Posts Written By L Parker Brown

A Little This ‘n That

We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.” Mary Catherine Bateson ***

I spend a lot of time in introspection. (Yes, Muse, I have better things to do, but I’m writing this right now, so hush.) Lately, I’ve been thinking about school days or, as I prefer, the cute title of Spike Lee’s 1988 film, School Daze. Anyway, wordplay aside, I don’t mind admitting that I was not too fond of school, not any level of K through 12. One exception: kindergarten was okay. I had a beloved kindergarten teacher named Ms. Carrott. It’s incredible that I still remember the names of all my grade school teachers.

It wasn’t the learning that fueled my dislike of school; it was the annoying students who enjoyed picking on other kids. If you were skinny, fat, unattractive, or didn’t have a trendy wardrobe, you were a target. Today, those annoying students are called bullies; back in my day, they were just mean (bad-ass) kids.

I wasn’t the brightest student in any of my classes, and because of negative peer pressure, I didn’t want to appear that way, either. Nobody likes the teacher’s pet. However, because I effortlessly made the honor roll a few times during my school years, I knew I wasn’t the dumbest student either.

Although aggregating classmates were less prevalent in high school, most of the subjects I was required to take were as boring as music in a call queue. My least favorite classes were math – primarily algebra and geometry (Hated it! When have I ever used either of those? Someone tell me when?) Running close behind my disdain for math was U.S. History, U.S. Government, and Science. The Science teacher told us on the first day that to earn a passing grade in his class, we’d have to dissect a frog; otherwise, we’d flunk the course. Not in my wildest imagination could I fathom cutting up any animal, not even a dead one, back then. The thought made me sick to my stomach. I took the F.

My English class was more tolerable, and although diagramming sentences and conjugating verbs stressed me out, I enjoyed writing and literature. It probably helped that I had a secret crush on my English teacher, whose hazel eyes made him look much like a young Harrison Ford when I think about it now. I often babysat his and his wife’s five blond-haired, well-behaved children. My mother told me that several months after I graduated, had married, and moved out of town, he called one day to see if I still babysat. Mother said that when she told him I’d gotten married and moved away, he told her that he wished I’d told him and said that he and his wife would love to have attended my wedding if I had invited them. It was a different world back then, during the tumultuous sixties. I didn’t have a single friend who wasn’t black (that was by chance, not choice), and my thoughts at the time were that a white couple, even one who knew me well, wouldn’t care to attend a black girl’s wedding. (My Muse tells me I am disclosing TMI – too much information. Well, it is what it is, or in this case, it was what it was. Over the years, I’ve made friends of various ethnicities and racial groups, some of whom are as close as kinfolk.)

Although I wouldn’t say I liked the course when I studied U.S. Government in high school, it didn’t prevent me from admiring the people who held influential positions like the U.S. President. My adolescent mind told me that any man who won the presidential election had to be the smartest guy in the land. No women were vying for the job during my high school years. However, during the years after I graduated high school, the “Unbought and Unbossed” New York Representative Shirley Chisholm and Lenora Fulani on the New Alliance Party ticket would run for the highest office. I was registered to vote by then, and having sprouted my activist and quasi-feminist wings, I voted for both women.

As I matured and my interest in government and politics grew, I realized that not all Commanders-in-Chief, throughout history, had been playing with a full deck. Just because they held the title didn’t mean they were stable geniuses. And – not to name names – only God (and perhaps some unidentified co-conspirators) know what twist of fate facilitated the election of the 12-shy-of-a-dozen brain cells, morally bankrupt POTUS in 2016.

That same naïve school girl perceived Supreme Court Justices as the country’s most fair and unbiased citizens. She believed they were nothing less than modern-day King Solomons. After all, didn’t they solemnly swear (or affirm) to “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and the rich,” and blah, blah? Well, so much for idealism. The current court – one woman and six men in black, in particular – that handed immunity to the former joker-in-chief squelched my admiration for SCOTUS.

My school days are decades behind me now. And everybody knows that holding a job title, whether a CEO or POTUS, doesn’t mean you’re incapable of corruption, trickery, and treachery. It doesn’t make you an ethical person, either.

“Learning is not attained by chance; it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.” -Abigail Adams.

