeal but I soon learned that this was their every morning meal.

As soon as we finished eating, it was back to the fields. The sun was hot now and sweat poured from my head and into my eyes, but the novelty of being there with Curtis kept me at it in spite of my aching back and legs.

Around 1 o'clock, everyone went home to eat lunch. When we got back to the house, the table was loaded again with so much food there was barely room for it. It was the main meal of the day ! In spite of my huge breakfast, I was famished and could hardly wait for Uncle Allie's prayer to end.

During lunch I learned that no one worked in the extreme heat of the afternoon and we would be going back to the fields later. The whole family usually took an afternoon nap and when I stretched out on my bed I fell asleep immediately.

Around 4 o'clock, Curtis shook me and said: "Time to go back Mike, and we get to ride the mule !" The mules pulled long, skid-mounted boxes between the rows of tobacco plants while the pickers filled them to the top with leaves.

I held on to Curtis from behind as we sat bareback on the mule, and when the skid was full, we headed for the curing barn where some of the workers were "stringing" the tobacco.

They would grab three or four tobacco leaves, quickly loop them together with string and tie them to a long stick. When the stick was full, they hung it inside the barn.

I thought it was strange that a fireplace was built on the outside of the barn and Curtis explained that the heat and smoke was pulled into the barn and out an exit hole at the top and that was how the tobacco was cured.

I always looked forward to the nights when Curtis and I could spend at one of the barns and feed the fire. Not only was it wonderful fun, but we didn't have to work in the fields the next day.

One night, Curtis went into the barn and got a piece of cured tobacco. "I bet you've never chewed tobacco, have you Mike," he teased. "Nope, don't think I want any either," I said, shaking my head.

"I dare you," he said, "all you have to do is chew it a little bit and then just spit out the juice." I didn't want him to think I was a sissy, so I put a small piece of tobacco in my mouth and began chewing.

Instead of spitting out the juice, I accidentally swallowed. I not only lost the tobacco in my mouth but also the supper I had eaten earlier. Curtis rolled in the dirt laughing. That was my first and last taste of chewing tobacco.

Before I knew it, the six weeks were over. The night before my parents were to arrive and take me back to Norfolk, Curtis and I lay on our backs in the field next to one of the curing barns. We talked far into the night and counted shooting stars.

I had missed my parents terribly, and had been homesick at times, but I didn't realize then that I would miss this place and would have these wonderful memories for the rest of my life.