the song of cicada

published by Volcanosunset Publishing ©2014

The cicada is an insect of the locust family,  it makes a queer trilling type of sound in the woods. I had never seen or heard one in all of my life.  But in the last summer of my childhood. I would come to know of the locusts, witness a homosexual rendezvous , and see a man attempt to coverup the accidental death of another man,. and leave my boyhood,  deep off in the piney woods.

  I had lived in the city all of my life,  and hearing them sing, for the first time,  from the high tops of the trees of Mississippi, changed my whole view of the world.

I had never breathed the air outside the city of Chicago in all of my life.  I had never met my mom’s mother.  It was the Summer of 1969  a few days before the Eagle landed on the moon, in the Sea of Tranquility.   Momma came to me on the eve of July 6  and had me tote the suitcases down to Reverend Wren’s  58 Ford.  The Reverend and his wife took us to the  bus station and we ( mom, my little sisters and me)  caught a Greyhound bus to a state mom called Mississippi.  Where Momma was born and raised.  My folks had gotten another argument the other day,  they sent us kids downstairs and outside..  But I went to the bottom of the steps, and crept back up. and listened in anyways.  I knew even then that my step-dad would never lay a hand on Mom,  I knew that Uncle Monroe didn’t like her husband.  Whenever he would visit us, he seemed anxious to beat Walter Turner to a pulp, he was always looking for a good enough reason to start an argument with him.  But Mom would always step in and tell Uncle Monroe that if he didn’t respect her house, then it was time to go back to Detroit.

They were arguing about that woman again,   I don’t know what her real name was, but Momma called her Jessa-bell.   Momma saw the woman at the laundry mat on Thursday night when we went to  do our weekly laundry.  We used to go on Saturdays, but it got to be so busy that we had to wait too long to get a machine.  That woman was in the washertia, drying and pressing her clothes.  I felt the onset of trouble as soon as we came in with our laundry.  Their eyes met as we came through the glass lead doors , and they stared each other down for a few seconds, I almost run right up Mom’s back when she came to such a sudden stop.  It made me think of what happens when two male dogs when they spy each other from across the street.  That moment before they begin to fight, with their fur standing on end, and they snarl at each other.  Although they never exchanged words or blows, the look in their eyes , said everything that needed to be said.  Miss Jessa-bell, finished up her clothes and left after maybe five minutes.  Momma stopped sorting the clothes and watched her leave.  The look of sheer hatred on Mom’s face didn’t seem to fit her demeanor, but Momma showed extreme disdain for the woman, as I had never before seen.  Not before that day,  and never since.  As I stood on the stairs, leading up to our apartment,  I heard Momma’s voice say, “If you want that sleazy trifling heifer, then you don’t need to sneak around!  I will happily get the hell out yall’s the way, and let your sorry ass go with her!  Everybody in Chicago is talking about the fact that y’all been screwing.  They say you got two kids by that ugly cow!  So, you don’t need to keep coming here and lying to me about where you been.  Coming home drunk and smelling like a funky fish market every Friday night! You works in a foundry, not the fuckin’ fish market.  You ain’t got no business coming in here smelling like her funky ass!  I then heard Poppa voice ” You go ahead and believe those funky mouth lies if ya want to! Gone ahead,  you don’t believe a word I say anyway! Every time I gets home you down there,  skinning and grinning in that preacher’s face.  You act like you’s married to him! Is that what’s going on?  Is he praying over your pussy?  Are you getting your share of his religion?   Momma said “God’s gonna get you for that kind of talk,  He is gonna punish you for that. You mark my words Mister, You mark my words…. came down to my listening post on the steps.  Momma didn’t say anything after that,  and she called us up for dinner about twenty minutes afterwards,  Poppa was watching something on TV and drinking a Schlitz.  They weren’t arguing any more,  at least not with words.  I could see that Momma was thinking about something,  and I knew whatever it was,  it would affect all of us,  soon.  I had ridden on a city bus, subway, and the “L” trains.  But this Greyhound bus was an altogether different ride. It seemed to float on air like a cloud,  I could picture the dog painted on the side of the coach running so silently and gracefully.   Because of the nearly soundless motion of the Greyhound coach I was fast asleep by the time the bus rolled out of the state of Illinois.

Our last name, with the exception of our Mom, (whose married name is Turner) is Clark.  Just like our natural father Stanley E. Clark Jr.  He died while saving some people in a fire,  when I was five years old. There is in every family with siblings,  a child that seems to be a born snitch.  This group of children were part of a sub family of humans called the “runandgotellit” tribe.  There are billions of them around the world, and probably some living in your own family.  One of the characteristics of them was that they appeared to be sweet and innocent.  But on the inside, they are demonically spawned imps. My little sister Aida Lee, was the entity’s name in our family.  She seemed to get a charge out of pimping on us at every opportunity.  I remember once, me and another kid named Popcorn, spotted the Cola-cola man’s truck in the alley.  We took a case of sodas each, ( the old wooden cases that held the glass bottles, were heavy as hell)  while I was escorting Aida Lee home from school one day.  I had grabbed a case of Frostie’s root beer,  Popcorn had gotten a case of Coke.  We took the cases back to our clubhouse, and stashed them inside, Popcorn gave Aida Lee a dime to keep quiet about what she seen us do.  Aida Lee ran straight to mom, and told her what she saw,  she included all the details of my crime and the ten-cent bribe that Popcorn gave her.  Well a long story short, I got a whooping, I was forced to take the root beer back to the grocery store, where I swept floors for three months.  My mom called Popcorn’s mother,  (I don’t think his mother did anything about Popcorn’s misbehavior) and Aida Lee got to keep the dime. But that was justice back in those days.  My other sister was named Wendy,  she was between me and Aida Lee.  Wendy was the quiet brainy one in our family.  She grew up to be a High school Principal of a school in suburban Chicago,  and the only one of us,  that never had any natural born children.  I think her inability to have children caused her first divorce.  Poor kid, she was really in love with Chester Thurman. but her barrenness put a strain on their relationship, eventually to the point of termination. When Wendy found out that Chester had fathered a child with another woman, mirroring the pain that Mom went though with our step-dad, she ended the marriage without another word.  She was never the same after that,  and her caring heart that she had always showed toward others seemed to cease to beat.  A few years later, she moved in with a lady and her kids.  Although I suspected that she was in a relationship with her roommate Carrie, it was never discussed.  We treat Carrie and her teenage children as if they were family.  Although Carrie and her children are White.

