The Mee Street Chronicles: Interview with the Author

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Interview with Author, Frankie Lennon, About Her Memoir

1. Briefly, what’s the book about?

The Mee St. Chronicles is a very candid, passionate memoir of my battle to claim my own life and sexual identity. In it, I narrate stories starting with my childhood and take you with me on my turbulent life journey & struggle to find freedom from the many prisons that bind me. How the conflicts in my life play out give my stories page-turning drama that I think readers will enjoy.



2. How did the book come about?

The idea of writing about my life experiences had been at the back of my mind for years. It took my old friend, Nikki Giovanni, to act as catalyst for this. She had planned to edit a book of stories and essays and she asked me to contribute. I did by writing a piece called “The Code.” Although the book never came to fruition, that story ultimately launched me into writing the stories of The Mee St. Chronicles.


3. How is your book like or different from other memoirs?

Well, mine is about my battle to claim my life and my sexual identity. The fact is, “out” Black Lesbians are not crowding the field to write about their struggle to claim their lives with integrity in a world that often appears very homophobic. Of course, there’s Audre Lourde who wrote Zami years ago. And Alice Walker has written a short story or two about living in the life. My book is a different kind of memoir. I put myself out there on several fronts, including my battle with alcoholism. I tell it like it is.

4. Why should people buy your book? What does your book offer the reader?

They should buy because I tell powerful stories, exciting stories, stories that make you think and re-evaluate some issues. They should buy it because I offer the reader the chance to see and experience my naked feelings, conflicts, fears, and struggles. I get down to the nitty-gritty in The Mee St. Chronicles, and you get the chance to experience my trials and tribulations along with me. It will be exciting, funny, and heartbreaking. And it will never be dull.
Page 2 Q&A with Answers

5. Who are you targeting as readers?

There’s something for everybody—young and old, Straight & Gay, Black, Latina, White, people fighting addictions, people with the virus, people who know or don’t know about living Jim Crow in the South. My stories are stories about finding out who you are, about trying to make sense of your life, about learning how to get rid of the shame that binds you.

6. What have you learned about yourself as a result of writing this book?

I’ve learned that understanding who I am and finally not being ashamed of that was worth all the struggle. And I’ve learned that I really am a good writer whose work people like very much.


7. What inspired you to write this book? Why did you take the time and effort to write it not knowing whether you’d be published or not?

First, the act of creating pushed me forward. Writing quenched a lifelong thirst and filled a void because I began to honor and express the creative spirit within. Second, I wanted to preserve my memories by telling my stories. Memories are all about identity for me. And telling you who I am, through my memory stories, set me free. No more secrets to poison my spirit. And third, I thought that my stories might help to set many people free. Or at least put their feet on the road to freedom. Especially those who feel different and think they are cursed by that difference. These stories are to reassure them that they aren’t cursed. To encourage them to keep going no matter how bad things look or what others may say or do. To tell them they aren’t alone, that there’s somebody else who’s survived choosing the wrong road more than once, who’s fallen off the road several times, who’s lost the road completely, but who, in the end, has finally found her way.


8. What has been the greatest delight in your writing career so far?

Getting The Mee Street Chronicles written and published.

9. What writers have inspired you?

James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, Judith Ortiz Cofer, bell hooks, Stephen King.

10. Who has been the greatest influence in your life?

My pastor and friend, Archbishop Carl Bean. His work in and out of the pulpit continues to leave its mark on me.

11. What advice would you give to beginning writers?

Keep writing. Make time to write no matter what. Don’t give it up and don’t let anything or anybody stop you.

(end)

Order my book at Amazon or Borders Bookstores or at my publisher’s website under the book title or under my name, Frankie Lennon, at
www.Amazon.com< www.Borders.com
www.Kerlak.com

Excerpts from The Mee Street Chronicles: "Scotch on the Rocks"

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Introduction to "Scotch on the Rocks"


"What’s Goin On?" is a scene from the story, "Scotch on the Rocks" which is in my memoir,The Mee Street Chronicles. This story is about the first time I was confronted by an alcohol counselor about my drinking. Alcoholism is a serious disease. Most people are like I was. They don't know or understand that it is a disease. Before the drinker can get help to treat it, the drinker has to first acknowledge that alcohol is a problem. Then she or he has to be willing to get help. This story is about my attitude toward my drinking at that time of my life. And what happened after I was confronted about it.



"What's Goin On?"


The five o'clock crew at Allen's Lounge was off and running. The place buzzed like a busy hive. What's goin on? I heard Marvin Gaye ask over the chattering hum of the crowd. Home free! That's what's goin on, I answered in my head while situating myself on a barstool. No alcohol counselor and his stupid questions around here! I nodded hello to the regulars lining the bar like pigeons waiting for bread crusts. Behind the bar, Allen, tall as an ostrich and dark as bitter chocolate, counted bills and change to balance the cash register. Jay iced down the beer while Les, looking like a sad-eyed, basset hound, poured up half-dozen drink orders as Katie, the waitress, reeled them off.

I lit a cigarette and glanced up at the huge, lighted mirror in front of me. Scattered at tables, men in blue or gray work uniforms, just getting off from work at Whirlpool or Alcoa, drank quarts of Budweiser or shots of whiskey, smoked cigarettes, traded lies, hawked the women, and speculated on which one might want a just-for-tonight lover. The women, in bright colors, sat in groups of two's and three's, cutting their eyes at each other, whispering behind their hands, or throwing their heads back in noisy laughter. Most of them sipped pretty drinks—the kind I never had much use for—like Tom Collins or Tequila Sunrise, although some toyed with a glass of beer.

I caught Jay's eye and winked. He was a beauty. An x-rated honey-dripper. Cinnamon skin, thick eyelashes, naturally arched eyebrows, sculpted, full lips. And so good in bed that I could pretend my woman-jones didn't exist. Sometimes, all his sexiness and beauty triggered my inferiority complexes. At other times, my ego swelled with the idea that a sugah-lump like him had picked me to be his woman.

"What's up?" I asked as he came toward me

He shrugged, slapping a napkin on the counter. "Gonna be jumpin in here tonight. Allen's got me working the night shift, so I won't get by your place until 2:30. You want your usual? It's on me."

"Yeah, scotch on the—"

He finished it. "Rocks, lemon slice, water back."

"What else?" I smiled.

He grinned at me and started to pour. As he did, a voice hollered out.

"Give her another!" It was Sylvester sitting at the other end of the bar; he slammed two quarters down for Jay. I waved at Syl and nodded my thanks. He, in turn, lifted his shot glass ceremoniously in salute.

Jay put two drinks in front of me, went down the bar to collect for it, rang up the order, and trotted off to the john.

I shifted my sight to the mirror behind the bar. It ran the length of the wall. The bottles, in front of it, artfully arranged in stair-step fashion, caught my eye. Like ladies of the night displaying their wares to the highest bidder, the shimmering liquor winked and promised good times: Scotch in emerald green bottles, whiskey in topaz brown bottles, vodka and gin in diamond-clear bottles. I picked up my glass and sipped. Nothing like the first scotch of the day, I told myself while savoring the bitter, slightly oily taste of J & B.

A good feeling began to settle over me. But before the good feeling could make itself at home, out of nowhere, I heard the counselor ask: Do you want to quit?

