When
I was a boy growing up in the 1950's, it seemed like everyone
in Fisher County came to Rotan on Saturdays. It
was hard to find a parking spot around the three
block long oval shaped main drag of downtown
Rotan. The local area men would stand around in
small groups on the sidewalks talking, while the women did the
shopping or sat in their cars - people watching
- and the kids went to
see a picture show. There were several cafe's
along the main drag in those days and they all
did a thriving business on Saturdays.
Things
were especially active in downtown Rotan on
Saturdays during the fall months, when the
farmers would bring in Mexican laborers by the
truck loads to do the cotton harvesting. The
Mexican Nationals - men, women and children - would be hauled up from
Mexico, usually in two ton stake trucks equipped
with tall side boards. The Mexican peasant men
wore white linen attire, with sandals and big
wide brimmed sombrero straw hats. There was a
carnival like setting in downtown Rotan on
Saturday afternoons in the fall months back in those days, with all
of the cars and people milling around. There
were always mixed aromas in the air - the smell of
hamburgers, the smell of Mexican foods cooking,
the smell of breads and pastries baking, the
smell of the exhaust fumes from all of the motor
vehicles and the ever present smell of the smoke from the
burr burners at the cotton gins. Growing
up in Rotan, Texas was quite an experience. It
was in the Bible Belt. Most
of the people were white Protestants with strong
family values, high morals and conservative
viewpoints. It was "dry" and beer,
wine or liquor were not sold anywhere in the
county. The people were very patriotic. All
in all - it was a good place to raise children.
I have many fond memories about my days as a
child growing up in Rotan. In many ways - it
like Mayberry from the Andy Griffith TV show.
The barber shop was a big gathering place for
the men, just to sit around and tell stories. We
had the corner drug store with the old fashioned
soda fountain. There was one full stop light and
two blinking caution lights in the whole town.
School plays, little league baseball and Friday
night high school football games were all big
events in Rotan. There were some negative aspects to it. I don't
expect everyone to share my views or agree with
me on this, but it is the way I remember it.
Rotan was a typical small town in Texas in that
day in time, and I believe most other small
towns in Texas had these same flaws. There
was racial prejudice. Those
were the days of segregation. You
didn't see many black folks in downtown Rotan.
The Negroes stayed on their side of town, which
was called "the flats" by the white
folks. They had their own school, stores and eating
places. Negro children did not go to the public
schools in Rotan. When their school burned down
around 1958 (I believe), the
Rotan School Board refused to let the Negro
children attend the public schools on a
temporary emergency basis - they were bussed to one of the
neighboring towns where there was a school open for
the Negro children. If Negroes used the stores or the cafe's in
downtown Rotan, they placed their order at the
back door and waited for it to be handed out to
them. We all shared the same movie theater - the
blacks had to sit in the balcony seats. (I can
remember thinking they got special treatment).
If a Negro man was seen walking around in Rotan
outside the flats, he was watched carefully by
the white men because he was probably up to no good. It was
not that unusual to see Negro women outside the
flats, as many of them worked doing household
work for the wealthy white folks. There
was "class" prejudice. Like
most small towns in Texas and the other Southern
States during those times, your social status
was very important in Rotan. It was a very class
conscious environment and everyone was expected
to "stay in their place". It started
even before we started school. The
"Good Old Boy Network" was going
strong in Rotan back then. The color of your
skin, your family name, where you lived, your
Church affiliations, what you did for a living
and how much money you
made were all important factors in determining
your social status. There
were basically six classes of people in Rotan -
(1) the affluent whites, (2) the working class whites,
(3) the poor whites ("poor white trash),
(4) the residents of Mexican
descent, (5) the transient Mexican Nationals and
(6) then
the Negroes. The higher up on the chain you were
- the better it was for you. There
was "ethnic origin" prejudice. Hispanics
were commonly labeled as "wet backs",
"chili bellies", "chili chompers",
"beaners", "greasers"
- among other derogatory
labels. If your surname sounded Spanish - you
were categorized as a Mexican. If you had
Hispanic features (black hair, brown eyes, dark
complexion) and spoke with an accent, you were
labeled as a Mexican. Mexicans were considered
to be not quite as good as the white folks and
they were generally treated as lower class
people. It was not good to be labeled as a
Mexican - many of the children I grew up with
who were of Mexican descent were not allowed to
speak Spanish at home. The
transient Mexican Nationals were sometimes treated more
like cattle than human beings. People with roots in any of the
countries in the Middle East region of the world
(Lebanon, Syria,
Egypt, Saudi Arbia, the Persian Empire, Turkey,
Greece, Jordan, etc. - as well as Israel) were
considered to be "Jews". Jews were a
special sub-class of people. Since most of them were
store owners and considered to be wealthy, they
were generally accepted as first class citizens -
with some reservations. The "Jew"
label was pinned on them and that was not a good
thing in those days. The worst label of all was
the word "nigger", and it was a word that was
commonly used by the white folks back in those
days. There
was Church Affiliation prejudice. Most
of the people were Protestants - Baptists,
Methodists, Church of Christ Christians, Church
of the Nazarene Christians and Assembly of God (Pentecostal) Christians being the most popular
Churches. Catholics were a minority - there was
a small Catholic Church and most of the
congregation were Hispanics. Most people in
powerful positions were Baptists, and it was
sometimes alleged that favoritism was shown by
them to other Baptists. The Baptists called some
of the others "Holy Rollers", the
Church of Christ Christians called the Baptists
"Holy Rollers", the Methodists just
smiled a lot and the Catholics were openly
ridiculed by all of them. Everyone was expected
to go to Church on Sundays. Those people that
did not attend Church were looked down upon by
those that did. Atheists were
simply not tolerated. When
I left Rotan in 1964, I was not very well
prepared to face the big world. I had a lot to
learn. I was naive and very narrow minded and
rigid in my thinking. In Navy Boot Camp, there
were several Negroes in our Recruit Training
Company. There were even Negro Petty Officers
and Company Commanders. I did not know how to
relate to them. I did not dislike them - I was
in awe of them. I was totally shocked by some of
the things I saw in San Francisco. It took a
long time for me to realize that people in other
places didn't see things the way I did - and
that is okay. I became more flexible and
tolerant over the years but I am still
influenced by my early raising in Rotan, Texas. ============================================= In
Closing. A
dollar went a long way back in those days. For
us kids, no matter what our social class was,
with fifty cents we could take in a movie and
dine on a good hamburger with a soft drink on Saturdays - and maybe
even have a little change left over. As we grew
to be adolescents and started to drive, we could
get a full tank of gasoline for even the most
thirsty road hog car for $5.00 or less. It was
always cheaper to buy gas at Jack Allen's
station - just off the main drag, but there was
a long standing rumor that he watered the gas
down. Times
have changed. ================================================================= |