 

 

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Remembering and Commemorating the 10th Anniversary

My mother died ten years ago, on the 18th of this month, four months short of her 87th  birthday. She slipped away from us in the early morning on the day before my sister’s birthday.

I miss my mother and I know that’s not unusual. I know people whose mother has been dead 20, 30, 40 years longer than mine, and they periodically repeat the same thing. “I miss my mom.”

It’s been said that time heals all wounds, but the wound left in the heart when a mother dies never heals. It’s always there, oozing like a sore that doesn’t form a scab. I don’t think that anyone who loved and lost their mom (or dad) ever fully recovers. But we go on. Life goes on. We get through the loss, but we don’t get over it.

Sometimes, I imagine that my mother is still with us. When she was alive, we often spoke on the phone two or three times a day. After she died, when I called the phone company to have them disconnect her number, the rep asked me if I would like to have that number. They would switch my current landline number for hers. I thought about it momentarily and then decided I didn’t want it, especially for sentimental reasons, because whenever I had to give it out to someone, memories would resurface.

As I was writing this post and wondering who inherited the phone number that my parents had for decades, I dialed the digits and prepared to say, “Sorry, I dialed the wrong number” to whoever answered. Instead, I was surprised to hear a recording, “The number you dialed is not in service.” For whatever reason, I took comfort knowing that the number remains unassigned even though it’s been ten years, or perhaps someone had it, and it got disconnected. Nevertheless, it isn’t operating.

I long to hear mother’s voice, her melodic laughter, and how she would usually address me using her nickname for me – Lo, or sometimes she’d jazz it up, “Hey, Lo-Mo.”

When she was alive, people often said that we looked more like sisters than mother and daughter. I didn’t see the resemblance then, but now, sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I see my mother in the reflection. She is me, and I am her.

My mom and I did not have a perfect relationship; occasionally, we had disagreements. Sometimes, our differences of opinion angered both of us so much that we would stop talking to each other for days. I remember that our most prolonged silent treatment lasted about two weeks. But discrepancies aside, our good times outnumbered the bad. We enjoyed many shared activities, especially battling on the Scrabble board or playing bid whist with other family members.

Some decades ago, shortly after my then-husband and I had our first child, my mother came to our home to assist me with caring for our newborn. I have the cutest, treasured photo of them that I took one day while watching her tenderly bathe my son. He is looking up at mom, eyes open wide, studying her face intently like a detective studies a crime scene. As I captured the Kodak moment, I thought my son must have been saying to himself, “She looks like my mom, but I’m not sure that is her. No, this is not the same lady who bathed me yesterday. Who is this person?” Mom is smiling and looking down lovingly at her first grandchild as if to say, “Hey there, little man, I’m your grandmother.”

Over the years, my mother frequently talked to me about her father, my granddad. Although he died when she was very young, around 18 or 19, her love for him was apparent in our numerous conversations. As the eldest of my grandparents’ nine children, I suspect my mother remembered more about grandpa’s life than her younger siblings. She often reminisced about how hard her dad worked plowing their farmland. She remembered vividly the day he was kicked in the head by one of the family’s mules as he was shoeing the animal. With blood running down his face, he walked calmly into the farmhouse. Grandma cleaned and bandaged the wound, and grandpa returned to tending the farm. My mother also remembered her mom and siblings sitting attentively in the pews as her dad, a Baptist minister, delivered stirring sermons from the pulpit of local churches on Sunday mornings.

Mother told me two things about her childhood that impressed me more than anything else. One was that her dad baptized her in the mill pond. When I was a child, I saw the mill pond up close on a few occasions, but my Uncle Buddy was the first to take me there to go fishing, and in spite of my squeamishness, he taught me to bait the hook on the fishing rod (using live worms, ilk!!!). Although time might have caused a reimage, in my mind, I still see the mill pond as a scary, darkened lake with floating green slime surrounded by woodland. I remember enjoying the sound of birds but fearing the animals my imagination envisioned lurking near the pond and watching us:  raccoons, bears, frogs, and snakes. Whenever mother would tell me about her baptism (she reiterated it a few times), I would wonder who would want to be dunked into that water where there was the possibility of being nibbled by fish or eels?

