When I Grow Up

When I was a little girl, I used to lie in bed at night and wonder about a lot of things. I was one of those kids who daydreamed a lot. I thought a lot. I was trying to figure a lot of things out and one of those things was about race. So much didn’t make sense to me. 

I was a child during the Civil Rights struggles. I remember seeing those “White Only” and “Colored” signs. My grandparents lived in the South so I often had to travel down there to visit family. I loved it. The South, that is. I loved the weather and it was so beautiful down there. My family lived in Florida so I got the best of it, I thought.

I’ve lived in the South for a lot of my adult life and I still love it.

We took the bus sometimes, which was a lot of fun for a child.  It was a great trip from Illinois to Florida. There were a couple of times that weren’t fun though.

Once a racist bus driver made my Mom get off a bus in Ohio because she only had a bus ticket for herself, me and one of my brothers.

My other brother was only about 3 and he sat in our laps or in a seat if one was empty. They had told her in Chicago that she didn’t need one for him so she hadn’t bought one. He not only put us off the bus but he told the other driver for the bus we were going to transfer to that he shouldn’t let us on the bus.  She was trying to cheat Greyhound and it was up to him to make it right.

Actually, it was something meaner and nastier, but you get the drift.

So my poor Mom had to call someone back home and get them to wire her money for a ticket and we had to sit in Ohio for hours waiting for it to happen.

And then there was the time in Daytona Beach that my Mom and Aunt Bootsie got off the bus to get us some food.  They had to go to the “Colored” window to order it and could not sit in the restaurant like the white folks. They didn’t want us kids to have to deal with it so they left us on the bus and subjected themselves to the hatefulness they had left the South trying to avoid.

While they were getting the food, a white couple came and sat in our seats. When they asked them to move, they declared they didn’t have to. They were white and they could sit where they wanted. 

Wrong answer.

Mom and Bootsie were not the ones.

And, in fact, neither were the other white riders on the bus who all went after the two old rednecks.  When the bus driver came back, there was all kinds of yelling and cursing going on and when he realized what was what, he told the couple they had to get off the bus.  My family had been in those seats since Chicago and they couldn’t just sit where they wanted.

They called him a nigger lover among other things and wouldn’t get off the bus even though they had moved, so he called the police who came and told the couple they had to go. I recall that they didn’t threaten to arrest them, just told them to get off the bus, which they did.

I later wondered if it had been a black couple sitting where a white couple had been, if they would have been so nice about it. 

Other trips were on the train and in the car. I loved the car trips. I vaguely remember the ones when we couldn’t use the restrooms in the gas stations in the South where we bought gas.  Or we couldn’t eat in the restaurant we had seen billboards for because they didn’t serve black folks. On those trips, Mom cooked lots of food and we had coolers with stuff to drink and that big potty in the trunk so we could squat on the side of the road if we had to. Yeah. Fun, right?

But most trips we were able to go to restaurants and use bathrooms even if we got dirty looks.

But I remember seeing people getting hosed and beaten by cops and seeing them sic dogs on kids like me. I remember hearing that Dr. King had been assaulted in Chicago for protesting. I saw all this on television as I watched with my parents. I can’t even imagine how they must have felt.

I still think about the hate I saw on the faces of the people in Little Rock and Boston who didn’t want their children to go to school with children like me.

And I remember Selma and the March on Washington.

I cried a lot when I saw things like that. I didn’t understand.

Why did people hate people like me because of our skin? Why was that such a lightning rod? Why was it so bad?

It didn’t make any sense to me. It wasn’t like we were given a choice. We just grew up and one day somebody called us a nigger and we didn’t really know what that meant so we asked our parents.

They got that look, that crestfallen, pained look that meant they were going to have to explain all this to us so that we would be prepared to deal with it the rest of our lives.

They had to tell us that we couldn’t expect to do a lot of things or go to a lot of places and that many people just hated us. That word was something bad that they used for us and we would hear it all of our lives.

So we had to grow up knowing we could never trust everyone.  Some people just wanted to hurt us and we had to learn to avoid them. And I have to say that the police were some of those that we could not trust. I know that’s tough for white folks to understand but it’s true.

Ask any black man about his interactions with the police even if he is a fine upstanding citizen. He’s still suffered at the hands of an overzealous and often racist cop. They are NOT always the good guys.

My parents didn’t want us to grow up in a segregated area like they did.  They didn’t want us to be humiliated and despised like they had been so they moved up North so we wouldn’t have to face it. They thought we would have a better life living up North.

When it happened up North you could see how hurt they were. They didn’t want us to grow up in that kind of hate. They had wanted us to live in a better world.

They didn’t know that place only existed in Star Trek. I didn’t either till later on.

But when I lay in bed pondering all these things, I consoled myself by thinking things would get better with the passage of time. People would see that we weren’t bad or deserving of the hate and that we would all kind of get together and fight the hate and have a good life.

I had white friends and black friends and I thought we would all just have fun together. But some of my white friends said they had friends who didn’t like black people. Not many, but a few. And I had black friends who asked me why I had white friends. How could I hang out with crackers. Didn’t I know they hated us?

Wow.

I knew some of my white friends’ parents didn’t like them being friends with black kids. You know when you can’t go to their house but they came to yours. Or when their parents look at you like you grew a third eye when they saw you.

There were lots of little things and I still wondered about them as I grew up. It still didn’t make any sense to me. I knew we were all more like than a lot of people even thought about. I knew I wanted the same things they did. Why did they dislike me for that?

It just seemed so crazy to me. I wanted people to get along and learn to love each other. I knew that if we spent time together we learned that we were pretty much the same and that things could just be cool. I tried hard most of my life to get people to see that. But I had faith in the future and I really believed it would be better.

Now that I am older and wiser, I still lie in bed and wonder the same damn things. Instead of getting better, t seems to have gotten worse. Every day I go online to read numerous stories about people who confront people and call them names because they are different from them. They don’t want to live with them, go to school with them, go to church with them, party with them, date or marry them.

They hate people for being black.

For being Hispanic.

For being Asian.

For being gay.

For being bisexual.

For being transsexual.

For being a Muslim.

For not being Christian.

For being open minded.

For not being open minded.

For being Jewish.

You get the drift.

WHY???   WHY???  Why people???

Why are we still nursing all these hate?

Maybe we haven’t grown up yet. Maybe we never will. I don’t know.  I just know we only have 200 or so more years till Star Trek so we have work to do if we are going to have that brave and beautiful future like Gene Roddenberry saw for us all. We’ve fallen behind.