 When I woke up, the  city scene  had given way to the green countryside,  the sunset had began giving the landscape a golden glow.  I had mixed feelings about going to the place Momma calls “down home”,  mostly because I had no idea what to expect. I had heard Momma tell stories about her childhood in the back woods of post-Korea Mississippi,  the world was quickly changing.  Everywhere, but in the South. The former states of the Confederacy were content to leave things just as they were 12 decades ago.  Momma’s recollections of “down home” were riddled with tales of all white schools and not being able sit in the Wool worth’s and eat your food and the story that I heard the most,  Momma was helping a family friend serve at a party in an exclusive home.  Their ride home broke down and the had to walk home in the dark.  The were stopped by the police three times for being “out-of-place”.  The police had standing orders to detain anyone that did not appear to belong in the neighborhood.  Any non-white person seen walking in the neighborhood after dark would be stopped.

It was a summer vacation for me,  the first and only vacation I’d ever go on with my Mom. (My mom was running away from an abusive relationship with my Stepfather) that  took us South to my mom’s hometown, of Clarksdale, Mississippi.  The South was still segregated in many parts of it.  There was much of the old signage still in place,  it may have faded or was attempted to be removed.  But you could still read ” Whites only” or “No coloreds Allowed” through the disfigured paint.  Old Southern traditions were still around,  the Federal government could not erase 350 years of things being the way it were,  with the passing of a few laws.  I met some new friends,   found out about clandestine meetings that a local White man was having with some Black teenagers and witnessed a grab ass incident that lead to a death of another man, something that only me, God and the cicada’s witnessed.

End of the free preview

On the outskirts of Clarksdale,  Mississippi  1914 Oakhurst Stovall Road,

God: The Construct

He has the whole world in His Fumbling Hands.

Half a century’s long  quest, only to find nearing the end of my journey, that God is a man-made construct.  Like many of the things we see every day, such as cars, houses, our clothing, and furniture.   First of all I must explain the previous statement.  I was born into a Southern Baptist family, an arena of holy rollers, Bible thumpers, and Rapture advocates.  Any questions that I might have had, or any theories or thoughts spoken out loud,  that conflicted with the words of the Son of the Most High, “Jesus, the Great White Savior” was dealt with swiftly.  (Usually involving a leather belt, willow switch,  or razor strap.)  Over time, and more than a few ass whippings, I relented to accept Him as my Lord and Savior, because it was a battle that I would never win and I knew I would waste a vast amount of time and energy,  trying to change this paradigm. Recent events in my life, has re-awakened my quest for understanding of the world and it’s origins.  So within the confines of my  Stockholm Stressed mind, I found that I no longer had to fear the Wrath of the Congregation, or that of the world. Although,  they had indoctrinate me, to believe that God is in control of all things….. I began to question again,  if this were so,  He would have also condoned the actions of “evil” doers in this  over world of His,  by His silence or unconcerned inaction, in the wake of their unauthorized acts.  Can this be so?  I had wondered,  how could a good and loving God be tied to these kind of unrepentant action? A nursery rhyme type song that we were force to learn in Sunday school says “He got the world in his hand, he’s got the whole wide world, in his hands.”  This was exacerbated when I learn that the Sabbath was Saturday, and that the fourth of the Ten Commandments was to  ” remember the Sabbath and keep it holy”.   Needless to say that I no longer believe in this or any other like religion.  There are just too many unanswered questions and too much “just believe on blind faith” answers to validate my faith in any thing that they teach.  Then, there is this blatant overlook of simple basic logic,  oversight that would dismay any rational person.  I cite for example, where did Cain’s wife come from if Adam and Eve were the first man and woman?  Any other coupling would be incestuous, because he could only choose his kin to mate with.  It ignored the prior passages in Genesis, where the bible reads “Let us make man in our own image, so He created them both male and female, and He commanded them , be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth.”  If you wished to get drummed out of the church, insist on saying that Adam was not the first man on Earth, but only the first and only man in the Garden of Eden.  They will quickly toss you out on your keister.

Next,  we then move along to the Tower of Babel,  where God supposedly confused the linguistics of the human race, because they refused to spread out over the Earth.  When a drought or famine would have accomplished the same thing, without confounding all language and causing thousands of years of confusion.  All you thought he was not a God of confusion?  There it is in the front of your holy book.  Babel means  confusion the Hebrew tongue.  Since He cause all of the confusion, and He is God, why is He not the God of Confusion.  There are numerous other stories in the bible that defy all logic and reason, such as the Great Flood.  In this teaching Noah supposedly built a large ship and gathered two of each animals onto it.  The problem comes in with the weight of the cargo. With two of each animal on board, (some animals,   such sheep and goats,  were brought on board in groups of fours or sevens).  The ship would have quickly sank even if the birds would have been kept flying the entire trip.  And what about the remnants of dinosaurs, of whom I was told that never existed.  I had been told that the bones of these great beast were placed here by the Devil to break our faith.  Many of those species,   were thought to be extinct, were later found alive in the after the global flood.  Maybe the”Great Flood” was not so great.  So if the entire world was inundated with water,   how did these non-swimming , and flightless, land-lubbing creatures survive this global extinction level event?  This, with many, many other inconsistencies made me realize that what they are teaching, is less about god, and more about justification of what man believes, and what money it can draw.  “God”, who was in my sleeping mind, the most powerful being in the universe,   was receiving an emergency downgrading, after my awakening.   He became for me, a human construct,  a belief conceived in the minds of men who were frightened by the dark,  and by the unknown. This fear became a good hustle for those with guile that were too aged, in-firmed or just too lazy to go out and hunt with the others for food, or to help gather the crops.  He says to them all” I must commute with the Maker of All things, and He will prepare me,  to help all of us to do His will and His wishes,  for we all have sinned.”   History is full of sages, fortune tellers and magician who commuted with the spirits.  The chiefs of these groups of gullible people,  allowed the priest to be amongst the people,  to help keep them in line, and allay their fears of the unknown.   And so…. religion was born.

If America began to tax them (religious organizations), like they tax all the people and businesses, we will see how they truly are.  We will find out if they truly trust in God, or if “In God we trust” is the true god that they worship.   Note: This sudden taxation of faith, cannot be modeled like the businesses considered “to big to fail” such as the big banks (thieves) and campaign funding big corporations (more thieves) who hold all their wealth in the Cayman Islands to prevent U.S. taxes on their money and have the audacity to borrow from our cash strapped government (more thieves, but elected ones). Putting the rest of us (the fleeced pheasants) further in debt.

