I was born during the war years in a little Georgia town off Highway U.S. 129 not far
from the North Florida border. It was in the winter of `42, three days before
Christmas, Dec. 22, 1942, in Stockton, Georgia. I was the forth of seven surviving
children in a group of fourteen. Unfortunately seven of those children died before I
was born. My early years were spent playing and enjoying life.
I remember vividly a little lake right beside Highway U.S. 84 that we used to play in
as young kids. None of us could swim. We used to call it the clay hole. At the time I
guess I was about ten or eleven years old. We didn't have any swimming trunks so
we would all swim naked. The water was sort of dark, but we all felt safe once we
were in the lake. The challenge was to watch for cars passing on the road or anybody
walking by.
The regular gang included my brothers Buie C. and Bernard "Rip", my cousin J.E.
Burgess, neighboring kids Spencer Bines and sometimes Bo Bo Brown and I. My
older brother Marvin Elder and a few other older neighboring boys, Joe Louis
Glover, Ellis Williams, Johnny Lee "Sweet Pee" Dorsey were much too mature for
our group. I can't remember if my younger brother, Jimmy, four years younger than
I, would ever come along.
We would take off all of our clothes, hide in the nearby bushes, and as soon as the
coast was clear we would run and dive into the lake. The deepest spot was not over
three and a half feet. And one of our biggest fears was that some grownup would
come down to the lake and stay, because we would be ashamed to come out of the
lake naked. I can't remember who the lady was, but I remember she walked down
from New Prospect Baptist Church about a quarter of a mile down the road.
She walked right to the edge of the lake and started chewing us all out. I guess she
had some kind of insight into our fears and shames, because she would not leave; she
was determined to wait us out. We were all cornered and ashamed to come out of the
lake. So after what seemed like an hour, it was getting late in the evening. Lady or
no lady, we decided to make a run for the bushes where our clothes were hidden.
Everyone was embarrassed, but we knew we couldn't stay in the lake till dark. My
father was a domineering, unyielding type of individual. One of my first experiences
with his unyielding stance was my bed-wetting. I was a bed-wetter until I was
approximately six or seven years old. My father's way of dealing with bed-wetters
was an automatic whipping, with no exceptions.
That's just the way it was. No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop wetting the
bed. I kept getting older and kept getting whippings, and the gladdest day in my life
was when I quit wetting the bed. That meant I would not be getting whipped almost
every morning over something I could not avoid. It left emotional scars that are still
with me to this day. It saddled me with a pitiful look that I hated, and caused me to
harbor a secret inferiority complex all through childhood.
It left me with a neurotic pitiful look that would at times take over my brain like an
epileptic seizure especially if I was very tired or stood before a large crowd of
strangers. I have come a very long ways in mentally overcoming this handicap
mostly through the positive thinking technique.
However, you never erase anything from the all powerful mind, all anyone can do
with a handicap is face it down and learn to forgive and accept it, then you will
survive. My battles with self-shame has been a lone internal war but I have no
regrets; it has made me a better human being with an almost super mind in some
ways. I thank you God for my life, health, and strength.
I felt I could not let anyone get too close because something was wrong with me, and
if people saw how pitiful I could look they would reject me, laugh at me, or feel sorry
for me. Each reaction was unacceptable. I just wanted to be normal and accepted, no
more or no less. I guess I was around nine or ten when my family moved about four
miles to my grandmother's farm.
There again I felt the effects of a completely domineering and unyielding father. My
father didn't give any warning like, "Don't do that again." As a young aggressive
kid, I was expected to act good, but I was branded a bad boy and I guess I acted the
part, because over a two year span, it seemed like I would get a whipping almost
every day for something or other. Then all of a sudden it stopped.
I guess my spirit was broken. To me it didn't seem like I was doing anything
differently. All I knew was I was glad I was not getting whipped almost every day.
All of my young life was not miserable, in fact overall I was a very happy kid. Then
and now I never held anything against my dad or took it personally. Sure, my dad
may have been somewhat too strict, but we are all human and no one is perfect, I can
earnestly say that overall I knew him to be a good and decent man.
