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calsfoundation@cals.org
Lessons Learned on a Mountain
To my mother:
I was at an age where I would excitedly point to your mistakes because you made them. But I couldn’t acknowledge your successes because the success was normal life. I knew when to expect food, water, bathing, and rest. I had space to sleep without sharing a bed. Normal life was so routine that it amplified any mistake you made. My seventeen-year-old mind decided that your imperfections gave me the perfect opportunity to assess your navigation of a world I was only beginning to understand.
Mentally, I’d decided I was “grown.” I’d been working since age twelve, on a part-time basis. Jimbo’s Drug Store had hired me to “dust the shelves” and sweep floors along with other tasks that could be outsourced to a young person with a minimum investment of funds.
This work exposed me to conversations the adults around me were having on various topics. I’d been “ear hustling” all my life. You had a large family, with thirteen living siblings, their spouses, your parents, their siblings, cousins, and extended family members. I was trained by my grandmother to “report” to her things that she needed to know about any of you. I always told what I heard, how I heard it, who witnessed it, and where it was said. My grandmother trained me to be successful when I chose the field of journalism as my educational pursuit.
You and I were both born in the month of April. I was born on the twelfth, you on the fourteenth. Your third son was born on the tenth of April and your youngest daughter was born on the twenty-second. Add to this mixture the horoscope signs of Pisces and Cancer and the combinations of this mix of personalities… The harmony of our family defines your success of navigating a household that could have been very dysfunctional.
It is from a distance of decades that I can appreciate and describe my thought process at age seventeen. I needed a break from your house. While reading a newspaper, I saw the headline “Youth Corps Sets Date to Apply.” It was March 6, 1978. The job was for eight weeks beginning in June. The location was Mount Magazine, more than one hundred miles away.
I applied for the job and was chosen. You had only been driving a total of three years, but I had to depend on you to get to the mountain. You recruited your youngest sister and her son to ride with us to provide navigational support on your return trip. You drove to the top of that mountain and dropped me off.
I was officially employed on Mount Magazine as a member of the National Park Service’s Youth Conservation Corps, “a federal youth employment program that engages young people in meaningful work experiences at national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and fish hatcheries while developing an ethic of public land stewardship and civic responsibility.”
The other participants were an equal number of males and females. A diversity of cultures from rural to urban Arkansas composed the staff and summer youth workers. Introductions were made, sleeping quarters were assigned. We were given a hard hat, boots, and gloves and informed that our day would begin early. My summer adventure began with clearing hiking trails, building safety railings to limit public access, and all forms of manual labor necessary to maintain a state park area used by the public.
Our weekends were spent doing our laundry, attending a church service (mandatory), and exploring the town of Paris, Arkansas. We also had short trips to enhance our knowledge of our environment and to show us the beauty of the state of Arkansas. We were allowed to go home for Fourth of July weekend. The Trailways bus was my mode of transportation this time.
I adjusted to the night sounds of the woods even as I missed the night sounds of the city. I witnessed horizontal lightning (as a counselor described what we were seeing). I understood how dark it really was without all the street lights around our house.
The programs ended with new friendships, a new understanding of how “grown” I was, and a new appreciation for the skills you’d taught me; I also saw the limited development some others my age had when it came to making decisions about how to care for themselves independently. The job provided me with a new and lasting understanding of the lessons my family taught me about self-sufficiency and working as a team to accomplish a goal.
By Rhonda Stewart, genealogy and local history specialist for the Central Arkansas Library System’s Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, housed in the CALS Bobby L. Roberts Library of Arkansas History & Art
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Have memories of a summer job or other formative experiences you’d like to preserve? Make an appointment to visit the DIY Memory Lab in the CALS Roberts Library, where you can digitize photos, videos, and more.
