Oral History with Jeff Childress

P: Hi, Mr. Childress. What year and where were you born and where did you live most of your life?

J: I was born on July 20th, 1956 in Birmingham, St. Vincent’s to be specific, and I haven’t left the Fultondale or Gardendale area since! I’ve been here for all of my life.

P: Has it changed much here since when you were a kid?

J: Well, people don’t put things in their noses as much as they used to. Ha-ha I’m just kidding. Let me see. Well, back then everyone’s momma stayed home and the men were the ones who brought home the bacon. Men always went to the barber shop. Back then men were men. Men got their hair cut by men. If you got your hair cut by a woman, you were a sissy!
There was a good bit more security when I was growing up, too. All the neighborhood kids went out and played until the street light came home. When the light came home, ya knew it was time to go home. You can’t do that now! Society has changed a good bit.

P: That sounds almost like Mayberry. Ha-ha How was school when you were younger? Were you segregated?

J: My classes back then were more structured. My son works in groups now at school, that was never done when I was in school. They wouldn’t even let you talk! My school started out segregated all through elementary. Then, in 7th grade, Gardendale started busing in three loads of blacks from North Birmingham. We didn’t associate much at first. Even though we were all in the same school we were still segregated in a way. It took a good little while to blend.

P: How did the busing affect you?

J: I wasn’t really angry because I was so young. I just didn’t understand. It made no sense why they would bus these kids in from so far away. Some of the kids said they got up at 5:30 in the morning to get to school, and that they wouldn’t get home ‘til around 4:30 to 5 ’o clock. I always thought it was just a plan put in place to make someone in Washington D.C. happy.

P: Were you friends with any of the integrated students?

J: By 8th and 9th grade, yeah, I was. 7th grade was awkward. It was the same situation as when you get a new student, but the color issue extended the breaking in time.

P: What was your parents’ opinion on this situation?

J: My daddy wanted me in North Jefferson where I could get a good city school education. When he heard talk of integration we moved to Fultondale. Now, he wasn’t a racist man. He only did it for the fear factor. There was expected trouble with the integration considering there were dogs on the TV attacking blacks and officers hosing them down. My parents tried to shelter me. The subject would get brought up around me and then quickly changed. I remember one day I was in the barber shop with my daddy to get a haircut and there way a guy in the chair talking about the march on Selma. My dad was getting pretty aggravated with the man until he found out that the man was a police officer. I remember the man saying distinctly that they would pop the blacks in the knees to make them fall and get trampled.


P: Did you ever see any of the dog attacks or the hosing?

J: I saw it mostly on TV. The dogs were scary, but the hosing off looked fun to me, because I was so young. I couldn’t really grasp how much pressure was behind all of the water.

P: Did you sympathize with them or was it normal to you?

J: I didn’t really sympathize because I didn’t understand. Police had dogs and the police were supposed to be the good guys. They were your friends. I always thought the blacks must have done something wrong to be treated like that. My opinion changed in high school. One time, we were at the local Kroger’s grocery mart and a young white couple was standing on the sidewalk, because back then there was just a huge sidewalk that everyone walked on in front of the store. They were in the normal attire: penny loafers, bobby socks, and rolled up pants. They recited a racial poem several times protesting integration. I still remember it.

P: How did it go?

J: “2 4 6 8, we don’t want to integrate. 8 6 4 2, we don’t want them jigaboos.”


P: Wow. Do you remember anything pertaining to MLK?

J: I don’t remember him as much as I do Rosa Parks and her not getting off of the bus because that happened here, you know? It was all over the news. I do remember the I have a dream speech. There was one part that I really loved “not judged by color of their skin but by the content of their character.” That really impressed me. I remember his assassination because we got out of school that day, but that’s about it.

P: Did you witness a lot of black bullying?

J: Yeah, we had some, but in my minds eye, the blacks resented being there and they lashed out a good bit at the whites. They were forced out of their environment and out of their comfort zone so they were angry. Back then was the first hint of a gang-type situation. If you fought one black, you fought three or four. It was never one on one like we were used to. In lunch one day a black boy had been making nasty remarks to a white girl, and the white girl’s boyfriend walked over to black section of the lunchroom and told him to leave her alone. The entire three black tables stood up. Then, the whole lunchroom stood up. Coaches and administrators came in to take folding chairs away from the kids, because back then we had chairs and not built in seats, and to break it up. The administration wanted to keep the fights and bullying pretty “hush, hush” because the plan was supposed to work smoothly, although it didn’t always.
It always seemed to me that the blacks education wasn’t as advanced. The blacks who were normally A students struggled once they were integrated into the white schools. The black teachers seemed almost inferior to the white teachers, too. I remember I had a black geography teacher and on the first day she had us make a large dot and a small dot and connect them with a line. Then she asked us to draw our hand and then walked around and gave everyone one hundreds. Some of the students who wanted to learn reported her and she was fired and replaced with a white woman three days later.