I thank God he taught us seven kids how to survive with pride and dignity. Not a one
of us has ever spent time in jail, and we are all over fifty. We all work to earn our
keep, and we don't want or expect handouts from the government or anybody. It was
mainly a matter of ignorance. My father raised me like his father raised him, and his
father before him. Besides, the older I get the more I appreciate a strict raising, but
not one without love.
If I had to choose between a raising of over-permissiveness or over strictness, I
would choose the latter. It assures the best chance of survival under all conditions,
but a balance between the two is always the most productive. I'd never be too hard
on misfortunes, because they may save one from a more disastrous or fatal end. Just
remember the Lord works in mysterious ways.
Sometime when one is rushing to get some place and nothing seems to work right,
who knows that delay may have saved one from a fatal accident. Life is all about
timing. Maybe not all, but some of us have a destiny, and must be prepared for the
mission. I feel it is something bigger than an individual; even bigger than life itself.
Like an idea whose time has come, it can't be held back, but so long, it has to happen.
In spite of my handicaps I have long known my mission and destiny must be
something almost out of this world big, just maybe, it may be to help save western
civilization in a recognizable way, little ole me. Praise be to God.
In 1955 they closed the two-classroom school house in Stockton, Ga., and I attended
the seventh grade over in Lakeland, Ga., the county seat. We sharecropped the farm
one more year with Isben Livingston that my grandmother's heirs had sold him the
year before. Then in the summer of `56, the Charlie Sirmans' family moved from
Stockton, Ga. to Valdosta, Ga.. There my father became a taxi driver. Mother dear,
Alberta, a lovely, non-complaining, passive woman was in frail health.
She had suffered the first of her many strokes. I attended the segregated Pinevale
High School. I excelled in basketball and football. I was a member of the Pinevale
Tigers basketball team. I can still cock my head and imagine hearing the basketball
cheerleaders chanting, "Freddie! Freddie! Freddie! He's our man, if he can't do it
nobody can." I finished high school in 1961 and turned down a basketball scholarship
to attend Fort Valley State College in Georgia.
It was the alma mater of my late high school basketball and football coach, Edward
Jones of Quitman, Ga. He believed in me and thought very highly of me. I will
always remember how he walked to my house in the rain to bring me the news of my
basketball scholarship. The only other member on the basketball team to get a
scholarship that year was Oswell Jones, who went into the U.S. Army.
I later went into the U.S. Air Force. I worked a while at South Ga. Pecan factory in
Valdosta, Ga., and then about the middle of 1962 I decided to move to Tallahassee,
Florida, to attend a trade school. The name of the school was Consolidated
Electronics. I went to the school about two hours a day, and got a job in a little
delicatessen and donut shop on Adams Street near the old capitol building.
I rented a room from a lady named Mrs. Ford who lived right in front of the funeral
home on Carolina St. I stayed there for about six months until the school ended.
After returning to Valdosta in late 1962, I decided to enlist in the U.S. Air Force.
Being a young man, I spent some of my leisure time cruising North 24th Street in
Omaha, Nebraska. At that time there were two nightclubs we used to hang out in,
the M&M Lounge and the Off Beat Lounge.
Then I moved on to Puerto Rico for my last two years in the military. While there, I
bought an old 1952 Studebaker. I still have fond memories of the Caribbean and the
tropical climate. Still young and enjoying life sometimes we would check out Isabella,
but mostly we would hang out in the little coastal town named Aguadilla. At that time
in Aguadilla they had a night club called the Black Stallion where most of the airmen
hung-out.
I distinctly remember they had one famous patron called Casa Boo Boo (house
ghost). She was as black as the ace of spades and very ugly, but she must have made
up for it in other ways because she always got her share of dates. In 1966, after four
years in the U.S. Air Force I got out and returned to Valdosta. I had turned down my
basketball scholarship, so my goal was to get a college education.
At that time they had a four year, fully paid GI Bill that would pay you while you
attended school. Then I missed my ship again. I got a job, got married and started a
family. I don't regret anything. Now more than twenty five years later, and over age
fifty, I feel maybe I have something worthwhile to say. I wrote a few letters to the
editor that gave me some courage. Now here I am after writing four books and
reprinting my first book.
