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Big Papa's Guitar

On the porch at Camp Greene

By Daniel McShanePublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Photo credit to Ms. Stella Kim, with thanks.

I learned to play the guitar in prison. When I was seven.

In the 1970’s, my father was the administrator of a minimum-security correctional facility called Camp Greene in Charlotte, North Carolina. Named for the Continental Army Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene, it originally opened as an Army training camp in 1917 for troops deploying to fight in World War One. It closed as such in 1919 and later was deeded to the state. The old Army barracks were rejuvenated, and the camp became an installation to hold low risk male prisoners, many of whom were trustees and allowed to participate in a work-release program.

Camp Greene Trustees were not violent or even necessarily criminal. These were wards of the state who may have been awaiting trial and couldn’t afford bail or had received a judgement against them for a minor law violation. I remember my father saying most of them were good men that were in financial trouble of some kind. For example, a failure to pay taxes or rent or alimony. One Trustee had a claim against him because he got in a bar fight and broke some furniture. He owed the bar an amount for reparations and couldn’t pay within the court-ordered timeline. So, 30 days as a guest at Camp Greene while on work-release, the allowance to still go to work every day, with wages garnished by the State. It was like extreme baby sitting to ensure the court’s financial judgements were carried out to completion.

In 1977, Camp Greene had a very small staff, and so my father took on the additional duties of driving a white school bus full of inmates with charges on similar infractions to designated drop points around the city every morning for work-release, then he would drop me off at school. I thought I must be the coolest kid at Saint Patrick’s Elementary for having my own bus bring me in each morning, even though the side was emblazoned with “North Carolina State Correctional Facility, Camp Greene.”

The administrator (Dad) was given a small cabin on the installation for his residence. It only had a main room/kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom, which was okay because it was only the two of us at this point. I bounced around between my mother and my father for most of my young life, but in 1977 I was with my Dad. Mom worked nights at this time and was unable to provide stability and supervision for me. But hey, what better place for the stability and supervision of a seven year old than a prison? It was within this atmosphere that I developed a love for the sounds of guitar, mainly due to the gentle stylings and blues riffs of a Trustee I knew as “Big Papa.”

Big Papa had a real name but I’m not sure I ever knew it, nor why he ended up at Camp Greene. He was an older black man and true to his name, was a large human in all three dimensions. He had an old Martin acoustic guitar, a brand I would learn to appreciate later, which he could really make sing with thumping Delta Blues or early Rock n’ Roll. He was teaching my Dad to play, and indeed even let me play with his Martin sometimes. My small fingers were not quite ready for prime time yet, but he did teach me my first two guitar chords, and along with them, my first song. “Peggy Sue” by Buddy Holly. But at night, Big Papa would play gentle melodies on the porch outside the barracks, accompanying the end-of-day sounds of nature. I would lay nearby in the top bunk of the tiny cabin bedroom I shared with my father and listen to Big Papa pick through chords of peaceful reflection until I drifted off to sleep. Hard to imagine that type of scene occurring today.

That remains my calm place. The playlist I've embedded is my favorite for getting there right now, associated with fond memories of my time at Camp Greene and I hope you enjoy it. This is how I reach my place of reflection, perhaps meditation, anchored to the sounds of solo acoustic guitar playing easy melodies and tunes much like those that I remember from 1977. I can make still my mind, reflect on the journey and remember a more carefree time, in that small cabin bunk, listening to Big Papa play…in prison.

instruments
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About the Creator

Daniel McShane

Pirate by day, writer by night. Arr!

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