Jean Nicaise caption" "The housewife who sweeps the sidewalk could never be an American!"

Memories of a Caroloregian: the Kingsport pages

by Jean Nicaise who was a Fulbright exchange teacher at Dobyns-Bennett during the 1958-1959 school year. 

Translator's note: Square brackets [ ] enclose clarifications or explanations.  [Sic] means the previous word appears as per the original. Italics show when Nicaise himself uses English.

First days in Kingsport

          We are far from imagining such a dark future on August 28, 1958, when we arrive in Kingsport.

          On the way to Mary Johnson's house, the air we breathe is pretty disagreeably polluted. The smell of acetone lessens some in the residential neighborhood, which looks the same as those in all small American cities.

          Movies have made them familiar. East Wanola Street, where Mary's modest house is built, is no exception to the rule: a street bordered with maple, sycamore, and locust trees that sing a symphony of colors every October (Indian summer); houses of whitewashed wooden boards sitting in the middle of a lawn. No fences between the yards.

          [Here there is a picture of Nicaise's wife Renee sweeping the sidewalk, with the caption, "The housewife who sweeps the sidewalk could never be an American!" A second picture with no caption shows Nicaise himself in front of the house.]

          After crossing the usual porch, you go directly into the living room through the protective screen door [literally "mosquito" door].

          This arrangement produces the first comedy act of our stay.

          In spite of the supposed Prohibition, Mary immediately offers us a whisky, the first one Renee has ever drunk. And at this precise moment someone rings the doorbell.

          - Oh my god, says Mary, I forgot: it's the laundry man. He's also the deacon of a church. Quick, hide your glass! The law isn't strictly enforced, but a teacher oughtn't scandalize a man of God.

          The laundry delivery man enters. There are introductions. "Professor etc. …"

          - Ah, glad to meet you. What's your Church?

          The question is addressed to Renee, who understands perfectly but who panics at being asked something that, where we come from, is considered an abnormal indiscretion. She says to me in French:

          - Jean, he's asking me what church we go to! What do I say?

          We know that it's unseemly in America to say that you have no religion. Isn't the country's motto, engraved in stone over the seats of judges and printed on paper money, "In God we trust," which means that "We place our confidence in God," or that "We rely on Him"?

          I respond on behalf of my flustered wife:

          - Any.

          I think that I'm translating "aucune," [none] which is the truth perhaps better left unsaid. But while I think I am boldly demonstrating my frankness, in fact I've forgotten one of the subtleties of the English language and the good lessons of my teachers. "Aucune" means not any, (adjective) or none, the pronoun. I quickly realize that I have answered "any of them," because next the laundry employee is smiling and saying:

          - Then you can come to mine …"

          From this moment forward, on the advice of Mary, who apparently doesn't go to church, and also since luck has bestowed upon me a neutral response, I give this same answer anytime anybody asks What's your church so they won't think bad of me. It's one of the first questions lots of people ask after they've told you their first and last name. My answer always gets the same invitation: Then, come to mine!  It would be unseemly to reveal that we are unbelievers.

          In a city of 60 thousand inhabitants, or thereabouts, there are 42 churches, including only one Catholic church, Saint Dominic. The others are one or another of the different Protestant varieties: Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal (similar to Church of England), Mormon. There is a Church of Jesus Christ, a Church of Christ, the likes of which could raise doubts as to whether the others worship the Redeemer at all. There is a First Church of God, which in spite of its claim was the last one built and one of the least attended, competing with a First Christian Church and also the First Assembly of God. Here I'll stop my very incomplete list. The Chamber of Commerce gives the number of members of each church along with an assessment of its wealth. The most frequented and also the wealthiest ($289,000 in 1958) is First (yes, yet another "First") Baptist. The First Pentacostal [sic] Holiness has the fewest members (25) but isn't the poorest ($6,000), which is Morisson [sic] City Christian with $5,000 despite its 80 members.

          We do accept some invitations, at first out of politeness and then for pleasure, because it is part of the experience of our stay. Moreover, I enjoy the congregational singing. Absorbed in the given selection, sometimes I sing along. It also registers with me that such an invitation is a sign of respect. Sunday church attendance is a worldly event. After the service, while the children learn their catechism in Sunday School, everybody drinks coffee and nibbles cookies. Unfortunately it's not possible for me to go to a black church, whose style and rhythms I would have enjoyed. My white hands would certainly have clapped along with the black ones. But whites and blacks would have found my presence to be incongruous and probably suspect.