Charles Pollard: Well, you can't tell winter from summer— Stacey Scales: That's true. Charles Pollard: —now, it don't look like. Don't have no real cold weather. When you've seen an icicle? You used to see icicles on the ground. I've been wearing shoes all my life. Tywanna Whorley: Were there some students who came without shoes? Charles Pollard: Huh? Tywanna Whorley: Were there students who came without shoes? Charles Pollard: Oh, yeah. Come barefoot. Yes, some of them come barefoot. Tywanna Whorley: Was that road here? Charles Pollard: Huh? Tywanna Whorley: Was that road right there or was that— Charles Pollard: Yeah. Tywanna Whorley: —man made? Charles Pollard: Yeah, that's been a road ever since I've been big enough. Stacey Scales: Was it paved like that? Charles Pollard: No. Tywanna Whorley: Or gravel? Charles Pollard: Dirt road. Stacey Scales: It was a dirt road. Charles Pollard: Get stuck down there on it. I pulled a many of them out mud, coming up the hill from our cemetery back there we stopped at. Stacey Scales: How were teachers viewed in the community? How did people feel about teachers? Charles Pollard: Fine. They'd whoop your—tear up with—We'd go down the swamp and some of the fellows would get them hickory switches, and some of them would gather just a regular switch. And they didn't do much, no. We got our lessons. And the only thing, me and the other boy, we used to chew up balls of paper and take and throw it across and hit one another across—in the schoolhouse. And you better not go to Sunday school with chewing no chewing gum. Stacey Scales: Yeah? Charles Pollard: Didn't allow you to do that. Don't even bring none in your mouth. Because the teacher come to Sunday school too. Catch on Sunday, she'd see about you that Monday morning. Stacey Scales: Oh, yeah? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Of course, since then, children do what they want to do. These past few years there's been fighting in the school. And that's one thing, we didn't have no fighting, which when I was coming up. Running around in the sand. One thing I told them, "I'd rather fall out—I'd rather grow up, stay up in there, than go into water." I don't have nothing to do with the water. Going up in there, that's quick death. But if I'm down there in the water—Somebody said, "If you're a good swimmer and one in there and catch you, he might drown you, trying to keep from drowning." Stacey Scales: That's true. Charles Pollard: Of course, I never did—Well, I used to go to the creek over there in Jonesboro, our home creek over here. Just walk around the water after going to Sunday school. We went to Sunday school when we were coming up. What is that down by that tree there? The root of that tree. It looks like cat there. Do you see it? Tywanna Whorley: Yeah, it does look like—It's not a cat though. Stacey Scales: It's just a piece of wood. Tywanna Whorley: Piece of wood. Charles Pollard: Is it? Stacey Scales: Yeah. Charles Pollard: I looked there and saw the tail, myself. First thing I thought about, a cat. Tywanna Whorley: [indistinct 00:03:03]. Stacey Scales: It looks like a cat. Yeah, it looks like a cat right there. Charles Pollard: Now that, just under— Stacey Scales: The root? Charles Pollard: It's a—You could go under that there. Stacey Scales: Oh, those bricks right there? Charles Pollard: Yeah, there. There's a place under there that goes around under there. Stacey Scales: All right. Charles Pollard: Kept the wood under there. We kept the wood there. Stacey Scales: Okay. How would the people dress in the school? Would— Charles Pollard: Dress like you dress. We used to buy fertilizing sacks, and some of them make the dresses and things out of them cotton sacks. Tywanna Whorley: Mm-hmm. Burlap sacks? Burlap. Charles Pollard: Cotton sacks. Yeah. But now they got a whole paper bag. Make 50 pounds, 25 pounds. Used to be had 200 pounds fertilizer, take two or three of them sacks, three or four shirts. Make them underwear and wear it sometimes. I been walking all my life. I'm 88 years old. Stacey Scales: Oh, say what? Charles Pollard: Thirteenth of this month, I'll be three months. Eighty-eight and three months. Fourth month in 1306. When I first married my wife, I stayed with her 54 years, I used to walk [indistinct 00:04:51] from Notasulga, down home. Stacey Scales: Yeah? Tywanna Whorley: Oh my goodness. Charles Pollard: I tell them I—If I wanted to, I could walk to Tuskegee. Stacey Scales: From Notasulga? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Tywanna Whorley: Oh my gosh. Charles Pollard: You couldn't walk that far, could you? Tywanna Whorley: No, sir. Charles Pollard: Yeah, I can walk. I've been walking all my life. Ain't nobody had to help me do nothing. I get up in the morning, I have to sit up there and then my—Of course, I do a little wobbling a little bit. My blood level, poor leg circulation. And I can still holler loud. Some of them who had some meeting up here this week, this past week—If you don't feel nothing, don't say nothing when the preacher going on. If you feel something, say anything you want to say. Preach. Like it. I love that singing. I do. I love that singing. Preaching too. Good for you. Tywanna Whorley: Mm-hmm. Charles Pollard: Yeah. The person going along in the world, don't say nothing much. He can't enjoy his own self. You got to jump around. Like that fellow was talking up there, talk and say something. I've been far as Cheyenne, Wyoming, Colorado. I got people in Maine, back to Mexico. Had a girl stayed in Montreal, for 11 years, but she's in the northern part of California now. She was out there when they had that earthquake. Tywanna Whorley: Earthquake? Charles Pollard: But it was in the southern part. We had a trip out there, but I never did go out there. We went to Baltimore, Maryland about three or four weeks ago. I had been to Baltimore, Maryland, back in '51. Tywanna Whorley: '51? Charles Pollard: I went to Niagara Falls. Tywanna Whorley: Oh, you've been to Canada too? Charles Pollard: No, not—I don't mean—The one in New York there. Tywanna Whorley: Okay. You ever been to New Hampshire? Charles Pollard: And we went to New York, and we went on out there to Long Island, New York, where they raise strawberries and white potatoes. We carried some boys up there and left them. Tywanna Whorley: You left them? Charles Pollard: They worked up there. Hector Holiday, he and—He went to school up there in Connecticut, so after Tuskegee, they were staying there. That's my older sister's children, four of them. And aren't y'all from Houston, Texas? Tywanna Whorley: Uh-uh. Charles Pollard: But anyhow, he's the president of that school down there. Stacey Scales: Oh, really? Charles Pollard: He's got over 200,000 children, and he's the superintendent of them. When he went there, they didn't have but one old White lady teaching. Now he's the head of the school, and got 40 working under him. Tywanna Whorley: That's all right. Charles Pollard: Give him $100,000 a year. He comes over here pretty regular— Stacey Scales: Okay. Charles Pollard: —with my oldest sister. They stayed down there with little Tuskegee, down there with little green fork. They got a home down there. Holiday. They finished in—Well, Hector's the only one finished. He got all of his education. And Kenny, Kenny said, "Uncle Charlie, I can get a good job without going to school." He makes three or $4,000 a month. He works for the Shell Oil Company, out there on the water, there in Houston, Texas. Charles Pollard: They been wanting him to go over in Africa and operate, but he said he didn't want to leave his family and go over there and stay. He's going to stay there with his family. That year when we was out to—Where were we? Columbus, Ohio, I think. Out when there was an earthquake that year, and out there in—What's that place? Over the pond there? DuBois. Not—What is it? Stacey Scales: What place is that? Charles Pollard: I was trying to think of what they called them boys. I said across the pond over there, where the bridge fell in that year. Kenny used to be over there. It's out west. Montreal? No, not Montreal. But there's a place out there and they used to play. The Dodgers beat them one year, and then Tommy Lasorda went over there and beat them twice, and they come back over here and beat him. Come back from—What's that other place over there? It's— Tywanna Whorley: [indistinct 00:10:11]? Charles Pollard: No. Italy? No, it ain't Italy. Stacey Scales: [indistinct 00:10:13], I don't know. You said from— Charles Pollard: From Niagara Falls. Julius Whales: You're talking about Albany, New York, surrounding area? Stacey Scales: Canada? Up in Canada? Charles Pollard: Well, it wasn't Canada, but it was crossing another nation. Stacey Scales: Alaska or—I don't know. Tywanna Whorley: England? Charles Pollard: But anyhow, it's a bridge across there in the year that they had a little light earthquake out there. And Kenny was working with the company, and they sent him up there, and they had a little earthquake. And in the end of that bridge, what drove that fall, it's a big lake you go across. Just like down here in Pensacola, Florida, it's over the little water right after you leave Miami. Julius Whales: Yeah, that's true. Charles Pollard: Pensacola, Florida. Well that little place back up here, northwest. Julius Whales: Oh, okay. Charles Pollard: Anyhow, it's back up there, northwest. They sent Kenny up there from Houston, Texas. And the bridge—And there's a ball team over there. And the daddy is the owner of them, and I think his son do the managing. Korea? No, it ain't that. Anyhow, it's somewhere between Mexico and Maine. But anyhow, I just know Tommy Lasorda. They went over there and beat them