The other thing mother enjoyed talking about most was an event that occurred one night after her dad had been hospitalized for some time. She didn’t remember the reason for his hospitalization, just that he got sick, went to the hospital, and stayed there a while. Then, one wintery night, mother awoke around midnight and, feeling extremely cold, reached down to pull grandma’s handmade quilt, and the other covers up closer around her neck. Suddenly sensing a presence, she looked toward the foot of the bed and saw her dad standing there. Although the glow from the wood-burning stove against the wall behind him illuminated his silhouette in the otherwise pitch-black room, she said she could clearly see his face.

Her six-foot tall, handsome, muscular 44-year-old dad was wearing one of his Sunday go-to-meeting suits. Mother said that she felt confused in her grogginess and wondered how her dad could be there when he was supposed to be in the hospital. Then, she surmised that perhaps he had come home that evening after the family had gone to bed and was going throughout the house checking on the well-being of his wife and children.

Mother said that he was there for only a few seconds. She stared at him and thinks she might have said, “Daddy?” He smiled, slowly raised his hand to wave at her, and vanished. I once asked mother if she might have dreamt that event. She said she didn’t think so. It happened. Strangely, the following day, as the family was preparing to eat breakfast, they received a message from the hospital in Wilson, informing them that their family patriarch had died the previous evening. Mercy Hospital (formerly called the Wilson Hospital and Tubercular Home) was the only hospital that served the Black community of East Wilson, North Carolina, at that time.

A few years ago, when I began researching our family genealogy, I learned from my grandpa’s Death Certificate that his cause of death was pulmonary tuberculosis.

So many things remind me of my mother. Whenever I see poinsettias at Christmastime, I think of her because she once told me how beautiful she thought poinsettias were. Thereafter, for many Christmases, I sent her a large poinsettia. (Eventually, there came a time when she stopped celebrating Christmas and other so-called Pagan holidays. I still sent the flower.)

When I was a little girl, I would hear mother sometimes singing lines from Billie Holiday’s God Bless the Child while doing housework. If she were alive to read this, she’d tell you, “I tried to sing,” because mother didn’t believe she could carry a tune. Still, whenever I hear that song , regardless of the artist singing it, it reminds me of my mother.

I miss mother most when I want to tell her something or discuss a special occasion. There are so many family events that have occurred during the past decade that I’m sorry she missed, like the wedding of her first great-grandson. On the other hand, there are things that I’m glad she didn’t have to go through, like the COVID pandemic.

I’m dedicating this to my mama from her four children.

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Multiplying Karma x 34

The first time I cried tears of joy over an event involving a politician was on November 4, 2008, when Barack Obama was elected 44th President of the U.S. The second time was Thursday, May 30, 2024, when I saw the words “Breaking News – Guilty” appear on my television screen. Bold white letters on a blood-red background never looked so delicious.

While the jury deliberated for nine hours, I had refused to build my hopes that they’d come back with a single guilty verdict, let alone 34. I haven’t forgotten the disappointment and disbelief, the gut punch I felt on the evening of November 8, 2016, when the election results were announced.

As is my habit, my TV is almost always tuned to MSNBC. It doesn’t matter if I’m working on my computer, reading, or doing housework; my favorite all-news channel is always on. So, of course, I’d been following the hush-money trial of the wannabe dictator. On Thursday, when I learned that the jury had reached a verdict, I began hyperventilating like a Mega Millions ticket holder who realized she matched all the winning numbers.

During the time before the verdict was announced, I busied myself to calm my nerves. I watered my houseplants, dusted the furniture, grabbed the vacuum, and started vacuuming the carpet – for a second time that day while keeping my eyes on the screen. And fearful that there might be an acquittal or some other undesirable quirk of fate, I kept reminding myself of a familiar quote, “Expect nothing and be surprised.” That’s what I did. This typically positive thinker took a time out from optimism because I was determined not to be blind-sided again—no more Deja’ vu.

Over the drone of the vacuum cleaner, I thought I heard Ari Melber say, “Count one, guilty. Count two, guilty.” I turned off the Hoover and turned up the volume.

“Say what, now?” I said to the TV.

