On A Personal Note: "The Help," Memories of Pattie And Why You Can't Talk Trash About My Family.

I just finished reading The Help, and I have to say, I'm left feeling a handful of emotions. If you haven't read the book, read it.  The film version, while somewhat (necessarily) abbreviated, is also a gem. Go see it.

Living in California, it's not often that I run into anyone who shares my southern roots, much less even a passing understanding of what it was like to grow up in the south of the 1960s. So I felt a wave of familiarity--a dull ache of nostalgia--as the book swept me back to a different time.

There are similarities between the book and my upbringing. And differences, too. But the flavor--the summer heat, the humidity, the southern drawl, the way of describing things--was so accurately recreated on the pages of The Help. It was a time long passed. A time that predated political correctness. The south of my childhood has seen many positive changes since that time. What follows is a memory of what was, as it was.

My family employed a wonderful, powerful black woman by the name of Pattie.  Unlike the fictional Phelans, our family was not wealthy, plantation-dwelling or steeped in the deep traditions of Mississippi. We lived in a comfortable, upper middle-class neighborhood in Virginia, where the men worked and most of the women stayed home to raise their families--often with the help of a "colored girl," a decidedly racist term that was likely used more out of ignorance and habit than malice.

To the best of my knowledge, Pattie came to work for my mother when I was two or three. She came five days a week, doing the housecleaning and laundry.  My early memories of Pattie were the scents of Niagara Spray Starch and Lucky Strike unfiltereds.  I can picture her at the ironing board, Lucky dangling from her lips, humming over a the collar of one of my father's white shirts, delivering a perfect shot of spray starch to the collar. And then, the hiss of the iron as it glided over the cotton, leaving behind its perfect wake of flattened fabric.

Pattie arrived on the 7:55 morning bus. My mom picked her up at the bus stop and Pattie was at work by 8:00 sharp.  In the summers, Pattie arrived with bags of fresh produce, usually half-runner beans and white corn, my father's favorites. Sometimes there were beets and squash and heirloom tomatoes. As a child, I never questioned how Pattie got the produce--it just came with her.

What I learned, years later, was that Pattie, in order to get to the morning farmer's market, got up an hour early, took the 6:20 bus, shopped, then changed buses twice to get to our house as usual. I also learned that Mom never asked for this kindness, and always offered to pay Pattie for the vegetables.  It was their "dance." Mom would offer, Pattie would say, Put yo money away, Miss Frances, and turn and walk out of the room. Mom would follow, repeat the offer, get the same answer. Then, when she was certain Pattie wasn't looking, Mom would stick a carefully folded five- or ten-dollar bill in Pattie's purse.

Pattie knew it was there. Mom knew it was there.  It was how they worked it out.

Along with Pattie's pay each week (I don't have any idea what Pattie was paid), Mom set out a bag containing a carton of Lucky Unfiltereds, a small bag of Brach's butterscotch candies, two ribeye steaks, greens, a 48 oz. bottle of Schlitz beer, and whatever seasonal produce that was at market.  It was "Pattie's bag" and Mom make it clear we children were not to touch it. Mom would set it by Pattie's satchel next to the front door just as she prepared to take Pattie home for the day. Sometimes I would ride with them to Pattie's house. In those more racially divided days it was in an area called "colored town," as white--and black--people called the area adjacent to Williamson Road.

In later years, when Pattie was coming only three times, then twice, then once a week--I would drive her home myself.

Pattie sat in the front seat with Mom. She sat in the front seat with me.  I never remember her talking about her personal life, civil rights, segregation, Martin Luther King or any reference to racial segregation.  I know she had opinions. And I know that, after she retired and Mom called or visited her, Pattie shared personal feelings with Mom--and Mom with her. They remained friends until Pattie's death in early 1975.

Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, explains, in an afterword to the book, about being a southerner in an environment that doesn't understand southerners.  I, too, left the south as an adult to work in larger cities in other parts of the country. Here in California I occasionally come across someone who has recently seen a film about the south, changed planes in the Atlanta, Hartsfield airport, or spent a brief time in one of the southern states. After one such brief southern encounter, one particular acquaintance whom I see from time to time,  let fly some unflattering comments about how "all southerners are so slow," winking at our dinner companions as if to underscore the unspoken translation: All southerners are so stupid.

Without so much as a hesitation between bites of bean salad from a Berkeley organic grocery I caught her gaze and steelily replied,  Careful. You're talking about me, my mom and dad and the rest of my family and by the way just how much time have you spent in the south? Have you ever lived there? Know anyone--personally? And--just, by the way--what if I generalized that way about you and your family. How do you think it would feel?

So, there you have it. To paraphrase Ms. Stockett (and with apologies): With all its faults (and there were and are many) the south is like my family. I'm allowed to complain about her all I want, but God help the person who raises an ill word about her around me, unless she is their family, too.

I'll get off my soapbox now.  Thanks for listening.