[speaker001:] This is an interview with Tammy White. Where were you born?
[speaker002:] I was born in Charlotte.
[speaker001:] How long ago?
[speaker002:] Hmph, 38 years, 39 years ago. I was there for 30 years.
[speaker001:] So, you are a native Charlottean?
[speaker002:] Until I moved to Gaston County, which was seven or eight years ago.
[speaker001:] I guess you pretty well seen that town grow up.
[speaker002:] I still work in Charlotte. I still feel like I live there since Gaston County is only five minutes next door to Charlotte.
[speaker001:] What's changed the most about the city since you've been a child?
[speaker002:] [] And add more. Didn't used to be so dangerous to drive and now it is very dangerous to drive. I don't think they should let kids drive anymore. Not until they're about 18, 19 years old. I think they should have a learners permit for a long time. We've had so many people move in from everywhere.
[speaker001:] I guess you don't even recognize Charlotte anymore it's changed so much.
[speaker002:] I recognize it because it changes with me each and everyday. Don't look like it used to.
[speaker001:] What where were you born in Charlotte?
[speaker002:] Presbyterian Hospital.
[speaker001:] That was in December, '60.
[speaker002:] Yeah. I was the first granddaughter born. There were a bunch of grandsons on both sides of the family. So I was named after each grandmother and Mama liked "Tammy" and stuck it in the middle. So I had a real long name when I went to school. I was in the first grade before I found out what my whole name was.
[speaker001:] What was your whole name?
[speaker002:] Christine Tammy Marie Watkins. I lay my head down on the desk and cried because I had to learn how to write a long name and everyone else's was short. I'd been writing "Tammy Watkins." I could read and write before I went to school, because Mama had a lot of time to spend with me. My next sister wasn't born until I was like five years old. [Long pause] The teachers were upset because I was way ahead of everybody else. They didn't know what to do with me.
[speaker001:] Like a misfit.
[speaker002:] And I got in trouble all the time. They still liked me though; they still helped me.
[speaker001:] What do you remember as a child? Tell me the story about the coat.
[speaker002:] Which one? The big furry blue coat?
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] That was like in the fifth grade, fourth grade. Blue was my favorite color. Everything I had was blue. So Mama and Daddy bought me a big blue furry coat for my birthday or Christmas. I don't know. Birthday and Christmas run together. Usually what I got for birthday was for Christmas and Christmas for birthday. Because my birthday was so close to Christmas I only got one present. It was a big old ugly blue fur coat. I felt like a big blue polar bear. So I hid it under the bushes on the way to the bus and pick it up on the way home. Same things kids do now, except they pick out their own coats. They just change their mind after a week. [Long pause] I was a tomboy. I only had boys to play with. When I was little I used to want to be a boy. When I grew up I wondered why? Why you want to be something that was so inhuman?
[speaker001:] Why do you say that?
[speaker002:] Well guy's are all right, as long as they're your friends. I still have more guy friends than girlfriends. Even after all these years.
[speaker001:] Remember anything else as a little child?
[speaker002:] Jumping off high buildings. Swinging a swing as far as it would go and jump out of it and see who could jump the farthest. Or, we'd take the swing and pull the swing out all the way around until it, until it dunked and we'd swing all the way around the top of it. We'd build playhouses out in the woods, tree houses out in the woods. We dig a, we dug an underground cavern out of the mud one time and stole a bunch of stuff from all the houses around. We had carpet in there, and rugs, and furniture and everything. We played in it a couple of years until the parents found out and then they had a fit, they said we could have smothered to death if it fell in or rained or anything. That was neat. You had to climb down in it. It looked real neat too it looked better than some of our houses. Dug it out little by little, made it bigger. Of course it probably wasn't as big as I remember it to be. I used to love to go up to my Aunt Sandra's house because she had three boys and she'd let us run wild through the neighborhood. When I was at home with, Mama and Daddy wouldn't even let me out of the yard. They watched me like a hawk. Sandra was scared to death when it was time for Mama to come pick me up because I'd be muddy and dirty from head to toe. Mama hated it that I was a tomboy. She always bought me dolls and everything. She knew I didn't want dolls. They'd just sit there in my room.
[speaker001:] What about them dogs? Hum?
[speaker002:] Oh the dogs. I don't, I don't really remember some of the dogs, but I remember more what she told me. I remember being and having the dogs all around. That was before Debbie was born. I was like three or four. And there's pictures, pictures of me with the dogs. Mama said there was like six dogs that run through the neighborhood. And she said, she was always playing with me, that, and she said she never worried about them hurting me. She said that I was up in a tree or something and she told me to come to her. And she started, started pulling me or something, I don't remember exactly, so the dogs circled her and snarled and growled at her and she got, backed back into the house. And I wouldn't come in because I knew I was going to get a whipping for climbing up in that tree. And later, I guess I forgot and she knew I would. I guess she bribed me to come in with some candy and, and then she tore my tail up. She said it still didn't stop me from hanging around with the dogs or anything she felt like they, because, protected me I could stay out in the yard for hours and she'd check on me like every 15 minutes and I was taken care of. She said nobody else would bother me either. Said never occurred to her that those dogs might hurt me but they never did. Said I always had a gift for animals I guess because I was never afraid of them. Now that I'm older I've grown afraid of them and they can tell it.
