Old Jacksonboro Road crosses the Savannah Highway within a half hour of Charleston. The name for this intersection is Jericho. It was once the name of a community. Today it is a crossroads on the outskirts of a town called Adams Run.

Jericho was once the site of a hotel, a post office, and a store with gas pumps. The hotel had three stories if one counts the spacious attic with dormer windows and bath. It had exterior wooden stairways, which resembled fire escapes. Around 1964, it was converted to a boys’ home by the Reconnu family. They operated the boys’ home until about 1968.

The store came equipped with a soda vending machine that would allow a mischievous boy to yank a bottle out without paying. The trick to it was not to brag to ones mother about the achievement.

The Mission returned to Carolina in mid-1970 to discover the Hotel Jericho, a bargain for a gastronomical temple, complete with guest suites and a burn pile in the back, all blackened from the last fire and wet from the last rain, with an aroma of metamorphosed plastics, rotting food, and rusted scrap metal.

It turned out the Hotel Jericho had too many hidden maintenance and repair issues, and it wasn’t easy to unload. Without sufficient income, the Mission was not able to sustain its Jericho burn-rate for long. In the wink of an eye, they packed up and left the Hotel Jericho for a little trackside house in the hamlet of Ruffin, which is little more than a railroad crossing on the Lowcountry Highway. The Mission wasn’t actually able to sell the Hotel for a couple years after it left Jericho. In the following years, the final solution seemed to have been found when it all burned down in a couple of fires.

The new location did have its luxuries. The day they arrived, Armen and Cindy discovered the new site came with its own playground: a rusty old metal swing set, an old, half-empty bottle of soda complete with an escort of hornets, and a shed in the back.

Every hot, sweaty night, freight trains would thunder by, shaking the house as they passed, and blasting through the cacophony of insect songs. The tracks, with the trestle down the way, were a temptation for wandering feet, haunted by the occasional odd shoe left to seed the imagination of a young boy. The oily, black sleepers seemed laid out to trip up the traveler, and the cool steel rails seemed like blunt blades.

Every bit as terrifying as the rails was the altogether foreign and unnatural experience that is called—with no lack of irony—kindergarten. Armen had hardly been introduced to the terror of mass education when the Mission was compelled to move on to nearby Walterboro, where he was fortunate to attend kindergarten at a small Catholic church just down a dirt road from the Mission.

The Mission was at least able to draw in some income at Walterboro, but not enough. The Mission’s kitchen and clinic served all comers. It could hardly afford to turn anyone away, but it was put under more and more pressure to do just that. Serving both whites and negros was an affront to southern whites. The Judge had not come to the South to tell anyone how to live—he had come to celebrate the South, but as an Armenian, it was difficult for him to allow himself to participate in the marginalization of a people.

The Mission was nearly compelled to return to California, but the Judge found an opportunity in the Piedmont. It was on the edge of Appalachia, in an old house with a forested canyon in the backyard, where Armen would sometimes explore. Cindy would occasionally come along, but she would unavoidably fall behind while looking out into the woods or up at the sky. She would sometimes accompany her brother when he would explore the crawl space under the house. When they found some loose bricks in the crawl space, she helped him rearrange the bricks to resemble a miniature house. The partnership ended, however, when Armen began to build small fires in their brick fortress. Cindy did not share Armen’s fondness for fire. In fact, she expressed a mortal dread of the smallest flame. It was another one of her quirks that her adoptive parents imagined might have been acquired during her time in Istanbul. At the Mission, she seemed most at home in front of the small black-and-white TV set watching westerns. She seemed transfixed by the Indians in particular.

