“So I stayed in a little town called Alma, Georgia, which was by Waycross. I remember hooking up with a little local grocery store and I helped out in the grocery store. It was pretty much a black grocery store. I mean this was our very first day and as an individual from a white upper-middle class background and Exeter and Williams, I had never been in an environment like this. My personality was such that I very much wanted to fit in, get along, not create waves, which I don’t think Gaudino would have approved of. But I remember volunteering in this grocery store and most black people would come in asking, “Who is that white kid over there doing that stuff?” And I can remember this woman coming up to, this very old black woman, coming up to me and asking me where the bananas were. But she asked me with a heavy Georgia accent and she called bananas “naners.” I had never heard “naners” and the accent was so thick that I had no idea what she was saying to me. I can remember just standing there and she asked me this question “Where are the ‘naners?” and I just nodded my head in agreement because I didn’t want to ask her, “What are you saying?” or “I don’t understand you.” So I just nodded my head and smiled. I remember her going back to the cashier and said, “That boy, he’s not very bright, is he?”

–John Neikirk '73