Foundations: a Look Back

When I was a kid, my mom would wake me up every morning by tapping on my bedroom door and saying, “Jamie, get up.” I could tell by the tone of her voice if she needed me to prime the pump.

We lived in the county, outside of town, and we got our water from a well behind our house. If the water in the house wasn’t working, it meant there was a leak in the water system and the pump had lost its pressure and needed to be primed.

It could happen anytime – my mom would turn on the faucet and the water would just drip out – but it usually needed to be done during the winter, when the pressure would drop because of the cold.

It was really dark and really cold at 5 am. I’d trudge across the backyard to the pump house with an adjustable wrench, crouch down, tighten it around the valve, and twist as hard as I could to get the cap off. If my dad had been out there last, the valve cap would be so tight it would take me several tries to twist it. My hands would get scraped on the concrete. My fingers would be numb. I’d be hunched down, shivering, literally talking to the pump, pleading with it to work: “Come on. Come on.” Once I got the cap off, I’d pour water inside and put my hand over the opening and wait for the cap to start hitting my hand. Once I felt it start to come back at me it meant the pressure was fixed, and it was time to re-screw the cap on. It’s really hard to get a cap on evenly when water is spewing to you. Sometimes I’d have to crawl under the house and look for puddles under the copper pipes. If I found a puddle, it meant there was a bigger job in my future – sauntering the pipes back together.

Even if I’d been out back at the pump, I’d still be ready for school and sitting at the breakfast table before 5:30. My mom cooked a hot breakfast every morning – real breakfast, eggs, sausage, and toast - and my bother, my mother, and I would eat together before she went to work. She had to be in the factory where she put together light bulbs at 6am. My dad usually wasn’t home from work in time for breakfast; he worked the nightshift in a mill that made mattresses.

My dad had taught me how to prime the pump when I was really little. He taught me on the weekends. I was anxious to help him, eager to learn; he wasn’t home in the mornings, so it was my responsibility to make sure we had water, and I took that responsibility very seriously.

When I was in elementary school, my mom would drop my brother and me off at my grandma’s on her way to work. The school bus picked us up at my grandma’s; she lived in town, so it was only 10 minutes to school from there. Later, when I was in middle school, and until I could drive, the bus would come pick me up at my house, but that was a longer trip – 20 to 30 minutes. (Until I had my license. I taught myself to drive a stick in an old Datsun truck on a dirt road by my house when I was 13.)

I started playing in a Pop Warner football league when I was 8. My team was the Falcons. My mom would pick me up from school and drive me to practice, but she made me sit in the bed of the pickup truck and finish all my homework before I could join practice. When I was in second grade, my coach told me, “Jamie, you can play football in college.” I repeated this to my mom, who said, “If you keep your grades up.” I tried my dad, who said, “Your main focus is school.”

Even when I wasn’t in school, my mom made sure my main focus was … still school. During the summer she made me do Hooked on Phonics. All I did all summer was Hooked on Phonics. (It’s a great program! I see that now!)

In middle school my football team was the Mullins Bulldogs. We were not coached to play like middle schoolers are now; there were no participation trophies, we were not there to have fun, no one said “it’s just a game,” we were playing football to WIN. We almost always won.

Lots of people were starting to notice that I was a good football player, but my parents were wholly focused on school. It was always, “Your focus is always your grades.”

And I was getting pretty good grades, but we were also assessed for our “conduct” and when I brought home an N for needs improvement I was in big trouble: grounded for 6 months. That was always the term: SIX MONTHS. Six months in an ETENITY, especially when you’re six! And seven. And eight. (I swear, I wasn’t bad!)

You’ve probably deduced that my parents were very strict. They did not care at all that I thought not being able to watch TV or play video games for HALF A YEAR was unfair. They did not care at all that other kids who got Ns were not being punished for 6 months. They did not care at all if they were the strictest, most unreasonable parents in Mullins!!!

Honestly, in retrospect, they didn’t have the energy to listen to complaining. They were working and grocery shopping and cooking breakfast and making dinner and driving us to school and taking us to practice and buying Hooked on Phonics materials and my dad was also the preacher and they were making sure we studied and acted right and that just didn’t leave any time for my grievances. It also didn’t leave time for them to consider what other parents were doing. They only had time to raise my brother and me to be the best we could be. So if we were mad about being grounded, then that was fine with them.

(So now you’re probably thinking I didn’t complain about having to prime the pump. You’re right. And not just because they wouldn’t have entertained it, but also because I didn’t know any other way. For all I knew, everyone else was getting up at 5 in the morning to get the water going for their houses.)

I realize now that they were providing the foundation for something they thought essential: they wanted me to be able to answer “Is this the right thing to do?” without worrying about what other people thought.

When I was in middle school, all the guys at school had parts. I didn’t. They started teasing me, like, “you’re so plain, you have no parts in your hair.” I went home and told my mom. She said, “why do you want to be like everyone else? You’re not like everyone else. Not having a part is what you’re choosing to do.”

I didn’t want to have a part; it would have looked stupid on me. So why did I care that the other kids were saying I should have one?

And then: I didn’t care. It was the first time I remember realizing that non-conformity is great. And that I could be comfortable with a decision I’d made, even if other people were going to mock me for it. My parents taught me that individuality has value. Now, my gut reaction is to not do what everyone else is doing.

I was outside priming that well all the way through high school, but when I was in college, we got city water (My dad and brother had to dig a trench 200 yards from our house to the highway to tap into the new water system. If you’re thinking I was lucky to have missed helping out with that, you’re right.).

The pump is disconnected now, but I still think about my mornings outside in the backyard with a wrench all the time. I wouldn’t trade anything for being out there in the cold trying to get that thing going. It taught me survival skills; it forced me to be responsible and accountable; it made me appreciate that things don’t always come easy; it showed me that everything is an opportunity and you just have to make the best of it.

Remembering how I grew up keeps me humble. I did, of course, learn later that most kids – even in Mullins – were not priming pumps before school. But it’s okay to be different. Everyone is different – in different ways. It was okay with me to be different then, and I’m really cool with being different now.