I'm no intellectual; I am a high school graduate with one semester of college while in
service. But I have done a fair amount of reading along the way. My writing should
be raw, crude, and pure, so hang on for a ride.
YEAR 2011 ADD-ON:
First, let me take this time to count my blessings. Lord I have so much to be thankful
for, I have a great family that loves me dearly. Thank you God, thank you, thank you
for my life health and strength. This once beaten down pitiful little South Georgia
USA country boy has kept the faith and is still standing. "May the life I have lived
and the works I have done speak for me," thank you God, thank you.
On this day in the year of our Lord Twenty Eleven A.D. Saturday the first day of
October, I, Freddie Lee Sirmans Senior again just took time to count my blessings.
Three days before this Christmas I will celebrate my sixty ninth birthday December
22, 2011. However, still the effects of my childhood bed wetting punishment days at
times haunt me. There are no doubt the mental scars and effects will go with me to
my grave.
I, so much like everyone want to be proud and stand proud, but for me sometimes it
is still a great struggle, the helplessness neurotic pitiful look still tugs at my soul. To
me it is all about survival, I accept no excuses or blames for survival because I
believe if you are looking you can always find an excuse for failure. I have fought
mental battles to survive practical all of my life, and will never surrender. It is said
that behind every super achiever there is a search for love and acceptance, I believe
that.
"To try and keep trying is the greatest of all virtues. Winners don’t quit and quitters
don’t win." Think you for taking the time to read about me, with love always,
Freddie L. Sirmans, Sr.
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Version #2 Has additional information.
I was born in the early forties in a quiet little Georgia town near the Florida border.
It is located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 84 east to west and U.S. Highway
129 north to south. I was delivered by a midwife three days before Christmas,
December 22, 1942 in Stockton, Georgia. I was somewhat puny and was not
expected to live. I was the eleventh child in a group that would eventually reach
fourteen children.
Unfortunately seven of those fourteen children died before I was born. I was a very
sensitive kid, always snotty nosed, but I survived. The old frame house that we lived
in was like many houses built around the turn of the century. The kitchen was
separated from the living quarters of the main house. In our house, in order to get to
the kitchen, you had to go outside and walk down a long porch to reach the kitchen.
We didn't have electric lights, and I remember at night someone older had to carry a
kerosene lamp down that seemingly long, long porch, and I would be so afraid. One
of my earliest memories in that old house was that I would get a whipping almost
every morning for wetting the bed.
It left me with a neurotic pitiful look that would at times take over my brain like an
epileptic seizure especially if I was very tired or stood before a large crowd of
strangers. I have come a very long ways in mentally overcoming this handicap
mostly through the positive thinking technique.
However, you never erase anything from the all powerful mind, all anyone can do
with a handicap is face it down and learn to forgive and accept it, then you will
survive. My battles with self-shame has been a lone internal war but I have no
regrets; it has made me a better human being with an almost super mind in some
ways. I thank you God for my life, health, and strength.
I remember we had a fireplace, and one morning I was standing with my back to it
warming up. I had on some ragged bib overalls. All of a sudden I felt something hot
on my leg, and when I looked down, I saw that my pant's leg was on fire.
I took off like a bat out of hell not thinking to smother the fire. I could have easily
sustained third degree burns all over my body or lost my life because I would never
have stopped running. Fortunately, there was a bed in the room and I ran into it,
thereby allowing enough time for my sister Betty and brother Buie to reach me and
smother the fire. A large burn mark still covers most of my left leg today. I hated
short pants.
It seems as if I was fifteen years old before my mother would let me wear long pants.
Most kids my age were wearing long pants, and I felt only little kids wore short
pants. I wanted to be mature and grown up, not a little kid in short pants. Most of my
earlier years were spent playing and going to the clay hole in the summer. The clay
hole was a little man-made lake right beside U.S. Highway 84. Also about one
quarter of a mile down the road was New Prospect Baptist Church.
It was at the church where I had to wear short pants and say an Easter speech every
Easter. The regular members of the swimming gang were my brothers Buie and
Bernard (Rip), my cousin J.E. Burgess, the neighbor kid Spencer Bines, sometimes
BoBo Brown, and I. My older brother Marvin was much too mature for us. Our house
was the old Corbin home. My grandfather Henry Corbin had moved to Waycross to
work for the railroad years ago.
