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

Browsing Category Opinion

My Opinion on topics

Pushing Up Daisies

by on ·Aging, Funeral Services, Life and Death, Opinion, The Way I See It

I’m sitting here thinking about putting a light spin on what is a dark part of every one of our lives. It’s something that no one wants to discuss. That unwelcome visitor that everyone knows is coming who makes us want to snatch the welcome mat from in front of our door. That one-way trip that we will all take eventually whether we want to go or not. That journey to the valley of death.

Since I’ve got more years behind me than before me, I’ve been giving the subject a lot of thought. Certainly, after I fall into the big sleep, I won’t have a say over anything concerning my former self, so I am herein expressing my last wishes for funeral and burial.

Before I continue with details, let me reiterate what I have often said – that I hate attending funerals and avoid them when I can. But as we all know there is one funeral that we won’t miss. Our own.

About funeral-goers. I put them into three categories. First, there are the truly bereaved mourners who have lost a loved one, relative, or friend. Second are the curious, casual acquaintances of the deceased whose ulterior motive for attending the funeral is to get a copy of the program, with the hope of learning things that they didn’t already know about the deceased. The third group attends funerals because it is a social gathering. During the hour or two, while they are attending the service and the repast, it breaks-up the monotony of their otherwise mundane life. I’m not judging. I’m just calling it as I see it.

Skepticism aside, we all have limited time on earth. Before my time comes to be the grim reaper’s reluctant guest of honor, I want to make my last wishes known to my family. And family, don’t feel guilty if you do not comply with these requests because as I’ve learned over the years not everyone’s last wish is granted. It is the living, not the dead who have the final say over the dead body. I’ll give you an example.

After mother died, a few days before her funeral service, my sister and I carried the outfit for her to be buried in to the funeral home. On the day of the funeral, I arrived shortly before the wake was scheduled to start. When I looked in the casket, I was beyond upset. Mother’s chemo-thinned, silvery hair had been nicely pressed, curled, and styled, BUT that was not the issue. She had worn a wig for years before she died, and while on her deathbed, when she was suggesting to my sister and me which outfits we could bury her in, she said, “And don’t forget my wig.”

We had placed the wig neatly on top of the clothing in the bag before carrying it to the funeral home. The undertaker’s grave mistake was that he or she inadvertently forgot to put mother’s wig on her head. That’s what I mean when I say that the dead don’t always get their last wish fulfilled, but there was a twist to this.

Mother’s wig was ultimately retrieved by the undertaker after the first service and was placed on her head before her body was transported over 200 miles away for a graveside ceremony and burial in her hometown. My cousin, who had attended the first service and then followed the hearse to the burial site, later told me that when the casket was opened for the graveside service, she was surprised to see mother was wearing her wig.

I repeat. I do not want an open casket funeral. I don’t want people walking up to my casket gawking over me and then later telling others how I looked. I know that people mean well, but during my lifetime, I have heard (and overheard) too many obtuse comments made about dead people.

“Ms. Estelle sure looked nice. She had on a hat and gloves, dressed like she was going to church. They even had her usher pin on her lapel.”

Or here’s another one, “LaQuita looked good in that white casket. Her weave was tight, and that purple eye shadow matching her lavender shirt was nice. Her boyfriend should not have did that to her.”

It is the female corpses that get scrutinized most, but occasionally comments are made about the males. “Why did they bury Mr. Johnson in his glasses? It’s not like he’ll be able to see where he’s going.”

Undertakers deserve credit for doing their best to make corpses presentable. Still, the thoughtless remarks that some people make after the services bothers me. The sad fact is that no matter how well they are laid out, the bodies of dead people look just like what they are – lifeless and dead. Nothing more. Nothing less. And I say that with much respect.

Like every other corpse, I will have no control over what I am wearing, how my hair is combed or whether my lips have been fixed to look like I am smiling on the way to eternity or pissed off because I am in the land of the dead. Therefore, I repeat, I do not want an open casket funeral. Sadly, I make that request knowing full well that I won’t have the last word about that. You, my family, will.

