My two-cents worth and then some. An online journal by LP Brown.

Posts Written By L Parker Brown

Rainy Day Reminiscing

by on ·Dreams, Exercise

At 5:30 AM this morning, my cell phoned blasted an Emergency Alert flash flood warning loud enough to wake up the dead. Unable to go back to sleep, I got up, walked to the window, and opened the blinds. Rain was pouring like Niagara Falls. Considering the wicked state of the world, I expected to see Noah’s ark floating down the street any minute.

Leaving the window, I walk to the table in the other room and open my laptop. As I pass the bookcase, I glimpse one of the books facing forward on the shelf. It is James Baldwin’s. I smile at the irony because the cover suggests I should not worry about the rain; the prophecy is for the fire next time.

It is predawn, the best time to sit down, do some writing, and introspection.

I think about one of my favorite Langston Hughes’ poems titled Harlem. Written in 1951, it begins with the line “What happens to a dream deferred?” Six years after he wrote that Lorraine Hansberry would parlay Hughes’ words into a prize-winning play titled A Raisin in the Sun. Although it has been decades since I first encountered the question raised in the poem, I think about it a lot. I suppose that a dream differed could wither on a vine, but it doesn’t have to.

I’ve read that Hansberry sometimes wrote during her free time while working as a waitress. I’ve never been a waitress, but the jobs I held, initially as a switchboard operator at the Pentagon and later in administrative positions, albeit some with creative titles, took priority over my dream since childhood to be a writer. The demands of a full-time job and the responsibility of singly raising two children after a divorce left little free time to pursue my dream. Throughout the years and to this day, I’ve often wondered what if my circumstances had been different? What if writing had been my primary profession instead of a sidebar? I’ll never know the answer to those questions, but I did the best with the time and resources I had, like Hansberry and numerous other resourceful souls.

Retirement has given me ample time to write but realistically speaking time is not unlimited. When I was still in the workforce, I seized every opportunity to compose everything from essays, letters to the editor, Op-ed pieces, poems, anything that inspired me, and that I thought I could get published. My perseverance paid off. I was fortunate to have some of my pieces published in The Washington Post, The Afro-American, The City Paper, and elsewhere. For three years, I supplemented my income writing as a contributor to the Metro Chronicle. That weekly newspaper stopped publishing decades ago, but I will forever be grateful to the editor, LaVerne Gill, for allowing me to swim in the journalism pool. Sometimes even the most unlikely angels arrive to help us along our way. In my now leisure time, I’ve published a book, and am working on another. I’m also a successful blogger with 12 years and nearly 400 posts to my credit. How blessed am I?

When I hear people say, I would have done this or that if I had had the time, but I had to work, I encourage them and try to convince them that it is never too late to pursue an obtainable dream. I say obtainable because an 80-year old whose lifelong ambition is to be a gymnast like Simone Biles might be a bit too ambitious. But then, you never know. Far be it for me to rain on anybody’s parade.

My cousin Akintunde Kenyatta was in his late 60s or early 70s when (like Ex-President George H.W. Bush, Wesley Snipes, and other over 50 brave hearts) he decided to jump out of a plane. Akintunde fulfilled his dream and proudly crossed skydiving off his bucket list a few years before going home to glory. I am still impressed.

Second to my passion for writing is exercising. Before the pandemic shut things down, I was an enthusiastic gym member for seven consistent years, usually attending three days a week. Before that, I was devoted to walking for exercise.

For over a dozen years, my neighbor and friend, Hazel Williams, and I regularly walked on most Saturdays. My treks started after she encouraged me to join her, walking inside the PG Plaza Mall. However, after a few years of strolling past storefront windows got boring, we opted for a change of scenery. That’s when we began walking outside, 5-miles round trip from our home to City Place (as it was then called) in Silver Spring and back.