I guess I was around nine or ten when the family left the old Corbin home and moved
about four miles to my grandmother's farm. It was the Sirmans' home place that my
great-grandfather Steve "Buck", a slave, settled on when he became a free man. My
grandmother, Alice Roberts Sirmans, who was born about 15 miles away in Mayday,
Georgia was half Cherokee Indian and half white.
She had been living at the farm when we moved in but moved shortly thereafter to a
house in Valdosta, Georgia that my father Charlie and my uncle Freddie had recently
built. There on the farm I was expected to do my share of the work. I remember very
clearly that complaining did very little good. I remember we had to pick up sweet
potatoes after they had been plowed from under the ground.
You had to stay bent over for long periods of time. I would tell my mom or dad that
my back was hurting, and they would say, "Boy! What do you mean your back is
hurting? You don't even have a back at your age. All you got is gristle." I cropped
tobacco and hung it in the barn, but the most hated job was gathering corn in beggar
weeds. The corn and the beggar weeds would cause your skin to sting.
Then around 1954 the Sirmans' heirs got together and sold 100 acres of our farm
land to Isben Livingston. My dad bought the other 100 acres of the wood land that
our house was on which he sold a few years later. In 1955 they closed the two
classroom school house in Stockton, Georgia and I attended the seventh grade over
in Lakeland, Georgia the county seat. Then in 1956 the Charlie Sirmans' family
moved to Valdosta, Georgia.
My dad became a taxi driver. That year I was in the eighth grade, and I started the
school year in the old Dasher High School that had been downgraded to a junior high
school. At that time a strong disciplinarian, highly moral, and spiritual man, patrolled
the halls. That man was Professor J.L. Lomax, the principal, whom the school was
later named after. I, like the other students, was terrified and scared to death of
being caught in the hall unauthorized.
The new school, Pinedale High, had just been completed. For some reason, I can't
remember exactly why, they had added two eighth grade classes to the new high
school that first year. Thereafter it was only grades ninth through twelfth. I was in
one of the two eighth grade classes attending that first year in 1956. I believe my
home room teacher was Ms. Carrie Lissimore.
The principal, Mr. C.C. Hall, the late band director, Mr. C.D Marshall, the chorus
and others agreed that the school's new anthem did not rhyme properly with the
word Pinedale. Everyone agreed that Pinevale rhymed almost perfectly with the new
anthem, so the school was thereafter known as Pinevale High. "Good old Pinevale
High we will live and die for you, for you."
I was very insecure and shy in high school and will probably be somewhat shy and
insecure all my life. I remember very vividly an incident that happened to me in Ms.
Sarah Jones' class. I guess I was in the eleventh or twelfth grade. I had my shoes
leaned on their side under my desk, and when I shifted their position on the tile floor
it sounded just like someone passing gas. All eyes focused on me, but I never looked
up, I just kept my head hung and bowed.
After what seemed like a slow motion minute, Ms. Jones casually and quietly walked
over and opened some windows near where I was sitting. After the class was over a
small lad that sat right next to me, I can't remember his name, but he walked up and
told me, "I know that was your shoe that made that noise" and I told him that it truly
was. The reason I mention this incident is that because of my shyness and insecurity
at the time I failed to set the record straight.
Even if I didn't have the courage to speak up then, I should have at least went to Ms.
Jones later and set the record straight. But instead I remained mute, and to this day
as far as I know only that young lad in that whole class knows that I was innocent.
Unlike most of today's young men, I was a late bloomer. I had come close, but when I
finished high school I had not had a consummated relationship. In fact, my first
consummated relationship came around the age of twenty.
In high school I was a jock. I was crazy about girls, but I was afraid to go after them.
I excelled in sports, so that became my primary interest. When I graduated in 1961,
only two members on the basketball team received scholarships, Oswell Jones and I.
We each received basketball scholarships to Fort Valley State. We used to call
Oswell the Big "O". To this day I can honestly say Oswell was one of the best
basketball shooters I have ever seen.
