PP: 34-35 — I grew up with both black and white playmates, and was welcome in all their houses; Esther Lott’s kitchen floor was always clean enough to eat off of, and she kept Moon Pies and Stage Planks for me and Troy McIntire, our place mechanic’s son about my age. I observed husband-wife relationships of folks like Cliff & Esther, Earl & Annabelle Lane, Jim & Almira Spriggs, Pete & Ora Ford, and other of the Brownspur sharecroppers whose kids I ran around with. We all “Yes, Ma’am”-ed all the ladies, once they were out of diapers.
I was taught that by my maternal grandmother, whose grand-name was actually “Ma’am,” because she kept a thimble on her middle finger, maybe to sew with, but I thought only to thump a GrandBoy’s noggin with when I forgot my “Ma’am”s. She lived in Sunflower, 30 miles away, and we visited often. But home manners were also taught to me by Mother and her houselady Zeola, a black lady who wore starched white aprons with an iced teaspoon in the pocket — not to stir tea with, but to whack a youngster on the head when I forgot my “Yes, Ma’am; no, Ma’am; thank you, Ma’am; please, Ma’am”. I learned to be polite in black and white!
Of course, I “Sir”-ed menfolks, too; they just didn’t carry thimbles or spoons. Big Robert and Miz Janice were members of a group called The Dead Duck Club. The men hunted together, the women did a lot of church stuff together; and they ALL raised chillen together. Big Dave & Miss Nena, Uncle Shag & Aunt Dotsy, Mi’ter & Miz Mo’, Uncle Sam & Aunt Rose, Big John & Miss Eleanor, Cameron & Miss Evelyn, and they mostly all had boys the same age: me, Little Dave, Little John, Jimmy Moore, Sammy Shaifer. For a lot of years, whenever we boys would misbehave, seemed like they just licked all of us: all daddies and mothers had wholesale whuppin’ privileges for the whole Bucket of Blood Club membership.
But we learned to Do Right. We minded our manners, respected our elders, and — we learned to put all ladies on Pedestals where they belonged, and keep them there through Hell or high water! We were taught not to talk rough atall when girls were present; we learned to hold doors for ladies (all our elders, really); we were to rise, if seated, when a lady entered a room; we pulled their chairs out and seated them; we even learned the proper way to “take” a lady’s hand — if she offered it — as if we were going to kiss it — indeed, bowing slightly over it — and that a man never grips a lady’s hand and shakes it up and down.
Females were Special, we were instructed by our fathers, teachers, coaches, mentors: the men who raised kids back then. They were NOT to be abused, or even spoken to harshly, when we grew up. They were, essentially, to be — not religiously, of course — worshiped from both afar and a’near.
Then when we grew to teenagers nearing puberty — supress those urges as long as possible, by the way — our daddies warned us about the dangers of “messin’ around with girls!” Get married first, then don’t mess around with any other women, Boy!