Detroit, Lenacrave and Cleveland: My 3 Worlds, My Wasted Talents

By Brooke

I was almost as hard headed as it gets while repeatedly insisting on missing and ignoring the entire point that Mom and a few others tried to get me to realize.

GET YOUR EDUCATION!!!

I still had some great times here and there every now and then, and I can only imagine how beautiful-my-life-would-have-been if I would have followed the The Golden Rules.

Some wonderful things have happened to me even though I still feel that I truly did not deserve or even know how to sincerely enjoy thoroughly, but on the other hand, some not so wonderful things have happened to me that I basically brought on myself as a direct result of not following The Golden Rules.

EDUCATION IS A MUST!!!

I know my family was not the only family that has gone through a divorce, and I know there are millions of kids who went through divorce without a scratch. I am not blaming any of my failures as a man on the pitfalls of divorce, but I can clearly see now that my character flaws were a direct hit stemming from the casualties of my parents divorce. I did not ask to be me, and I certainly did not ask or expect to be stuck on stupid for almost three tenths of a century. It was what it was!

If I would have known their divorce would eventually effect me which I believe set the wheels in motion that turned towards me turning out the way I have, I would have started Praying that night. But I had no idea it would, and neither did they. I can only imagine how beautiful my life would have been if their marriage was meant to be, but it was not about me.

Brooke!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452091259

Brooke

I do not have any credentials as a writer yet, but I will soon. The readers will be interested because it is a true and great story that has been 43 years in the making. I have seen and done a lot of good and bad things while wasting my talents and putting a lot of miles on me between my 3 worlds, Detroit Michigan, Lenacrave Avenue, and Cleveland, Ohio. Everybody loves a great story, and everybody can benefit from laughter even if they aint got no lips.

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© 2010, 2014 Brooke!. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse: 03/13/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4520-9124-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-9125-9 ((e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010915067

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Round 1. The Formula.

Round 2. A Christmas Story!

Round 3. It Was What It Was.

Round 4. What's Going On?

Round 5. Somethin's In The Air.

Round 6. Lenacrave's Little Rascals.

Round 7. A Little Older, A Little Bolder.

Round 8. Happy Daze.

Round 9. Colorful Characters.

Round 10. Crucial Conflict.

Round 11. Pushing The Envelope.

Round 12. The Schematics Of A Loser.

Round 13. Now You See It, Now You Don’t.

Round 14. Fly Girl.

Round 15. That One's Not Your Average!

Round 16. I Can Show You Better Than I Can Tell You!

Round 17. Victim Of The Joke?

Round 18. O.P.P.-Other People's Problems.

Round 19. I'll Drink To That!

Round 20. Always Moving And Going Nowhere / Turn The Page.

Round 21. This Old Heart Of Mine.

Round 22. Who's That Lady?

Round 23. Everybody Loves Raymond!

Round 24. From Where I Stood.

Round 25. Accrued Interest.

Round 26. Get Rich Or Die Crying.

Round 27. Nebo Was A Rolling Stone.

Round 28. Suspicious Minds.

Due to my former addiction to stupidity, combined with my decades’ long expertise for being ass-backwards which were both pivotal points in my triple-tenure with failure, I have gone through a lot of crap that I could have and should have avoided. But along the way I still somehow managed to have some good times and some great big laffs. I truly believe that I have really been Blessed along the way and that I more than owe God for many things; most certainly if it wasn’t for Him I would’ve been outlined in chalk by now. This is my story.

ROUND 1

The Formula.

There I was lying on my back on the floor of Mrs. Brisker’s kinnygarden classroom at Corlett Elementary School in the fall 0f 1972 in Cleveland, Ohio. I had no idea of exactly what I was looking for but the view from the floor was very interesting to me. I know now that probably was the 1st day that Mom and the entire school staff realized that I was more than a tad bit different than the average kindergartener. The day started out just like all my kindergarten days; Mom got me out of bed, shined me up, dressed and fed me before she went back to snoring like she ain’t had no damn sense. I couldn’t tell time and it would be another 500 years before I could but thanks to Mom I knew when The Banana Splits Show went off it was time to head to school, or at least when my vision started blurring after sitting too close to the TV.