Concurrently, we also began participating in walk-a-thons that raised money to support charities and causes like Osteoporosis, breast cancer, etc. Most frequently, we joined in the annual Fannie Mae Homeless Walk downtown on the National Mall. That walk took place every year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Hazel and I participated for about 12 to 15 years during the 24 years that the annual walk was held. Unfortunately, Fannie Mae ended the fundraising walks in November 2011.

If I could go back to my younger self and deliver a message to her when she was feeling discouraged and stuck in a rut, I’d tell her, “Girl, don’t you give up. A dream deferred does not die unless you let it. Don’t let naysayers, dire circumstances, or self-doubt stop you. You’ve got this!”

 

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A Private Conversation about a Public Matter

by on ·Cousins, COVID, Health, Vaccine

My cousin Butch is one of the most intelligent people I know. But he is also extremely modest, and I can imagine him cringing when he reads this.

I enjoy conversing with him, and although we don’t always agree on things, we are both open-minded enough to listen to each other’s viewpoints and respond civilly. We have had dissenting perspectives on subjects from the death penalty to the COVID vaccine (and now it’s back to wearing masks).

Below are snippets of our (abridged) conversation from about a week ago.

ME:  I am so tired of hearing the talking heads on TV chatter about the COVID virus, its variants, and the insistence that everyone take the vaccine. The folks who will take the shot have likely taken it already, and those who don’t want it will not be convinced to take it. The exception is for those who wish to take it but cannot get it for some reason or another. Although I took the shot, I remain convinced that we all are guinea pigs. I didn’t start having intermittent skin rashes and some other issues until after taking that vaccine – two months after my second shot. My dermatologist says it is likely caused by something that I am allergic to. Uh Huh. When I told both him and my primary care physician that this stuff wasn’t occurring before I got the shot, they fell silent. (What I forgot to tell my cousin is that I’ve talked to at least three friends/associates who months after that second shot are experiencing unusual health issues they’ve not had before.)

MY COUSIN: I know this COVID news gets old but, the fact is people are dying at a rate not seen for over a hundred years. It is terrible, and when we don’t take it seriously enough, it gets worse. Japan would not be restricting attendance to the biggest money-making event (the Olympics) of recent times if there wasn’t something to it. Americans (in general) are less sensitive to this because we have a less community-centric ethos than many other countries. We pride ourselves on our individualism and “every man for himself” thinking imposed upon us by centuries of robber barons and imperialists dictating the rules of the game. “If they die, they die” so long as they (the powers that be) have access to all measures to preserve themselves! Think about Rupert Murdoch. Do you think he didn’t vaccinate as soon as he could? Think about the orange one (I know nobody wants to [think about him], but) he surreptitiously got vaccinated and who knows what else for himself and his family, but what did Murdoch and [the orange one] feed their sheep? “It’s a hoax.” “It’s not that bad.” “You need to be a soldier and get back to work.” “You better go back to school.” “Scientists don’t know what they’re talking about.” “Listen to us or listen to your gut.”

Critical thinking tells us that the people who manipulate you for personal gain are probably not the most reliable sources for information regarding your personal safety (unless you are part of their “in group”). Dr. Fauci has dedicated his professional life to saving lives. He didn’t do it to be on the cover of “Time” magazine. Now he’s taking outrageous slings and arrows because he speaks inconvenient truths. Unfortunately, sometimes science gives us the information we don’t like or want to hear but listening and taking it always makes us smarter. Denying it could lead to our downfall. Murdoch and 45 don’t care about the meatpacking workers and food service workers dying, so long as they can be replaced. The “sheep” need to recognize this.

ME:  I know why the scientific community keeps quiet about possible long-term side effects because they are trying to encourage everyone to take the stuff. But I think they should be upfront and tell the public that some people are having allergic reactions and side effects lasting longer than a few weeks after the second injection.

MY COUSIN:  We’ve had at least 70 million people here take at least one shot and not anything alarmingly close to that here since the early J&J rare blood clotting issues. [He is referring to a link that I emailed him about some of the side effects of the vaccine.] That is not to say that these vaccinations are 100% safe, but they have never been. And but for vaccinations, the world might well be overrun with polio, smallpox, and rubella right now. I never wanted to get the shot, but the evidence was clear that my chances of surviving the shot would probably be better than my chances of surviving a bad case of COVID; plus, I hate getting sick.

