By Joe Foreman
Last Thursday afternoon who should come up to our house but Jim Watson. Nobody has seen a hide or hair of Jim and hadn’t heard from him in nearly 40 years. He just came in on the train and got off and, of course, didn’t know a soul. He walked around a bit, looked at the signs and he told me that he asked a few questions but got no satisfactory answer until he wandered to around the corner store and happened to ask if anybody knew if Joe Foreman was alive or no. Some of them pointed out my place and he came on over. I was out about the back and when Sue called me I went around to the front to see what was wanted. I could not just place him altho’ I thought I knew something was familiar about him. He wears a beard and is a bit stooped and I, at last, gave up that I did not know who it was. He allowed that the only reason he knew who I was, was because he had asked down at the store about me. Well, I certainly was proud to see old Jim again. We were brought up in the same neighborhood but along about the time we were free or a little before, he got it in his head that he wanted to get out from North Carolina and see something of the world. He put out without ever telling anybody anything about where he was headed for and, of course, never having had any book learning, he could not write back even if he had wanted to and so there it was. He has drifted about, hitting it pretty well sometimes and getting it hard at others. He was wild as a boy and I can see that he has never gotten over it. Nobody knows what possessed him to come back to the old community and he doesn’t know himself. About all his folks are gone. Old Uncle Ben who was his father, died years ago, never knowing what ever became of Jim but always hoping and expecting some way that Jim would come up.
Jim spent the night with me and we talked over old times. He did not take any big interest in anything except the coon hunts we used to take. We called over all the boys that he used to run with and knew where the best places were where you could get coons up. The next day he sat around and rested up from his long trip and Saturday I went with him up on the river. He spent a day or two with Jim Young’s folks and then came back to our house and said he would have to be going back.
It certainly set me to thinking. Here is a man who has spent his whole life with no other idea in mind than to satisfy his own selfish wants. He has never helped anybody. Nobody is depending on him for support and comfort. He wants to get back with his old crowd. The affairs of the great world or anything good doesn’t give him a worry. He will die some day. It is certain to come and often when least expected. He will probably be taken in hand by strangers when the end comes and even where they lay him will soon be forgotten. The world will not miss him and Heaven will be no richer. As for me, I had rather spend my days in a slow, poky way, and never so much as see a “greaser” or a coyote, and do my bit faithfully and have those who know me and love me be left to miss me when I am gone. If I can want to add a little to the world’s good and happiness.
From the front page of The Chatham Record, Pittsboro, N.C., April 12, 1923. A greaser was a derogatory term for a Mexican in the American Southwest, especially during the Mexican-American War.
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