I tell you what, let’s not have a funeral for me. Services and headstones are expensive. Use that life insurance money for something else. Cremate me. I don’t care. Cremation is cheaper, and think, in the future, you’ll be able to truthfully tell your friends that I had a smoking hot body.

And another thing. I’ve seen insensitive people take pictures of the deceased when they go to view the body. Not only do I think that is inappropriate, but it is downright disrespectful to the family and the deceased. The deceased deserve the dignity of going to their final resting place without a photo op.

If you have a service for me, please call it a funeral. Do not call it a homegoing. I know that term is popular and frequently used. But I never liked it. I understand the concept of homegoing to a heavenly home. But when I think of home going I envision myself taking out my key, unlocking the door, and walking into the place where I live, not transported in a hearse to a cemetery.

In the great scheme of things, we are all insignificant. When and how we are born into this world is the luck of the draw. We have no say in the matter. Who will be our birth parents? Was our birth planned and eagerly anticipated or a fluke? Will we be born a rich child, into a wealthy family, or a poor child in poverty? How we fare in life is a game of chance, and it is pretty much the same when we depart. We don’t know when or how we will leave here. Natural causes. Murder. Accident. Suicide. It’s paramount to live our best life and celebrate it now. When we come here, how long we stay, and when we leave is not a choice.

The Bible prophesizes, and people can speculate all they want, but who on earth can say for sure what happens to us after we die? Christians believe that depending on how we live; we will ultimately ascend to a heavenly home or spiral down into a hellish abyss. Who knows? The hereafter is as perplexing as the present day and time. The goal, oh yeah, and a song you can play at my service if you wish is Stayin’ Alive.

This composition began as a personal letter to my family, but while writing it, I decided to post an alternate version with the hope that it might make someone smile about a subject that is often taken deathly seriously.

2 Comments

Bullets and Bibles

by on ·General, Gratitude, Opinion, Safety

It was early afternoon, a few days ago. I was sitting at the computer in my home office near the window that faces a quiet intersection in our usually serene neighborhood. As I often do during a lull in creative thought, I lean back in my chair, fold my arms behind my head, clasp my fingers together, and thank God for all of my blessings. Suddenly all hell broke loose outside. The silence was shattered by a barrage of what sounded like loud gunshots at least a dozen, maybe two.

Immediately, I did what any cognizant city-dweller would do. I leaped headlong out of my chair onto the carpeted floor. And then it happened again. More shots rang out, only not as many. Unlike the initial volley, this round sounded muffled.

I lay there for a few minutes waiting to hear a blood-curdling scream or at least frantic cries for help. Nothing. As I slowly pushed myself to my knees, the humorist in me had a comedic moment. I thought about the television commercial that shows an elderly person prone on the floor crying, “Help! I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.”

Fortunately, I could get up, but before I stood, I crawled over to the open window and listened intently. Cars sounded like they were passing along the street at normal speed, not burning rubber speeding away. Some youngsters were laughing across the street near the Charter school. It seemed safe to peek through the Venetian blinds so I did so, all the while praying that a bullet would not crash through the window and shoot me in the eye. As far as I could see – down the street, across the street near the community garden, everything looked normal. People, apparently unshaken by the temporary disturbance, were walking along going about their business. The police precinct is at the end of the block. I figured if those were bullets that I had heard flying, there would have been cops and police cars with flashing lights all over the place.

Later that day, I mentioned the incident to a neighbor who told me that she had just walked outside heading to her car when she heard the first volley and saw smoke coming from the side of the building. “I hauled it back inside as fast as I could.” She said. We concluded that the incident was caused by some wisecrackers, probably school kids who thought it would be fun to set off fireworks and scare the bejeebers out of folks in our sedate neighborhood.

The fear of having to dodge bullets is one of the perils of living in the city; the suburbs are not exempt either. Sadly, many people everywhere don’t feel completely safe anywhere. We live in a state of trepidation.

Facts have shown that it is as easy to be struck by a bullet when you are inside your home as when you are outside. How often do we hear news reports about a bullet crashing through the wall or window of someone’s home and striking an unsuspecting person inside like 12-year-old Badr Elwaseem who was shot and killed while watching TV or the 21-year-old woman whose head was grazed by a bullet that crash into her home while she was sleeping in bed?

