Image by Avery Fan from Pixabay
“Sgt. Lee, we are so glad to meet you, because we have a relative on the mountain too, and we thought nobody tells stories like Pappa Ebon Jubilee, but Dad always says, don't discriminate!”
That was eight-year-old Gracie Trent, whose great-great-grandfather was Ebon Jubilee Sr. on her father's side. Her great-great-uncle was still-living Pappa Ebon Jubilee (Jr.), the sitting patriarch of the local Jubilees of the Mountains in Lofton County, VA.
Sgt. Horace Lee, at 87, was the sitting patriarch of the local Lees of the mountains, and smiled.
“Pappa Ebon Jubilee Sr. was a close friend, and counted me among his sons, so, the Pappa Ebon you know is like my brother.”
Gracie's nine-year-old brother Milton immediately broke out into “Ebony and Ivory,” and the old sergeant and his wife both shed tears.
“We remember when that came out,” Mrs. Linda Lee said, “and we had a good laugh with the Jubilees clear to Pennsylvania about that. But later, it meant more to us, because we have lived to see things when it was dangerous to be friends, when it was more acceptable, and now it is being frowned on in this part of Virginia again.”
“But the sentiments of people are like a wave,” Sgt. Lee said. “The thoughts of people ebb and flow. Truth stands like a mountain. The family of Ebon Jubilee is like yours and mine, and there no reason in God's heaven and earth that we should not be friends and family to each other. What God does not deny, man can safely be silent on.”
“Is that why they are sort of sneaking stuff out of the dictionary now?” Gracie's 11-year-old sister Velma said. “A lot of old racist terms that are in really old dictionaries have been taken out … but it's not like we don't see that certain people still want to use those words because of the way they act.”
The elder Lees considered this carefully, and then Sgt. Lee smiled.
“Old men and old dictionaries are the same,” he said. “We are here so you have a frame of reference. When either one is taken away, you know that someone does not want you to know what is being done to you.”
“Got it,” Velma said. “This must be why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and even John F. and Robert Kennedy were not allowed to live to be old.”
“Partially,” Sgt. Lee said, and then, seeing the child's sadness, gently changed the subject.
“I see you are a student of history, little Miss Velma!”
The little girl brightened up.
“Yep – Eleanor, Andrew, and I always are trying to get it all together!”
Eleven-year-old Eleanor and ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow just waved, and then Andrew had a thought.
“So, I guess it is important to keep an old dictionary around and really listen to old stories so they get into your brain,” Andrew said.
“Old stories that are true – that is important,” Sgt. Lee said. “It is true that God made all men out of one family, and 'of one blood hath he made all the families of the earth.' So, you want to listen to old people who tell of life lived with people as if God made them all, with love and fairness. You do not want to listen to old people who tell you old lies about how they and people like them are better than everyone around them, and whatever they did to anyone else is right, because they did it.”
“Many old people are old in evil,” Mrs. Lee cautioned. “We have faced many struggles with our friends the Jubilees and the local Native tribes that are still surviving, because of old lies that people still believe, and also new ones. You see how we have our masks on here. But so many believe they are superior to everything.”
“I was an Army medic in the Korean War, and my wife is from a family of healers, the Fairlanes of the mountain,” Sgt. Lee said. “There are stories I cannot tell you at your tender ages, but I will tell you this: as surely as God, Who we cannot see, rules the universe that we can see, a little germ that we cannot see can destroy anybody. Proper respect has to be paid to both – they BOTH can level you.”
“But what I don't understand is, why don't people just know that they are just people?” five-year-old Lil' Robert Ludlow piped up. “I mean, I'm five, and being just people is fun, but also hard enough!”
“Sometimes we forget things as we get older, Lil' Robert,” Sgt. Lee said, with a gentle smile. “As you get older, you have to work harder to remember.”