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The Mee Street Chronicles by Frankie Lennon

   Knoxville, nestling in the bosom of the Great Smoky Mountains, which is part of the Appalachian mountain chain, was not a metropolitan area during the Truman and Eisenhower years when I was growing up; it was a mid-sized town, sitting on sloping ridges, steep grades, and rolling hills. Up and down, you were always going up and down in humpbacked Knoxville. And because ole Jim Crow reigned supreme, there were really two Knoxvilles-one White and one Black. I belonged to the Black side. Our first house, on Mee Street, was on the Black side of town and it stood directly across the street from the Austin Homes housing projects. I was an only child and I loved it there because my playmates were always just across the street at Austin Homes Projects, and when I wanted to play all I had to do was dash over there. Unfortunately, it was a very busy street, and I tended to do this dashing business without looking both ways for cars. As a result, I almost got myself mashed flat as a pancake, more than once. Watching me continue to run into the street without regard for life or limb, my mother finally threw up her hands, and convinced my father that we had to move to someplace with a big yard and no busy street. By the time I got to the second grade, we had moved to 1919 Dandridge Avenue, where we became the third Black family to move into this middle class, previously lily-white neighborhood.
   At first, the only other Blacks living there were my uncle Frank and his wife, Helen, whose only son had died several years before, and there were the Delaneys, whose children were grown. So in one fell swoop, I had gone from living in a place where I was surrounded by playmates and familiar Black faces to living in a place where I was the only kid around, surrounded by a sea of White folk whose intentions toward us were always suspicious. Mama strictly forbade me to leave the yard unless I was going to the little neighborhood store for her, or to Uncle Frank's, or to Mrs. Delaney's. For company, since I was now without Evelyne, Shirley, and my other playmates, my parents got me a fat, little white, black, and brown puppy-part Cocker Spaniel and part Bird Dog-that I named Pudgy.
   Our new, white frame, two-bedroom house sat in the middle of huge front and back yards-way too big for one kid and one dog. The yards were so big that one summer my mother volunteered our place to host our church's two-week Vacation Bible School since there was enough room to comfortably accommodate a hundred scampering children. The one thing I liked about the yards was the flowers. I was obsessed with flowers-the scent, but, most of all, the colors. At Mee Street, we didn't have any, but here, things were different. Some flowers were already waiting their turn to peek out of the ground; others, Mama planted herself. I was always putting my nose into the heart of a flower, trying to sniff its nectar, or, sometimes, sticking my tongue into its heart to taste it as I had seen the hummingbirds doing. Mama taught me about the flowers, pointing to each as she said their names: pink peony, red zinnia, white crocus, yellow marigold, white pansy, blue snowballs, and purple iris. For some reason, we didn't have roses. I don't remember why. But I'm sure I asked Mama about it because roses were my very favorites.
   In spring, the mimosa trees, which dominated the front yard, presented rose-colored, spiky blossoms, framed by fringed, green leaves. I especially loved the mimosas because I had taken up tree climbing, and the mimosas were my favorite trees to climb. By Easter time, rows and rows of yellow daffodils and white jonquils nodding their delicate little heads in the morning breeze dominated one side of the front yard. While in the back yard, the trees-dogwood, Japanese tulip, pear and lime-offered up blossoms that looked like white and pink lace, or rose and crimson brocade. Banks of white honeysuckle, along the driveway, tickled and tantalized my nose with their sweet scents from April through August.
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