Spooked, I glanced over my shoulder, frowning as I scanned the crowd. Was that asshole of an alcohol counselor in here? Did he follow me to Allen's? But, no. There were only Black folks here, getting down to some serious partying. I stared into the golden liquid in my glass. Do you want to quit? He’d asked me. An icy tremor passed through me. How could I give it up? My palms felt clammy and I wiped them together.

There'd been times when I'd thought about it. Especially when I'd come into Allen’s, and somebody at the bar would ask me if I remembered what I'd done the night before. I hated that question. It shamed me. They knew what I'd done, but I didn't. It was unnerving because a big, black hood had dropped down over my brain. What I'd done the night before was gone. Wiped clean. When someone asked me, I'd drop my eyes, afraid that I'd made a fool of myself. Afraid that somebody was going to rib me for it and I wouldn’t be able to, couldn’t play it off. How could I when last night was a bunch of empty pages scrolling in my head?

I pulled on my cigarette. Why couldn't I remember? What was happening? Maybe I should seriously consider quitting. But when that line of thought came to mind, I had to have a drink since thinking about quitting was unnerving. By the time I'd finished drinking and thinking, mother scotch had moved the whole idea to the back burner.

What's goin on? Marvin asked me, his voice fading on the last notes of the song. I took a long swallow of scotch, almost draining the glass as The Isley's kicked "Love the One You With" into high gear. It was then that the door swung open so hard that the hinges squeaked and sang. I turned my head to see who was coming in. There at the entrance stood Jay's wife—a harmless-looking, brown terrier with the soul of a war dog. For a millisecond, she was motionless; then, she swooped in.

Thank God, Jay was in the john. If she had come in a few minutes earlier, she'd have caught me sitting here carrying on with him. But she didn't need to catch me to know I was guilty. When Jay was here, nine times out of ten, I was, too. Marsha knew, like everybody else in Evansville, that I was Jay's sideline woman. It was a common practice. Husbands took lovers; wives looked the other way. Marsha didn't frequent the bars, so ordinarily Allen's Lounge was safe territory for me and Jay. But not, it seemed, today. In the mirror, I watched her double-timing it straight to me, her jaws tighter than Dick's hatband. She stomped up beside me and stopped, hand on her hip, glaring. Without looking at her, I lifted my glass to drink, weighing the threat of danger her presence signaled while cold sweat inched down my stomach.

"What the hell," she addressed me in ringing tones, loud enough for everyone to take notice, "do you think you're doin in here with Jay?"

At the sound of her voice, the bar's noisy crowd suddenly came to attention, slipping into the I-was-a-witness mode, drinks forgotten as eyes turned to watch local drama.

Marsha moved a step closer. "Ain't I tole you bout this shit before?"

Survival instinct screamed for me to get the hell out of the bar, but my feet had turned to concrete. Careful not to look her in the face, I took a drag on my Pell Mell and tapped some ashes off the tip.

She took the drama up a notch, playing to every person in the room. "I hope," she proclaimed, "you don't think I'ma jus sit back in some corner while you fuck around with my husband."

I could feel her breath on my neck. Was she going to jump me? My heart was thumping in time with the record's beat. Since I'd never been a fighter, I had zero confidence about myself when it came to fisty-cuffs, but if she made a move to beat my ass, would I just sit here and let her?

The crowd hung with bated breath on every word. She huffed and puffed for them. "I'ma tell you one more time to leave Jay alone."

I kept silent, gambling that she'd interpret my silence as browbeaten humiliation and leave me be.

She pronounced her final threat with a flourish. "Don't let me have to tell you bout this shit no more!" A dramatic pause, and then: "You hear me?"

The challenge hung in the air. Despite the fact that I was shivering in my boots, the smart-ass in me finally reared its head, ready to deliver me to the hangman's noose. I opened my mouth with the intention of sarcastically assuring Marsha that I had, indeed, heard her. But Jay glided up before I could say a word, and quickly steered her out of the bar.

(end)

Order my book at Amazon or Borders Bookstores or at my publisher’s website under the book title or under my name, Frankie Lennon, at
www.Amazon.com< www.Borders.com
www.Kerlak.com

Excerpts from The Mee Street Chronicles: "Predators"

Copyright 2007-AllRights Reserved

Introduction to "Predators" from The Mee Street Chronicles

The excerpt below is from the story, “Predators,” in my memoir, The Mee St. Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life. My memoir tells you stories about my battle to claim my own life and sexual identity. This story is about a time when I was living as a closeted Lesbian, masquerading as a heterosexual. The Anita Bryant campaign, which served as catalyst for what happened that day in the bar, was going full throttle in the 1970's. This is a story of how that noxious campaign affected me.

"Predators"

"Homosexuality is not a deviation; it is a variation. And people need to know that."
Peter J. Gomes, Minister

Allen's black and white television sat on a beer cooler in a corner behind the bar, and you couldn't really see it unless you were sitting almost on top of it. From where I usually sat at the bar, I could see it fine if it was on. Today it was, and I was watching Les build my drink when the CBS Evening News came on. The anchor, Walter Cronkite, always distinguished, always credible, opened with the story of the "Save Our Children" campaign. It had started a short while ago, Cronkite said, pausing to glance down at the sheaf of papers in his hand, with Anita Bryant and her organization pushing for Miami to repeal the city ordinance prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals.

As soon as the word homosexual rolled out of Cronkite's mouth in basso tones, everybody seemed to come to instant attention. I shifted my eyes away from Les to the television broadcast, feeling everything inside me go stock still, just like a rabbit that's caught the scent of danger in high grass.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Katie, the waitress, headed for the jukebox, but Cecil, sitting at a table behind me, stopped her.

"Wait up, " he said. "I wanna hear the news." Katie shrugged and backed off.

That was unusual. Watching the news got very low priority even when there were only a handful of us at Allen's, so my nerve endings went on alert. Plus, I'd heard about Bryant's campaign. Which in itself was enough to get anxiety skipping through my veins. The campaign was getting a lot of national play and in Evansville, people were paying attention. At the very least, conversations gave it a passing nod if not full blown commentary. Not long ago, a man that I'd thought was open-minded and liberal had stunned me.

“Anita Bryant is right,” he'd raged after I'd asked him what he thought about her campaign. “That scum should be hunted down and put in a concentration camp somewhere away from normal people.” I particularly remembered his eyes while he'd said it. They'd gone hard and black and lightless. It was his eyes that had frightened me the most. He'd shown me his Mr. Hyde face, a part of him that I didn't know. And that part had drawn a line of separation in the sand with me standing one side and him on the other although he didn't know it. Didn't know about Stacey, about my woman dreams, about the real me I kept chained in secret corners. Nobody here did.

Glancing around, I realized that only a couple of familiar faces, the regulars that made Allen's so comfortable for me, were here today. Clyde, on the barstool in the corner and John, next to him. The rest—Cecil, Sonny, Nance, Gloria, and Betty—came in less often. As always Les was behind the bar and Katie was waiting tables, but there were a few others that I didn't know. For some reason, without the regulars that I knew so well, Allen's felt less cozy, less like home. Was there a chill in the air? I pulled my cardigan sweater closer around my chest.

On camera, Cronkite reminded us that aside from being a Miss America runner-up, Anita Bryant was best known as spokeswoman for Florida orange juice commercials. Bryant had gotten famous for telling the television audience, "A day without Florida orange juice is a day without sunshine."

Now, I thought to myself, she'd switched to selling something else. Something dark. I could hear aggravated murmurs from Cecil and the other guys sitting at his table. I drew in a ragged breath. Keeping up my camouflage was harder with Anita Bryant stirring things up. Where was my drink? I glanced at Les; he was moving in slow motion.

