I would like to take this time to brief talk about my hometown, John’s Island, South Carolina. It is a place filled with African American history and customs. I can recall growing up on John’s Island as a boy playing in the dirt roads after school for fun, and fighting with the dirt roads before school in order to keep my fresh new school shoes clean. With fields all around, the Sun beaming down, and the tall, almost scary oak trees providing shade for my sun burnt skin, I ran out of the house every afternoon to enjoy the years of my childhood. Needless to say I lived in the country, but it that is exactly what is was, MY Country. We didn’t have hours of traffic during lunchtime or several Elementary, Middle, and High Schools. We had 2 Elementary, 1 Middle and 1 High school, no traffic EVER, and most importantly, we had a community of people who looked out for each other. It is this place I once called come that has been utterly destroyed. Not only because of the constant buying of land for pennies and selling it for thousands, or the increased amount of traffic that is now experienced, but it is in the lack of concern when it comes to the community. No one cares anymore. Everyone is for themselves and no one else. While businessmen and entrepreneurs gain wealth through the riches of land, the place that I called home is continuously losing its wealth. The wealth of working together, the wealth of concern and care, the wealth of love. Okay, Okay, maybe I’m being a bit dramatic here but sorry, I can’t help it. I can go to the coordinates on a map that would take me to the location where I grew up, but somehow it can’t take me to the place where I grew up. I have come to face the sometimes hurtful truth that things have changed, and most of the things that changed weren’t necessarily for the good. After sometime thinking I can clearly see that I too have changed. I am no longer the little boy playing in the dirt or protecting my sneakers from mud. I have grown. I have allowed many principles and beliefs to be built on the fields of my heart, I have allowed faith to transform my dirty past into a smooth beautiful future, but most importantly, I have not allowed the trials and challenges in life to steal the wealth of working together, the wealth of concern and care, and the wealth of love away from me. Although John’s Island has changed drastically and lost some of it’s true identity, apart of what it was is apart of who I am and I will never lose that. I am Home.
Weblog 2: Dirt Roads and Dirty Sneakers…I’m Home
February 5, 2008 by Jeremiah
2 Responses
Leave a Reply
-
Recent Posts
-
Recent Comments
-
Top Clicks
- None
-
Blog Stats
- 274 hits
the world sure is going to hell in a handbasket. i think that’s a quote from Colonel Potter (fictional character of M*A*S*H). it sounds colorful to me. i suppose the “in a handbasket” infers a casual nature as in nobody is noticing it or nobody cares or it’s just a done deal and the only thing left is for the ink to dry.
let’s face facts. we know sacrifices must be made if good things are to be preserved. the trouble is that we want someone else to make the sacrificing. also consider that we are all just too geedy for our good. some gobble up real estate, others virgin land, others virgins, evryone oil, fish, cell phones and the list goes on. i think it’s hilarious how people once were all in a tizzy about radiation from cell phones while mercury levels in the worlds food chains is on the rise. and don’t get me started about all the billions of discarded cell phones and personal radios and TVs, PCs, handhelds and other semiconductor devices that poison the earth with semiconductors such as arsenic, germanium, and others.
how much do we really treasure the tokens of our past?
hey check out my new 28 inchers. see how i roll.
This is a good blog! I could picture the country and the trees! i bet it was a nice place to grow up! Thanks for sharing that memory with me!! It is sad when a place changes for the worse, and it happens often. Can’t wait to read your essay!