Hometown

Dianne and Sadie

Growing up in the sisterhood

By Bill Fields

I consider myself a “semi-only child” because I came into the world so long after my sisters — 14 1/2 years after Dianne and 12 1/2 after Sadie. They were both off at college before I started first grade.

If what they say about an adult’s first memories is correct — that they usually go back to when someone was 3 or 4 years old — my recollections of Dianne and Sadie date to their teenage days in the early 1960s, about the time we posed in our Sunday finest in the backyard in the accompanying snapshot taken shortly after my fourth birthday. (They look more comfortable in their nice dresses than I do in a bowtie.)

I remember wanting to play — and them not wanting me to in equal measure — with their lipstick and fountain pens, and being intrigued when they utilized the upstairs bathroom sink to change the color of a sweater with Rit dye. There was often music, from their tickling the ivories on the upright piano in our living room to 45s spinning on a record player.

One vivid musical memory makes me think I have some earlier-than-average recall. As much as “Moon River” and “Chances Are” were a soundtrack to those days on East New Jersey Avenue, a silly pop song in my sisters’ record collection stands out in my mind. “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini,” by Brian Hyland, came out in June of 1960, and I’m convinced its lyrics were among the building blocks of my early vocabulary.

When Dianne and Sadie set out to further their educations at Wake Forest and UNC Greensboro, respectively, I tagged along on rides to and from campus. This proximity gave me a backseat vantage point to our father’s frustration upon taking the wrong exit in Winston-Salem or Greensboro, and fatigue after helping haul his daughters’ stuff to their dorm rooms. Once, our family gave Sadie’s roommate a ride to her hometown of Valdese in the North Carolina foothills. It was about a 100-mile trip but seemed like an exotic journey for a little boy who hadn’t seen much beyond Moore County.

My sisters’ college experiences netted me much more than the Wake and UNCG sweatshirts I got from them for Christmas. If they could go to college, why couldn’t I when the time came? That was a lesson more valuable than anything I was learning at East Southern Pines Elementary. And it didn’t hurt that both were fine students, applying themselves in school. Dianne was high school valedictorian, her name on the wall for years next to a painting of the Blue Knight, which was always a source of family pride as I matriculated through those same halls and classrooms until going to Pinecrest as a sophomore.

My sisters weren’t sportswomen, but I could coerce them into shooting a basket. They tolerated my obsession with miniature golf and joined me for countless games on the carpet, although under oath they would confess to not sharing my sadness when the ball disappeared down the chute on the 18th hole.

The difference in our ages mimicked the gaps between our mother and her two older siblings. Mom always hoped the chronology wouldn’t adversely affect our relationship as we aged, that her children would stay connected as they got older, after she was gone.

Five years after our mother passed away not long before her 96th birthday, we are doing what she hoped. My sisters and I haven’t lived in the same area since they left Southern Pines, but despite the geography we remain in touch. Sometimes we talk on a three-way call, a Jetsonian advance from the days when my sisters were lining up to use the party-line phone to speak to a pal, my little self likely tugging on their hemlines.  PS

Southern Pines native Bill Fields, who writes about golf and other things, moved north in 1986 but hasn’t lost his accent.