Neighbors: Anne Pemberton

The first time we met Reuben Craig, he was being the good neighbor he would turn out to be the rest of his life.

We had found a house we could afford to buy - $100 down and take over a VA loan from a man who had fallen on hard times, his wife ran off, and he lost his job, and the house. The realtor tried to talk us ouf of it. I was previously owned by blacks, and neighbors were black. Did we really want to buy it? Our disdain for prejudice made the house even more attractive. Plus the money was right. We started the paperwork.

One Saturday while we were waiting for the loan to be approved, we went to the house. We didn’t have a key, so we were sitting on the back steps thinking how grand it would be to own this property.

Suddenly, from the side of the house, a tall black man appeared, asking what we were doing there. He introduced himself as Reuben Craig who lived on the adjoining property.

Our words tumbled over themselves, as we told Reuben that we were hoping to buy this house, and were just sitting there basking in our hopes. Reuben looked us over with the sharp eye of an experienced man, and after a bit of conversation, wished us well and hoped we would soon be neighbors. His acceptance seemed to be the final blessing that pushed the deal our way.

A month later we began to move in our new home. Days were busy as we made many trips to our new “castle in the woods”, to bring furniture, clothes, and everything else, and set it up. We found out that to get electricity, we had to join the co-op. We had a well and a septic system, so there was not water to turn on other than the electricity. But, the former owners had not had phone service, so we would have to wait until the line could be installed. Being city-slickers who were accustomed to private lines, we would have nothing to do with the party line system. We wanted a private line. It would be a few weeks.

Son, John, and I moved into the new house, and Steve would commute from Richmond, living in a room at his mother’s house on weekdays, until we were married.

Second day living in our new home, John and I came home from school to find things awronged. Thieves had broken in and stolen all of Steve’s stereo equipment! What to do? We would not have a phone for a few weeks. What to do?

So, remembering the astute neighbor we had met while we were still dreaming, I walked up to his trailer, knocked, and was greated by a his very surprised wife.

I explained that we were her new neighbors, we had been broken into, and didn’t have a phone yet. Could I use the phone to call the police? Reuben assured his wife that I was the woman he had seen sitting with Steve, hoping the loan would go through, and Bertha helped me find the right number in her phone book to call.

The police came, found the tire iron left on the back porch which had been used to get in the front door. They made their report, and told us to notify our insurance company. Back up to Reuben and Bertha’s trailer to make the calls. Of course, we also spent time to visit and get to know our new neighbors, and them us, as we secured the claim that would replace the stolen items.

The next month we were married in the living room of our new home with a willing preacher, and our family as witnesses.

With a phone in the house, we could keep in touch with Reuben and Bertha by phone, and begin the friendship that continues yet. Reuben would visit often on a weekend evening, and share whatever we were drinking. Bertha, who had problems getting around, visited less often, but enjoyed seeing how we turned the large green front yard into a place that bloomed. Bertha contributed some flowers from her yard to grow in ours. When we bought nursery flowers, we shared them with Bertha and Reuben.

The next year, John left home for VCU. We had the house to ourselves except when John brought home wash to do. He brought his first girlfriend home, of course, and took her up to visit Reuben and Bertha. They were delighted to see that the handsome white boy next door picked a cute, cuddly black daughter of a university professor as his girlfriend. When John joined the National Guard to pay for college, and ended up sent to Desert Storm, Diane came out to visit often, and often included a visit to Reuben and Bertha.

As time went on, we enjoyed our neighbors, and they us. After Reuben could no longer drive, if they wanted to go to church, they would call and ask me to drive them. We timed it so that they arrived with everyone else, driven by a white woman in a new car (small, not fancy), who always got out and helped Bertha get out of the car and onto her walking stick.

