Rodney
Paterson native Rodney experienced houslessness after a car accident. He was able to find housing through Triple C Housing and has found a community at Elijah’s Project.
Annotations
Learn More : “2020 Point in Time (PIT) Survey: Coming Home Data Analysis.” Coming Home of Middlesex County, Inc., July 2020.
Learn More : “About Us.” Triple C Housing, Inc., accessed 2020.
Learn More : “New Jersey Code Blue.” NJ 2-1-1, United Ways of New Jersey, accessed 2020.
Learn More [2] : VanTol, Victoria. “Why Don’t Homeless People Just Go Home to Their Family?” Awareness, Invisible People, June 4, 2020.
Learn More [2] : VanTol, Victoria. “Why Don’t Homeless People Just Go Home to Their Family?” Awareness, Invisible People, June 4, 2020.
Learn More [2] : Khazan, Olga. “Not White, Not Rich, and Seeking Therapy.” The Atlantic, June 1, 2016.
TRANSCRIPT
Interview conducted by Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan
New Brunswick , NJ
February 14, 2020
Transcription by Allison Baldwin
Annotations by Emily Borowski
00:00:00
Okay, fantastic. All right, so, um, just for the sake of the, the data on the recorder, I'm gonna say I'm sitting here with Rodney at Elijah's Promise in New Brunswick on Neilson Street. It is February 14th at roughly one o'clock. Um, and we're here to - to hear about your stories and anything about your life experience that you wanna share. Um, we tend to start off with asking just a couple of basic questions, but if you like, if there's something that you really want to make sure you say first, um, some place you want to start, go ahead. [short pause] If you'd rather I start with questions, I can do that too. Sure, okay. Fantastic. Um, so some of the kind of baseline information that we like to ask is where you were born, how old you are.
Um, Paterson, New Jersey; I'm fifty-one years old.
Okay, fantastic. I love Paterson.
Mhm.
I like to go up - visit the Great Falls. Nice up there. All right, and, um, where are you staying currently?
In Edison.
In Edison. Okay. In a home, in a shelter?
Apartment.
Apartment. Okay, fantastic, excellent. On your own or with anybody else?
By myself.
Okay. Great, great. And, um, let's see, what are some of the other things we're asking. Um, do you have any particular field in which you generally worked in the past?
Um...
Currently?
I used to - I used to work in a kitchen at a nursing home.
Mhm.
I worked on -
Cooking, or...[inaudible]?
Cooking [crosstalk] yeah, little bit of both.
Okay.
Different places. I worked at um, a college, um, cook kitchen, I actually cooked there before. Um, I did uh, maintenance, um, that's basically it, maintenance, and a little [inaudible] when I was a teenager, but that's about it.
Sure. [Inaudible] All right. And did you finish high school?
Yes.
Okay. And in Paterson?
Yes.
Okay.
East Side.
Excellent. So when did you leave Paterson?
About fifteen years ago.
Okay. And came straight here to Edison?
No, Piscataway.
Piscataway.
I was in Piscataway for a little while.
Do you wanna tell me a little bit about your childhood, about growing up in Paterson, and then coming here, going to Piscataway?
Um....um, I grew up in a big family, um, I had a lot of fun up there, you know, when I was, you know, cuz I have a lot of friend - a lot of kid - I grew up in a neighborhood where there was a whole lot of kids, it was...now that I think about it, I remember it being real fun. Um, eh, I [always had?] a regular life [00:02:39]
At the beginning, you know, and once I got older, I had my little challenges, got in trouble a little bit. Stuff like that, but I have a lot of good memories up there. A lot of good memories of the the family, you know, but I don’t see them that much more now, everybody scattered.
So, extended family nearby? Or mostly just immediate family? Parents, siblings.
I have extended. Cousins and everything up there.
Are they all still living up there?
Not all of them. Some of them moved down from different states and stuff, but there’s still a lot there.
So, what brought you to move down to the Piscatway/Edison/New Brunswick area?
