June 23, 2004 - Falls River State Recreational Area, Durham, North Carolina

Schnookie battles with a bout of nostalgia. Apparently she had some relatives in Durham, North Carolina and was forced to visit here in her childhood. (We try not to dwell on her southern hick roots when back up north.) We spent the day driving around, trying to find the house where everyone lived. I didn't bother to take any photos--she went nuts.

(No pun intended?)

We first pulled into the Durham visitor's center. They had all these statistics and photos of happy people on the wall on how thriving and prosperous Durham actually is. They have the technology triangle and "we have more Phd's per square mile" than so and so...yada yada yada. Maybe Durham was a nice place to live back in the early 60's when Schnookie was forced to go there, but the place now looks like Worcester, Massachusetts. Cripes. (The joke for you people who don't know: Schnookie and I live in Worcester, Massachusetts.)

What? That's your name--Schnookie. Right, Schnookie?

I'll pretend I didn't hear that.

[FROM JOURNAL] More rain. We sucked up almost a whole tank of gas going from Columbia, S.C., to here. Tomorrow the plan is to go into Durham, where my dad grew up. He was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on September 19, 1932, the only child of Ralph Waldo Branton and Alice Atkins. I never knew Alice, my grandmother. She ran off with the proverbial traveling salesman when my father was a toddler. He was raised by his father's sister, Mary ("Mamie") and her husband, James Oscar ("Os") Murdoch. They called him by his middle name, Earl.

His father, RW, was a farmer, and when his wife ran off, he knew he couldn't watch a child and tend to the farm, so his sister (whose only child had died in infancy or was stillborn--I don't remember which) stepped in. She--Mamie--said the Earl's bottom was a mass of red sores because Alice hardly ever changed his diaper. He spent a lot in his carriage, stewing in his urine and feces while Alice got loaded in the local bar.

RW went on to marry again--a woman with a big brown beehive hairdo named Birdie May. I don't remember what RW looked like, though I remember riding on his tractor with him and my brother. And I remember his foul-tempered billy goat--a terrifying shaggy creature with dirty ivory horns and yellow teeth who would butt the fence when anyone came near.

I wish I could remember RW and I wish I could have met Alice. RW died of heart failure in his fifties. I believe my family was stationed overseas when it happened.

I saw Mamie and Os once when I was an adult. It was right after the birth of my daughter. She was 6 weeks old, and I drove down with her brother (who was 2 and 1/2), their father and my youngest brother Matt. Mamie and Os were so glad to see "Earl's" grandchildren.

When, as a child, my family visited them, Mamie and Os would give me and my brothers a sack of pennies they'd saved up so we could go down to the penny candy store on the corner. (Of course, the candy really was a penny then! That makes me feel practically antediluvian!) [END OF JOURNAL ENTRY]

I won't bore you with any further sentimental reminiscing. I have many fond memories of my childhood visits to Durham, however. I was always more comfortable and relaxed there than anywhere else. Except for maybe a cousin or two, whose last names I don't know, the family is all gone. I miss them.

Eric & I went in search of the house in which my father grew up. I remembered the street: North Driver, but not the house number, but figured I could recognize it (assuming it was still there). With the help of a gentleman in the Visitors' Center, we found the street--even the building that used to be the penny candy store. Amazingly, it was still standing! I went in and told the owner my tale and asked if I could take some pictures. He was very happy to cooperate and even asked me to take his picture, then forced some local kids into posing with him for a second picture.

I walked up and down the street (I was pretty sure it was on the same side as the candy store) while Eric drove slowly beside me in the camper. At one point one of the kids who had been in the store (who was now across the street from me) said to his friend, "Now she's taking pictures of the houses! Don't take a picture of my house!"

I looked and took pictures--the neighborhood was pretty run down, not that it had ever been spic&span in my childhood, but I think this is the house. We also found (by accident, practically) the Liggett & Myers factory where Os worked. Liggett & Myers, for those who don't know, made cigarettes--they used to give away free mini-packs to visitors who toured the factory!

We also visited Duke University, because I really wanted a t-shirt, but we couldn't find (even though we asked a few people) the bookstore or any other place that sold them. I came away from Durham sad, glad and disappointed all at the same time. Mostly I felt (and still feel, writing this from our lastest camp at the edge of Shenandoah National Park) full of nostalgia and what the Welsh call "hiraeth"--a sort of longing for a home one has never really had.

Oh yeah--all along the sides of the roads, wherever there was an exit or an overpass, someone had planted TONS of lilies.