Remembering the Power of Words: The Life of an Oregon Activist, Legislator, and Community Leader

Chapter Four: Them Changes

49 chapter four Them Changes In my “new person” phase during high school, I had a boyfriend who lived almost literally around the corner (actually two corners). Neshell Waters was very popular. He was in a singing group called the Streetcorner Singers, and they had engagements all the time. He had worked for a short time at Fred Meyer; in fact, he was the first African American clerk to work at that store. This fact is important because he was not working in a janitorial role and his accomplishment was a huge thing back in those days. The NAACP had worked to make this happen. Neshell was also popular with girls. When we started dating he had a couple of other girlfriends, one of whom lived across the street! Like some of my girlfriends and their boyfriends, Neshell and I were sexual. We girls didn’t talk about it a lot but one or two of us got pregnant before the end of high school. We did not practice birth control. In the class of 1965 at Girls Poly, I was one of roughly twenty African American students. My relationship with Neshell led to the birth of our son Tyrone Wayne Waters in 1966, named “Tyrone” for my brother and “Wayne” after Neshell’s own middle name. We were married before our son’s birth. The only thing I remember about anticipating the world of adult sexuality is a book my mom gave me about menstruation and the changes in a woman’s body. It was through reading that I made these discoveries. My knowledge of sexuality was not based on anything that she or my grandmothers sat down and told me. Sex was not really even a topic with my girlfriends. We would talk if we heard that someone got pregnant but there was no rite of passage or engaged conversation about how my body was going to change or how I or anyone else might feel about that. I still have a clear memory of the book being on the dining room table because my mom put it there and left it for me. My dad’s way of talking to me about sexuality was a command: “Stay Away From Boys!” I don’t 50 recall him saying: “Don’t get pregnant.” But we were not allowed to go to parties and I heard my dad’s later objections to Faye going away to school at the University of Oregon as related to this issue of protection and control over our bodies. I also heard his objections to her wishes as somehow punishment for what I had done by getting pregnant. But my sister went away anyway. I think she and Mom just worked it out, thinking that Dad would catch up later. Grades were supposed to count for something at our house but I think it was hard for my father to think through support for his daughters’ education, since school, especially college, seemed to entail freedom from home and distance from family. Mom liked Neshell very much. She liked his family, especially his mom, who attended our church. When it was discovered that I was pregnant, the mothers were the ones who negotiated the marriage. Neshell and I married in August, and soon after that, he was drafted for service in Vietnam. We had lived in rental housing on North Alberta Street and then on North Going Street. Our marriage was not destined to last. We were very young and ill prepared for adult roles. After Neshell came back from Vietnam we separated and we stayed separated for well over a decade; we did not divorce until he decided to remarry. We always stayed in touch and maintained a good relationship around our son, and with our son, and for our son. I became very close to his second wife, Star. We were good friends and called ourselves the “wives-in-law.” Other people could not figure us out but we really liked and respected each other. To this day, Star calls me every year on my birthday. We always acknowledge one another as women who loved and had a relationship with the same man 51 at different points in our lives. And our relationship was good for the kids. Finding out I was pregnant was scary and I was afraid to tell my mom. In fact I couldn’t tell my mom: she...