P: When did all of the racial tension really begin to calm down?

J: During my junior and senior year things got better. A couple of blacks contributed to football and bonded with some white athletes. If you were an athlete, you were the “in” crowd and you were always recognized and accepted. The other students at the school simply began to follow suit with the athletes. They talked and sat together at dances and stuff, but there was never any interracial couples. Black boys wouldn’t even dance with let alone touch white girls. That just wasn’t accepted. Black boys came to dances with black girls, and white boys came with white girls.

P: What year did you graduate?

J: 1974.

P: Okay. Do you remember man walking on the moon?

J: Yes! It was July 20th,1969 around 10 o’ clock. It’s my birthday that’s why I remember! I watched the man on the moon at my cousin’s house. I remember thinking that looking at the surface of the moon was one of the coolest things in my life! About a week later, I was in the barber shop again with my dad and a min in there swore it was fixed. This guy would get livid if you tried to disprove wrestling, but he thought man walking on the moon was fake. I remember there was also a lady on the news who thought that the astronauts were going to bring back diseases and that they should stay on the moon. That is real, I’m not making this stuff up!

P: Ha-ha that’s really funny! How was the music scene in the sixties? I know that it was a big deal back then.

J: When I was younger, you had those “doo-whop” harmonies, as I liked to call them, and that’s what I liked. My mother loved Glen Miller, Louis Armstrong, and stuff like that, so that’s what was played in my house and that’s what I grew up with. My friend’s parent’s usually listened to The Temptations and the general Motown sound. When I started buying music I began with mainly The Beatles and early Stones. By high school it was all southern rock for me. I loved Lynard Skynard, The Allman Brothers, Wet Will, and other music like that. That was my genre! I loved it!

P: Were you ever into the hippie scene?

J: I was too young for the hippie stuff. I was only in late elementary or junior high. They were on the news almost daily for protesting against the Vietnam War. After the first few protests they all kind of ran together and it was a normal thing. It was also nothing to hear the death count from the war. It got to the point to where people were jaded. Most people had a “I’m not involved, so I kind of don’t care” attitude. I remember the had the “Make peace, Not war,” signs. I remember the tie dye, blue jeans, sandals, and long hair--which parents hated, by the way!

P: We learned about “yippies” and Woodstock in history class. Did you ever hear anything about either of those?

J: I didn’t know about Woodstock until after the fact and I always thought that yippies was a ridiculous classification. It was like they didn’t want to commit to being hippies, but they wanted to be something. They were ridiculous.

P: Did you know anyone who was drafted?

J: Yes, several older guys who graduated a year or two before me. I didn’t know anyone who didn’t come back, though. One boy, 2 years older than me, came back pretty messed up. It took him a while to get even somewhat back to normal. When he came home he emptied his room of everything but his mattress. He sat, slept, and ate on the floor. He had black lights and beads all over his room. He was almost a hippie, but without the normal long hair. He kept his hair army style. His father said “He physically and mentally went to Vietnam, but only physically came back.”

P: That’s intense. I know back then the war was broadcasted on TV. Did you ever see this?

J: Yes. That brought the war into people’s homes. It brought it right into their living rooms! You were able to see actual war and explosions happening rather than just seeing pictures like previous wars. It was routine that every night you would watch the weather, sports, news and then the footage and death count. They would show a chart with American deaths v. Viet Cong deaths. It came out later that some of the numbers were made up because some generals wanted to sound better.

P: Did you sign up for the draft?

J: Yes. I signed up for the draft and had to carry my card at all times, because you had to have it 24-7. I had my card for about 6 months and then they pulled out and stopped the draft. Ii was one happy camper, believe me! Me and the military life just wouldn’t work.

P: Was your family Republican of Democratic?

J: At the time, they were Democrats. Back then, Republicans were considered the rich and Democrats were considered the poor. Daddy voted for Kennedy, but during high school he changed his mind. Daddy said that he didn’t leave the Democrats, but the Democrats left him because they had become increasingly more liberal. I’ve always been a Republican, I’ve always bee conservative. Even in church you can find me on the far right hand side of the pew. I’m as far to the right as it gets.

P: Who was the first president you voted for?

J: I was eighteen, and they had just recently changed the law because you could get drafted at eighteen and die for your country, but you couldn’t vote for your country. I voted for whoever ran against Carter. I can’t remember who Carter’s opponent was, though. I always vote for the candidate who I think will be best for the country and now just for me. I’m pretty crazy about my country.

P: One word. Disco.

