for my pop's 90th birthday, i traveled to johnson city, tn to meet up with my cousin david, then we took the scenic route through the mountains to statesville, nc-- where both my mom and dad were born. my pop grew up in the orphanage outside town in the late 1920s until he was old enough to find a job in troutman, nc, meet my mamaw, and enlist in the army. the orphange is
barium springs home for children, and it is still functioning today not only as a historical site, but also servicing abused and neglected children from in and around north carolina.
my pop loved the "home," and spoke highly of the values, morals, and life skills it instilled in him to make him the man that he always was. to everyone. that's the thing about growing up with nothing, and living in a home of children from every background, being taken care of by complete strangers that you only know of as a type of "parent"-- it makes you a different person. when i say my pop was a different person, i don't mean that he was different because he had no parents, or that he grew up poor. what i mean is that he viewed the world differently and took nothing for granted. i truly believe my pop was thankful every single day of his life. how many of us can say that? do we always feel thankful? he viewed the world in a way that we are all brothers and sisters because his home was his family, then when he left the home, the world was his family. i think that is a lost value in society today, especially america. i am disgusted at how selfish people have become; how terrible we speak of the poor and downtrodden; how we aren't willing to help anyone; how we don't speak out against injustice and inequality, and instead have resorted to darwinistic attitudes of "well if you can't make it, you just can't make it." if the world had thought like this in the 1920s, my pop may not have lived to be my pop; he may not have had a chance at a good life; he may have just died on the streets with his mother and sisters. but that didn't happen. it didn't happen because people cared. they cared for other people they didn't know. they didn't judge them. they didn't tell them they weren't good enough, or hadn't worked hard enough to get what they deserve. where have our values of human life; human family; humanity, gone? i cannot answer this. i can only hope for a homecoming. coming home to something different.
every year, the weekend of my pop's birthday, the orphanage has a homecoming of all the children over all the years that have passed through their doors. this year there were over 100 from classes as early as the 30s and 40s to as late as the 60s and 70s. all brothers and sisters. it was always such a happy time for my pop. he truly felt like he was coming home, at a reunion, with his family. this year, they dedicated the biggest, perhaps oldest, magnolia tree on the property to my pop, complete with a plaque, and a beautiful memorial given by the barium chaplain. my pop always said one of his first memories of the home was playing around this big tree, and he would have loved his plaque.
a couple years before my mamaw died, and about 10 years before my pop died, richard mckenzie, an orphanage alum, writer, professor, and director in california, along with george cawood, decided to create a documentary based upon his book "
the home," and the stories of those who lived during those times. my pop, a great storyteller, was chosen to be in the documentary, and on it's opening night in 2004, i cried. overwhelmed at how proud i was of my pop and the amazing man he was, the great things he taught me; wishing more than anything that my mamaw could have seen it finished. the documentary info and its trailer can be found here:
www.homecomingmovie.org. my pop is nelson farmer on the film. to quote him in the film, he says to love, because people out there have problems, and you never know what someone is up against. this is what i live by.
