By Deborah Atkins Smalls
I was raised on Lady’s Island in a community called Eustis. Most of the people there were relatives. I went from St. Helena to Lady’s Island where I walked to school. The road at that time was dirt. We went through people’s yards. You gave respect when you saw the people. You had to say good morning and good evening. If it was a hot day after school and you wanted a cool drink of water from the pump, you had to ask if someone was home. When it rained, the road would be a mess. The buses would splash mud on you. I had to carry an extra set of clothes in a brown bag to change.
Summer Saturdays were always fun. I got to go to the baseball games and the juke joint. Mom or dad would give us a quarter, or maybe 50 cents. That was a lot of money. You could buy a bottle of RC, two cookies for a penny and have change for the jukebox.
I can remember when the man on Warsaw who picked oysters would come to my grandma’s house. Some of them brought food from the river and grandma would put fish on the tinning top to cook. My grandma would take us to Warsaw across the river on a low tide. Before the tide rose, she put a rope around our waist incase the tide caught us when it came in. The road that lead to Warsaw was always covered on a high tide.