As passionate as the Judge had become about soul food, he couldn’t manage to make a living selling soul food as food for the soul to Southerners. He’d extended and enhanced the culinary experience in unique ways, but the fact that he was a Yankee in Southern eyes seemed to always get in the way. He didn’t think of himself as a Yankee; he saw himself as an Armenian and a Fresnan and an American, but he began to realize that how he saw himself didn’t matter in the South. Recognizing this, leaks began to break through his resolve. He thought about how long it had been since he’d listened to a Giants game on KSFO. He thought about the dry bake of the Fresno summer air, and the cool, moist blanket of the Tule fog. Hearing that Willie Mays had been traded away to the New York Mets was the last straw. The Judge resolved to return to California this time as a Californian. For the first time, this would mean coming home. The Mission was packed up under an evening thunder storm, just after the mess from Cindy’s fifth birthday party was cleaned up. Kale ran off, tale between legs, to make a mess of his own in the basement. The showers fell harder, mixed with hail and with shorter intermissions, until the Mission set float and began its drift westward.

©2008 Dan J. Jensen

Dad’s blind, so it shouldn’t surprise anybody that he never was much for playing catch or bicycling with the kids, but you’d be surprised what he was willing to try on occasion. Of course, if you’d like to wrestle, he’d always be happy to take you on. As for Mom, she worked, of course. She worked and worked. She’s still working.

When all was said and done, we didn’t see much of Mom and Dad during the day. For one, they worked hard, Dad being the chiropractor and Mom being the jane-of-all-trades office manager. Then there were times when they’d go out for a well-deserved cup of coffee or tea. There was also all the Baha’i work, and on an odd day they might be planning our next move or house hunting.

Many of my boyhood memories of dealings with authority figures often involved my sisters, who were 11 and 5 years older than me. In general, there wasn’t a lot to stop me from doing as I pleased.

I remember quite clearly going out for a walk when I was about age four, and getting a ride home in a police cruiser.

The Walterboro that I remember was just a crossing of a pair of dirt roads, with a church and a couple houses. There’s more to the town than that, but that’s all I can recall. Back behind our neighbor’s house, across a field, I remember an outdoor freezer that was stuffed with juice pops. It must have been behind a store, but that didn’t matter. I only remember the freezer and the pops. Long, slender bags full of sweet, frozen punch.

The dirt roads were full of ruts, and there was a big hole between the houses. I don’t know what it was for. Garbage, perhaps. I remember pieces of newsprint tumbling around it. At dusk, there was the truck that would drive through, dusting the neighborhood’s mosquitoes with DDT. What an unearthly memory.

There were pranks, makeshift go carts, a bb gun, a pig attack, plenty of spankings, and a bush fire. There was nothing quite so scary as when my big brother got pneumonia, and no thrill quite like getting a hold of one of his model cars or erector set creations.

Then there was the sexual exploration, the likes of which I wouldn’t experience again until adulthood. Just good clean interracial intercourse among consenting children. Just doing our bit for racial unity, I guess.

We moved to Liberty after I graduated from kindergarten. I then matriculated to playing with fire in the crawlspace under our house, getting beat up at school, and being cajoled by playmates into throwing pebbles at cars.

After school, I would often show myself into town to partake in some window shopping (I don’t think I ever stole until I was seven). One time while dashing off to the five and dime, I got hit by a car. I was knocked out cold, rolling, I was told, down the street. My collar bone was broken. The lady that clobbered me bribed me good. I’d never seen so many cool toys in my life, but man did it hurt. I didn’t dare cross a street for years, unless no cars could be seen on it.

Our life of excess and extravagance could not last forever. In the wink of an eye, we packed up and left the Hotel Jericho for a little track-side house in the hamlet of Ruffin, which is little more than a railroad crossing on the Lowcountry Highway.

Railroad tracks in Ruffin, SC — Meredith Foss

Our new house did have its luxuries. I remember the day we arrived. My younger brother David and I discovered our new home came with its own playground: an old metal swing set, an old, half-empty bottle of soda complete with an escort of hornets, and a shed in the back.

Every hot, sweaty night, freight trains would thunder by, shaking the house as they passed, and blasting through the cacophony of insect songs.