I was minding my own business while playing with a set of fake cardboard bricks, just chillin’ and looking forward to the end of the day. I had no idea that I would soon be the talk of all the teachers. I noticed a group of girls standing in a circle playing a game. I started scooting across the floor on my back in a hurry like I had never hurried before. I was only 5 years old but that didn’t stop me from rushing to get an up close look at what was under their skirts. All I saw were bloomers, junior sized Depends and looms with no fruits of the, nothing special, but I still enjoyed the view even though I did not know what in the hell I was looking for. I couldn’t tell you how long I was on the floor in my own little world or if my victims had noticed that they were part of my very own diabolical perverted scheme.

Without saying a word my teacher dragged me away from my field trip of bloomers, and off to the office we went. With all the commotion going on around me I still had no clue that I was in any kind of trouble or that my puny little life was about to be turned upside down and inside out when I got home. That turned out to be my 1st of many trips and personal invites to the principal’s office. I can still remember swinging my feet from a chair as I sat in the outer office still without a single clue of trouble while my teacher explained the details of the crime that I was being charged with to the principal, Mr. Sunshine.

After school let out, I skipped my happy ass towards home without a clue, not knowing that the details of my secret indictment were on the note that my teacher had pinned to my shirt. Within minutes I was changing out of my school clothes and into my play clothes. I was dancing around in my drawz like a little James Brown with a towel as my cape and just as I was about leave the stage for the 2nd time, John Henry and my Mom, Big Al, suddenly appeared out of thin air with plans to put me into a kindergarten coma after reading the 12 page secret indictment.

John Henry was a serious belt and Big Al’s leathery side-kick that she named to help her lay down the law as they adjusted chilrens attitudes while terrorizing villages and country sides. That belt did not play and was no joke and was about as bad as it got when it came to early childhood developmental tools. I guess at about 5 feet 6 inches tall and nearly 140lbs, Big Al obviously thought she needed some big time gangster backup for 2 almost grown teenagers, a husband and a perverted 5 year old. I still don’t understand how a woman and a leather belt could draw electricity from human flesh. My tired little body had so much electricity running through it you could have put a zero watt light bulb in my mouth and lit up Times Square for a month.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Mom more than she knows. Mom was kool as my Mom back then, but Big Al was a mothafucka to deal with when she was pissed, and a beast long before she perfected the pile-driver or the art of pistol whipping me while bringing the pain with John Henry.

That wasn’t my 1st dance with the hard hitting tag team, but it was the 1st time I had to be revived with jumper cables connected to our Chevy, WE’RE LOSING HIM! CLEAR! FIVE HUNDRED CC’s! STAT! WE HAVE A PULSE AGAIN! If I could’ve remembered how to use a phone and could’ve reached it, I would’ve dialed 555-ABROOSE to report that I had been severely abroosed by a disgruntled postal worker and her leathery sidekick hit man. I finally regained partial use of the left side of my body and my bottom lip sometime that weekend. They beat me so bad that my drawz took off running, and I used to be right handed. The next time I looked under a dress I was 40 years old.

Born Alfreda Huxtable, also known as Big Al, on the 49th day in the month of Juneaugust in the year of 19 nunyabizznizz, she was the 3rd of 4 girls and a boy born to Mack C. and Julia Belle Hammond of racially charged Kershaw, South Carolina. While writing this book Mom told me a story about her Father that was told to her by her Grandmother, Sarah Phillips. She’s told me more than a few old stories over the years but this one here just popped back into her memory and it turned out to be right on time.

Anyway, Mom has some of the story mixed up but it seems that Mack was kreepin’ on Julia Belle with a brawd who came into some money after selling off some of her land. As soon as she got the money Mack persuaded her to let him hold some of it for her, and as they say, the rest is history. Immediately after The Mack, I mean, Mack, ran his game on his unsuspecting honey-dip, he dipped out on her, packed up the wife and their 3 youngest kids and jetted to Headland, Alabama. It wasn’t long before they left there and then moved to a few other places in the state before moving to Dothan, Alabama.

Mack, Julia Belle and their kids were sharecroppers who moved around from farm to farm and town to town. Mom remembers how pissed her Mother was when she found out after they moved to a farm in a new town that they would have to live in what was basically nothing more than a horse stable. She doesn’t remember the name of the town but she does remember they were not there long.

Mom remembers when she was about 6 or 7 years old hearing her Grandmother begging her Grandfather to put on his galoshes while working in a swampy area of their land. She said Fred kept doing whatever it was he was doing and wouldn’t listen to her. Within a few days he got very sick and then he died. His friends loaded him onto the back of a pickup truck and took him away.

