A few weeks ago, I took you all on a trip to the Poconos and Ontario through stories by Norman, Eleanor and Ann. This time, I'm going to take you on a trip to Hawaii, courtesy of Frances and Carolyn, with a rest stop in Georgia. This is another example of older buds telling stories, responding with similar stories, and having a conversation that turns into something completely different; eating dirt in this case. If that's not your bag, then scroll to the bottom after Carolyn's story "My Trip to Hawaii."
Frances Bryce
07.09.2020
Return to Paradise
The pilot brought the plane to a smooth landing. I was filled with joy.
The brilliant red color of ginger and phosphorous, bright yellow and
orange birds of paradise, showy protea, trees of mango, guava,
breadfruit, pineapple and banana plants danced in my head. Fifteen years
had passed since my last trip to the island of Maui. I had named it my
paradise. The van driver loaded my bags. I was excited to begin my back
to nature trip. We had gone only a short distance when a big K-mart
superstore had popped up before my eyes, then a Burger King, Longs Drugs
and other chains that darted the mainland. What happened to your
beautiful isle?
“What have they done?” I said aloud. The driver
offered no reply. He was bobbing his head to the pulsating beat of
reggae music. Didn’t he know that Hawaiian music
should be playing? The driver stopped and left a few minutes to let me
view the outdoors market with a few native sellers. My mind returned to
years past local merchants were selling hand-painted island T-shirts,
wood carvings, painted scenes of seascapes, surfers, flowers, and other
handcrafts. In the area that looked like a small clearing in the forest a
basket made from bamboo leaves caught my eye. It was marked $15.
“Will you take ten?” I offered.
“How
about twelve,” he countered. Sold. Probably should have gotten it for
ten, but the enjoyment of the haggle was worth more than the reduction
in the price. I snapped back to the present as we passed Denny’s. Soon
we were on a road lined with sugar cane on the sides. All had not been
lost, I thought. The landscape quickly changed again: hotels, motels,
condos, and private homes stretched as far as the eyes could see. We
reached the entrance to the resort. The lushness had been preserved
here- palm trees, ferns, and exotic flowers were abundant. The greeter
placed a lei around my neck. This was all make-believe, like Disneyland.
The real thing would yet to be found. The next day I set out on the
west side to find my lost island. Instead I found a mall with many
designer shops: Chanel, Versace, Gucci, Christian Dior, and other stores
and restaurants were there. Hawaiian dancers in plastic grass skirts provided the entertainment.
In
the souvenir shop, I voiced my surprise in the changes over the years.
The sellers said, “lots of growth and progress has replaced the local
merchant. However we have 50% less sales this year. The lack of Japanese
tourists have left a lot of these stores without customers.” Undaunted,
I boarded a tour bus to Hana, still seeking the beauty of the images
that swirl in my head. The tour promised fifty-four miles of unspoiled
natural wonder. I regarded with the forest flushed with trees, guava,
breadfruit, mangoes, pine, and rainbow eucalyptus, red and blue ginger
plants, ferns and the richest green imaginable. Bamboo plants seemed to
create their own forest. They were so thick as if designed to prevent
any intruder. Four hundred feet waterfalls cascaded down the mountain
with a thunderous roar and foam. We got a refreshing feeling from the
spray as it bounced off the rocks below. The sunlight caught the
droplets of water and the most magnificent rainbow with an array of
colors presented a picture that the finest artist would probably not be
able to reproduce. The winding roads gave me more to delight in each
turn except for the tourists. It seemed that man had spared one of the
most awe-inspiring spots on the island. Perched 50-100 feet above the
ocean on a two-lane road more suited for one lane of traffic with very
little area between the bus and the long drop down was both scary and
exhilarating. The driver stopped for us to get a view of the ocean and I
expect to promote a little fear. A voice from the back yelled, “Okay!
We’ve seen enough, let’s go! Let’s move right now!” and we gave a
nervous laugh. I was pleased that someone had voiced my feeling. There
were more waterfalls, trees, and beautiful flowers to see. We saw wild
goats and cows grazing near the narrow road. As we ended our tour the
driver said, “The cows and the goats can be caught and kept by anyone on
the island.” After the trip to Hana I discovered that my paradise had
been reduced to a few places in Maui, but a guided tour helped me find
one of those that was still left.
Carolyn Boston
07.09.2020
My Trip to Hawaii
When I was living in California I had the opportunity to go with one of my coworkers. She was from Hawaii
and I stayed with her family on Oahu. We went to the pineapple
plantation, we went to the beach; it was amazing. We went on a tour of
where King Kamehameha is buried underneath the hills. It was beautiful
and I had a wonderful time except for the flying cockroaches. It’s
really an amazing place and the one thing that struck me was the soil is
red. In the tropics, the soil is red and it was beautiful but I had
never seen anything like that. I just had a fabulous time and I would
like to go to Maui if ever I get the opportunity to go back.
