Transatlantic Zeppelin

« The "D" in political science stands for "Democrat," huh? | Main | Saying all of George Carlin's seven words »

June 11, 2005

Meeting in a pea patch

A friend recently sent a copy of Spirit of Harlem: A Portrait of America's Most Exciting Neighborhood. The title is a bit self-aggrandizing; there might be more exciting neighborhoods, but perhaps none more famous than Harlem.

Spirit of Harlem covers stories from living Harlemites, both life-long residents and recent arrivals. Evelyn Cunningham writes:

In 1960, Cuba's Fidel Castro stayed at the Hotel Theresa [at 125th & 7th], and Russian premier Nikita Krushchev came to visit him. ... I got a room on the same floor as Castro, and I ran up and down the hallway, with a pencil and paper, hoping to get an interview. One day, I came out of my room and there were dozens of chickes in the hallway. Live chickens, running and clucking. Castro's people had brought them from Cuba for him to eat. I interviewed Castro in the hallway for a brief moment before his guards rushed him along.

Isabel Powell, age 93, and first wife of Abyssinan's famous Rev. Adam Clayton Powell recalls:

There was a Jewish diamond merchant on the corner of 125th and 7th, right where the state office building named for Adam stands today. The owner liked Adam. He told Adam, he said, "You can either have a donation of a thousand dollars or this diamond ring." The man said he smuggled the diamond out of Nazi Germany in his rectum. It was five carats. Adam took the ring and gave it to me when he proposed, this very right I have on my finger. From the ass of a Jew to my finger. ...

Adam and I were married twelve years. I was never made so happy. But then Adam met Hazel Scott. She was a famous jazz singer and actress. I was hurt, not agnry. Fredi, my sister, insisted that I leave Adam when I found out. So I went to Reno and got a divorce. I never talked to him about it. I just went. I've got a copy of the Amsterdam News that shows me sitting at the train station. The headline says, "Going to Reno to Divorce the Best Husband in the World." I used to tell everyone that: "Adam's the best husband in the world." And he was. If I had a lick of sense, I would never have divorced him. People say to me, "But he had a woman on the side." I say, "What husband doesn't?"

There are several stories of people coming up from the South and seeing Harlem for the first time. Sylvia Woods, identified as a "restaurant owner," recollects how she met her husband of 57 years and later established Harlem's most famous soul-food restaurant:

In 1937, I met Herbert Woods in a bean patch in Hemingway, South Carolina. I was 11 and Herbert was 12. We were picking green peas, and had our eyes on each other all day long. ...

Herbert and I lived on opposite ends of a dirt road, so he couldn't carry my books home after school. We'd walk backward and wave frantically to each other. He'd smile and say, "Bye." I'd smile and say, "Bye." ... One time, I tripped and fell in a puddle. Herbert pretended like he didn't see.

Despite their parents' best efforts, Herbert and Sylvia got married during the War.

Not long after we settled in Harlem, Herbert got a job driving a taxi, and I applied for a job as a waitress at Johnson's Luncheonette on Lenox & 126th St. I told Mr. Johnson that I worked at a restaurant back home. But he knew I was lying. Mr. Johnson was a black man from Charleston, South Carolina, and he knew that Hemingway had just one restaurant, and it was segregated. He gave me a job anyway. I worked there for 8 years, saving and saving, before Mr. Johnson approached me one day. He said, "Sylvia, how'd you like to buy the restaurant from me?" That was 1962, and that was the beginning of Sylvia's.

I'll make another entry at some point with more recent stories from Harlem.

Posted by adrianjo at June 11, 2005 01:19 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.innogize.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/188

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Meeting in a pea patch:

» personals from Jane
personals online dating personals online dating [Read More]

Tracked on March 3, 2006 07:14 AM

» Life Insurance from Life Insurance
Life Insurance :: Life Insurance is a niceblog. [Read More]

Tracked on March 11, 2006 03:57 PM

Comments

Post a comment