When they brought him back he had been cleaned up, prepared for burial and was suited and booted when they stretched him out on the ironing board in his living room before he was laid to rest a few days later. Mom says she can still smell the alcohol and other chemicals after all those years.

Mack also worked on ships on the east coast and sometimes on railroads. In the past he left his family behind for work in Florida, Maryland, and other states. He was gone for long periods of time and whenever he came back home he was still a hard man to please; she remembers being severely beaten by him many times. Mom has plenty memories of her Father returning home after being gone for months at a time. She remembers seeing him walking along a dirt road with a big bag of the world’s dirtiest clothes as he made his way towards the farm they lived on.

Mom comically remembers a strange man who seemed to appear from nowhere and kick it with Julia Belle whenever her Father was out of town, only to disappear as soon as he came back. I wonder if Julia Belle had some extracurricular freaky sneaky action on the side as well. When Mack was at home he was knee deep in his farm work. Mom said he was so tired once that he said, If a mule laid down on me right now, I would not ask it to get up, that’s tired!

My Mom and 2 of her Sisters, Sarah and Louise, spent summers in Kershaw at their Grandmother’s house with their older brother Walter, and sister Beulah who lived with their Grandmother. Sometime later their Mother left them behind in Alabama so they could sell the family’s belongings while she went to Cleveland. Their Father got a job with the New York Central Railroad as a freight handler so she went to get everything set up. At night Mom and her sisters stayed with a neighbor who was a friend of their Mother’s, but during the day they were on their own until they moved in with their Grandmother back in Kershaw.

Mom doesn’t exactly remember what year they moved to Cleveland or why her Father chose it for a new start, but she does remember that by 1946 her sister Beulah had also moved to Cleveland. At that point the entire family except for her Grandmother and brother were all living in racially charged Cleveland. Walter stayed behind with their Grandmother to help her out. For some reason they just didn’t want to move up north.

Mom said the bus ride up to Cleveland was hot, sweaty and too damn long. Her 1st look at Cleveland was even worse as they made their way to their new home at E.28th and Scovil. The 1st school she attended in Cleveland was Kennard Elementary School, but because they lived west of E.30th she had to be taken out of there and enrolled into Brownell Elementary.

Mom recently told me that she was scared to ask someone to help her find her classroom so she spent days hiding in the restroom. That’s where a truant officer found her and they both found out that she was in the wrong school anyway; seriously Mom? Time started rolling by as they settled in and tried to live like any other normal Black family that migrated from the south. They were living in a house that they were buying at 10603 Hudson and things seemed to be going their way.

On the morning of Wednesday, June 1st 1949, my Grandmother, Mrs. Julia Belle Hammond waited at a bus stop on E.105th and Euclid Avenue for a bus to take her to work at the Cleveland Osteopathic Hospital. She was hit by a Cleveland Police Accident Prevention Bureau car as she stood at a bus stop. The lives of her family were forever changed.

The Officers claimed to be chasing an alleged speeder at exactly the posted speed limit of 25MPH from E.97th while allegedly turning on their siren at E.100th. They also claimed they maintained their exact speed of 25MPH while the alleged speeder was pulling away from their car.

They claimed that while in hot pursuit of the alleged reckless driver, Mrs. Hammond dashed out in front of them and was hit by their car and carried several feet on the hood. My Grandmother died in the ambulance on the way to Lakeside Hospital; she was 42 years old. Of course the alleged speeder got away. Mom said that many of the people who witnessed the tragedy came to their house and told the family that their Mother was on the sidewalk and not in the street when she was killed. I wasn’t there, but even as a kid when Mom told me this story I could still tell there was some shit in the game.

Mom has always told me how sad and pitiful her Father looked as he got on the train to ride with his wife’s body back to South Carolina for her funeral. She talked about someone seeing the casket after a cargo door slid open and how terrible the situation was. When they went back to South Carolina they tried to tell Julia Belle’s Mother about what happened but she seemed like she just couldn’t understand what they were saying to her. Uncle Walter was married and living somewhere else by then, so she was all alone.

It wasn’t long after that when my Great-Grandmother’s house mysteriously burned to the ground after she refused several times to sell her land to some White people who kept nagging her to sell it to them. A cousin of hers insisted that she live with her but she really didn’t want to, for whatever reason only known to her. When she finally got there she refused to go inside. Sadly, she died outside in her cousin’s chicken coop.

