There Were Troughs So the Horses Could Drink

Late last night, I took a taxi home from downtown. Just before dropping me off, my driver told me he had lived two houses down from me, from about 1954 to 1957. He agreed to let me record his memories on tape, so I could write them up in the Corner Forum. Herman "Buck" Brown, 54, lived at 532 13th St. NE from when he was 5 to when he was 8. He has been driving a cab now for about 20 years.

— Marc Borbely, 536 13th St. NE

I would always come outside and go to this lady's house [at 520 13th St. NE] — and go to the store for her all the time. I used to walk up those steps to get to her house.

What would she have you get?

Oh, she would always say something like, "Go over there and get me a pack of baloney, and get me a loaf of bread, and bring back a couple of sodas." And I would get that, bring it back up to her, and she'd give me maybe like 10 cents, maybe a nickel or something like that.

Back in them days, when you go in that store to get a soda, the soda boxes was square metal — and it had a sign on the side that said Coca Cola, where they had chunks of ice — a lot of ice water. And the soda was down in there. You had to stick your hand in there and grab the sodas. They were real, real freezing cold, and the water was dripping off on them and whatnot, and that's the way it was.

Who was the grocer? Do you happen to remember who that was?

Oh my God, you know, I can't remember. It was a white guy that owned the store and whatnot. I can't think what his name would be, right now. He might have had a lady or somebody in there.

This apartment building was mostly white, you said before...

I don't even think I remember seeing no black folks living there. I think it was all white. But back then, times was a little different, I guess.

Can you remember how that was like, as a kid here?

To be honest with you, I ain't never had no problems. But I know back then, mostly all the policemen were white. And if they did have any black ones, I didn't see them.

You said your brother had a friend —

He had a friend that lived [at 538 13th St. NE] right next door to your house. Him and my brother were good friends. His name was Gilbert — he was a white guy. And my brother and him used to ride bicycles up and down the street — they'd be flying down there, going down towards H Street! They would go to an auto store, to get parts for the bike or whatever.

One night, at about 8 o'clock, when I was about 5 or 6 years old, this side window, where the kitchen would be — we was all sitting there one night. And my mother — we was all sitting around the table, talking. All of a sudden, the glass had broke — a bullet had came through the window. Why did it come through there? I don't know. We was all scared. But after that, things got quiet, and nothing did happen. We looked all around — looked out and didn't see anybody — and after that, I think we just kinda forgot about it. I don't think she called the police or nothing. I mean, because whoever did it — they probably was gone.

But back in those days, when you come on the street — a lot of people don't remember, but all the D.C police cars, every last one of them, was jet black. They were jet black. And we used to have call boxes on the corner, for the police. The box was dark blue, and the pole was gray. And you'd stick a big old door key in the box and open it up and call back to the police station. All the police would have that. But back in them times, if I'm not mistaken, in order for you to be a policeman back then, you had to be at least 6-foot tall. If you was under 6-foot tall, you couldn't be no policeman. Those were just the old days. Back then, the police used to walk the beat more, too. They'd be walking up and down this street.

You remember the police out here?

Oh yeah. The police would be out here, walking up and down.

Do you remember if you felt safe?

Well, you know, out here I just always felt safe in the neighborhood. Maybe `cause back then, by me running the street, I just knew everybody. I always felt safe. Wasn't no problem about that.

A long time ago, up this alley, when you go up this alley right here, there used to be a garage — the garage must still be there — but there was a garage there, and that garage, I'll betcha that garage had over 200 bicycles in it, all stacked in there.

Some of the bikes was new, some was used and whatnot, and a couple of guys must have peeked in and seen them, and they broke the lock off of it, and everybody in the neighborhood had a bicycle.

They would go in there and take them out of there! I don't know who they belonged to, but the garage was full of bicycles!

Did you get a bike, too?

No. I think my brother took one out of there and gave it to me.

You mentioned the lady here [who lived at 534 13th St. NE].

Oh yeah! The lady here, she had so many pretty flowers — the whole front yard. You couldn't even see no grass in there — it was all flowers. The whole front yard was nothing but pretty flowers. And she would water them flowers — they were so pretty. A dark-skinned lady. Kind of a slim lady. I guess she was maybe 75 years old, and she'd be out there watering the flowers — she kept that yard so pretty. And I can't believe the house is boarded up now.

You said your dog's name was what?

Oh, the dog's name was Patsy. He was a cocker spaniel. Patsy was so fat. And he would run down them steps and chase guys, if they came anywhere near the porch or whatnot.

It was a little white girl that used to live in this apartment building — my sisters used to play with her.

I did something one time. I did something in this house. I don't know what I did. But when she came home, my older brother told her something I did — I don't know if I knocked something over in the house, or I tore up something — she came home and she found out I did something I had no business in, and she wanted to whoop me. She tried to catch me — she was a big lady. She tried to catch me — I ran! She told my brother, "Get him! Bring him back in here!" (My brother, he could run faster than me.) He ran and got me — I was coming down these steps! These steps right here. And before I got to that gate right there, my brother grabbed me. He was bigger than me. But he grabbed me and put his arms around me — just picked me up in the air, he was gonna take me back in the house so she could whoop me, and I was hollering and screaming, "Please go ahead on and drop me! Drop me down the steps! Drop me!" (I didn't want to take that whopping back in there! I thought dropping me down the steps so I could run away would be a lot easier!) He carried me back in there, and she tore my behind up. I was mad at him and her. (Chuckles.)

