I love southern black culture, its rawness and its cultural legacy is too immense to truly be captured in words because it’s a feeling, like a spicy sauce with many layers, some might say. The ever beating drum of the African ancestors is always present in its people, but this conversation I recently had, took me back some years ago and I didn’t capture it in written words back then, but here’s a short story from a hot Sunday in New Orleans.
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His old grandfather or “pops” took me to the side one day and said with his strong New Orleans accent, “now Maru, we need to take you out for a spin! Can’t be trapped all day with this sprung boy.” and I was like “sure, let’s go” and as we travel down the streets of New Orleans in his car, he starts telling me about his sweet past, “but don’t you tell my grandson this, he won’t like this, he’s already too attached to his grandmother. That boy is something else, I tell yah” and I shyly nodded… and he continues ”this one right here, the one we are picking up today, I loved her, she used to be a fine little thing, back then, but we are only friends and she makes the best pecan pie” and at this point, I’m just listening and taking it all in because I knew I’d never quite experience this again. On the sidewalk walks this old but pretty lady with big shiny eyes, dressed in her best church clothes and a big hat and looks straight at me “oooh, hi baby! How you doing?” in that familiar warm accent “Thanks, I’m doing alright and you?” and she says” oh this is a blessed day, dear one… you sure are a pretty one, guess the old man wasn’t lying after all” and I didn’t know what to say, but just smiled back at her, while they continuously made me laugh as they reminisced on the hardships in life during the 50s and old friends that had passed away.
For all it’s worth, he never liked me telling these stories to him because his image had been slightly tainted because his grandfather had never told him these stories first. On a personal note, his “pops” changed me forever, he gave me the grandfather figure I never had while growing up (my own had passed away early in life) and told me stories, that sometimes sounded more like blues tales than reality, but whatever the case was, they felt real. With this story, however, I also want to say that if there’s money in the United States for this Corona Virus pandemic, surely, they can find monetary resources for reparations for black people in America. I truly believe in all my heart that the USA has not dealt with its cruelty against its black people. The generation of his grandfather (and grandmother) survived Jim Crow, racist laws that were detrimental to the black community. Still through this, they survived and thrived culturally. At a different time, I might write about my connection to Louisiana, but that’s not today. Be safe yall and wash your hands lol!
-Miss X
Dreaming in the Now 