Feb 13, 2024
Anita Beshirs
was born in Batesville, Mississippi, because the small Southern
town her family lived in didn't have a hospital.
Welcome to our Valentine's 2024
episode all about Anita and her husband, Lester
Raww. In Part 1, we'll get to know Lester and Anita
through the stories of their childhood and early adult
years.
Anita's dad was a Church of
Christ minister who, along with her mom, never drank or even took
medicinal drugs. Anita is the third child in her family (she has
two older brothers) and when she just two years old, their parents
moved them to the Cameroon jungle on missionary work.
The family lived in Africa in a
house made of concrete blocks and with a tin roof. Anita spent the
first six years of her life with no TV or radio and so she was
forced to make her own fun. She was home schooled by her mom
because her dad was busy doing his church work.
After four years, the family
returned to Mississippi, now in the college town of Oxford, where
Anita started grade school. She says she didn't want to go to
college right away because she didn't know what she wanted to do
with her life. But her parents insisted that she go to Christian
college, which meant a school called Harding University in
Arkansas. This is where Lester and Anita met, but more on that
after we hear the story of Lester's early life.
His mom grew up in Florence, Alabama, near the Tennessee River
and not far from Muscle Shoals. She moved to Florida and met
his dad, who was a fighter pilot in the Navy. Lester has one older
brother, born not long before him. Their dad was in and out of Navy
and the family moved around, first to San Diego, then back to
Flordia, and finally to Virginia, where Lester finished high
school.
Because his family was also in
the Church of Christ and his brother had gone to Harding, Lester
chose the school, mostly as a way to escape life in Virginia. He
had grown apart from the church when he was 13 and a friend
introduced him to things like books by Robert Anton Wilson and
William S. Burroughs, marijuana, and prog rock. Lester started
playing guitar around this time, but we'll get more into that in
Part 2.
Anita and Lester remember first
meeting in their first year at college in the campus quad.
Anita's first impression was, Oh god, this guy is such a
freak. They didn't date for another four years, but hung out
with a lot of the same people. Then, in her sophomore year, Anita
spent a semester abroad in Florence. She came back a changed
person.
At this point in the
conversation, we hear them each describe was they were like as
young adults. Anita says she was a bit of a prankster, but Lester's
stories take pranks to another level. Because of their respective
shenanigans, they were each "dormed" at Harding, which was the
school's form of detention punishment. We all share a hearty laugh
over this.
Anita says that at Harding, it
was the first time in her life that she was popular. She was
recruited into a social club (their version of Greek sororities)
and was a rising star in Christian leadership. She liked it enough,
but again, Italy changed her. Slowly, she stopped believing in god
and Jesus.
Lester shares stories of how
they and others would sneak in drinking and smoking cigarettes
while at Harding. Slowly, Anita was finding a new identity and
crowd of friends, including Lester. She left Harding for Ole Miss
but went back because she figured out that she could graduate
faster at Harding. The couple really started hanging out regularly
in their fourth years of college. Both had dated others and in
fact, Anita set Lester up with some of her friends. Lester had
never got serious with anyone at Harding, though.
It was Anita's goal to get out of Harding unmarried. Her future
husband wanted to move to New York to pursue a music career,
and she was just ready to live a little, wherever. She broke up
with her boyfriend in early 1990 and soon after this, the two got
together.
Check back next week for Part 2
and the conclusion of our Valentine's 2024 episode.
Photography by Jeff
Hunt
We recorded this episode at
Antia's art studio on Divisadero on a rainy day in January
2024.