Everybody Loves Piano, I love Reading
Sometimes we had a family meeting, although we didn’t call it that. This meant that we listened in as Mom and Dad discussed something before making a final decision. We always knew the details, pros and cons, and the final decision, but had no say-so.
One family meeting involved a discussion about our car and a piano. Our old car looked like a Model T Ford (it may have actually been a Model T), but it was O K with us kids. The car embarrassed my mom, and she often talked about how she felt riding in “that old-fashioned thing”. Both Mom and Dad wanted a new car.
In 1950, was continuing piano lessons and now that we had a bigger house, mom and dad considered replacing our old upright piano. Both Mom and Dad wanted another piano.
The family meeting was about getting another car or getting a “Baby Grand” piano, which would grace our living room, enhancing the décor to boot. They decided on the piano instead of a new car.
It was a beautiful piece of furniture: new and black and shiny, by Schaefer and Sons, with a keyboard that had a lock and a top that could be let up, concert- style. Nothing was ever placed on the piano; you didn’t drop your books there or set food on it. It was a source of pride for our family, even though we rode around in a quasi-Model-T in the mid 1940’s.
Many years later, I realized my musical training was important to our family. My actions were sometimes a disservice to the importance my parents gave to this training. I did not like to practice, that dislike continues whenever I learn a new skill, like golf, dancing, or studying.
I was required to practice one or two hours daily but noticed that my playing during the lesson was no different if I missed a few days of practice. This escalated to minimalizing my practice to maybe even once every few weeks. Somehow dad must have suspected I hadn’t been meeting my practice obligations and starting asking me daily if I had practiced. I replied that I had. After about a week of this ask-and-reply repartee, he added, “Are you sure?” to which I gave my usual “Yes.” Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out the key to the piano keyboard, saying something like, “That must have been hard without the key.” He said he had locked the keyboard and kept the key for over a week, proving that not only had I not practiced, but had lied to him.
For this major infraction I received the formal spanking which began by lying across the piano bench and listening to part one of the moral of the spank as Dad undid his belt. The moral was proclaimed in a speech about lying; not practicing was a minor aspect for the spanking. Part two of the moral of the spank was that with each hit, Dad recited a phrase: how is this… respecting… your parents?… we all sacrifice… for you to learn to play… and this… is how… you thank us?… don’t you… ever lie… to me… again! This spanking was one of the more memorable ones, about ten hits. I’m not sure it was because the spanking hurt, or because I had disappointed my dad by lying to him, I didn’t lie to him again.
I went from reading the Times with Aunt Lizzie, to reading independently, advancing my love of books. For my sixth or seventh birthday, one of my aunts sent me a set of books for young readers, mostly fiction, with genre ranging from fairy tales, science-fiction, adventure, and a few others. The entire set of about 20 volumes fit perfectly in the cubbie across our headboard above Sondra’s and my twin beds. I took my time reading each one cover to cover, returning to my favorites over the years. I kept that set until I left home for college.
My letter writing was supervised by Aunt Lizzie, which started with sending the required thank-you notes when I received gifts from my four aunts. The thank-you notes morphed into letters as my skills improved. I kept my aunts updated on our family’s progress and in turn I learned about what they were doing. Our family spent vacation time with them and their families and they in turn came to see us. It was a nice exchange. Until each of their deaths, I continued a correspondence with the four of them in South Bend, San Francisco, Chicago, or wherever they re-located.
My mother immediately enrolled Uly Junior and me in school … almost. I was old enough for first grade and had completed Kindergarten, therefore my registration was processed. However, Uly Junior was to start Kindergarten and was refused. The officials said Kindergarten was optional and it was full. Since Kindergarten was optional, they had decided not to give him the option. He stayed home, and I went to first grade. My mother believed it was racism. Later as a school administrator I knew that Kindergarten was not mandatory and that they were not obligated to take him. I still wonder about the underlying reason for his not being accepted.
For that first year, I was the only Negro child at my school. By high school graduation, there was only one white person attending our school—talk about white flight, and it took only twelve years!
I attended McKinley Elementary School all alone. Carver Manor had not yet sold many houses, so that first year, no one else looked like me. In first grade the teachers were impressed that I could write and tell time, which was certainly not expected of their first colored student. The teacher, Mrs. Fellows, sent a partner and me around to the other classes to demonstrate my ability to tell time. We had a wooden clock from our classroom, with movable hands that the partner would fix and I would say what time the clock said. After two or three of these, we would move on to another class.
I don’t remember much about the academics in elementary school, except that it was not hard and I didn’t have to devote too much time to thinking.
We Integrate Compton Schools and Strike a Blow for Colored Kids
By grade three, I was seven years old and all three of us were in school. My brother, Uly Junior, was two grades behind me and my sister, Sondra Juanita, was three grades behind me. We always felt we should all have been one grade apart.
I was required to deliver Sondra to her Kindergarten classroom, where she cried daily when I left her. This didn’t concern me too much because she did it every day. We continued to call Sondra by her middle name, Juanita; but my dad called her Sondra always.
This was also the year of Uly Junior’s name change. The teacher felt his name, Ulysses, was too difficult for the other children to pronounce and declared that he would be called by his middle name, Roscoe. From that point forward, he was Roscoe. Roscoe sounded strange to Juanita and me, as we had seldom heard anyone use our dad’s middle name. Mom and Aunt Lizzie sometimes called him “June Bug” instead of Junior, so Sondra and I continued to use their name for him, sometimes shortening it to “June.” When Roscoe went to High School he declared June Bug dead. He would not answer to it and insisted we call him Roscoe. It took a while, but we finally gave in to his demand.
I vividly remember losing a pretty pink sweater my Aunt Lizzie bought for me on one of our shopping jaunts to Bullock’s. I went to the school office every day to see if it had been turned in; after a while they told me “no” before I asked them. I finally gave up and stopped going. Months later, they called me in to let me know my pink sweater was in the office. I was happy to get it back, but wondered where it had been.
There were about ten or fifteen of us Negro children at McKinley Elementary by the time my sister and brother attended with me. We all came from Carver Manor. The Drakes on our street had four children and there were a few kids from the next street over.
There were a few families whose children did not go to school with us, attending the Catholic school a few miles away. Also, some families had their children attend school in “town,” which meant Los Angeles proper. They left with their parents for work, dropped off at a relative’s home, and went to school from there.
Our little group had about a mile walk to school, directly through a dairy’s cow pasture. Since none of us were from the farm, we had a lot to learn about cows. We learned when to avoid getting too close to the mean cows that would chase us, learned not to break through the herd, and learned how to tell when it was time for calves to be born. We became accurate at identifying the cows that were ready to give birth and planned