Everyday people

Sly and the Family Stone = Everyday people

So it happened yesterday.  I was updating my CV: curriculum vitae—little more than a fancy word for a resume.  Anyway, I was going over some of my prior publications.  It never fails.  We always love to read what we wrote at a time in the past.  It has an ability to take us back to where our mind was at that time.  Memories can come flooding back.  So it was. 

Anyway, I was overlooking some of the articles I had written for the Texas State Handbook Association.  I had written articles published on both prominent Texas African-Americans as well as lesser known Texas officers who had fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.  Two positions that seemingly resided at opposite ends of a historical perspective.  Perhaps.  Close inspection however,  reveals some interesting things.

Take for example the history of Marcus George Settle.  You can read the article if you want to.   His story is pretty interesting.  He moved to Texas when it was a republic back in the 1840s.  You know, back when Texas was seperate and different from any other part of the United States.  Way back then... not like today, right?  Well anyway, like any Texan, he made his money anyway he could.  For him, he found his trade in tending a farm and raising cattle.  He was able to do a little better than scrapping by for within ten years he bought his first slave.  Four years later he bought another.  In four years he sold both.  By the outbreak of the war he had bought two young slaves, a nine-year old boy, and a thirteen –year old girl.  Now if the story, and if history ended there Marcus could easily be written off as ‘just another southerner.’  The only problem is… the story doesn’t end there.

Marcus fought in the war.  Or at least signed up to.  By the wars end he had sold his land.  I wasn’t able to find if he still owned his female slave at the end of the war or not, but the little boy… he adopted him. His name was "Little Frank” and they rode together supplying livestock to the US Army.  By 1871 he had had enough of Texas and rode out to California.  He settled in Norwalk, California and opened the first church that area had seen.  Although that community may have been surrounded by the nearby city of Los Angeles it was a prospering city.  Now if you read the article you would have gotten that much so why am I writing this?

I am writing this to tell you an interesting story that the article left out.  Proof that Marcus loved his son.  He had served as lay minister there at the Methodist church for one year before a tragedy struck… his son Frank died.  His boy was only fifteen.  Indeed, as he was the pastor, Marcus presided over the first funeral that area had.  Now here comes the historic point.  Marcus was buried in the ‘black’ section of the cemetery.  Now all if this is what can be gleaned from the records.  Later actions however, show the love that a father can have for his son.  Why?

Well ya see this situation was not acceptable to Marcus.  He wanted Frank buried by his side as well as the other members of the family.  This was unacceptable to the Church board so… Marcus left the church.  He returned to raising cattle.  When his wife died in April of 1896, he followed her in death eight months later in November.  He chose for his wife, and later himself, to be buried next to Frank.  At least in death at least they could be reunited.  Article didn't print this part of the story, too divisive I suppose.  Of course you can check out a picture of the graves of Marcus and his wife.  They will show the stones of Marcus and his wife.  A close shot.  They mention the story that Frank was buried separately, but not the fact that he was re interned.  If you did further research you would find the picture of the "original" burial site of Frank Settle.  A historic marker placed before he was later reburied next to his parents.  Too bad division is always easier for some people when at the end of the day, in every way, we are all just everyday people.   

The Look

David Bowie Dead Man Walking Acoustic 

The look. 

It forever would be in her eyes.  Precious jewels multifaceted were reflecting a shared hope.  Of what?  We were together, what else mattered.    

Souls burned fierce to dance, to twist, to savor the joining of one into the other.  The most painful distance just happened to be in the diminutive distance that separated.  Time would stop.  They could live forever.  They would live forever.  All they had to do was look into the others eyes.    

Masks could slip.  Acceptance was total.  Yet they knew, there was a time for words glorious.  But now was not that time.  Time, if only for a moment, was fixed.  The gentle touch, the pulling close, this is what was needed.  With each caress eternally explosive energy was drawn from the other to build.  Build the passion that could so readily be seen.   

Desire rising.  Forces became too strong.  I pull you close.  The power is too great that half-open eyes must close for the communion of souls celebrated with the burning contact of the kiss. 

She stood on the edge

U2 Staring at the Sun

In a group, she stood on the edge.  The others were merely others.  The dress of blue, as if it longed to savor and caress the smooth body beneath, clung to her.  As her, it was seamless, faultless in its form.  All save the edges.  Their slight twisting in the breeze reflective of the tensioned motion ready to erupt; all it needed was the slightest provocation. 

Her face brazen in in erupting joy.  Eternal spring emanated from her eyes.  Her smile comforted as it challenged.  Run with me.  Fly to me. 

Shoes of red, were ready to dance furious.  A dance that would gloriously consume as the savage beast that burned beneath was glimpsed.  Both body and mind she lithely began an inviting undulating rhythm.  Dance with me, dance.  Closed, her eyes dreamt the visions she so longed to make real.  A reality she longed to share.  Her bumps assured.  The desire dripping from the impassioned thrust beckoned.  Dance with me.