Frances Bryce
07.09.2020
Re: My Trip to Hawaii
Carolyn, I just want to say there’s a place in South Carolina where the
soil is red on a bank, and there was a young woman there at that time
who ate some of that soil and there are people who do that. I’ve
forgotten the proper name of that you call for people who eat different
kinds of things that we don’t normally eat. It’s Pica, yes.
Well,
this one woman would go to sort of the bank in South Carolina and chip
away the red clay to eat. She also ate what was called Argo starch. I
don’t even know if they use that anywhere. She ate those things, I just
remembered that. I thought it was so strange that people eat almost
anything. I was born in the South and there was a lot of things still I
hadn’t heard until today about tar, never heard of tar. Even when I was
doing parent class there was a little kid who ate deodorant and stuff,
by that Pica. And that was right here in Philadelphia.
Carolyn Boston
07.09.2020
Re: Re: My Trip to Hawaii
Now, when I was young they had Argo starch and people did eat it for
whatever reason, I don’t know, maybe there was something in it that was
healing? I know that in the South there are a lot of people, years ago
there was tar, they would eat tar. T-A-R. They would eat the tar off of
the roads. Yes, they did! The tar is supposed to clean your teeth and
keep them white. There’s a lot of things that they do in the South that
is very interesting because they really believe that the earth has a lot
of properties in it that we’re just ignoring today. But it’s a reality
that’s what they do. Oh my God.
Well, I have to make a confession.
When I was little I used to go out in the back yard and eat dirt. So I
was one of those kids that would eat dirt. In the South, too, I used to
eat clay, too—clay and dirt. I’m still here to tell about it, though! It
is what it is, you know. We all have different tastes though, you know;
some like bark, some like clay. I’m a dirt fanatic.
You can
help share our older buds stories by donating to Best Day, subscribing to our newsletter, sending a note to our older buds, or following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you want to volunteer yourself, then email us at info@bestdayofmylifesofar.org. And if you know older buds with stories,
then you or they can submit them through our portal right here. We're
especially interested to stories from Black older buds, but we're
always looking for stories from older buds of color, older buds with
disabilities, LGBTQIA+ older buds, older buds of any gender or sex,
older buds of any religion, and older buds who just plain break the
mold.
And don't forget to maintain contact with the older buds in
your life. If
you can't be
there in person, please call them, email them, or message them on social
media. And if they're using teleconferencing or remote events for the
first
time, give them a call and help them set things up. Check in on them to
see how well they're getting used to these programs. Buy them a
computer or an internet package if they don't have one of their own. It's a human right, after all.
Curated by Caitlin Cieri
In March of 2018, I wrote a post about a Black History Month concert where the pianist Christopher Gambrell was celebrating Marvel's Black Panther both because he grew up with Chadwick Boseman, and that the movie's financial success “showed the world that we have money.” Like I said in that post, one of the most pervasive stereotypes against Black people is that they're poor. This can effect their ability to get loans, homes, medical services, secondary education, or anything requiring a payment plan. So to combat that, I'm making today's stories all about wealth and two classic symbols of wealth: the fur coat and the diamond ring.
Sallie-Elizabeth Clayton
05.14.2020
One of the most Exciting Days of My Life and Unique Times of My Life
Back in 1990, I was working as a counselor in a program that serviced
untraditional colleges and universities, and I was working at Peirce
College at that time. My boss said to me, “I want to send you on a
conference, a Black colleges conference that they had annually, would
you like to go?” and so I said, “Yeah I would like to go!” He said,
“It’s going to be held in Washington D.C. We will pay for your expenses.
You’ll probably meet a lot of people there from Black colleges,
administrators and everything. It’s a really good weekend.” I got on my
train and rode myself right into Washington D.C., and we stayed at the
Washington Hilton or it was a big Washington hotel that they have a lot
of conferences at. Anyway I checked in and you know I didn’t go with
anybody- we had a small staff at the college so there wasn’t any other
staff people who could go. So I made my way through all the exhibits and
freebies and learning about people and meeting some new people.
Well
one night, I think it was the Saturday night, they have the large
dinner and things going on, they had students from various colleges
throughout the United States, African American students and other
minorities and they did their thing, and they’re playing bands and
showing things that they have learned in college. I came downstairs and I
tried to buy a raffle ticket. I didn’t have money on me, it was earlier
on the day, and I said, “Can I put this on my room tab?” And she was so
mean to me. She said, “No you cannot. If you don’t have the money, I
won’t be able to give you a raffle.” So I said “okay”. I went back
upstairs, I ran back upstairs. I don’t know why I was so intense for
being a raffle, they have them all the time. I ran back up there and got
some money, I said, “I should have never come down without money,” and I
bought the raffle and I looked in her face to say, “Nah nah nah nah, I
do have money!” so I bought the raffle. Time for this event to start the
event that night, and I came down and I sat at a table where I didn’t
know anybody and there was this couple there from some college and we
just talked and chatted, we were watching what happened. It came time to
do the raffle. I said, “I’m glad I got this, I’m going to win tonight!”