  Still,   I don’t know where it all came from…… but I do know that some force, that I can only describe as a God made everything that I know,  I am  certain that the One that many of the religions around the world send their prayers to,  is not that divine creator.  Perhaps there is no good, or evil.  It is a matter of perspective.  How can God be God if he does not act godly?  So, what I see, is an impotent god construct, fashioned by a series of goldbrickers, to wrench 10 percent out of ignorant villagers. That is,  if He ever really existed in our reality,  at all.

 When thinking about my belief in God, and all the bullshit that surrounds religion, I am reminded of a scene from “Law and Order” with A.D.A Jack McCoy.  McCoy tells of visiting a friend at a hospice, and his older friend recalls his time in Vietnam.  As he lies on his deathbed, he denounces his belief in God, because of all he’s been through that brought him to his early grave.  But just before he dies, he says “God forgive me if I am wrong.”  His statement allays my feelings as well.

“God forgive me if I am wrong.”

Venger, formerly known as Volcano Sunset RIP Oct. 2, 2013

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.

Scratch’s Weekend BBQ

 ©2013 volcanosunsetpress

The Tradition

 Summertime brings warm weather and outdoor outings.  Nicky Jameson’s yearly barbecue was always a neighborhood event that brought rib seekers from all corners of the community.  Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, and Asians from throughout the city, came to sample the cuisine.  But the primary attendees were those that lived on the block and those surrounding homes of 13 Perdition Circle.  So many in fact, that Nicky would charter a City Bus to ferry guest from the nearby Wal-Mart parking lot to alleviate parking problems on his street.  He was thinking that next year he would have to move the BBQ to a entirely new venue,  perhaps at the lake, or to River Front Park.. In all the years he had been having this cook out, there had been only minor incidents that threatened to put a damper on the festivities,  it was usually due to some guy getting drunk and making an royal ass of himself.  or maybe a couple of near fights,  or maybe a fender bender or three. There was never any real trouble per say.  Not until this day.

 The Gold Rush

 Nicky, who everybody called by his new nickname of “Scratch” because he had won 2 million dollars by buying a scratch off lottery ticket.  He was an ordinary guy with a knack for cooking scrumptious Cajun Style BBQ ribs.  The winning ticket was hidden in his lunch pail for a month,  before it was discovered by his then girlfriend,Miranda.  She gave it back to him to scratch off,  after complaining to him about his wasting of fifty dollars of  her hard-earned money,  when they were busting their asses to pay all the damn bills as it is. They lived each day from cutoff notice to cutoff notice,  and a couple of times they came home to a darkened house.  Nicky had bought the ticket while on his lunch break that Spring day and forgot to scratch it off away from her critical eye,  so he hid it to prevent Miranda from discovering it and chewing his ass out for gambling.   She was truly a wonderful woman, with a heart of pure gold, but her tongue spewed acid and burning brimstone when she was brought to ire.  Especially when it came to money, and the money was all hers, both his money and hers.  She had two girls, from a previous relationship.  but Nick claimed them as  his own.   After they won the money, they moved  into a middle class neighborhood,  not that fancy.  Miranda made sure that Nicky didn’t let the money go to his head and put him on a tight leash when it came to spending his good fortune.  They went down and got married on the very day,  before he signed the ticket over to the Lottery Commission.  Something that Nick would have done whether he had won the money or not,  but they had never had enough between both of their paychecks to spare for the license.  They basically lived from one check to the next, every payday they would decide who would get paid, and who would get lied to.  The lottery winnings changed all of that,  they bought one new car and one good almost new used truck.  The house was in the 160,000 range,  nice but not fancy,  but far better than the shitty rat traps they’d been renting in the past.  Miranda insisted on paying cash for everything,  after their first payout,  they banked the rest of the money and lived off the money that came from their jobs.  Miranda was a shrewd business woman.  But she allowed Nick a few indulges.  She let him get a small Bass Buster boat,  and she let him have his yearly BBQ. Which cost about 1800 each year.  She always wears a scowl until Nick could no longer see her face,  then she smiles when he is outside with his friends, being the life of the party at his annual BBQ suppers. 

 The Street

 The street was filled with police cars, ambulances , fire trucks and further down the cul-de-sac were news vans.  The Hostage Recovery  Team was standing by as the patrol officers escorted injured detainees to a waiting city bus.  There were 26 city cops, 7 county deputies, Three highway patrolmen,  3 Fire Companies, 9 Paramedics and  as far as the eye could see, the local media, all of them.  The air hung heavy with pepper spray and CS gas from the spent rounds from the riot guns. They were using plastic cuffs on the last of Scratch’s BBQ attendees.  The sixty-eight guest, now being booked in at the police department Mobile Command Center, were in various states of disarray. The really agitated rioters,  had been whisked off to the local jails, a dozen of the BBQ revelers were now occupying the city’s drunk tanks.  All of this commotion was said to be started over a misquote of another sleazy politician running for office.  The quote was that Barack Obama has put more people on welfare than any other President in U.S. history.   Which in itself,  was wholly not true.  But that was enough to get the ball rolling. A volley of  flying statistics broke down quickly  into name calling,  attempts at being a peace maker drew more onlookers into the growing fray.   It reached critical mass, when the “RR” (Racist Republican) words flew out it mushroomed into a brawl.  Now,  most of these very same people supported the Obama re-election,  and it’s a mystery of why this turned the way it did.  The heat, the booze,  and the current state of the economy certainly played its role in this fisticuffs.  But the underlying discontent of the average American pilgrims (or more properly pigeons) is that he doesn’t see money from the rebounding economy.  They only saw the rich getter richer and that they were working harder, only to get poorer.   The flaring tempers were not at each other,  but at the “Automated System of Things”  that gave them ¹Sisyphus’ job and never told them.  The people that they were truly angry at, were unreachable.  So they turned upon one another.  There were no life threatening injuries,  only minor cuts and scrapes and of course, exposure to riot gas. The children at the soiree were frightened out of their wits  But the first officers on the scene immediately called for back up when they heard the commotion in back of 13 Perdition Circle.  Cpl Tannhauser stated that “We have a large riot in progress when they opened the side gate on the Jameson’s home.  Send all available units right away!”