After searching off and on at the main library for a long time, in ’02 I finally found 2 different newspaper articles about my Grandmother’s death. It was breathtaking to see a part of my history that ended before my debut, but it didn’t take long to realize that there were a few details in the articles that were wrong. The 1st thing I noticed was that my Grandfather’s name was stated as Mike. Who the hell was Mike? The 2nd thing I noticed was that it was stated that my Grandmother was the Mother of 3 while the other paper stated that she was survived only by a husband. She was the Mother of 5.

The 3rd thing I noticed, in my opinion, was the who really gives a damn looks, expressions and smirks on the faces of the men who killed her as they posed for the paparazzi. The 4th and final thing I noticed was that an article stated that she was taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital. That wasn’t true because she was taken to Lakeside Hospital.

The last time Mom saw her Father was around 1950 or ’51 when he seemed to have simply vanished into thin air. Just before he disappeared he had a lot of cash on him and had been gone for a few days.

The next time she saw him was after someone pulled up in front of their house and threw him out of a car. She doesn’t remember if he was hurt or not, but she does remember that his money was gone.

Mom told me that decades later she wrote a detailed letter to the railroad that Mack worked for to see if it could help her locate him. With the help of his social security number they were able to tell her that he died in 1979 in Headland, Alabama. I often wonder how things would have turned out if she had tried to find him earlier, that’s deep! His 1st and middle names just happen to be the names of 2 streets that intersect in Detroit. I won’t give out his middle name just in case someone pops up and claims that he might be their Pappy, prove it!

Mom was working very hard at her job at Smayda’s Bakery when a co-worker’s boyfriend brought his friend Eugene to meet her. She did not want to be bothered so she hid behind a giant mixer until they left. Mom said she just wasn’t attracted to a Black man with skin the same color as potato salad; dude was light, bright and damn near White, but she agreed to go out with him on a double date a few weeks later. I guess the young feller charmed the muffins out of her!

That story sounds a tad bit boring to me, but kind of funny, but I think I’ll start telling people that my parents met on Soul Train instead. Dad was a Pop-Locker and Mom was the queen of the Robot, now that’s funny! According to Dad, Mom told him that he was going to marry her or else, and what time to be at the Church. My parents were married on a Saturday in 1752. About 2 years after they got married my sister $ybil was born; my big brudder Ray came along 23 months later and I showed up on the scene 11 years after him.

Born Eugene Raymond Lippshytz, also known as Nebo, Dad was the 6th of 8 boys born in a row and 4 girls to Henry and Mary Lippshytz of Cleveland, Ohio. My Father told me that his Father was from the area of Newport, Kentucky, and his Mother was from somewhere near the German Town area of Columbus, Ohio. My Grandmother was part German and that’s partially how he got his super light skin, grayish colored eyes and wavy hair. Dad didn’t like combing his hair when he was a kid, so whenever his Mother made him comb it, he pretended to by running a comb over his hair upside down. He used to tell me that his hair wouldn’t lay down because you can’t keep a good thing down.

With his Caucasian features he looked exactly like the actor Jack Klugman who played Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple television show. I remember telling him when I was a kid that they looked alike. He said that people had been telling him the same thing since the 50’s. When I was younger I saw an episode of The Twilight Zone which featured Jack Klugman as a pool hustler. The resemblance was shocking and reminded me of a picture I saw of Dad shooting pool in a smoke filled bar way back in the 50’s. I have pictures of Dad when he was in his 70’s with silvery white hair and wearing a suit. He didn’t have any hoes with him that I could see but he still looked like a retired Italian pimp.

Dad was a hard working construction worker by day, but by night he was one of Cleveland’s greatest pool hustlers of the 1950’s to the late 1970’s. The construction work gave him the strength he needed to defend himself in case his opponent found out that he was being hustled. He had multiple ways of defending himself and with 7 brothers he had a lot of backup and experience at keeping his victims off his ass. Sometimes I can almost see the look on his face as he ran the table, as he called it.

As long as I have known my Father he always had a joke or a funny story to tell anyone who would listen. I think he could’ve been a comedian, but unfortunately I still don’t get paid to think. Dad told me a million funny jokes and stories, some clean, some dirty. More than likely I was the only kid in my school to have a degree in dirty joke telling by the age of 10. My friends laffed at the jokes that I stole from Dad, but my teachers didn’t find them funny at all when they caught me center stage.