Way behind.

I don’t have the answers. I wish I did.

I just know I almost get sick these days reading all those articles about so much hate. I read what people post online and I want to weep. I don’t do it much anymore because it is just too painful for me.

I still want to hope. It’s getting harder but I want to believe that things will get better.

Somehow.

Somewhere.

Someday.

The World Without Prince

I didn’t think this day would come. He’s younger than me and he has always lived clean and healthy and full of his faith. I figured he’d be around singing those songs with a devilish smile and still making us feel kinda raunchy no matter how old we all were. He was like that.

I guess I took it for granted that he would be there. I thought I’d be 70 years old still going to Prince concerts even if they were small affairs in clubs. You know, the unhooked kind. I was all right with that. I was all right with almost everything Prince did.

You know, I feel sorry for people who just don’t seem to love or feel music the way I do. I am aghast at these folks who ask why we mourn these musicians so deeply. We didn’t know them, after all, they say. They are just musicians. I just shake my head.

Creative people make the world we live in just that much more tolerable. 

We need to look at the architecture to see where we have come from. I mean we lived in huts and caves in the beginning and now look what we have? Look at the bridges and buildings and be amazed at what we have been able to do to make our planet that much more livable.

Art has brought us more magic than we ever dreamed. We have beautiful soul stirring paintings and sculptures and drawings that we cherish and love through the years. Just go to museums and art galleries and see what we breathe life into that captures our minds and souls.

I think writing and music roll hand in hand a lot. I mean we have lyrics that we will never forget set to music that takes us to another realm of reality. But as a writer, I understand what that really means. It’s not easy to put those words together and make them mean something that everyone can feel as much as you do.

My hat is off to people who can create the music and then find the words to pair with it and make it another entity altogether. That can only be described as magical. When

we have people who can do that, of course we look at them as special. They seem to find just the right words and music to touch our hearts and evoke all sorts of emotions in each of us. That is not an easy thing to do.

When that one musicians finds that place inside you – when they tap those feelings and bring them rippling to the surface – it’s wonderful. It can be painful, it can be joyous, it can be almost orgasmic or it can make you laugh. And the really great thing is hearing that music brings it back to you every time. You can hear a song you loved 30 years ago and still feel the same way when you heard it the first time. It becomes a part of your life, doesn’t it?

Prince was a magician. He was so many things rolled into one that it seemed unreal. I mean he could be funky as all get out, then he could be romantic, he made us get up and dance, he played it like the blues and then turned around and rocked the damn house.

He sang and he danced and he spun around on stage and there were only two other humans that had that same gift. We were lucky enough to have all three of them among us at the same time – the Godfather of Soul, the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, the man who moved like no other – James Brown. 

I think of the T.A.M.I. Show when he hit that stage and folks had never seen anything like him. They didn’t know what to think. Mick Jagger mourned that he had to go on after James Brown. Nobody could dance like James Brown. My man surely had “the good foot.” And he did it to death.

Then we had Michael. You know who I mean. Michael Jackson of the shy smile and the movements that set peoples’ souls afire. Remember the first time you saw him do the Moon Walk? I do. I still watch that video in amazement. Or that lean in “Smooth Criminal.” Lord, yes, he was special.

And there was Prince. Unlike either of the others, he could pick up that guitar and make it talk to you. When he hit the stage in those high heels, he turned you inside out. Wherever he went, we went there too and we loved it and we loved him. We knew him just like he knew us.

These musicians reach down inside themselves and pull up their emotions and their thoughts and feelings and bravely share it with all of us. We know their joy, their pain, their angst, their fears, their hunger and their wonder. We know it cause we feel it too and we wonder how they knew how we were feeling too. They share themselves in a very intimate way and we love them for it. We feel close to them because we know they must feel close to us to touch our souls the way they do. We go to their concerts and we scream and laugh and cry and hold our hearts because we feel that connection more than ever when we see them and we know they feel us too. It is a wonderful feeling, isn’t it?

Prince shared his heart, his soul, his mind and his magic with us and we adored him. We didn’t mind when he got down to that part of us that was kind of nasty and hot and erotic. He was just putting words to how we felt too. So ok, some folks got upset and offended. Most of us knew just what he meant and it was all right with us. I mean, who among us hasn’t looked at someone who set our blood boiling and thought or said, “….you sexy motherfucker.”

You know you did. Don’t lie.

So we took him for granted. We just assumed he would be here with us. I remember he said he had enough music saved to keep us going for years and years and I was satisfied that he would be a part of my life as long as I lived.

Yesterday all that came crashing down. We didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t. I screamed when I read it, but at the same time, I knew it was true. I had been worried since I had heard he had been sick and they had taken him to a hospital in Moline, Illinois. I knew he would never not perform unless something was really wrong and I figured something was. I hoped he would still be there.

This year has been exceptionally unkind. We lost Natalie Cole and David Bowie and Glen Frey and Maurice White really close together. We have been staggering and sad for most of the year. We are losing our musical icons far too quickly this year and we are afraid and angry.

So no, I was not ready to lose Prince. I pulled out the program from the last time I saw him and looked at the pictures. I thought of the one time I was in his presence. I was backstage at the Essence Festival in New Orleans. 

It must have been 2003 or 2004, I’m not sure which year. Anyway, I was walking along with friends and we stopped to talk to someone and I felt the presence of someone looking at me from behind. I turned and there he was, in all his Badness, wearing skin tight black pants and a tank top with a shirt over it.

I am used to being in the presence of musicians – I have in one way or another all my life, so I quickly gathered myself and smiled and said, “Hello Prince, how are you?”

He gave me that not quite naughty smile and said, “Hello baby, I’m fine, how are you?”

I said, “I’m fine, thank you.”

His eyes took the slow tour up and down my body and that smile got even more naughty and he said, “Yes, you are. I can see that, baby.”

You know I walked around with the big head for a long time. How often do you get someone like Prince to not only give you The Eye, but tell you that you are fine? Yes Lord. My life was complete.

But yes, I loved Prince. I loved a man who dressed whatever way he wanted, purple jackets, white lace shirts, skin tight pants with buttons down the legs and high heels. I loved a man who wore his hair like his crown. He wore his mascara and he walked like he owned the whole world.

What did it matter that he was short? Who cared? He might have been small in stature but he was huge in our lives and in this world.