  The Outcome

 The twelve that had been taken to jail and plead guilty to disorderly conduct and public intoxication.  The remaining 68  received a citation for disturbing the peace.  Nick was not charged,  but he would no longer allowed to have barbecues of that size in his backyard.  Later his wife bought a bait and tackle shop for him to run on the weekends,  in other words,  she bought him a part-time job that requires full-time hours.  He still has his annual BBQs at the lake house,  and last year he burnt the lake house down when then fire got away from him. 

The Spoils

 Those wonderful tasting BBQ ribs got rave reviews at the homeless shelter that evening,  and even Nick’s mongrel dog, Pontchartrain got his fill of  Louisiana’s best tasting Cajun Style BBQ ribs.

 

 ¹Sis•y•phus (ˈsɪs ə fəs) n.

a legendary ruler of Corinth, punished in Hades by being compelled to roll to the top of a slope a stone that always escapes him and rolls back down again.

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The death of Eloise Baxter

©2013 volcanosunsetpress

I think that at some point. every one of us would like to throw off our old life and start over.  Could you leave everything that you know behind and start life anew?

Eloise had been married to Hunter for 8 years.  Hunter Baxter was a car sales manager, Eloise Baker Baxter was a para-legal at Lane, Crockett and Associates.  Most people would say that the Baxters were living a charmed life, meaning that they were doing well financially.  They had two healthy children, Chase who was 8 and Tiffany, who was 6.  They took a vacation every year, usually to some place like Disneyland, or the Grand Canyon.  They’ve been on two Caribbean cruises,  and one to Alaska.  Hunter is a dedicated husband, and openly honest with Eloise.  After the birth of Tiffany, Eloise had a bout of depression.  Hunter hired an Au pair to take care of the children, while Eloise was recuperating.    Hunter wouldn’t tell Eloise how much he paid for the Au pair,  but her sister thought that it was around $36,000 for the six months stay.

The day Eloise’s purse and keys were sitting on the floorboard in her empty car at her workplace, it  was truly a mystery.  Mrs. Baxter was last seen pulling her car into the office parking lot on Thursday, June 9, 2005, by the Parking Storage video cameras.  The local police department began an investigation of Eloise Baxter’s disappearance the day that she vanished, suspending the normal twenty-four hour waiting rule.  Likely due to Hunter’s celebrity.  The dealership he works for,  had him do many of the corny commercials that aired on the local TV stations.  The detectives questioned Hunter Baxter at length, asking how was their relationship,  had they received any death threats, ransom notes, and could she possibly have a relationship outside of their marriage.  Every piece of evidence was combed through,  they talked to the other family members, they talked to all of her friends and co-workers.  There was no trace of her.  Online forensics was in its infancy, yet all of the computers she had contact with were scoured trying to find some clue of what happened to her on that spring day.  The security video shows the normal parking lot clientage entering and leaving the lot,  it is possible that someone could have been lying in wait and accosted her.  But being on foot, they would have to know when and where to approach her, but they would have no way to know if someone could have seen them.  It could be done,  with a moderate risk of being seen.  The hours turned to days, the days turned into weeks.  After a few months, the hope turned into a desire to bring the body of Eloise Baker Baxter home for burial.

Hunter  Baxter, waited for the return of his wife.  Year after year, he turned down offers from his friends to meet women that they thought would make a suitable companion for him.  Only a one of his friends, just came right out and said that he thought Eloise was dead.  But by playing match-maker,  the others had said it also, just in a more subtle way.  Hunter knew that she was gone, but not a dead body like the others thought.  He was the lead suspect in his wife’s disappearance,  and the police were sure that they let him know that.  Checking and re-checking his alibi,  over the months, every time sending a different officer to question him.  He had told them that he was in a sales meeting the morning that she disappeared,  and that he had nothing to do with the incident.

Mercedes Perez took her time card from the slot which held it.  She joined the line of other employees as they waited to punch out from a long hot day’s work at National Linen Co.  This had been her job for the last two years.  The work was hard, sweaty. and dirty.  But it was somehow fulfilling.  It left her with the feeling of earning her money.  God knows that she and the others did earn their pay.  Mercedes had paid a “coyote” $8000 dollars for her documents,  three years ago.  They had stood up to the scrutiny of the I.N.S. numerous times.  Her documents where not counterfeits like many other illegal immigrants,  there was once a little girl named Mercedes Perez from Del Rio, Texas.  But the real Mercedes died as a teenager in an auto accident.  The coyote had bought her documents from a burglar five-years ago.  Mercedes Perez used the purloined papers to get a fresh drivers license, two years ago.

When she came to Corpus Christi life was chaotic for the first year,  she barely spoke the language (English) and it seemed that everyone she met was trying to take advantage of her.  She worked hard to keep her identity a secret from everyone.  She got a subscription from her home town newspaper,  to keep up on the news of her alter ego’s disappearance.  She had been planning on shedding her old life for three years, since 2002.  Most people would say that she was a selfish bitch to leave her husband and children in the way that she did.  Most people would have killed to have the kind of life that she had shedded like an old snake skin.  Most people would say she was a fool for leaving behind a good loving man like Hunter,  to toil at a laundry cleaning others filthy laundry,  their towels that they had used like toilet paper, and their pissy cum-stained sheets.  And God forbid leaving her children without a mother.  That was a sin worse than any that the Devil had ever commited.  Most of the people who would say all these things, don’t know the feeling of being trapped with no other way out.  She could have said no to Hunter the night that she got pregnant with Chase. or she could have gotten an abortion when she found out that she was with child.  She could have said no when Hunter wanted to do the “right” thing and get married, she could have had her tubes tied after she bore Chase.  She could have given both of the children up for adoption after she had them.  But she didn’t do any of these things because in each situation, she felt as though she didn’t have a choice.  Because in everything she did,  she felt it was the right thing to do,  because that’s how she was raised. It was a feeling of guilt, even though you were really making up your own mind as an adult should.  But there was that nagging karma that seemed to creep over you after you have reached your decision, filling you with doubt and you question yourself.

