Visiting my grandfather in North Carolina was nothing short of a civic wonderland. Before my feet had even crossed the flaxen welcome mat, I was being ordered, per our routine, to list each U.S. state and capital in alphabetical order.
“Let’s hear it, Cheyenne…” he would govern.
And, like a soldier appeasing her Lieutenant, I began to rattle names off.
“Alabama, Montgomery. Alaska, Juneau. Arizona…Phoenix.”
“Go on…”
“Arkansas, Little Rock. California, Sacramento. Colorado…Denver.”
“Good.”
Though granddad’s figure was long and weathered, his mind was unrivaled. To me, he stood something like the old redwood trees in Downtown Cary, tall and wise as they spindled judiciously up from the forest floor. Everything about Alcott Kent was purposeful and methodical.
His eyes perpetually squinted behind big, round frames. His clothes were always a neat business professional, a familiar amber two piece and a matching cap. After tipping his fedora off his head, granddad would joke, “If looks are any sign of intelligence, then I must be pretty sharp,” and smile like a magician who’d just revealed his trick.
Looking back, I’m sure there were many things that influenced his nature. A suit had never just been a suit in his upbringing. After all, for a Black man in the 1940s, appearance and education were more than enough to dictate your perceived humanity. Even to exist was defiance. To be.
And yet Granddad, and the six of his seven siblings, had all worked hard to become licensed educators. The seventh even went on to become the first Black judge in Calhoun County.
“Connecticut, Hartford. Delaware, Dover. Florida, Tallahassee.”
“Yes…Hartford, Connecticut…Thirman L. Milner was Mayor back in 1981 — first Black mayor in all of New England. He was inspired after hearing Bubba.”
“Bubba?”
“Tsk…Dr. King!”
“Like…the Martin Luther King, Jr.? Did you know him personally?”
“A Morehouse man? Of course I knew him. Keep going from Florida.”
“F-Florida, Tallahassee. Georgia, Atlanta. Hawaii, Honolulu…”
Every inch of my grandfather’s home was dedicated to his craft of keeping. The floors were lined with cabinets of old parchment, daguerreotype, and newspaper clippings — he’d organized them cryptically into folders by date and location. Moreover, the patterned walls were laden with map after map, from political to topographical to economic. Any possible free space had been relinquished to the towering shelves of book after book after book.
The tattered couch by the mat with its thin plastic covering was like a metaphor to his habit. It seemed to suggest that history lived in our broken, threadbare items. It lived in what’s overlooked, the worn down furniture, the things left behind. Even those things should be protected. His work was a thousand untold stories with a thin plastic covering.
And he had been training me to become his apprentice.
“Idaho, Boise. Illinois, Springfield. Indiana…”
“That one’s self explanatory.”
“Indianapolis?”
“Good.”
The first time my mom had encouraged granddad to digitize his records, he scoffed at her. She’d brought me along with her on the nine hour drive, purse cluttered with flash drives and a brand new laptop. When she stormed him with the new technology, he made a show of locking himself in his bedroom.
“It’s easy, Dad. Let me show you! You can scan the photos and organize them on Drive just like you do your cabinets.”
“Charles Babbage built a computer by hand in 1822. He used steam and a hand crank — ain’t that something? I think the Harwell CADET and LCP-30 are what the nuclear guys were using during the Cold War. Now that’s some technological advancement.”
“I’m not following…”
“It’s not the same, Kent. Didn’t we read George Orwell when you were little? Ray Bradbury? It’s just not the same…yeah, it’s just not. Your quick drive…”
“Flash drive…”
“Well, your whatever can’t keep like I do. I just don’t see it. Even the Romans knew the power of oratory history.”
To him, digitizing was like a form of dilution. He was a historian, a trained specialist in the art of archiving, in remembering. In comparison, a computer was just lines upon lines of code. Would a computer know to recount the salty Winston-Salem air after a storm? The hymn Charles Baltimore sang when the Buffalo Soldiers cried mutiny? The letters they wrote?
No, those were artifact.
“Dad, come out. I can add all your things to the computer for you — I just want you to be connected. I even bought you a laptop.”
“You barely come to visit, Kent, and you’re telling me about being connected?”
“Your granddaughter is here too, so don’t you start with me right now!”
“Oh…Cheyenne is here?”
At this, granddad opened the door and greeted us with sincere hugs. Before I could even blink, he had calmly begun our usual States and Capitals quiz, and the matter of a laptop was never brought up again.
