Red Hurts

Did you ever see the movie Firestarter with Drew Barrymore? They filmed it at Orton Plantation in Wilmington, North Carolina, where I grew up. We spent beautiful Christmases there and one of my sisters got married in Orton Chapel. It was a privileged childhood with maids, servants, chauffeurs, tutors, gardeners and cooks, one of whom took me fishing at Orton Pond by the hunting lodge, not far from the fire tower. My sisters and I were really raised by these black folk, Ruth, Lizzy, Lilly, Letha, Ethel, James, old Lewis and many others, and yesterday my stepfather died. If my mother were alive, I'd go to his funeral. However, she isn't, and now he isn't.


Trends and Everyday Events in

the Early Twenty-First Century

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Richard Ames Hart

Wednesday 23 April 2003