Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 December 2000 — Page 26

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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8,2000 ■ PAGE C8

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TheLoveseat: A Christmas Story

Hyperactivity: Evaluate before you medicate ► (NAPSA)—The school reports ^hat your child is acting up, can’t bit still, won’t pay attention, speaks put of turn, is disrupting the class pnd should probably be on medication. • What should you do? Child psychiatrist David Fassler, M.D., of Burlington, Vt., offers this advice: ; Don’t feel pressured to put your child on medication. Medicines are pffective and can be very helpful for many children, but only when used after a thorough evaluation &nd as part of a comprehensive treatment plan, including individual therapy, family support and counseling, and work with the school. Find a physician or other mental health professional well-trained in managing children’s behavior problems. Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is not an easy diagnosis tt> make; it cqn’t be diagOgl Or minute office ly other childhood diMg|ftp1&ve similar symptoms. Also, children under emotional stress do act out. The doctor will review your child’s development, social, academic, family andmedical history, and will talk extensively with you and possibly, his or her teacher. . Only after the doctor concludes that the child has ADHD should you discuss use of medicine. The Safety and effectiveness of stimulant medication such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) is well-docu-mented by decades of scientific research. It is well-tolerated by Children, has minimal side effects hnd is not addictive when taken as prescribed. Untreated, kids with uncontrollable hyperactivity and attention problems often fall behind in fcchoolwork, have problems at home or with friends and are at high risk for later drug and alcohol pbuse. : Gtildren struggling to overcome behavior problems need help to enjoy a normal, active childhood — it’s the only one they’ll ever have. I ; ■ For more information about behavior problems in children, visit the American Psychiatric Association Web site www.psych.org, or write: APA, 1400 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005.

By REGINA LYNCH-HUDSON The love seat requires some introduction. Her limbs are fashioned out of deep, dark walnut, and her etchings are magnificently carved. For what it’s worth, she is a genuine antique. As the most sentimentally valued possession in my home, she sits center stage — the stately grand duchess — in a parlor that’s shared by only a baby grand and a Faberge eggDecember of 1998, the year that I became immersed in the perceived stability that comes with turning 40, my favorite uncle entrusted me with the prized family heirloom — the love seat, the most cherished Christmas offering. Scattered from North Carolina to Oklahoma to California, relatives stood in awe — wondering whom my uncle would bequeath with the treasured legacy. After all, the disciplinarian, protector, and Vietnam veteran had no offspring. Perhaps Uncle Winfred sensed that the piece would feel at home with the family wanderer-writer-art connoisseur who with age acquired a probing reverence for yesteryear. The pomp and circumstance, as she was dressed for the trip from the sleepy, little village of Black Mountain, North Carolina to bustling Atlanta was short of ceremonious. My uncle carefully bundled her in blankets, followed by heavy plastic sheeting. As a circle of family members observed, the piece was gently hoisted onto the back of a pick-up truck, and roped securely. Next, my uncle studied the heavens; worrying that rain, Sleet or snow would intervene. But, the sky overhead was clear, and the air stiff and cold. Not a cloud was in the sky. Then, as if he were extending birthrights to the royal throne, my uncle handed me an envelope that explained how the nomadic piece of furniture landed in his possession. My great-great-great grandmother Sarah Pain (1801-1896) was a free Cherokee Indian and midwife who rode horses to visit her patients. In those days, Indian women who wed slaves did not take the slave name; hence, my great-great-great grandfather, Lonnie Mills, a slave and blacksmith, took hers. Eventually they changed their last name to Payne, like most families who changed the spelling of their last name from what it was during slavery. Sarah and Lonnie had seven children, including my great-great grandfather George Washington Richard Henry Lee Payne (1838-1927); a proud western North Carolina blacksmith who donned top hats and bow ties. He married Frances Freeman Payne (1848-1892), an Indian and white woman who bore him eight, children — one being my great grandmother Hattie Othella Payne Burnette (1891-1986). Another was my great-great aunt Sarah Payne Lowe (18891968). The love seat belonged to Sarah, my great-great-great grandmother’s namesake. There exists an increasingly ambiguous blot as to how Sarah acquired the love seat. However, after Sarah’s death, the settee transferred to her niece, my great aunt Mary Othella. Mary Othella was a wanderer-educator-adventurer, who decided to nest the love seat