Even in high school if he got hot he could consistently hit 25 foot jumpers. I am sad to
say that he was a victim in a fatal car accident while returning to Atlanta from the
"92" Valdosta High School Wildcats State AAAA Championship football game,
which Valdosta won. I can still remember one of the chants that the Pinevale High
basketball cheerleaders would yell out. "Freddie! Freddie! Freddie! He's is our man,
if he can't do it nobody can!"
I finished high school in 1961 and then worked a while at South Georgia Pecan
Factory in Valdosta before moving on to Tallahassee, Florida to attend a little trade
school. The name of the trade school was Consolidated Electronics. I went to the
school about two hours a day. I managed to get a job in a little bakery and
delicatessen shop on Adams Street right around the corner from the old capital
building.
I got a room with Mrs. Ford who lived right in front of a funeral home in French
Town on Carolina Street. I stayed in Tallahassee for six months until the little trade
school ended. After I returned to Valdosta in late 1962, I decided to enlist in the U.S.
Air Force. Like most new recruits in basic training, I visited the Alamo in San
Antonio. From there I spent two years in Omaha, Nebraska. At that time, GI's didn't
make as much money as they do today, but we knew how to party on what we had.
They had a barbecue shack at that time on North 24th Street. They sold a whole slab
of rib for about $4.95. Today it would cost a lot more. We would buy a fifth or two of
white port or red port wine for about $2.00 a fifth, get fired up, then each of us would
get a slab of rib and party into the wee hours. But the downside on duty the next
morning I would feel like I had been shot at and missed but S... at and hit. About five
months before I left Omaha, I met Janet. That is all I care to say, but she was special
and I will never forget her.
I was young and not very responsible in that department. Even when young I tended
to talk as a philosopher when someone would listen, and that she certainly would do.
I would try to figure out her problems and the why of things. When I left I gave her
my home phone number in Valdosta. When she called me while I was on leave, I
acted like I didn't want to talk to her. That was the last I ever heard of her. I don't
know why, but maybe something in my childhood caused me to feel ill at ease talking
to the opposite sex in the presence of my parents.
That is what happened to me when Janet called. When she called I guess I seemed
like a different person, like I didn't care. But I really did care. Even today it saddens
me how it ended. When I got out on my own and got married that type of behavior
didn't occur any more. My last two years in the military were spent in Puerto Rico. I
bought a 1952 Studebaker and enjoyed the Caribbean and tropical climate.
I also enjoyed some red beans and rice, the islands' staple, plus some fresh roasted
pig. The little coastal town of Aquadilla is where we did most of our partying. The
Air Force no longer has a base in Puerto Rico, but at that time in Aquadilla there was
a night club called "The Black Stallion" where most of the airmen hung out. I clearly
remember one famous patron. She was as black as the ace of spades, and they called
her Casa Boo Boo. She also was very ugly and had a face only a mother could love.
But she must have made up for it in other ways because she was never lacking. She
always got her share of dates. My enlistment was up in September, 1966. I got out of
the military and returned to Valdosta. My goal was to get a college education. There
was no excuse not to because I had a four year fully paid GI Bill at that time. I also
would receive pay while going to school. But I guess it was not to be because I found
a job and a girlfriend. I got married and started a family.
I do enjoy reading and doing crossword puzzles, two hobbies I think would be good
for anyone planning to write a book one day. I grew up with an inferiority complex
and was a very insecure person. I still am not out of the woods, but I have made a lot
of progress. I have greatly increased my self esteem and learned how to do for
myself. Sure, I wanted a college education and could still complete a degree at my
present age.
But I decided to sacrifice the prestige and overcompensate in some other area of
achievement. I have operated several small businesses over the years, including the
Super "S" Restaurant for over a year and a janitorial service for more than fifteen
years. Also, this is my second book. The title of my first book was, "The Black
Psyche In America". So overall I don't regret anything. My formal education is
limited to a high school diploma and two college courses for one semester while in the
service.
My writing should be raw, crude and pure, so hang on for a ride. I know everyone
can't agree with a lot of what I write, but that is what's so great about this great
country. Everyone has the right to express his own beliefs. I have chosen to express
some very strong views on social issues. I expect some very strong disagreements. So
I wish only one thing to those disagreeing. Please disagree without becoming
disagreeable.
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