I remember walking up the tracks with my older brother Al. We would pass the occasional odd shoe, and Al would tell me stories about how people would slip and get trapped under the tracks. Al denies telling me such stories to this day. Perhaps he forgot. I certainly didn’t!

I started kindergarten in Ruffin, and that’s about all. I can’t remember anything about that kindergarten, except for the first teary, terrifying day. We probably didn’t leave Ruffin long after that day. Before long we were following the tracks to Walterboro, where Mom and Dad hoped to make a better living.

© 2006 Dan J. Jensen

Old Jacksonboro Road crosses the Savannah Highway within a half hour of Charleston. The name for this intersection is Jericho. Today it is considered part of the town of Adams Run.

Jericho was once the site of a hotel, a post office, and a store with gas pumps. It all burned down in a couple of fires sometime after we left South Carolina a second time in 1972.

The hotel had three stories, if one counts the spacious attic with dormer windows and bath. It had exterior wooden stairways, which I remembered as fire escapes. Around 1964, it was converted to a boys’ home by the Reconnu family. They operated the boys’ home until about 1968.

The store came equipped with a soda vending machine that would allow a mischievous boy to yank a bottle out without paying. The trick to it was not to brag about getting a free soda to one’s mom.

Mom and Dad looked at the hotel in mid-1970, and saw a place that could be perfect as a home for seven and a dog, a chiropractic office, and a Baha’i center. I must confess that if I were driving down the Savannah Highway and I saw a FOR SALE sign posted in front of that old hotel, I would have been sorely tempted to stop for a look-see.

Among my favorite memories of Jericho was the the trash pile in the back, all blackened from the last fire and wet from the last rain. I can still smell the aroma of molten plastics, rotting food, and rusted scrap metal. I also remember when a crab, recently taken from the ocean, got a hold of a cat’s tail. I’m not sure how that happened, but now I suspect it probably got some help.

Across the highway, there was a hotel of a different kind that was even more noteworthy: a maze of tunnels that some neighbor kids had dug out. My memory of that system of tunnels has endured in my mind as one of the great achievements of kidkind.

It turned out the Hotel Jericho had too many hidden maintenance and repair issues, and it wasn’t easy to unload. Mom and Dad weren’t able to sell it for a couple years after we left Jericho.

© 2006 Dan J. Jensen

Dateline 1959. It was a trying time for Baha’is, a highly-centralized religious group whose leader had recently died intestate. That means dying without a will; not dying emasculated.

For our family, though, it was a new beginning. Love conquers all.

Unless I am mistaken, Mom and Dad met at a big city Baha’i fireside, which is a kind of proselytizing event, at which Dad was a speaker. In the wink of an eye, Mom became a Baha’i and they were married at the Los Angeles Baha’i Center. They got off to a quick start, adding a daughter to Mom’s two kids from her previous marriage. Perhaps Mom’s poor health caused them to wait awhile before making any more little Baha’is. Aside from that, it seems they had a good thing going. Business was good, and there were plenty of distinguished big city Baha’is to hobnob with.

I was born a few years later, at the Inglewood hospital where Grandpa Jensen worked as a gardener. He had been suffering from diabetes for the better part of four decades, but he was still working in his lifetime occupation. I have no memories of him as an independent man, as he suffered from a stroke soon after we moved away.

I don’t know what inspired Mom and Dad to pack up the kids and move to the Deep South. Perhaps it was Faizi or Sears or Dunbar, Baha’i leaders whom they seemed to get a lot of guidance from. Perhaps it was my angelic, newborn gaze that gave them a new sense of purpose! Perhaps the Watts Riots had convinced them that there was great untapped spiritual potential in the oppressed Black American community. Whatever the reasons, we were in South Carolina by the time I was learning to walk.

As far as Mom and Dad were concerned, we were moving to stay. As it turned out, we would move ten times more within the next eight years. We were stepping into a whole new way of living.