Neighbors
Nita was Rod’s neighbor and watched him and his siblings while his mother worked at night. Nita was 18 and married. Rod was 14 and had been the man of the house since he was five years old. Not old enough for first grade, but old enough to help raise two younger brothers and sister after their mother kicked his father out and tossed his clothes out the door..
“His mother told me not to let them go outside, so they came into my apartment and I let them drink and smoke,” Nita said.
They drank and smoked with Nita because, as Rod puts it, if his siblings were going to learn those things, he wanted it to be with him. Both Rod and Nita were born in Puerto Rico, but their families moved to “the ghetto in Brooklyn.”
Rod was supposed to go to vocational school in high school to study radios and televisions but couldn’t afford the books and kits, so he pretended to go to school every day and went to work instead. His mother cried when he dropped out and he was ashamed he never finished school. People, he says, told his mama that her children were no good and would one day be on drugs and in prison.
Rod went into the U.S. Army to get out of the ghetto. Nita moved from New York to New Jersey and had kids. “A lot of things happened” and she divorced and moved back to the old neighborhood. While on leave from the Army, Rod returned to the old neighborhood, heard she was single and went looking for her. They have been together ever since.
“I had a crush on her from smoking and drinking in her living room, and never dated anyone else.”
41. That is how many years they have been married and how many years he served in the Army.
Rod is the extrovert who needs human interaction. Nita is the introvert who needs people to watch, a book to read, or a story to write. Rod says that when he was away Nida’s descriptive letters brought him home. “She finds stories in everything. The birds, the wind, the shadows. I kept every letter because they reminded me that everything was going to be okay.” Nita says “that’s what writers do.”
He is also proud of the book Nita wrote about her life that “released her from the demons that were haunting her.” The battles ended and she found healing and her peace. I knew her battle but not the whole story. It takes a strong person to kick them to the side and move forward.
Both travel to Puerto Rico to visit family, and for mission trips, but going back is hard because it is, “no longer the island where people leave their windows open and help each other.” Rod says Puerto Ricans treat the ones who leave like outsiders and call them New Yorkians for living in New York.
“Going back and speaking fluent English is the worst thing you can do,” he says.”
Rod and Nita have seen the world together. She dreams of going to Israel in October for her birthday because she wants to see with her own eyes what Jesus saw, and walk where he walked. Rod told her to book it--“now is the time for her to go.” His dream is to move to Mexico where they can eat fresh fruits and vegetables and “live well for $1,000 a month.”
They moved to Fairhope three years ago after Rod’s retirement. His friends asked why they were moving to Alabama. The couple feels the same way about their friends who retire and move to Orlando. He is proud of their marriage and that they worked hard and saved and can live wherever they choose.
“We got out of the ghetto in New York,” he says. “We don’t accept anyone else’s excuse that they are stuck in their situation and can’t get out. That is BS. Get up and get out. There is always a way out, even if you have to leave home and do it on your own. My brothers and sister get out, too. My mama brags on us now.”
He admits he didn’t do it on his own, that God has always carried him, and he looks back and sees the footsteps in the sand. “I don’t have an earthly father, but I have a heavenly one.”
48 years after drinking and smoking in a tiny apartment in the Bronx, Rod and Nita fill their days in Fairhope volunteering and giving back. They don’t miss the “hustle and bustle of their younger years” and are thankful for the troubles of life that got them here.
