the Sidebar

I was born in Osceola, Arkansas a small southern town of 2,000 hard by the Mississippi River.  Historians have said that Mark Twain referred to the city as “Plumb Point”.  It was the site of one of the major battles of the Civil War called the “Battle of Plumb Point”, and near the end of Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan had a presence in the town helping to disenfranchise blacks.

My small town values — honesty, industry, kindness — were formed there, and in the small Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. This church had an evangelical spirit.  Shouting, singing, jumping.  Baptism in the Mississippi River  I can remember walking from religious services over the levee returning home thingking about Sunday dinner — mashed potatoes, brown gravy, fried chicken, golden biscuit.  Walking from the mighty river, I recall holding my grandfather’s hand as stunned religious observers watched medical workers placed a body into an ambulance. Later, we learned that it was the body of a state trooper who had been shot by a black man who believed the officer was raping his wife.  My house was located across the street from the jail, and I recall a large white mob assembled as they brought the terrified man to jail. I don’t ever remember a trial, or hearing.  My grandfather later told me, he went into the lock up and never came out.

Segregation, “Jim Crow”, was the tenor of life in this town and all across the South.  I attended segregated schools that were financed by Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald.  The teachers and students were hard working and dedicated to fulfilling the mission of providing basic education for blacks, even though we had few resources.

A part of southern culture for boys was learning to fight, and fire weapons.  You were around guns and rifles all your life in the South starting with B.B guns.  You had to learn the manly art of boxing in the South.  My first fist fight was with a kid named Emerson White who was a seasoned puncher.  I don’t remember what the fight started over – it could have been over a game of marbles, baseball, who knows — but Emerson whipped my ass.  I ran, and ran until I got home.

When I reached home terrifying and breathless, my grandfather was waiting on me, and he calmly said “I got a call that you were fighting and that you ran!  You can either go back and fight like a man or you can fight me!”  I turned around and walked slowly back to the scene of the butt whipping.  I was hoping Emerson had left, but of course, he was still there waiting on me because he knew I had to return.

I had disrespected my family by running.  Honor was important in the South!

I still lost the fight, but regain the family’s name.

Within seconds, she could change her face into a “Chuckie” frown that could literally send chills through your body!  I have known her since she was a little girl, and she has this amazing ability to disguise or masked her true feeling. Her level of genuineness is so thin that you can literally see through her but she never reveals the type of person that hides behind the green eyes and fair skin.  Someone who can be sincere, yet dishonest.  A person who can hold a level of vindictiveness that can be deadly.  She can talk to you for several hours, and not really say a thing.  After she finishes rambling, you won’t be able to discern a thing she said.  Hypocrisy is her calling card!

She demands your attention when talking, but turns to her cell phones, and social media giving you a scant bit of attention, while you are talking — ignoring whatever it is you needed to say.  But she is aware enough that when you finish, whatever it is you were saying, she will start her conversation again, and not remember a word you said.  Your concerns are a missing 10 seconds in her narrow universe that is so transparent : with nuggets from the social media, gossip, rumors and innuendos that are repeated as truths.

In her world, the social media is the fountain of truths.   She touts being different, but really comes across as being typical, trite and unintelligent.  A great deal of her time is spent scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, and various social media posts that she regurgitates as facts.  She says one thing, and immediately contradicts it.  “I am going to a meeting this morning,” she intoned.  “What is the meeting about?” She quips, “I don’t know I’m not going because they made me mad!”

She most closely acts and behave similar to the character Lisa Rowe in “Girl Interrupted”.  Her personality borders on sociopathic behavior that finds solace in chaos, disorder, and the power she has to manipulate other people, especially family members.