When I was in grade school, my dad got a job in Williamston, North Carolina as an associate pastor. We moved to the small town and into a small house. I remember watching the 1984 Olympics on television there and trying to do cartwheels on a folded up blanket which served as my balance beam. I remember listening to John Madden call football games on Sunday in the living room. Our family got our only family dog, Biskitt, when we lived in that little house. My sister and I also got our only perms, which was a low point.
Prince and Van Halen were on the radio. We were always at church.
There was an old guy in the congregation named Mr Batton. He would never tell anyone how old he was, but one time he whispered it to an especially persistent young boy. The boy's eyes got wide and he yelled, “Mr Batton! You most dead!” That’s the way Mr. Batton told the story anyway.
Mr. Batton had worked in the public school system in some regard, maybe as a principal or other administrator. He was retired when we met him and I never gave a thought to what he used to do for a living. He really liked children and was good with us. My dad said one time they asked him to teach a vacation bible school class for the younger grades. He said, No. But then things got desperate, and they had no one else. He showed up and did the job and the kids loved him! I wasn’t in that class and I don’t remember ever having a man as any teacher at school or for church classes, just ladies whom we of course called Miss plus their first names. Miss Linda. Miss Beverly. Etc.
At some point, probably with a Sunday lunch invitation, Mr. Batton started taking care of our young family, bit by bit. My parents remember him taking us all to lunch at the Holiday Inn after church on many Sundays. Lots of people from church ate Sunday dinner there, the only nice restaurant in town. Their specialty was a fried banana fritter. There was also a great Carolina barbeque place in town, with a pig wearing overalls on the sign. But that wasn’t fancy enough for Sunday. Or maybe it was closed on Sunday? Lots of things were closed on Sundays in those days.
We had an old 1973 Saab hatchback back then and it broke down a lot. Mr Batton had a big ol’ boat of a Cadillac and my sister, Mikie, and I vividly remember riding in that shiny car. It was beyond fancy with push-button everything! Our own car had cranks and levers and no air conditioning. My mom says he would come and get us on Saturdays for trips to see local attractions. Sometimes mom and dad came, too. We could all fit comfortably into the Cadillac. But I mostly remember just going with Mikie. We’d sit in the back seat and pretend to be rich!
It was unusual for someone to spend money on us and take us places, and needless to say, we ate it up! We really loved it. My mom’s sister, who was a social worker at the time, warned my parents from afar about men who take children on trips with bad intentions. But they knew this was obviously not the situation with Mr. Batton. He was a lovely, happy old man who lived alone with his pug named Bentley. He liked spending his money, and he liked my dad, the young, new preacher. It wasn’t a mystery that we had no money. Preachers don’t preach for the paycheck in small towns! So he took us on adventures and bought us treats.
He took us to see a wild geese migration. We saw a pony being born. We went to a real, live tobacco auction. Mikie remembers it smelling really good in the barn, an earthy smell that wasn’t unlike cornflakes! We saw hundreds of tobacco leaves which seemed bigger than we were. Then there was a lot of yelling and excitement during the actual auction. Somehow Mr. Batton got them to let me and Mikie be weighed on the huge tobacco scale once everything was sold. Both of us remember that really clearly. We felt so lucky -- the only kids in the place. We also both remember going to another tobacco auction house in the same area for a school field trip which was awful and boring. There was no auction going on, just a bunch of green equipment in a huge barn and a tour guide talking on and on. blah blah blah.
He took us to ice cream a lot and to McDonald’s because our parents didn’t take us there so we requested it. I remember ordering chicken mcnuggets, fries, a caramel sundae and an apple pie! We could order anything we wanted. Can you imagine?! He took us shopping for school clothes, too. Mikie, who has always been into clothes, has more clear memories of those experiences than I do. She says he would ask if she wanted socks, gloves, hats to go with her dresses. She was in hog heaven! This was right around the age when I started to realize the other girls in school bought their clothes at different places than I did, they shopped at the store Mr. Batton took us to. Mikie says her best school picture outfit was in third grade and Mr. Batton bought it for her. It was not a hand-me-down! It had a Peter Pan collar, was blue and white, and made her feel like Dorothy, she says.
Dad told me about a time when the men’s clothing store in town called him to say, Come on in and get fitted for a new Easter suit. Someone has paid for you. He went in and picked out a suit and the owner of the store couldn’t help himself. He asked, “Do you know who is doing this for you?” My dad didn’t have any idea. The owner gave away Mr. Batton’s secret.
The first year my mom invited Mr. Batton to Thanksgiving dinner at our house, he thanked her by buying her an entire set of china dishes because we didn’t have enough matching plates for everyone at the table.
We only lived in that town, Williamston, NC, for 2 years or so before my dad joined the US Air Force full time and we moved far away to a base in the California desert. After we left, Mr. Batton mailed us a box of Swenson’s ice cream wafers, our favorite!
I wonder if he adopted the next associate pastor and their family after we left?
He had grown children of his own who lived somewhere else and they would come and pick him up sometimes. I don’t know much about it. I didn’t even know his first name! The only thing I knew was how he made me feel, how he made us feel -- very special. One of our biological grandads died before we were ever born, and the other was a grumpy penny-pincher. But for a couple years we had a wonderful grandad! Mikie and I don’t remember much he ever said to us. He wasn’t one for giving advice or over-explaining. Dad says he doesn’t remember getting any life advice from him either, which is so refreshing it’s hard to even believe!
I imagine he would drive along and listen to us talking to each other. We probably said some pretty funny stuff like kids do. It doesn’t take much to make eight and nine year old kids feel like royalty -- listen to them, buy some milkshakes and maybe a few trinkets and toys. It was a perfect time to have Mr. Batton in our lives, before we were too cool to enjoy playing pretend in the back of a Cadillac.
This sketch from SNL made me laugh a lot!
Thanks for reading. You are wonderful!
love,
Shannon “Nonni”
“My sister and I got our only perms, which was a low point”. ROARING!
I would love a Mr. Batton in my life. Thanks for sharing this sweet story. <3 (And that hilar SNL sketch omg)