Well, I almost [inaudible} when I ended up homeless, because I was in a car accident years ago, I had a friend that lived down this way and they asked me to move with them, they suggested. I was up with them for a little while and then ended up homeless after that and then I, um, I got introduced to the lady from a program around here--I don’t remember the name of it--and she met me. She said, to me, she said she approached me about retiring and she said, “Before I retire, I’m going to find you somewhere to live. And that’s how it happened.
[ Annotation 1 ]
Wow.
And then everything has been happening for me ever since, like a domino effect.
Would you mind talking a little bit more about how you got to that place? You said, you mentioned a car accident led to you becoming homeless.
Yeah. Because I had lost my job and everything and, uh, I lost a lot.
Injuries from the accident?
Yeah. You know, it was hard for me to do my job like before and, you know, I broke up, a break up, it’s just everything happened all at once. So, for this one person that looked out for me, they didn’t even know me that long and they suggested for me to come down here. To live with them [inaudible].I guess really, they, meeting them changed my life a lot. Everything changed since I’ve been down here, you know, I was staying in a park before. But, um, a lot happened since I’ve been down here. Like I said, it changed my life forever since I’ve been down here. I met, you know Triple Cs. It was like the one lady, the lady that said that before she retired she was going to help me out, I went with her and then she took me to Triple C and then Triple C chose to give me an apartment. And then everything started coming after that and now I’m actually not at Triple C, now I have Section 8. It all came behind each other, the connection, and life got a lot better. And so, I’ve been living on my own for, it’s about eight years now. Yup. Eight years.
[ Annotation 2 ]
While you were in that transitional phase, was there ever a time when you didn’t have anywhere to stay at all?
Yeah. When I was in the park. That’s what I was talking about, when I was in the park. That time for a while.
Which park was that?
Johnson Park. In Piscataway. I moved around a little bit, but I wasn’t homeless that long. You know, I ended up homeless a few times. I ended up staying at a shelter one time, but that was only for a month. But, like I said, after all of that, you know…
How long was that?
Uh. Months. Probably about a year. Almost a year. Something like that.
Because of cold weather?
Yeah, but you know, what I’ve learned over time, stuff like that, you go places to get warm. You learn to adjust because you don’t want to be out in the cold so you go somewhere like a hospital so you go somewhere like a hospital, sit in the emergency room. Do little things to keep yourself warm. Because at first, I still didn’t know a lot about down here. I know most about Paterson, so I made my way up there where I know where everything is at. You know, but a lot of times my family didn’t even know where I was at because I was too ashamed to tell them. And that one time my sister found out, she got real mad at me. She didn’t even..she was like why didn’t you tell us man? There was a lot of stuff I never told anybody. Because of myself. (Kept it to myself.)
[ Annotation 3 ] [ Annotation 4 ]
Were you able to find food while you were looking for warmer places to be as well? How did you...did you come here?
Mhmm. Yeah, I came here. Um, you know, met new people. Sometimes, that person I used to live with, they were still nice to me even though I wasn’t staying with them no more, so sometimes we would wash clothes, stuff like that. But, um, being that I was on social security and stuff, that still helped, you know.
[ Annotation 5 ]
Did it help you find supplies…?
Right. Like I said, everything I know now, I learned about soup kitchens, I learned about food banks. Stuff I never even knew when I was in Paterson. Since I’ve been here I’ve learned all of that kind of stuff and I was amazed from it, that I didn’t know all the stuff that existed. Because, you know, if you’re not put in a situation, you just don’t know. I learned so much since I’ve been here and it’s amazing, so, what I do, what I learned I teach other people. I help other people the same way. I find someone in my situation and they ask me, I say, you can do this, you can do that. I don’t mind doing that, because I know how it feels.
Right. Is that one of the reasons that you come here then. To chat with people?
Sometimes it is, if something come up or sometimes people that know me have already asked me. Or when i come here, I know Marisol already before she came here, so if I help [inaudible} with something I’ll come and tell her and you know, I still go to some of the people I know if there’s something I need help with. You know? So, it is what it is. I never turn nobody away when they ask me questions like that, when they need it. It’s up to you to do it or not. Some of them don’t do it. They say they’ll do it, they want it, but they don’t do it. You know, I like to give back. One time I went to this shelter, I had all these cereal boxes and I brought it to them. The guy didn’t remember me, I just wanted to give back because you all gave to me. I’m thankful. I’m thankful.