She could not be sure when the resentment inside her started.  It started with little things, little things that on the surface shouldn’t have mattered.  She recalled going to a PTA meeting at Chase’s school one day.  There were many other parents present, and as they talked about their children’s progress in school.  She found that she was not thrilled about her child’s accomplishments as the other mothers at the gathering.  A few days later, she was brought a new young attorney by the firm, to train as an associate in the firm that she worked for.  The young lady was five years her junior, and on her way to a successful career. Having to defer to her made her feel old, and having to  say “Yes Ma’am” to to kid went right through her.  She thought that she should be clerking for me instead of me working for her. It made her think about what she had lost by giving in to the parochial thinking  she had been taught was right thing to do.   It might have been right, but not right for her.  All of her life she had dreamed of being a lawyer like her father.  She was in her second year in college when she got pregnant, despite the precautions that they took.  Her upbringing as a devout Catholic, had put rest,  any ideas of getting an abortion.  Simply put, it was cold-blooded murder.  Divorce was another no-no in the faith, and even though it was allowed n some instances, it would still cause you harm in the  eyes of God. Suicide,  was also out of the question,  not because it was against the faith, but because Eloise did not want to die.  Eloise, she felt trapped.  Where most people feel as if their lives, were like a car going down the street of life, she felt as if she was a frightened child strapped in the seat of the worlds most terrifying roller-coaster, with the Devil acting as the brakeman.

invisible

In an age of  technology that has never been witnessed before, we still have people who are forced to live this way.  Tupac Shakar (2PAC) said “We have money for war, but can’t feed the poor?”  What wisdom can come from this man, if we fed, clothed, and provided a shelter for him?  Maybe one of those abandoned building could be converted. Our society will be ultimately judged,  for what we do for the least of us.

“AS THE GHETTO TURNS” episode 4 “The White Man’s Ice is Colder”

 

 

Season 1    Episode 4 —–“The White Man’s Ice is Colder”

©2013 volcanosunsetpress

There is a myth in the Black community, or more accurately,  an unspoken truth in the minds of  Black business owners that African Americans will not patronize their establishments when the could drive two miles to buy at a non-minority store.  I have looked in American cities with a predominantly African American population and I’ve observed that most of these cities have a low number of Black owned businesses.  Being a child of the sixties I can recall the segregation practices that forced minorities to buy most of their goods from other blacks.  Now they can buy where they want, but observe the attitudes when they go into an Asian owned store.  They think that everything should be in their favor, and that the owners should go back to their “Country” and open a store there.  If you live like the people in the video below, would you want to go back?  By the way, the have factory fires that kill hundreds of people, because they are locked in after they come to work.   If these customers don’t like the store they are shopping in, then they should go spend their money elsewhere.  You don’t have to buy there, and even better, go open your own store!

If I were a Black business owner, I would probably hire Asians/Indians to run my stores, because it seems they are the only ones who are willing to serve “these” people.  As a Black man, I loathe to see certain people come into a store, namely the ignorant types.  You know who I am talking about, the ones that are always found by a new  reporter to do the interview,  about trouble in the neighborhood.I had some friends in college from Nigeria, we were at an off campus function.  Sharif asked me why I’m not like the others from the U.S.?  Not knowing what he meant,  I said what others?  He said that the Blacks over her are not African,  he said the are called “cotton pickers” when mentioned around other Africans.  He said that most Black American have “chained thoughts” and really have no identity beyond the neighborhood or city where they live. They think like slaves.  Somehow he thinks that I was different.  I don’t know if Black people are aware,  of the slums that many people that work in these stores come from, they came from far worse conditions than any Americans have lived in.

 

 

Angry Blacks enter these stores, and attempt to vent their frustration out on these store clerks.  Chances are good that the clerk is not the owner, but people who have lived the lives of those seen in the video above.  Most owners,  are the well to do Doctors that you’ve been running to!  Many of the new owners are escaping poverty that none of us have ever experienced. And had to fight to get here.

 

 

People without self-control, or the sense to stay out of the store, if they have no money.  My folks taught me to never go into a store with no money, it will cause you to steal.

 

 

Then there are the protests,  when a fool goes and assaults a clerk and gets shot!  I bet the gun surprised him! Ali Mohamed was packing!  Don’t start trouble where there could be guns present.

 

 

Finally you have the customer who thinks he can cuss out a clerk, and not have the clerk cuss him back!   All of his intellectual worth, destroyed by a few cuss words, and a loud or (Nigga’) tone.

Many Blacks believe that they should not spend their dollars at Black owned stores because they will always get less value for their money.  If you want your car fixed right, take it to the White man.  Them Black shade-tree mechanics will mess up your ride!  Black people would say.  I have heard incidents of Blacks driving thirty miles past a Black dealership to pay more for a car at a White dealership. I buy my ice here because it colder,  than down there where those Blacks have that store! In other words “THE WHITE MAN’S ICE IS COLDER”  (think about that)

But  I say to those reading this article, that this kind of thinking chops off Kunte Kinte’s foot all over again, because every dollar that goes out of  Black hands does not come back.  As a people we need to step up and buy our own self worth back. By investing our dollars in people that look like us.  We could reduce Black unemployment by regaining the flow of Black dollars.  We should imagine that “Jim Crow” is still in affect,  and act accordingly with our spending habits.  As a closing statement, I heard a Black man say that he didn’t want a Black mechanic to fix his car, so he took it over to a White shop, who in turn back it to my uncle’s (Black) shop and had it repaired and charged the man double priced.  He pulled into our service station and showed us how well it runs, we never told him that we were the ones who had repaired it!

5   A Hood Rat”s Jackpot: CHILD SUPPORT

The Cutting Edge1968 Cure for A.D.D.

I don’t know what is in the current cure for Attention Deficit Disorder.  I’m not even sure how all the chemical compounds affect the adolescent brain.  Frankly,  I don’t even know what A.D.D. is as a clinical term.  But I do know that in the sixties, this device was the leading remedy and a grownup favorite.  It’s primary use was as a behavior modifier. When properly deployed, it is said to relieve adult stress by a factor of four. The package directions read: Liberal use is recommended.  May cause some minor redness and inflammation. Guaranteed to cure disobedience in children when properly applied, however your results may vary.  See your manufacturer specifications before using on you bad ass kid.

This device usually only had to be used on us once or twice a year.

On the list?

