I hadn't really wanted to move back to Bartlett after spending the summer in Calgary, but I soon adjusted to being back home. For one thing, I was back in public school for the first time since 1980, going to Bartlett High School as a sophomore, and I soon made friends with some of the football players, including the star running back Jessie Yancey, who was a senior, but was playing his very first year of varsity football. At 5 feet, 6 inches and 155 pounds, he had been considered too little, but he had played junior varsity for three years, and was quite tough. He and I met at a JV game, and before long we were hanging out. Through him, I met Eugene West, Dennis Person, Randy Mickens and others, many of whom lived out in the same rural community that he lived in.
I didn't know the name of the community along Appling, Ellis and Germantown Roads where they all lived back then, but it occurs to me now that the area must have been called Oak Grove. Certainly that was name of the Black church along Highway 64, and there had once been a Black elementary school beside it, also called Oak Grove. I soon was spending many an afternoon out there, both after school and on weekends, and although it wasn't close to my house at all, I was usually down to walk out there, or ride my bike. Stage Road changed into Highway 64 at Summer (the intersection was called Shelby Center in those days), and the road was only two lanes east of Summer. There were lots of woods, and farm houses. When I would get to Appling Road, the first house on the right was little more than a sharecropper's shack, but Michael Branch and his older brother Stanley Branch lived there. Further down on the same side was Dennis Person's house, then Angela Crutchfield's (her younger brother Lynard people called "Prunie Mane" for some reason-he went on to become a star football player and later a coach), Darrel Pugh's and Wayne Williamson's. The first house on the left was Jessie's, which he shared with his mother Fannie Lou, his sister Tammy, and his older brothers Leo, Leon and Jerry (Jerry moved to Detroit that fall). Orgill Road branched off to the east there, and further up, Ellis Road, where Angie Carraway lived on the corner. Down Ellis were more friends of mine- Terrance Kelley, James Chaffin (whom Jessie called "Ralla", but that might have been the way he said "Rattler"), and Byron and Sharon Cross. On the corner of Ellis and Germantown Road was Randy Mickens' house. There were no stores in the community, although there probably had been at one time, but there was another oddity: a privately-owned baseball and softball field, just south of Ellis Road along the east side of Germantown Road (which was also a wooded, two-lane road in those days). I didn't know then (but do now, of course) that such Black-owned ball fields were extremely important in rural Black communities. They were not merely used for ball games, but also for family reunions and picnics, and occasionally for the picnics sponsored by social clubs and fraternal lodges that featured the fife and drum bands. I soon knew just about everyone my age along those roads, and they knew me. And hanging out there, learning the ways of that community was one of the most fun times of my life.
Of course, Wolfchase Mall wasn't even thought of then, and the area where it now stands was nothing but woods. Across the street, around what is now Giacosa Lane was a large farm that belonged to the Viglio family, and several Black families lives in old houses on that property, including one of the football players at Bartlett, Warren Lurry. It was still very much a rural community, and on one occasion, hanging on the front porch at Jessie's house (the address was 3231 Appling Road- the site is now some industrial plant), I heard the sound of drums beating at a distance. Joking with me, Jessie said there was "a tribe" back in the woods beating the drums. I later learned that something was going on at either Ellendale or Brunswick, and have always wondered if this was the last of fife-and-drum activity associated with the Independent Pole-Bearers Society at Brunswick.
Another comfort during the long autumn with my Dad away in Canada was the opening of a new barbecue restaurant on Stage Road called Bubba's BBQ. "Bubba" was Thomas Farley, a former basketball coach at Bartlett High School, who was currently the assistant principal for discipline. Located in the building that later became Easy Way Foods, Bubba's sent so much smoke into the surrounding area that the air often turned blue, and the delicious smell could be detected for miles. I had learned to love barbecue at a place called the Boar's Back Inn (now Brad's BBQ), but that place had since turned into a meat-and-three place, so Bubba's opening was just what I had asked for. And on one of my first visits there, I had met an employe that looked so much like Jessie Yancey that I had to ask him if they were kin. As fate would have it, he was Leon Yancey, Jessie's older brother. Whenever I had extra money, I would eat there, and sometimes I would invite Jessie to go with me. Ultimately, rumor had it that the Shelby County school board took a dim view of a school principal owning a restaurant and hiring school students (or their older brothers and sisters) to work there. At any rate, sometime in 1984, Mr. Farley sold it to a couple from Virginia, who ran it for a couple of months and then shut it down.
Friday nights would find me at the stadium on the Bartlett High School campus. Not only did I enjoy the marching band, but we were having quite a football season thanks to Jessie Yancey. Our team had been predicted to be good, but this was before an injury to our starting quarterback in the pre-season. But because Jessie hadn't played varsity-level ball before, opposing teams were not familiar with him at all. And because he was so short, his center of gravity was extremely low, and it was hard to legally tackle him. Furthermore, he was amazingly fast. So Bartlett's game plan was remarkably simple- hand the ball off to Jessie on nearly every play. Although teams eventually knew what was coming, few had an answer for Jessie's speed and strength. It was fun to watch us win and win, week after week. Occasionally, I would also walk up to watch freshman and junior varsity games. They occurred on other nights of the week, but there usually wasn't much else going on, and sometimes friends like Jessie or Eugene would be up there.
Because I had enrolled late, I had been placed in beginning chorus, but the director, Edward Riddick, was cool about allowing me to try out for All-West Tennessee chorus, and ultimately I made it. This really started my love affair with choral music, that continues to this day. By the end of September, I was thoroughly at home again, and involved in a lot of new activities and friendships.
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