So, it was satisfying to be able to do that?
Yeah. Yeah. It is. You know, when I’m in Patterson, I don’t feel like eating something, I stop at one of the guys and I’m like, “Yo, you want something to eat?” And that’s the kind of person I am.
Do you go back up to visit?
Yeah. I go to Paterson a lot. I slowed down a little bit because, you know, my health and stuff like that, I can’t get around as much, arthritis and stuff, but, um, I still go up. That’s my main home. I go see everybody, see somebody. Or just to get away.
10:00
Can you tell me a little bit more of what you think about when you think of Paterson as your home and some of your experiences from growing up there?
To just put it in different words, um. Family. Friends. People. Relationships. Times of fun. Lots of heartache. Different things. Like I said, full circle, it’s like home. I’ve gotten used to it. Even though it’s gotten real bad now. But that doesn’t change that it’s still where I grew up at and you know, it feels good to go to some places I eat to eat that I miss, you know, the good food, oh man.
What kind of food?
Um. There’s a place in Paterson called Broadway Pizza downtown. It’s been around for so many years and that’s where I go get a slice at. And when you don’t have something around you, you’re like, oh man, I miss this. Oh another sandwich place, Torpedo Base, that’s been there since the sixties. Stuff like that, or, some other places people probably wouldn’t even think about going to eat. It could be like, “That place has the best food,” and people are like, “I don’t like the way it looks.” I had a girlfriend one time, she didn’t know much about the stuff, but she used to hear me talk about it and then when I brought her up there, she was like, “Oh my god, and it don’t even cost that much,” and I was like, “Told you.”
(laughter)
And the same thing she wanted to buy would be like twelve dollars or something and when she got up there, it was five and some change and she was like amazed and I said, “I told you. You have to come out here. You have to get around.” And she used to be like, “Well, when you’re going up there, bring me something back. Bring me some beef stew back.” And I’d be like, “I knew that was gonna happen.” (laughter) Yeah, so, a lot of good times. You know, it kind of bothered me to see how bad it is and, you know, but I don’t let that get me down. I still go. Like when the family do get together--we don’t do it often--Thanksgiving and stuff like that, but everybody is getting older, nobody’s really, everybody’s doing their own thing.
What’s the Thanksgiving gathering like?
A lot of laughing. Because I like to make jokes, so, you know, I’ve always been like that. So, when I come there I gotta make everybody laugh. Some people look forward to me making them laugh and I’m like...I say one thing and they just all start laughing. And I enjoy that. I think I enjoy making other people laugh more than myself. I always enjoyed that, making people laugh, even when I didn’t know them, I enjoyed that. I learned that over the years. I really enjoy seeing people laugh. I really enjoy that. Making people smile (unintelligible), it feels good to do it for other people.
Does one person host and cook or does everybody bring potluck style?
Well, it used to be that, sometimes we’d all bring something, but then, we used to cheat and not bring that much, and my sister would be like, “What did you bring?” And I would say, “Myself.” And, you know, we’ll laugh. You know, sometimes I’ll bring soda, or I’ll try because then she’d just look at me like, or she’d just laugh it off or whatever, but, you know, I know what she thinking inside. You know what it is, I like her cooking so much because her husband is like a chef and it’s like a restaurant when you go in there. I’m like, “If I bring my little corn with the little bit of butter on it, it’s like, ‘what’s the use?’ it’s probably going to sit in the corner anyway, so that’s how I see it. You know, and they, they always make this joke about how, when I go there...she says the food is always ready around three and she didn’t have it this year because she was sick or whatever, but I came at three and her husband started giggling and she said to me, “You know what my husband said? “I know he came and looked at the clock...he came at exactly three o’clock.’ I said, but I knew there wasn’t going to be food here, it just happened.’ And I always laugh it off. That’s always the joke. “Oh, he’ll be here.’ Just knock on the door, ring the doorbell, exactly at three. I said, I don’t be thinking about it. It just happens.