They outlined the prizes, and one of the prizes was a mink
jacket stole, that was the third prize. The second prize was a trip to
the Bahamas for a weekend, and the first prize was a full-length mink
coat for a woman at the worth of $5000. They lady sitting next to me
with her husband said, “well, I’m going to win this prize,” and I said,
“I don’t think so. I’m going to win the prize.”
And we were just
laughing and chatting, and all of a sudden, the lady won the stole and
somebody won the trip to the Bahamas, and they said, “Now here we are
everybody. This is the first prize. And we’re going to give this to some
wonderful person, and hopefully they’re sitting down here tonight. We
put our raffle out so we could see it and we didn’t think we were going
to win anything. And so we were just laughing and wondering who was
going to win it, and they called my raffle. And all of a sudden,
everything in body kind of stopped working, and they repeated the number
so the person could come forward. “We’d like the person to come forth,
we’d like the person to come forth if they’re here and they have this
number,” and they repeated it. So I touched the lady and I didn’t say
anything, because all my senses were trapped- I was like a mute. I
touched her and I pointed down to the ticket. I couldn’t speak, and I
kept pointing down to the ticket, and she realized what I was doing and
read it off. She screamed, “Oh my god!” The lady got up, ran to the
front, ran all the way around the tables and everything. They said, “We
have a winner! We have a winner! We have a winner!” She said, “Not me!
I’ll show you, come with me!” She took all these people back to our
table and pointed at me. Here, I’m sitting here, still mesmerized, can’t
speak, can’t walk and these people gathered around me, pulled me up
from the table, and said, “Here’s the winner everybody!” And it was me.
They took me up to the front. Now, I’m not talking about a petty raffle,
it had bin like you see on ‘The Price is Right’, that huge, and out of
all those thousands of raffles, I was the winner. I’m still not over
that after about twenty years. I still have the coat but I have not
experienced anything like that before in my life.
Frances Bryce
05.21.2020
One Ring and Two Daughters
I know what I was going to talk about: My mom, and one of the things she always wanted was a diamond
ring and a fur coat, right? So after she died I learned that my niece
had recorded her wishes I guess. The memo was she had one ring and fur
coat so I wouldn’t need a fur coat because I lived in California. I have
a sister so she was trying to decide who she should give it to and that
wouldn’t work, and then I had a brother who had two nieces so that
wouldn’t work. So y youngest brother had one daughter, so she got the
ring.
And then when I found out I said, “I never wanted the diamond
ring and so why did you think I may have wanted it,” and I thought it
should have gone to my sister because she was the one who stayed with my
mom, you know the last day. So, to fast forward it I found out that
when my mom was staying with me for a while and she didn’t have her ring
and I said, “Well why don’t you wear your ring?” So she called and sent
it, so she thought maybe I was interested in the ring, which I have
never been interested in a diamond ring or fur.
That’s how the story ended up, and I told my brother who has the
youngest daughter, one daughter so she got the ring. And I said, “You
should let her know that the only reason she got that ring was because
my mom thought I may have wanted it and she didn’t want to give one the
ring and not have,” and so he never did and she never did. So that was
the end of that story, but I always felt heavy about it because I knew
my sister would’ve appreciated it. She loved rings and diamonds, and I didn’t. So that was my story.
Well,
my mom was about the size of my sister, and of course she lived in the
place where they had a different climate. So in South Carolina, you
ain’t have a real winter and a summer. So it just made sense that she
got the fur coat, which would’ve been too small for me in the first
place, and was totally something I didn’t want, and the season didn’t
permit me to wear it. So she got the fur coat, but she should’ve gotten
the ring too because she really gotten the ring, and it would’ve been a
great thing because she spent most o f the time with my mother. And my
mother only made that decision because she didn’t want to give one, she
didn’t want to decide if I should get the ring or my sister should get
the ring. And there shouldn’t have even been that question aroused.
It’s…know that I didn’t want it. So that’s how things go. And I said,
“One ring and two daughters.”
And my niece had made the video of how
she was anguished because she couldn’t decide who to give it to. And so
she finally said to my niece who was recording it, “Oh. My youngest
son. He has only one daughter, so that would settle that.” But I thought
if my brother had said to his daughter that, “Your aunt should’ve
gotten that ring,” she probably would’ve done it.
You can
help share our older buds' stories by donating to Best Day, subscribing to our newsletter, sending a note to our older buds, or following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you want to volunteer yourself, then email us at info@bestdayofmylifesofar.org. And if you know older buds with stories,
then you or they can submit them through our portal right here. We're
especially interested to stories from Black older buds, but we're
always looking for stories from older buds of color, older buds with
disabilities, LGBTQIA+ older buds, older buds of any gender or sex,
older buds of any religion, and older buds who just plain break the
mold.
And don't forget to maintain contact with the older buds in
your life. If
you can't be
there in person, please call them, email them, or message them on social
media. And if they're using teleconferencing or remote events for the
first
time, give them a call and help them set things up. Check in on them to
see how well they're getting used to these programs. Buy them a
computer or an internet package if they don't have one of their own. It's a human right, after all.
