The community that my grandmother and her siblings grew up in was a very integrated community. As such, my grandmother and her siblings grew up around white people and knew them in their daily lives. Hell, not only did they know them, they were related to them. Anyway. But alas, there was one that was really close to us and very dear to our hearts, the Carter family, and in particular, Billy Carter. Billy Carter's father owned the general store there in the small community of Joffre and Billy and my Uncle Lawrence and my Uncle Archie all grew up fussing, fighting, playing and tussling with each other. They were like brothers. Billy would come around my great-grandparents house, when they were older I suppose, and he would say "John Archie, you are surely crazy trying to send all of your kids to school. I'm not going to college, Im going to take over my father's store." Well, things didnt turn out the way Billy wanted them to as his father's second wife took everything, unfairly, when his father died, leaving Billy broke and really destitute. HE went through his lean years, and he went through periods of great fortune--for a while he owned about a street full of houses, and told my mother when she moved back to Alabama she could have one of them. Unfortunately, when she did move back to Alabama, he had lost all of his assets, including his houses. He and Uncle Lawrence were always close-- uncle Lawrence got him several jobs when Billy was in need and they always had each other's back. Billy had a really bad end though, when he died about three years ago. His ungreatful children put him in a nursing home (where none of us had any contact with him) and he died shortly thereafter. He was quite a character though. He was a good man too.