Children of Crisis by Robert Coles

Author:Robert Coles [Coles, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780316090490
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2009-11-28T13:00:00+00:00

Orin

Orin is his name, a name out of Scotland or someplace like that, his father has told him. There were some big, important tobacco people in eastern North Carolina who carried that name, Orin. And as things go in the South, the black man learns from the white man and gets his names from him. So, Orin is eight and black and called Orrie and his father’s name is Orin, and he is thirty-three and called Daddy, even by his wife. Orin was born in Old Dock, North Carolina, which is not far from Whiteville, the seat of Columbus County. Orin’s daddy once was a field hand, and used to drive a pickup truck; he would also do odd jobs and errands and “everything, you know.” At the age of four Orin was brought north to Hartford, and then to Boston. All of which means that he is half a Southerner, half a Northerner — and no kidding: “I’m from North Carolina and I’m from Massachusetts. Four and four make eight, and we’ve been up here four years and before that I lived four years in Columbus County, North Carolina, my daddy says. No kidding, I’m half-and-half from here and from back home.”

He has heard “back home” mentioned and recalled many times. His daddy one day says they’ll be going back there soon, and the next day says he won’t ever go back. The fact is, though, that every summer for four years in a row Orin has heard his parents debate this question: will we go there to see them or will they come up here — Orin’s grandfather and grandmother. Orin’s mother has no parents. She was reared by her uncle and aunt. She lost both her parents to pneumonia, she believes. She doesn’t know, because no doctor ever got to them. But Orin’s father has both parents alive and well. They will live to be a hundred, he hopes and believes, and they are proud and good people, one gathers from listening to their proud and good son. There is only one problem with them; they won’t leave that county in North Carolina. They won’t go to live in Wilmington or any other city in the state; and they won’t go to live in Washington, D.C. — where one of their sons now lives. Nor will they go up to stay in Hartford, Connecticut, where another son lives, or Boston, where their son Orin lives, and where two aunts of Orin’s, sisters of his mother’s, also live. They will go to those cities to visit, to look around and marvel at what a city can be, but they always want to leave after a week or two; and it seems that if they go North one year, they expect their children to come back South the next year. Young Orin, therefore, has been back to North Carolina twice since he came North to live.

Orin wishes he could live like his grandparents do; but he also is glad to live up North and be with his parents and live the way they do.

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