My First Time in an Airplane

Church was a big part of my life as a young boy. One of my earliest memories is of sitting in a pew with my mother at the United Advent Christian Church in Wilmington, NC. I could not have been more than three or four years old, as I remember my feet did not touch the floor. Many of the men at the church had patches on the elbows of their blazers, a style popular in the 1970s and early 80s. As a child, almost an infant, I thought these were pads to protect the men in case they fell down.

Mom held my hand, and I began to play a game where I took my hand out of hers and then walked my two fingers down her arm toward me before I quickly put my hand back in hers and she grabbed it. I repeated this over and over, and Mom silently played along as she listened to the preacher.

Of course, I was too young to understand my emotions at the time, but looking back now, the game fascinated me because I felt a sense of separation anxiety when I took my hand and began to walk it away from hers. The anxiety went away just as soon as I grabbed her hand again. I remember doing it over and over, and each time I would feel waves of sadness wash over me until I grabbed her hand again.

Later in my childhood, the family moved to Lumberton, North Carolina and we joined Hyde Park Baptist Church. Every so often, the church hosted a "Revival," where a guest preacher came in and we had services every night for a week.

One time, the revival preacher who came into town owned a Cessna airplane. He told the children that he would give a ride to whoever could recite the books of the Bible in order to him.

That same afternoon, I dedicated myself to learning the books, and that evening after the service was over, I went up and recited the books to him.

The preacher kept his word. Dad drove the family out to the Lumberton airport, and the preacher was there to meet us with his plane.

I brought my stuffed animals along so that they could see the world from above, too. "Otto" the Red Raccoon and my dachshund, "Cricket" were among those that made the trip with me.

My brother was about a year and a half younger than me, and he had not memorized the books like I had.

He was so upset about not getting the chance to fly in the airplane, that the preacher decided to take him up as well. Mom did not go up with us, though I can't remember if this was because she just did not want to. It was a four seater plane, and I don't know if the preacher offered to make two flights so that everyone would get a chance to fly.

Dad sat in the front passenger seat, with me behind him. My brother sat behind the preacher, who was of course in the pilot's seat.

As the plane took off, I held all of my stuffed animals up against the window so that they could see out.

To my chagrin, though, the preacher kept the plane cocked to his side for almost the entire flight. The result was that my brother got a great view of Lumberton and the surrounding area, while out my window, I was simply looking straight up at more sky.

Only once did the preacher roll the plane so that I and my stuffed animals could see the ground, and this lasted for just about a minute.

I remember more just straining to see as much as I could out of my brother's window.

At the time, it annoyed me that I had done all the work of memorizing the books of the Bible, but that my brother had gotten the benefit of it.

Now, though, it really does not matter. I'm glad my brother should have a good memory of his first time in an airplane.

Nathan Marshburn

Missing the Exit

Yesterday evening, my flight arrived in North Carolina from Miami. My brother picked me up in his new Jeep Liberty from the airport in Raleigh, and we rode down I-95 South to my parents' house in Lumberton.

My brother got off the interstate at exit 25 and took a country road to get to mom and dad's house. For some reason, this reminded me of a time that I missed the interstate exit for home...

The first car that I ever drove, once I got my license, was a 1986 Chevy Cavalier.

I was 16, and I remember the feeling of exhilaration on my first drive alone. It was at night, to pick up my brother from a church youth group activity. Riding across the I-95 overpass at Exit 22 and changing lanes on that bridge was a particularly defining moment.

A few days later, I drove alone through Lumberton up I-95 again, headed home from some errands as the sun began to go down. My mind was on something else, and I missed exit 22, the exit for mom and dad's house. It was the first time I had made an error like that in my short driving experience.

It spooked me a little, because I was now driving in a sort of "No Man's Land." I thought the next exit was several miles up the road in the town of St. Pauls, and it was getting dark. I had never driven up this stretch of highway before, and so I kept cruising along, waiting and wondering when I could correct my course.

Fortunately, there was a place to get off the interstate at exit 25, a "Local Traffic" exit with nothing there except farm fields and a few houses. I used that exit to turn around and get back home.

In the years since that day, I've wandered quite some distance away from exit 22 and my parents' home.

In 2006, I decided to move from North Carolina to Las Vegas, Nevada. My Uncle Ken, my brother, and my dad all helped me with the trip across the country. I had no job lined up out there, and arranged to get an apartment in Vegas sight unseen.

Looking back now, it seems like an incredible thing to do. It is not something that I would attempt again. I remember dad trying to talk me out of moving, with me finally saying, "Dad, this is going to happen. It is a decision I have made."

"Dog gone you!" was his reply.

Mom did not go with us on the trip, but I remember her praying harder than I had ever heard her pray, in the kitchen of the house, right before we began the trek.

For my dad, it was his first time west of Tennessee, and I think he really enjoyed seeing the country. The landscape started to change significantly when we were in Arkansas. The flat, treeless land of west Texas, stretching as far as the eye could see, really blew his mind. He liked Oklahoma, too.