But they didn’t have it this year. I was disappointed about that. Any other holiday we might miss, but Thanksgiving we, that’s a definite, we’re going to be together. So, when there’s stuff like that, I had to sit home, no Thanksgiving, just by myself.
14:51
Hmm. Did you go anywhere for dinner?
Umm. No. I ended up cooking myself. And then for Christmas I didn’t do nothing either. One of my friends, he told me, no, you’re going by my house and I had never been by his house with his family. That was the first time. And they let me come over there and they played their cards and I felt so good about that. I said, I’m thankful that you did that for me, man. Because it really bothered me. Because if you had actually known my family when it was big and you see it like that now, you would be like, “No way, no way.’ Different people. Everybody got old and...everybody was always together, every year.
When did that change?
Years ago. But it just got slowly like, everybody separated slowly and then. Some holidays it don’t bother me at all because I just see it as another day. I just be glad to see another day, to go to sleep and wake up in the morning. Sometimes I try to push myself to find something, just not to be by myself. If they have, if they’re cooking here, I’ll just come here, get it out my system.
16:12
Are you working right now?
No. I’m on social security.
Are you able to find access to everything that you need right now? Housing…
Ummm. Pretty much. Pretty much. I’m all right for now. I was bad off for a little while. I had no car, phone went off, everything was, you know, I’m not gonna, I don’t want to say the name of the place..there’s a place that helps you pay your bills for you and I was told that I had to transfer to them in order to get support for something else that I needed to get paid, help, and it was like a nightmare. They didn’t pay those bills the right way. They paid too much on one bill, they screwed everything up and I’m still trying to recover from that. Right now. I’m just starting to get my money back. From them. So, I’m struggling a little bit now, but I’m okay. I’m not bad bad. I’m okay.
Do you have any particular goals for the next few years that you would like to see happen for yourself or for anyone else in your life?
My son. You know, I would like to see him because he’ll be like 20 something. He got in trouble a little bit. But I’m just hoping to see what happens now, now that he’s out (unintelligible) probation. I think the thing that would make me the most happy is to see him fine and getting it and do good. And that’s always been on my mind with him. And, as far as me, um, I’m kind of in a happy place and I will probably be happy if I meet somebody probably I can say that that’s in the back of my mind, but other than that, I’m okay. I’m in an okay place. I can’t complain. I’m pretty okay.
Does your son live nearby? Do you get to see him?
He lives in Patterson, but, um, I talked to him the other day. My phone was off all this time so, all I could do was text. It was an Obama phone and it ran out of minutes. The other one, I can’t, it costs too much to put back on at the moment. Which is one of the problems I was dealing with with the people. What it was, they sent me a text from the phone that for the Valentine’s weekend, they would give me free minutes just and I wasn’t so happy about that so I ended up calling and was like, “I have to talk to somebody man.” So, that’s until the 22 and then the regular minutes go. But, um, I always try to keep in touch with him, even if he don’t answer sometimes. That’s how he is sometimes. He’ll call me two days later “oh hey, hey, yeah,” that’s how he is. So, I’m kind of used to that, but, um, I’m going to try to go today. I don’t really have that much gas to go, but I’m trying to work out something. To go see him. I’m hoping that will work out.
Is that something that will get easier once the bill situation is straightened out?
Well...I have to fix the car. And, really, the car was supposed to get towed to Patterson, but my sister was going through something...I still don’t know what happened. She couldn’t do the Triple A to bring it up there. Because it was cheaper for me to fix in Patterson than here. So, I had no choice but to spend whatever it cost to fix it here and it took from other stuff. So, that’s how that’s going so.
That must be difficult with the fixed income then when bills like that come up. How do you deal with that?
20:00
Depends what’s...and I realize when I don’t have my car at all, that’s a problem, can’t make it to appointments. And it depends on how big the problem is. If it’s big, it’s all right, but if it’s too big, somebody has to stay home. Something has to happen. Or if the cable has to go off for a month, it has to go off. That’s the way I do it. But I hate my cable going off. I like my Netflix. I like watching my stuff that, you know, the new seasons of stuff. When I can’t watch, it drives me crazy. When I have to give that up, I’m really like, ugh, and that forces me to go out more. Which, I don’t like to go out that much, but it makes me go out more when I don’t want to. Because I’m bored. So, it’s a change. It’s something.