J: I was a true blue southern rock kind of guy, so I didn’t really get into the disco stuff much. I did have Leisure suits, but I didn’t dance! I wasn’t a dancer. Most people I knew had three or four leisure suits that they would wear to church. Hey, It was an excuse not to wear a tie!

P: Do you remember any certain event that just seemed to have a huge impact on you?

J: When Charles Manson did his thing, I was traveling through Yellowstone National Park. There was a rumor that the Manson family had escaped and was hiding in Yellowstone. None of my family members could get in touch with us so they thought we were at risk to be murdered! I was fifteen at the time. That was probably one of the most shocking things I had ever experienced. I watched a lot of the news coverage on it because there was a family scare with me about it. The news showed some of the crime scene. It showed where they had written
PIG” on the walls and some other stuff that I don’t want on the record. Ha-ha You saw the bodies coming out on stretchers, but that was about as gruesome as the news got. I’m very interested. He was very bizarre as well as his followers.

P: Did you hear a lot about cults and communes back then?

J: Well, you had your hippie communes and things but nothing really ridiculous ‘til Manson and Jim Jones, but I don’t know a lot about that. I do know that those who tried to escape were killed by his henchmen.

P: What invention was the best thing since sliced bread to you?

J: It has to be a toss between the microwave and the remote control. Its probably the microwave. When I was a senior a good buddy of mine had a microwave. We really thought we were something back then. We would cut class to go microwave sandwiches for lunch. Color TV was neat, too. That came around in ‘69. But, you have to know, the color was really bad with the rabbit ears! The remote controlled TV came around in the late 70s.

P: Thank you very much. I’m so glad I got to interview you!

J: No problem!

Satirical Analysis: The Onion

Read the passage here:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29554

The Onion is a publication devoted to humor and satire. In 1999 there was an article printed in The Onion about MagnaSoles. MagnaSoles is a supposed new and revolutionary product to help heal not only your feet, but your entire body. The diction used in this article helps satirize how products are advertized quite efficiently.

The tone of this article is that of an infomercial. There are testimonies from doctors, scientists, and even consumers of the product. You can almost hear Billy Mays in the background promoting this product with utmost enthusiasm, such as his Oxiclean commercials. It presents and explains several forms of science used to create a product that could, evidently, remarkably heal an individual with a spine that is out of line! To any ditz thumbing through a magazine, this article may seem realistic and the person could possibly even be tricked into believing this was serious or maybe even into purchasing these miracle healing insoles! If the reader were to pay close attention to the diction of the paragraph they would see that this article is nothing but a mockery of advertisements of this sort.

The obvious mockery begins in the introductory paragraph. The author states that the MagnaSoles use “no fewer than five forms of pseudoscience.” The prefix “pseudo”, in the Webster’s New World Dictionary, is defined as being false, a sham, or counterfeit. The addition of a simple prefix at the end of the paragraph sets the satirical mood. The passage goes on to explain the few forms of “pseudoscience” used in creating these magical MagnaSoles.

Describing a scientific technique called reflexology as being semi-plausible, and filing terranometry under the pseudoscience category obviously states that these techniques are not to be trusted. If the author did not point out that it was semi-plausible or somewhat false, some readers would be convinced that these techniques were the top new scientific techniques out there, and that there was no room for doubt!

The author uses what he refers to as “scientific-sounding literature” to emphasize the fact that products such as these can be described in such a way that it sounds extremely scientific and believable, even though the reader has no idea what any of the terms mean. For example: “[…]special resonator nodules implanted at key spots in the MagnaSoles convert the wearer’s own energy to match the Earth’s natural vibrational rate of 32.705 kilofrankels. The resultant harmonic energy field rearranges the foot’s naturally occurring atoms, converting the pain-nuclei into pleasing comfortrons.” The words “kilofrankels,” “pain-nuclei,” and “comfortrons” are not used anywhere in the human language. Using made-up words such as these emphasizes that advertisements will go to any extreme to promote a product with “scientific” evidence because it is automatically more believable.

The testimonies that are provided in the article would attract any gullible human being. One seems to speak of the healing powers of these MagnaSoles almost in comparison to the healing powers of Jesus in the bible. A man’s testimony states that instead of getting his spine realigned for thousands of dollars, he simply paid $20 for MagnaSoles and they have done an almost equivalent job. Another testimony states that a woman who had twisted her ankle wore the insoles for seven weeks and they healed her. Her ankle would have healed whether she was wearing these insoles or not. Many readers would not pick up on this while reading, but the average recovery time for a twisted ankle is four to six weeks. Therefore, the fact that she was wearing the insoles is completely irrelevant. This also backs up that advertisers seem to lie about almost anything to make a little bit of cash.

The overall satirical impact of the passage is effective in showing that these advertisements are ridiculous and overdramatic. The scientific-sounding jargon, pseudoscientific techniques, and over the top testimonies almost make it impossible to believe anything that these people claim that MagnaSoles do. While normal advertisements would not be this over embellished, they are not far from it and this article does a good job at making this fact a bit more obvious.