Chasing Shadows

America: Ventura Highway remix


The hour was late.  I didn’t have much time.  The shadows were growing long.  The cicadas had begun their banshee screech.  The orange hue of the sky marked that the sun was at the midway point on the horizion.  I had to get home before it disappeared.  The rules were simple.  My parents wouldn’t bother me during the day as long as I was in the front yard by twilight and inside the house by dark.  As I was six who could have asked for more.

I had had a day.  The crinkled pack of Willy Wonka’s Bottlecaps I had picked up from the quarter rack at 7-11 had lasted me all day.  On my trusty steed provided by a Huffy Thundertrail I could go anywhere and see anything.  It’s black Iron Frame was ready for any punishment I could dish out.  A fact evidenced by the scuffs marking the frame like battle scars, or the strip of duct tape that ran across the cushioned seat repairing a tear.  Where did the scuff marks come from?  Perhaps they marked a tumble after a jump taken off a homemade ramp fashioned from a board and some bricks.  If Evil Kenievl could brave Snake Canyon, I could survive a vault into the air as well.  Or maybe that time when I tried to pop a wheelie and I it the curb.  It mattered little.  Unlike my older brothers stylin’ Schwinn banana seat bike, my ride could take whatever adventure I undertook. 
 
I was well prepared for my trek.  I was wearing my Toughskins. Though my Mother might have appreciated them for their utilitarian use, I liked the fact that my Toughskins were jeans that were ready for whatever rough and tumble adventure I might undertake.  The knees wouldn’t wear out.  Not so fast.

As it was summer, I had gone up to my Sudie Williams.  Why was I going to my elementary school during summer break?  Well although I’m not sure Huck would have responded to your question, as you asked it out of curiosity I will tell you.  It was for the playground; specifically the swing sets.  I had mastered the art.  I would laboriously raise the swing to the highest point I could.  You remember that point, just before the chains would lose their tension and start to snap on your descent.  Well I had figured out that exact moment, almost at the peak of the ascension it was,  where if you leapt off the swing it would maximize how for you could go vertically and horizontally  away from the swing set.  I had spent some time doing it.  But now I had to be back home. 

On my return, as always, I would pass by the Harrison’s.  At least I think that was their last name.  It was a single home house.  It was a white stucco bungalow style house that had to have been built in the late 40s or early 50s.  Almost every time I passed by they would be seated out on the front porch swing.  “Hey Joe,” I would always yell.  He hated it when I called him Mr. Harrison.  His face would light up, color would flush to his cheeks, and his wife would merely demurely smile.  She never really talked much. 

After placing my bike on its kickstand, I asked “Mind if I get some water Joe?”   “No, no,  help yourself.”  He said as he slowly made his way down the stairs.  Rushing to the exterior faucet on the side of his house I turned it on.  Although I would let the water fun for about 30 seconds to get out the heat from the original waters travel through the tube, it never really got rid of that metallic twinge of trust that seemed to accompany every drop.

“Ready for an Aggie Joke?,” Mr. Harrison would ask.  This was part of our ritual.  He would tell me jokes.  I would tell him jokes.  We would laugh.  Often we told each other the same jokes, but he loved to laugh.  Although I was too young to understand, I think he just loved having someone to talk to.  By this time I would usually be done with drinking from the hose.  I would hand it to him and ask him if he wanted me to turn it off.  His wrinkled hand would grab the heavy plastic.  “No, Vivian would like it if I watered her flowers.”  He would say looking at his wife alone on the swing.  She would silently and simply nod in affirmation.

With the joke period over we would talk about History.  I think he may have been a vet, as he really loved to talk about World War II and Korea.  Seemed to know a lot about those like from a man who lived it, didn’t just read about it.  But his smile was ever-present.  He had someone to talk to… even if it was a ruddy six-year-old boy whose hair may have been a little long and whose jeans were always dirty.   

Anyway I drank enough to “whet my whistle” as Joe might say, with the loud sucking off the side of the steam.  The whole time we talked the shadows would lengthen.  By the time the shadow made by his mailbox was just beginning to touch the third separated segment of the walk I knew that it would be time for me to go home.  I could linger no longer.  “See you tomorrow, Joe.”  “Go chase the shadows!,”  He would exort as a battle cry I would leap on my bike desperate to make it home in time.   Breathless I would ride home making it back just in time to see my Mother’s smiling face glance out the sink window.

We moved away from that area a few years later.  When I did make a journey back, I passed by Joe’s house.  It was still white, but it was now different.  Some children’s toys littered the front yard.  It seems as if the new owners had bought a new post box.  Plants now sat upon the porch.  The porch swing was still there.  But it was empty.  I smiled knowing that wherever Joe was, he would be telling someone a joke no doubt.  He would be happy, just being with others.   He would be happy.  “Go chase the shadows Joe!”, I softly said with a smile.  “Go chase the shadows!”