Inside schools. At the mall. In church. In today’s violent and chaotic society all sites are fair game for callous persons with weapons. It doesn’t matter where you are when danger arrives, and that reality is emotionally draining.

*           *           *

When you are retired, you know that you have entered into the final chapter of your life. (Don’t let that statement rattle you. It’s true. Accept it. I do.) Every morning when I awake to see a new day, I thank God. As I revealed earlier, I give thanks for all things – big and small – all the time. For every breath that I take. I give thanks.

Some people keep what is called a gratitude journal. Psychology researchers assert the advantage of maintaining a gratitude journal. Their studies indicate that there are psychological and physical health benefits that come from the simple act of writing down the things for which we are grateful; even simple things like being in good health or having a comfortable bed to sleep in at night instead of on a park bench or cold concrete sidewalk. When I can sit down at my computer and write out a blog post within an hour, instead of a stressing over it for days with several rewrites, I say “Thank you, God.”

A growing anti-religious bias makes some people feel like criminals for saying the word, God. Some of you reading this post probably cringed every time you saw the word on this page. I don’t regularly write my appreciation in my journal, but whether I write it or say it in my mind expressing gratitude has become as normal for me as breathing.

As I’ve often said, I don’t support organized religion, but I believe in God, and I express gratitude continuously. Today I thank that Higher Power for the realization that what I heard outside my home the other day were not gunshots. Not that time anyway.

Good and evil. God and guns. Bullets and bibles. Those are the facts of life.

 

 

0 Comments

Seeking Senior Bloggers

by on ·Aging, Blogging, Opinion, Retirement, Technology, Word Press

Have you ever said to yourself, “I’d love to be a blogger, if only I knew where to begin? I don’t even know how to use a computer.”

According to The Pew Research Center out of 500 million bloggers, less than 1 percent are age 65 and over. Bloggers in the 21-to-35-year-old demographic group account for over 53 percent of the total blogging population, followed by 19 percent who are 36-to-50-years-old. But enough boring statistics and more about the sparse number of senior bloggers.

I am in the 1 percent. No, not that 1 percent, the “less than” group identified by Pew. Before the door of opportunity opened 12 years ago, I had no plans to include blogger on my resume. Then, one day a friend suggested, “Why not augment your love for writing and create your own blog?” Thus, post-retirement, I birthed my second career and added personal blogger to freelance writer and published author.

In addition to writing a blog, I study them. I’ve found that the gazillion younger than 50-year-old bloggers tend to write about fashion, politics, health & fitness, music & entertainment and technical devices. Although some senior bloggers tackle those same subjects, the majority of posts written by seniors concern elder lifestyles and the challenges of advancing years. Many of their posts have titles about subjects that very young readers would call old people stuff. Healthy Aging (translation:  avoiding the decrepit zone). Fighting Aging (Good luck with knocking that out). Defying the Aging Process (enter Botox and plastic surgery). And the topic that none of us old-schoolers want to discuss, the one that keeps most of us in denial – Funeral Planning (Think Dreamgirls, “And I am telling you, I’m not going.”).

Anyone who retired in let’s say the last 15-20 years who did not learn computer skills while they were in the workforce, I will bet you my best friend’s social security check that some of them are not inclined to do so now. Sadly, I know mature people who not only lack computer skills, but some think that a hard drive is being on the road for two hours or more without making a rest stop.

For seniors who want to learn to compute – it is not too late. There are basic computer classes available everywhere. It seems pointless to ask someone who may not own a computer and lacks computer skills to check on-line for computer classes, although a tablet or smartphone might suffice. But you could ask a computer-savvy friend to help you search online, or inquire about classes at a library near you. Some libraries offer free computer classes that provide hands-on training to adults. AARP offers tech training for people 50 years and older.

Seniors, you need to get that training and start blogging so that we can increase our numbers in the blogosphere. There are plenty of things to blog about:  sports, travel, food, name it and claim it. And of course, there is the personal blog.

I enjoy being a personal blogger. That’s my forte’. However, I offer some words of caution to potential personal bloggers. Share your thoughts at your discretion.