When Ari said, “Guilty on all 34 felony counts,” I let out a whoop and began jumping up and down like a holy roller shouting in a Baptist church. Suddenly, in my mind, I could hear the Isley Brothers singing one of my favorite oldies, Shout. “Throw your hands up and shout. Don’t forget to say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”

In a short time thereafter, the TV pundits begun opining about the sentence that could be rendered on July 11 – he could get probation, home confinement, imprisonment or something else. If people in the know are to be believed the outcome of this chapter could be another fluke in The Life and Times of Don-the-Con.

Every imperfect but right-minded component in my body screams, “Please, please, please, lock him up.” But then I rationalize. Imprisonment? That’s probably highly unlikely. How would they manage that – jail his secret service team with him? A Big Mac chance of that happening.

I have no choice but to do like everyone else does, wait and see what happens on July 11.

“If you can make it through the night, there’s a brighter day.” Thank you, Tupac, for the point of light.

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Playing the B’s like the Dozens

Playing the Dozens is a familiar term to many Black people, particularly the older generation. It’s a verbal game popularized in urban ghettoes and played mostly by black males back in the day. The participants try to one-up and insult each other using spoken creativity. The most potent offense often involves one opponent dissing the other’s mother. For example, “Your mother is so old she was the waitress at the Last Supper.”

Activist and Black Panther Party Minister H. Rap Brown wrote in his memoir about playing the Dozens, “We played the Dozens for recreation like white folks play Scrabble.”

I thought about the Dozens recently when Civil Rights lawyer and outspoken Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett delivered a backhanded clapback to far-right MAGA Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene after Greene insulted Rep. Crockett’s appearance during a House Oversight Committee meeting a few days ago when she said “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up your reading.”

Like many people, I am familiar with Greene’s uncouth, atrocious antics, but when I saw her latest stunt, my first thought was, OMG! No, she didn’t! And then I said to myself, “Georgia Gal, you messed with the wrong black woman.”

Rep. Crockett had had enough. She ignored the advice of former first lady Michelle Obama. We all remember her philosophy, “When they go low, we go high.”

Er, nope! Rep. Crockett did not go high. She responded in kind. Because I have the utmost respect for the gentlelady from Texas, I will say this in a way that I hope will not denigrate her:  without removing her earring, Ms. Crockett went straight up hood on the Georgian. She turned to Committee Chairman James Comer and said, “I’m just curious, just to better understand your ruling. If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”

The chairman seemed stupefied. And did I imagine it, or did I see Rep. Jamie Raskin stifling a smile?

Without breaking the House decorum rule, Rep. Crockett had coolly and indirectly let loose a swarm of B’s on Greene:  Bleached Blonde Bad Built Butch Body. Greene never saw it coming. She was dumbstruck. And although she would probably never admit it, those B stings will last a long time.

Rep. Crockett’s clever retort is all over the Internet. Songwriters have rhythmized the phrase. Podcasters, YouTube, and comedians are capitalizing on it. Esty sellers market the Bs on tee shirts, tank tops, coffee mugs, wine glasses, hoodies, pinback buttons, and who knows what else.

Although I don’t particularly like fanning the flames, I get sick and tired of disrespect, and I like it when I see someone get as much as they give. Thank you, Rep. Crockett.

And lest you think it’s a racial thing where African Americans are the only ones riding this B wave. Watch and enjoy this video.

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Flashing Back to School Days

While dusting the volumes in my bookcase recently, guess what I discovered? Never mind guessing, I’ll tell you. It was my junior high school autograph book. I thought I had lost the 4-by-5 ½ paperback long ago, but there it was, squeezed like a dwarf between two hardcover biographies of historical giants Paul Robeson and Frederick Douglass. I was as happy by that find as I am when I unexpectedly discover a 20-dollar bill folded inside my jeans pocket. The pastel-colored pages of the little book have faded, and the front cover is missing, but most of the inscriptions of my former schoolmates are still legible. Only some scribbled in pencil are hard to read.

Days before graduating from Garnet Patterson Junior High School in 1963 (Okay, you can stop doing the math now.), I had purchased that autograph book, anticipating that cute remarks, witty jokes, and heartfelt well-wishes written by my classmates and some favorite teachers would fill the pages.

I carried the little book to another bookcase, where I removed a larger-sized autograph book. That one was signed by my peers from Dunbar High School. It has been years since I opened either of those books.