I was conversing with a fellow blogger about the change in the way the media disseminates the “news”..  Now,  I have never believed in conspiracy theories, or a second shooter on the grassy Knoll, or any other kind of that fertilizer,  being spread around by the paranoid public.  I, like many of the bloggers in this country, don’t worry that our government is going to come and get me in the middle of the night and take me to a death camp and snuff me out!  It would be cheaper to cut my brake line and let me do the rest.  But I said to this blogger, “how do we know that the people who (they) parade in front of the cameras are really the ones responsible for the “terrorist” act?” Then I thought about it, hell, they could parade me out there as a terrorist, and just saying that they have the evidence, will sink my little paper battleship without benefit of a trial.  I could have been walking at the Boston Marathon and threw something in the trash can, and they set off their bombs and implicate me,  I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on!  If they kill me and say I acted alone, the case is closed!  But even still, they will gain more access to curtail you rights, and it only cost a few victims and a patsy!  We truly need to guard what we allow to enter our minds, because there is no guarantees that everything that is broadcasted is the truth.  Every single one of us could be vilified by the media, and none of us can protect ourselves once they got the ball rolling.

When enough, is too damn much!

I happened across this video researching another rant.  I immediately set this aside,  to give it the attention it deserved.

We once had a dog that did this very same thing.  We got her fixed. But Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer will have to foot the bill for this human dog and her human “pups” for a grand total of 300 years.  That’s estimating 20 years per child, or 15 x 20= 300!  That’s only if they don’t go to prison, a mental health facility, or adult day care facility at a young age.   Don’t we have the right to turn off the faucet???

What do you say?

“Puss” from ©”the Diary of Mary Ann Bailey”

Life was a lot simpler as a little girl in 1938. But some lessons have to teach themselves in any age.

©2013 volcanosunsetpress

Puss was my cousin.  We lived in a small farming community outside of Calvert,Texas.  I was a ten-year old girl in 1940,  Puss (Edith Mae) was 14.  I would be married by the time I was 14 and living in Kansas with my husband.  I had an older brother named Charlie,  still living at home during my last few remaining years at my mother’s home. They were the only two survivors of a fire at the house with her previous husband, Mr. Jones and my older two half-sisters perished in the flames.  So,  Mama always made sure that Charlie got the best of everything, even if she and I had to do without. She never said it, but I got the sense that she was trying to make up for the loss of his father and sisters. Mamma was never married to my father,  she explained that “she was slipping behind the barn” with him,  that Jesse Bailey was just someone to pass the time with,  to try to fill the empty space in her heart after Charlie Jones Sr. died.  I wouldn’t meet my real father until the 1952.  Most times, I would have to make the long journey into town, alone if wasn’t our regular monthly shopping day.  We would ride with our neighbor, Mr. Barney on his buckboard pulled by his two mules, once a month. Any other time,  we walked everywhere we went. We had a school for colored kids near the Church house.  Mama had been remarried to a man named Mister Hulon Simms.  I knew she only married him for financial reasons, it was hard to make it as a single mother in the thirties.  With the Depression and living on the edge of the Great Dust Bowl on top of that, it made for hard living.  He was the main reason I married so young, to get away from his constant attempts to molest me. We hauled wood and water year round.  Mama would carry two buckets on a truss that she made up.  She could make two trips to my one,  she was a strong woman. Mr Simms worked the farm and chased tail. Anybody’s tail. I will tell you all later, about his self driving donkey.

The walk was about a two miles  into town,  and I had been sent to get some sugar at the general store.  Puss, who was also headed into town,  walked with me.  On the way back, Puss saw some other girls on the walk back to country,  and went back to walk with them.  There has another boy walking behind them named Otis.  He was tall and dark-skinned and about fifteen years old.  Puss liked him, a whole lot.  But he didn’t seem to show any interests in her.   She trotted up to me, poking me in the side.  ” Mary Ann, do me a favor, Otis is coming this way and I want you to get him to show me his thing!”  Puss had said before that she liked him, but it seems that Otis was more interested in me than her,  probably because I had a light complexion.   Back then, it was a believed that light-skinned Blacks got better opportunities than dark-skinned Blacks,  given the racial climate in the forties,  it was probably true.  At that age I had no sexual experience.  I had only seen the farm animals having sex, and I had no clue about what Puss was asking me to do.  I said “What do you want me to say?   How am I supposed to get him to show you his thing?”  Puss, having already worked out a plan in her head, told me tell to him what he wanted to hear, she said ” Tell him that you will give him some,  if he takes it out and shows it to us!”  I immediately said “ I ain’t going to give him nothin’! That big ol’ boy is not going to get on top of me, No way, no how!”  Puss continued to urge me into doing what she asked, and after a minute or so I relented.

We slowed down and allowed Otis to catch up.  As he moved past us, Puss began poking me in the side again, and whispering “Do it! Do it! Do it!”  in my left ear.  I gathered up my courage and called to him ” Hey Otis, come over here!”  He slowed his pace and walked next to us.  Puss whispered to me “ Tell him that you will give him some pussy,  if he shows us his ding-a-ling !” I was like her ventriloquist’s dummy, every word that Puss said into my ear came out of my mouth,  I didn’t realize that I was writing a check that my ass couldn’t cash!  Otis showed his immediate interest by unbuttoning the fly on his faded pin striped coveralls.  His uncircumcised penis popped its swollen head out, it looked like a huge earthworm clawing its way to the surface in Mama’s garden.  It was so big, that it scared me senseless.  His dick looked like it belonged on one of Mr. Barney’s mules!  I jumped back, screaming in fright,  and took off running.  I didn’t care that I had on my best shoes and that I was running through big patches of mud.  I had to get away from that gigantic trouser snake that Otis was toting  around in those patched up bibs. ” Oohhhweeeee!” I heard myself screaming as I ran down the side of the road.  I must have sounded like a whistling teapot on the back of a railway car!  I can laugh about it now, but that day I was frightened out of my wits.

I could hear Puss calling me as I ran,  and Otis was cussing me out for slighting him in the deal,  I ran like I was in a ten-mile marathon, trying to hold on to first place.  Fortunately, Otis lived at a fork in the road and turned off onto the dirt road leading to his family’s place.  I was almost home when I realized,  that I had dropped the bag of sugar Momma had sent me to go get.  I turned around and prayed that Otis was not still there waiting for me to fulfill my promise.  I walked back to retrieve the package because Momma would be mad cause I lost a five cent bag of sugar for whatever reason.  At about a third of the way back,  I saw Puss coming down the highway with the paper bag, that I had dropped.  She laughed at me, and said that Otis was ahead, still waiting  to do the nasty with me!  I got a whipping anyway, because some of the sugar was lost, when the package fell into the mud.  Puss had explained to Momma, (with a little smirk on her face) that we saw a big snake on the way back to the house,  so Momma wasn’t so hard on me.  But Otis was,but in a different way.  I knew because I could tell by the way his thing was sticking out!  I saw him again in 1965, I went home to visit Momma and he was the Bishop in the Baptist Church, I chuckled as I left the building,  wondering if he was still mad at me for what Puss put me up to do.