He did just what he wanted to do and we might have joked and laughed but we loved him. I knew no other man that could pull off wearing pants with cut outs showing his natural ass.

And did he show them who he was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps?” He rocked it like a boss and then threw that guitar and walked away leaving us all in awe.

There was so much to Prince and we loved it all.

And now he is gone.

We will live and we will go on but we will sit down and hear “Little Red Corvette” or “When Doves Cry” and we will smile and sing along and we will think of the man with those beautiful eyes and that shy smile and that devilish demeanor and we will still love him.

He is, after all, our Prince. And so he shall remain. Go in Peace, Prince. Rest in Paradise. You will always be a part of us. 

Not Your Friend

Everybody Isn’t Your Friend

I was walking my dog down the street one day not long ago and we passed someone who was walking too. She didn’t speak to me, or really even acknowledge me but Lola was trying to get close to her and I pulled her back, saying, “Lola, stop, Everybody isn’t your friend,” and we kept walking.

A few steps later, the woman caught up with me and asked, “Why did you say that?”

“Say what?” I asked.

“That everybody isn’t your friend. Why would you tell your dog that?”

“Because everybody isn’t and the sooner she figures that out, the longer she will live.”

The woman’s face was red, “That’s a terrible thing to teach her!”

“It will save her life,” I retorted, “she won’t approach someone who could do her harm.”

I walked away from her.

There was a lot more that I wanted to say but I knew better. That woman wasn’t ready to hear the truth.

I am the only black person who lives on my street on my end of town. I am living in a little redneck town in North Florida. I’ve lived here before so I know how it is.

The people who are nice are really great. They are thoughtful and sweet and kind and will do anything for you. I love this place for that. I have had people reach out to me and show me incredible kindness that I will never forget.

But I have also seen people glowering at me when they saw me walking. One called the police reporting someone suspicious but luckily, the chief of police is a neighbor and he knew who I was and he told her to calm down.

I have seen the Confederate flags flying and I have seen the people who really hated the fact I was married to a white man who happens to be Jewish. I know where I stand here.

I hadn’t thought much about that phrase for a while, but I remember that my mother told me that when I was small.

“Everybody isn’t your friend, Brenda. Don’t talk so much. Don’t talk to people you don’t know,” she said.

When I was 5 or so, I was a little chatterbox and I talked to anyone and everyone who would indulge me. Mama was afraid something would happen to me and she gave me that warning several times in my life.

When we moved from Chicago to the town where I grew up, she reminded me again. I had learned that one already.

Mom had had my ears pierced when I was 6 or so and when we moved, I was the only little girl on the playground with pierced ears. I had been wearing a pair of gold hoops for years and never thought about it. I also was wearing thick glasses because I am severely nearsighted.

I was standing in the schoolyard one day when a couple of little black girls approached me. They started asking me questions and it was clear they weren’t being friendly. I was still trying to make friends and fit in but these girls were clearly hostile to me. They made fun of my glasses and my earrings and the way I spoke. I finally blew up and slapped one of them so hard her lip bled. They left me alone.

I knew then for sure that everybody wasn’t my friend. And I knew it wasn’t always a racial thing. Sometimes it’s just rude and stupid people. Sometimes it’s jealous, insecure people. And sometimes it’s just people who are downright mean.

But many times, it is racial. I know very well I have crossed paths with people who looked at me and wanted to hang me, burn me, beat me or drag me behind their car or truck, just because I am black. I know they hated that I am articulate, that I am smart and that I am attractive. It’s not what they believe I should be and they hate me for it.

I go where I want to go and I say what I want to say. I have never let anyone dictate the way I should live or what I should do. But still, I have always been cautious with people.

I rarely speak to people unless they speak to me first. I wait to see their reaction to me before I react to them. I know I stand back and watch people first and that while I may appear aloof and distant, I am really reserved and cautious.

I’m not walking up to someone with a smile so they can call me the N-word. I’m not going to give them the chance to insult or denigrate me at least to my face. I keep my distance and I wait till I think it’s safe.

I’m that way with men too. I am probably even more cautious with men than most of them like. I don’t want a man knowing where I live or what my phone number is until I want him to.

When I talk to men online, I have a set routine of how I want it to go. Many don’t like it and I don’t care. I am taking care of myself. If he sends me a message and I think I might like to talk to him, I respond. If that works, I will give him my email address and we can either exchange emails or we can chat online. If I still feel all right with him, I will then give him my number so that he can call me. And I mean it just like that, so he can call me.

If we still feel like it’s right, then and only then we can start to plan on when we can meet face to face. That can happen in a week, maybe 2 but often it takes longer. I have met too many men who instantly want to call me or text me.

What happens if we don’t hit it off or if I don’t like him as much as he likes me? He can call me or text me when I don’t want him to. I don’t want that so I am careful about how I proceed with that. I don’t want to meet him right away. I want to feel him out so I can see where his head is. He should feel the same way. We both should be careful we don’t get involved with someone who is dangerous or unbalanced.

I’m just as careful meeting someone face to face. I don’t want to pretend I like him or want to be with him because I am afraid of him. I know a lot of men can’t stand to be rejected and will turn mean and violent so I keep a wide berth. I rarely meet anyone eyes when I am walking down the street. I know that some men totally misinterpret friendliness for flirtation and I don’t want to go there.

So don’t bother telling me to smile when you see me. I am not going to smile unless I want to. I don’t want you all in my face unless I invite you there.

So maybe I am too careful. It could very well be. I don’t doubt it. I am sure I have offended people by being that way. But I know I have remained alive and safe because of it.

So no, everybody isn’t my friend. If you don’t like that, I am sorry.

 Just imagine if Emmitt Till had known that.

What about those girls that Ted Bundy lured into his car?

Or those boys that John Wayne Gacy killed?

I’m glad my mother taught me that. I’m sorry that most black mothers have to teach their children to be cautious like that.

I’m sorry that women don’t realize that they have to be more cautious with men.

I’m sorry that we have to teach children not to talk to strangers and not to trust people they don’t know.

We live in a world full of hate and anger and danger. We need to be more afraid of the people we meet. Realizing that everyone isn’t your friend can keep you safe.

What’s wrong with that? 

Can We Talk?

Has there really been more racism? Or was it always there and it was just on the DL? Are more racists emboldened because of their anger at our first African American president? Or was it there and nobody said anything?

I don’t know the reason but suddenly you can hardly read the news without somebody getting caught on tape, an open mic or writing something racist and hateful. Racists seem to have their own little world on Twitter and post stuff that would raise the hair of the person with the toughest hide. It makes you wonder – do they really hate me that much? What did I ever do for them to hate me like that?