Curated by Caitlin Cieri. This drawing is copyright of Jett Cooper
Something incredible happened during our Zoom session a few weeks back. Norman was the first to tell his story, about working at Camp Joseph and Betty Harlam, a Reform Jewish summer camp in the Pocono Mountains. It was gorgeous and detailed, and it felt like I was right there in that lush mountainous camp instead of hunkered down in front of my computer. And then, Ann said that she used to work as a waitress in the Poconos, and she talked about how much it had changed since she and Norman had been up there in the 50s and 60s. And then, Eleanor told her story about being a camper at Jewish Y camp in northern Ontario. I always love when the older buds build on each others' stories, but these stories showed us how connected we were in unusual ways.
I'm going to post all four stories here, so we can all take our own summer vacation someplace with a little more sun, a little more fresh air, and a little less coronavirus:
Norman Cain
06.11.2020
Camp Joseph and Betty Harlam
I thought that I would give a story verbally about my experiences
between ’58, ’59 and 1960, when I would work from mid-June to late
September at Camp Joseph and Betty Harlam, which was a Reform Jewish
camp in the Pocono Mountains, which was located in a little village
called Kunkletown which was about maybe 20 miles (my geography is off)
either north, east, west or south of Stroudsburg. And I got the job
through my counselor at John Bartram High School; he referred me to the
Vice Principal in charge of discipline whose name was Menchie Goldblatt
who was a very famous man in Philadelphia and really throughout the
United States around in the ‘30s and beyond. If you would go down to
Palestra, Penn’s basketball facility and probably the oldest such
facility in the nation you could see his picture, because he (Mr.
Goldblatt) was an All American basketball player in 1935 and he did a
lot to get Philadelphia College, in the early days when it was called
Philadelphia Textile, their athletic program off of the ground.
Well, it was very interesting working in the Pocono Mountains in those
days, because in those days – it wasn’t built up the way it was built up
now. It was just beautiful pretty mountains and fresh air, and you had
the Pennsylvania Dutch riding around in their buggies and whatnot. And
from our school to work at the camp we had maybe about eight or nine
kids, they would always have two or three girls that would work in the
kitchen but they would always have at least one that would act as a
babysitter for Mr. Goldblatt’s daughter who was married. We did kitchen
work, and I didn’t have to do it but with my best friend, he was in
charge of keeping everything at camp together, and so I would help him
mow fields (not lawns), paint cabins, and once a week we would go down
to Allentown to take the laundry and sometimes we had to go up to
Stroudsburg. And luckily the rabbis would loan us their cars and we
would take forays into Wilkesboro. It was really a lot of fun. I got a
chance to learn how to row, boat, how to canoe. And of course there was a
nice swimming pool. We played softball, volleyball, and we had a
basketball team. And of course with Mr. Goldblatt being an All American
in basketball in 1935, we would play other camps. And that was a lot
of fun. And another great recreational activity was the campfires at
night. And even though we didn’t know the meanings of the words we got a
chance to sing a lot of Jewish folk songs. I think the name of the
dance is the Horah that we did. Oh, that was so beautiful. And see we
were in our later teens so we got to be friends with the counselors. We
had two sessions with the younger kids that would come in and we made a
lot of money putting baggage in cars and taking baggage from cars when
another group would come in, and then put the baggage in the cabins.
All together it was a beautiful experience with the fresh air and
whatnot, and the thing was we made $250.00 (well, I did- my buddy, he
made more) for the summer, plus the tips we got from assisting parents
with their baggage when one group would leave and another group would
come. The last group that would come in would be the college students
and the teenagers, and that was the best time. And one of our
activities was to set up the synagogue. And that was extremely
interesting.
And for those three years in the spring we would be there for the
weekends for retreats of the rabbis- I really, really learned a lot.
And then there was a guy named Jay Mandell, he was a good basketball
player with us and then later on I would see him as a basketball referee
at the Baker Leagues. Sonny Hill was involved in that, that’s something
I won’t expound upon but that was during the days like in the late
‘60s, early ‘70s, that was actually a professional basketball league.
You know, we have 32 teams now, then we probably had about 12 teams. But
these fellows, they would come and play at Bright Hope Baptist Church
down at 12th and Columbia at the time. Well Jay Mandell—and he was
actually a—he didn’t get paid for it, but he was an actual professional
referee, and he was a sociologist, and he wrote a book and he had
adopted a Black kid that went on to be a great basketball player. So we
made a lot of friends; it was a great opportunity for me to be enmeshed
in another culture.
I forgot to mention – we had a cook, he was from the first world war, an
Afro man and he was really, really a nice guy. He was a major cook and
he had this assistant cook and he would tell us all of these stories
about the first world war and whatnot. And he was very, very good, and
the food was excellent. The Jewish food, it was really, really, really
excellent. And we came back in better physical shape than when we went
up. I miss those days.
It was really great because I got a chance to be enmeshed in another
culture and see another way of life. And up until that point each summer
I was going to South Carolina. Now, you know I write about that a lot,
but what would happen would be I would save enough money to be able to,
around Thanksgiving, pay my own way to South Carolina. And then because I
had the opportunity for the last two years of high school and my first
year of college, I had the opportunity to make money so I would go to
South Carolina, and I paid my own way.