Before jumping in with both feet, think of personal blogging as swimming nude at a public pool. Your posts will be as exposed as a naked swimmer on a diving board. It is one thing to log your personal experiences and private thoughts in a diary, but another to publish something on-line that the whole world can see. Be forewarned. Accept that putting yourself out there, placing your thoughts on display will open you up to criticism and as well as complements. But don’t let the fear of criticism deter you. Life is too short to worry about what others will say about you. Do your thing – with style and humor – and give them something to talk about.

Here are some basic tips on getting started with your blog.

  • Choose a domain name. The domain is the address of your website that people type in the browser’s URL bar to visit your site. Imagine that your website is your home and think of the domain name as your address. I chose Potpourri101 because it suggests a variety or mixture of subjects, not just old folk stuff. In the American university course numbering systems 101 often designates a course for beginners in a particular subject. Thus, potpourri101. (A blog can be set up with or without a unique domain name depending on who is hosting your site.)
  • To make your website accessible to other people on the Internet, you need a “host.” The web host provides the technologies and services required for the webpage to be viewed on the Internet. It will store all of your website files:  code, text, images, video, etc, on servers.
  • Get a blog platform. A blogging platform is a software or service that you use to publish your content. There are many platforms, but I like WordPress because it offers numerous free blog themes. Imagine having an interior designer decorate your home. The theme is the appearance or decoration, so to speak, of your website. You may want to check out Godaddy.com or SiteGround.com as sources that host WordPress sites. A downloadable copy of an excellent book WordPress for Absolute Beginners can be found here.

After you get everything in order, write, write, write on your blog! It will expand your horizons.

In the process of exchanging comments and emails about some of my posts, I’ve made friends with other bloggers as well as readers who are not bloggers. And lest you think that the lot of them are old fogies, they are not. Many of them are as young as you – or as young as you think you are.

I hope this post will encourage other seniors who may have scratched “become a blogger” off of their list. We’re waiting for you to join us. Just do it!

 

 

0 Comments

My Thoughts of Mumia Abu-Jamal

by on ·Activism, Opinion, The Way I See It

The following post was written by Kathleen Flax, Guest Author. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this post are those of Ms. Flax and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher of this blog.

 

 

After viewing “Long Distance Revolutionary,” a documentary about Mumia Abu-Jamal, I felt compelled to express some of my thoughts as presented below.

I spent an afternoon researching a black man named Mumia Abu-Jamal. He is a man who is well known by many Philadelphians.

Mumia was a radio disc jockey for a hometown favorite station, WDAS. He was also a journalist and an outspoken activist for the black community. He became a visible and openly staunch supporter in Philadephia for what was labeled by the city as a “radical organization” known as MOVE.

In 1981, Mumia was convicted of the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. He was subsequently tried and sentenced to death. The incidents surrounding the murder of Officer Faulkner at the hands of Mumia has always been shrouded by controversy. There were and still are firmly held beliefs, allegations, and theories of a police conspiracy and a cover-up.

What I remember from the report is that Mumia was driving a taxi cab to supplement his income. During one early morning, while driving the cab, he happened upon a scuffle and could see that some Philly police officers were beating his brother. It was reported that he exited his taxi cab and ran to the aid of his brother. What transpired between all of the individuals involved in that scuffle, continues to remain an ongoing discussion and has been debated by many individuals over several decades.

What remains factual, is that the lives of all of the subjects involved in that unfortunate incident:  the Philadelphia Police Department, Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, his brother, and several eyewitnesses, were forever altered.

My heart is torn and saddened by all that I have read regarding Mumia and the untimely death of Officer Faulkner on the cold streets of Philadelphia. Perhaps it is because I am myself the child of a former Philadelphia Police Officer. My father worked those same streets as Officer Faulkner.

I have read the debates, criticisms, and open discussions regarding Mumia and his lengthy imprisonment. I have attempted to decipher the charges lodged against him and the sentence rendered. As I continued doing research on Mumia, I smile.