Analysis of Gary Soto Narrative

Read the passage here: http://teacherweb.com/TX/RoundRockHighSchool/MaryEsparza/SotoPiestory.doc

This autobiographical narrative passage from A Summer Life by Gary Soto is a story of a six year old boy stealing pie and realizing the amount of guilt that his sin has caused him to feel. Soto’s pacing, diction, repetitive theme, and detail emphasize the guilty feeling and almost make you feel as if you are in the position. The first noticeable thing is the theme of his religion being a very prevalent cause of his guilt.

The very first paragraph of the passage mentions Soto’s knowledge of hell and his constant holiness to prevent going to this place of the condemned. He states that almost daily he “heard faraway messages in the plumbing,” supposedly from God, and saw “angels flopping on the backyard grass.” Throughout the passage he reflects back to the howling and the angels. Soto states that after he got home from eating the pie he heard the howling and questioned whether or not it was God speaking to him. Soto also proved an allusion to Adam and Eve which was used as a comparison of them to him. He mentions that he knew an apple got Eve in trouble. This was relevant to him because he had stolen an apple pie and he had committed a sin which he had been told not to do. The fact that he was so religious causes the guilt to be extreme. This guilt is obviously shown throughout the passage in many ways.

One of the ways that the author shows the feeling of guilt is by the way he goes in to detail. He describes the pies, the market owner, the neighbors, and the general situation in great depth. Describing the surroundings and how he is eating the pie shows that he was very aware that he was doing something wrong and that the guilt hit him so hard that he paid attention to every occurrence. He memorized every person’s moves, every squirrel, and every tree.

“A car honked and the driver knew. Mrs. Hancock stood on her lawn, hands on her hip, and she knew. My mom, peeling a mountain of potatoes at the Redi-Spud factory, knew.” Stating that people who were nowhere around during the incident were aware of his sin emphasizes his feeling of guilt.

Soto takes his time and builds up the story until finally ending with the understanding that he cannot take back what he has done and with his ultimate feeling of guilt. He begins with the complex description of the various pies and the actual pie-stealing event, and then leads on to describe the slow process of eating the pie and his realization of the sin after returning home. The fact that he stole the pie and did not immediately eat it highlights the fact that he was hesitant and felt guilty. His observances of the neighbors and such also pace out the story to make the feeling of guilt ultimate.

Diction in the passage such as “sticky with guilt” personalizes and elaborates more on the feeling of regret. His depiction of eating the pie was quite intricate. With him explaining the smell, the gold-colored slop in the afternoon sun, and the finger-dripping pieces, he makes you see how irresistible the pie seemed to be. This use of diction makes the reader relate more to the six year old. Referring to the sounds from the pipe as “a howl like the sea,” shows how intensely worried the possibility of God knowing made him. Many of the words chosen and the way they were put together make the passage much more intense. Rather than just telling people how guilty he felt he uses diction that helps suck the reader into the actual emotion.

Gary Soto’s use of rhetoric throughout this passage enthralls the reader. The person reading the passage can feel the actual emotion from the various uses of diction, detail, and pacing. The theme of religion also appeals to many individuals because nearly 85.8% of the world’s population is religious. Soto’s rhetoric was very effective in describing his own feeling of guilt while also evoking and reminding readers of how the emotion feels.

Tu as dit "Meet me on the mountain."

The climb was strenuous. Obstacle after obstacle.
With every loose rock there came a stumble, and sometimes even a fall.
I got back up every time.
Seulement pour toi.
"Il veux moi. Je peux grimper."
The grumbling in the sky had no effect.
C'est mon voyage a l'amour.

Upon reaching the top, I saw no sign of you.
"Je suis plus tard?"
No footsteps in the dirt. No leaf or branch out of place. No sign of life aside from the creatures inhabiting the area.
Je decide rester.
Une heur.
Deux heurs.
Trois heurs.
J'ai su.
Every drop added more weight, until, finally, I had sunk into the ground, forced to stay on this mountain forever. Waiting for someone to appear. Waiting for you, unless someone else comes along to rescue me.

Finalment, je decide m'aider.
Scratch, scratch. Wiggle, wiggle.
NON!
Scratch, scratch. Wiggle, wiggle.
Days and days.
Weeks and weeks.
Months and months.
Liberté!

L'eau

What was once a puddle has now become an ocean, and I'm stuck in the current.
Tugging, pushing, and drowning.
"SWIM!" they say "Just swim."
I knew how in summer's gentle pool's, but I was never prepared for this.
"Fight water with fire."
I never wanted to be that person. It now seems inevitable.
Only tsunamis soothe me.