I enjoy debating issues with my cousin and find it refreshing. Interestingly, some laypeople can have a civil discussion about controversial topics when numerous close-minded public figures, including rogue Congressional legislators, behave like temper-tantrum throwing spoiled brats.

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Speaking of Cousins

by on ·Cousins

“I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream,” or so the saying goes. So today (and each third Sunday in July) is National Ice Cream Day.

Some folks reading this are probably asking themselves, what does National Ice Cream Day have to do with cousins? If they keep reading, they’ll find out, won’t they?

One day as I wondered if there is any day recognizing cousins, I discovered more than I wanted to know. First, of course, there is a national holiday for cousins. But, in addition, there are numerous other national holidays; and some are not even on our calendars.

I think that society has gone way overboard with all its national holidays. There is a national day designated for nearly everything under the sun.

Animal lovers have National Love Your Pet Day on February 20. In addition, there is National Employee Appreciation Day (the first Friday in March) for people in the workforce. With the exception of two, hardly any of the national holidays that I mention in this post is a federally assigned holiday.

National Hot Chocolate Day is on January 31, National Pizza Day, February 9, and National Coffee Day is on October 1. (Fist pump for National Coffee Day!) The fourth Sunday in July (this year on the 25th) is National Parents Day.

There are also nationwide annual observances for families, like National Family Day on September 26, and who doesn’t know that Mothers and Fathers Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in May and the third Sunday in June, respectively.

Grandparents have their day on the first Sunday after Labor Day. Aunts and Uncles get recognition on July 26. Siblings Day is on April 10, and February 4 is Nieces Day. Interestingly, I did not find a national day for nephews. But I did learn that there is a National Cousins Day, and thus, my effort was not in vain.

How about a shout-out to cousins. Some folks think that they are the closest things to siblings.

Like a friend of mine, some people have only one or two cousins. Depending on one’s extended family size, some have none. Others, like me, have so many first cousins, I couldn’t give a precise count of them if my life depended on it.

I have a large extended family. Each of my parents had at least nine siblings that I am aware of, and those siblings produced a tribe of children. (Need I say that was in the days before the birth control pill?) My cousins on the paternal and maternal side could probably fill all the seats in the Apollo Theater.

I don’t know all of my blood-relative first cousins (firsties) as much as I wish I knew. I can do reasonably well naming those in my age group; many of us grew up and played together. But some of their siblings – I wouldn’t know them if I bumped into them on the street, nor do I know many of my cousins’ children. My children and my cousins’ children are second cousins. Unfortunately, unlike many of my first cousins and me, a lot of our children don’t know each other. Only with the aid of a genealogical chart would I know some of my first cousins once or twice removed, second cousins and cousins further down the line. I fancy myself as an amateur genealogist but sometimes, trying to figure out who’s who in the family starts my head swimming in the gene pool.

As cousins go, I can name maybe twenty or thirty firsties on both sides of my family. Those would be the ones I grew up with, played with, and with whom I made memories. Give or take a few years; we are in the same age group. And as for my cousins’ children and grandchildren, I couldn’t identify their offspring any more than they could recognize mine. To its credit, social media has helped with this somewhat.

That’s why I believe that regular family reunions are so important; it helps family members bond with the current and younger generation of relatives and stay connected with the elders.

Friendship among cousins often develops when we are children, and sometimes that friendship extends into adulthood. On the other hand, some cousins who were not particularly close during childhood became close when they were grown. Many things contribute to the ongoing relationships between cousins, including similarities in age, how much contact there is between them, and how near they lived to each other.