twice, and then they come back over here and beat them twice. Two years. Stacey Scales: Who is that? I was trying to think of it. Charles Pollard: Huh? Tywanna Whorley: Yeah, only thing I can think of is Japan, has a baseball team. Charles Pollard: This here is a little pond. Right up here in the northwest. You go across there. It's a bridge across. It's like it is down in— Stacey Scales: Niagara? I don't know where up there. Charles Pollard: Niagara Falls? No, my daughter—I've got a daughter in Niagara Falls. She's a registered nurse up there. She was down to the family reunion here in—seventh to the 10th, we were in Atlanta. Family reunion. In Columbus, Ohio, year before last. Have them every two years. Yeah, girl stays up there in Niagara Falls. And Odella down there in Brooklyn, New York. They were down with the school down there. The name of that little thing on up there, across that pond? And they had a little earthquake out there a year or two ago. Stacey Scales: Oh, really? Charles Pollard: They sent Kenny up there. Stacey Scales: Where, in California? Charles Pollard: Yes, out from California there. Stacey Scales: Okay. Charles Pollard: It's back up northwest and—And I always looked at it. I look at it all the ballgames, but this year, it's all a different story kind of, with the ballgames. Stacey Scales: Yeah. Charles Pollard: And that team over there, I love to see them play, because the boy, he always keep his hair—pulling his hat off, feeling his hair, pushing his hat back. Headed back down. Stacey Scales: Do you remember the old Negro teams? Charles Pollard: Huh? Stacey Scales: Do you remember the Negro teams? Baseball teams. Charles Pollard: Oh, yeah. Stacey Scales: You ever see them play? Charles Pollard: Yeah. At least our battalion. Stacey Scales: Who did you see? Charles Pollard: Carver Bailey, Joe Morse, Raymond Tripp, Luther Morse, Bubba Morse, Albert Robertson, and Siebert, all them were old ball players. We used to be where—We used to go way up there in Society Hill, going towards Columbus, on two of those wagons. Go up there on two of those wagons. Used to go over there to East Tullis on two of those wagons. Go right through here. Stacey Scales: Were the games segregated? Charles Pollard: Huh? Stacey Scales: Did you have to sit someplace else, other than the White folks? Charles Pollard: We didn't have no White folks in the game then. I never did play with no ball, with no White folks. I played when I'd go in the school, but I never did play no more ball. I used to catch a little fouler. This place I bought, that's where I was born, [indistinct 00:14:52]. Tywanna Whorley: [indistinct 00:14:53]? Charles Pollard: Hm? Tywanna Whorley: I was saying, y'all don't have church every Sunday. Y'all have it the first and third Sunday? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Used to have it once a month. Tywanna Whorley: Once a month? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Every third Sunday. But now we have it— Tywanna Whorley: Twice a month. Charles Pollard: Yeah, twice a month. And some of the churches have it every Sunday. Tywanna Whorley: Yeah. Charles Pollard: Yeah. Well you see, it used to be a heap of people around here, but you see, most of young people now, they're in town. Ain't nobody out in the country [indistinct 00:15:29] here now. And the children born now, they leave, go someplace. From my house back to the truck stop, it used to be plenty houses back in there. With farming back there then, we always made plenty money farming. You just—I made plenty money, spent a plenty of it. And back during that study, they gave me 32 and a half thousand dollars. And I bought a—I gave my wife $10,000. Stacey Scales: What study is that? Charles Pollard: Huh? That's the Tuskegee Study, syphilis study. Stacey Scales: Oh, what you were telling me about? Charles Pollard: Yeah. They gave me 32 and a half thousand dollars. Somebody asked me did I spend it. I said, "Hell yeah, that's what your money's for, spend." But you make money with money. Stacey Scales: Right. Charles Pollard: You don't— Julius Whales: [indistinct 00:16:27]. Charles Pollard: I got a—At least my sister passed on now. He down there to the house now. He's got the old timer's disease now. Don't know—Everything is gone, old timer's. And he don't know nothing, but he goes to church every Sunday, and goes out to eat every day. He married my sister. They are—Some of them don't like for me to tell it, but he had $800 when he married my sister. They married when they were 25 or 30. And they have a daughter who was born in '39. First day of '39. Stacey Scales: [indistinct 00:17:13]. Charles Pollard: She graduated. Dot came on eight years after she came on. She's in Atlanta. She works in the big library up there. Berta and them, her husband, they teach around up there in Washington. But Laura and Melvin, that's