He was older than you?

Yeah, yeah.

What were their names — your brothers and sisters?

Oh, my brother, his name was Bobby. And my sister that was younger than me, she was next to me, her name was Mou. And then I had another sister — her name was Lina but they always called her Sister, and my baby sister — her name was Tiny.

Are they all still alive?

Well, the youngest one is not living no more. She passed away. Mou — me and her used to almost look just alike. She was a year younger than me. And Lina was real light — her skin was real, real light complexioned, and her hair was like yellow, like a white girl's hair. But as she got older, her hair started turning darker brown. She was really pretty. Then Tiny — she was brown-skinned and she had kind of like sandy hair. But my father — he was a lighter-complexioned guy. My mother wasn't as light. So that's why some of us were lighter than each other.

My mother's name was Elizabeth Brown, and she raised us by herself. My father passed in 1954. He died before we got here, because before we got here, we was just living right down here — 6th & Florida Avenue NE. Back then, at 6th & Florida Avenue NE, they used to sell live chickens and pigs, and all kind of stuff like that. You could buy all kinds of live animals down there, back then. All kinds of birds — turkeys and chickens and all that. Ain't like that now, but farmers could bring live animals down there, and people used to buy them and take them home and kill them theirself, and fix them back then, in those days.

Your father must have died young them.

Yeah, I think he must have had a heart attack. He smoked those heavy cigarettes — Camels. And he probably had high blood pressure, too. He had asthma real bad. I had asthma too. I was born with it, but once I turned five years old, I outgrew it.

And you said you went to Lovejoy Elementary School.

Oh yeah, when I was small. The only thing I remember was just being in the classroom like any other kid would be. But I know one evening, when I was over there, I was riding a bicycle — riding one of these bicycles that came outta there! — riding down the street [the 1200 block of E Street] — did not know how to put the breaks on. And that meant I'd be coming to a stop sign, couldn't stop, scared as I-don't-know-what, and — good thing a car wasn't coming, because he would have hit me — and I ran across the street and hit the curb and fell off the bike.

There was a Safeway down there, I think.

Oh yeah, there used to be Safeway there. That Safeway is gone. Not only that — it used to be another place right next to the Safeway that used to make bread.

A bakery, behind it.

Yeah, it was a bakery there — oh, you knew about that, too?! You know what that bakery did? It used to have a lot of that rye bread with the seeds in it, and maybe some of it could have been a day old — they would give it to you free in a bag, when you go by there! Yeah, they would give that to you in a bag.

On that corner, where that new place is right there [1300 and 1302 E St. NE] — they used to have an old garage shed out back. Somebody was digging in there, messing around in there or something, and they found some live grenades in there. They were deteriorating, and they had to call some people to move them out of there.

How did you hear that?

Oh, I heard somebody talking about that. Somebody must have been in the war, and must have been saving them or something. But I was told that if they had went off, it probably could have tore that whole corner up, over there.

Now you must have moved out before Marion Barry came to live here.

Oh, way before Marion Barry, yeah. I must have moved here in 1954 — I must have moved out of here three years later. From here, I think I moved to 314 E St. NE. Not too far from here. Not far from the Union Station. And see, when I was a kid, we used to go over to Union Station and swim around the statue over there, which you ain't supposed to do. Police used to run us out from over there back then.

They also used to have horse and buggy. Guys used to ride horse and buggy — used to sell watermelons and things like that, used to sell fish with ice in the back, and used to ride the horse and buggy up and down the street — right here, 13th Street. They'd be selling vegetables and stuff like that. Sometime, they'd be selling ice. We used to call them street vendors. In fact, back then, on the corners we used to have troughs so the horses could drink — they used to be little iron bathtubs, about half the size of a regular bathtub — they used to be sitting up on the corner, and the horses could drink out of that.

These are horses that took the buggies?

The horse and buggy. The guy driving the horse, and they had the old wooden buggy, and he had his vegetables in the back. They still had cars, but people still had horse and buggy — used to ride around here, and they'd be selling vegetables and things like that.

Was this street paved back then?

Oh yeah, it looked just like it do right now. It was still black pavement like this. This might be newer, now, but it still looked the same.

And what about streetcars?

Oh, we used to have streetcars around here — sure did. I used to ride the streetcars.

I think on D Street — there used to be a streetcar barn, I think.

Oh yeah, it was, it was. But I used to ride the streetcars. I used to pay 15 cents. No, it could have been 10 cents. That was nice, too. You could ride the streetcars. And while you'd ride, they'd be rocking back and forth.

Whenever I bring somebody up here [in my cab], I always used to look at this house, because I know I used to live in here. I would love to walk around there, just to see how it looks. I used to play in the basement. I used to do something in this house I had no business doing. It wasn't my sister doing it, it was me. I used to have a cat, and I used to come out there — I don't know why I would do it, I was young, 5 years old — with the cat, through it up in the air, and it landed on the street. That's a terrible thing to do. I used to hate thinking of myself, that I used to do that. Come outside, and throw rocks at the birds. Who'd want to kill a bird? Oh my God, those old days. It was nice talking to you!

If you want to call me anytime, it ain't no problem. I like talking about it, because I've always thought about this area — by me being a part of it. §