Reuben and Bertha had only two children, but it had becone a big family of grandchildren and great grandchildren. A branch of the family moved to Boston, and Reuben and Bertha looked forward to when they could go to visit “the grands” in Boston. They would catch the Amtrack in Richmond, and return to the same station. Again, if they didn’t have a way, I’d drive them to the train station and pick them up. At the sight of a white woman at the wheel, a wheelchair for Bertha was forthcoming with a smile, and their bundles of boxes tied with string were treated with care. The last time the went, they could leave and return to Petersburg, and it was still a fanfare. Waiting for a delayed train, I fell into conversation with a former professor from VSU, whose mouth dropped when she saw that my wait was for my black neighbors. The disagreements we had over special ed practice vanished. Bertha, as she had learned to do, had acted the Queen on the train, and was carefully taken off after the other passengers, with the pomp she deserved! When she saw me waiting, she pointed me out to the conductor, who took exceptional care of her egress.

After suffering a stroke, Reuben could no longer come and visit in our yard. Bertha was also less able to get around. It was up to us to go and visit our neighbors. We did from time to time. John took his latest girlfriend up for their approval.

As the years went by, we began to be a “second home” on weekends for a young nephew who lived in Richmond. When he was able to walk, we went took him to visit Reuben and Bertha. The first time, he was surprised to see a dark face. But, in time it became a ritual. As time went by, he became bored with “coming to the country”, and came no more. Bertha always asked about him as he went from childhood into the forest of adolescence.

Eventually, we got to where the visits to the Craigs were less often. But we did remember them on the holidays. We always had something for them on Christmas, and Bertha would call when she had baked a cake and a pan of bread for us for the holiday.

Then, one time we went up for Thanksgiving and found out that their holiday dinner was sweet potatoes, no meat, nothing else. We went home and piled two plates high with our holiday fare, and took it up to them.

From then to now, we make sure that they have holiday meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes it is plates of what we have, sometimes it is a cooked turkey ready to go, sometimes it is an uncooked turkey with cans of all the trimmings. According to what we had that year.

The years moved on, and I went from an employed teacher to a part time teacher. When we saw that Bertha and Reuben had family visiting, we’d take a walk up the road and visit with the folks. When we saw that their son was staying in the small trailer where once Bertha’s mother had once lived, we’d take up a bottle of whatever we had, and celebrate the times with all.

When mny oldest son Sam had married in Indiana and fallen on hard times, they came to live with us. Our house was small, so I asked Bertha is the small trailer would be possible for the young couple to live in. Of course it was OK, but it needed cleaning. When Brenda balked at cleaning the trailer, we found an inexpensive apartment for them in Petersburg. Soon, they made their way back to Indiana where Brenda died of a heart attack.

And, the neighborly exhange between us and the Craigs continued. We visited, shared stories, and the years rolled on. The
Craig family knew the Pembertons, and the Pembertons knew the Craigs.

When the Craigs celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, we were supposed to have received an invitation. It didn’t come, but when we heard a lot of people having fun up there, we went up to see what was happening. We came home, dressed for the occasion, and returned to enjoy the festivities. The beautiful dress that Bertha had worn for the church ceremoney was brought out, and lots of jokes and tales of days gone by were shared. Steve went out and shared drinnks with the men, while I stayed inside visiting with the women, the children, and the men who drifted in and out.

And, even after Reuben was too far gone to look out for our property when we spend a weekend elsewhere, Bertha noted our comings and goings. She saw Steve leave before sunrise even in the winter, for his long commute to Richmonnd. She saw the Original Snow trip across the road to make life miserable for the rodents. She saw me drive out to “teach the childrens” during the school year. She listened to my stories about my students during the summers when I spent time on the computer getting ready for the next year.

But finally, the good times came to an end. One day we answered the phone and learned that Reuben had passed in the night. We didn’t want to interfere with the family mourning, but learned that Bertha was accepting that it was Reuben’s “time”. We, of course, went to the funeral at the church on Route 40 where we had taken then for services. We were surprised that for the plain outside of the church, the inside was well appointed and beautiful. We noted the white-clad church Nurses who were there in case anyone lost it. We delighted in the service that focused on the life of our neighbor, and the testimonies from his descendents including a nine year old who recalled summers learning from his great-grandfather. When Bertha was unable to make her way to the cemetary behind the church, we followed Reuben to his final resting spot. Along with the family, we were upset that the Army Guard who was to be there to honor his service in WWII went astry, and the family rolled the flag off his coffin themselves. We watched as the casket was dropped into the earth. Then we returned to the church to make sure that Bertha was properly attended, before we went home.

