Dad's Magic Kingdom

Dad's Magic Kingdom

Joseph C Parrish

2004

I can still see three little boys at the periphery of a dark and moist forest, gazing deep into it, awestruck by its grandeur, its giant trees and vines and aroma, our senses filled as we stood side-by-side, reverently, listening to loud Cicada echo throughout that holy place, interrupted only by an occasional whiz of a single car on a lonely mountain pass. It was real, this place called North Carolina.

Certain memories stand out as my family entered the mountains on our journey to Durham, North Carolina: rest stops with weather-beaten picnic tables against a back-drop of mysterious, "Tarzan" jungle, North Carolina’s moist soil, fresh, clean, mixed with that distinctive, rich fragrance of sweet honeysuckle growing thick along narrow road.

I recall gravel parking lots of small service stations, gravel sprayed with black oil to control dust. The sound and feel of gravel mixed with bottle caps under our shoes amazed my brothers and I, our eyes watching our feet as we walked; this is something you do not find in La Puente, California. And, deep southern accents of service station attendants made my brothers and I realize that we had indeed entered another world. My Dad introduced his boys to oatmeal cookies with white filling and original moon pies as well as orange soda in a glass bottle, which we enjoyed completely.

Stepping outside the other morning, my senses were again filled with that amazing aroma of musky North Carolina earth. After forty years, I am still genuinely excited to be in Dad’s magic kingdom.

I remember standing in the front yard of our home in La Puente, California, waiting for Dad’s car to come over the top of the hill. Dad always had a small treat in his lunch box for his boys, usually bubble gum wrapped in comics. I was only five years old. The year was 1963. Isn’t it amazing how certain memories are embedded in our minds? I can't remember what the house, car, or furniture looked like. I'm not even sure what type of work Dad did at the time. But, I so clearly recall, as if it were yesterday, standing in the yard with my eyes glued to that hill on the street, waiting excitedly for Dad to come home from work. Thinking back, fifty years later, it occurs to me now that the bubble gum probably cost Dad pennies. Yet, this small act represented so much more. Still today, when I see bubble gum wrapped in comics, I see him, Dad, who is now passed from this earth. Then, there were those never-ending stories of that magical place called North Carolina; I like to call it "Dad's Magic Kingdom."

My two brothers and I had never been to North Carolina. We were born in California. When my father, Jesse “Pookie” Parrish, was in his early twenties, he left West Durham and moved to Philadelphia where he met and began dating my Mother, Jennie Lavorgna. Mom was one of six siblings. Her mother passed away when she was ten. After the death of her father a few years later, the Lavorgna siblings, under the guidance of their older brother, Russ Lavorgna, packed up and moved to California to start a new life, leaving my Dad behind in Philadelphia. Unable to forget Mom, Dad hitchhiked across the country to find her.

Mom always enjoyed telling the story of the day she stepped out the door of her shoe store place of employment in Los Angeles and saw Dad standing on the corner waiting for her. She casually said: “Oh hi Jesse.” Then, she suddenly realized how far away he was from home. She was so surprised to see him. She said “Jesse! What are you doing here?” From that point they continued dating and married in 1953. From that union came five children. And, Dad never forgot his home - North Carolina. It was all he talked about. Those stories are unforgettable. Places such as Monkey Bottom in West Durham, Camp Hollow Rock on Erwin Road, the Panther’s Den on Hillsborough Mountain, Duke Gardens with its giant gold fish, the Blue Light Cafe, and Duke Football stadium had all become enshrined in our young minds. We were in awe of this place called North Carolina which existed somewhere on the other side of the country where Grandma and Grandpa lived.

There were stories of giant vines that draped tall trees, of Saturday Car Wash at Camp Hollow Rock store; back in the 40’s, a gravel drive went directly through the river just under Camp Hollow Rock bridge on Erwin Road. Residents of Durham and Chapel Hill drove their cars into the shallow river where they would bucket wash and rinse by hand, then drive out the other side so that the next car could enter. And, Indian caves just beyond Camp Hollow Rock dam, built back into the cliffs, are still there. Dad and his friends camped in the caves as youth. They would tie watermelon onto rope and toss them into New Hope creek to cool.

Dad spoke of mill houses built directly on Hillsborough Mountain, his place of birth. Back in the early 1920’s, Dad’s father walked to the old boarding house in West Hillsborough to call the doctor on the night my father was born. The boarding house is still there, currently being renovated. But, the housing development on the mountain is gone; only remnants of stone and brick remain buried in deep thicket and shrubs.