And in closing I would say that once I visited when – I think I must
have been in my sophomore year in college in West Virginia- and I went
up to see a girlfriend at Penn State, and I saw one of the counselors
there, and it was sort of like a reunion. So it’s a great memory, and I
had a beautiful time up there in the Poconos. The only thing is that
when I go up there now, it’s all different, the building and whatnot, up
there and it’s not the same as it used to be.
Ann von Dehsen
06.11.2020
A Waitress in the Poconos
I used to work as a waitress in the Poconos in the late 60’s early 70’s
at one of those, not a huge resort, but it had an inn and cottages
around it. We used to travel around to the different inns and stuff, it
was all beautiful. And I went back about ten years ago and it’s all—I
don’t know—like casinos and these huge resorts with indoor swimming
pools and casinos and gaming rooms. So it was horrible. I know what you
mean because we used to just drive down on the weekends and see all the
pretty, the falls and all, there were lots of waterfalls.
Eleanor Kazdan
06.11.2020
A Jewish Y Camp in Northern Ontario
Norman, your story really tugged at my heart strings because I was a
camper at a camp in Ontario, Canada that was like your camp in the
Poconos. Except I was a Jewish camper. So even though I hadn’t planned
to talk about it I can’t resist because it was just one of the greatest
experiences of my life.
I started in—I think it was the same time, in 1959, I started as a
camper, I guess I was about 9 years old. It was a Jewish Y camp in
northern Ontario on a beautiful lake. I did write a memoir about it, but
that was a while ago. It was a very rough camp. We had to walk to a
central bathroom, and we didn’t have any electricity. There were people
from all income levels, which I thought was fabulous because the camp
fees were on a sliding scale. You just had, it was just a very
egalitarian group.
We did all the things that you were talking about; canoeing, swimming.
It wasn’t a fancy camp (some of the other camps had horseback riding and
we never had that). But you know, I learned to be an expert canoeist.
When I was 15–I went every summer for three weeks and made just fabulous
friends—but when I was 15 I became a counselor in training, and stayed
for the whole summer. And then after that I went up to be a junior
counselor, where by the way I made $35 for the whole summer. Then as a
senior counselor in, I guess it must have been 1967, I made $150 for the
whole summer. And we also got tips, we got tips, just like I guess you
did.
That was one of the best experiences of my life—one of the best days of
my life so far was summer camp in northern Ontario. Unfortunately the
best friend that I made there, Kathy, she died many years ago. So I met
Kathy and I met another woman who I sometimes keep in touch with. And
the singing…we just got hoarse every summer from so much singing of camp
songs, and walking around with our arms around each other, and the camp
fires, and the roasting marshmallows, roasting hot dog, canoe
trips…well first when I was a camper, we went on canoe trips with- they
were called “Trippers”, mostly guys, they were trained to take people on
canoe trips in this pretty remote park called Algonquin Park where you
can’t get anywhere except by boat and canoe. When I was a counselor I
actually was one of the leaders of those canoe trips. We’d go out for
four days and camp outside, and just canoe the whole day long.
So Norman, your story just brought back all these memories of summer
camp! So from the age of 9 until 17 I went to summer camp like the one
you described. Except it wasn’t religious, it was secular. We had no
religious affiliation. But it was mostly Jewish kids. So that’s my
story!
And if you're still looking for more stories, then check out our fearless leader Benita on the Hazard Girls podcast. Hazard Girls' host Emily Soloby (Founder and CEO of Juno Jones Safety Shoes, )
interviews women working in non-traditional fields about their career
paths. And Benita's episode is right on their front page!
And as if that wasn't enough, Benita's son Kian illustrated last week's Zoom session. My favorite parts are Carolyn's phone icon, Edwina's paused camera, and the detail he put into everyone's names:
You can
help share our older buds stories by donating to Best Day, subscribing to our newsletter, sending a note to our older buds, or following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you want to volunteer yourself, then email us at info@bestdayofmylifesofar.org. And if you know older buds with stories,
then you or they can submit them through our portal right here. We're
especially interested to stories from Black older buds, but we're
always looking for stories from older buds of color, older buds with
disabilities, LGBTQIA+ older buds, older buds of any gender or sex, older buds of any religion, and older buds who just plain break the mold.
And don't forget to maintain contact with the older buds in
your life. If
you can't be
there in person, please call them, email them, or message them on social
media. And if they're using teleconferencing or remote events for the
first
time, give them a call and help them set things up. Check in on them to
see how well they're getting used to these programs. Buy them a
computer or an internet package if they don't have one of their own. It's a human right, after all.
Curated by Caitlin Cieri
The Fourth of July has come and went, during a time when American history has been called into question. It feels awkward to celebrate America's independence from the British Empire when this Declaration of Independence only served the White man. I want to honor this past Fourth of July and the Black Lives Matter movement to post stories of our older buds calling our history, laws, and institutions into question, and inspiring us to do better:
Frances Bryce
08.08.2019
Does an Amendment Need an Amendment?