where they are. They went to work up in Washington. They got an education, but I expect I made more money than they made. Farming. You farm, watch the market and study. Cotton, corn, anything. Charles Pollard: But that was my brother-in-law down there. Nobody there but him, and he's old timing. Got the old timer's. He don't know nothing. Julius Whales: Do you remember— Charles Pollard: Never did know nothing. Julius Whales: —Do you remember Marcus Garvey? Charles Pollard: Huh? Julius Whales: Do you remember Marcus Garvey back then? With the UNIA, Marcus Garvey? Back then, a lot of places in the South were doing a lot with the UNIA back then, with Marcus Garvey. Stacey Scales: Marcus Garvey, from New York. United Negro Improvement Association, was—Do you remember him? Charles Pollard: I don't know. I've been free all my life, as far as I'm concerned. I know when everything was going on, and when King— Stacey Scales: Right. Charles Pollard: —I was raised down there at that home. I wasn't raised in that house. I was raised—I grew up three quarters, in back of my house. That's 340, and I was born on that 40 back there. But when I moved up on top of the hill from the home house down there, I was two years old. And I had a sister born, and she had some kind of scales. Dr. Giles said he didn't know nothing about that back then. He didn't know nothing to it. And he said, "Get some of her clothes and put them in the stove and burn them up, and that scale will leave her." And that worked. Stacey Scales: Oh, yeah? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Stacey Scales: Some of her clothes in the stove? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Burn them, let her smell it. That broke it up. Stacey Scales: Did they talk about stuff like that a lot down here? The spells and spirits? Charles Pollard: Some of them did, but I never did think—I used to go all through the cemetery, trying to find something. I ain't seen nothing out there. Never. I'll pass through up here, all times of the night, and I'll ride my mule. I'll go off looking for cows after school. Down in our home, we had cows would go right up here to fellow's oat field. But I'd go up there at night and get them, and bring them on back down. Railroad them on back down to the house. That's when we were turning them out, to run out everywhere. But coming home, you had to keep them off the highway. Don't get—Rest all your cows [indistinct 00:20:34]— Stacey Scales: Did you believe that work? The spell? Charles Pollard: Huh? Stacey Scales: The clothes, did you believe it? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Stacey Scales: Yeah? Charles Pollard: Yeah. I had pneumonia twice. They thought I was going to leave here, but it get walked around. The doctor waited so long, he sent me one out. And the lady worked on me, midwife they had back then, midwives. She was there with me, both of those times, '21 and '31. Stacey Scales: You had a Black doctor then? Charles Pollard: Uh-uh, White. Stacey Scales: Okay. Charles Pollard: Didn't have no Black then. I never did have no—I used to go to Dr. Hughes them, way up here then. Of course, during that study, Dr. Dilbert was giving those shots. Stacey Scales: Doctor who? Charles Pollard: Dilbert. Stacey Scales: Okay. Charles Pollard: He gave me those shots in my hip. In my backbone there. Stacey Scales: Mm-hmm. How did you feel after that? Charles Pollard: Felt good. Stacey Scales: Okay. Charles Pollard: But some of them, you have to stay still. What they had, a nurse on this side and a nurse over here, nurse on my head and one—Dr. Dilbert, back there in the chair and I had to draw up there and stay right still, and it's four or five of them doing it. But when I had in that Dr. Capa, in Montgomery, I went down there one day and got signed up. Went back the next time, and he gave me one in the same spine. He put me in the bed, told me what to do, just lay up there. Charles Pollard: At least lay on my side, draw up my legs, and put my hand down on my knee and sit down on my heel, and lay over on my back side. And he got back there, right there, back there, and stuck that thing. Told me, "Just be still." Just took me and him, did that. Put that back there, and I just laid still there, and drew as tight as I could. And hold it here, and he—Go in there around. See, he'd go in those joints. Go in that needle up there. Stacey Scales: They were giving you money for that? Charles Pollard: No, they weren't giving me no money. Stacey Scales: No? Charles Pollard: Uh-uh. They put a spinal in me. I had to have a spinal. Dr. Capasi already had done had another one, but he— Stacey Scales: I remember—Is that when you found out? You called attorney Gray? Charles Pollard: That was the first beginning of it, when we talked to him, 1932, '33. Yeah, right down there. She came out—Well I was at the stockyard, and