“Cross my Heart and hope to Die!”

Listening to my Grandchildren over this past weekend, brought back a memory of a secret that I was bound to keep by my older brother Melvin.  As I was sitting on the patio at my son’s house,  and I overheard one of my Grand-kids swearing his brother to top secrecy.  It seemed that the older boy Shelby,  had apparently swiped a couple of beers out of the cooler from last night’s barbeque.  His Dad is a Bible thumper and only allowed his sinful brother to bring beer over for this one occasion.  I listened closely as this scene played out in a quiet corner of the house,  with me outside their bedroom window.   “Cross my Heart and hope to Die!”  Mitchell was repeating what Shelby told him to say.  “On Mom’s grave, I swear I’ll never tell living soul! ” came  from Mitchell’s lips through the open window.  I knew he would tell Mitchell the secret,  but for the life of me I don’t know why,  Mitchell was born a natural snitch,  he just simply can’t help himself.  I once took him with me shopping for some auto parts, on the way back, when went by the Sonic drive in and ordered some food.  Mitchell was not supposed to have an ice cream  sundae before eating the rest of his meal, but he wanted it anyway,  so I told him that he could go ahead and eat it,  provided that he told no one,  it would be our little secret.  He agreed and made short work of the ice cream on the ride back to my house with the rest of the food.

When I pulled into the driveway, he unbuckled his seat belt and made a beeline to his Mom. ” Poppy bought me an ice cream and I ate it all up!”  he says.  My daughter in law shot me an evil glance,  then started reading me the riot act.  That was the last time I shared a secret with him.  I asked my son later that day,  if the boy had “stool pigeon”  in his DNA! What a tattle tale!   So Shelby shares his secret with his baby brother,  and amazingly Mitchell didn’t blab.  Shelby was the one to let the cat out of the bag, he got drunk after drinking one of the beers,  and threw up all over the bathroom.  But this whole little sitcom brought back to mind, the time that Melvin came to me itching with a secret. His secret was much deeper than young Shelby’s, and a lot more explosive.  I have not let his secret out and I probably never will.  It not important anymore,  all the major players are dead now.  Most likely because they couldn’t keep their big traps shut!

“TILL DEATH DO US PART”

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 to one, or to someone’s family members.  Even in this video, the oldest family member believes that the young lady should not get married if she does not wish it.  Who else is wise enough to disagree with him?  The next video mentions that it is unlucky to be a girl in Ethiopia.  I would agree with that statement based on today’s thinking.  A marriage in many countries around the world will kill any dreams of independence and education that a person, (mainly women) might have.  So the phase  “till death do us part” in this case is a double entendre.  With the “death” being of the girl’s hopes and dreams.  Not being educated will affect her economic outlook from that day forward.    What do you think?

THE CARVING OF GRANITE MEN (conclusion)

As I grew up,  my condition began to improve.  I was able to start hanging out with the other children and play with the boys.  I would also be invited to sit with the men at family gatherings and any social  event where the women would normally be preparing the pea salad, potato salad, or cakes,  while the men were outside barbecuing.  The men’s activities usually consisted of cooking the meat,  telling tall tales, and drinking.  They would always give us a beer from the tin water cooler at every gathering.  Sometimes they would even teach us how to smoke cigarettes and pipes.  During the regaling and drinking, one of the elder men ( when he got drunk enough)   would say to the younger men in the group,  that the only way to be a man, was to be in control of his household.  After drinking a bottle of whiskey or gin,  they would stand up and say things like “Boy!  If you don’t keep your woman in line, she going to run all over you!  I’m telling you the God’s honest truth!  Spare the rod and spoil the wife!  The first time she buck you or sass you and you don’t slap her across the face,  she going to do it again!”  There would be agreement amongst all in attendance on the subject. From the statement “keep you woman in check” I learned that a is man is supposed to keep his house in order by using force.  At seven or eight years old I didn’t agree with that.  But I knew better than to challenge them on that subject because they thought they were right.  They thought that they were so right in,  that they would quote from the Bible by saying that “God said that the man would be the head over the woman.” as if they had read straight from the book of Genesis.   Which I knew was unlikely, since most of them could not read on even a first grade level.  Please don’t think that I am trying to belittle them in any way,  but their education was slight and they did what they were taught. 

Sometimes their ghosts visit me in my dreams,  asking questions of me,  about the way my children are.  As if they are second guessing me.  While I agree that a man should be strong, I don’t a man should be brutish.  Many times a harsh command will fail to do,  what a gentle urging can get accomplished.   My case in point is the time that my biological father came to town for a visit and called me from my brother’s house.   Demanding the I take off work and come to my brother’s house so he could see his Grand-kids.  Now,  in my life I could count one on hand that I saw him,  in fact our last parting left something to be desired.  It was his tone and his way of telling me to do something that caused me not to go.  I wasn’t upset with him in any way, but his voice never had any influence in my life and he wasn’t there when I was growing up.  If my Step-dad had made the same requests,  I would have been there.  But then again my Step-dad would have never asked me  in that way or in that tone.

I remember when my Uncle Martin and his family moved to our town.  They stayed with us for four days while they found an apartment.  I was doing my homework when Uncle Martin came to the kitchen table and had me help him fill out an application.  He had me read the questions on the application, (name, address, phone, work history, etc. ) and he would tell me the answers to write down.  He said he broke his glasses and couldn’t read the application.  I think he was embarrassed about not being able to read.  Mom had told me years before,  that most of her brothers couldn’t read.  This was because they didn’t attend school,  when they had work to do in the fields.  Most the boys were born before the  Great Depression and were sent to work in cotton fields at a young ages.  The boys younger than Mom were also tasked to do chores  around the farm and go hunting with Grandpa,  who worked at the railroad during the day and hunted and trapped at night.  I often wonder what it might have been like,  not to have a Wal-Mart or a 7-Eleven to go to and buy everything you need.