A study of the Constitution often left me unsettled with what was
written in some articles and at least one of the Amendments, mainly the
second. I often wondered about the decision rendered with the Superior
Court of the meaning when it was written and their ruling that was to
uphold the stature. I would like to think maybe it should be revisited.
My problem with the right of the people to keep and bear arms, now that
we have a standing Army, Navy, Marine and now the people do not need to
bring their arms for the security of a free state as was necessary when
the Amendment was made. Each state has its National Guard for security
of its state. The use of Military weapons that have caused mass murders
were not available when this Amendment was passed, how can he compare
it to the weapons of that day.
I am probably like the lovely little petunia in the onion patch. I cry
and cry each day.
Maybe one day the people will be willing to enforce laws that will
protect the masses, since it is supposed to be a government of the
people by the people.
Rochelle Tynes
06.04.2020
These Things Aren’t New
I assume you’re talking about these riots and all this stuff that’s
going on. These things aren’t new. I met up with someone a couple of
days ago who told me that, “I said I don’t see the sense of it. Really I
don’t see the sense of it because people are robbing places,” and I
said, “Suppose they have children and somebody says, ‘I want some
cereal,’ well we don’t have no milk, where you gon’ get it? And then
you’re sitting there looking at them and somebody in the crowd or maybe
yourself wants a sandwich, tell me where you go and get it because
you’ve destroyed these places.” So where do you go and do this if you
don’t have this stuff at home? Okay, and then they’re stealing sneakers
and they put a curfew out, so you’re home with your flip flops on
looking at your sneakers sitting there because you can’t wear them out
and show them off yet and you have these T.V.s that use electric when
you want to see them, you’re watching these T.V.s and it’s running your
electric bill up. And so when it gets so high you can’t watch the T.V.,
the T.V. gon’ be watching you. What sense does this make?
This lady that I was talking to told me that when these things happen,
changes come. Well, changes come because lazy people should get up and
go vote. That’s my thought. Now it don’t make it right. But violence
never settled anything and it only breeds more violence and more hate,
and people are disgruntled. And some people are just fed up with all the
looting and what does it solve? It means somebody has to clean this
mess up. I don’t understand it because people who have businesses and
have good sense have insurance that will cover this stuff. It might
raise your insurance but they should have insurance to cover this. I
think they should find all those people who did all this looting and
make them clean it up, you know? And maybe that will do something for
‘em, give them something to do with theirself besides acting a fool.
People don’t realize that all of these people who are doing all of this
looting and rioters, they’re not all black. They are not all black!
Black people have reasons to be disgruntled. I’ve heard stories since I
was a kid about the injustices that have been perpetrated on black
people. I’ve seen stuff, I’m almost 80, so I’ve seen a lot of stuff, I
have lived through a lot of stuff, I know how rotten and nasty some
policemen can be and that’s what needs to change, the police structure
itself. I can tell you this, I had a grandson that got killed in
Virginia for some wrongdoings that him and his friends were doing
amongst themselves. The police didn’t do this, and when my son called me
and told me, “They killed him, them killed him!” I thought it was the
police. I tell you I packed a suitcase with my toothbrush, some junk
stuff in it, and some clean underwear because I knew I was not coming
back. I knew I could not go down there, have them tell me that some
policeman shot my grandson who was laying on the ground with his hands
cuffed in back of him and they shot him because he was resisting arrest.
My response would be, “Then you need to resist this,” and I would have
shot anything in sight and I knew I wouldn’t have came back that’s why I
didn’t pack a suitcase because I knew I was either gonna be in jail or
dead, ‘cause I think it is just that stuff should stop. How can you kill
somebody, go home and go to sleep? How you do that? And them somebody
that’s working with you that’s supposed to be your superior that’s
supposed to have two cents more than you tell you, “Oh it’s okay,” and
send you home? Not tonight. And I’m saying this happened between his
peers and I said the Lord protects dummies because I know he was
protecting me, ‘cause if I’d have went back there you all wouldn’t be
talking to me now. You wouldn’t ‘cause I just couldn’t see the sense.
Too many things have happened for too long and people have gotten away
with it and that’s why we get this crap we get now. That’s why we get
it. And if you live through it you understand it and if you’re not Black
you don’t understand it and if you haven’t lived through it you don’t
understand it. Some people that are Black have never had this stuff
happen to them. Well, I’m saying that if you’re Black you maybe have
gone through other things. There are things, a Black situation. When I
was living in the projects, most of the people who live in the projects
are Black. I had a little house down in Tasker and when they said that
there’s a curfew and that the kids had to be in the house, okay. I don’t
know how you do that in the projects. Everybody’s in and out of
everybody’s house most of the time and kids socialize and whatever. Okay
here come the police and they say, “Okay, everybody gotta go home.”