Dad told us about Cone Mills in Hillsborough and Erwin Mills in West Durham, where his father and grandfather both worked as weavers. I recall Dad’s admiration of a Carolina football player named Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice, a post-WWII local hero. Dad told us about orange Nab peanut butter crackers and orange soda, supposedly an amazing treat, and something called “grits” with hot butter melted on top. These things did not exist in the only world that my brothers and I knew, California in the early 1960’s. And, Dad described a quiet town called Hillsborough beside a giant “Indian” river, with its Victorian mansion in the center of town (now the site of the Hillsborough Police Department), and its single Drug Store called James Pharmacy and Soda Fountain, a hot spot on Saturday nights. Dad often spoke of McDonald's Drug Store and Soda Shop on Ninth Street in Durham, where he worked as a youth.

Dad finally took three thrilled young boys, a little sister, and Mom back to his North Carolina home for vacation one spring; I was seven years old. I can still feel the excitement while lying in the back of that 1962 green and white Ford station wagon. That enchanted trip - a painted desert, wide open spaces, cactus, and concrete gift shops built to resemble Indian tents, lots of turquoise and silver for sale, hot wind moving through open windows of the car, the aroma of fig bars being passed around, Elvis Presley (Are you Lonesome Tonight?) and Marty Robbins (El Paso and Don't Worry about Me) on the radio, Dad making everybody listen carefully, ears popping as we climbed various elevations, and the pop of a thermos opening, Mom pouring hot coffee into a plastic cup for Dad as he drove.

I will never forget that journey and our station wagon loaded with baggage and kids. We were going to Dad’s world; we may as well had been going to Africa or India; our young minds were filled with anticipation and wonder. While crossing the Mississippi River, Dad practically stopped on the bridge so that three boys could stretch their necks to get a glimpse of this indication that we were getting closer to paradise. I still cherish the family group photo taken next to the highway sign reading “Welcome to Dixie.” Dad had not stretched the truth; we had grown up in a concrete world, a dry place, where trees were rare and identical houses crowded suburbs, a place where one could easily get lost trying to find ones way home. We were now going to a different place.

Then there was Grandma and Grandpa. They were living in Durham’s recently opened Few Gardens before moving to public housing on Gary Street. Both spoke with a slow drawl and used the words “yall” and “fixin.” Grandpa, Alton Parrish, had spent his adult life working in the cotton mills, finally retiring from Erwin Mills in West Durham, one of the Mill’s most respected employees. The children slept in sleeping bags on the floor at Few Gardens. I recall our first day there. A heavy spring rain had soaked Durham overnight. Stepping outside that morning, I felt like Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz leaving the confines of her black-and-white home and entering an emerald city of vivid color, a place where green predominated, a place of strange bugs and little rabbits in the grass, and red birds called Cardinal, a bird we were already familiar with; Dad had carved one out of clay back in California. He painted it bright red. Mom kept it on top of the television. Dad told us that one could find this bright red bird everywhere in North Carolina. We were thrilled to see it for the first time at Camp Hollow Rock creek while swimming in waist-deep water just under the famous rock. At Few Gardens that first day, I recall an aroma of natural gas mixed with North Carolina’s spring wetness as my brothers and I walked to a small porch store to buy giant rainbow gumballs with money grandpa had given us. An old man in a rocker, white stubble beard and deep southern drawl, sold them to us.

Later, in 1968, Dad brought his family back to North Carolina to live. We moved to an early 19th century farm house surrounded by giant oak, aroma of burning cedar, and miles of rolling hills and forest. I can still feel the movement of that metal glider lawn chair as I lay on my back staring up, dust and gnats illuminated in quiet air, soft streams of yellow evening light trying to break through multi-layers of thick dark green canopy, those great trees producing mounds of golden leaves on the ground each autumn, a place to fall back into and roll around in.

Each morning, my brothers and sisters and I walked a quarter mile gravel drive to the school bus stop in Schley. That morning walk, with its rolling meadows and mist rising from Bobby Smith's farm pond, its bridge over a slow winding creek, cattle grazing quietly, somehow brought me closer to Dad’s world, and to nature. I learned to treasure North Carolina, this place of warmth and nurturing, a cradle in a sense. That morning walk was a spectacle, colossal rays of sparkling light, massive bars fanned out across my wet morning world, trees dripping, wild morning glories and every other flower imaginable, the distant echo of crow, crisp, cool air in my young lungs, and always that deep-felt excitement and hope for my future.

While waiting for that big orange bus that smelled like gasoline and dust, we lazily stretched out on fence posts coated in dry tar, each barb of wire holding a single drop of scintillating moisture. Every detail of those morning walks had become a part of me. And, I often wonder if North Carolina’s life-long residents recognize the magic of this very different place. In La Puente, California, cutting ones lawn does not release an amazing aroma of cut wild onion.

Dad passed away December 1997; Mom passed away December 2003. I am grateful to both for bringing me here. I often find myself standing under giant oaks on UNC-CH campus, gazing up, or at the road-side weather-beaten wood picnic tables off Country Club drive in Chapel Hill, gazing deep into Battle Forest. I am still very much in awe of this place and its shrines, North Carolina, Dad‘s Magic Kingdom.

Daddy 1955

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