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The History Channels 11/09/08
The song reads and sings of feeling like a Motherless Child... A long... long.... long... way from home!!!!! It's like that for me , but deeper. My parents were both loving, caring, nurturing, and yet would put toe, pot, pan, punishment, switches, belts, and the availability of any object smaller than a car to you, if they had to. It began back in the Civil Rights era. I can clearly remember my two female oldest siblings crying at the "big screen" black and white TV' as MLK Jr.'s body was being carried through Peachtree in ATL by white horses. I always wanted to have that regal , royal, and oh so proud(yet humble) look that Coretta Scott King had on her face; but what really made me want to obtained that look ,was that she and my sisters look the same. The same shock, somber, tears, and pitiful beauty radiated from the two women in the room as well as the one on the TV. My mother just shook her head saying ...Um, Um, Um that is a shame what this country is doing, just killing all the leaders, both of the Kennedy's(Robert Kennedy was killed a couple of months after MLK Jr. in the same year, was my mother a prophetess) and now Martin. It is so amazing that they( the assasinators, the real ones) are doing this because God is still going to change this situation and country to fit "His Perfect Will" what is all the senseless killing about.
I also remember looking at the "Jackson Five" on live TV , including the cartoon,show they had. I saw them on the Amercan Bandstand show with it's ageless host Dick Clark himself. Boy was that Michael Jackson a pretty , fine piece of "brown or black meat" (I was looking at the to "color" television ya'll). We would watch he and his brothers croon and swoon us, and we even dug there white counterparts the Osmonds, well the Jacksons certainly paved the way for the Osmonds and many , many more.
I can remember when Lucy , and Ricky never slept in the same bed together , and all of a sudden like magic she had "big stomach" and soon there was little Ricky. Fred and Ethel the older and wiser couple with no children being friends to the younger couple, loving them and their new edition. Teaching wisdom,while gaining knowledge from them on the coming trends( learning to bust the move, keep a place in the city, buy a home in the suburbs). I can also remember "the way Glenn Miller played, songs that made the hit parade" from Archie and Edith Bunker. We often would watch All in the Family to see the blue collar, guy from Queens do his thing. Oh he knew about every race or ethnic group in America , while being one of our most loved "bigoted,chauvinistic pigs". Archie had it in for everyone that was not "White" or "Male". But God knows that he met his "TWIN" in George Jefferson. Oh George was the same way Archie was, but did better financially, because he was a "BLACK MAN IN AMERICA". George knew that in order to succeed he better know how to read, write, smoke his daddy and Uncle Sam's pipe. George went from owner of one cleaners to a chain of them. He left Brooklyn, Harlem ( these are the only areas Blacks could go at one time you know, but you all knew that all ready) to go out to Queens and "stop paying rent for his tent" so to speak. George then decided to leave Queens, NY and "move on up to the East Side of Manhattan to a deluxe apartment in the sky, for a piece of the Pie(the American Apple Pie that is ), and wasn't we proud.
We as a Black Nation was proud because we could thoroughly understand and appreciate the "GOOD TIMES" of the Evans family in that Chicago slum, being children of the children of the old "slave South" at least they were being introduced to the "asphalt way of picking cotton remember the song(temporary lay offs, easy cradle rip offs, scratching and surviving, hanging in a chow line, ain't we lucky we got them GOOD TIMES !!!!!!!!!!!). We will never forget James being angry at not being able to keep steady employment in spite of all his gallant, valiant, efforts. Florida always cooking, cleaning, making all meals look nutritious and delicious on a "shoestring forget a budget". I mean Florida even stood strong when James died and released her agony with three unforgettable utterances( well one word repeated three times) that resonate throughout Black America"Damn,Damn,Damn" and she went back to making life look worth living in spite of her circumstances; cause that is all they are really just circumstances nothing concrete. The Evans family was like all our families with different personalities to make up the family. There was the very brainiac children ( Michael and Thelma) and the very talented creative child ( JJ). It was Norman Lears way of saying to America that these families are like all others with hopes, dreams, and aspirations. The places where they have to live was never design for living, only survival until you hopefully made it out to begin the "LIVING" part , maybe suburbs or to be played out just like another all American favorite the game of baseball; having run all three bases you and your family make it to owning a home where you could say SAFE.
Just a little something I remember from the Television of my Mind........
I also remember looking at the "Jackson Five" on live TV , including the cartoon,show they had. I saw them on the Amercan Bandstand show with it's ageless host Dick Clark himself. Boy was that Michael Jackson a pretty , fine piece of "brown or black meat" (I was looking at the to "color" television ya'll). We would watch he and his brothers croon and swoon us, and we even dug there white counterparts the Osmonds, well the Jacksons certainly paved the way for the Osmonds and many , many more.
I can remember when Lucy , and Ricky never slept in the same bed together , and all of a sudden like magic she had "big stomach" and soon there was little Ricky. Fred and Ethel the older and wiser couple with no children being friends to the younger couple, loving them and their new edition. Teaching wisdom,while gaining knowledge from them on the coming trends( learning to bust the move, keep a place in the city, buy a home in the suburbs). I can also remember "the way Glenn Miller played, songs that made the hit parade" from Archie and Edith Bunker. We often would watch All in the Family to see the blue collar, guy from Queens do his thing. Oh he knew about every race or ethnic group in America , while being one of our most loved "bigoted,chauvinistic pigs". Archie had it in for everyone that was not "White" or "Male". But God knows that he met his "TWIN" in George Jefferson. Oh George was the same way Archie was, but did better financially, because he was a "BLACK MAN IN AMERICA". George knew that in order to succeed he better know how to read, write, smoke his daddy and Uncle Sam's pipe. George went from owner of one cleaners to a chain of them. He left Brooklyn, Harlem ( these are the only areas Blacks could go at one time you know, but you all knew that all ready) to go out to Queens and "stop paying rent for his tent" so to speak. George then decided to leave Queens, NY and "move on up to the East Side of Manhattan to a deluxe apartment in the sky, for a piece of the Pie(the American Apple Pie that is ), and wasn't we proud.
We as a Black Nation was proud because we could thoroughly understand and appreciate the "GOOD TIMES" of the Evans family in that Chicago slum, being children of the children of the old "slave South" at least they were being introduced to the "asphalt way of picking cotton remember the song(temporary lay offs, easy cradle rip offs, scratching and surviving, hanging in a chow line, ain't we lucky we got them GOOD TIMES !!!!!!!!!!!). We will never forget James being angry at not being able to keep steady employment in spite of all his gallant, valiant, efforts. Florida always cooking, cleaning, making all meals look nutritious and delicious on a "shoestring forget a budget". I mean Florida even stood strong when James died and released her agony with three unforgettable utterances( well one word repeated three times) that resonate throughout Black America"Damn,Damn,Damn" and she went back to making life look worth living in spite of her circumstances; cause that is all they are really just circumstances nothing concrete. The Evans family was like all our families with different personalities to make up the family. There was the very brainiac children ( Michael and Thelma) and the very talented creative child ( JJ). It was Norman Lears way of saying to America that these families are like all others with hopes, dreams, and aspirations. The places where they have to live was never design for living, only survival until you hopefully made it out to begin the "LIVING" part , maybe suburbs or to be played out just like another all American favorite the game of baseball; having run all three bases you and your family make it to owning a home where you could say SAFE.
Just a little something I remember from the Television of my Mind........
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