Summer’s here! Today’s students barely get the whole summer off like we did. For us kids from the 1960s, the end of May meant no more teachers and no more rules. We’d be out of school until the first Tuesday after Labor Day in September. Nowadays, parents have to start their back-to-school shopping in July, in anticipation of a new school year that begins in August. Hey, you 21st century kids, eat your hearts out! I hope you’re at least learning more than we did.
I have to say, too, your summer vacations don’t look anything like ours. For one thing, nobody sees you. Where the heck are ya’? In my old East Hattiesburg neighborhood, June through August, the streets were filled with children playing outside. iPhones, iPads and, oh yeah, social media were nothing more than a dream in some future tech guy’s head. In the 60s, we had to use our own imaginations to keep us busy and having fun — outdoors! And oh boy, did we ever.
I think about my old neighborhood a lot this time of year because summer was such a special time for us. Situated northeast of Bouie Street, bordered by the Leaf River, my part of town was known as the “Goula” and I’m still waiting on someone to explain how we got that nickname. The Goula was also sometimes called “The Bottom,” another nickname I never quite figured out. I was told once that it was tied to the economic status of the residents who lived there but that wouldn’t be totally accurate. True, those Black residents who were a little more monied lived “cross town,” as we called it. Living in cross town neighborhoods like Pineview, next door to Vernon Dahmer Park, meant your family had reached top-of-the-line economic status in Hattiesburg’s Black community.
That’s not to dismiss my side of town. The Goula and the neighborhoods near it, along Mobile and Seventh Streets had their own share of Black professionals. And, of course, historic Mobile Street, then an extension of downtown Hattiesburg, was lined with Black owned businesses, bustling with activity, day and night. Mt. Carmel Baptist Church, Hattiesburg’s first Black congregation, anchored Mobile Street in its original and historic location. And just around the corner on Sixth Street was Eureka Elementary School, which began its life as the first public school built for Black students in Mississippi, constructed from brick.
I was a student at Eureka which, by then, was no longer a high school but an elementary school. I had a perfect attendance record and never missed a single day of school, grades 1-6, making me all the more eager for the freedom of those summer months. Oh, the fun we had and the things we got into.
Our idea of fun was a lot simpler then. We’d have impromptu races down dusty old Fairley Street, where my family lived. Back then, Fairley and many of the streets in the Goula were dirt roads, Mississippi red clay mixed with gravel served as “pavement.” There were no parks in our part of town, but we’d turn any open field into a softball park. One of our favorite ball fields was on Sixth Street, just behind the former Shemper Salvage, now SA Recycling on Bouie. Shemper’s was a neighborhood eyesore. Drive down Sixth Street from Bouie and you’d see, literally, mountains of junked cars piled for blocks, one on top of another. It was the view residents on Sixth Street woke up to each morning, but we didn’t let it get in the way of our fun. We just played ball!
You could also take a shortcut to downtown Hattiesburg from our makeshift ballpark which meant crossing through the abandoned Central Shop, which once functioned as a busy railway service yard. We’d climb onto giant pieces of abandoned railway equipment, explore old offices and throw rocks to scatter the flocks of chimney sweeps that lived there. Hey, we were kids — that’s the kind of thing we did!
In the 1960s, money was harder to come by and most of us kids didn’t get a weekly allowance, so we found ways to make money on our own. That included being paid to run errands to Williams Grocery Store, which sat at the corner of Seventh and Fairley Streets. The store was owned by a white family, serving our Black community, common in old Hattiesburg. Some of the adults in the neighborhood might pay you a nickel to go to the “sto” for them, the way we pronounced “store” back then. A nickel doesn’t sound like much, I know. But in 1966, it’d go a long way. At Mr. Williams’s sto, they kept big plastic containers filled with loose two-for-a-penny cookies on the counter and a nickel would get you ten of them. Such a deal! Even better, there were a couple of folks who might give you a whole dime for running an errand so you could get ten cookies and a bottle of ice-cold Nehi soda to wash them down.
One of our favorite things to do during the summer required no money, though. Back then, downtown’s Saenger Theater was a full-time premier movie house, where you went to see the latest Hollywood blockbusters. The Saenger would feature free movies for us out of school kids. Well, it wasn’t quite “free.” Admission required six RC Cola bottle caps, which were like gold during the summer months.
We’re talking the mid-1960s so, of course, things were different then. Black kids and, in fact, even those adults going to see a movie had to enter the Saenger through a side entrance in the alley. The main lobby was for whites only. At the Hattiesburg Pocket Museum, you’ll notice that part of the wall has newer bricks, which is where the “Colored Entrance” used to be. From there, we’d walk up a narrow stairway to the balcony where Black moviegoers were required to sit. Looking back, we simply accepted it all as “the way things are,” as my mother once explained to me. Nonetheless, it didn’t get in the way of our air-conditioned fun, as we watched King Kong take on Godzilla.
And speaking of air-conditioning, it was a luxury most people couldn’t afford. Those families who had a little money might buy an 8,000 BTU air conditioner from the Western Auto to help keep the house cool. It’d be placed in a window, and I can still see that drip-drip-drip of water that came from the back of the air conditioner as it was running. But more often than a window A/C, you were much more likely to see window fans in most homes.
One thing you can say about us is that we weren’t spoiled, not like these kids today. Uh-oh, looks like I’ve turned into one of those grouchy old folks we used to see sitting on their front porches. “You kids today just don’t know how hard we had it!” Okay, so we may not have worked the cotton fields like our ancestors but hey, we didn’t mind getting up early in the morning to catch a bus that took workers of all ages to the cucumber fields in the Springfield community. It’d be scorching hot yanking those cucumbers from the vines, but a hard day’s work could easily put three bucks in your pocket. That was a tiny fortune for a teenager in 1969.
Nope, we didn’t have much but, you know what? We had each other. We didn’t spend summer vacations sitting on our bums entranced by a smartphone, living our lives on social media. We were too busy using our imaginations and, yes, our bodies to have fun. I’m betting we were in better shape, physically, than today’s children, thanks to the physical activity that kept us moving all day.
I’d wager we were better off psychologically, too. We did just fine without the Internet and today’s array of electronic gadgetry. We spent our time getting to know each other, playing with each other and, okay, there was the occasional fight — but we’d always make up. There are plenty of good things to say about those summers of fun growing up in the 60s. Not to mention the life lessons learned, experiencing the real world around us.
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Elijah Jones is a proud Hattiesburg native who enjoys writing. Email him at edjhubtown@aol.com.