When I was a young woman back in the Disco Days, I actually thought we’d somehow get past all the racism of the past. I thought the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement had taught us to look past all that. I thought more people heard what Dr. King said about the content of our character.

I’m going to make some folks mad, but oh well. I guess I have a right. I thought when some of the Greatest Generation passed on that they would take their racism with them.

Now before you start screaming, keep this in mind: that generation was the one that insisted that black folks walk down the street with their eyes down. They were the ones who called black men “boy.” They were the ones who took pictures of a lynching and stood there proudly posing with the evidence of what they had done. They were the ones who killed the 3 civil rights workers in Mississippi. One of them killed Emmitt Till. One of them bombed a church (!!) and killed 4 innocent little girls.

Those white women spitting hate at poor little Ruby Bridges? Yep. Them too. All that at a child. A little girl. And we all know what a little black girl is worth now, don’t we?

Bull Connor was one of them. So was George Wallace and Strom Thurmond. The Greatest Generation didn’t want to serve with black soldiers. The military had to be segregated for them. They were the ones that would not allow black soldiers to eat in the same mess hall with them – but fed German POW’s like they were guests.

They didn’t want to treat our veterans with any measure of respect after they came back from serving in WWII. Some of them beat a black vet to death because he got on a bus through the front door instead of the back.

Yeah, those people who mistreated my Mom and Dad so badly that when they left the South, they never wanted to go back.

That’s who I’m talking about. You know who they are – the so-called Greatest Generation.

But it seems they taught their kids some lessons about hate and discrimination and those kids taught their kids too. So it’s pretty clear this problem isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

I don’t have any illusions about it anymore. Racism is just as much a part of American culture as baseball and apple pie. I keep hearing about folks talking about these being post racial times and that things are so much better now. Really?

So how can a black woman who shot warning shots at a man who had been brutalizing her get arrested and charged and given a sentence of 20 years? She didn’t shoot him. She shot warning shots. But a white man shoots an unarmed teenager that he had been harassing and he walks around a free man right now.

If a young black man commits a crime – even a victimless crime – they throw the book at him. They have to get him off the street. He’s a menace. But if a white boy kills four innocent people, well, we don’t want to ruin his life. He made a mistake. People do. Besides, he’s so rich he didn’t know right from wrong. Let’s just give him probation. Uh huh.

Inner city men are to blame for our problems. An educated black woman is called an “ape.” I could go on and on but I won’t. It’s enough to make you really depressed and sad for what’s to come.

If we try to discuss it, folks accuse us of playing the race card. I guess we aren’t supposed to say anything about it. We should just forget it, right? Get over it. Things are better.

No. No, they aren’t.

I always knew that many white people talk one way when they’re with us and it’s completely something else when they are together and we aren’t there. But when you hear some of the comments that have been recorded or you see the venom in some of the posts on Facebook and Twitter, you begin to wonder.

You look at folks you know and you wonder what they say about you. You wonder if that person who is smiling in your face really thinks that he’s better than you simply because he’s white. It widens the gulf between us.

Oh dear God, there is a police car behind me! What does he want? I didn’t do anything! You struggle to get your license out and you speak slowly and you don’t make any sudden moves because you know it’s very likely that he will shoot you even though you didn’t do anything.

You’re black, after all.

I used to have a lot of hope. I guess I have looked at too much “Star Trek.” I thought we’d be moving towards that kind of society but we aren’t. We’re going backwards.

I wish I could wrap this up with some answers or solutions. I don’t have any. I wish we could talk to each other about this without blaming, getting defensive or anger.  

I look at interracial relationships and the beautiful children they create. I have biracial cousins and 2 beautiful biracial nephews that I love madly. When we get together, family wise, we have become a blended family of both races and I love that. I think maybe I’m wrong and that it will be better.

Then I read where a councilwoman in a town in New Jersey said that certain changes in her town would make it into a “fucking niggertown.”

In the words of Marvin Gaye, “it makes me wanna holler, throw up both my hands.”

I just don’t know. I think we’re doomed. Racism keeps us from being great. It keeps us from being united and being one people – Americans. And I don’t think much of anybody cares.

And that hurts. 

What We Are

I've been more reclusive these past few years than I ever have been. I am normally friendly and open with people and I make lifelong friends easily. I like talking to people. Well, I used to. It hasn’t been that way lately.

I’m used to discussions about race. I kind of like them actually. I like it when white folks and black folks can sit down and discuss a subject without ducking and running or backing off when the going gets tough. We see the world in two different ways most of the time and the only way we can understand each other is to talk about it. So it can get uncomfortable. So what? If you get past that part, you can find that we are more alike than not.

I used to think that too.

Most of my reclusiveness has been because I have been battling a severe bout of depression. I know there are some who don’t believe that depression is real. I have them in my family. But most folks know that it is real and that it can be crippling and physically harmful. I feel like I am coming out of it because I am feeling better about a lot of things. I understand who is in my corner and who is not. I know who I can reach out to and who I’d better leave alone. And I’m feeling stronger on my own two feet most of all.

But I’ll be honest; a lot of it is because I don't want to deal with some of the difficulties you have to face now. Like when I get a friend request from someone I don’t know on Facebook, I am hesitant to accept it. I used to think it was just folks eager to make new friends but I learned my lesson about that. I haven’t had to block/delete too many people but by far, the ones I have have been over our different political views. I've had a few I had to cut loose because of inappropriate sexual comments, but mostly it’s been because they hated that I am a liberal.

I friended a man I’d been talking to and he saw a post about the President on my page and he went completely insane. He spewed hate and vitriol and wouldn’t listen to anyone who tried to quietly talk about it. He ranted and raved and called us names and made silly accusations until I had no choice but to block and delete him.

I will never forget a post I saw from one man who said he hated black men (but he loved black women) and he expected his mate to agree with him on everything and turn her back on her blackness. I told him that I don’t date conservative men and he smugly told me that the majority of white men are conservative and that I needed to change my attitude if I wanted a date.

In all my life I don’t think I have ever dated a conservative and I’ve dated a lot of white guys. A lot. And if I did cross paths with one who was, we usually didn’t get past the talking to each other point. But the fact that he thought most men were as controlling and patronizing as him was amazing to me.

So yes, politics and race have really been difficult for me to digest lately. Do I think there is a rise in racism? No. It’s always been there. It’s just that some folks are in total denial as to what it means and refuse to get that some of their comments, opinions and gestures are racist.

“It’s just a joke!” “I didn’t mean it that way!” “You’re playing the race card!” That’s all a load of hooey. I think a lot of folks need to really look into their hearts and what they really think and even if they don’t like what they see, they need to own it. That’s the only way they will overcome it.

I similarly don’t associate much with political conservatives. We just don’t see the world the same way at all and the gulf between us is way too deep to overcome easily.

I don’t like to argue. I don’t see where it makes much sense. You rarely can change the other person’s mind so what’s the point? You say what you say to me and I either agree or not. Same with what I say. If we can agree to disagree, ok. But I confess I will pull back from a person once I know they think that way.

I remember when it wasn’t like that. I remember when we could say, “Ok, you’re a Republican and I’m a Democrat. Our votes will cancel each other out.,” and we’d laugh and keep it moving.

But then came Rush Limbaugh and his divisive speech on his radio show. Karl Rove and his “ratfucking.” (His word, not mine.”) Lee Atwater and his campaign against the Democrats. Fox News and their never ending war against sensibility. And then the Tea Party.

Let’s not forget the Bombastic Blondes, Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. All of them spewing lies, half truths and hate, all aimed to those folks who have never been around anyone of a different color for more than 5 minutes in the line at the grocery store.

You know, those folks who live out in the rural areas. They look at the news and soak up seeing black folks as criminals, “thugs,” they like to say. The media gives them a lot to think about and they make up their minds pretty quickly. They don’t like anybody who isn’t like them. They go to church on Sunday and praise Jesus and then turn around and treat “others” like crap. That’s one reason why I avoid religious folks too. Like they say, I have nothing against God, it’s his fan club that I can’t take.

So now their enemies are people of color. People who left their country to come here and find a better way of life. Oh, not the ones from Europe! Just the brown ones from Mexico or Haiti and places like that. Gay people who only want the right to live as married couples and to adopt children and have lives full of love. People who are poor and can’t afford to feed their families, or can’t afford decent healthcare.

They turned out to vote against anything that helped those folks they consider their enemies, even if it meant to vote against measures that would enrich their own lives. I just don’t understand the reasoning.

Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t hate white people. Not at all. I date and married a white man. But I know this – and maybe it’s unconscious on my part, but I don’t really have anything personal to do with folks who tend to be racist or conservative. The men I date pretty much think the way I do. They are open to understanding how black folks feel and to what makes us hurt. They might find a discussion about race uncomfortable, but they will brave it cause they want to know why I feel hurt.

I also co-created a group against racism over 20 years ago. I wanted to have a forum where folks could come together and talk and get past all the ugliness. Eracism has become a popular vehicle in New Orleans and I am proud of that.

I know a lot of people were disappointed with the response of some of their white friends after Trayvon Martin. After Michael Brown and now after Eric Garner. We feel like our lives don’t matter and that we have targets on our backs. There have been many black girls that have been murdered or gone missing and there’s little or no media attention. There can be a video that proves the man was unarmed and pleading for relief but was killed anyway and the grand jury says it was justified.

Of course we feel there is no justice for us!

And then you get the ones who want to sit you down and talk down to you as if you were stupid and explain that your eyes didn’t really see what your eyes did and that it was totally justified to kill that child/girl/man because that officer/person was frightened for their life. You know how scary big black men are! And those tempers that you black women have! Tsk!

I have been thankful that I haven’t had to engage folks like that in any meaningful discussion. I’ve read their posts and commented a few times but I always saw the futility of it. They are too wrapped up in “what is right” to see how we feel and we are too wrapped up in our pain and outrage to understand where they are coming from.

I used to pray that if I had a child that he would not be a boy. I know how this world regards black boys. They are cute until they are about 8 or 9. Then they are loud, threatening and must be punished. That’s about the time white folks start getting afraid of them. They get punished at school more than similarly loud and boisterous white boys and are often pushed into special education or disciplinary schools and often get labeled for the rest of their lives.

I know they get pulled over by policemen for little or no reason and they are twice as likely to be shot reaching for their wallet – or pills – than white boys.

I know there are young black men in prison who are innocent and have been falsely accused and railroaded simply because they are black. And I know there are many who are sleeping in their graves for the same reason.

I didn’t want to be sitting up at night wondering where my son was, waiting to hear his key in the lock, or to hear his laughter when he came home. My nerves couldn’t take that.

I have nephews and grand-nephews that I worry about now. So far we have been all right but I keep my fingers crossed.

I am similarly perplexed at the black folks who blindly agree with them that we have too many thugs and welfare queens and that we’ve been led down the yellow brick road by the liberals and that we should turn to the conservatives. The very ones who consistently vote against our well being and make patently horrible racist remarks about us…yes, we should suddenly decide to agree with them. That would be a no. Never. I’m not going to ever celebrate when a black person who is a Republican wins anything. NEVER. They don’t represent anything that I am or care about so why should I be happy? Just because they are black?

And then the comments, “…it’s not about race…”

You know what? Let’s be honest. We live in America. EVERYTHING is about race here. You can’t escape that. Not many people look at black people and see them as merely people. And then there is the truth of white privilege. Folks can deny it all they want but it is the reality of the world we live in.

You know why so much hinges on race? Because folks don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to admit to their true feelings or they are in deep denial about them. We can’t talk about it because black people are so raw and hurt and angry and white people are terrified of our rage. So we all walk around muzzled trying to ignore the 800 lb. gorilla sitting in the middle of the room.

We need to have this discussion. We need to take the gloves off, sit down to the table and be honest with each other. We need to get it out in the open. We need to beat it. We need to know the ones we can trust and the ones we can’t.

They need to know that for the most part, we want the same things they do. We think the same way they do about a lot of things and they need to stop seeing us as some foreign presence living among them here. We are all Americans and we need to look at each other that way.

Just as Americans. That’s all.

How hard is that?

“She Loves You…”

I still get that twinge when I hear the guitar at the beginning of “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” I’ve been getting that twinge for 50 years and it’s never gone away.

I was 13 years old when the Beatles came to America. We needed them so badly! We’d been through some kind of collective nightmare and we  needed something to bring us out of it. They were the perfect cure.

Three months before their arrival, President John Kennedy had been murdered in Dallas. We were still reeling from that. We couldn’t fathom how that had happened and it seemed that it had been rainy and gray and dark since that day.

