Wanda Bond Wright - Seasons of the Street, Revealed

M y name is Wanda Y. Bond, and this is my story of being born in the south and moving to the north as a child. I am an African American woman born in Williamston, North Carolina, on September 30, 1964, to Ruby Bond and James Williams. Today, I am a spiritual fifty-year-old woman with a new outlook on life and a better way of living. This is the story of my life from beginning to end and the trials and tribulation that stood in my way for so long.

After moving from North Carolina to Massachusetts, my family ended up in a rough section of Boston. At this time, our household was that of a single-parent with only my mother, who had to raise five then eventually six children single-handedly. Life was a challenge growing up in those conditions, but with a loving mother that stood by and made a difference in the lives of her children, I always knew I could find support at home.

Although I had a loving mother, that did not stop me from exploring the darker side of life, so as you can very well imagine, there was an early age of drug usage, sexual acts, and young girls having babies. The usage of drugs started out as recreational, like marijuana, and forty-ounce beers. The last of the Olde English 800 and the smell of Private Stock beer bring back a lot of memories.

This was fun at first, until the beginning of a long and ugly life of being deprived and addicted to drugs, and being shut out of life in the real world because of poor judgement and bad decisions at a young age. For the most part, I remember growing up in North Carolina with my mom, grandmom, Annie Mae Bond and also my aunts. Dad was sometimes around when he wasnt serving in the United States Army. Grandma was a widow at a young age. Her husband was poisoned with moonshine liquor; that was the drink that the deep south of Williamston, North Carolina, drank.

I can remember being a little girl and I would always ask my grandma about cookies from Ms. Stale. I can remember my mom was sixteen years old with two children, so at the time, grandma was like a mom to me, and my own mom would ask my grandma, Can you ask Ms. Stale for some cookies. I remember that as clear as a day when there are no clouds. Then growing up a little more, I recall moving to Boston, Massachusetts. I traveled north with my grandma until my mom got herself together with my dad, who was still serving in the army. They got married, and everybody packed up and decided to move to Boston, Massachusetts, back in 1968. I was four years old. We started out in a neighborhood in Roxbury. Ill never forget it: Highland Street, my grandmas first apartment with my aunties, mom, and me. I had seven aunts.

Since then that number has changed; one is deceased. I was saddened with the bad news about my aunt and her passing. My mom was then left with six sisters and my grandma, who is still living. Grandma is a powerful lady of God and is who I got the understanding of God from. I watched her pray. I was confused. I didnt know what this lady, my grandma, was yelling out and saying, Hallelujah, hallelujah. I had got scared, thinking something was wrong. Sometimes I would go to church with her and her beloved sister. They would be yelling Hallelujah together, and some church members of theirs would invite us to go to their house and have Bible study. Boy, I remember having to memorize all the books of the Bible and winning prizes. That was fun and exciting to me, and at the same time, I got to know what all that yelling was about. It was worshipping the Lord, whom we call God.

All was familiar once I knew and understood what my grandma was yelling. I got to worship and shout and pray as a girl at the age of twelve. I was filled with the Holy Ghost. I loved church at this time in my life. But, as thirteen years of age approached, I started not wanting to go to church. Boys were a bad decision I made. I started being rebellious, acting out at home and in school. I can remember getting my first kiss by a boy who was a next-door neighbor. He had to have been at least two years older than me at the time of the kiss. Now that I think about it, I was being curious about boys. I had heard about the birds and bees. We had played games such as house, doctor, and nurse. The funny thing about this was wanting to know but never asking my mom. I didnt dare ask the teacher or guidance counselor. I thought about asking the nurse because I always stayed in the nurses office, trying to find a way to go home.

I was not the school type. I really only liked recess, gym, lunch, and making things in art class, but there was one subject that caught my attention: math. I liked the way I had to solve those problems. At that age, everyone tried to be the first one to be done with their assignment, thinking they were smarter than everyone else in class. I just smirk when I think back to those silly moments.

As time went on and I grew older, I really resented school because I had to dress a certain way, or I would get teased on or talked about like a welfare child. Well, thats what I was living on in a low-income complex called Columbia Point Project. Mom got assistance from the government after she and my dad separated. They had different agendas once we came to Massachusetts. Dad stayed in the picture for a while until they had outgrown each other and started seeing other people, but good old dad would still come around bringing clothes for us, giving mom money if they didnt have a conflict about who was doing what and with whom. Eventually both of my parents were over each other, and mom eventually began to have a live-in boyfriend, and dad started living with his girlfriend. I wasnt happy about the whole ordeal, but what was I going to do besides wait and see what came next in my life?

On many occasions, I decided to go to what was called a block party. They were mostly in empty apartment buildings, where we smoked weed, drank beer with my friends from the neighborhood with what little money I had got from babysitting for my aunt, who was having a baby every year. It was exciting back then. I dont think people have as many children now as they did back in the day. Another thing about growing up where I grew up, people were always making me feel like nothing, and kids started trouble all the time. Even when the state had a program called The Summer Thing where the youth could go see movies on the brick walls from the projector. The kids would throw empty potato chip bags, rotten apple cores, and split balls at everyone around them. They would disturb the movies by making hand gestures up on the screen, it was always acts of rudeness.

I was subjected to all types of bullying and bad situations. As I think of it, it was like living in a community of a cult. One of my friends was a master troublemaker, she and her siblings lived right next door to me. Of course, her lil brother beat someone to death who had pneumonia. She would tell me to do something ignorant, and I did it. She told me go up to a neighborhood boy who was having a birthday party that night and ask him if I could come to the party. He said, yes, and I told him to ask me what Im having. After he did, she told me to say peanut butter and jelly then punch him in the belly. He fought me for a week straight. Every time he saw me, he wanted to fight me. I dealt with a lot of situations with this female. She also got humped by a friends brother. She was devilish herself. She would fight for me, with me, and also bullied me as well. Her mother had men that coveted her because she was a good-looking young woman.

One guy used to take her kids to Burger King. She begged me to go a couple of times. One day she did something awful that I will never forget. They always had bologna and cheese sandwiches, and also the cans of Chef Boyardee, which at the time was a new food, so it felt like it was luxury eating for me. Then it wasnt so fun when I was tricked and told to close my eyes and to bite into a sandwich that had a dead fly in it just for me to eat for being such a beggar for food all the time. Someone yelled, Dont eat that. When I spit it out, there was a fly between the bologna and cheese. I couldnt do anything. I was afraid of her. All I could do was not play with her for the rest of the day and go back to being her friend the next day. No wonder I turned to drugs. I had no one to turn to or talk to. Damned if you do, damned if you dont.