Cronkite went to a film clip of Bryant at a Midwestern news conference. A newsman asked about her motives for the campaign. Surrounded by microphones, the dark-haired, former beauty queen beamed at the camera and opened her mouth to oblige.

"Since homosexuals cannot reproduce," she said, striking a tone of both sincerity and loathing, "they must recruit children to freshen their ranks. We must not allow them to continue."

I clinched my fist, furious, thinking: "How can she get away with saying a pure lie like that?"

Somebody, a woman's voice, growled: "One of them mess wit my baby and he gonna get his ass kicked!"

I blew out a frustrated breath. What Bryant was saying boiled down to a load of crap. You didn’t choose or get recruited like you were joining the army or some kind of club. You were born the way you were born.

I thought about Stacey and rubbed the palm of my hand across my lips. Nobody had recruited me into being attracted to women. Nobody had forced me to love her. That admission woke up The Corners, the place, at the back of my mind, where I'd vaulted my secrets. Like autumn leaves, they began to crackle and rustle. Which served to unnerve me even more than Anita Bryant. Mostly, I could keep them quiet and still as a tomb.

On screen, you could see the reporters scribbling furiously on their pads. Bryant was gabbing away, talking like she'd made some kind of a scientific study and was releasing the results.

It pissed me off that people put the rap on us for what pedophiles did. If you paid attention to your stats, or to what the neighborhood grapevine whispered about the husband down the street, you’d know that damn near all pedophiles were heterosexuals. To cover that up, folks muddied the water so that people would confuse pedophiles with homosexuals. But they weren’t the same at all.

I paid attention to the screen again. Why wasn’t somebody questioning Anita Bryant’s claims? The reporters were just standing there, eating it up like starving animals. That was the scary part. I lit a cigarette and I dragged my hand across my lips again. When Les put my drink down in front of me, I almost knocked it over grabbing for it.

One reporter finally asked Bryant a question. He wanted to know how she chose the name for her campaign. She put one white hand to her neck and looked earnestly into the camera's eye.

"We chose the name because we want to save our children by stopping these homosexuals. They're predators!"

(end)

Order my book at Amazon or Borders Bookstores or at my publisher’s website under the book title or under my name, Frankie Lennon, at
www.Amazon.com< www.Borders.com
www.Kerlak.com

Family Album 10

Copyright 2009- All Rights Reserved

George Henry Lennon, Jr. (March 31, 1907 – May, 1980)

Note on Photos: Daddy pictured alone, 1970. Group photo, circa 1940's. Mama, Daddy on front row with Austin's coaching staff.

He was Daddy to me. We played cowboys together, shooting it out in the living room. We wrestled and he was my opponent though I mostly lost because he got me in a hammer lock every time. He was my fellow conspirator at night in figuring out ways to get Mama to let me stay up way past my bedtime. He introduced me to two things I loved: the movies and Mr. Brown’s barbeque pork ribs. He was many things, but I want to talk about him here as Austin High School’s beloved Coach Lennon.

When I was growing up, I never really understood the depth of my father’s impact on Knoxville’s Black community—specifically, his impact as a high school coach in a segregated school system and what that meant for competitive athletics during Jim Crow’s reign. I didn’t then. But I do now.

From 1934 to 1968, Daddy was head coach at Austin High for football, basketball, and track, Austin’s sole Physical Education teacher, and its Athletic Director from 1958-68. Ironically, integration killed his career. But while he was coach, he was damn good. Excellent, at what he did and got his players to accomplish. I don’t think, though I could be wrong, that any other high school coach of that time and place—the South—came close to beating the record he set for winning. When his record was spoken of or written about, nobody stuck a qualifying adjective in there to “ghetto-ize” his record, to classify it and him according to race. His record was being compared to everybody…White and Black. Those who followed sports, the media, and people in the sports profession called him “The Winningest Coach in East Tennessee.” This is why.

In football, while he was coach, the Panthers (Austin’s nickname & symbol) were National Champs 3 times, Southern champs 5 times, State Champs 6 times. His teams racked up 221 wins, 7 ties, and only 63 losses. In basketball, they were State Champs 4 times and Runner-up for State Championship 11 times.

He told me that every year he set his goal to win championships. He expected and worked for it and let his players know he expected them to set the same goal. In his player-tryouts, he looked for a boy’s willingness to sacrifice time for practice, to train, and to stay in condition. Mostly, he looked for that burning desire to play and win. As a little girl and then a teenager, I remember watching him during game time pacing on the sidelines all through the game. Daddy didn’t allow his boys to mug it up with the crowd. He expected them to pay attention to what they were doing. If they let themselves get distracted and foul up a play, they’d get chewed out in one of his famous locker room sermons. That’s what the boys told me years later. Which was probably pretty funny on one hand because Daddy was a short man and, as a rule, most of his players were giants by comparison. But shortness of stature didn’t stop Daddy one bit. He was a little man with a big mouth, and he breathed fire and brimstone when it came to the game. Like all great coaches, he regarded the game as sacred. Any player who made it through the cuts to get to first squad had to be of the same mind. He always reminded those who made the team that they were Austin Panthers and that the panthers had a winning tradition…just like the New York Yankees or other professional teams.

I can’t help but be somewhat awed by Daddy’s attitude. What he told those Black boys was that they were just as good, better, really, than any White boy playing sports. What he expected of them was to set high goals and work for them. Forget skin color. That didn’t matter. Social class and money didn’t matter. All that claptrap about Black folks being inferior, or less than the next person didn’t matter. When I think about it, that was pretty radical stuff to put in somebody’s head back then. In fact, it’s still pretty radical stuff.

I asked him once what made a great high school basketball or football coach. He said you had to be a stickler for details, and that you had to have great insight and great foresight, but, most of all, you have to be a stickler for the fundamentals. Makes sense to me that whatever you choose to do—football player, coach, actress, musician, painter, writer—to do it well, you have to cover/know the basics. From there, you can play variations, make your own special pallet of colors, so to speak, on the fundamentals you’ve mastered.

I interviewed Daddy for a booklet I did on him (The Thrill of Victory) a couple of years before he died. His ambition, he said, was always to be a high school coach and teacher even though back in the 1930’s very little Physical Education was taught because there weren’t any gyms. Still one of his Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity brothers encouraged Daddy to apply for the P.E. job at Austin and, in 1934, he was hired. He'd gotten his bachelor's in 1931 at Bluefield State College where he'd picked up the nickname “Dusty” probably because he was, as he said, “pretty short for a football player” (Daddy was 5’4”.) People called Daddy either “Dusty” or “Coach” all his life. I never heard anybody except Aunt Helen and Aunt Claire call him by his given name, “George”—not even Mama.

Though I'm sure he could have coached at a college with the winning record he had and with his professional credentials (he not only had a bachelor's but received a master's in 1942 from the University of Wisconsin, no easy feat back then when teachers generally didn't have a master's degree and certainly not one from a White university in the midwest where Jim Crow was alive as well), interestingly enough, he never wanted to go into college level coaching because those careers were insecure then. Daddy said there was no tenure (permanency) and no long term coaching contracts paying substantial sums at Black Colleges (though there were at White colleges and universities).And he said that pension benefits were much better in a school system, even a Jim Crow one, than those at Black colleges. I wonder how much has changed now.

