Page 2...The Eugene-Springfield Observer.. January 8,1992
Give Some Support
Sexual Assault Support Services, a
new Lane county non-profit agency, which
provides crisis intervention, advocacy, and
counseling for persons who have been
sexually assaulted is seeking volunteers
for the 24 hour crisis line. Those persons
interested in volunteering are invited to
attend a volunteer orientation W ednes
day, January 15, from 7-8 PM at the S A S .S .
office, 1659 Oak. The crisis intervention
training runs, Friday evening, January 24,
and Saturday and Sunday - January 25 and
26 from 9 am - 5 pm. For more informa
tion call Erin at 484-9791.
ADVANCED INVESTMENT CORP
• We Buy Contracts
Mortgages & Trust Deeds
• We Make Loans on all types
of Real Estate
• Competitive Rates
We can fund approved
requests in 48 hours
• We promise not to waste your
time
St. Mark C.M.E. Church
3995 W. 12th Avenue
Eugene, Oregon
Activities
December:
15th Christmas program
29th M issionary Service 3:30
31st W atchnight Service
Ja n u a ry :
12th Stewards and
Stewardesses Annual Day
19 through 24th Revival
F e b ru a ry :
9th Sr. Choir Annual Day
M arch:
15th Oliver-Generations of
Faith in Concert
29th Missionary Service 3:30
April:
12th Youth Choir Annual Day
26th Annual Chicken Dinner
M ay:
17th Confirmation Service
31st Missionary Annual Day
Ju n e:
14th Youth and
Young Adult Sunday
July:
12th Church Anniversary
o f course all o f these activitites
are in 1992
321 Goodpasture Island Road
Eugene, Oregon 97401
Call Mike or Marty
(503) 343-9714
A d v e r tise
1-800-824-4441
Four Oregon
Representatives To Hold
Health Care Town
Meetings Across State
The schedule of the January 14 m eet
ings is as follows:
9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.: Health Care
Town Meeting with Representatives
DeFazio, with guests AuCoin, Kopetski
and W yden, at City Council Chambers,
777 Pearl, Eugene.
YOUR. ALTERNATIVE
GENERAL CONTRACTOR
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cugene- Springfield Ob server
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I
I
by Professor McKinley Burt
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
Nostalgia: D01 Vt Leave Home
Without It; Conclusion
As we wrap up this trek along memory
lane, it occurs to me (and others) that to a
kid, living conditions described by soci
ologists as traumatic are often only
adventurous to youth. From the age of
twelve, I remember a series o f moves, each
deeper into the ghetto (whenever the rent
became too far past due). But each time
there was a new set o f interesting play
mates and schoolm ates-each with its own
distinctive approach to life, games and
innovative economics.
It may sound like a “ Theatre o f the
A bsurd” as we recount these depression
years, but, then you’re aware o f our capac
ity to live it to the max. I was able to
introduce my new and rougher playmates
to some scenarios learned from that past
(richer?) life; like going out to the huge
“ Forest Park” in the center of the city with
its free “ St. Louis Municipal O pera.” For
12 weeks each summer, this outdoor am
phitheater featured productions that ranged
from colorful operettas like “ The Student
Prince and New M oon” to “ Show B oat”
and other Broadway musicals. If one ar
rived early before curtain time (sunset),
enough golf balls could be retrieved in an
adjoining area to pay for all the popcorn
and soda pop.
In turn I was introduced to startling
plays from the ghetto “ Commedia del
A rte.” One evening as we sat on the proj
ect steps facing the second floor offices of
a juke box distributor, we could hear the
older boys trying to hammer open the safe.
Failing in this, they pushed it out the w in
dow onto the concrete driveway below.
M iraculously it cam e open, spilling out
w hat seemed like a million dollars in coins.
For the next half hour an entire neighbor
hood o f kids and housewives arm d them
selves with pots and pans and began clean
ing up the mess.
Another time a front wheel cam e off
the bus on Olive Street and the axle dug up
a half block o f asphalt pavem ent-expos
ing a sub strata o f creosote-soaked wooden
paving blocks. The next morning the St.
Louis Post Dispatch had a banner headline
“ C ITY STREET STO LEN O V E R
N IG H T!” Again, the neighborhood had
gone to work and every baby carriage and
kids wagon had been pressed into service
to gather up this fu e l fro m heaven in the
middle o f a bitter winter.
In later years this area became the site
for the “ W endell Pruit Project,” the first
o f a series of disastrous experiments in
building huge highrise apartments for the
poor (W endell as a high school classmate
o f mine who became famous in W orld W ar
II was a flying ace with the 99th squardron
from Tuskegee). Y ou’ve probably seen
this project a number o f times on television
as the entire six block complex was dem ol
ished in 30 seconds with carefully placed
explosives.
The same Sumner High School, though
a great learning place, was also the scene
o f many a ludircous event. Like the time
“ M cDunkin’s” father died and somehow
the 16-year-old student received the $3000
cash from the insurance policy. Among
other things he bought a new Ford and six
suits which he kept in two adjacent lockers
at school. He would change clothes before
each class and before long “ Pretty M ac”
had everybody s woman. This is the same
high school where, as I’ve mentioned be
fore, the father o f Bobby McFcrrin ’ ’ sang
in our choir. We knew he was Metropolitan
Opera material even before a girl jumped
out of the balcony when he sang “ Goodnight
My Love.” Evelyn survived and went on
to have six kids.
And at the same school in 1939, the
Royal Canadian Air Force was soliciting
those black youth (so good at math) for
service overseas in the “ Battle o f Brit
ain .” You got a huge salary for the times,
90 days o f training in Newfoundland and
an opportunity to ferry your own plane
over to England. You had to be 18 and my
mother would not sign off for me, but Carl
Cable, my best friend, went and when I met
him again in Los Angeles 20 years later, he
recounted his adventures. Sitting in the
tavern he owned at W est Adams and Nor
mandie, he said he still remembers coming
to him self at 6000 feet over France in his
Spitfire and atop all that high octane gaso
line: “ Mama, what am I doing here? Pray
for your child.”
The kaleidoscope o f memory has too
many images to record here. M other had a
shirt-tail relative who lived across the river
in East St. Louis in the 1920’s, “ Josephine
Baker, ’ ’ who had gone to Paris and “ made
good.” When the famous entertainer was
here in Portland I went backstage to visit
and she asked about “ G ladys” and my
Aunt Marjorie. I can remember the early
cumbersome braces thay had forchildren’s
teeth. They had two tiny screws that held
them in and because the kids at school
called me brass m outh” I would tai»*
them off when 1 left home and put them in
my po ck et Predictably, I lost a screw one
day and it took me to 11 p.m. to find it—so
I got it anyway. Man, that woman was
angry.
From 1939 to 1943, I must have ac-
cumalatcd a bale o f Postal Money Order
receipts from money sent home while
working on various railroad “ Extra Gangs”
building and repairing tracks across the
country: “ Decator, Illinois; Cheyenne,
W yoming; Denver, Colorado, Pocatello,
Idaho, Riparia, W ashington; Oakridge or
Klamath Falls, Oregon; you name it, all
interspersed with a myriad craft and labor
jobs. A learning experience about people
and folkways that cannot be duplicated.
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