with her big sister, my grandmother, Helen Juanita, a rock solid nurturer and matriarch. For nestled in the valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in my grandparents’ house, she found a repository where the piece would be tended, cared for, and coddled as she trekked from the Carolinas, to the nation’s capitol, to the West Coast, to the wilds of Africa. Mary Othella also charged my grandmother with an ornate wooden desk with lion’s head carvings, handmade by her father, my great-grandfather Garland Alfred Andrew Burnette (1889-1954); a hardened, austere carpenter who boldly pioneered his family West in the ‘50s in pursuit of a dream — only to die soon after arrival. For as long as I can recall, the love seat has been a part of my life. In 1966, the Christmas that I was eight, I received a requested Kodak Instamatic camera, and the entire family took turns formally posing on the love seat. It was the focal point in my grandparents’ house, juxtapositioned next to a black and white RCA console television. On April 4, 1968,1 recall my grandmother being braced into the sturdy arms of the love seat when Walter Cronkite announced the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Too, it was where she often sat glaring into a sea of soldiers on Bob Hope’s televised USO tours — in hopes of spotting a glimpse of her son, my uncle, amid the rose of a nation — 58,000 who never made it back home. The fabric has been stained with soot from a spiffy old coal burning stove, tiny fingerprints imprinted with cake batter, and a trail of tears. Over the years, the love seat’s location in the house changed -npnd wherever she sat, the vintage seat upstaged other furnishings, making them appeal* impotently postmodern in comparison. The upholstery has changed from Dijon mustard gold to Granny Smith apple green to a splash of prints and back to gold-tone again. As kids, my siblings and cousins felt as if our rumps would touch the floor when we took running leaps onto the once sagging seat to squeeze into her inviting aims; and with time the original springs were replaced. In the early ‘70s I recall my mother, Hattie Geneva, buying braiding, upholstery tacks, and tapestry fabric and actually reupholstering the love seat by hand. And, just as the many fabrics faded and aged with time, so did the owners of the piece. When my grandmother and mother died, Great Aunt Mary Othella penned a hand written letter that formally presented the gem to my Uncle Winfred, the bedrock of the family. In a sense of intimacy indigenous only to family lore she transferred ownership to him as remuneration for a debt unpaid; and to plea pardon for “one too many whippings” that she gave my now 63-year-old uncle, whom she babysat as a lad. His installation as watchman of the piece broke the consecutive chain of women owners. Through my uncle, the love seat breathed a second wind. He resurrected the piece to mint condition, driving through western North Carolina’s spiraling mountainous roads from Black Mountain to Weaverville to locate a prime restorative craftsman. There it was determined that the old dame had been around well over a century. ft See LOVESEAT, Page C7

Regina Lynch-Hudson poses on the love seat she sat on as a toddler, beneath an oil painting of her mother seated on the same antique. Regina owns The Write Publicist & Co., a Fayetteville, Ga., based publicity firm.

Frances Freeman Payne (1848-1892) was the mother of Sarah Payne, the love seat’s original owner.

Regina Lynch-Hudson’s great-great-great grandparents Lonnie Mills Payne and Sarah Payne are the ancestors of a strong bloodline of women — Including songstress Freda Payne. In 1971, Freda recorded “Bring the Boys Home,” a topical tune about the Vietnam War. The U.S. Command banned the song from the American Forces Network, claiming It would “give aid and comfort to the enemy.” Stateside, It gained heavy air play and became a 3-million seller.

Scenes from Links Holiday House

COMMENTARY

Carl Brashear: The Navy’s firs Black chief master diver By JIMMIE DAVIS JR.

Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. plays the role of Carl Brashey a sharecropper’s son who battl racism to become the U.S. Navy first Black master chief diver Men of Honor. Brashear was bom in 1931 i& segregated Sonora, Ky. He joined the Navy during the turbulent ‘506 Jim Crow era as a means of escape ing the poverty that he grew up in. Black children did not and still don’t have the luxuries of having equal educational opportunities ak white students. This brother came from the school of hard knocks and he had to drop out of school in the seventh grade to assist his father with the planting and harvesting of crops. ^ Life was so much different during the Jim Crow era because the Black family and community were close knit. Each member of the family had a role to play with chores around the house. Not lil today whereas some parents cat< hell trying to get their lazy kids to wash dishes or take out the trash. This was about survival and if you wanted to eat, you’d better get out in that field and plow those

crops.

The farm life has practically eroded and Black families are not

Sarah Payne Lowe having as many children as they (1889-1968) the did doin g sharecropping Jim

author’s great-great Crow era.

aunt, was one of the He bought joining the Navy first documented would be a good thing for him, but

he was soon to learn there was no “equal opportunity” in the milir tary and that there was military racial segregation. ■) Eight out of every 10 Black men in the Navy worked separ rately from white sailors. [ With little hope of advancement, Brashear performed menial tasks and one day his luck changed dramatically. j One day Brashear saw a diver go over the side of the ship to recover a plane that had rolled off the jettison ramp. , i “I started requesting to be a deep-sea diver,” he said. “I finally got into school in 1954.” ^ Threats were made towards Brashear’s life, but in the end H? persevered and stayed the course; He finished third in a graduat-

ing class of 17.

Three years later he faced more

tragedy.

After years.of dedication, trainin, frustration and disappointments Brashear’s tenacity was rewarded. He became the first Black master diver in June of 1970. His fortitude should demonstrate to other Black’s that we can rise above our circumstances and achieve greatness.

Pamela

Pasley and her family

put their

home Into the hands of several

local

Interior designers and area retailers for

the

charitable event.

owners.

With an expectation to meet or exceed the $10,000 raised last year for The Madam Walker Theatre Center, the second annual Links Holiday House offered an array of decorating Ideas for the festive season.

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