Lesley Dill Vision Catcher – McNay Museum, San Antonio, Tx

I was strongly encouraged – hm, roundly scolded – hm, lovingly prodded –  last week to deal with my current pessimism regarding world affairs. Given that I take to the advice of my friends I decided to give myself a boost by looking at inspirational people this week.

And since it is Juneteenth today, I start with a memory of a man who I met during my volunteer days at Hospice. He was a small black man, shriveled to next to nothing in his last weeks of life, in his 90s, and of the sunniest disposition I have ever encountered in anyone. The range of laughter, sounds of mirth, clucking of amusement could have filled a whole symphony.

He was pain free – the gift of Hospice – and content with his life, ready to hang up his boots. We spent several afternoons talking about his life and all the adventures he had, growing up in Texas and eventually migrating to the North West.

He vividly remembered the Juneteenth celebrations – the holiday that commemorates the June 19, 1865 announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas, and more generally the emancipation of African-American slaves throughout the Confederate South. The news came late to Texas – almost 3 years late, to be precise. And it did not go down well with the slave holders – at the time 250.000 slaves were seen as property in the state. The freedmen, however, started to celebrate the day in years to come, despite obstacles put in their path.

(Here is a link to a good article about how the day is memorialized:http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/18/1670962/-Juneteenth-and-the-memorial-to-black-history-in-Texas)

One such hurdle was the fact that state-sponsored segregation of facilities prohibited celebration in public parks. Freed people pooled funds to purchase land on which they held the Juneteenth celebrations in the larger cities, like Houston’s and Austin’s Emancipation Park. In smaller towns, folks like my guy instead went to the woods.

He described an annual frenzied week of preparation. The men would take a herd of swine to the woods. The pigs would root out all the poisonous snakes and eat them so that the place was made safe for the picnic to come. The women would prepare foods in advance and then every one would arrive for the celebration to sing and dance around the spits where those very life-saving pigs were now roasted for dinner. He swore that the meals of snake made the pig meat particularly tender and delectable. Hm, what do I know.

 

He had many stories to tell, some of them sad, but he always came up with a version that celebrated the good, focused on fierceness and overcoming. I’ll try and follow the model in the spirit of “Beat the Pessimism”!

Photographs are from Texas.

 

Then and now,

especially now: