Sunday Mornings

The meaning of Sunday morning has changed for me, as I no longer follow the Christian teaching that had been instilled in me for fifty-one years.  I used to rise on the Protestant Sabbath day, and make preparations to go and worship God.  The change in belief is directly connected to the loss of my son in an incident previously mentioned in an earlier blog.  Many of my Christian friends say that I shouldn’t blame “god” for the actions of man.  I inform them that I don’t blame god for what happened, I simply state that I no longer believe in god the way that they preach and teach about god.  The very next thing that comes out their mouths is that I am falling for a trick from the devil and that I am allowing the devil to separate my me from my lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  I wonder if these people ever really think about what they are saying, or are they simply following the dogma that has been taught to all followers of religion. I do not wish for these folks to attempt to psycho-analyze me as to what is going through my mind, even if they are giving out sound advice on how I should handle how I feel. Most of these people who are doing all this advising and praying for me, are quite frankly beneath my intellect.  It is like taking financial advice from a homeless drunk.  There may be a day that I might return to their midst, but until that day, it is my desire that they keep their beliefs to themselves. I no longer share their views regarding our creator, and I hope that they will respect my views on how I see things now in my awakened state.

Born into a World of Lies

I am not sure which lie was told to me first.  Only that I was very young when I became contaminated.  Adults shape the belief system and understanding of children, in all sorts of ways.   As I pen this, somewhere in this world there are millions of adults telling fresh lies to children.  Some of the lies that come to my immediate memory are:

America is a free country where all of it’s citizens are equal.  Children come from under a cabbage leaf,  Santa Claus, the police are your friends, be aware of strangers,  not your uncle or babysitter, money isn’t everything, the tooth fairy, there is only one true god watching over us from an endless sky, the love of money is the root of all evil…… and so on.  Being an African-American, I learned about the slavery and segregation issues far in advance of  preschool.  Yet I still believed that one day I could be President. (LOL)  I believed most of the tales throughout my young life.  Not the Santa Claus or the tooth fairy ones, but that the love of money is the root of all evil, and the free America tales.  I still remember the “No Blacks Allowed” and the “Coloreds” signage, and even though there may not be a readable sign, the atmosphere gave you the impression that you were not welcome in “their” place.  This did not go along with the teachings of a loving White Jesus.  The irony was that these same people went to church and prayed on Sunday, just like we did.  How could they be praying to the same god as me, and call me a Sambo or a jungle bunny in the same day. I was taught in school that the police are your friends, but I had been taught by my mother that excessive truth to the police, could be detrimental, because they didn’t have Black’s people interests in their heart.

I have also recently learned that there are people known as the elite, that continue to enslave us from their palatial abodes on high.  That all of the things that I was indoctrinated to wholly believe, were all lies. Yet in my heart of hearts, I still believe that there is a God, but not the one I was praying to.  In recent months, I’ve been made aware that this nation is no longer a Republic, but just another greedy corporation, that has sold me on the market, as chattel.  I must admit that before I was awaken, I was chattel.   Now that I am awake, and frustrated in my attempts to wake others.  I have come to grips with the fact that many of my friends and family will remain in a state of slumber.

http://youtu.be/X9bPm4y-rxo

This video woke me to a brave old world.  I pray it will do the same for you.

The Star of India

©2013 volcanosunsetpress

A North star is guiding star,  one that gives

directions to travelers in the dark of the night….

 

I have worked on the late shift at Rahman’s Market & Convenience Store ( My dad calls the store the Stop and Rob)  for the last six years now.  I started here in the 10th grade and have kept the job through college.  We had a little trouble here and there, but it’s been pretty safe to work here,  so far.  Mr. Mohammad  Rahman is a short, bald-headed, middle-aged man, with a great big gut,  an immigrant from India.  He is well liked by all the Black people in the neighborhood, I think mostly because he understands the nature of poor people.  Most of our customers are teetering on the poverty line, with many of them on food stamps.  There was a week when the food stamp cards were not working, and instead of turning food stamp customers away, he took IOU’s.  I thought he might have had 8 or 10 thousand dollars out in the community.  Many of them paid him back, a few did not, but no matter how they treated his generosity,he never changed his willingness to lend a helping hand.  In fact, Mr. Rahman even gave me a job, after he caught me trying to steal a submarine hoagie out of his store.

I had gotten up late for school that morning,  I had missed the school bus by three minutes, so it was either ride the city bus,  or go back home and have my sleeping pissed off dad take me to class. Dad’s shift at Mannington Mills was on the night shift rotation that month.  I was not up to waking the sleeping dragon that morning.  I went by the market, on the way to the city bus stop on the boulevard.  I went into the store, Mr. Rahman stood behind the counter talking that “Hindu” on the his phone.  He acknowledged me as he continued to babble in his incomprehensible language.  I walked by the snack cake rack and picked up a bear claw pastry, then headed by the cooler doors to get an orange juice. As I went by the glass door containing the fresh sandwiches, one of the hoagies called to me.  It was if I heard its voice…… as clearly as you now hear mine.

The next thing I knew I was standing at the open glass door, rescuing it from the chilling air of the cooler.  With the close of the door, I realized that I had only seven dollars.  It would be two dollars for the bus ride and a transfer, even at student fare.  The bear claw and the O.J. would be close to five, the submarine sandwich was 3.99 by itself.  I heard my Dad’s booming voice in my head. “Put it back Herman Travon Putnam Jr.!”  It started me,  and as I reached for the door handle again, my eyes traveled back towards the counter where Mr. Rahman stood, his back was turned.  He was engrossed in his conversation, his little bald head bounced as he talked.  The ear bud gleamed next to his tanned skin.  It had always seemed to me that when the Indians talked to each other, especially when they were two men talking, they were in an argument. I knew that they weren’t, because Mr. Rahman was laughing.  I put the sandwich inside my coat, as I looked at his back.  Thinking he would not miss this one, it was mostly pork anyway, they did not even touch the package of things made with pork. We bought some bacon once,  and when it came time to ring it up, he asked my Mom the turn it over so he could scan the bar code, and gave her the bag to put it in.  He handled pork as if he was handling dead human parts.  I often wondered how he got it from the Wal-Mart to his store!  I went on and got the orange juice and went to the counter to check out.

Mr. Rahman  ended his call with a shalom, and rang my two items up.  Locking eyes with me, he ask me if that will be all.  “That’s it” I said as I pulled my money out.  His next series of questions, raised a fright in me, though none of his words were threatening in any way. Still they stirred fear in me. “You are Herman Putnam’s son aren’t you?”  I had no idea that he even knew my Dad by name. Let alone that I was his son.  He had operated this store since we moved here ten years ago, and like the others shopkeepers and owners.  At the end of the day, they closed up their stores and joined the caravan of Toyotas out of the neighborhood and back to wherever the Iranians go.  Maybe even all the way back to Iran! I ‘d never thought he had ever had a conversation with his customers,  outside the normal conduct of business.  I didn’t imagine that they had  any need to talk beyond that.

In response to his question, I answered slowly. ” Yeah, that’s my Dad.” Mr. Rahman held me in his gaze and asked me “Then why would you dishonor him in this fashion? Why would you damage your family’s honor by stealing a pig sandwich?  In that moment, I knew that he had eyes in the back of that bald head.  I was looking right at him when I slipped the hoagie into my coat. There was no way he could have seen me.  That moment was worst than the day Mom walked in my room while I was jacking off.  I thought I was a home alone, and don’t know how long she was standing there, as I was about to reach that magic moment, I heard her say “Oh my God” as she turned and went out of the room.  She never said anything about it, but that incident would forever hang between us.  Just like this moment would linger between me and Mr. Rahman. Mostly with me, I think Mr. Rahman forgot about it immediately.  Mr. Rahman was not upset, just disappointed.  Until that day, I had never been made to feel small, by a man, who was essentially a stranger to me.  I felt lower than the family dog,  who has just been caught on the dining room table. Eating the Thanksgiving feast, while the gathered family gives thanks in the adjacent room.  That moment hung at the counter like a stinking fart in a small, hot, and crowded room. Mr. Rahman took a plastic bag and started putting my O.J. and pastry inside, he held the bag open waiting for me to pull the sandwich out of my coat.  He scanned it, and totaled up the register.  He took the receipt and had me sign it.  “This will come out of your pay.  When you get out of school today, you come back to clean this store.  I will see your father later when he comes in for gas. I will ask him if it is okay for you to work.  If you don’t show up, then there will be trouble for you!”  I left Rahman’s Market and Convenience Store with a job, seven dollars and my first lesson in being an honorable man.  I felt like a death row convict, that had been granted a last-minute reprieve.