I wasn’t really aware of it, but things were escalating in Vietnam. I had heard the name but what folks were really talking about in my circle was civil rights.

Black folks had just about had it. We were sick of having to step off the sidewalk, ride the back of the bus, not be able to vote, not be able to eat where we wanted, all that stuff that folks take for granted.

There were protest marches and folks getting hosed and beaten and like other little black kids at that time, the image of what had happened to Emmitt Till had never left my mind. I think all our parents made us look at that so that we would never underestimate the hatred we faced or what it could do to us.

My parents were both Southern and they had grown up with Jim Crow’s foot firmly on their necks. They moved to Illinois so us kids wouldn’t have to face that same thing and we pretty much hadn’t.

But anyway, things were pretty ugly for us in the USA right then. Not to mention our music had taken a turn for the worse. Suddenly we were listening to numerous songs about kids that had been killed. We called them “dead teenager” songs. Johnny Tillotson and Brian Hyland and Bobby Vee were tops on the charts then.

Oh yeah, that’s when my favorite song “The Monkey Time” by Major Lance came out. That was the first record I bought. The R&B was sounding good. The pop music not so much.

Things were even cloudier in my little world. My Mom and Dad had been fighting a lot. Mom had never been really happy about moving from Chicago to Galesburg and we went back every chance we had. Mom started getting sick and even more moody than usual and one day, they sat us down and told us that she had to go to the hospital and that they were taking her to Chicago. Weren’t there hospitals in Galesburg?

No, they said, she needed a special kind of hospital and she had to go there. I remember the tense and quiet ride when we took her there. We kids sat in the car while they checked her in. We didn’t know what was going on and we were playing around like kids did. Dad took us to see his brother Opra and we ate White Castle and then we went home.

We asked how long Mom would be gone and nobody really told us. She was still sick they said. We went up there to see her once and I remember the blank eyed look she gave us. No hugs or anything. A wan smile and that was all. Now I realize she was drugged up but all I remembered then was that she didn’t seem glad to see us even though we missed her.

I woke up one night in a pool of blood. I didn’t know what to think had happened. Mom had always been very secretive about her period. She hid her Modess pads and while I had kind of peeked at the box, I wasn’t really sure what they were for. Mom had believed that old wives’ tale that if she was late developing that her daughter would also be. She didn’t start her period till she was 17 and she assumed the same would happen for me. No. I started that fateful night in November, alone and scared.

I got up and wrote a will leaving my stuffed animals and three 45’s to my brothers and I went to school in tears.

Later that day after I had bled through my clothes, I went to the office and the school nurse realized I didn’t know what had happened and she sat me down and explained it to me and gave me a starter package with some pads and that hideous belt we had to use to wear them.

She called my father who called a friend who took me shopping for my “big girl” stuff and I came home feeling a lot better knowing I wasn’t going to die.

To compound life, my grandfather died. I had loved my Grandpa Jackson. He was a smart remarkable man with a great sense of humor and he could make you laugh even if you were so down you couldn’t see straight.

And then Dallas.

It seemed the whole country was as depressed as I was. The only thing that made it better is that my Mom came home from the hospital the week after Thanksgiving. We had a late turkey dinner and it seemed things were going to be ok and then the worst news of all for a 13 year old girl.

We were going to move.

We had two junior high schools in Galesburg. Junior high school was 7^th, 8^th and 9^th grade. If you lived on the east side of town, you went to Lombard. We had lived on that side of town since we moved there and I had finally settled into going to Lombard. It had been tough going. I was still rather an outsider and I was kind of brainy and I didn’t fit in with any of the local kids that much.

When you’re a kid like that, not fitting in was possibly the worst thing that could happen to you. I was just beginning to find myself and understand that being different was really all right. But now I was going to have to go to a different school and go through all that all over again.

I was going to have to start the new semester at Churchill Jr. High. That was where all the “rich” kids went. And I couldn’t walk to school like I had been. I had to ride a school bus and that meant I had to walk 4 or 5 blocks to the bus stop. I didn’t really know anyone at Churchill. I was broken hearted. I cried like a baby my last day at Lombard.

And so, halfway through my 8^th grade year, we moved to a bigger house on the other side of town. And it was during that time that I first heard “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

It didn’t sound like anything I had ever heard before. The guitar was different. The vocals were different. The words were not about some kid dying in a car accident or breaking up after a summer love.

It was a happy song, a lively song and it made you feel good. I couldn’t believe it. I was caught off guard by it but I smiled and I was singing along with it.

When I went to the record store to buy it, it was in a black and white cover. 45’s had covers then and this was perfect. Those four guys were sitting together, smiling, holding cigarettes, wearing those gray suits with the black trim and shirts and ties. Their hair was longer and hanging down to their eyebrows. No more of those tall pompadours with the duck tail in the back. They had long bangs and it looked great.

They were all so cute but I couldn’t take my eyes off the one on the left, the one with the big bright eyes and the smile and he was holding a cigarette in his hand. His name was Paul McCartney. My poor little heart started pounding.

I was in love.

I didn’t think that perhaps I shouldn’t be falling in love with a long haired musician from England. Or that he was white and I was black. That didn’t enter my mind. All I knew was that I was in love.

I played that record over and over and put the cover on a stand by my bed so I could look at it as much as I wanted.

I took it with me my first day at Churchill. I needed the distraction. I felt lonely and out of place those first few days there. I had showed the record to some of my black friends who looked at me like I had grown a second head. Why was I listening to that “white” music and looking at those white boys?

I wondered why I was enthralled and why they weren’t. It was one more thing to make me different than everybody else. I couldn’t say why they got to me they way they did. They made me feel good. I hadn’t had much that did that for me so it was a welcome feeling.

I was just starting to notice boys and that was a definite problem for me. The boys were not noticing me. And I realized something then that would be with me the rest of my life – the boys I was noticing were white boys. I didn’t really want to go out with any black guys. I wanted to be with white boys.

Uh oh.

I had never seen any interracial couples then. Logically, I knew folks had to be crossing that line but I had never seen it and it really didn’t happen in that little Midwestern town I grew up in. That was just not done in the early 60’s. So I kept my preference to myself.

I didn’t know till later that the Ronettes had been on that plane with the Beatles when they first came here. I didn’t know that Phil Spector was there too, keeping a close eye on his wife in case she was tempted by one of those beautiful British boys. I didn’t know that they had to wait till the Beatles had deplaned before they did so it wouldn’t be an incident. And I really didn’t know that George was dating one of them. They were all mindful of where they were and kept it cool.