[ Annotation 6 ]
You mentioned it’s difficult to go out? Because of medical issues…
Yeah. I mean, I notice when I’m home I feel a lot safer. I feel more comfortable. When I’m outside, I feel like I am put in a place where I feel hopeless. I hate that feeling. That’s the feeling I get when I go out too too much. So, when I’m home everything is calm.
Can you say a little bit more about that? Do you know why you feel that way when you go out?
(unintelligible) I have problems and I’m still struggling with that. I’m trying to find another therapist. I found out my therapist don’t take my insurance no more. I just found that out today. So, after today I don’t have a therapist at all. That’s another thing. Now I’m worried about that and I gotta change to whole different people and I have been dealing with the same people for so many years...to have the change the whole, that hurt, that really hurt.
[ Annotation 7 ]
Is it difficult to navigate all of the paperwork and the bureaucracy with the insurance and what not?
Yeah. You’re dealing with all the questions, the same questions over again, and you’re like because the people I was dealing with have been the same people for so many years. You know when you gotta change the whole system, with something like that, you’re like, “no, no.” You know, I’ve been dealing with the same people since the beginning. All these years I’ve been down here and I can’t deal with them no more and that really hurts.
Did you have access to those kinds of medical services while you were living in Johnson park or did that come later?
All of that came later. All that came later. Yeah, mostly everything came later. Like I said, it started from the lady giving me the apartment and then everything came rolling like (unintelligible) right behind each other. And that’s why I know so much about it now. And I learned, stuff I didn’t even know existed. I was really blessed that stuff happened. Sometimes when I look at my house, walk into my apartment, I can’t believe it, like, “Wow, I’ve come a long way.” I came a long way. Yup.
Do you have any particular memories, things that bring up your memories, when you are in the apartment? Things that help you think about that?
Think about?
Where you’ve come from? The progress that you have made. Are there particular things that trigger that memory?
That’s...the way you say that...it’s almost like you know stuff that I don’t know you know. They way you’re saying it. Because I had someone else ask me that and I explained to them when they asked me that. Things like that. Because when I first moved there, I liked to have things in my apartment that reminded me of my family. Family pictures. I didn’t have a picture of my father at the home so what I remember about him is that he’s a person that liked to dress and he liked to wear a certain color. (Unintelligible) the colors he still wear. It was like burgundy. He used to wear like a tan. All the colors. And I told the person that and he was like, “so, you’re kind of honoring him.” I was like, “Yeah.” I didn’t see it like that but it just naturally came to me, you know? You know, and I always have something...then I have something of each of my family in my house. My sister gave me chairs. My other sister gave me this and that. I got something from each immediate family. So, I had to have something to remind me of my house. Remind me of Patterson. I even have a picture of my stepfather as a kid, but they made it...it was put on a piece of wood, the way they had it done, so when he passed away, one of his family members came up to me and gave it to me because he said I was always his only son, he never had a son before, he always had girls. And he never said step to me, he would always say son to me. And me being younger, you’re not mad. He never said step, he always said, “That’s my son.” So, when they gave that to me, I said, “You know what I’m gonna do? I’m going to put this right on my wall.”And it sits right on my, just the way my mother had it when we was growing up, right on my my wall. Yup.
25: 44
So, you’re using the space in your apartment to make you feel safe?
Yup. Basically.
Yeah.
Makes me feel like, how I was growing up in my mother’s house and I just wanted that feel. I got his picture. Got my mother’s picture. Got my grandmother, great-grandmother.
Do you have any stories about your grandmother and great-grandmother?