Once I was settled into my apartment in Las Vegas, my dad, brother and uncle were to fly back to North Carolina.

I hugged dad good bye at the airport drop off, and the same feeling that I had when I was 16 and missed the exit came back to me- only much more intense.

As I drove away from the airport in Vegas, it hit me with full force that I was completely on my own, now. I knew no one in the city. My nearest friend or family member was my cousin Donna, who lived in Knoxville, Tennessee.

I thought, if I get into a car accident and break my leg or something, there is going to be no one to help me. I'd better be careful... And I had to find a job.

Leaving the airport, I made a wrong turn and got on a road headed away from the city, out into the desert. Again, that was a spooky feeling.

Now, back in the present day, December 22, 2012, I find myself living in Miami, Florida. In some ways it is similar to my experience in Vegas, only this time I made sure that I had a good job lined up before making the move.

Tonight, though, I am glad to be back at my parents' house in North Carolina, celebrating Christmas with them.

Earlier today we had the Christmas family gathering for my dad's side of the family. My Uncle Ken was there, and he let me borrow a book that I did not know even existed. It is called Two Centuries at Sycamore Springs Plantation, by Joshua Stuart James.

The author, Judge James as he was known to my dad and my uncle, owned this plantation, about two miles away from my Grandma Marshburn's house in Maple Hill. The book is a well written history of the land and the James family, beginning just before the American Revolution. It is essentially a history of Maple Hill and the Cape Fear region of North Carolina. I am trying to read it all in the next two days.

I enjoyed seeing my extended family, today, and tonight listening to dad tell stories from his childhood in Maple Hill.

Nathan Marshburn

My Parents at Christmas

The last blog post was about my Uncle Ray.

I am fortunate to have both of my parents still with me. I call them pretty much every evening because I can appreciate now that talking with them will one day not be available to me.

In a few days, I will fly from Miami back to North Carolina to see them. Tonight, they asked me what food I wanted to eat when I arrived.

Without hesitation, I told them that the usual meals mom cooked for me growing up would be fine. Stir fry brown rice with honey, apple sauce, spaghetti, chicken in Carolina Treat BBQ sauce, with cheesecake for desert would all be great, I said.

I am lucky to have parents that want to see me, and a mother that enjoys cooking food for my trips back.

The Christmas Tree in the Lobby

Last year at this time I was living and working in Kissimmee, Florida, with the Public Defender's Office.

In the lobby of the Osceola County Courthouse stood a beautiful Christmas tree.

The specific courtroom where I worked every day was on the 4th floor. During the Christmas season, I made a point not to take the stairs so that I could enjoy the tree in the lobby while I waited for the elevator.

There was something about that tree that reminded me of the Christmas tree at my Uncle Ray and Aunt Margaret's house.

Aunt Margaret is my mom's twin sister. She married Uncle Ray and had one child, Beth, who is a little older than me.

As a young child, Aunt Margaret and Uncle Ray's house is where we went to celebrate Christmas on mom's side of the family. They lived in Zebulon, NC.

Just like Maple Hill on my dad's side, there was plenty of space to play at Uncle Ray's house. Sports, either watching it on television, or playing outside, is how we passed a lot of the time there after eating a huge lunch.

Uncle Ray had a basketball goal, but it was a little hard to bounce the basketball because we played on the grass lawn.

The yard was big enough for baseball games, too, which I enjoyed with my cousins and other aunts and uncles.

Uncle Ray was a huge fan of Duke University sports teams. Usually, Duke played a basketball game when we visited on Christmas, and he made sure to be watching that after we had lunch.

I will probably write about Uncle Ray a number of times in future blog entries.

I never knew Archie Carter, my grandfather on my mom's side- he died when mom was just 14. Grandma Carter passed away in 1995, just after I graduated from high school.

But I still had all of my aunts, uncles and cousins from the Carter side, and family gatherings were still quite special in that regard.

Uncle Ray died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack in February of 2009, though- during my first year of law school.

I regret not going to the funeral, now. I was in school in Florida when he died. I remember standing in the first floor lobby of the law school, listening to the voice mail from my brother telling me the news. At that time, I was obsessed about keeping my GPA as high as possible, as I thought my future and the future of my family really depended on it. If I had it to do over, though, sacrificing some GPA points would have been worth being with my family during that terrible, shocking time.

I am still not over the loss of Uncle Ray. It is probably a personality flaw that I can hold on to things like this, rather than setting them down and moving on. But the rage I feel toward god about what happened to my Uncle Ray and in turn the pain it caused Aunt Margaret and my cousin Beth is only numbed by my ever growing suspicion that there is no god, or at least not one that can be personified and that cares about us.

In my mind, aside from my grandparents, there are cardinal members on each side of my family who form the nucleus of who we were and are as a family. Uncle Ray was one of those cardinal members. He was also the first to die.