that White lady came up. She was from Birmingham. She had been to [indistinct 00:23:18]. They said—I had called down home and the girl said I was gone to the stock market. And I was down to the whipper stock yard, and she came down there and found me. Took me out there and talked a little, and whooped me. Then the next morning, three or four of them—That's the day I went out and Fred—And they had to—Nurse said, "Gone over there to Fred. Gone over there to Fred." Stacey Scales: What did Fred say? Charles Pollard: He just took the case. Stacey Scales: Okay. Charles Pollard: Took the case, yep. Stacey Scales: Didn't the president have something to do with it too? Kennedy. Charles Pollard: Yeah. He's the one got everything to going back there then. Yeah. But the little money they gave us, I been doing it. I told them just pile me up from 100,000. I told them to just put up a pile out there, and give me the interest off of it every day from now on. Put up $10 billion, give me the interest off it, every day. What that make? Whenever it come through, the interest, a million dollars, be a million dollars a day, give me that from now on. Nobody know how long you're going to live. Government thought I would have been dead, but I done seen them go in. Stacey Scales: So how did you feel about that? Them giving you money for that? I mean, the amount of money you got. Charles Pollard: I told them it wasn't nothing. Shit, I borrowed more money than that. I could go anywhere. You know when you've got collateral, and I had plenty cows. Running a big farm, I used to make three or 400 a day, off of cotton. But my daddy died in '57, he farmed with mules. In '58, I bought a tractor, '61, I bought another one. '65, government took those children out the field to educate them. I bought me another tractor and a cotton picker. I went to farming then, rice. Didn't farm nothing but cotton and cattle. I had 150 heads of cows. Stacey Scales: Damn. Did your family work together on the farm, your children? Charles Pollard: I ain't had nobody to work. I hired all these people. Stacey Scales: Oh, you had to hire everyone? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Of course I didn't—And then my oldest sister, she went to Tuskegee Institute and graduated. But when those children went to school, that were picking cotton for my daddy, the government put them in school, so I bought a cotton picker. A little tractor and a cotton picker, one burned propane gas. Picked four or five—It'd take 100 hands to pick four, five bales of cotton. But we used to do that then. I could pick that in a day. See, I made money. Charles Pollard: One year, my daddy—I was just telling him about some of them said it didn't make no money. How in the heck he had what he had if it didn't make money? Just people ain't got good common sense. Some of they said, "How did he make it?" Worked and made it. I talk about my brother-in-law so much, they moved off the peckers. They ain't stayed nowhere but on a peckerwood place. I ain't never been on one's place. I had a place to doo-doo since I was—Most of the people didn't have that. Stacey Scales: Right. Charles Pollard: Be on the White man's place. I got a bunch where—We're going back through there. I'll carry you back through there. Stacey Scales: Okay. Charles Pollard: They've been out there on around rail town and everywhere else. Anyhow, I always liked to take the money and do something with it. Give it to somebody, help somebody. Stacey Scales: Can I go that way? Charles Pollard: Yeah, we can go look down there. You could turn around here in the yard, you have to [indistinct 00:27:56]. That's it. Whichever you want. Whichever you want, it don't matter. You could back down that hill and go down through—But anyway, it's just getting used to it. Stacey Scales: Right. Charles Pollard: Around that way, go on around the church, come on back this way. Stacey Scales: Would it be cold in there in the wintertime? Charles Pollard: Oh, no. We had coal. We brought coal in there then. Of course I didn't go to school much there. I had went around up there. Up there. I don't never [indistinct 00:28:43]. Stay over this way, because you don't want to hit that. Stacey Scales: I'm going down this way here, right? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Go on now, come on. Go ahead. [indistinct 00:28:59]. Julius Whales: What are they doing? Charles Pollard: Huh? All of these trailers in here now. That's one of our old—Sam White's place right there. His daughter lives there. And that's where I started, right back there. Stacey Scales: Oh, yeah? Charles Pollard: Yeah. I used to own all of that. A half a mile in here. Half a mile down to my house from—I'm a mile from home. That girl stays there. Several of them stay there. We're going to turn to the right, right here. I want to go by— Stacey Scales: Right here? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Stacey Scales: The first one? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Yeah. Old right when you get a chance. Stacey Scales: Another right? Charles Pollard: Yeah. I used to own all of that. What bought that out there, he was from Mobile. Mimms. He went back to Mobile to see about his mother and father. He was a teacher. He did that too. He got kids by a girl there and he gave it to her. That girl there, one-eyed Shawnda. I finally got him a blacktop road. Stacey Scales: Keep straight? Charles Pollard: No, just turn here. That stops right there. Just one house yonder. His wife died here, last year. Stacey Scales: How about that old house right there? Charles Pollard: That's an old house. I bought it too, when I bought this place. Paid 5400 for it. That's where Jessie—She was the first one built a house there. And that was the first trailer was put there. And this girl put a trailer—She stayed down there on her place. That boy, Purdy, he bought that house there. Deola and Martin, their folks stay there. That's where Helen stayed at one month, girlfriend. That's the old— Charles Pollard: Go over there, round on down here. Under the hill. I sold them all of that there. That's the first house built up here. Stacey Scales: That one right there? Charles Pollard: Yeah. That boy there, old Bill Johnson, that's the one that rents the country. Stacey Scales: Oh, yeah? Charles Pollard: Old Bill Johnson fat. Tore up now. I sold them all of this in there. Alabama is noted for pine trees. Take it easy going on down there because the blacktop goes out down there. That's it. Stacey Scales: Down there? Charles Pollard: Yeah, we can go down there all right. Just take it easy, would you? I thought the blacktop was all the way, but when they came over here, they give out of blacktop, I think. Those lots and things. See how the trees done grew? Stacey Scales: Mm-hmm. Charles Pollard: I come over here. right across over there, I come over there and cut $5,000 worth of timber off it. Just went off and left it, three acres. And I come up there and cut pulp wood off. Stacey Scales: You cut it with—How did you cut it? Charles Pollard: People bought it. Stacey Scales: With a saw and you cut it? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Yeah, they saw it with power saws. To cut pulp wood—You know about the cord. They give me $20 a cord. Don't get in this here. Go around this tree. Stacey Scales: Which way? That way? Charles Pollard: Pull up this way and we'll back it up. Stacey Scales: We're getting ready to go back the other way now. Charles Pollard: I expect we better back up, of course I don't know go down that way. Stacey Scales: We can go out this way? Charles Pollard: Yeah. We can go on out this way. Not a regular thing, but—That's where I—I cut that timber out through there. They left here and went back to New York, too good. Shoot, I cut the timber off it. It's some timber out there now you can cut. You know, pines and that. But that was last year, the year before last. Stacey Scales: So this way? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Go on up this way. Stacey Scales: [indistinct 00:34:01]? Charles Pollard: Yeah. You see this little road over here. You're all right. Stacey Scales: [indistinct 00:34:19]. Charles Pollard: Huh? I'm coming down here and cut some timber, I think. Julius Whales: [indistinct 00:34:30]. Stacey Scales: [indistinct 00:34:33]. This still your land here? Charles Pollard: Yeah. I own the land. Yeah, I used to own it. I had sold it. That's where—And they done left here. Stacey Scales: I think we're going to go on someone's property now. Charles Pollard: Huh? Stacey Scales: I think we're going to be riding on somebody's property. Charles Pollard: Just tell them—You're all right. We're going to go down to this house here. Stacey Scales: How we're going to get out of there? Charles Pollard: Gone up there. Stacey Scales: I think we better go out this way. Charles Pollard: No. Gone up here. That's where— Stacey Scales: I don't want to get in this way of the road. Charles Pollard: Huh? But you can't go out through here though. Turn around and go— Tywanna Whorley: [indistinct 00:35:21]. Charles Pollard: —What, you want to turn around and go back? Julius Whales: You can [indistinct 00:35:25]. Stacey Scales: I think I need to cut on to this. Charles Pollard: But it's a ditch out there. Stacey Scales: I'm not going to get in a ditch. Charles Pollard: You're going to turn around? You can turn— Julius Whales: No, you're going to go around the ditch. I mean, not around. Tywanna Whorley: You can't—You don't even know. Charles Pollard: Hm? Dog ain't going to move. I mean, he'll move. We can go through here on where that house stop right up there. Stacey Scales: Go this way? Charles Pollard: Yeah. He'll get out the way. Stacey