As I am in my last year in college,  I have entertained what I might be doing after graduation.  Including an offer to manage a new store that Mr. Rahman is opening.  I don’t want to seem unappreciative, Mr. R has done a lot for me.  He saved me that day he caught me stealing from him, and instead of putting me in jail, he put me on the payroll.  He stood on my neck to make me finish school,  he helped me get a car,  and he sat with my family during my high school graduation. He is a Grandfather and a Godfather all rolled into one.  He always said that life is a precious gift, and it is never to be taken for granted.  Every moment should be lived to pay homage to Allah.  Just like my folks beat me over the head with the Bible,  he beat me over the head with the Koran.  And even though I am an atheist,  I still gave them respect for their beliefs.  Because they would all ask me, “Who am I, without God? What is the purpose of my life, if I wink from nothingness to life, then back to nothingness.  What was the point?”  These and other questions they would pose to me.  I have never converted, but I learned to trust them in all their faiths in God.  I met a man claiming to be the all-powerful deity once,  wearing the guise of a dirty stinky old transient.  He almost convinced me that there is….. something out there.  Almost. That was a month before the robbery.

I was in Physics class  when I got the news.  The text had only said that Mr. R was injured, and that they had taken him to the hospital.  I bolted from class and went straight to the emergency room at Central Presbyterian Hospital, the closest Trauma Center to the store.  The E.R. was filled with police officers,  I made my way through the swarm of detectives,  to the Rahman family.  Tanvir and Saifur were with their Mom, Mrs. Rahman.  When the Indian surgeon came through the door, the expression on his face told me that the The Star of India was dead.  Everyone else begin mourning at the announcement that Mr. Rahman had died, for everyone but me.  I didn’t feel sadness….I felt anger.  White hot anger.

The news cast replayed the video tape of the robbery over and over, for 36 hours straight.  One of the robbery suspects was turned in by his family,  the other was hold up in an abandoned house.  With a growing mob of Blacks, Hispanics and Whites outside surrounding  the house.  The Swat team was called to extract him from the scene, for the suspect’s safety.  He came out without resistance, handcuffed and in a Swat team vest and helmet.  The news media continued to rebroadcast the details of the robbery/murder after both suspects were in custody.  Some of the customers rumored that the altercation had begun earlier,  over the fact that the defendants did not have I.D. to buy cigarettes.  Even though one of them was over 18.  Over the days and nights following the murder.  I thought of Mr. Rahman’s concern for poor people and was always trying to help them out.  I’d asked him why he took such a risk when the food stamp machine was broken,  he took IOU’s from all those folks when he didn’t have to.  My philosophy was “No money, no ticket!”  If they don’t have the cash, then what did they come in the store for? This was not the Help Center!  He explained it by telling of his boyhood back in India, and a child he befriended that was the son of one of the “dalits ” or servants that worked for them.  He said that India still had a caste system, where people of one caste did not mix with other lower caste.  Those of the lower caste were required to remove their shoes when walking on the grounds of a higher caste.  It was much like the segregation practices of the United States up until the late 1960’s practiced by Whites on Blacks in the South.  The dalits could build your house,  but after it was built, they could no longer enter it because if they did, it would be considered unclean from then on.     His  family was not allowed to be touched by his dalits and certainly never play with their children.  So, the friendship that should have never been,  was formed anyway by Mr. Rahman and the dalit child Samir. A few months passed, with their friendship continuing to grow each day,  Then one day Samir’s mother showed up without him.  When  Mohammad ask his father where the little dalits boy was.  His father told him that his parents sold him, because they were poor and not able to feed all the children in their family. Which is still a practice done by the poor in India. Mohammad pleaded to his father to go get Samir and bring him back to their home.  His father said that it was time that Mohammad learned to accept the facts of the world.  There is a destiny for everyone, and some peoples are destined to be poor.  A tiger will always be a tiger, and cannot decide one day that he wants to be a bird.  Mohammad brood in sadness for Samir in the weeks that followed, and he decided that when he was a man, that he work try to help the poor whenever he could.  He would be the first tiger, to become a bird.

 

Notes Mr. Rahman is murdered by two men during a robbery, initially because he would not sell them cigarettes without I.D..  My feelings about that, and the community reaction.

Writer Killed in a 18 Vehicle Pile-Up.