After all, cousins run the gamut – crazy cousins, kissing cousins, close cousins, distant cousins, and even play cousins. And let’s not exclude cousins-in-law, the spouses of our blood cousins. Who understands the craziness of our family better than cousins? Sometimes cousins are closer than siblings and may even be best friends

One day I came across the following quote. I love it because it is so applicable to my generation of cousins, “A grandparents’ house is where cousins become best friends.” Indeed this was the case for many of my first cousins and me. Some of us rarely see or talk to each other anymore, but when we were youngsters, the grandparents’ house was where we often gathered during summer vacation, and holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So, while many national holidays seem trivial to me, next Saturday, July 24, I must remember to give a shout-out to my cousins in recognition of National Cousin’s Day.

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Pillow Talking

by on ·Insomnia

Tonight is one of those nights. I am sleepless, but not in Seattle. Jesting aside, I don’t know why Tom Hanks’ movie comes to mind when I’m fighting insomnia. It just does. But sleeplessness is no joke. I can be as sluggish as a newborn when I climb into bed for the evening, often around 11 or 11:30; soon afterward, I am out like a light. Sometimes I’m even in dreamland when – wham!  A voice in my head shouts, “Wake the hell up!”

Without looking at the clock, I know, from previous experience, that it is some time past midnight and racing toward dawn. I also know that a sleepless night portends a long, tiresome day to follow.

Unless it is thunder storming, the blackout curtains hanging at the windows in my bedroom are always open at night, and the grayish-white light from the street lamps illuminate the darkened room through the closed blinds.

Two tiny red bulbs glow on the nightstand to the left of my queen-sized bed. One of them is on the cradle holding the landline phone; the other lights the handset. The numbers of the digital clock on the dresser are also scarlet. On a small table, about five feet from the dresser, a two-inch green beam shines on one corner of the cable case, and the router displays a horizontal line of seven pea-sized bright white lights. Near the east side corner of the room, in my bedroom office, the elongated Ikea desk holds the printer. A blue pinhead-sized circle of light on the printer’s front is visible beneath the translucent dust cover, indicating that the machine is in sleep mode. Near the printer is the desktop computer. Its orange-colored on/off button shows that it, too, is snoozing. The array of colored bulbs on the various devices around the room creates a comforting scene of nightlights. It is past the midnight hour, but I am wide awake.

I read somewhere that experts say electronic devices are a source of sleep disruption and should not be in the bedroom. As if to remind me of that, my cell phone on the bookshelf headboard pings, signaling that a text message has arrived. I don’t bother to pick up the phone or check the screen. Instead, I ask my facetious self who the heck is awake and texting in the middle of the night?

Lying on my back in the semi-darkness, I focus my attention on the white blades of the ceiling fan twirling slowly above the foot of my bed. Watching the rotations has a calming effect, and I feel myself drifting off when my writer’s imagination kicks in, and I hear, “Oh, no, you don’t!”

I say:  Go away, insomnia.

She says:  No.

I roll over on my side, hoping to disengage the uninvited guest in my head while envying my out-cold spouse lying beside me. He is sawing logs like Paul Bunyan in a Minnesota forest, and I remember my vow to one day write a story about snoring, snorting, and farts.

As if on cue, she says:  How do you sleep with that noise?

I say:  Get lost.

I grab the rubber earplugs from the shelf on the headboard and place them in my ears. They muzzle the snoring but not enough and don’t silence the voice. I put the earplugs back where they were.

She says:  Girlfriend, think about everything you have to do when you get up tomorrow. Oh, correction, that would be later today. You have a laundry list of chores, starting with washing and drying two loads of clothes. Then, go to the grocery store. And when you get back, don’t forget to dust the furniture, vacuum the floor and clean the stove. It really needs cleaning. By the way, remember to pay the light bill online and while you’re at it, answer your cousin’s email. He wrote you a week ago. It’s too bad that you can’t sleep now because later on, you will be busier than a pickpocket on a New York subway.

I resent the sudden flurry of chaotic activity in my mind.

I say:  Go away and leave me alone.