Scales: Let me get on out of here. Charles Pollard: Yeah. Take it easy now. Go on over that way, where you see you're coming through these trails up here. Stacey Scales: I don't think we're going to make it through here. Charles Pollard: Yeah, you are. Julius Whales: You got it. [indistinct 00:36:04]. Stacey Scales: I can't get through that way. Julius Whales: [indistinct 00:36:18]. Charles Pollard: What? What you got to— Stacey Scales: Keep straight out that way? I think we need to turn around or something. Charles Pollard: On up here. Julius Whales: See up there where that car is, right? Charles Pollard: Go up there a little bit. Go up there a little bit. Stacey Scales: Go up there a little bit? Charles Pollard: Yeah, go up there and turn up there and back up. It's leveled all out there. Julius Whales: Go to the left. Go to the left. Charles Pollard: Huh? Julius Whales: See, there's a road coming out towards us. Stacey Scales: That's somebody's yard. Charles Pollard: Well anyhow, what I'm talking about, you go out there and turn around. We go right back the way we came up here. Ain't nothing out here. Nothing but the level ground, and you can turn around out here anyway. Now pull up the hill there, but cut it short and back up. Tywanna Whorley: What's that over there? Charles Pollard: It's a little house right back there in the grove. Tywanna Whorley: Uh-huh. I'm talking about right there. Charles Pollard: That fence. Stacey Scales: That's a road. Yeah, it sure is. Charles Pollard: Yeah, that's the road. Tywanna Whorley: It is a road right there. Charles Pollard: That's the road to go around. You just— Tywanna Whorley: Actually, you can just keep straight up that way. Stacey Scales: That way? Tywanna Whorley: Yeah. Right. Julius Whales: [indistinct 00:37:18]. Stacey Scales: Yeah, you see all of it. I know where I'm at now. Julius Whales: [indistinct 00:37:24]. Charles Pollard: Now turn around. Tywanna Whorley: Huh? Julius Whales: You ain't got to worry about it. This a brand new car, it'll be all right. Charles Pollard: Yeah, come on out through here. This way, you can—That boy stays back in there. I know all of them. Charles Pollard: Don't get out the—Don't you get out the road. Let them get out the road. Turn your glass down. Hello, Ms. Deola. Deola: Ooh, Lord. Hey, there. (Pollard laughs) How y'all doing? Stacey Scales: Fine. Charles Pollard: We're just riding around. Stacey Scales: How you doing? Deola: You're just riding around? Charles Pollard: Yeah, and— Deola: Well that's nice. Charles Pollard: —Yeah. We started to turn around down yonder where the girls were, but I told them come on up this way to get through. These some boys from down at Tuskegee Institute. We used to— Stacey Scales: How you doing? Deola: [indistinct 00:38:34]. Charles Pollard: I was just hollering at y'all. Deola: I'm trying to see if I know the people. Charles Pollard: No, you don't know them. Deola: What? I don't know them? Charles Pollard: No, you don't know them. Stacey Scales: How you doing? Deola: They're so friendly, I see that. Charles Pollard: That's it. Deola: Cast them a smile. Charles Pollard: Yeah. Stacey Scales: Okay. Deola: Delighted to meet you. Stacey Scales: Stacey Scales. Good to meet you. Deola: I saw you going—Who you say this young people? Charles Pollard: They're from Tuskegee Institute. Stacey Scales: Students. Deola: Oh, indeed. Charles Pollard: Yeah. Deola: That's lovely. Charles Pollard: You're from where, Louisiana? Stacey Scales: I'm originally from Indiana. Deola: Oh, ain't that so nice? Stacey Scales: Yes, ma'am. Tywanna Whorley: Tywanna. Deola: Oh, that is so kind— Julius Whales: How you doing? Deola: —of you. I told my son, I said, "That looks like Mr. Pollard." Charles Pollard: Yeah. Deola: Oh, he's a nice person. He's the nicest person I ever met. Stacey Scales: Yeah, he's all right. Charles Pollard: Yeah, that's what I been telling them. Deola: We met him about 34 years ago. This my [indistinct 00:39:22]. Charles Pollard: It's been that long? Deola: Uh-huh, 34 years. We used to gather his cotton for him. Charles Pollard: That's it. Deola: My daughter and myself. Charles Pollard: That's it. They've been asking what did people do, and I told them, "We worked around down there and had a good time coming on up." Deola: That's right. Charles Pollard: It's just different people. Deola: Oh, that's right. Charles Pollard: Different people, they can't think. Deola: That's true. Charles Pollard: Everybody can't think. Deola: That's true. That is real true. Charles Pollard: Nothing but, if they tell you to do something, you won't ever do nothing. Something that the God Almighty— Deola: You have to. Charles Pollard: —you know, you get it from Him. Deola: You know you have to do something to accomplish something. Charles Pollard: That's it. That's it. Deola: You can't just sit in a school, looking