Were there any advantages to teaching and coaching in a racially segregated school system? Yes, he said. For one thing, you could get some extra motivation from them by appealing to race pride, to community pride. And he and the players were like family and because the Black community was segregated, everybody knew one another. The players and their families knew that he was interested in seeing them do the best job they could and that he expected them to do no less than their best. But he said he wished that Austin could have played the best White teams.

Well. For a while, they did play a White school on the Q.T. (Quiet Time) way up in the Smokey Mountains. But those games never got reported to the media because White and Black teams weren’t allowed to play each other. Somehow, the Tennessee Secondary Schools Athletic Association (TSSAA), which excluded Black teams/schools, got wind of the sneak games and they threatened to drop the White school from membership in TSSAA. The jig was up for that. So Austin continued pull together games with the few and scattered member Black schools for the Tennessee Negro High School Athletic Association (TNHSAA). Ultimately, Austin had to go out of the district, region, and out of state (as far as Roosevelt High in Gary, Indiana on some occasions) to make their game schedules.

I asked Daddy to tell me about three high points in his life that gave him great pleasure. One was when he was in college at Bluefield State. He ran a 60 yard touchdown against Virginia State that won the game for Bluefield. As a coach, he remembered when his football team defeated parker High of Birmingham, a school of 5000 students. Austin had only 600 students. The Panthers upset their lead of 13-0 and came from behind to win14-13. The next day, Daddy and the team got off the train to be greeted with a parade that Knoxvillians had put together. They all rode through Gay Street, downtown, in a victory celebration…something you just didn’t see done in “Jim Crow” Knoxville, Tennessee. The third high point was in 1977, after Daddy retired, when Austin-East High School’s stadium was dedicated to and named after Daddy.

Ultimately Austin High became Austin-East High School because Austin High was phased out in 1968, thanks to integration. Most of the students and teachers were sent to East High which had been all White. Daddy says before the phase-out, he could see the writing on the wall.

Here’s the skinny. Like other Black schools being integrated, Austin was scouted, Daddy said, to take their best players. In this case, East high got them. Plus, to make matters worse, Austin’s junior high feeder schools (Beardsley and Vine Junior) were scouted and their best players bribed and given favors to attend White schools. That left Daddy with very little material, so it was a struggle just to put a team together for those last few years.

Finally, the axe fell in 1968. Daddy wasn’t assigned to a school until a week before school opened that fall. Why? Whatat was going on? No school wanted Daddy, a Black coach on his staff who, for years, had the best coaching record in the city, Black or White. East High was out because the head coach there already had a White coaching staff; plus, they thought that there’d be trouble if they hired Daddy as Assistant Coach with his former players on East’s team now. (He had been Athletic Director and Head Coach for decades, mind you!) At the last minute, Daddy was assigned as Assistant Coach at Fulton High. His duties, I remember, consisted of being in charge of study hall every day. In effect, his coaching career was phased out with Austin High. Not only did they take his positions, they took the money, too. That first year at Fulton, his salary remained the same as before at Austin. But not after the first year. From then on, the pay level for being Head Coach and Athletic Director was revoked and he was paid as a regular teacher until he retired in 1974.

Integration as an idea of leveling the playing field, giving everybody an equally fair chance was thought to be a good idea. In theory. Because White folks were never going to give up the advantages that Jim Crow segregation afforded them, in practical application, integration turned out to be a bad idea, I think. Only because you never force your opponent to come to the bargaining table still able to summon and use all his power. Why wouldn’t he, then, turn the situation to his advantage?

What do I remember about Daddy as a coach? I spent many evenings watching Daddy nervously pick at his dinner before a football or a basketball game and I rejoiced when we won and despaired when we lost. After school, if I didn’t want to walk directly home from Vine Jr. High, I’d sometimes hang around Austin’s practice field or gym watching him relentlessly drive his players at practice. Daddy was a disciplinarian as a coach. If a player was caught drinking or smoking, he was off the team. If Daddy caught a player out late at night during the season, the next day, Daddy would run him around the track until he was ready to drop in exhaustion. I remember the endless traveling that Austin’s teams had to do to compete with other Black teams and fill out the schedule for the season. I remember that there was never any public housing for the teams when they went somewhere overnight. No motels or hotels. There were no places to eat unless somebody’s wife invited them for a meal. There was no money for uniforms either. The school system wasn’t about to provide anything in the city school budget for us Colored folks. Even though we paid taxes just like White folks did. And I remember that players who’d graduated would always come back, come by our house to see Daddy because they respected and admired him. I think he was a man to be respected and admired. It couldn’t have been easy to accomplish what he did in the Jim Crow South. But he did. I know there are those that thank him for it.

Family Album 7

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

Claire Marguerite Lovejoy Lennon (Sept. 24, 1902 – Aug. 18, 1992)

Aunt Claire and Uncle Matt couldn’t have children, but she was the kind of woman that kids and teenagers automatically fell in love with. A listener who always had time for you. Someone who explained things. Soft-spoken. Empathetic. Understanding. She was the kind you wished, when you were a teenager, that you could have as a mother when you’d messed up with your own for the third time and knew you were going down for it. In a time when folks were making Ma Bell rich with their long distance calling, Aunt Claire was an old-fashioned letter-writer. And a very good one. In another time—a later era, she might have tried her hand at writing as a profession. She used to write me very long letters when I was in high school and college. They got shorter as I got older, but letter writing was something she did all her life.

Aunt Claire was born in Warm Springs, Georgia. Her obituary says that she was one of four children and that her parents began their children’s education at home. Apparently they did so well that when Aunt Claire entered school at 6 ½, she was placed in the third grade. She started teaching when she was seventeen.

Like everybody else who taught school then, she was a product of “the normal school” which was set up specifically for public teacher education. After finishing it, you could teach right away. This kind of school is not to be confused with the colleges that existed in the late nineteen and early twentieth century for the upper classes (code words for rich White people); those colleges, by the way, looked down on normal schools as “poor relations”, so to speak, that educated teachers for the “common” or public schools which were for the “unrich” masses. Later Aunt Claire went on to college—Georgia State, Tuskeegee, and Atlanta University—because we all know Black folks have to do double or triple the amount White folks do, just to qualify.

By the time I was born, she was Superintendent at Allen High, a private school for girls. Later, she worked as an administrator at Palmer School, and later, still, she worked with the YWCA. Eventually, she went to Spelman College with Uncle Matt and served for a time as First Lady of the College since the President, at the time, had no wife to fill that role for the college.

I once saw a picture of Aunt Claire as a young girl and I have to say I didn’t recognize her at all. She looked like a White girl—a gorgeous White girl. That means, of course, that she could’ve passed if she’d wanted to. Obviously, she—like a whole lot of others who could’ve passed—didn’t want to. She told me about the time after Uncle Matt had died when she shared a cab with some White women also living at the same large retirement complex as she. They were all going to a concert in Asheville. Some of the women in the cab knew each other, but none of them knew her. On the way, a couple of them began talking about Black folks, making observations that were, to say the least, unflattering—and demeaning. Thinking they were all “one of a kind”, the silver-haired duennas pulled out all the stops, holding nothing back in their conversation, showing—in a manner of speaking—their true colors. Then, one of the old ladies turned and asked Aunt Claire what she thought. Aunt Claire opined that since she was Black, she thought…. Well, you can see where that went. They turned red and clamed up, mumbling some inane excuses and half-hearted apologies. She smiled to herself and proceeded to have herself a good ole time at the concert.