That doesn’t prevent my thoughts from flipping through a scrapbook of memories, revisiting decades of yesterdays, and contemplating tomorrows. Nothing is off-limits. Trying to shut down my brain only kicks things higher into gear. Some wild and crazy stuff intrudes from out of the blue, like what ifs.

What if a tenant living on the third floor of an apartment building is attempting to install a window air conditioner. Then, the AC unit slips from his grasp. It is falling at warp speed toward an unsuspecting passerby who looks up just as the machine lands with a loud thud on his face knocking him dead. Would the law charge the tenant with involuntary manslaughter or consider it an accident due to gross ineptitude?

Within seconds, my thoughts shift from a hypothetical to a real-life event. I visualize the horror of lying in bed in a Florida condo and being startled awake by the building shaking like it is in the midst of a high magnitude earthquake before collapsing to the ground. The sound of cracking concrete and twisting metal combines with the frightful screams and anxious prayers of victims being swallowed in the rubble. I pray that God will bless the souls of the people who lost their lives and comfort the survivors who loved them.

Flashback — and I am thinking about feeling abandoned by my primary care doctor, who I’ve been with for 30 years. One day I called her office to make an appointment, and a staff member told me that the doctor is on leave. A few weeks later, I called again and got the same answer. It’s been nearly two years now since my favorite doctor has been in her office. Each time I call her there, I receive the same lame remark that she is on leave. If she retired just say so. My questions about when she will return go unanswered. On one occasion, the staffer at the group facility that my doctor joined about a year before deserting us patients suggested that I could see another doctor. Like a temperamental kid, I refused. I DON’T WANT ANOTHER DOCTOR. I want my doctor. She knows my history. Sometimes she even asked how my children and grandchildren were doing, and I inquired about her family. We are like old friends. She is gone, I tell myself, stop overthinking the situation. 

My random thoughts begin subsiding, and sleep is creeping back.

But then I hear her say:  Unh-uh. No, you don’t.

I ignore her. Reaching over to the nightstand, I grab my iPod, place the buds in my ears, and from my playlist, select Mahalia Jackson singing her beautiful rendition of Trouble of the World. When the song ends, my nemesis returns.

She says:  How’d that work for you?

I’ve grown sick and tired of kickin’ it with insomnia and bite my tongue to keep from shouting profanity. I finally steal a glance at the clock. It’s 3:30 a.m.

I say:  You win. As she vanishes until the next time, I do what I often do when visited by the nocturnal pest; I climb out of bed and find something to occupy my mind. On this morning I consider — I could dust the furniture or clean the stove. But Nah. Not today. I have a better idea. I walk to the other room, open my laptop and compose this post.

 

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Resurrecting Memories for Legacy II (revised)

by on ·Genealogy

My parents once lived in this cabin. Photo taken by Dwayne White in 2013. ©

 

This is a revised version of a previous post.

Curiosity drives some of us to become amateur genealogists because we enjoy learning about our ancestors and distant kinfolk. We also appreciate the importance of family history and want to preserve the information for future generations.

I was blessed to be the first of Hattie Staton, my maternal grandmother’s, 21 grandchildren. Although circumstances, like birth order, sometimes work against us, being the first-born grandchild also has its advantages. We tend to remember things that our younger siblings and cousins may not recall or may never have known.

The process of writing my second book is awakening memories of distant relatives and my interactions with them.

Rhea Williams was the first cousin to my Grandma Hattie (who we called Maw). I recall meeting Cousin Rhea only twice. Both meetings occurred when I was a very young girl, probably not even eight, and Cousin Rhea was in the winter of her life. I initially met my cousin when my mother took me to visit her home on the outskirt of Oak City, North Carolina. She lived in a tiny cabin down the road from grandma’s place. (Although I’ve been unable to confirm it, I was told that it was the same cabin my parents had lived in for a short while before they moved to DC.)