I saw the picture of George sitting with them and read that a reporter had asked them if they would go out with a black woman and they looked at him like he had grown a third eye and said of course they would!

My heart leapt out of my chest. I realized at that moment that there were white guys willing to go out with black women and I just hadn’t met them yet. While I knew I didn’t have a chance in hell with any of the Beatles, it opened a door for me. Somewhere there was a guy who would not be ashamed of me or think he was better than me.

I wasn’t pretty enough for the black guys and the white guys would never have considered me for a mate. That was all right. I wasn’t going to stay in my hometown all my life. I was going to leave and go see other places and other people and somewhere along the line, I would find someone whose mind and heart was open to someone like me. 

I was no longer ashamed or afraid to admit what my preference was. I didn’t care if folks didn’t like it. I liked it and that was all that important to me. So I was a black girl who liked rock music and liked rock musicians. That was who I was….and who I am.

The Beatles helped me find myself and accept myself. I will always love them for that.

So yes, she DOES love you….yeah, yeah, YEAH.

A Very Merry Christmas

I grew up in Galesburg, Illinois. It was a big change from Chicago where I had been born, but I got used to it. I didn’t realize it then, but it was quieter and safer for us and a far better place to grow up in.

We weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination but we never wanted for anything and my parents always saw to it that we were happy and loved. They raised us so that we didn’t see being black as being anything different or less than anyone else. We were taught to believe that we were just as good as everyone else. We lived in integrated neighborhoods and we always had black, white, Asian and Hispanic friends.

Back in the early 60’s, our Christmases were very much like the one in the movie, “A Christmas Story.” I think one of the reasons I love that movie so much is that it reminds me of my own childhood.

One of the first Christmases I remember fondly was right after we had moved to Galesburg. I had taken longer to learn to ride a bike than some kids had and when I did learn, I was all excited about asking Santa to bring me one. Yes, my parents told us that Santa Claus was real and we believed it for years. Just like most other kids did.

On Main Street, in front of W.T. Grant’s, each year, a little house was erected and for us kids, it meant that Christmas was indeed on the way. It was Santa’s House! The house would go up and the streets were decorated with big candy canes, reindeer and elves and all the stores in downtown Galesburg with all the fancy window displays looked like a wonderland to us kids. And then there was always the big Christmas parade where Santa would arrive and all our hopes would begin.

Our parents would take us to talk to Santa and it was the highlight of the season for us. The Sears and Roebuck store on Main Street had a side entrance there and during Christmas, it was full of toys and my brothers and I used to love going there to look at all the great toys while our parents made payments on their account and probably bought some of our presents and managed to smuggle them to the car without us seeing them.  

There was a really neat blue bicycle there that I had my eye on and I had asked Santa if it was possible I could have that bike for Christmas. I’d been a good girl, so there was no real reason why I couldn’t.

We put up our tree and we always decorated the house and we were happily looking forward to Christmas. But just before Christmas, they told us that we were going to go to Chicago to spend the holiday with our aunt and cousins instead of staying at home.

I’d had this disappointment before. A few years before this, we had been preparing to have Christmas in Florida with our grandparents. I really did love going there and especially at Christmas. I had lots of cousins there and we could play outside with them and the best thing was that the fruit was ripe at that time of year. Grapefruit trees lined our grandparents’ home and there were pineapples on the other side. There were orange and tangerine trees, as well as lemon, lime, guava and avocado trees too.

My uncles and Papa would go fishing and we’d have a great feast for Christmas dinner so being in Florida was fun! Even after we were older, we still loved it. There is something magical about spending Christmas day at the beach with family even if it was a bit too cool to get in the water. It was still much warmer than it was in Galesburg!

But we had packed our bags and sent our boxes with presents on to Florida on the bus ahead of us and the night before we were going to leave; my aunt in Detroit went into labor and had a little girl. We were not going to go to Florida. This time, when we got on the Greyhound, we went to Detroit, not Florida.

I was so upset! All my gifts were in Florida! I didn’t like going to Detroit. I didn’t have anyone my age to spend time with so I was often alone. It was no vacation for me.

My uncle felt sorry for me and had asked a family up the street that had little girls if I could spend the night with them and they agreed. They all rustled up some last minute gifts for me but though it was kind of fun, I still missed the Christmas I would have had had we gone to Florida.

So here I was faced with this change of plans again. This time I saw my parents pack the car with presents but I didn’t see anything big enough to be a bike so I swallowed my disappointment and got in the car and we set off for Chicago.

Halfway there, my Dad started asking me what I had asked Santa to bring me. I told him I had asked for a bike. He kidded with me for a moment, but then he reached in his pocket and handed me a picture.

It was a Polaroid picture of our Christmas tree with that bicycle under it! My bike! And I was on my way to Chicago, leaving my precious bike at home. But it sure made Christmas fun and I was happy despite everything – and I knew my bike was waiting. I couldn’t wait to get home!

But a later Christmas became the standard for our family. The traditions we set that year were the ones we celebrated every year after that.

Mom and Dad wanted a new stereo that year. They both enjoyed music and we always had a nice record player and they played a lot of music of all kinds. I think that is why my brothers and I all have eclectic taste in music. But anyway, Mom went to Lindstrom’s to get a stereo.

Us kids didn’t go to Lindstrom’s much. We preferred the Platter. Jim at the Platter was way more up on the current music and he carried the rock and roll and soul music that we liked. We always likened Lindstrom’s as the place you went to get Lawrence Welk and Mitch Miller. You went to the Platter to get the Beatles and James Brown.

Lindstrom’s also sold appliances and such so Mom got this big stereo in a cabinet. We were really thrilled when it was delivered. We’d never had one that big! I remember she said she didn’t want one with the television in it because if the tv went bad, you were stuck with the big cabinet, but it was all right if it had the radio and record player in it.

Because she bought it at Christmas, the sales man had thrown in a bunch of Christmas albums. They were mostly compilation albums with songs like “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole (which is my all time favorite Christmas song of all time), and songs by Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Brenda Lee, Burl Ives, Andy Williams, Perry Como and many others.

We thought that was pretty cool but the thing that really amazed us was that stereo had lights in speakers that lit up in rhythm with the music. We were floored! We thought Mom was really great to score something like that.

That year when we made the traditional trip to the attic to get the Christmas decorations, we did it with the music playing. We always had a real tree that Mom and Dad bought from the lot out on Grand Avenue. We used the same tree stand and the angel on top of the tree was the same one they bought the first Christmas after I was born.