for everything to find you. Charles Pollard: Fall in your mouth. Deola: You've got to get up and offer yourself, and do it for something. Charles Pollard: And do it. That's it. That's it. Deola: You see, I've experienced where y'all young people on your way. Charles Pollard: That's it. Deola: You're in the educated field. I wasn't, but I got common sense. Charles Pollard: That's it. Deola: You can't just sit down, just looking for everything— Charles Pollard: Come up here. Deola: —[indistinct 00:40:15]. "I can't get this. I can't—" Get up off of yourself and— Charles Pollard: Do something. Deola: —show what you want. If you want something, you can— Charles Pollard: You can get it. Deola: —get something. Charles Pollard: That's right. Deola: I'm not going to hold you, because I know you've got to go. Stacey Scales: That was well said. Deola: But I'm so glad to meet you. Stacey Scales: Okay, you too. Charles Pollard: Come on. I told them we'd come right by you, and I told them to stop here. Deola: Oh, I'm so glad you've done that, Mr. Parlor. Charles Pollard: So I could holler at you. Deola: —Mr. Parlor. I am so glad. Well I hope to see you all in the near future, and I hope you be successful in whatever you engage in. Stacey Scales: Thank you. Take care. Deola: All right. Charles Pollard: I'll be back. Deola: All right, Mr. Parlor. You do that now. Charles Pollard: All right. Deola: Okay. Charles Pollard: Don't get me now. Deola: All right. Okay. Take care. Stacey Scales: Bye now. Charles Pollard: These people, I've known them from down there off of Ben Walker's place, between Tuskegee and Montgomery. Over down there at— Stacey Scales: Sounds like you've helped a lot of people. Charles Pollard: Oh, all of these people up here. This young boy over here works for the VA. He's been in the Army all the time, but he bought an acre there from me, before he came out of the Army. His people used to live there in Montgomery. Down there in Tuskegee. Charles Pollard: That's one of the first trailers. That's the first house was built up here. The boy who had it, he was going to put him a barbershop right there, but he soon died, and that girl is still there. She has two children. Well she had one, her oldest child got killed. Up here by the side of the hill. Stacey Scales: Now you said you had a plot, a cemetery, on your land? Charles Pollard: Yeah, that's it. My cemetery. Stacey Scales: That's your family, right? Charles Pollard: Yeah. Stacey Scales: Can we see that? Charles Pollard: Yeah, we'll go up there. It's a bunch of houses down this way, but we'll gone out here to the cemetery and go around. That's it. Then come short in here. Stacey Scales: This way? Charles Pollard: Come in here. Come on in here. Stacey Scales: Right in here? Charles Pollard: Come in. Come on in here. Go on right around it, and then go out yonder where it's cleaned up. And just go right around the cemetery. And Macedonia Church got a cemetery around here too. Just stop here, right here. This the closest place. Just stop. Stay in the road. Stay in the— Stacey Scales: So you—Okay. Charles Pollard: We can go down that way, and I'm just gone—We can go around there if you want to, and then we can stop when we get back around to there—Right where my daddy and them is buried. Just straddle that kind of. That's it. Straddle it, and take it easy now. Take it easy. Just take that way. There you go. That's DuBois's place. When they build it— Stacey Scales: These don't have any tombstones over right here. Charles Pollard: Yeah, some of them got some, some of them don't. That baby right there, that boy got killed in the Army, and he was stinking when they bought him here. Said they found him in the woods, hung up in a tree. Young boy. Stacey Scales: What's his name? Charles Pollard: Gaines. He was a Gaines. Stacey Scales: So somebody hung him up, huh? Charles Pollard: He was in the Army, and they found him over there in a tree, hung. Dead. This is Macedonia Cemetery. See the Parlor yonder? Stacey Scales: Mm-hmm. Charles Pollard: Martha Parlor. That's Macedonia Cemetery. Stacey Scales: That was your wife right there? Charles Pollard: No. My people. Stacey Scales: Martha? Charles Pollard: No. Stacey Scales: That's not related to you? Charles Pollard: No. Well, on my mother's side. Yes, some kin on my mother's side. Yeah. And that cemetery goes down in there. They need to come in there and cut it up. Charles Pollard: I gave them this cemetery up here. Two older people up in there. Jethro Parks and Luelie Pearl Parker. Dorothy Mitchell, in Tuskegee, she's on the other side. Stacey Scales: Oh, yeah? Charles Pollard: You can go and talk to her over there. She works in Auburn. She's a veterinary teacher. Veterinary. Just stop right here now. Just stop right here now. Just go out there and I'll show you our family. Stacey Scales: Okay. Let me turn around.