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

When the Sibling Bough Breaks

by on ·Family, Sibling Rivalry, Siblings

“Death brings out the best and the worst in families.”

“Mom always liked you best” was the signature line that Tommy Smothers hurled at his brother, Dick, during The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour that aired in the late 1960s. The brothers told interviewers that their on-stage rivalry was simply part of the comedy act. But it is no joke that numerous siblings everywhere feel that they are the least favored child in their family. Some reports reveal that sibling rivalry is more common among children who are the same gender and close together in age. It doesn’t matter who your brother or sister is, sibling rivalry knows no boundaries; not social class, economic status, race/ethnicity, or culture.

Loving parents want to see affection between their children. If a mother recognizes that there is ill will between them, she will often intervene to try and mend the bridge. Unfortunately, after the mother dies, the rivalry among siblings that began in childhood, could continue through adolescence and extend into old age. It is not uncommon to find adults who have severed contact with their sibling, but that is a secret that many people don’t like admitting. Some of us know people in that situation. Some of us may be among them.

Siblings are a coincidence of birth; kinship aside, brothers and sisters are no different from unrelated people with whom we interact throughout life. Some are loving, generous, and kind-hearted; others are selfish, mean-spirited, and devious. A love/hate relationship among siblings is not usual.

When parents have more than one child, many wish for the siblings to be friends forever and to love each other throughout their lives. Unfortunately, when the parent dies, the family dynamics sometimes change. Secrets, resentment, and even lifestyles may lead siblings to withdraw from each other.

Author Christine Ro writes that “violations of what mothers saw as their personal values make estrangement even more likely….”

Several years ago, a lifelong friend of mine told me that she had not spoken with her brother for over 30 years. Then, one day, she encountered him as she was walking along the street on her way to the store. They chatted briefly. She said it became clear to her that there was no longer any connection between them. It was as though they were strangers. Each went their separate way, and one day a year after that chance meeting, a mutual friend told her that her brother had died. She said she felt no emotion and did not attend the funeral. At the time, I could not understand how siblings could so easily detach from each other, but time has a way of educating us to things that we previously did not comprehend.

The complexity of sibling interaction that could ultimately lead to estrangement is not limited to full brothers and sisters. Half-siblings and step-siblings also have their issues.

Encyclopedia.com says this about that. “Stepsiblings have no shared family “history” that helps to develop common habits, values, customs, and expectations; and changes in family size, place in the family, status, and role expectations may precipitate strong emotional reactions in children.”

There comes a time when estranged siblings must decide whether to make an effort to reconstruct a weak link or make a clean break. For some, the decision is complicated. For others not so much. Bad feelings caused by misunderstanding, anger, and old resentments does nothing to restore the bond. Reuniting requires a conscious effort by both siblings.

Lipstick Alley reveals some shocking information about celebrities who are – or in some cases were, during their lifetime – estranged from their siblings:  Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine; Dorothy Dandridge and Vivian Dandridge; Halle Berry and Heidi Berry;  Mariah Carey and Allison Carey; and Oprah and a number of her siblings and half-siblings.

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A Red Hook Resident Gives a Shout-out to Old Timers Day

by on ·Lifestyle and Culture

The following post was written by life-long Red Hook resident and Guest Author, Vanessa Staton.

 

Current and former tenants of Red Hook will come to the northwestern Brooklyn, NY, neighborhood from all over the country this weekend to enjoy the 34th annual Old Timers Day.

Red Hook is the site of the Red Hook Houses, the largest public housing development in Brooklyn. Groundbreaking for the NYCHA property of 27, two and six-story buildings, occurred on July 17, 1938. The first tenants took occupancy following completion of construction in June 1939. The area was named for its red clay soil and the hook shape of its peninsular corner of Brooklyn that projects into the East River.

Red Hook Houses is the largest public housing development in Brooklyn. The property contains several parks; Old Timers Day activities take place at many of them. This year’s affair will include events at Wine Park and Coffey Park.