My Dad had a saying that I never repeated to anyone other than my close friends until I was about 14 years old. He only said it if it was super hot and muggy outside. "It’s hotter than 2 monkeys screwin’ in Africa." There was no way in hell any adult was going to catch me repeating that! Dad beat the gabba goo out of me every time he found out that I got caught repeating his dirty jokes in school, then he told me another joke and told me the next time I told a dirty joke I should ask for identification to make sure my audience was at least 18 years old.

John Henry was of no use at all to my Dad; the ass whoopin’s that Dad handed out were severe enough and got his point across to you and anybody caught in the crossfire. John Henry told his psychiatrist and Dr. Phil that Dad drove him to drink and he was turrified by him. He watched his step, tightened up his belt and hid his jewelry every time he saw Debo, I mean, Nebo.

My Dad told me a joke about a gay man who wanted to sing in Church, the choir director asked him which Hymn did he want and he pointed and said, "I want that hymn, that hymn, him sitting in the 3rd pew with the lavender suit, and him with the marvelous ass and big feet." Dad was sick!

Mom has told me many stories about things that happened back in the day. She told me a funny story about what she saw a thief doing to an unsuspecting victim on the Quincy bus on a morning that she will never forget way back in the 50’s.

Mom was sitting in her seat just chillin’ when she got a bird’s eye view of a thief on the job while doing what he do. She said she couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw him slice open the pocket of his victim as he stood next to him. She watched as the money slid out of his pocket and right in the hand of the mad slicer.

Mom told me that when she used to wait at a downtown bus stop at night a White woman wearing a wedding dress would walk by almost every night. The woman never said a word to anyone as she kept it steppin’. Mom and the other witnesses figured that she had been left at the Alter which might have set her sideways, that’s deep!

Dad told me that before I was wrapped in the culture of life, (his way of saying it happened before I was born), from before Ray and $ybil were born and until 1966 the family moved from house to house in the same area off of Quincy Ave.

I heard someone say that Dad spent so much time at the old Ellis Bar on Quincy Avenue that Ray and $ybil were born there. They finally left that neighborhood in ’66 when they moved to E.116th and Avon Avenue next door to a Church.

Mom finally passed the Postal exam after what had to have seemed like a million years of studying for it. She started out at the Main Post Office on W.3rd and W. Prospect on the 23rd day in the month of May way back in 1966. That was the same year she went into the hospital to have her interior decorated (my way of saying that she had some kind of female surgery). She unexpectedly found out that she was knocked up yet again in December. I guess you could say I was an accident or a purpsodent.

Mom told me recently that her doctor told her there would be major complications with her pregnancy. He thought I wouldn’t survive birth and he told her to think about having me terminated soon. She said she never gave it a 2nd thought and Prayed for the best, thank you Mom!!! When I showed up on the scene in July of ’67 it was just weeks short of multiple years after $ybil was born, and 11 years, 15 days after Ray was born. I made it my business to let my parents know how I felt about them having me at the ripe ages of nunyabizznizz and a little older, that’s nasty! I guess 11 years after Ray was born Dad said to Mom, "Come here, little girl, I have something for ya!" That’s nasty too!

I have always heard stories of how my family struggled before I came along and how things changed for the better after I showed up. My parents always gave us everything we needed and most of what we wanted, and I thank them for that. I did hear a few negative remarks from one of my siblings about our parents’ not being able to do certain things for them before I was born. It wasn’t my fault.

Anyway, my parents were tired of dealing with landlords, especially after theirs accused them of using her electricity while she was gone. Mom flipped out on the chick, so in the fall of ’67 they bought a house a few minutes away in the same neighborhood. I was 3 months old when we moved on up into our very own plain ordinary and not so deeeeeluxe but nice looking modest house on the southeast side, in the promised land on Lenacrave Ave. Way back then there probably weren’t many single family houses in the area that cost more than 15 grand.

I have a copy of a newspaper real estate section from 1944 that shows brand new houses in the same area being sold for less than 6 grand. I can only imagine paying that kind of money for a brand new house today. A house in that price range today might get you 4 walls and maybe half a roof, and that’s probably if it wasn’t being auctioned off.

A former longtime neighbor told me in ’05 that before we moved onto the block there was an old White man who lived 2 houses away from her who didn’t particularly like us Colored folk. She remembers seeing him sitting on his front porch swing and hearing him say that he moved over there to get away from the niggers, now that’s really deep! Mom told me the same story in ’09, wow! Mom also told me that when we moved onto the block there were a lot of foreign White people who were already there. They didn’t speak much English, especially when Black people were outside.