The Christmas tree in the lobby of the courthouse in Kissimmee reminded me of the tree at Uncle Ray's house at Christmas. The tree in the lobby reminded me of Uncle Ray.

I do not know if I will ever see Uncle Ray again. I have my doubts, but those doubts are too dark for me to dwell upon...and I also must try to hope. There is really almost no other choice but to hope.

I take joy in his memory and the memories of the Christmases past at his house, and of the beautiful tree with the glowing lights that added to the pleasure of being with family.

Nathan Marshburn

The Gurganus Dome

When I was a boy, like I said in my first blog entry, we always went to Maple Hill to celebrate Christmas on my dad's side of the family.

Grandma's house would be full. Mom and Dad would get a bedroom for the night, as would my Uncle Ken and his wife, Aunt Faye.

The cousins, though- my brother Adam and myself, Michael and Donna, Brian and Karen would go over to our cousin Duane Gurganus's house to spend the night. I had two other cousins, Maurice and Priscilla Brown, who lived close enough to Maple Hill that they could go to their own home.

Going over to Duane's house- it was actually Uncle Bobby and Aunt Frances's house, was a great time. We stayed up as late as the adults would allow, playing games.

Duane's house was out in the country, too, with plenty of field space all around.

Just down the road, some family from Uncle Bobby's side stored farm equipment in a big metal shed with a curved, ridged roof- like half a grain silo laying on the ground the long way. The below picture is the closest likeness I could find on the internet. Inside the shed was a basketball goal.

One Christmas, us boys got permission to go play basketball there. I believe it was my cousin Brian who came up with the name of the Gurganus Dome for the metal shed (based on the Dean Dome, the nickname of where the University of North Carolina plays its basketball games, called that after coach Dean Smith).

The basketball game that we played late into that night is one of my favorite Christmas memories. Just about everyone on the court was a better athlete than me, but I held my own because I was bigger and taller than Brian and Adam at the time, and I had no problem being physical with them.

My Dad and Uncle Ken played, too. As brothers, they were very competitive growing up. They played sports in high school, including basketball.

The game got a little heated between the two of them, and I remember Uncle Ken guarding Dad in some sort of way that got Dad irritated. Dad stopped the game at one point and said, "Now Ken, that's the game you and I walked away from years ago."

Uncle Ken made a face that I've seen a few times before, a sort of amused tightening of the lips and an expression like he wanted to say something but decided against it.

With the score particularly close, I missed a jump shot and got angry with myself and the rim. Dad tried to tell me not to lose my cool like that. It's a lesson that I still have never really mastered.

I remember, too, that we had to be a little careful not to run into some of the farm equipment at the end of the building, but the owners of "The Gurganus Dome" had cleared out a nice space for us to play.

The exercise, the late night, the fun of being with my cousins under the fluorescent lights in that metal dome, playing basketball, is a memory I wanted to put down here. I used to be able to remember a lot more about that night and that game.

In later years at Christmas, we could not go to "The Gurganus Dome" to play because the farm equipment was in the way and it was too much trouble to ask them to move it. But that particular night was a special time.

-Nathan Marshburn

Maple Hill

A farm in Maple Hill, North Carolina is where my father was born and grew up. My Uncle Ken, Aunt Faye, Aunt Anita and Aunt Frances were all born there as well.

Maple Hill is not large enough to be considered a town. Wikipedia calls it "a small grouping of houses in Pender County."

But to me, Maple Hill was where Grandma Marshburn lived. As a child, it was one of my favorite places to visit. The family gatherings in the summer and at Christmas were special times to me. The house was surrounded by fields, so there was plenty of space to play outside.

Grandma lived by herself after Granddad Marshburn died of cancer in 1986, and I always wondered at how she did not get scared, being out there by herself at night. Her house was a place where you could see so many stars at night because there were no artificial lights. The only thing making noises would be the wind through the trees or creatures such as crickets.

Grandma always said the dark made her feel more comfortable, though. If she was in the dark in her house, it was like no one could see her, yet she could see out a window by the moonlight to tell if anyone was around.

I have a few cousins as well from that side of the family. Duane, Michael and Donna, Brian and Karen, Maurice and Priscilla. Of course, my younger brother Adam was always there.

Brian and Adam in particular were good athletes, and in the summer time we played baseball in the front yard. At Christmas time, it was touch football.

I anticipate that many of my future blog entries here will involve memories from Maple Hill. I wanted to write about it in general as one of my first entries because the Maple Hill that I remember does not exist anymore.

Grandma Marshburn died in 2004. My brother and all of my cousins are grown adults in their 30s, living in different places, now. Grandma's house has changed hands and my family tells me that it has fallen into disrepair.

It's been years since I've been back to Maple Hill, and there is really no reason to visit anymore, other than to see what it looks like now.

A lot of my best childhood memories are from Maple Hill, though, and I look forward to writing about them in the near future.

Nathan Marshburn