Everybody starts walking home so I told my son “Come on and walk with
me, let’s go over this way.” And so the police went up…
Norman Cain
05.07.2020
Come Together
I had an expensive cellphone that my son-in-law bought me several
months ago when I was in Orlando, Florida, but it broke down and I got
an inexpensive cellphone and it’s working better than the expensive
cellphone. There are some problems, but the good thing about it is the
fact that I played around with it which I didn’t do with the old
cellphone, the expensive one, and I was able to get online and I was
able to get to my Facebook, which allowed me to be into Zoom right now
with Best Day. Now I’m having problems getting into Zoom with my church,
but I don’t have any problems getting into Zoom with my writing group
at Drexel University which meets about three times a week but I’m able
to do it once a week on Fridays. Hopefully by this week or by the end of
this month, I have a computer. It should be coming in any day now and
it’s going to be a donation, what I understand, from my writing group at
Drexel. But if that doesn’t come through, I’m definitely going to get
one at the beginning of next month.
Like previous presenters, I’m very thankful that during this dire time
that we are getting text message and phone calls, etcetera from people.
Now, I’ve been getting calls and I’ve been calling people that I haven’t
really talked to for three or four years. Especially with Facebook and
what not I’ve been reaching out to relatives across the country and also
with the phone here, and it’s really coming in handy this technology,
it can be bad and it can be good. Two folk Philadelphia icons in their
mid-eighties, Bootsie Barnes who is a jazz saxophonist, very famous, he
passed away and just as soon as he passed away, they had all of his, so
many of his—on videos—his sessions and what not. And also, there’s a guy
who’s about eighty-four who was a great social dancer who’s named Otis
Givens, we could follow him ever since his teenage days and he died and
they had so much on him.
Also, several times I’ve been in the presence of Trapeta Mayson who is
the poet laureate of Philadelphia, so I got a chance to see her on
television. And I cannot think because of the senior moments are coming
in, but there is a fella that was with, or he’s still with the MOVE
organization, and he had just came out of prison, and he held on to his
liberty for forty-five years I believe. And he gave the true story about
the brutality and whatnot that they really had to endure- the true
story. There was a first MOVE incident down in Powelton Village, the
true story that they held up with this terrible system that we have in
the United States, and that’s one of the things that’s disturbing me. We
have all of this outpouring of love that’s going back and forth and I
can feel it right now over the phone. All of this feeling of love and
comforting words and then we have, I have to say it, our government
really does not care. When you hear statements that some of us will have
to die, you don’t have to say it that way but this is the way it is and
this is what we have got to understand.
One of the things that I’ve been doing during this pandemic is that I’ve
been researching Zora Neale Hurston. Several weeks ago I came back from
Orlando, Florida and I stayed with my daughter and her family and I
attended the thirty-fourth year anniversary of her festival in the town
that she grew up—Eatonville, an all-black town since about 1895 or
earlier and it’s still incorporated. And the state of Florida wanted to
put a highway through the town and they almost were successful in doing
that but then the people rallied and said that the town was worth saving
because of Zora Neale Hurston. So thirty-four years ago when they had
the first festival you had I think 3,000 folks came. She is definitely a
literary figure, a playwright, dance promoter, journalist,
anthropologist, a singer, dancer, and you can go on and on and on and
on. So the last several weeks I’ve been researching, by the phone again,
her work. I knew that she was prolific but I did not know the depth of
her genius. So basically that’s what I’ve been doing and I’m so happy
that we have been able to come together at this point.
One of the things about Best Day I love is hearing about history from the people who lived through it. It gives me so much more perspective than the same stories in the same textbooks or Wikipedia articles. You can help share our older buds stories by donating to Best Day, subscribing to our newsletter, sending a note to our older buds, or following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you want to volunteer yourself, then email us at info@bestdayofmylifesofar.org. And if you know older buds with stories,
then you or they can submit them through our portal right here. We're
especially interested to stories from Black older buds, but we're always looking for stories from older buds of color, older buds with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ older buds, older buds of any gender or sex, older buds of any religion, and older buds who just plain break the mold.
And don't forget to maintain contact with the older buds in
your life. If
you can't be
there in person, please call them, email them, or message them on social
media. And if they're using teleconferencing or remote events for the
first
time, give them a call and help them set things up. Check in on them to
see how well they're getting used to these programs. Buy them a
computer or an internet package if they don't have one of their own. It's a human right, after all.
Curated by Caitlin Cieri
One of the issues mentioned in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests and anti-racism movement is increasing the visibility of Black people in all sorts of fields. In some cases this means promoting the work of Black artists, in other cases it means consciously purchasing from Black owned businesses, in other cases it means electing Black board members. In the case of the PSC's Best Day workshop, visibility has taken a more literal meaning.
That's right! Norman has a brand new Chromebook, complete with a camera, microphone, speaker system, and Zoom app. And that means we can finally see his handsome face after weeks of just his melodious voice. During one of the first workshops, Norman mentioned that Drexel University's Writers Room would be giving him a new computer so that he could make video calls. Each week after that, I'd eagerly ask if his computer came in, but he kept waiting and waiting until last week. Everybody perked up when they saw him on Zoom for the first time, after some lighthearted jabs at his quarantine beard.