I tell you this story to show you that ladies of her day either decided to pass as White or they declared for Black. No half-stepping code words like “Biracial” to set themselves apart and tell the world they were light-skinned folks who could pass if they had the nerve to do it. No, sir. They didn’t live in the world of gray, being neither this, nor that. They were Colored folks—and damned proud of it.

Family Album 6

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

Madison C. Benjamin Lennon (March 26, 1909 – Spring, 1976)

Uncle Matt held a distinctly romantic aura for me and I fell completely under his spell. I had heard from bits and pieces of grown-up conversation that he had been a road musician, that he had traveled “all over” as a member of a jazz band. I wonder now how a p.k.—preacher’s kid got away with that. It wasn’t a respectable occupation for Black folks in the 1920’s, 30’s, or 40’s.

Uncle Matt was born in Savannah, Georgia and grew up there as well as in Daytona Beach, Florida where he attended Bethune-Cookman High School which was later named Bethune-Cookman College (one of the historic Black colleges). His junior college years were at Morristown Junior College in Tennessee. Then came his discovery of his feel for music during the years at Wilberforce. He said that his major was Political Science and had planned to go into Law, but he got deeply involved with a band on campus and a love affair with the music muse was born. Uncle Matt told me that from 1930 to 1932, he was on the road with various jazz bands—the Chocolate Drops, for one, and Zack White’s Beau Brummels, for another. Later, I found out he was on the road for about three years immediately following his graduation from Ohio’s Wilberforce University. Marriage to Aunt Claire in 1933 soon put an end to musician’s road life.

He got his Master’s in music at Ohio State University and did further work at Columbia, U. of Wisconsin, U. of North Carolina. So he was well-rounded, variously experienced and definitely qualified to step into the classroom. His teaching life started in LaGrange, Georgia and eventually took him to Asheville, North Carolina in 1941. It was there that as Director of Bands, his bands at segregated Stephens-Lee High consistently made their mark as the state’s best marching-concert bands, often walking off with first place honors in competitions.

Asheville was a 3-hour drive from Knoxville over the Smokey Mountains so going over there was a treat that we did only so often. When we did go to visit Uncle Matt and Aunt Claire, my favorite aunt and uncle, I could see how the students loved him. They called him “Doc” Lennon there. He got a lot of respect, as did his band. Though I only got to watch his band a few times, a blind person could see that they were A-Number One; they could even beat Austin’s band with their unique marching style—which was a definite crowd pleaser. I remember that the drum line set a wicked beat and the drum major and majorettes behind him gave us a performance that had you clapping and hollering. I heard people often compare his band to the revered Florida A & M State (another historic Black college) that routinely turned out the very best in college marching bands—White or Black. After integration closed the doors of Stephens-Lee, Uncle Matt went to Atlanta to teach at Spellman College (yet another historic Black college) as Director of Instrumental Music from 1966 until he retired in 1973. After he retired, he organized and directed a rhythm band with Asheville Senior Citizens until he died. I think it was Asheville High School that established a music scholarship in his memory for deserving young musicians planning to go to college.

Uncle Madison was my music man. My Jazzy Boo. He was so cool. I do miss him.

Family Album 5

Copyright 2009-All rights Reserved

Avice Evans Lennon (December 4, 1905 – September 30, 1998)

Aunt Avice was Uncle Frank’s second wife, and he was her second husband. A year or two after he divorced Aunt Helen, which was around 1960, he and Avice got married. Aunt Avice was a professional woman in her own right—a pharmacist and business woman who owned College Drug Store on the West side of Knoxville, in Mechanicsville, just down the street a piece from Knoxville College, a Black college that dates from 1876. Actually, she was the first Black female pharmacist in Knoxville, having gotten her degree as a registered pharmacist from Xavier University in 1950.

I think Uncle Frank wanted to marry Aunt Avice because she was a I’ll-stand-by-you kind of woman. I don’t believe he was well and was probably looking for someone who’d see him through. Aunt Avice, unlike her predecessor, was an honorable woman who did just that with much compassion and love. After everybody in my family had died, the only relative I had left was Aunt Avice, who was living with her sister, Aunt Teenie (Armentine Pickett, one of my “no-relation aunts” from years back). I loved “The Aunts,” who, in their golden years, were good-looking women with snow white hair and a hearty sense of humor; they also happened to be super-sized, die-hard Laker fans. Once, I had baseball caps made up for them with sequined letters showing each of their names on the backside, and inscribed on the front with the words: “Laker Fan”. They wore the caps while they watched the games, yelling at the players, screaming in joy when one of them made a basket, and generally having such a good time that you’d have they were ringside at all the games.

Aunt Avice was the relative I came out to back in 1990. The others were dead by then. Most people who’ve read my book, The Mee Street Chronicles, want to know what she said once I phoned and told her the truth about my sexuality. In a syrupy southern accent, she said something like: “Why, honey, I don’t care about that.” During the same conversation, I told her I was getting married at my church in Los Angeles to a woman, and she replied in typical Knoxville fashion: “Is she a nice girl? If she is, then that’s all right.” They don’t make ‘em like Aunt Avice anymore. She was one of those Black Knoxville women with true grit. And true heart. She laid down to rest a bit at age 93. I hope she’s restin’ good.

Family Album 4

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

Helen Mae White Lennon ( ? – 1970’s)

Aunt Helen was Uncle Frank’s first wife. She herself said that she was a great beauty when she married my uncle Frank. She dropped that bit of history, along with other tidbits one summer afternoon when she did an uncharacteristic thing by coming from her house next door to our house, sit outside and talk awhile with Daddy while he barbequed. I stayed still as a mouse so as to not miss a word as Aunt Helen recounted her escapades with Uncle Frank before they got married. Seems that there was some hanky-panky going on with Uncle Frank visiting her dorm room (she was a nursing student and he a doctoring student). That blew me away. I just couldn’t picture them together—roly-poly Aunt Helen and staid, passive Uncle Frank. Later on, I saw a photo (not the one posted here) picturing a very young Aunt Helen and she was, indeed, beautiful. The way Aunt Helen told it, she seduced Uncle Frank into marriage. She wasn’t preggers or anything, just made herself so irresistible that Uncle Frank was bound and determined to have her.

Aunt Helen was a drama queen, and an alcoholic. While she was alive, I really, really disliked her. Not because she was an alcoholic—or a drama queen. Really, it was because she always had a sneer about her. As if looking at you down her nose. As if you didn’t measure up. And worse, because you didn’t measure up, you became fair game for her to make fun of. Somebody for her to point at and laugh about. You know the kind that titters behind her hands with the others in her group. For sure, she liked to read you…up close and personal. But she had nerve, I’ll give her that. And she never lost it. Not even when Uncle Frank—tiring of her drinking, the endless parties in her kitchen, and her amorous escapades—finally threw her out. After which, the story goes, she found another man to marry that she thought had some money. Which she didn’t. And he thought she had some money. Well, turned out neither one had a crying dime. When Aunt Helen found out the truth, she divorced him faster than a New York minute. This, of course, was Aunt Helen’s version of what happened as she narrated it to me and Daddy the last time I ever saw her. She ended up living out her days in very modest circumstances, compared to the way she’d lived before. It didn’t humble her. She was a hellcat to the very end.

Family Album 3

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

Edgar Frank Lennon (March 1, 1888 – 1966)

My mother named me after Uncle Frank who, being the family doctor, helped bring me into the world at Knoxville General Hospital. Uncle Frank was the firstborn of the three Lennon brothers, all born in March.