Ummm, hmmm, my grandmother...I know she never used to not say my name right. And my aunt always used to tease her about that every once in a while. That’s not his name. And I said, “Leave her alone. If that’s what she wants to call me, let her.” And, you know, she was always in the church a lot so she would always put that out there, having us go to church a lot or sometimes you would catch her praying and when she would pray she would say everybody’s name in the family. I remember that about her, um, a lot of funny stories, you know, but she was the only grandmother I knew that wasn’t much of a cooker like not (unintelligible) my mother was. My mother was always the one that was the cooker so, as the oldest (unintelligible) I never can remember because on my father’s side there is a lot of kids too and I keep mixing the numbers up. I know one side is eleven and one side is ten. And I mix the numbers. So, she being the oldest, my grandmother worked a lot. She had to do all the cooking, so…
What kind of work did she do?
My grandmother? From what I remember, I think she was like, took care of people like, a home health aid, I think. I know it was something pertaining to something like that. It was, she never talked a lot about as far as that, but that’s what I heard. That’s what I was told, that’s what it was like. She was always working a lot.
And, you knew your great-grandmother as well?
I met her. I was supposed to meet her when I was just supposed to start high school. I know a lot of people who used to send their kids to the south in the summer so me and my sister, well, two sisters. One sister didn’t go, the oldest one stayed home. And it was my cousin, he always went down to the south a lot so he got on the bus with us. We rode down. We went down to Mississippi and that, we had heard stories about her for so long so it was like, “go there and see.” Farmland and all of that, all the stuff we heard about. There’s a horse there, on the property (unintelligible) a horse that my mother knew years ago, four horses ago. But he had the same color, it’s called a trigger
And we sitting in my great-grandmother...my great grandmother had a little small house. But next door it was more family members with the big field. And I remember us looking out the window and the horse’s face was right there. We thought that was funny. And we heard all these stories. She moved around like she was a younger person. Moving around, climbing on stuff, wiping down stuff. She not eighty, moving around like that?!
I remember, um, I remember when there was garbage and I used to hate taking garbage out. I always hated it. I didn’t like maggots, stuff like that. But I enjoyed it down there because you take it out, and you take it out back and there’s a little spot and you light it on fire. I enjoyed every bit of that. So, I was like, “Is there any more garbage?”
Like a burn barrel thing?
Yup. It was just a little spot and you go into a big space and you throw the garbage in and I was like, “Wow!” And I used to try to find every little thing to go back there and it was so funny and, um, it was (unintelligible) to see her because she looked like, she was Indian or something because we have Indian in our family and all the stories we heard about when she had the long hair with the braids, so I’m looking at her like, “Wow.” My grandmother looked just like her, but she didn’t have the long hair and stuff like that. She had like wavy hair.
30:00
I was wishing all of the grandkids could come up/out and meet her, but we ever did. We didn’t go down south a lot, Mississippi, that part we didn’t go down a lot.
What kind of farm was it that she lived on? Had she been in the same place her whole life? Or did she move around?
I mean, she lived in, she had been in that same place for a long time and it was like a, like, uh, next door was my cousins too. You know they made, I had to go down there and be on a farm. You know, I see why my other cousins, they always knew how to do stuff at a young age. He was driving at 13. He would go to the store with the car at 13 and we would be looking at him like...he’d be like, “Do you want to go to the store with me?,” and I’m like...and I see why because when I was down there I remember my cousin, which is his uncle, he said, they bailing hay and I’m looking at this like, this is tv stuff. And they got this little truck like...I don’t know if you know what Sanford and Son is…
Oh yeah!
Yeah (unintelligible due to cross talk) and there was a truck like that in the middle of (unintelligible due to cross talk) I don’t know how to drive, I’m only twelve years old. (laughing and crosstalk, unintelligible) Get out of here boy, all over the country, it reminded me of a movie. Jumping in and I have to switch those gears, I don’t know what the hell I am doing.
Is that how you learned to drive? (laughter)
Yeah (laughter). Well, stick, I never learned how to drive a stick good, but that’s stick. And I was like, it was making all this noise and it was like gggghhghgh and he was like, “Ahhhhhhh!,” and then it’s like what the hell (laughter), yeah, you think you would find that stuff aggravating, but it was like, it’s funny now, a good experience. And my cousin he was doing everything natural because he’s so, you know he’s down there with them a lot so, you know when the pigs got out it was like, “the pigs got out, ohhhh” Go get them pigs boy, we all running in the field with the pigs. And we had to go run around and go Ahhh and make them turn.
