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FAMILY MYTHOLOGY
Remembering the South End
A belated Christmas tale from a bygone era
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Although I frequently reference living in Pine Bluff, Arkansas during adolescence, some of my most cherished recollections are of growing up in Little Rock in the late sixties. When I reflect upon those childhood memories, by necessity the rest of my family must endure retellings of tales they’ve heard dozens of times before. To their credit, they listen politely, casting their smiles in all the right places.
Before my family moved to Pine Bluff midway through my seventh grade year, our family of six lived in a three-bedroom rental in Little Rock’s South End neighborhood. Our parents had reunited after being separated for a time, and 2815 Marshall Street was to be the site of their reconciliation.
Our father spent weeks preparing the fixer-upper for our arrival. The tidy, one-story home, with its windowed den overlooking a big, sloping backyard, was perfect for our growing family. For me and my three younger brothers, the move was our first real opportunity to acquaint ourselves with the man who would help raise us to adulthood.
Aside from Mrs. Pearl, the elderly woman who paid me a few dollars to tend her yard, the neighborhood’s white inhabitants had fled the South End for the newly developed…