Hello Family, It’s a new year with a new beginning. Happy Black History Month. Every day should be Black History Day. This country was built upon the backs of people of color due to the ingenious idea of slavery. In this country the color of my skin should not be a crime. So where…
13 Ways of Looking At Death
1. I drive down Highway 80 and gaze at the landmarks you enjoyed when you were still alive. 2. The farm outside of St David, with grazing, tufted llamas behind a chain-link fence. 3. The roadside yucca tree that declined with each passing. It began lopsided, as if slightly drunk, but slumped more each month,…
Childhood Realities
I’m 76 now and things look different to me. First of all, I don’t run up and down stairways anymore. I trudge the steps. When I do the laundry, I have to climb down 26 steps and then back up the same 26 steps. But that isn’t the major change. I have clear memories of…
Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby: A Book Review
This amazing story is about a Black ex-con father, a white racist ex-con father and two families wracked by the pain of two sons, one white and one Black, who get married and have a surrogate mother gift them with a beautiful female child. Ike Randolph was set free from prison fifteen years ago and…
Living the Pandemic Year in Harvard Square
Life being homeless on the streets of Harvard Square was tough, but I noticed last year a glimmer of hope. As cruel winter came upon us, the food supplies were still coming and also water. I remember the first snowfall we got in December was not too bad but the cold could whoop us any…
George Floyd Died One Year Ago. Have We Learned Anything?
It has been a year since the murder of George Floyd. I know, I know. Some of you are still having a hard time with the fact that cops sometimes purposely kill black folks, but it is what it is. What I’d like to know is: have we learned anything as a nation? Or maybe…
Where to Go from Here Depends on Accepting Where We Are Now
Finally, Donald Trump is gone. Joe Biden will be our new President, and a woman, a black woman will be our VP. While there is cause for celebration, there is also cause for concern, as well. Yes, the game show host and his clown show have been evicted but not before that parting shot, the…
“They Were Locked In, We Were Locked Out”: A Story of Lockdown and Homelessness in Harvard Square
It was 22 March 2020. There were about 12 of us living in the shelter. Saturday morning was our last day there. We had no place to go. It would be my first day outside with nothing open, no restrooms, no place to sit and have a hot cup of tea, it really was hard…
The Business of Fancy Dancing by Sherman Alexie: A Movie Review
“I’ve had sex with one Indian woman, 112 white boys, sixteen Black men, seven Asian men, three dudes of ambiguous ethnic identity, one really homely guy, and zero Native American men.” — Seymour Polatkin, poet. I just finished watching “The Business of Fancy Dancing” again and I feel as if this is one of the…
The Changes Come So Fast
My wife, Mary Esther, and I celebrated our wedding anniversary on June 22. We were married in 2002 and the time has just whipped by. So many different things have happened; it’s all good but sometimes there are hard surprises. Mary Esther has scoliosis, stenosis and various other things wrong with her spine. She had…