Going back to a hometown that is no longer home

The American novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote, “You Can’t Go Home Again.” He was correct. You can’t. I tried it along with my friend, Philip.

A near-fatal attack of sepsis has made driving an automobile a challenge for me and a firm no-no to my kids. Through a mutual friend, I was introduced to Philip, who has driven for some of the rich and famous and has been kind enough to cart me around from place-to-place, as needed.

Over the course of several trips and conversations, Philip and I discovered we were from the same hometown, East Point, and had graduated from the same high school, Russell High. Small world. But a much different world. My East Point was white. His was Black.

I was born in East Point and spent part of my adult years there, but I had no earthly idea of Philip’s East Point – where it was or how to get there. This was, after all, the segregated South.

On our various trips, we decided that we should go back to East Point one day and visit our collective haunts. That day came a few weeks ago. It had been a long time for me and the East Point I saw was not the East Point I knew as a youngster. As Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, “There is no there there.” A lot of familiar landmarks have been razed and nothing in their place.

Time hasn’t been kind to the home I grew up in and the surrounding neighborhood. A number of boarded-up houses and weed-infested lawns. A few fixer-uppers, but not many. Our first home as a married couple looked sadly decrepit. Our last home as a family has held up but it sits under the flight path to and from Hartsfield-Jackson, which was the impetus for us to leave.

From there, it was on to Philip’s East Point, literally across the railroad tracks. But if I was looking for a bunch of rundown shacks and trash-infested sidewalks, I was in for a surprise. What I saw were brick houses and neatly trimmed lawns. In the segregated days, the area had been home to Black professionals – doctors, attorneys, businesspeople. Frankly, his old neighborhood looked better than mine. But my life was easier.

Philip was in the first class to integrate Russell High School and dealt with the indignities that came with the experience. But this was nothing new for him. Being Black in the segregated South was full of indignities.

When I was growing up, there was an amusement park known as Funtown: rides, miniature golf, skating rink, etc. I went there often. Philip and his friends could not go. They could only peek over the fence. If park employees saw the group’s hands on the top of the fence, they would rap their knuckles with a stick.

Music was Philip’s passion and he quickly became a part of the marching band at Russell High School and the school’s music program. He faced the typical racism he expected from teachers and students but even back then, the occasional white teacher or white classmate was willing to help him adjust to this new environment. Thankfully, not everybody was a racist.

I asked Philip if he suffered any physical abuse in those days. He recounted being jumped by a group of white boys while attending band camp. The attackers were not a part of the camp. They were attending a nearby church retreat. A Christian church retreat.

There were some points of pride in Philip’s East Point. When his grandfather, Will Tinch, a longtime city employee, died at the age of 113 (that’s not a typo), the city’s dignitaries served as escorts for his service.

I left my East Point for life in corporate America. Philip left his and joined the Navy. Two different people. Two different backgrounds. Two different eras. But we realized something that united us. When I was in high school, a Dairy Queen opened just off campus. It was a gathering place for me and my friends. It was for Philip and his friends, too. What better way to end our excursion to East Point than lunch together at the Dairy Queen.

East Point is no longer home for Philip or me but it is where we grew up and despite the divide of race and age and experiences, it is responsible for creating a lasting friendship between the two of us. That made it worth the trip.

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139.