A multi-vehicle collision on Interstate 40 East claimed the life of newly famous Author Vertis Jones who wrote under the pen name Volcano Sunset. Jones was pronounced dead at the scene by Department of Safety Trooper Pat Stoler at 10:15 yesterday morning.   The 52-year-old journalist was the only person injured in the crash.  Mr. Jones was known for his newly published book “As Told by a Shoeshine Boy“.  The book has begun to gain notoriety in many literary circles,  for some inflammatory short stories contained within.  Sources say that Jones was on his way to his hometown of Beaumont, Texas when the crash occurred.  Jones leaves behind his wife of thirty years,  Sharon Thatcher Jones ,  three sons, and host of grandchildren, nieces and nephews.   Arrangements are pending,  with Lone Pine Mortuary in Beaumont, Texas.

As you might have already guessed,  that the rumors of my demise are very premature!  I,  like most of the mortal world, think about my inevitable, impending demise.  Perhaps I think of it a little more than the average Joe.  Namely because throughout my life, I’ve chosen occupations that were on the dangerous side.  I can’t tell you of  how many times that I came close to “buying the farm”.   A couple of times I didn’t even realize that my actions were ones that “thinned out the herd”.   If you don’t know what that expression means.  Let’s just say, that the strain on the resources of the population is relieved somewhat, by the dumber ones in the group, doing something that gets them killed.  For example, an antelope that refuses to stay in the safety of the herd,  is picked off by the stalking cheetahs because it was too close to react to the flight of the others in the herd.  In humans, these victims are amateur stuntmen, thrill seekers, and people who go around making videos of themselves,  catching dangerous animals.  Not to forget, smokers, drug addicts, winos, and people who text/talk and drive, and lap band patients.   In thinking about death and dying, one rarely entertains things not likely to happen, like drowning in a bath tub. (I don’t have a tub, that’s one thing that I can cross off my list!) I always feared getting trapped in an old refrigerator, with the latches in front!   This also, will not happen, I haven’t seen one of those in years, even in an antique shop.  I had a dream the other night of chopping down a tree with my Step-dad,  and the tree fell over on our neighbor’s house, there was no one was left to complain.  My Step-father said before he died at 91, that you should always mark your time.  He said go to a wedding, a funeral, a graduation, or go to visit at the maternity ward.  Doing that, at least once a year, will keep you mindful, that your days on this Earth are numbered.  It will keep you from just sitting around on your duff,  waiting on death to come and collect you.  If you have something to write, then write it!  From the Dead Poets Society, “Gentlemen,  we are food for worms!”   My Step-father had a saying that I still use today,  When Old man Death finally catches me,  he will have his tongue hanging out,  polishing his shoes,  from running to keep up with me!

P.S. I know I got cha’!  Many of you feel slighted cause I’m still alive!……….Get over it!    Don’t be mad, leave a like, or dislike, a comment, or a low rating.  Something!

Missing Blog!

Blog missing , including drafts? Sorry! There will be no more work displayed on WordPress until the mystery is solved.

TILL DEATH DO US PART”

“TILL DEATH DO US PART”

volcanosunset.wordpress.com

I had always believed that marriage is the fulfillment of everyone’s destiny. I believe that there is someone for everyone, and that a person finds comfort in the soul of their mates. A marriage should bring happiness to both parties, not just

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THE CARVING OF GRANITE MEN part one

In the 1920’s they carved bust of men into the face of Mount Rushmore. My ancestors carved men. But not into a granite mountain face, but out of us boys.  They made a few errors, just as the mountain carvers did.  But I think my ancestors carved a lot deeper,  into a much harder material.  The human male spirit.

MEN DON’T CRY.  My Uncle said that to me after he gave me a spanking  outside the church when I was five.  He had taken me outside because I wouldn’t stop crying at my cousin Margarete’s  funeral.  As I remember it,  the spanking didn’t hurt,  but it came unexpectedly.  I didn’t understand why he did it,  perhaps he thought he was doing the right thing. Taking necessary steps to insure that I didn’t become “sissy- fide”.    That was a term most Black men in the 60’s used to say that a man was effeminate or gay.  Afterwards he took me by the men’s room and washed my face.  When we returned to the funeral  service, he had me sit down beside him,  instead of next to my Mom and Auntie.  Now being on the second row from the front, I sat with all the other menfolk of the Perkins family.  Momma had her arm around Aunt Mary and was consoling her in her grief.  Eight year old Margarete had been killed riding her bike on the main highway, by a water truck.  The driver had tried to brake,  but the vehicle had begun the skid sideways.  The truck ‘s momentum caused the truck to tip onto her.  Killing her instantly.   I fought with some difficultly not to start crying again.  I eyed my Uncle Sim to see if he was watching me,  to see if I was crying again.  His glance was fixed forward on the Pulpit,  but I could see his eyes behind his sunglasses,  from my low viewpoint on the pew.  He wasn’t looking at me, but his eyes were bloodshot red.  I continually thought about he said about men not crying,  what did I know about manhood?  I was only five years old for Christ’s sake and I was crying because my  Momma was crying.  This was the beginning of my discovery of what they thought,  it takes to be a man.  