Friday is usually the Old Timers Day kid’s time. The children of Red Hook enjoy pleasurable activities and games and have the opportunity to win prizes.

This year, Saturday’s activities took place at Wine Park. In addition to other events, it included an evening for the adults. White apparel was the color of the evening.

Sunday’s main event started at noon today at Coffey Park. As usual, there is plenty of food to feast on and music provided by a DJ and live band.

Affinity Health and other vendors and services will be available, offering something for all.

Old Timers Day is always highly anticipated by current and former Red Hook residents. Some even schedule their vacations around the date. Everyone enjoys coming together to reminisce about old times and delight in some face-time with old friends and neighbors.

 

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I Heard It Through The Grapevine

by on ·Family, Lifestyle and Culture, The Grapevine

Who hasn’t heard the trendy expression, “I heard it through the grapevine?” Reportedly, the phrase originated in the U.S. and dates back to the mid-1800s, before the Civil War. Anyone with half-a-brain knows that the saying has nothing to do with actual grapes or grapevines.

In grade school, we played a game called pass-it-on. You may have played it, too. Supposedly, it was to improve listening skills. One person starts the game by thinking of a short phrase. He or she then whispers the phrase into the ear of another person. That person whispers it to the next person and so on. The last person says aloud what they heard whispered. Often it is nothing like what was said by the first person.

Hearing something on the grapevine could be said to be the adult version of pass-it-on. We get second and third-hand information through an informal means of communication instead of getting it directly from the source. Just like in the elementary school game passing the info along the grapevine could possibility garble the facts, making them vicious gossip, ridiculous, or it could be true.

Gladys Knight and Marvin Gaye found the grapevine so revealing that they sang about it.

And I think that some of you would agree that the only thing more intriguing than receiving juicy information about a friend or neighbor is learning what’s circulating on the family grapevine.

From the time I was old enough to eavesdrop, on adult conversations, I learned – little to naught from the family grapevine. (Gotcha’ didn’t I?) Now that I’m older, I know that some of my immediate and extended family members hold on to trivial information like it is classified “top secret and confidential” by the federal government. It’s possible that if your close relatives, even your cousin or your cousin’s cousin tells you about a family incident of which you previously knew nothing, she or he heard it on the grapevine and could hardly wait to share the news. What was learned could be a complete fabrication or there might be a smidgen of truth to it.

For those lacking half-a-brain, I’ll give you an example of hearing something on the grapevine. Understand that any similarities in names to people who you may know is strictly coincidental. Meaning, unless someone has a secret nickname that I don’t know about, I’ve made up all of the names in the disclosure below to protect the guilty.

My much younger friend, I’ll call her Bea, shared this with me. Watching Bea, always the drama queen, tell her version of the story was like having a front-row seat at a theater.

“Girl,” she said, flinging one hand in the air. “Iris told Hazel Nutt, Hazel Nutt told June Bugg, June Bugg told Anal, Anal told Lilly Pond, Lilly Pond told Hyball, and Hyball told me that Judeene’s second cousin’s four-year-old son Bobo used his tablet to spell a four-letter word. And the word was not fork. You hear what I’m saying?”

She continued. “No big deal, right? Word is that one day while his mama was at work little Bobo was playing for the first time with Rosebud, the eight-year-old daughter of his daddy’s ex (she loudly clears her throat) girlfriend. They were visiting the girlfriend’s house. When the adults went into another room, Rosebud taught Bobo how to spell the word on his tablet. Later that evening, when he was back home, Bobo pulled his tablet from his backpack and proudly showed his mama the new word he had learned that day.

In the middle of saying, ‘Oh, how nic…’ Bobo’s mama stopped mid-sentence and asked her son where he learned that word. When he told her, ‘At Mimi’s house.’ His mama looked at her husband, who was sitting on the sofa and turning 50 shades of dark. Then, she cocked her head to one side, narrowed her eyes and sounding like the little girl in The Exorcist said to him, ‘Mimi?’ Need I continue? Girl, now don’t you tell nobody that I told you this, ‘cause you ain’t heard it from me.”

