The Silent Dreamer. Johnny Martinez-Carroll
It was in rural Central Texas. The front door had no lock, no deadbolt. We had no worries of being robbed. That was life on the farm in the late ’60s. I remember going to bed, and we slept with no worries. On the front porch during the summer, we always had watermelons that lined up. My uncle grew the best and biggest garden I had ever seen. Even until this day, his garden would be the best—the biggest tomatoes, squash, okra, you name it. He could grow it. The summers were hot, but I never remember wearing shoes the entire summer. Walking to the bus stop seemed likes miles, especially for a young kid on a cold rainy day. I would wear my rain boots and leave them there and change shoes.
Waiting on the bus seemed like hours. I would live in this small house for many years until I was eleven or twelve years old. If you worked on this farm, you could live there rent free. You only paid for utilities. My uncle worked there, and we lived with him—my mother and my two sisters. People lived there, worked there, and some never moved away. If they did, it wasn’t far. I would be one of those who didn’t go far. I would remain close by for many years; eventually, I would move away from the farm.
When it would rain, it rained for days, a slow rain that would last throughout the night. I cannot ever remember it raining in the house. The roof was metal, so you could hear it all night. I can still hear that sound. It never rains like that anymore. My mother would cook tortillas every day; the smell of them burning on the stove top would welcome us home from school. I remember eating them hot straight from the stove with butter spread on them! We would eat in the living room, on the couch, or on the floor watching television. We had no dining room area in the house. Winters would be very cold in the house. The living room would be the warmest room in the house. The heater which was butane gas would burn all day long, and if it was cold, it would burn also all night. I can remember it being so cold that a pail of water that was on the kitchen table for drinking would freeze solid on the table inside the house. I can remember that this was not a house you would invite friends to come over for the night. Mother did the best she could to provide for us. We always had what we needed, and she always had love for us. I always felt loved. I learned at an early age that working in the cotton fields, there is a sense of accomplishment at the end of the row. Then you turn around, and the journey begins again.
I was around thirteen when I went out to the fields to work, but I recall even at a younger age around six or seven going to the fields with my mother as she worked. I would stay under the truck bed that took the workers to the fields. I would play under the truck all day while the women worked in the cotton fields.
The term chopping cotton wasn’t to literally chop the cotton stalk down. It was to eliminate the weeds from the plant. I can remember one summer, the sunflowers grew wild. Some were bigger than a basketball is round; they took over the fields. Never once while being in the hot cotton fields did I ever think about going to college. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure I would finish high school. By the age of fourteen, I had done all you could possibly do to a cotton plant, except pick it. I never did pick cotton. These cotton fields are filled with stories from the people who worked them. They worked hard for very little money; they raised their families in these fields. If the ground could talk, what tales would they tell? Women who worked the fields with my mother would bring me food to eat, food such as hard-boiled eggs and roasted corn on the cob. They always fed me like I was one of their own kids. The ground had a certain smell as it was turned for planting. The smell of fresh turned ground is still in my memory. The smell of cotton as it was picked would be in the air as well; it had a smell of freshness. Cotton would line the side of the highways as trailers took the cotton to the local cotton gins to be bailed. I can remember playing in the front yard, usually with a stick for a toy or with a teddy bear I had back then which I named Eddie. I can recall leaving the bear out in the rain for several days, and he was never the same bear. I always wanted a bike as a kid. Neither my sisters or myself had a bike to ride. I wondered what it would be like to own a bike. My first bike would be a huge bike that was purchased from a resale shop and it was a girl’s bike! My first real bike would come years later that I purchased with my own money from working in the fields. It was a proud moment for me, a boy and his first bike. It doesn’t get any better. The bike was grey in color, ten speeds with the curved handle bars. I remember keeping it in my room and cleaning it every day after it had been ridden. Yeah, I was proud of it. I was not going to have it stolen from me.
Like many things that I wanted as a kid, I purchased on my own. I worked in the hot cotton fields, and with my own hard-owned money, I bought my school supplies and school clothes. I did this for several summers. I can remember saving money to buy my first real radio with tape recorder. I love listening to music, and to this day, I still listen to music every day just to relax. I can still recall growing up on this cotton plantation, the smell of cotton in the air when it was cotton picking time, growing up with hardly anyone who was doing any better than you were. Everyone was poor; everyone did without. We all had the same issues—no running water, no money, no ambition to really improve oneself. This is the life you knew, the hand of cards you were dealt. One thing about growing up in poverty is, you are not alone. Others on that plantation are just as poor as you are. Some are doing much worse than you are; everyone can relate.
I can recall visiting other houses, and none were better than ours. Let’s just say you didn’t invite many people over; you didn’t want others to see how bad you were living. I can recall that most of my childhood growing up, I was embarrassed of how we lived. We had so little. God, we had hardly anything, but we were loved and Momma did the best she could. She made meals with so little. She would sew and wash our clothes. We didn’t even know just how poor we were as kids! A skillet of potatoes was a meal; a pot of beans, another meal. We never wore dirty clothes to school, never! Some of our clothes were bought from a guy who would come around selling used clothes from the bed of his truck. A peddler, we called him. He sold clothing items, pots, and pans. There was also another peddler who came around selling fruit and vegetables from his truck as well. He even had a scale to weigh the items. We bought fruit, but we grew our own vegetables as most people back then had a garden and grew their own. Margaret and Mary, my two sisters I grew up with at home, slept with my mother while I had my own room. Not much of a room, but I had my own bed, dresser, and my music. I have always loved music. It’s always been my escape, even today. I listen to music daily to unwind and relax. Maggie and Mary played with dolls, and I played with a box that I pulled along with a string! Made like it was a car, dust flying everywhere, early years on Porter’s Farm. We would also climb this tree in our front yard.
I am fifty-seven years old, and that tree is in that same location today! Porter’s Farm was a cotton farm or former plantation. There were lots of farms like this one in the area where families lived and worked there rent free because they were employed there. Each would have a commissary that sold supplies and groceries to the families that lived there, kind of like a store. You could charge your supplies on a tab and pay it later or on payday. I can hardly remember my family shopping there, but I am sure we did. Everyone living there did; it was a way of life back then. I have to mention my uncle Bennie, my mom’s uncle. We lived with him more than he lived with us. He worked on the farm, a man of many talents, carpenter, and gardener. Uncle Bennie could grow anything. His parents were known as Momma and Papa on the farm. I never knew them, just heard stories about them, like I heard that Papa could grow peaches the size of grapefruits! The stories I heard about my great-grandfather and great-grandmother on my mom’s side said that they were both well-known and well-spoken about among the people who lived there on the farm. I guess that is where Uncle Bennie got his green thumb. I knew this man to literally grow anything from squash to peanuts to the biggest watermelons on the farm! Uncle Bennie would work all day and then come home and spend another two hours in his garden before he came in the house for dinner. I recall Uncle Bennie killing the biggest chicken snake that I have ever seen in the house! I remember the wood floor being stained with blood for years! My first pet that I can recall was a cat that I named Roosevelt Franklin after a Sesame Street puppet.
2
Education Wasn’t Important
I am the son of parents who both had very little in education. My father had a third-grade education, and my mother had a seventh-grade education. My mom went to school at public school during the times of segregation here locally. My dad went to an old school house