Our house had big wooden columns in an arch that separated our living room and dining room. We had a long plastic strand of plastic that was supposed to look like a Christmas ivy garland with candy canes and we hung our Christmas cards from the links in it. We put a big wreath on our front door and had silver garlands around the windows and we stenciled reindeer, elves, Santa and such on the windows.

We decorated the tree with the brightly colored bulbs, the strands of lights and “icicles” – silver strands that we loved.  Mom was breeding Siamese cats during several years of our lives, so we had curious cats who would often knock the tree down or break the bulbs. It wasn’t unusual for us to have to patch up the tree a couple of times before Christmas.

We popped popcorn and strung it to go on the tree. We baked cookies and Mom made pound cakes, sweet potato pies and she even made fruit cakes for our relatives. Mom’s pound cakes were special. She baked them from scratch and she put twice the butter in the pound cake and they were so rich and delicious that they were usually the first to go.

Her fruit cakes were legendary too. She used rum in the batter and when they were finished, she put them in cans and poured more rum over them and sealed the can. Every few days before Christmas, she poured more rum over them.

When she took those cakes to Florida, they were a big hit with our family. By then those cakes had enough liquor in them to knock people out. Uncle Peter liked the Claxton fruit cakes she brought, but those homemade ones were devoured!

Since we lived in Illinois, we looked forward to having a white Christmas. We used to have a phone number that you dialed to get the Time and Temperature and if it hadn’t snowed, we would call every hour to see if the temperature had dropped enough for it to snow. The years that it didn’t snow until Christmas Eve were special ones. Funny we aren’t so crazy about snow now.

Our Florida relatives always sent us big parcels with presents from our grandparents and aunts and uncles that we really looked forward to. But we really loved the second box. You remember those big round bushel baskets? Ours came full of oranges, tangelos, tangerines and grapefruit and bags of pecans.

Mom made sure we all had red or green sweaters or hats, scarves and mittens. Bless her heart; she never made us wear those ugly sweaters with reindeer and Santa on them. Friends came over bringing gifts and we went visiting doing the same thing. It seemed to me that people were way more generous then than they are now. Or maybe it was just that they had money and things were cheaper than now.

Christmas Eve was the time our parents started cooking. Mind you, our father was a chef and Mom was no slacker in the kitchen either. Our friends loved to come eat with us. Dinner was usually a feast with goodies such as turkey and ham or a big pork roast with dressing, collard and/or turnip greens with rutabaga or turnips in them. I love raw turnips and rutabaga, so Mom would have to watch that I didn’t eat most of it while I was slicing it for her to cook. Once it’s cooked, though, I don’t want it. Strange, huh? 

Usually, the cookies and cakes we had baked before Christmas were gifts so we baked more for us to have with our dinner so we often went to bed with all those delicious scents floating in the air – the tree and all the baking and turkey roasting and how happy that made me.

All this time we were playing all that wonderful Christmas music – Bing singing “White Christmas,” Andy Williams “The Happiest Time of the Year,” Perry Como “No Place Like  Home for the Holidays,” and Johnny Mathis “Sleigh Ride.” I love those songs to this day.

We would put our presents under the tree before we went to bed and Mom and Dad would wait till we were in bed and put our gifts there too. They would always buy the biggest candy cane they could find and put it under the tree. The custom was, the first one of us who woke up got the candy cane. I don’t remember a Christmas I didn’t get it. 

Christmas morning, we got up and opened our presents together. Mom and Dad would make a nice breakfast and we would all drink hot chocolate together and we would call family members in Chicago, Detroit and Florida or they would call us and we’d watch Christmas shows on television till it was time for dinner.

This was Christmas every year for us until that year when we were going to Florida and Daddy didn’t want to go with us. We didn’t understand that. He always went with us. He liked to go because he liked fishing there with our uncles. But this year, we couldn’t talk him into it. He’d been rather moody and cranky lately and Mom thought he was just being contrary so we went without him.

I called him Christmas day to wish him a Merry Christmas and I was shocked that he sounded sick. My father had never been sick in my life. He had never even had a bad cold. I was so alarmed that I cut my trip short and I flew home to see about him. My Dad was dreadfully ill and we found out later that he had cancer and we lost him seven months later.

Brian’s son Daniel was born a few months before he died but we didn’t get to see him till after he was a year old. Eddie’s son Terrence was born 5 months later, right before Christmas.

We had never been apart at Christmas and there was a huge void in our lives. We tried to make the best of it, but it just wasn’t the same.

The next few years were a little better. My brother Brian had more kids and we ended up celebrating more for them than for us. And we all started moving away from home.

I went to Florida to live and Brian moved to Normal, Illinois.  Mom had said she was going to come to Florida that Christmas and I was happy that I was going to see her, but she didn’t get there and I was depressed. I had never had a Christmas without my Mom.

But three days later, a blue Ford van pulled up in my Grandma’s back yard and in it was my Mom, my brother and two of my nephews, not to mention some of Mom’s menagerie of cats and dogs. She never traveled without them. I was the happiest girl in the world that day.

Things happened over the next few years. Eddie and I both went back to college. He went to Southern Illinois University Carbondale and I went to the University of Miami. We both came home to celebrate with Mom.

Our mother died in 1994. We stopped going home. We started making our own Christmases where we were. My brothers had married so they were with their families. I was living in New Orleans.

I eventually married too, but my husband didn’t really observe Christmas since he was Jewish. We exchanged gifts a few times but even that stopped after a few years. I didn’t even want to hear Christmas music anymore.

My brother Eddie and I ended up living together again a few years ago. We moved in with one of my friends. All of us had left our spouses and we thought living together would help us all. Our Christmases were nice little affairs. We had a little tree and exchanged presents when we could.

Eddie and I found a music station on our cable television that played the Christmas music we grew up with. We thought about how lucky we were to have had the beautiful and happy Christmases we had as children. We grew up in a small town with small town ideals and it was just the right time for it to have been uncomplicated and sweet. We had wonderful loving parents and they gave us customs that we think of all the time.

And so now, Christmas approaches again. We listen to the music and we smile and share stories. We will be with some family members and we will have a little one – Eddie’s first grandson – to celebrate with. We will share stories of the Christmases we knew and perhaps some of those customs will live with the next generation of our family.

We want them to have a Christmas filled with love and laughter like we had. That perhaps is the best gift of all.