It Was Easy to See What They Saw in Each Other

The gold wedding band lay at the bottom of the drawer, covered by brown and blue socks, neatly folded boxers, and a small stack of dingy t-shirts with the arms cut out. Daddy never talked about their marriage. All I knew was the stories I made up from the two photographs he also kept in the drawer. She was fourteen when they married; he was twenty-four and in the Army Air Corp. He must have looked a lot like the picture: green eyes that shot off the page, a crooked cocky smile. It was easy to see what they saw in each other. She had a wild look, excited, self-assured in a way that you wouldn’t expect from someone so young, someone born and raised in a town of 300 where the churches outnumbered the stores.

I want to know how they met. He was probably stationed somewhere nearby, Abilene or Anson? Maybe she hung out in honky-tonks near the base. She could easily pass for drinking age in that war time atmosphere. Tall, angular, long auburn hair swept to the side like a movie star.

There’s a story that floats around in my head, more dream than reality, about a marriage even before she met my father, a marriage when she was only thirteen. Maybe I made it up. Maybe someone told me the story, sort of an insurance policy just in case I ever had any admiration for my mother. That was a dangerous possibility. To me she was beautiful, and glamorous, and, well, so sad, all at the same time. She broke my heart, again and again but I loved her all the same.

They must have moved around after they married. I was born two years later in Lubbock. They were settled enough to take me in for studio photographs, not just once but several times. And then the pictures ended, replaced by snapshots.

SMARTZ

Anybody Can Learn to Play

She wanted to play the harmonica ever since she heard that woman at The Five and Dine in El Segundo. They must have been in their fifties or sixties, the three of them. One played guitar and the other a keyboard. But it was the harmonica that made Marlene fall in love.

Later a friend of a friend gave her one but only if she promised to play it. She tried but it was just too big, too fancy. So she put it back in its pretty case and went down to the used book store where she found a smaller one with an instruction book and a guarantee that “anybody can learn to play.”

At night she’d pour herself a finger of Jim Beam and sit out on the back step to practice. At first it seemed hard and then easy and then it got hard again. The only part she could get right was the uh huh huh-huh. And after awhile it got to be more fun to have another finger or two of JB, forget about the book, and just let ‘er rip.

To Die For

Deep, rich, earthy brown with slightly crusted edges
Thick and softly textured with tender moistness
Still warm though awash in a mass of chilled, orangey pseudo-crystallites
So sumptuously savory.

Ginger cake a la mode – that’ll be with pumpkin ice cream please.


Saundra C.

OOO Girl! You got that GOOD hair!

Good as opposed to Bad?
Bad as in Black?
Black as in Ugly?
Ugly as in Me & You?
Me & You as in Africans?
Africans as in Slaves who survived the Middle Passage?
Slaves as in 3/5th of a Human Being?
Human Being as in White People?
White People as in Beautiful?
Beautiful as in porcelain white skin, thin lips, narrow noses, and Long, Silky Straight Hair?
Long, Silky Straight Hair as in Good?

OOO Girl! You got that GOOD hair!

Yes I do.
In fact, in case you hadn’t noticed, everything about me is Good.

Good as in Proud.
Proud as in Knowing who I am and who I came from.
Knowing as in embracing the Strength of my ancestors.
Strength as in surviving the denigration and destruction of my African Culture and Beauty.
Culture and Beauty as in lifting a newborn baby, with iridescent black skin and tightly coiled course hair, to the sky to be blessed by the heavens with Good Health, a Good Family, a Good Life.

Yes, I have Good Healthy Hair.
I have Good Black Skin.
I have Good Strong Bones.
I have a Good Full Heart.
I have a Good Blessed Life.

Hell, I’m just damn GOOD!


Saundra C.

Path in the woods

Annie and I went for a humdrum walk in Tualatin, (the place with the dreadful RV park) and we came upon some unexpected woods. It was a beautiful hike. Surprise woods are always the best.