After a bite to eat, we went up to the trailer and mixed with the large family. Steve drank with the men outside, and I visited with the women and children in the trailer. We related good times and good memories of Reuben.

A few days after the burial, we awoke to find out that overnight the trailer had caught fire, and Bertha was homeless. A neighbor across the road opened her home to the grieving widow until a house that Reuben had build “for the grandchildren” and never occupied, was made ready for her. Bertha hnow lives in that house, attended by daily nursing care provided by Social Services. We still bring by food on holidays and whenever we think of her when shopping. She is on our phone list, so whenever Steve is in a mood to call folks to cheer them up, she gets a call asking to talk to the “young woman”.

Bertha is now 92 years old, and when asked her age, she says she is “older than her teeth”. She fusses at me if I visit her without putting my teeth in my mouth. She delights when Steve stops by with a deli chicken ready to eat. And her nurse, Betty, is the most kind and joyful person we have ever met. She talks often to her grandchildren, great-granchildren, and the great-great grands. But increasingly she is lonesome and misses Reuben.

Bertha is indeed a Grand Old Dame in the fullest meaning of the term!

Crewe High School Reunion

Photographing the Crewe High School Reunion July 26 is always like a great family reunion, and for the first time I realized why: these classes of 1968.69, 70, & 71 were the last classes of the Crewe High School. After these years the town schools merged as the county high school and while much was gained, much was lost. And these classmates of an age long past meet to celebrate and preserve all that they gained by growing up together in a small school. Remembering the bonds of our youth keep us young. After 1971 the number of classmates attending the reunion dropped significantly.

Carlton’s Last Song

Members of the Blackstone Presbyterian Church said goodbye to their long time choir director, Carlton Cunningham, who is moving to Texas to be near her daughter Joy.

Arsenic and Old Lace

Enjoy the play.You can purchase of composite wall poster of the play from Conley’s Photographics.

Click here

Mixing oil and water

From letter to Courier-Record

Mixing oil and water

Thank you Mr. Pyle and Farrar for two well thought out letters. Unfortunately, whatever I say will not mix with your thought, just as oil doesn’t mix with water. You want me to sit down with you at the political chessboard—probably taking the dark pieces—and battle you for the right to be right. This is a winless war that meanders through our history like an oil spill where one party seeks dominion over the other for the throne of truth.
But I’m really not interested in fighting on your game board. You can accuse me of “dodging the issues” or as an old adversary on the forum used to say, “speaking with double-speak,” if you want. But, as I said, oil and water don’t mix.
If you see me as the “titular head” of the local liberal party—like Rush Limbaugh did today—I resign from that position. Now if you want to see me as the head of the local Meditation Party, I’ll accept that. And I invite you over. We’re serving up some inner peace, creative insight, improved health, stress relief, mental steadiness, flexibility, greater concentration, and openness. But you have to take it in small doses, maybe 15 minutes a day, not much more, but everyday, for sure. And you can certainly take it on a deer stand or by a lake. Meditation has no boundaries.
Now I realize that you don’t have to meditate to see Obama as the anti-Christ or evil emperor, or a naïve novice. You are free to do that on your own. If your perception of reality brings you peace, health and happiness, then I say stay with it.
But there is a way to mix oil and water, in case you are interested. Lets say oil is compulsive thinking that won’t give your mind peace, and water is stillness or rest. You practice resting the mind in your breath until gradually the oil of constant thinking breaks apart and becomes so small that you are not bothered by it at all. Your mind then becomes so clear and quiet that your can hear solutions to your problems chirping in the trees; and you can remember your basic goodness that lies beneath your attack and defend game board you call life. Energy and good health is restored to your body once it stops drinking oil. But who am I to tell you what’s good for you. You have to discover that yourself.

Beaver Pond Mill left an empty husk

“Oh my God!” my mind said before my words could react to the burning hulk that was left of the landmark on route 153 that we traveled on our shopping trips to Richmond. The Beaver Pond Mill where my wife and I used to buy fresh ground corn meal and flour back in the 80s, and then became a quaint mill house after it went out of business was gone. Burned up with nothing but a shell remaining, the mill was still smoking when we passed and a woman was standing in front crying. Read more