I suspect that mother was preparing me for the visit when she told me before we arrived that Cousin Rhea was partially blind. A frail-looking, slow-moving woman greeted us at the door and invited us into her dimly lit one-room home. Cousin Rhea’s body was stooped by age then, and thin strands of white hair puffed around her head. Childhood curiosity led me to rudely stare at her, curious to see what a blind eye looks like. I decided that the sightless eye must have been the one that was fully closed as if it were sleeping, the other eye was partially open.

Cousin Rhea appeared to be a kind woman; she smiled at me while reaching one scrawny arm toward me to take my hand, which I refused to extend. “How you doing child?” She asked in a whispery voice. I timidly backed away from her. Clinging to my mother’s side; I pulled on her skirt, concealing my face, and clung to her during the duration of our visit.

The last time I remember seeing my cousin was when her grandson, Perch, dropped her off to visit with our family at our home in Washington, DC. And I’ll never forget what happened the first night that she was there.

It must have been after midnight because everyone in the household had gone to bed and they were probably asleep when I awakened to go pee.

Sluggishly, I climb out of bed and walk toward the bathroom, where I switch on the light and step toward the toilet. I am about to turn around and sit when something on top of the tank catches my eye. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. There is a mason jar partially filled with water, and resting near the bottom of that jar is an eyeball.

For a second, as I am standing there, I think I’m dreaming. I stare in wide-eyed disbelief at the lidless eye in the jar. The eye stares at me. I stare back at it. Never in my young years have I seen an eyeball that wasn’t in someone’s face. The sight transfixes me until my imagination fools me into thinking that the eye is moving. Now it is floating to the surface.

Suddenly, wide awake, I switch off the bathroom light and sprint like the Road Runner fleeing Wile E. Coyote back to my bed. I throw the covers over my head, and until I fall asleep, I lay there shivering and praying that I won’t wet the bed because there is no way I am going back in there until daylight.

The following day when mother and I are alone, Cousin Rhea may have still been sleeping; I ask her about the eye in the glass in the bathroom. She says that’s Cousin Rhea’s glass eye and then explains that the artificial eye replaces Cousin’s natural eye and that she removes it each night before going to sleep. Although I accepted my mother’s explanation, my young mind refused to comprehend, and I left many questions unasked. Where does someone find a glass eye? Do you buy them at the grocery store? How do you put it in and take it out? Can the glass eye see me?

As an adult, looking back on what then was a chilling experience but is now an amusing memory, I decided to do some research on glass eyes. I was surprised to learn that the first in-socket artificial eyes were made as early as the 15th century. And contrary to what the naive little girl believed, a prosthetic eye (as they are now commonly called) cannot restore vision. It is merely for cosmetic purposes.

Today, a custom prosthetic eye cost will run you somewhere between $2000-$8000. If you are lucky, health insurance will cover the cost. Recently, my out-of-curiosity search on eBay found glass eyes selling for as little as $30.

I don’t know the cost of Cousin Rhea’s glass eye. I suppose they were less expensive back then. According to a now-deceased family member, the county welfare department paid for Cousin’s eye.

You are probably as curious as I was to know how Cousin Rhea lost her eye. Over time, narratives tend to get distorted, but I will retell the story as it was told to me.

One day Cousin Rhea was visited by a circuit preacher as they were sometimes called back then. During the act of blessing her, the preacher poured oil on Cousin’s head. I wonder if he was attempting to follow the Scripture that reads, “Thou anointest my head with oil.” I don’t know. Anyway, some of the oil rolled down Cousin’s forehead into one eye. (I imagine that must have burned like hell.) Not to make light of the issue, but the blessing apparently did not cover the eye that got the oil because it cost Cousin her sight.

I don’t know who, if any, of my cousins or siblings remembers Cousin Rhea. Although my memories of her are vague, memories of her grandson, Perch, are more vivid. He lived in DC as we did and I remember him often visiting my parents at our family home, and in later years, when I was married, he, his wife, Martha, and their two children lived about half a mile from my home in Suitland, Maryland.

Perhaps someday in the future, after I am gone, if one of my kinfolks decides to do a family genealogy study, this tidbit of information about Cousin Rhea and Perch will be helpful.

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