I brought my two keepsakes to the dining room table, sat down, and began perusing the pages. I wonder if today’s graduating students still maintain the tradition of signing autograph books at the end of the school year, or has that, like many traditions, become a thing of the past in this age of Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and text messaging?

As I reread some of my junior and high school classmates’ messages, some seemed silly from the vantage point of age and maturity. Others revived pleasant memories of school days. Space won’t allow me to include many of the entries here, but I’ve listed some of my favorites below:

“To a nice chick. May you have the best of luck as you go thru (sic) life.” Ronnie Reece wrote that one. Following his message, Ronnie sketched a stick person walking through the years 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, and 1968. I remember that Ronnie was tall, handsome, and had a wonderful sense of humor.

Ponder “Mr. Soul” White wrote, “Good luck all the time.” Between the words “the” and “time,” he drew a large clock. Nice guy, Ponder.

I met Valerie Blackstone (nicknamed Val) in junior high school. She also attended Dunbar and remained my lifelong friend until she died in 2004. Her entry was a corny rhyme: “On the day of your graduation, you will receive an invitation from the board of education to increase the population. Do you dig this situation? A friend always, Val.” I imagine today’s contemporary teens would write that verse using more provocative language.

Adele Thomas and I grew up across the street from each other. After graduation, she married her high school sweetheart, Francis Smith, another Dunbar student. During Dunbar’s 35th class reunion, they were still married, and I suspect they remain together today. Adele wrote this. “The way to be seen is to stand up. The way to be heard is to speak up. The way to be appreciated is to shut up. Good luck.” Considering I was as quiet as a church mouse throughout my school years, I took her words to heart. With much determination in the years following graduation, I became the outspoken person some people wish would sit down and shut down.

Katherine E. Stanley, I remember being much more mature than other girls at school. True to her demeanor, she penned this, “Let your life be like arithmetic. Joys added. Sorrows subtracted. Friends multiplied. Love undivided. McKinley Tech bound.”

Another nice guy, Stephen Bennett, wrote, “To a very sweet girl. I wish you much luck in your future years.”

Harry Gough was one of our class’s brightest and most popular students. If I remember correctly, he always wore a suit to school, and I think some students considered him a nerd. I would not be surprised to learn that he became a college professor. He wrote “Best of Luck.”

I’ve maintained contact with some former alums, like Phillip Stevens. I knew Phil before high school, just like I did Val. We three have history. We were mutual friends, playmates, and schoolmates. Phil was another ambitious and active student. In addition to being a member of the military band, he was quite the athlete on Dunbar’s football and baseball teams. Besides our lifelong friendship, Phil is one of my dear Facebook friends. He wrote in my junior high book, “A friend of Val’s is a friend of mine,” and in my high school yearbook, “Always remember your junior and high school friend.” I always will.

Another athlete, Mevin Caldwell inscribed, “May God ever be with you and help you in everything you try to do.”

My namesake, Loretta Gaines, was also a bestie. She, Val, and I had our own clique. Loretta wrote, “To my favorite sister. Always stay as sweet and cool as you are. Wishing you the best of luck.”

Schoolmates weren’t the only ones who signed my books. Some of my relatives had their say. One cousin, Velda Parker, wrote, “Remember me. I’m the one who loves you.”

Some of the graduation cards I received remain tucked inside the back cover of my High School Yearbook. One came from Uncle Lucky and Aunt Jennie, another from Uncle Alton and Aunt Imogene. And then – there is the one from my then pen pal (who would become my husband two years later). I was a senior in high school, and he was in the U.S. Air Force, serving the second of his four-year enlisted service in Germany. The graduation card he sent me contained the answer to the question I asked in the last letter I sent him before graduating. “No, I’m so sorry, I can’t return stateside to take you to the prom.”

As shy as I was in school, this former shrinking violet would have blossomed while attending the prom with my military beau wearing his dress blues.

My mom wrote the most memorable prose in my autograph book. I’ve been unable to learn the author of that verse, but the words will remain with me forever:  “Dear Daughter,  Remember, wherever you be, be noble. Whatever you do, do well. Whenever you speak, speak kindly. Bring joy wherever you dwell. Love Mother.”

After reading my way down memory lane, I returned both books to the bookcase. Those school days seem like a hundred years ago. Come to think of it, it’s darn near close!

 

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