In a long chat with Mom after Thanksgiving about Uncle Sims’ reaction to my crying at the funeral,  she told me that she never knew he did that, but that she was not surprised, that was the way Papa brought them up. To be hard men, to have a lack of those “womanly” ways. She said that her first husband was raised the same way, and when he started hitting her she left him and never went back. I know without anyone telling me, that the world can be a cold, hard or even harsh place. Maybe they did their best of teaching us in their ignorance, but the bottom line is that their lessons were misplaced and had to be a leading cause of my generation’s alcohol,spousal,and substance abuse. Not to say that it completely the cause, but a substantial part of the effect in our society. It has us (African-Americans)  more aggressive towards each other (in example the Blood & the Crips), disrespectful to our women, and callous with the care of children and elders. I respected my father and uncles because they showed respect to their elders, and even to the women.  Because even though they abusive, they would never argue in front of us. Never. They had no tolerance of the use foul language at all. Many words used by children today, would have caused them to be beat to death in my era.   In looking back over the years, I can see what they were trying to carve,  but I wonder if they were aware of the cracks they left in the men of stone.

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 ears of the little Pitcher

Anyone forty years or older, should know the expression, ” little pitchers have big ears ”  referring to children in within earshot of an adult conversation.  I recall the first time I heard the phrase used.  My mother and a young lady named Mrs. Vernell were talking as I approached, Mrs Vernell continued talking and Mom told her to hush,  then she said   ” little pitchers have big ears”.  Their conversations ceased for a moment,  and then changed into something totally different.   I marked it in my memory and later on that day, I brought the pitcher in to my mother,  who was resting on the couch.  I held the pitcher up and asked my mother  ” where are the ears on this pitcher?”  She began to laugh.  And then sitting up,  she grabbed my ears and gave them a gentle tug.  “Right here!” she says.  “and yooouuu… are the little pitcher!”  Have you ever wondered (after you became an adult) what  caused an argument between older relatives?  When you were the little pitchers with the big ears?

ice cold sunshine final conclusion

It became apparent to everyone that this crisis was not going away quietly,  like it did the times before.  The stores were boarded up after their inventories were exhausted, the words “NOTHING ELSE LEFT TO STEAL” was painted on the ply board covering. Trucking industry refused to deliver because of the skyrocketing price of fuel and the lack of security.  In the first few days, semi-trucks were being hijacked all over the country. Fuel truck drivers were being forced to the side of the road and the drivers executed. It simply was not safe to haul anything, even with a police escort, starving people would resort to anything to find food.  The internet and cell phones fell first, followed in quick secession by the electric power, natural gas and water. And even though martial law had been declared, it wasn’t long until the soldiers assigned to protect order, decided to protect for themselves.  They became the looters, the hoarders, and well armed roving bands of warlords, gathering people in the night to use as slaves. It was like using wolves to guard the hen-house.

Three weeks out, the most beautiful cities became Mad Max’s worst nightmare.  Yes three weeks out, I would say that our digital world was in its death throes.  Before we abandon the cities,  I traded my sequestered neighbor’s Dalmatians  for a pickup trailer and mule.  I not sure if they wanted the dogs for breeding or for food, but I needed the mule and trailer to try to get out of the city. Something called a pandemic,  had swept through right after the shit hit the fan.  Killed a bunch of people, many of them were killed just trying to get to the hospital, being mistaken for looters. Saw most of these tragedies first hand, the others were transmitted over the radio.  It was the regular AM/FM radio at first, then shortwave and C.B. radios later on.  I’m glad I held on to my dad’s old C.B. radio, it was the only thing in his life, he was right about.  Nearly everything is pretty much like it was in the late 1800’s now.  With pockets of technology scattered here and there. Slavery in some areas, indentured servitude in others, but no outright lawlessness anywhere.  Some people say that we lost over half the world’s population in the first six months.  Most of the lost were from the “civilized” countries, due to the pandemic.  The underdeveloped nations seemed to weather the storm a little better than most, I’d guess because the loss of comfort level was less profound with them.

Well , it has began to warm up a bit, time to get back to work in the gardens. Dog gone early spring mornings are kind of a mixed blessing. The sunshine is beautiful, but there’s that winter wind blowing out the North, that keeps it a bit chilly.  My Grandma used to call it ice-cold sunshine, and I’d reckon it’s a good name for the times we are living in,  here in 2017……………….

ice cold sunshine part 2

It all began in a place called Dubai, a city in the United Arab Emirates, (Saudi Arabia) with a perceived insult.  The insult was a handshake that had been presented with a left hand, an insignificant incident to most of the world. But this handshake would topple the world’s most powerful governments.  Some analyst have said that the handshake was the tip of the iceberg to the growing thousand-year long conflict.  They say that it was the earthquake following the dispute that triggered the global chaos.  Many others say that it was neither.  It was just time for the teakettle to boil over, but whatever might have caused it,  our history was re-shaped  that day.

My wife had come home from work via the 7-Eleven  getting some gas and I hoped,  a 12 pack of beer.  I was watching Entertainment Tonight on TV when she called out to me,  as she came into the kitchen.  ” Honey, turn it on the news! ” she exclaimed.  She ran straight to the remote, before I could even get my feet off the couch.  There are long lines forming at the gas pumps, just like it did on 9-11! It look like the whole gas station staff is at work down there, and they say gas prices are tripling! I noticed that lines were forming at gas stations along the freeway as I was coming home from work and stopped at that 7-11 down the street from us to see what was happening!  I tried calling your phone, but it took a while to get a dial tone and then you didn’t answer!  Do you have gas in your truck?  No, my truck uses diesel!  I replied.  You know what I mean! she said in an exasperated voice. Is it full? It’s already six dollars a gallon now,  and three times that is $18.00!  If it needs fuel, you’d better go down and get it while you still can!  She switched the channel over to CNN, and drew my protest. “Foul play! I ‘m going to miss what Justin Bieber said about Anne Frank.” I said throwing my hands up.   She glared at me with her signature  “I’m real close to throwing the remote at you” look. The news announcer was narrating a scene that showed people in the Middle east loading shells into cannon and firing AK 47’s rifles.  Both of us watched in silence as the melee played out on the 120 inch screen.  I’m sure that both of us thought at that time, that this would be another short-lived crisis, like the one following September 11,  and all the other minor scares that followed it.  We both thought wrong, as did the rest of the world………….

TO BE CONTINUED