Mom said that a group of them swept the sidewalks and the street everyday like it was their job, then they gathered in a huddle formation and spoke in their native languages as soon as they saw a Black person which there were not many of on the block back then. I can only imagine what they were saying or thinking as they pointed and looked at the houses that were occupied by Black families. The racial tension floating around Cleveland back then was ridiculous. Not that it’s exactly racially beautiful today.

Dad told me a story about 2 of our neighbors who were good friends and played together all day long back then; one of them was White and the other wasn’t. They got along great but you know somebody was going to have a problem with it. The White kid had a kiddy swimming pool in his backyard and whenever the Colored boy came over for a dip in the plastic pond, the White kid’s Grandmother ran him out of the yard, you better gets from round here you Colored boy!!! The outraged Granny dumped out the water that the Colored kid had magically turned dirty. Whether the Colored kid knew what was going on or not, they still remained good friends for years.

There were 32 houses and a teeny tiny apartment on the block when I hit it. By the time I was 5 years old there were only 6 houses still filled with White families. I guess they caught the 1st White Flight out of what was destined to become The Hood. The house to the east of ours and the house directly across from ours were the last houses on the block that were still occupied by White people by 2000. That left 3 White people total. Death came for both of our next door neighbors by spring of ’05, which left a single White resident on the block. She went into a nursing home not long after that. Blam blow, the block is all Black now! Welcome to the ghetto!

In 2006, a member of a prominent Cleveland area White family told me during a very deep conversation why the Shaker Rapid line ended at Green Road. He told me that his Grandfather and some of his associates who controlled Cleveland were themselves 1st class White Flight passengers from all over different parts of the city. He also told me that they didn’t want Black people, Coloreds, Negroes, Darkies, Niggin’s, Niggra’s, or their baby Nigglet’s walking around their neighborhood’s all willy-nilly.

I have wondered for years exactly why the land between the east and west bound lanes of Shaker Blvd from Green Road, to well above Richmond Road was never developed for the rapid transit line.

Anybody could see that the line could’ve gone a tad bit further than it does. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but if it is, unfortunately that’s the kind of world we still live in. Open your eyes!

I have a very good memory but I do not claim to remember every single detail of my life. I’m not claiming that I remember the doctor who slapped me the day I was born. He didn’t have to slap me in my face or kick me either, and the nurses didn’t have to hold me down while the janitor went through my wallet and beat the shit outta me before the x-ray tech burned me and Penny with an iron before circumcising me with a circular saw, but those are other issues that I’ll deal with if I ever see them again. But anyway, my memory stretches back to late 1968 or ’69 after being born in ’67. A few people have told me it’s not possible. To them I still say go to hell and see what you remember when you get there!

Some of my earliest memories are of me dunking my shitty cloth diapers into the toilet. I guess I was imitating what I saw my parents doing with them before they pistol whipped them into the washing machine; it had to be done to loosen up some of the best work that I had done so far. If I wasn’t playing in the toilet, I was trying to wash the stairwell walls with another violently worked over diaper. I don’t know where I got that from but I do know that I was really full of crap back then.

Anyway, I had to be around ONE YEARZ old and some change but I actually remember watching my family scraping the old paint and wallpaper from the walls and seeing the giant rolls of old carpet that was going to be thrown out. A few years later, I watched Dad remodel the attic by building walls to make storage space, dropping the ceiling, tiling the floor and covering the walls with wall paper and paneling.

I have not been in that house since August of ’05 so I have no idea how it looks today. The last time I was up in the attic was in 1998 and I was more than surprised to see that everything had held up over the years and looked the same way it did when he finished; even the multi-colored ceiling tiles still looked fresh and new. He also remodeled the basement, built some walls around the furnace and the hot water tank; except for not having a colorful ceiling he used the same materials that he used in the attic.

I have memories of chillin’ in a swing in the middle of the backyard on a sunny day. I have pictures of my Father sitting on my tricycle during a barbecue around 1969. Ray had a pissed look on his mug, Dad was cheezin’, and I just wanted him to get the hell off my ride so I could jet. It is super amazing to me that there are no pictures of me left from those days other than what my parents snapped. I’ve been to other relatives houses and seen old pictures of their toilets, homeless people, a bread truck, trees, a homeless guy crashing a bread truck into some trees, but not a single damn picture of little ole me! My parents bought a little teeny tiny pot and pan set to warm my baby food in. They also bought me the Jungle Book Story dish set to feed me from. I managed to hold onto all of that stuff until 1990. I wish I had done a better job of keeping track of things like that.

