1966 I turned 16. Old enough for a legal job. Dad was a drunk whose circle of potential employers grew larger after every bout of drunkenness ending living on the street of skid row.

1966 he was working in Florence, SC. I loved it! We lived in a boarding house. Ate breakfast at a restaurant where I squirreled away jelly packs for my friend Junior. After work, that was the place I first tasted blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. Heaven!

I started playing 8 ball for breakfast money. In my pool hall in Ellijay, Georgia, the loser pays the 10 cents for the game. I learned to never play a person who could beat me. I would play 8 ball for hours without the dime I would need to pay if I lost. Under that pressure, I never lost.

In Florence, the sign said “50 cents per game”. The regular price was 10 cents. I played one round at my expense and threw two quarters on the table. The rack boy…white skin… gave me 40 cents change and told me the 50 cent price was “just for niggers”. (Good grief)

I met a barefoot blonde guy with one ear ring and he unintentionally paid for my breakfast.

I gave my breakfast jelly package to my friend Junior.

My dad had a four man crew. I was the white member of the crew. Junior was taller than me and older than me. His brow hung over his eyes. I figured he had the mental capacity of a seven year old. Each morning I gave him my jelly.

He accepted the jelly with aplomb…as he looked at something far more important on the horizon. One morning I followed him and discovered he was eating the jelly from its package with his finger. We were both embarrassed that I followed him.

Junior and I faced each other across a lumber stack. When he wasn’t mad at me, he would express our friendship by holding up his hand with two fingers side-by-side…that was us…me and Junior.

Sometimes Junior would be angry with me. Across the lumber stack, I would raise my hand with two fingers together.

If he was angry at me, Junior would shake his head…No…

He would hold up two fingers in a horizontal position. With his opposite hand he would tap the finger on top.

Two fingers side-by-side….that’s us, friends.

One finger on top of the other with one finger on top? That was his way to say he was angry at me and that I was the horizontal finger on the bottom.