Faces and Stories from Oberlin, LA

David: Chris and Tony left early this morning and arranged for me to meet them 15 miles down the road in Oberlin, LA. That gave me time to stop at the only Mennonite church I’ve seen on this trip and take pictures. More on that tomorrow.

These fine folks watched me disembark from  the van and follow Chris and Tony inside. I greeted them with a “Good morning, gentlemen,” to which the man in the corner replied, “I’m glad you could recognize that about us.”  Of course.

After we went inside and ordered, I knew my place was outside while Chris and Tony plotted their day. So I grabbed my coffee and headed back outside.

I walked up and started, “so when I came in . . . “ but before I could finish the same man in the corner pointed me to an empty chair and said, “Come sit down.”  So I did. And we started talking.

This group is known to themselves and others as “The coffee drinkers and tea sippers mutual admiration society.” The youngest is not retired yet. The oldest will be 92 in a month. He once owned a pepper mill north of town before it was bought out. They get together at least twice a week. Actually, only one of them can stop by the Dairy Queen in the morning, and if there’s one other there, they can meet.

We had a very pleasant chat. They were ready to break up for the day, but agreed to stay for a photo. They wished us well, told me where the best place in town was to get crawdaddies, and left.

When I returned inside, Chris and Tony were ready to leave. We said goodbye and I realized there were two gentlemen inside who had been watching me the whole time. They were also nursing their coffee and talking. So I pivoted and asked them if I could ask them a question.  They said yes. So I introduced myself, talked about Chris’s ride, and explained that while she’s biking, I drive around drinking coffee and looking for people to talk to. I said my question was simple: “What is life like around here?”

Carlos, in the picture below, did most of the talking. Carlos told a story of a town that is in transition. We’re a small town, he said, but like many small towns, we’re getting big city problems.

What do people do for work?  There are some factories here. I work at the pepper mill. There’s a chemical factory. That’s where most people work.

How are things?  Well, things are good. They could be better. But things are good.

Like many conversations, Carlos and I took several runs at the subjects we talked about. We were testing each other out. At one point Carlos said, “I could tell what you wanted to talk about.” 

I asked what he meant by things “could be better.”  Carlos had examples. When he was growing up, his mother worked as a domestic helper for a white family on the West side of town. Carlos would go and play in the yard, but he was not allowed inside. “Now I own that house,” he told me. And by the Grace of God, it’s paid off.

It’s not just that Carlos is a hard worker. The town is full of hard working Black citizens.  “things are different now because we got someone in the bank,” he explained. It’s only 1 person, but now mortgages are being written for black people.

Carlos was on the police force earlier in his life. He saw how policing is done
here.  “We used to always go over to the East side to show people that things were getting done. Then we started to go to the West side, and all of a sudden it was like ‘Whoa, if you pick them up on the West side, you just take them home.’”

We compared notes of his time here and my time working with a juvenile detention reform initiative in Elkhart County, where a young black teenager in Elkhart was 5 times as likely to be incarcerated as a young white teenager for the same infraction.

We talked about my time in Lancaster, PA, where we moved two blocks South of King Street, which was “the other side of the tracks” in terms of the racial divide at that point. His “East - West” divide, my “North- South” divide. Same dynamic.

Then he lowered his voice and leaned forward and told me that he had had a noose put around his own neck 30 years ago. I asked how that happened. He said it was done by his co-workers at the paper plant where he works when he started there. I asked why the guys did that. He said because they had never worked with a black man before.  I asked what he did. “Well, I didn’t sue them or anything. I want to be known as a man who is making this town better.  I want to be known as a man who will help you if you need help.”

When I first came inside I asked Carlos if he ever goes out and joins the group in the front. No. “We know everybody in this small town,” he said. “And when the weather changes they’ll come in here and we’ll get the coffee pot and walk around and fill every bodies cup.”

But there are rules to observe, important distinctions to maintain. Entry into the Coffee Drinkers and Tea Drinkers Mutual Admiration Society is maintained by the same people who previously maintained entry to homeownership in Oberlin. And employment without the fear of losing one’s life.

And then it was time to leave and catch up with Chris and Tony. Which I did. Chris and I stopped at a Dollar Tree on the way back. I paid for our things and we returned to camp. At which point I discovered I didn’t have my wallet. Oh nos! So I headed back to town, hoping / praying my wallet was there.

It was. With the front cashier. Where Mack took it when he found it. Thank you Mack Wyland!