[speaker001:] What about your secret garden?
[speaker002:] Oh yeah. I was, when I was in junior high, in eighth grade.
[speaker001:] Hum. What happened?
[speaker002:] Went through, we'd ride bikes through the woods and everything. I loved to ride bikes. Rode bikes for a long time until I was a big old girl. And we went into the woods and there was bunch of vines that covered like a blanket. And I'd walk through those vines and it was real shady and cool. It'd be like 10 or 15 degrees cooler than it was outside. And there were big rocks and a nice creek, big giant rocks. I'd sit our there and read or whatever. It was just peaceful. And I took Mama out there one time and asked her if she'd spend the day with me. Just one time because she always worked she didn't have much time to spend with us. That was after she left Daddy. I got her a bicycle; I borrowed a bicycle for her. She pushed it most of the way. She couldn't ride it. It hurt her legs. I couldn't understand that. I thought it was a whole lot easier to ride that bike than walking. Fixed us a picnic lunch and she brought a book and we went out there. And she still talks about that. She really liked it. She said it was really just as beautiful as I always said it was. It's gone now.
[speaker001:] Bulldozed over. A new project slapped up.
[speaker002:] I don't know who it belonged to. It was out behind the houses.
[speaker001:] That was over on Arrowood Road.
[speaker002:] No that was, um, that was in Huntersville. When Mama left Daddy we went and moved out to Huntersville.
[speaker001:] Oh.
[speaker002:] For a little while. We used to go in the woods back by, back off Arrowood Road. I lived in Windsong Trail that's right across the street when we lived on Arrowood Road. We didn't move very far that time. We'd go out there and pick blackberries and sell them, out in the woods. I had a friend of mine, he huffed a can of [] and died when he was camping out. And uh, one of his guys, buddies that was with him just got sick and ended up in the hospital. [Long pause] I think everybody cried. He was a popular boy.
[speaker001:] Kids just don't know how easy it is to die.
[speaker002:] Well so huffing is nothing new, they did it when I was kid. I didn't hear about it as much then as I do now though. And boy he'd take up for, um, all the underdogs. So a lot of people were sad. I hung around with, uh, one girl and, um, two guys and then later we, uh, had another girl join our group. I hung around with them boys from the fourth grade on up to through to high school. But when Mama left Daddy and everything and we moved away and then moved back I still went to school with them. Kenny, Kenny, huh . He died not too long ago on a motorcycle.
[speaker001:] Didn't you go up in the mountains for a summer or something, with your aunt?
[speaker002:] Yeah. One week out of the summer, every year.
[speaker001:] Where they live?
[speaker002:] [] They lived in, um, Black Mountain for a long time and then they moved to [] another mountain.
[speaker001:] That's in NC?
[speaker002:] Uh huh.
[speaker001:] So you never did leave the state, did you?
[speaker002:] Um uh.
[speaker001:] I know Earl use to take y'all to the beach didn't he?
[speaker002:] Yeah, we went every weekend to the beach. That was the highlight. We went to the beach every weekend. Go fishing at the pier.
[speaker001:] What did you do up in the mountains?
[speaker002:] Everything.
[speaker001:] Did you make a quilt?
[speaker002:] No.
[speaker001:] Did you churn butter?
[speaker002:] No. They were more modern up there than we were down here. My aunt and uncle were teachers and principals. She had a boy that was about Debbie's age. And she'd take me to, uh, not, not every year, but there were some years she'd take me to a day camp because she wanted me to play with kids my age and she didn't have any. And she'd take me out shopping and buy me all kind of new clothes. She wanted a little girl and I was it. Because all my boy cousins got to go up there and stay every summer too for a week. And she said they about run her crazy. She said I was the only slow time she got. She said I'd help her and everything and I enjoyed helping her. Went to the library.
[speaker001:] Did you ever go horseback riding or anything?
[speaker002:] Yes. I didn't go horseback riding up in the mountains. Mama paid for my lessons down here in Charlotte. And then she couldn't pay for them anymore so I started working in the stables to continue then. It was English, English style, back riding. I used to skip school during junior high and steal a pony and return it and go back home. Did that a lot. [Long pause]
[speaker001:] Remember anything else as a child?
[speaker002:] I remember a lot of things I'm just not going to put it on this tape. Then my children will hear it and then try to pull it too. I'm still friends with some of my high school, elementary school and junior high friends. I see them about once every six months or a year. Some more often than that.
[speaker001:] Who was your best friend?
[speaker002:] Well, Kenny and Billy were my best friends until I met Angie. Angie, was, I've known Angie as long as Kenny and Billy, but she was more into boys for other reasons than what I was and I was just not mature enough for boys yet except to play with. So she kind of bored me. She ended up having like six kids later with three or four different guys. I really don't know.
[speaker001:] So I guess you haven't talked to her in a long time.
[speaker002:] Not since um, I had Justin. I seen her the last time when I had Justin. Not since Marshall was born. Worked at BP Oil on Park Rd. , she used to come in there all the time. That was on the south side of town. We were raised on the south side of town.
[speaker001:] That side sure has grown up hasn't it?
[speaker002:] There are still parts over there I still don't recognize.