Mama died when I was 27; she was 59. She was high-spirited and full of herself at her best. She was petite and bright and attractive. She had a confident strut that telegraphed a deliberate nature with boundaries you instinctively weren’t to cross. She was fearless. My experiences growing up with Mama could fill a thick book and would need no artifice to give color and texture to their telling. Before remarrying when I was about 12, she laughed a lot and sang a lot. I can hear her laugh to this day—it was lusty and raw with honesty. She loved music and played 45 rpm records all day long when she was home on the weekends or after getting home from work. You might hear Mario Lanza’s powerful operatic voice climbing the crescendo of “Pagliacci”, or Louie Armstrong’s gravelly version of “Hello Dolly”, or the velvet lyrics of “Chances Are” by Johnny Mathis. She would sing along with the tunes, maybe visiting a magic time somewhere in her head real or dreamed. In those days, we had no car (and no air conditioning) so she road the city bus to work and home every day and cooked every night. I walked or rode my bike everywhere and later in my early teens hitch hiked most everywhere else. She only had a few rules. If I broke them and caught, she immediately whipped the hell out of me with a belt - no lecture or any forewarning or post script or reprimand whatsoever—it began and it ended, like a severe thunderstorm passing over and I got the message. Her target was my butt, being a spirited child I made all attempts to escape her wrath only to fuel her intentions to a higher temperature. It was rare for me to get a spanking for the same offense twice - I either figured a way to get away with it or I quit doing whatever it was. My spanking episodes thus ended early in life. Despite the Spartan discipline, I was free and independent and encouraged to think for myself without supervision; and free to explore my imagination to its farthest limits. By the time I was twelve, I could cook, iron, wash clothes fold them etc. We would go crabbing or to the beach with her girl friends, ride the city bus to the movies downtown, or Hampton Park and feed the ducks Cracker Jacks and she would occasionally take me out with her friends to go dancing. But of all we would do, crabbing with Mama was the best. I raised my daughters too in the creeks trying my best to pass on the magic.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 15:47:37 +0000
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