Uncle Frank was born in Bladenboro, North Carolina. He graduated from Morristown College in Morristown, Tennessee and finished Meharry Medical University in 1917 as a trained doctor. That was quite a feat for the times and the place where he lived. People forget that a college education was not generally available to the everyday person back then and for a Black man to find a way to become a doctor was a significant achievement. I say this not to brag but to pinch myself about what I’ve read about the times, the general lack of opportunities, the hard-ass road that Black people struggled to trudge in those times. The same year he graduated, Uncle Frank opened his office at 1011/2 West Vine Ave. in Knoxville.

Uncle Frank was a man who did good things. Remember that Black people could not go to the same hospitals or clinics as Whites and so, unless Black doctors had the resources to do so, Black people went without hospital medical care. In 1922, Uncle Frank bought a building, remodeled it, and opened, on Clinch Street, The Helen M. Lennon Hospital and nurse training school with twenty-five beds. I’m sure there’s a story in that. Unfortunately, I don’t know it. I have to wonder: Where did he get the money? How did he manage to buy property in Knoxville? White people would not, did not, sell property to Blacks back then. Which means a White man must have bought it for him on the Q.T. (quiet time). Who was he and what was their relationship? Why did he do that for Uncle Frank? After all, it would have been a risk for him to do that for a Black man. His community would have branded him a “nigger-lover” and made his life hell. Anyway.

When Knoxville General Hospital was built, Jim Crow was making the rules in the South about what Blacks could and could not do. One of the rules was that Black doctors were not permitted to treat and operate on their own patients who were admitted there, so Uncle Frank and other Black doctors led the legal fight that ultimately gave Black doctors the right to practice and operate in KGH’s Negro Unit. Finding that out about him shocked me because his demeanor was not that of a boat-rocker or freedom-fighter. He seemed to be a mild-mannered, quiet man. More of a traditionalist. You just never know about your relatives. When you’re a kid, you come up with these half-baked assumptions based on appearances, your feelings, on a bunch of who knows what.

Of the two sisters-in-law, Mama seemed to be his favorite. They appeared to be good friends—at least, she seemed to be his confidante. I remember many Sundays that, after he divorced Aunt Helen, he came to dinner at our house, and he and Mama would have long conversations while I was in the kitchen doing the dishes. Personally, I found Uncle Frank hard to know. Very reserved. Unlike Daddy or Uncle Matt, he didn’t seem approachable though he couldn’t have been more thoughtful of me… always giving me elaborate presents. But I never could really feel him. Even now, as I look at his picture, my impression is of a carefully shielded man. Or a man shut-down and unemotional. In the picture, Uncle Frank is expressionless. And that’s the way I remember his face. Never animated; just sort of flat, or impassive. And always unreadable. He looks perfectly respectable in the picture—middle-aged, wearing rimless spectacles, a white shirt with thin dark lines, a dark tie, and dark pin-striped suit. His skin is lighter than that of his two brothers…more like his mother’s, and he has her lips. It’s his eyes that are arresting. He’s looking away from the camera, seeing something in the distance, and his eyes tell you about sadness and loneliness. Did Aunt Helen’s partying do that? Or their son’s early and untimely death? I wonder.

Knoxville Remembered Series: Old Austin

Copyright 2008 -All Rights Reserved

In my time, Austin High was the only high school that Black kids could attend in Knoxville, Tennessee. Jim Crow ruled as law and lord of the land in the South, and that was the way things were until public school integration in 1964 or thereabouts when the Knoxville had to cave in to the Supreme Court’s decision.

The original Austin was built at 327 Central Street in 1897 by the efforts of Miss Emily Austin who came South during Reconstruction, just as many Whites did, to teach Black people. That Austin was built to educate “coloreds” (the politically correct terminology in that day) from ages six to eighteen and it graduated students who completed the tenth grade; later, in the Roaring Twenties, Austin added the eleventh grade, and, finally, in 1936, the twelfth. By then, the city had constructed the Vine Street Austin, old Austin—the one I still dream about. This was the Austin where I grew up, where I was like a mascot, adopted by faculty, staff, and students. I called this one “old” Austin because by 1952, a new Austin went up right next door; then, old Austin became Vine Junior High.

At both Austins, my daddy—Coach “Dusty” George H. Lennon—was the Physical Education teacher, the Head Coach for football, basketball, and the occasional track and field event. That was his job way before I was born and he kept it until integration. When Daddy was Austin’s football coach, games in Knoxville were nighttime affairs because we had to “borrow” a White school’s playing field at night since we had none of our own.

On the afternoon of Austin’s games, the band paraded through the Black community down Vine Street, and on up—uptown—to Gay Street, majorettes strutting their stuff, drumsticks tapping a snappy beat, the Band Director, Mr. Cobb, dressed to the nines in white shoes, white socks, and a uniform suit of white with gold trim on his hat and epaulettes. Everybody turned out to see the band. Because everybody’s child went to Austin sooner or later, and it was likely that a band member or majorette or cheerleader was a sister or a cousin; and if kin wasn’t a band member or cheerleader, then perhaps one of them was your neighbor’s child, or the child of a fellow church or club member.

When we were very little, Janice Tate and I were the band’s tiny tot mascots, marching just behind the drum majorette. I remember we were still living on Mee Street then, so I hadn’t made it to second grade yet. I must have been in kindergarten, at least. Janice, too because she and I were always in the same class. We were small enough to be “cute” but not big enough to last throughout the entire march. I remember that Daddy would pace us in his car so that from time to time Janice and I could scramble into the front seat and rest for a few blocks before jumping out and marching again. I liked being the band’s mascot—liked marching to the rhythms of the drum line—like showing off my little legs, even though I was convinced that Janice had prettier ones—liked being recognized by the community folks—and I liked the attention the drum majorette gave us.

In a very real way, Austin’s band was our community property; all Black folks owned a piece of it. When they heard the “Street Beat”—a syncopated rhythm beat out by the drum line without accompanying music—they poured out of their houses and watched, beaming with pride, as the band marched by, not a foot out of step. They shouted compliments like—“ Go on, girl! Do yo thang, baby! Y’all know you tuff stuff!”—and sent the band, smiling, on their way to the next block. The community held them high in esteem; we just knew Austin had the baddest band in town.

White folk downtown on Gay street turned out too—bankers, merchants, sales girls, and shoppers alike. They loved the performance: a high-stepping band dressed in spiffy-looking, orange and blue uniforms, playing a toe-tapping-head-nodding-hip-shaking beat, and to top it off, they were led by a drum majorette—always good-looking, tall hat, short, peekaboo skirt, tasseled boots, showing off the kind of legs that White “cheesecake” movie stars of the time, like Betty Grable and Jane Russell, wished they had.

The band was always one of my very favorite things about Austin, where the world was all Black. To me, Austin housed a village—elders, griots, mentors, all of them, extended family. There was gangly Mr. Davis, the principal, and the pigeon-toed, bespeckled Mr. Ford, a musical genius who regularly turned out top-grade Choral Arts choirs. There was dark-haired Madame Stokes, our French teacher, whose eyeglass frames matched her colorful blouses—pink frames today, and tomorrow pastel blue or lavender ones. And, of course, there was Mama, the English major turned girls’ basketball coach and gym teacher. When I had to miss first grade, Mama would take me and my tricycle to school with her and I’d turn Austin’s gym into my own personal race track when no one was around. And when I got bored, I’d run outside and sit in the dust, watching Daddy and his boys at football practice.

