Here Comes the Noise

I have been reading Kathryn Stockett's The Help, a book that I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys a good novel.  Set in 1960's Jackson, Mississippi, the title The Help refers to the African American maids that many of the families hired to help with the cooking, cleaning, and children.  In many instances these ladies were forced to endure much lingering racial prejudice. 

While reading this novel, I can't help but remember a lady who was very dear to me growing up.  It was 1970's Tennessee rather than 1960's Mississippi so thankfully a lot of those previously mentioned racial tensions had dissipated.  Her name is Rebecca.  My mother would hire her about once a week to help with cleaning our house and ironing.  Sometimes she would stay with us while my mother ran short errands.  My brother and I loved her.

Rebecca lived in a tiny run down house that has long since been torn down.  She worked as a custodian at the local high school.  She was the first African American that I really knew, and also, the first truly poor person I knew as well.  Rebecca could not be descibed as poor in spirit, however, or lacking in love.

She always wore the same clothes when she came over to our house, and we would pick her up and take her back home because she didn't have a car. I remember her white socks with her dark worn out loafers.  Rebecca may be the only person I have ever known who dipped snuff.  As a young child, I, of course, was fascinated with her spitting and with the small round metal cannister she carried.  Rebecca would always eat lunch with us, and I remember how much she appreciated and enjoyed her food whether it was a bologna sandwich with potato chips or a hamburger. She loved a Coca-Cola with that meal, too. She was very thoughtful, not wanting to disturb my eight, nine, or ten year old self from whatever "important" thing I was doing.  When she got to the point in her work where it was time to vacuum, she'd proclaim, "Here comes the noise!" before she switched on the vacuum. 

She thought my brother and I hung the moon.  According to her, I was as pretty as Miss America.  Not only did Rebecca think I was beautiful, but she thought I could sing.  Really sing.   One time, when she heard me singing along with my Carpenters record she told me I sang so well she couldn't tell the difference between my voice and Karen Carpenter's.  

It has probably been twenty years now since I've seen Rebecca.  Close to ninety years old now, she lives in a nursing home, and my parents tell me that she no longer knows people she once knew.  It is funny how someone can be a part of your life for so long, and you think they always will be, but then, of course things change.  I guess they are changing all the time.  I sing with my Ipod now instead of my record albums.  It doesn't seem like anyone irons much anymore.  My days of knowing Rebecca are over, but my appreciation of her remains.