You see people; I remember Mumia’s voice of yesterday. As stated earlier he was a disc jockey for WDAS radio station in Philly. I was a young adult when his sultry, hypnotic, voice, and the R&B music that he played echoed throughout my home on many Sunday evenings.

From the time he was incarcerated, I have viewed many photographs of Mumia published throughout the years. My mind’s eye has also kept a certain image of him in a safe place, taking me selfishly back to a simpler, peace-filled time in my own life and small world. I have a self-made poster of Mumia hanging on the wall of my home not far from where I sit as I compose these thoughts.

I created the poster from a flier that I took off of a telephone pole in Philadelphia. The flier was asking Philly citizens for support for an upcoming “free Mumia rally” which was being held sometime in the late eighties. The poster that I created of Mumia has traveled many miles and over thirty years with me. To this day, I continue to hope and pray for Mumia’s exoneration of the charges lodged against him and his ultimate release from prison.

As I gazed upon that photograph of Mumia today on my computer screen, his picture reminded me of another photograph. Ironically, the other photograph was of another incarcerated black activist and lawyer named Nelson Mandella. From the time I was a young child until I was a grown woman, I held an image of Nelson Mandela etched in my mind. I remembered him as he stood tall, round-faced, brawny, a robust forceful looking man. In my eyes, he represented a “true” black man. Mr. Mandella was released in 1990, after serving a twenty-seven-year prison sentence in South Africa. The entire world took notice of his release. His countrymen rejoiced, and his admirers everywhere were elated.

News programs on stations all over broadcast the moment Mandela walked back into freedom. I watched my television with bated breath. Mandela was a heroic icon. Sadly, what I saw when Mr. Mandela walked out of prison caused my heart to immediately sink. I simultaneously became upset, shocked, hurt, and saddened. He who once stood before the world as a tall, brawny, robust man now resembled someone’s elderly grandfather. He was extremely thin, hunched over, gray-haired and was shuffling along with a cane. I cried that day for Nelson Mandella. The flood gates opened, and the tears cascaded down my cheeks. If it were possible to measure them, I’d say that I shed twenty-seven years of tears; and I remember uttering out loud, to no one in particular, “THEY BROKE HIM. THEY BROKE HIM”.

Who would have guessed that this determined, steadfast man, would become his nation’s president after being released from prison? I would be lying if I didn’t say that revelation in itself caught me by surprise a few years later. I still do not fully comprehend how it happened – former activist, lawyer, and prisoner, Nelson Mandela became the president of South Africa.

When I look at side-by-side photos of the young activist, Nelson Mandela and the older President Mandela and then look at photos of a young Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the older man who he is now, my mind screams again, “THEY BROKE HIM. THEY BROKE HIM.” In spite of that sorrow, I smile broadly and refuse to shed tears.

What I have experienced is a personal insight into America. In my opinion, this country still has not learned about the resolute conditioning of the human spirit, the black spirit in particular.

America needs to understand that our physical black bodies are just a vessel. It has been our minds, which you have tried to control, contain, and understand for hundreds of years now, to no avail.

You have beaten, raped, castrated, hung, enslaved, and systematically attempted to destroy our existence since bringing us to these shores. I believe, America, that the thought process of the black man after the tragedy we’ve endured and survived at your red, white, and blue hands have been a factor that you struggle continuously to comprehend. Sadly, I believe your well-documented history of the intentional mistreatment and abuse of the black man, woman, and child, is still acceptable in your country.

I, as well as Mumia Abu-Jamal and the late Nelson Mandela, reside in a world where black people are looked down upon by white people and other races for no other reason than our hue. If anyone should dare to be an outspoken activist towards a nation built on racism and brutality, such as Mumia and Mandela did, there is a chance that they too could face imprisonment; ironically for exercising a human right and one of their Constitutional rights, freedom of speech.

I realize that Mumia is in prison for the alleged murder of a police officer in 1990. However, the question is still being debated here in Philadelphia and around the world in 2019 as to whether or not the entire incident was a set up by the Philadelphia police and Philadelphia politicians to take down an outspoken black activist and journalist.

What became apparent, in my opinion, is that Mumia as a journalist began writing articles and speaking out on the Philadelphia police department’s alleged mistreatment of members of the MOVE Organization. In doing so, he became a target.