There are a few more Best Day regulars who only call in by phone, whether due to lack of internet, lack of funds, or lack of familiarity with conference calling or apps. Many of those regulars are Black, and I want to get everyone's faces visible on Zoom. If the only issue is lack of familiarity, then I take an hour and test out Zoom with an older bud and whatever device they have. That way, they're ready to go by the next Happy Hour. I don't want any older bud with the means to video chat to miss out on it because they had a bad first experience.
In celebration of Norman's new computer, I want to share a story about some lucky times in his life. Enjoy!
Norman Cain
03.05.2020
Pieces of Luck
Like any of the folk that preceded me in their stories, they did not
believe in luck per se, and I feel the same way. I feel that God
Almighty is the one that determines your destiny. When I was about
twenty-eight years old, I was really, really, really broke and I found
twenty-eight dollars on the ground. Last September, I really and truly
needed some money, and that was the first time I had been broke in years
and out of the clear blue sky a lady that comes here sometimes, a
friend of mine’s, said, “Do you need some money?” How did that happen?
Well, she offered a hundred dollars, I accepted seventy-five and paid
her back the next week. So I think that that was a divine type of
activity. Throughout my life I have been unlucky and lucky. Little boy, I
won a cowboy hat at the Saturday movies. Years later, when I was about
thirty-five I won a great big bunny rabbit during an Easter celebration
in a disciplinary school where I worked in Camden, New Jersey. So, you
have bad days and you had good days but again I say it depends to me
upon the Creator.
When I was a young man, I was all over the place, a rolling stone, so to
speak, and I have been in situations where I should not be here today,
but the Creator snatched me out of those situations. A piece of good
luck at first and bad luck that I had when I was about twenty-two years
old and I had just graduated from college and I got accepted by the
Peace Corps. So I said, “Okay, good luck,” but my draft clerk had other
ideas. She said, “No, you cannot go.” I had to go to the army, a place
that I didn’t want to go, not because I was unpatriotic, but because I
did not believe in the Vietnamese War. And I don’t think, I’m quite sure
at the time Secretary McNamara who was Secretary of State at the time
did not believe in it because twenty-five years later he wrote a book,
attesting to that fact.
At any rate, I was lucky when I went into the service because I was
stationed as a military policeman at the 549th division in Fort Davis
Panama, which is on the Atlantic side in the city Cologne. Now when I
was there, unlike the regular infantry that had forty and the Bay Area,
we had two to a room. We dressed up every day, we drove around in
sedans, we didn’t have to go out in the jungle, we didn’t have to go
what you call “bivouac” out in the field.
Another good thing, another
piece of good luck came was because the third of the time that I was in
the service and I was old there in that particular time, I was able to
make the basketball team, something that eluded me in college and in
high school. It was a pretty great level, all we had to do was practice
and play ball. Also, being in that military police, we did not have to
get up at 6 in the morning to salute the flag, we did not have to have
revelry which is at 6 o’clock in the evening, we did not have to be back
on base at 12 o’ clock at night, we could stay out as long as until we
had to go back to work. Here’s where the good luck comes in: when I
first got to Panama I was told there was some kind of myth that if you
went to the American section what you called the canal zone and you sat
on the swing with a girl and you drank some water then you gonna get
married. That came to be true because I did meet such a lady. The
problem was that you had to go through the service to be accepted,
something that I did not do. I went underground, and what happened was I
had to go to a draft clerk, a botanist, and I think it was a medical
doctor, and that cost me some money. And then when the wedding day came,
it was raining, it wasn’t no secret, I could have been in a lot of
trouble because the guy that was driving the bus “Ay Cain? Where you
going? You going down to get married?” He knew, everybody knew. So the
thing was when I got back to the base, it was raining and so this was
the last day and so we had what was called retreat, you salute the flag
etc., etc. When I got back, everybody was present except me. I had to
come inside the back to go upside and get dressed but no officer or
sergeant or anyone said anything because they already knew that I had
gotten married. I could have been in the stockade for two or three
months and my wife could not have ever come to the United States of
America. Evidently, they liked me and they let me go so I think that was
a piece of my good luck. Best luck I ever had.
There's lots of ways to increase the visibility of your older buds, both in and outside of Best Day. You can donate to Best Day, subscribe to our newsletter, send a note to our older buds, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
If you want to volunteer yourself, then email us at info@bestdayofmylifesofar.org. And if you know older buds with stories,
then you or they can submit them through our portal right here. We're
especially interested to stories from Black older buds (In honor of the
Black Lives Matter Movement) and LGBTQIA+ older buds (in honor of Pride
Month.) And don't forget to maintain contact with the older buds in
your life. If
you can't be
there in person, please call them, email them, or message them on social
media. And if they're using teleconferencing or remote events for the
first
time, give them a call and help them set things up. Check in on them to
see how well they're getting used to these programs. Buy them a
computer or an internet package if they don't have one of their own. It's a human right, after all.
Curated by Caitlin Cieri