“Iowa, Des Moines. Kansas, Topeka. Kentucky, Frankfort. Louisiana, Baton Rouge. Maine, Augusta. Maryland, Annapolis. Massachusetts, Boston. Michigan, Lansing. Minnesota, St Paul. Mississipi, Jackson. Missouri, Jefferson City. Montana, Helena…”
“Go on…”
“Nebraska, Lincoln. Nevada, Carson City. New Hampshire, Concord. New Jersey, Trenton. New Mexico, Santa Fe. New York, Albany. North Carolina, Raleigh. North Dakota…”
“Bismarck.”
“Right, Bismarck. Ohio, Columbus. Oklahoma, Oklahoma City. Oregon, Salem. Pennsylvania, Harrisburg. Rhode Island, Providence. South Carolina, Columbia. South Dakota, Pierre…”
“Dementia…”
“Dementia?”
“Yes, we highly suggest he moves into a specialized care facility.”
When granddad was first diagnosed with Dementia, the doctors said he likely already suffered from late-onset.
Slowly, and then faster than lightning, the last historian in Winston-Salem would forget his habit.
It started small, the misplacing of things and faltering of recollection. When we went to visit him at the Greensboro care center, he’d watch us carefully…weary to say the wrong thing, fighting his body for control, and searching his brilliant mind for explanations.
“Granddad, guess what I practiced? Tennessee, Nashville. Texas, Austin. Utah, Salt Lake City. Vermont…”
“Oh…That one’s Montpelier! Did you know that’s the smallest capital in the United States? James Madison’s letters were mistakenly sent there in 1809…he had his own plantation named after that French villa. Virginia was certainly full of characters…especially out by Goochland. But ain’t that something?”
“Virginia, Richmond.”
The grip of Dementia was rapid. But, after his diagnosis, the deterioration was punishing. I sometimes wondered if the only thing keeping my grandfather present all these years was our practice. Perhaps his record keeping had healed his mind temporarily. Perhaps he hadn’t just been training me, but steeling himself against this. Perhaps it was easiest to remember when its your life’s work.
“Washington, Olympia.”
My mom later told me, masking her own despair, that the caregivers didn’t think granddad would survive the next few months. Whenever the nurses tried to feed him, he would silently refuse his food. In a hospital gown, rather than a suit, my grandfather grew to look less and less like himself. His skin was sallow and his thoughtful eyes had whitened with cataracts. To make matters worse, the doctors had recently detected cancer in his prostate.
I’d heard before that when a tree dies in Winston Salem, its bark will crack first, fighting to protect the softened middle until the end. Only then, will its branches wither, and its sap turn to fossil.
“West Virginia, Charleston.”
The last time I saw granddad, I brought some of his old books and trinkets. I labeled each artifact by date, and buried them deep in my jacket pockets.
“I just told the other nurse I want to be alone. You all are so persistent, I’ll give you that. When my granddaughter gets to be your age, I’m sure she’ll be just as stubborn. It’s good to have conviction, I suppose.”
By now, my mom and I had gotten used to his not remembering us. It was always harder on my mom than it had been for me — she had lived a lifetime under his tutelage, while I was still naive enough to hope. But, understandably, seeing her father in this state broke her more than she would ever let on.
“Stubborn…” I laughed thoughtfully. “So I remind you of her? Your granddaughter?”
“Hmmn, I’m not sure. But she’s very smart. Are you a good student?”
“I am. I know all the states and capitals by heart, actually. My granddad taught them to me.”
“Oh, do you…That’s very good!” he complimented, an impressed expression lighting his tired face.
“West Virginia…?” he asked carefully, testing me.
But I had been a historian’s apprentice. I already knew it all.
“Charleston.”
“Hmm, good. Wisconsin?”
A twinkle lit his eyes.
“Madison. You know…Eston Hemmings, the accomplished son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, moved to Madison in 1852?”
“Oh, very good! Yes, yes…ain’t that something?” A smile worked his face as he eagerly nodded. “How about…”
“Wyoming.” I smiled, bracing myself against a wave of emotion.
I knew Dementia wasn’t my battle to fight. Though I couldn’t help but wonder how my grandfather protected books for decades that, in turn, could no longer protect him. What hardcover would preserve his untold stories? Which orator would capture his classic charm? Which historian would become his library’s keeper?
“Wyoming?” he repeated in confusion.
“Yes…Wyoming. What’s the capital of Wyoming? I can’t remember…” I wondered, feigning confusion. My heart thundered in my chest as he looked up thoughtfully.
“Oh, that’s too easy.” He chuckled. “That state capital was my granddaughter’s favorite — they have the same name. Cheyenne.”
After a pause, my granddad’s face briefly glazed over. His eyes squinted and his muscles tensed. The hospital bed creaked as he sat abruptly up.
“Ch-Cheyenne?”
And I swear the trees cried with us.
************
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