That Austin, like that Knoxville exists now in my dream time. Integration marched in and kicked ole Jim Crow segregation out. And other things. For one thing, school integration killed off the jobs of a lot of Black teachers and coaches all over the South. I realize today, to my sorrow, that integration —in education, in public spheres, in the marketplace, to name just a few—killed a great many other things as well—among them our community cohesiveness, our sense of worth, and a lot of idealistic values based on something finer than greed and conspicuous consumption. Back in the day, Black folk championed integration—had high hopes for it, in fact. Who knew that it would backfire in our faces? When school integration came, for example, Daddy had seniority over other White coaches and teachers, but the powers that be swept that aside. Daddy’s track record as the “winning-est” coach in East Tennessee, Black or White, mattered not. The powers put him at the previously all-White Fulton High where he was to serve as assistant to the White coach. But that didn’t happen. Probably because the coach was too intimidated by Daddy’s winning record and experience to let him near the football field or the basketball court; so unhappily, Daddy ended up being study hall monitor all day, every day for the rest of his days until retirement. When Daddy died in 1980, The Knoxville News-Sentinel headlined his death calling him a “Giant Among Area Coaches” and The Knoxville Journal said “he maintained a brilliant winning record in both football and basketball.”

The Knoxville of my growing up—the one where I’d see a “White Only” sign over the water fountain at Kresge’s five and dime—exists no more. That Knoxville, where I only saw white people when I went uptown with Mama to go to the bank and pay bills, is no more. That Knoxville is gone. Gone is that time when we could only go to Chilhowee Park on Thursdays—the day when White kids and their parents stayed away because Black kids and their parents were allowed in to ride the merry-go-round and the ferris wheel. Our place to swim--Edward Cothern Pool, the only place we could go swimming to cool down summer’s heat--is gone. So is The Gem Theater on Vine and Central, serving up second or third run Hollywood B movies to us Black kids who could only see movies there or in the balcony of the Bijou. All of those things have vanished. Time rolled in and rearranged things--as time always does.

Yes, like the old song said: Time brings about a change. Time merged the two Knoxvilles—one White and the other Black—into one. Time changed Knoxville, just as time changed Austin so many times. The 1952 Austin—the one I graduated from—is no more. Now there’s another called Austin-East High School. Which was supposed to school both Blacks and Whites. Supposed to.

Change is not always easy to swallow. But life is change.

The city named the football field at Austin-East for Daddy while he was still alive. And I liked that. I like remembering Old Austin because that memory is part of what defines me. Austin's legacy is still around. And I like knowing that. It's good to know that there’s still an Austin around in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Adventures of a Maverick Author 4: Teaching Mee Street

Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved

One of the advantages for a writer who is also a college professor is using your own book as text for a class. I’ve done that in my Sociology class and English classes several times since my book, The Mee Street Chronicles came out in February of 2007. It’s always an advantage and an adventure to find out what your reader-students have to say about your work. An adventure—a journey both scary and exhilarating. An advantage—a chance to learn things as a writer about my readers. What I’ve learned, thus far, on this journey with my book, is that I can never assume or predict anything about people. People are full of surprises. They are curious. They’ll ask all kinds of questions once they feel comfortable enough with me to do it. They tell me things about myself that I never realized consciously before. They love my stories. They respond to them with warmth, empathy, and good humor. With respect and with love.

The subtitle for my memoir is Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life. I think that it’s apt because the stories are straightforward, pull no punches, and truthfully tell it like it is—or was. The stories are “straight up”—no chaser. No mixer to dilute them. No cherries or fruity add-ons to soften the taste; no umbrellas or gimmicky decorations to pretty them up. You get what you get. Or, rather, you get what I lived.

I wrote these stories for those who are lost, who think they aren’t good enough, who are stymied by shame about who they are, who are struggling just to keep their heads up every day. I wrote my book for you—because I was lost. Because I was riddled with toxic shame about who I am. Because I never, ever thought I was good enough. Because I kept drowning in alcohol, in shame, in those voice-tapes that play on and on in my head. I wrote my book to tell you not to give up, to show you that lost or not you can find your path—that you can find your way. Apparently, my Freshmen English students got the message. And liked it enough to wax eloquent about my book. -end-

Erika Alatriste said:
“The Mee Street Chronicles is a great book. There are three parts to the book and they are all great in their own way. This book leaves you wanting more details, more stories, and more memories. My favorite story is “Fever.” It is full of passion, emotion, and is very descriptive. I really enjoyed it because everyone is aware of how men and women are in a relationship and how they first connect, but no one ever talks about same sex relationships. The narrator is very descriptive when it comes to the love of her life. The way the narrator described her love would make anyone fall in love. It is so romantic and leaves the reader wanting more. I would recommend anyone to read this book because it is one of those books that once you start reading you don’t want it to end.”

Marilyn Mata said:
“In my opinion, it is unusual for an author to write about her sexual orientation because society always pushes a heterosexual agenda. The author of The Mee Street Chronicles is truly an admirable woman who writes with honesty and bravery about her struggle with her sexual orientation, alcoholism, racism, social pressure and her working experiences in the field of AIDS. Mee Street has been the best book I have read in a long time. One of the things this book describes is how sexual identity discrimination was practiced a few decades ago in this society. In the story, “Predators,” a woman named Anita Bryant announced on national television that people who are homosexuals are recruiting children to become gay or lesbian. People are always searching for reasons to discriminate against homosexuality. Today, we also hear hateful comments against homosexuality. One of my classmates made an ignorant comment saying gay people should be forbidden to get married because homosexuality causes AIDS and that access to health care will decrease while insurance rates will increase. This, of course, is incorrect. AIDS is not a “homosexual disease.” Anyone can get it. This book opens people’s eyes about sexual orientation. It helps you realize that coming out of the closet is not easy, and how heterosexuals leave a mark on homosexuals.”

Grace Cha said:
“The unique quality of this book is that the events feel so tangible. After reading the story, one can almost say he or she experienced what the author had in the past. The book isn’t filled with superficial comments or ideas in order to put an image in front of the audience; it only gives you the honest truth about an individual. Before I opened up the book and began to read, I wondered what I could possibly learn from this book. Having read it, I believe that this book has taught me many things. This book is written by an incredible author who took that bold step and told her life story. I never knew anyone who is lesbian or gay and although I was never really against it, I also never knew the difficulties they faced or the hardships they have in life or all the hatred and pain caused merely because they are seen to be different. This book changed my life. It changed my views about everything in life. For example, I ask myself this question now when I catch myself judging others: Who are we to judge what the norm is and what goes against the norm? Because of reading about this individual’s life, I have become more aware of the issues that are in the world around me and I am less scared to come out and express my feelings. I can stand in a room full of people who disagree with my opinions and I won’t feel little or intimidated. Now, I’m not scared to be different or worried that I’m different from others.”


