Bert and Dewberry

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

A trip to the park

Despite the 52 years now between me and that day, I remember it as if it was yesterday. Truth be told, I remember it better that I remember yesterday. It was a perfect June day, warm, but not too warm. A few puffy, snow-white clouds were scattered across the piece of sky I could see from vantage point, which was ground zero. I was lying on my back on top of the thick pine needle carpet that blanketed our front yard, waiting impatiently for Louise.

We lived in Trussville, Alabama, a small town just east of Birmingham, Alabama. I had just finished the fifth grade three days before. That last day of school was the day that Mother and Daddy announced that very soon we would be moving to Childersburg, Alabama, a small central Alabama town.

I wasn’t happy about the move but 10 year olds don’t have much say in the world, something I’d learned at a very early age, so I kept my mouth shut and hoped the move wouldn’t happen. Occasionally I even crossed my fingers but I knew that hoping and finger crossing wasn’t going to change anything.

I was thinking of those things when I heard her coming up the street, softly singing an old hymn. Louise, the amazing black woman who cleaned our house, cooked our meals and took care of me during the day was making her daily entrance into my life after her hour long bus ride from Birmingham to Trussville followed by her 30 minute walk from the bus station to our house. I pretended I didn’t hear her and she pretended she didn’t see me. We both knew it was a game but that didn’t keep us from playing. Before she began her cleaning and cooking routine she spent a few minutes talking with me, minutes that I treasured because of all the adults in my life there were only two who talked with me and not at me. After our morning talk, as she called it, Louise told me to go outside and play so she could start cleaning.

I found my baseball glove and shuffled out the back door with a vague idea of going to the park to see if anyone was playing ball. As I walked down the back steps Louise called out, “Be back for lunch and if you want to bring a friend or two that’s fine.” That made me smile. Mother didn’t like it when I brought my friends over unannounced. I think Louise must have known that.

I’d covered four or five of the ten block walk to the park when I heard, “Young man. Young man. YOUNG MAN!”

I looked up from the sidewalk and turned toward the voice. I was surprised to see a beautiful blonde haired woman standing in the yard of the haunted house. It really wasn’t a haunted house but we called it that because it was vacant, the only vacant house in town so it was the only one we could call haunted.

The two story house had been vacant since just before Christmas when we heard the man and his wife who had been living there had moved to Chicago. I don’t know why they moved. I’m sure I heard someone say but in those days I considered that grown up business and none of my concern.

Obviously the house was no longer vacant because there was this beautiful woman in the back yard calling me. At first I didn’t see Dewberry; I was much too taken with the woman who I mistakenly assumed to be mom to notice him. She smiled and said, “I’ve just moved here. My name is Mrs. …..”


I was so blown away by her smile and the fact that she was really talking to me that I have no recollection of the last name she mentioned and neither does Dewberry; but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I walked toward her and noticed Dewberry for the first time. Like his "mom" he had blonde hair and blue eyes. He looked at me and smiled a smile that lit his face up. He had a pacifier on a cord hanging from his neck, short pants, a yellow tee shirt, blue canvas sneakers and white socks. Except for the pacifier and weathered old blanket he was holding on to for dear life, he was dressed just like me. He said something to his mother. I didn’t understand him at the time but later that day it came back to me. He said, “He’s the one Mommy.”

In the beginning

I’m 62 years old. Dewberry is 4. I met Dewberry 52 years ago. I was ten and he was 4. Those numbers aren’t typos and they won’t change if you read them again and even again.

I don’t know how long it took Dewberry to reach his 4th birthday. I asked him once and he just smiled and said, “Don’t know, don’t care.” I haven’t bothered to ask him again.

It’s fair to say that Dewberry is different from any 4 year old you’re ever likely to meet. Not because he is 4 but because he chose to be 4 and no more.

Dewberry has been with every day for the past 52 years. At first I thought he was crazy for choosing not to get any older. You see at age 10 all I wanted to do was make it to 16. At 16 I set my sights on 18. At 18 21 became the mark. Well, I’m sure you get the idea. I thought it was normal to live that way. Dewberry didn’t and doesn’t and never has thought much of my ideas of “normal” and he doesn’t hesitate to tell me so.

In the beginning – our first 10 or 12 years together I didn’t pay much attention to anything Dewberry had to say but for the past 40 years I’ve found myself listening to him more and more.