The Empire in my Daddy's Eyes

“I’m gonna be an artist so I don’t have to do that!” was my excuse whenever my Daddy would force me to come outside to help him. I never said it out loud, but I surely thought it! He always said that if I didn’t get my education, I would need to know how to work with my hands. 

I have never been that type (so you better believe I was going to get my education!). 

I eventually got the message in my late twenties that, despite my resistance back then, all of it was his way of making me tough and also spending time with me. I am not sure I ever got “tough” the way he wanted. I can be a good actor, but let’s be honest, I’ve never been one to boast about how much I could lift at the gym and never have I been the type to pass on an opportunity to stop and marvel at a flower garden on my path. I now realize, years later, that my Daddy’s modus operandi was simply to help me grow into a logical-thinking and productive man with a little practicality.

I imagine what great stuff we could have created If I had been a little more cooperative. 

Just like how I have ideas to make something new, he also had his grandiose ideas form making valued use of our property and my spare time - which he also treated as his property. Back in the day, I thought my father had three occupations: teaching math at my high school, coaching softball, and making my Saturdays laborious and bleak. We did everything, from manually plowing vegetable gardens to raising cows to selling chopped firewood from the surplus trees on our 5-acre property. And, of course, the age-old past time of every father and son duo - lawn care. Not to mention working on every car and lawnmower we owned to “make them better” whenever they fell apart. He kept working machines alongside scrap heeps and vegetable patches next to decaying lawn furniture. The vast mass of “treasures” he collected over the years (sometimes from the side of the road) hid the sprawling hilly land around our modest brick home. He always called it “The Empire”; I always rolled my eyes.

Set up high on a hill was the main stretch of our property. Not visible from the road, especially when the many pines and maples were in full glory in spring and summer, set apart from the paved state highway by a rocky clay driveway. 

Turning off the highway onto the long clay drive, you see glimpses of our fishing pond on the left as you climb a gentle hill. Continuing on, the driveway narrows and bends to the left while pitching steeply upward. The incline of the driveway, and low-lying property around it, ensured that rainfall would wash the rocky clay away every summer, hollowing deep potholes that we would have to fill it in to keep the driveway passable for any visiting cars. Once you get past that hellish bend, you can see our house in the clearing; a modest yellow-brick ranch (maybe that's why I love yellow so much) with a reddish-brown roof. My Mamma made sure there were flowers in the front. Several rose bushes, including one that she transplanted from my Grandmother’s garden after she passed away. 

My Mamma loved her Pansies, Impatiens, Forget -me-nots, and Petunias. She loved keeping her flower garden looking lovely for its own sake, but quite possibly the main goal was to divert your eye from all the junk my Daddy would collect on the sides of the house.

I can see him now, as his hand would pass over the horizon directing my sight to the conifers great and small, our fishing pond, our vegetable gardens, and of course all the things he had accumulated over the years. He would say, “all this will be yours someday!” I would laugh! I imagined a life in a city, where I could live and work, go to museums, shop, and enjoy fine music in concert halls.

Are you familiar with the old school sitcom “Sanford and Son”? Aside from being in Watts, LA and my mother still living at the time, the dynamic my Daddy and I shared was somewhat similar. I'd play the son, Lamont Sandford, who was always searching for his place in the world. My father the resourceful and ambitious in his own right, Fred Sanford.

It was somewhat of a joke (to me at least) at the time -but my Daddy was right! 

A legacy is worthy of consideration. An Empire! I now see a little of what he saw. What do we grow, maintain, and leave behind for our future generations? 

Now that I am older, I often find myself thinking of country life, though not much in Mississippi. The English countryside, idyllic meadows, and country homes that you might find, say, in Cornwall, is more my speed. George loves the sound of that too! So who knows what the future could bring.

As for my Daddy’s place, my older sister took ownership of the property back home after my Daddy passed away in 2018. I am so happy she has it too. I’m working on my own empire as a designer in New York City. Plus, it's important that the house and land remain in the family. Long before I was born, my parents worked hard to buy the land and build that little house in Lexington, Mississippi so that they would have something they could call their own. In the south, property and land have always been part of identity, especially for Black folks. For people who were forced to live and work on (and as) White folks' property, an ingrained desire to have your own land is paramount. I feel my Daddy kindled that desire within me, even before I knew the spark was there. The need to build a tradition to own - for myself and future generations.

My dream has remained a bit less physical than my Daddy’s, but it is leading me back to Mississippi. Designing in New York is great, and is the best place to learn the craft, but it’s been my dream to one day create jobs and somehow build creative opportunities for children in Mississippi. My Daddy instilled in me the attitude of working hard and giving back. In my mind, I like to imagine what it would be like to return to my home town and neighboring areas to make an economic impact.

I understood some public schools might have had art or music classes but at my school, there was no such thing. The arts are so important for a growing mind and perhaps if I had more opportunities I would have had a stronger start as I pursued my dreams. I use to get jealous whenever I would hear about art classes at other high schools- whether on television programs or in more affluent areas of Mississippi. Who knows what could have been?

No worries now. I did my best and it got to where I am today by determination and, of course, grace. When I was a kid, I took up learning how to draw on my own. No one really taught me. It felt like second nature. Once my parents felt comfortable letting me use a pencil, without sticking myself in the eye (my Grandmother’s fear) or drawing on the walls when I was small, there was no stopping me from drawing into my future. My parents encouraged it, as long as it did not interfere with my other responsibilities. I was blessed and never gave up.

But even with supportive parents, this path wasn’t easy. There were so many times when I was in school and I gave up on things because I was told by teachers that I was “slow” or “you need help if you can’t get this.” I needed help, but not the help they gave with the words they chose to use. It was negative sounding to me. And I was too sensitive to absorb them without feeling the pain. I shut down at the sight of things I could not understand. I later realized I was dyslexic and it took me a moment to grasp things. I just learned differently, that’s all. So my Daddy became my math tutor for 4th and 5th grade. Those were my toughest years growing up. I just wanted to draw and play videogames! 

Wouldn’t it be amazing to go back to the Mississippi Delta and grow cotton to produce, to own the resources needed to create sustainable and ethically created products and to build my own textile mills in the south?! Developing my own signature fabrics and prints. This could give jobs to the thousands of Southerners that are unemployed and/or do not have jobs that aren’t giving them the means to create the “Empires” they deserve to have. Or even just the option to have.

So, living up to my Daddy’s name, Paul Allen Edwards, I am definitely my father’s son. Just as he collected his “treasures” I have collected my own, along with the knowledge and resources to apply them to good use. I may not have all that amazing mathematical knowledge my Daddy had, and probably never will, but I have his resourcefulness, dedication, and drive. Plus, tons of FABRIC that I can use to weave the Empire of The Future.