32:06
Oh man, thinking about that now, it’s funny, you know? And then, umm, my father’s side, that’s my mother’s side, my father’s side lives in Virginia. She only come up here sometimes. Everybody liked me grandpa. Even though he wasn’t always 100% there, but he was always a likeable person. And I can remember when he wanted me to run a farm down there and build a small place. I remember when it was back when (unintelligible), he sat on the machine and his friend go like this...me, I had to be the one, because the machine was skipping, I had to walk, and they had to fix things, they way down there. And I didn’t expect that. It was so high. I remember. I had a brand new hat on, I just got it. By the time I finished my hat was pink. Pink! That’s how much sweat. (unintelligible noises) then he was like, he wanted me to do it again, he was like, you want to do it again. Nope.
(unintelligible) I was ready to go back. I’m out of here. He was like, “Are you serious?,” I’m outta here. Can’t do it. Can’t do it. Not cutting no trees down. I’m not used to that. One day did it for me. So, that’s one story I had with him, with the farm, that’s why I mentioned that part.
But other than that, I just remember a lot of good times when they was around. When my uncle and them were all still around, a lot of fun times with them. Two brothers, they always fussing about every little thing. One liked to fish and one liked to hunt. It was like that, and it reminded me of me and my cousin and we’re like that. You know, we have fun together, but we always--once a year we’re fighting and not talking. And it’s mostly him. He won’t stop. And it be the same way. That’s all I got.
Is there anything else that you would like to make sure is part of your story? Things that mean a lot to you, of what you would want people to know about your experiences? Even if they don’t know that it’s you personally.
Um. I would leave it this way. If you’re going through a similar thing that I went through, it’s always possible to do better. You just have to want to do it, or try, get to know people. Getting to know people helps you a lot. The more you talk, the more comes to you. You gotta talk. You gotta put your pride in your back pocket and talk. That’s what helped me. Opening up. Because I was a shy person. I didn’t talk a lot. Me opening up changed me forever.
Do you know what led your family to move north from Mississippi and Virginia up to New Jersey or when they came up?
Umm. I don’t...from my grandmother on my mother’s side, I know, my mother was always living down south, on a farm, stuff like that. This was way back in the day, you know. She wanted to find somewhere where she could move and keep all of her kids together because that’s she didn’t want to separate with other family members. That’s always what I noted and once she got up here, she met my aunt on my father’s side. Already they knew each other somehow and my aunt told her about the house that ended up being the house of my grandmother’s house. You know, that did happen like that, but she was moved in another house before that and the house caught on fire. Then she ended up moving into the house that was the main house where we all grew up at. But I think it was financials and once she knew she was stable, she brought all her kids up.
My father’s side, I’m not really sure, but from what I hear from the people that moved to Patterson, Patterson had a lot of jobs and stuff back in those days. And there’s a lot of factories that still exist, but they are apartments and stuff now. Patterson as a city was known for the material. It had a lot of jobs, a lot of people from the south came up here back then to look for more jobs and that’s what I know Patterson was known for back in those days. And that’s what brought a lot of people from the south here. That’s why you go in Patterson, that’s why everybody is from the south. Family members from the south.
Do you know if any of your family members worked in the factories?
We never talked about it. I know my father worked in the bottle factory. When I was a little kid, and even before I was born. Never heard any of them speak on (unintelligible due to cross talk) yeah, that’s the only thing I knew about him, but that was when I was a little kid, that wasn’t, what we are talking about is further back
Did your Mom work as well or did she stay home with the kids?
I mean, not always she didn’t work. Depends what time. It was different times. Some times she did, sometimes she didn’t. When she was married, I can’t really…
Is there anything else you would like to share?
I think I’ll just leave it there. I was going to say I was hunger.
Oh sure, sure, fair enough.
I mean, I wanted to go somewhere but I took the time out to do this because she asked me to.
Well, thank you. I really appreciate your time and you taking the time to talk to me.
38:22 (end of file)