But I did tell. And I just told all of you. That, my friends, is how a story is carried along – and is heard – on the grapevine.

 

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Things Nobody Told You About Food Delivery Services

by on ·Food Services, General, Health, Health and Safety

I knew it! I would have sworn on a stack of courtroom Bibles that when people order food for delivery, the drivers sometimes tamper with the food. Even if they do nothing more than peek inside the container, that’s a no-no.

Some recent media outlets and a report broadcast this morning on HLN’s Weekend Express confirmed what I have long suspected and did not need a study by US Foods to reveal. That one in four food delivery drivers, 28 percent, admit to tasting or even taking a bite out of the food before delivering it to the unsuspecting purchaser.

Do you order from a food delivery app? I used a food delivery service only once. That was a couple of years ago. After the driver of UBER eats took an unusually long time to deliver my food, I contacted the eatery from which the food was purchased and learned that the driver had left there 30 minutes earlier. I knew this place well enough to know that it should have taken the driver no more than 15-20 minutes to drive to my home. Shortly after I hung up from talking with the counter clerk, the UBER eats driver called to say that he had gotten lost and would arrive shortly. Really? I thought. (Wide-eye roll.)

I was watching from my window and could see his car when it pulled into the lot. The driver didn’t see me when I first walked outside to retrieve my food. He was too busy talking and laughing with the female passenger seated beside him. Both of them were smoking cigarettes. As soon as he saw me approaching, he hurriedly climbed out of the car and greeted me as did the stench of cigarette smoke following him. He flashed a huge phony smile, opened the rear door, and took out my food that was browned-bagged and sitting on the back seat alongside two others. He handed it to me. Through tight-lips, I mumbled, “Thanks.” Then I tucked the tip folded in my hand, that he would have received, into the pocket of my jeans.

“Never again,” I promised myself as I walked back inside.

I immediately lifted the lid on the Styrofoam container and began inspecting my meal to try and determine if it had been tampered with; of course, I had no way of knowing for sure. What I noticed when lifting the container out of the bag is that the bag reeked of cigarette smoke.

That is the only time I have used a food delivery service. Since my one unpleasant experience with UBER eats, I don’t feel comfortable having ready-to-eat meals delivered. I admit that I periodically order Chinese food from a neighborhood carry out that I have frequented for years. My food is always delivered by one of the employees. Usually, it’s the same friendly older man who has been there for some time.

If you use food delivery apps and have never thought about it before, ask yourself, how would you know if your delivery driver snacked on a few fries or had a sip of your drink on the way to your home? Most likely, you wouldn’t.

NPR.org reports that “When asked if they minded if their driver snagged a few fries, the average customer response was an 8.4 out of 10; one represented ‘no big deal,’ and ten signified ‘absolutely unacceptable.’” As I see it, tasting aside, even opening the container is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE!

As restaurant business owners are beginning to understand the problems involved with food delivery, the foodservice industry is working to address these concerns by developing tamper-evident packaging for to-go meals. Some businesses seal takeout containers with a peel-off sticker over the lid or an adhesive that will tear the bag holding the container when opened. Some containers have plastic seals that have to be broken to remove the food and cannot be replaced or resealed once that seal is broken. Tamper-evident does not necessarily mean tamper-proof, but I suppose anything is better than nothing.

In our busy world, everyone is looking for ways to save time and energy. Not having to come home after a busy workday and prepare dinner is certainly one way of doing that. Surely, anytime you don’t feel like cooking, a nice hot pizza delivered to your door is too tempting to refuse. Food delivery is convenient, and it is probably here to stay, but we all know human nature and the nature of some unscrupulous humans is fouler then rotting meat. People must understand the risks and realize that their food could be minus a few bites when it arrives. And if you are inclined to bless your meal, pray that the culprit had clean hands and no disease transmittable through saliva.

 

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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.

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