The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman's Life is available from http://www.amazon.com/ or from the publisher http://www.kerlak.com/

From the Evansville Notebooks: In the Boot Heel of Indiana

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Indiana, in the heart of the Midwest, is shaped like a boot. Bloomington, which is home to Indiana University, is up the road a piece from Evansville, which is at the southwestern quarter of the state: In its boot heel. Remembering Evansville is remembering summer. Summer and banana-cream sunrises. Summer gathering her oven-fired skirts around her as the heat begins to bake you even before morning barely begins. In my memory, Evansville will always be Willie Taylor’s barbeque, Bill’s homemade Chow Chow, Allen’s Lounge, The Paradise, Lincoln and Kentucky Avenues, the University of Evansville (first named Evansville College), Posey County melons, biting into a home-grown tomato, eating fresh-caught blue gills, stopping to watch barges and motor boats plow across the bosom of the Ohio River. Evansville will always be summer. Summer and cornfields roasting under August flame. Summer and vermillion sunsets. I landed in Evansville, which sits on a bend of the meandering Ohio River, after undergrad and grad school at Indiana University. Back then, in 1967, it was a retiring, mid-sized city where ten percent of the 200,000 population was Black. I remember there being one building that might have passed muster as a skyscraper—the Old National Bank, approximately twenty stories high. And there were three newspapers (I wrote a feature column for The Evansville Courier), one four-year college, an Indiana State University extension campus, one modest-sized museum, two exterior shopping centers, one small airport, one bus station, and no passenger train depot. You could drive in a couple of hours on two-lane highways to Louisville, Kentucky, to Cincinnati, Ohio, or to St. Louis, Missouri. If you wanted to go to Indianapolis, which is in the middle of the state, it would take a bit more drive time. The thing I remember right off about Evansville is that the streets there had German names that I couldn’t pronounce. (The spelling and pronunciation were quite foreign to me, being from the South and all where the names are quite vanilla-plain.) The original settlers that turned Evansville into more than just a river landing for trade goods were, I found out later, German, Irish, Jewish, and British immigrants. And that included, according to the history books, people on the run from war or famine or the law, people kicked out of Europe for being who they were, and poor folk trudging west to find a home.


When I first visited Evansville, in the mid sixties, I’d been invited for the weekend by a fellow student who’d lived there all of her life. As we drove into town that afternoon, I almost ran over Ron Glass (the actor) who leaped out into Lincoln Avenue (which was the main drag in the Black part of town) as if he had bumpers on his behind. He flagged us down and bounded over to the driver’s side of my car. He asked whose car we were riding in. Ron, a student himself at Evansville College, stared at me while I was being introduced, nodded his recognition of me, then proceeded to chatter away. At the time, I thought he was fiercely handsome, brash and a little overbearing. (When it comes to being brash and overbearing, I’d have to say it takes one to know one.) God only knows what he thought of me though we soon got to be friends. Of course that was before he graduated and left Evansville for the actor's life in New York and, eventually, in Los Angeles where he landed a starring role in the television series, “Barney Miller.”

Eventually, I ended up living in Evansville. The how and why of that is a tale for a winter’s eve around the fire. Suffice to say, for the moment, that the circumstances were messy. Full of high drama…which, for me, during those days, most likely meant I was running from something. I was. In fact, I was running from several things. All at the same time. And Evansville looked like a convenient hideout.

(I’ll let you in on just a few tidbits to keep you interested and tempt you to read more in Mee Street II when that book comes out in the future.)

By the time I got around to living in Evansville, I was out of graduate school, carrying a torch for a woman named Stacey, trying to find my balance, bewildered and lost because Mama had died and Daddy had remarried. (His new wife and I never saw eye to eye though that didn’t keep me from going home from time to time.)

I mention all this to say that by the time I stumbled out of graduate school, I was broken-hearted, grieving, rudderless, and entirely without focus or direction. My mother was no longer around to point me in a direction she thought I ought to go. Which meant that I was without the navigator I’d always depended on. The love of my life…the woman whom I had desperately wished to skip down the road of life with was now traveling a path that I could not follow. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I had gotten the requisite degrees. Now, something was supposed to happen. Something like living my life. Something like living happily ever after.

Something like getting a job. But what kind? Where? And how? While I was in my last semester of graduate school, somebody said something about a job referral bank on campus. I checked it out. There was a teaching position in Ohio at Wilberforce College and I had experience with teaching in college. I was teaching, while getting my Master's, as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the English Department at I.U.

So. Okay, I said to myself. I’ll apply. But I needed a resume. A soror helped me piece one together. We didn’t exactly know what we were doing and we didn’t know anybody to ask about these things but we muddled through. WE put it together and I mailed it off. Then, I waited. And waited. And waited. And started to panic. School was ending in sixty days and I didn’t have any place to go. Didn’t have a job.

My brain had gone into meltdown mode and I couldn’t figure out what to do. All I could think was that everyone I had loved had gone away from me. I didn’t know how to handle the emotions…the grief. They were raging inside me. Mama was dead. Stacey had kicked me to the curb. Daddy had married a woman who was…well, let’s just say he deserved better. (But I don't think he knew that.)

So I couldn’t go home. Wouldn’t.

Then, I visited Evansville. And while visiting that first time, I saw Evansville College. It was a nice little campus. Postage stamp small compared to the leviathan, Indiana University. It was suggested that I apply there for a teaching position. I did. They had absolutely no faculty or staff of color. And the pressure was on, by the late sixties, to hire a Black face. They hired mine. I became the first Black, full-time (but not tenure track) instructor there. They gave me a year to year contract. No security in the contract but I didn’t understand the ins and outs of all that anyway. I grabbed the offer.

And so began my deep, long sleep in a cave called Evansville, Indiana. A sleep that was full shadows and specters pale as death. A sleep always haunted by nightmares. A sleep that went on for fourteen-years.

(end)

Adventures of a Maverick Author 3: Scrambled Eggs

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Writing The Mee Street Chronicles has been something like making scrambled eggs. I had to break the eggs into the bowl (remember people, places and things), beat the eggs up with milk and seasoning (put the memories in story telling form), then dump the whole thing in a skillet (get the stories organized and edited to publish in a book). I didn’t know how the whole concoction would turn out. Would my storytelling turn out to be a brown-edged, overcooked mess? (My eggs often are.) A runny, undercooked goo? (I have trouble trying to scramble “soft” rather than “hard.”) Or would it be a fluffy, tasty treat? I didn’t know, couldn’t know unless I tried. Unless I took the risk. Made the jump. Broke the eggs and scrambled them.

I grew up a dreamer, and I had imagined, back when I was a kid, that my life would go like the ending of a fairy tale: That I’d live “happily ever after.” That it would all be so perfect. No need to break eggs. No need to take risks. The future was, I thought, an unclouded, golden horizon waiting to serve me up all my dreams. But it didn’t go that way. Nobody’s life does.

I found out that life mostly serves you up raw eggs, and it’s up to you to choose how you’ll eat them. Raw or cooked. If you go with raw, you just suck it up and slurp it down, I suppose. If you go with cooked, though, you can choose an omelet, poached, sunny side up, over easy, or scrambled. You make the choices. And what you choose becomes the story of what you’ve done (or are doing) with your life. I didn’t know, when I was growing up, that I really could choose. I didn’t know that my choices didn’t have to match up with what you deemed as acceptable and desirable. I didn’t know that I didn’t have to fall in line and choose what you wanted me to choose. So I spent a lot of time people-pleasing rather than living my life.

I do wish I hadn’t done that. But…. no sense in crying over spilt milk or mistakes long ago made. No sense in it because that very spilt milk—those mistakes and my people-pleasing choices—that’s what I put into my scrambled eggs to make my stories. Actually, its seasoning made the stories in Mee Street tastier, I think. Gave them an extra kick.

You tell me what you think. Go to www.amazon.com and order The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life; after you read the stories, log on to Amazon and write a Customer Review if you’ve a mind to.