That day passed me 45 years ago .  My maternal Grandmother had 18 children, of which there were 10 boys, and 8 girls.  One boy and one girl died in infancy.  All of the Perkins children are dead now,  save my Mother.  The other day I was watching television and the Judge used the term “man up” while talking to one of the petitioners in his court.  His admonition of the young defendant brought my uncle’s words from so long ago,  back to the present day.  “Men don’t cry!” he had said,  “Now quit acting like a little sissy boy and wipe away those tears!”  I did as he said and he led me back into the sanctuary with a short stop at the men’s room.  As I said before,  his intentions were noble, even if they were misguided.  With those words,  he had shaped the frame-work for what I considered to a man.  He had said men don’t cry,  but what translated to me was ” men don’t show weakness by allow your feelings to be in the open,  especially the tender ones. I think that he and all of the other men hid those tender emotions behind a fifth of gin,  which would explain the fact that each and every one died of alcohol related deaths.  In 1984,  I went to the hospital to see Uncle Sim on his deathbed at the hospital.   He was in good spirits considering all the tubes and machines that they had him hooked up to.  He had me go down the hallway and get him some ice.  When I returned with the ice, he produced a bottle of W. L. Weller whiskey from under the sheets and began to pour himself a drink.  I protested that he wasn’t supposed to be drinking that stuff in the hospital,  I said the stuff is killing him.  He just laughed and said that he was going to die of something anyway,  it might as well be something that he liked.  He died the next morning. His “monkey” rode him right into his grave.

I was a sickly child at birth,  as a consequence of my infirmities, a spent most of my early childhood with my Mom.   My siblings went to a babysitter a month after she delivered them.   Mom took a year off working to care for me at home.   I contracted pneumonia in November of 1963.  The physician examined me and told Mom to take me home,  because I was going to die.  My Mom sat up with me all that first night,  she had no expectations of my being alive in the morning.  Aunt Mary was at the door before daylight the next morning and took me from her baby sister’s arms,  Mom was exhausted.  She bundled me up and took me to her house down the street.  She made a salve of horse liniment and boiled hog hooves,  she also made a tea of cow chips( manure).  On the fourth day,  my aunt said I was climbing out of the crib and throwing pacifiers at her,  that coupled with my laughs told her I was out of the woods.  When I was taken back to the hospital,  the doctor that had called me terminally ill,  said my recovery,  was nothing short of a miracle.

TO BE CONTINUED

The “gods” of the new Olympus

The “gods” of Olympus had their trident to access their power, the minor gods used their temples in the same way.  Modern man now has a new power, through the advent of something called the “internet” .  A  newly discovered godlike power, being wielded by mere mortals has birthed a new set of Olympians. These new gods are called bloggers, and like their predecessors they wield awesome power, a power that can be used to reshape the landscape, and cause evolutionary upheavals in the minds of all mankind.  Connected by a new organ called a “computer”, these mortals are capable of channeling enormous power through a vast network, in a few seconds,  instead of many years.  I have only met a few of these new Olympians, but from what I see so far,  they have already surpassed the old gods,  and are making new history every day.

The first new Olympian that I acknowledge is Kenton Lewis of the “The Jittery Goat”,  he has all the wisdom and power of Zeus.  Then I would mention “Opinionated Man” as the new Apollo, his style of writing carries you through to a new light of understanding.  Another person that I’ve found just recently is “hotsouthernmess” , she has the honesty of Athena, and lays everything out like it came in the package, no tricks and no deceptions of any kind.  Opinionated Miscellany is among my list of new “gods” because he gives you the answer, before you even knew that you needed to ask the question. There are many more that I’ve found, and don’t be offended if I didn’t give you mention in this blog.  I just haven’t got around to it just yet.  My son said that I was the new Hephaestus, or god of the forge.  I’m not sure how to take that,  Hephaestus was considered to be sort of an odd duck.  But for now I send you all greeting from high atop Mount WordPress, the new Olympus!