Catfish Alley by Lynne Bryant Read Free Book Online

about as rude as a man can be.
    Would
it have been so difficult for Del to let us take a quick look at his warehouse?
You'd think he would be happy to be involved in the pilgrimage. It's not going to
hurt him any. All it involves is a historical marker and a few brochures. But
he sure doesn't see it that way. He acts like if people know the first black
school was on his property, he'll lose business.
    I
wonder what it must have been like for a six-year-old girl to walk all the way
from Pecan
Cottage to Clarksville every day. I know she and her brother went through the
woods, but I clocked the distance on my odometer from my house in town and it
came to a little over six miles. Amazing. A lot of those children had even
farther to go, and without shoes. I remember getting on the school bus in the
bayou before the sun was up and riding for an hour each way, but at least I
didn't have to walk.
    Grace has coffee waiting for me again.
    "Where are we going today?" I ask.
    "I have something special planned for us. We're
going to visit my old friend Adelle Jackson. Adelle lives downtown on Fifth
Avenue North. Her father was the first black doctor in town, Dr. Albert
Jackson."
    Good. Now we're getting somewhere. This has got to be
better than some warehouse full of lumber. People might actually want to see a
house. I try to remember the location. It seems like I dropped Ola Mae off at
her cousin's in that area a few times.
    "Let's see now ... Fifth Avenue North ... I know
that street. Isn't there a church on that street, too?"
    "Yes, the Missionary Union Baptist Church."
    Our drive into Clarksville is quiet, as usual. Grace
always seems to be lost in her own thoughts. I
wonder if that's the case for most people her age. My mama didn't live much
past sixty and I never knew my grandmother, so I don't have much experience
with the elderly. Well, except for Mrs. Stanley, but that was so long ago. And
then there's delivering the church food boxes. But most of those people are on
death's doorstep. Grace Clark's memories always seem as fresh as today's bread.
I'm surprised by the number of details she can remember. I decide to break the
silence with a question.
    "Was this man your doctor when you were a
child?"
    "You might say that, although I don't remember
needing a doctor much as a child. Dr. Jackson and his wife, Anna Lee, lived in
the back of his mother's house on Catfish Alley for years. During that time he
and one helper built the house you'll see today. Then he opened up his medical
practice there." She pauses and stares out the window. "Gracious, the
black folks were proud of that man."
    Following Grace's directions, I turn on Fifth Avenue
North. We drive past an old clapboard church, several nondescript cottages, and
finally pull up in front of a redbrick Queen Anne-style house with white gingerbread trim.
Wide brick steps lead to a deep front porch that runs the entire width of the
house. The porch extends out around a large bay window and three baskets
stuffed full of trailing pink petunias hang overhead. The front door is wide
and I think it's probably mahogany. It looks hand-hewn.
    The
house seems a little neglected. The shutters are loose in some places and the
paint is chipping. The shrubs are overgrown and the flower beds need weeding.
But I am pleased with the potential. With a little care, this place could be
beautiful. Funny, in all of my years in Clarksville, I have never noticed this
house before.
    As
I get out of the car, I see two black women and several children watching me
from the porch of the house across the street. They are probably curious about
why I'm visiting in this part of town. It still feels odd to me to be
chauffeuring a black woman around. Whites and blacks don't mix socially in
Clarksville. I remember when my school in the bayou was integrated. I was in
the sixth grade. Even then, I had goals for myself and I knew better than to
mix with blacks. By then I had been going to the Stanleys' during the