"A bath for me
consisted of
standing in a
large tin tub, with
my mother
scrubbing me
down next to the
wood-burning
stove."

For most of us, life involves an assortment of twists and turns, upward and downward spirals and, of course, plenty of ordinary, less than memorable occurrences that cause our lives to seem stagnat or predetermined.

Yet, memories of some experiences never leave us. They are haunting visuals that carry with them lasting life lessons and humility to boot. Perhaps those are the ones that inspire us to follow our dreams and that push us to accomplishments beyond our wildest imagination.

For me, those memories are centered on the small house my family lived in on the edge of Durham's infamous Hayti district. I didn't perceive our house as small back then. As a matter of fact, it was probably pretty big compared to some dwellings in and around our neighborhood. The problem as I remember it was its deteriorating condition.

The antiquated plumbing system made relieving yourself in a hole in the back yard seem the normal thing to do.

Frozen pipes in the winter were common, and plenty of empty milk jugs and buckets were always on hand for the trip next door to our landlords' house to collect water for cooking, bathing and drinking. Their home, a large, two-story stone structure sat prominently in the midst of the other dilapidated wood-frame houses they owned. The patriarch of the family was a professor at what was then North Carolina College. He was a proud, portly man, with a round, childlike face, eyes slanted slightly, and hair that was black and straight.

He and his mother owned and managed a dozen or so houses much like the one in which we lived. I've never known how they managed to accumulate so much more than the average "Negro," but I suppose like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and George Washington Carver, they apparently raised themselves, by sheer will and fortitude, above all that was against them.

I don't know why, but I remember distinctly the green garden hose they'd connect to their kitchen sink, and then hurl outside to my brothers, sisters and me, where we stood trembling in the cold. The water hauled over from our landlords' house never made it to a bathtub. We didn't have one. In fact, I don't remember taking a bath in an actual tub until much later. A bath for me consisted of standing in a large tin tub, with my mother scrubbing me down next to the wood-burning stove. I'm sure my sister Carolyn still bears the mark of getting a little too close to that old, rusty stove during one of her nightly scrub-downs.

When I think back to those early years of my life, they remind me of how far I've come and of a place where I'd never like to go again. But more than that, those early memories have become the source of countless morality stories for my children, and for close friends who've lost their way and forgotten how far they've come.

Unfortunately, whether things will get that bad again is not totally in my control. But that's OK. Perhaps it's even a good thing. I feel blessed to not only have such humbling memories, I'm especially grateful for the sense of humility that those memories have inspired in me.