When looking at photographs of Mumia and Mandela, I not only reflect on their situations, but on America and her continued mistreatment of black people. Our black heritage and black pride is the one thing that America will never truly understand. Our black honor, black steadfastness, black truths, black beliefs, black strength, black diligence, black resilience, black kindness, black forgiveness, black spirituality, black family, black unity, and our extreme black love for all humankind – that includes even you AMERICA. As wicked and evil as you have been to black people, we still love you.

Our black strengths which you can’t understand nor destroy continues to grow deep and rooted inside of black people. That strength is continuously fed to us by the blood of our ancestors seeping through America’s soil with our every footstep. That particular strength is not external. You will never control or understand its value to us as black people.

1 Comment

Minding Manners

by on ·General, Lifestyle and Culture, Opinion, The Way I See It

When I was a child, my mother taught me that whenever anyone gave me a gift, it was imperative to thank the person for it. If the gift was a face-to-face delivery, a heartfelt thank you might suffice. But if someone took the time to mail me a gift, the least I could do would be to write them a note or send a card expressing my gratitude. I do that to this day.    

I taught that practice of expressing gratitude to my children. And I’ve noticed that many – although not all – people I know who are in my age group were also taught that courtesy while growing up or learned it after they were grown. But from Generation X, the Millennials, Gen Z and on down the line, the courtesy of expressing gratitude in return for a gift, service, or favor is vanishing faster than landline phones.

Are people just out-and-out thoughtless or do they take it for granted that courtesy requires no reciprocal action?

Surely, I am not the only one who remembers that, years ago, if you sent someone a birthday card, a wedding or baby shower present, or even a sympathy card, especially if the card contained a monetary gift, we’d usually receive a thank you card in return. It was rare not to hear anything from the recipient, and frankly, it was considered downright rude. Today count yourself lucky if someone acknowledges having received your gift without you having to ask them if they got it. As I see it, the lack of good manners is just another sign of deteriorating behavior in a society that becomes more uncivil every day.

Lest you make the wrong assumption, I don’t give gifts merely for someone to thank me in return. I do it because either I like the person or want to do something nice for them to recognize a special occasion. But I dislike feeling that my kindness is taken for granted. An acknowledgment is not only the right thing to do, its common courtesy. Unfortunately, I must agree with Whoopi’s implication that we are veering away from a do-right society.

Granted, things get lost in the mail, and packages get stolen off of people’s front porch. But if you live close enough for me to bring an envelope to your home, give it to one of your family members, or slip it beneath your door, then that destroys the “lost mail” defense. And if you do nothing more than holler across the street when you see me, “Hey, I got it!” or give me a thumbs up signal, I might consider that action a bit uncouth, but no acknowledgment is undeniably rude.

The practice of saying thank you is so deep-rooted in me that – you can bank on this – if I receive a gift from someone and do not thank them, then I am either incapacitated or dead.

It’s embarrassing to me to call someone to ask if they received a gift I sent. That’s almost as bad as lending someone something and after months of waiting to have to ask for it back. I can easily overlook giving away a couple of eggs or a cup of sugar, insignificant things like that. Most likely, I’ll say, “Keep it.” But when it comes to lending a household item, let’s say a punch bowl, a hammer, even a book (especially a book) I want it back. It was a loan, not a gift. Judge Judy would attest to that. And wasn’t it Shakespeare who wrote: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be?” But that’s another subject for another day.

Several months ago, I sent a sympathy card containing a check to a long-time neighbor after I learned that her mother had recently died. She didn’t phone or send a thank you note. I’ve seen her in passing at least three times since then and has she ever said thank you? Can a paper doll walk a runway?

We are all busy, so being too busy to say thank you is a lousy excuse, and I’m sure that by now you realize that thoughtless thanklessness of people is one of my peeves. Whether someone holds a door for you or shows kindness in some other way, the least you can do is say thank you. Expressing gratitude is more than just a social nicety it shows civility and reassures others that their gesture was appreciated. That being said – I appreciate you taking the time to read my rant and patronize this blog. Thank you!

0 Comments