Dad told me a story about an accident I had with my Aunt Beulah’s brand new 1969 Impala. Somehow I made it my business to wipe the dust off her new car with a stick and my latest and crappiest of silently and professionally loaded soft serve diapers that had been itching me like nobody’s business. I remember that car and I remember riding in it to Detroit; I even remember someone trying steal it there. I will never forget Aunt Beulah telling me to not lean on the door so I wouldn’t fall out onto the turnpike, which would’ve been hard to do while Mom had my little ass strapped to the middle of the backseat, but I barely remember waxing it with my diaper. I’m sorry, Aunt Beulah! I also remember Darren my childhood partner in comical crime being somewhere in the yard that day.

When it came time for Mom to leave to go to work I remember having a fit and flipping out whenever her co-worker came to pick her up. After I flipped out more than a few nights my siblings tried to run interference by blocking my view or taking me out of the room. I think I must have been able to tell that it was time for Mom to leave when I realized she was taking a bath or changing clothes.

I truly remember acting a fool when I saw her ride waiting outside. It was dark out there but I could still see the bright white top on the big red ’66 Mercury convertible. Kids are smarter than some people think.

Anyway, I liked throwing rocks at cars that passed my house for some unknown goofy reason. It wasn’t personal and certainly nothing new; I didn’t invent it but I really believed that I was not doing anything wrong, that was until I actually made a direct hit and then Mom hit me.

I threw a rock at a yellow ’65 Chevy coupe; I don’t remember if it was a Bel Air, Biscayne or Impala but I do remember it backing up and the driver getting out. I stood there when the tall, dark Black man walked onto the porch and knocked on the screen door. I stood there when Mom came to the door and listened as the man told her what I did to his car. I stood there when the man drove away and until Mom grabbed me and beat the stew out of me and I couldn’t stand or stand it no mo, then I laid there in my bed until the swelling went down. Mom told me that happened in 1970. Chances are if an unattended 3 year old was left outside today a story like that wouldn’t have ended with an ass whoopin’ but possibly with an ass missing.

I think that was the 1st day of over 10,000 days of off and on in house punishment for me over the years. Even back then my parents put me on lock down; sometimes it worked and sometimes I got worked over if it didn’t. I remember begging to go outside a million times only to be denied parole. I guess I was bored when I stood there for 42 days and 42 nights and licked the screen in the door and watched every other kid on the block have fun. I couldn’t have been the only kid in the world who had acquired a taste for screens; don’t judge me, and stop laffing!

Mom told me that when Ray was a very young kid he had an imaginary friend named Ralph. They played all day long and went everywhere together. Whenever Ray got into trouble he blamed it on Ralph, but because he was invisible it was Ray’s ass that got whooped. Ray finally got tired of catching beat downs so he traded Ralph for someone who could be seen with the human eye; the best friend he ever had, Wendell.

Mom and Dad always told me that our family and Wendell’s family moved into the same area of Quincy whenever they changed addresses. By ’67 both families had finally left that area and settled down just a street apart. Mom said when Ray was around 6 or 7 years old he started playing with a new friend on their street and seemed like he didn’t want to play with Wendell and his brother anymore. When the brothers saw Mom sitting on the porch they told her that Ray wouldn’t play with them anymore and that he said he would not be their friend. Mom said that was the cutest thing she had ever seen in her life; of course, that was until she saw me.

By the end of the 1960s my parents started making Ray take me outside with him so I could get some fresh air, sunlight and some color. I’m sure at that time his comic book collection that he drooled over was more important to him than I was, and he would’ve rather been reading them instead of dragging me up and down the street.

I actually remember sitting in my stroller on a sidewalk while he played football in the street with his friends. I know he hated his unpaid babysitting job and I’m sure his best friends, Wendell and Peanut also hated having me around as much as he did. Wherever Ray and his friends went, I went. More than likely he faced plenty of smack downs from Mom for not changing my diaper and letting the crap cake up on me like dried mud or plaster. He probably thought that as long as I was still breathing I was alright. When I was a little older he still had to drag me with him. I remember being dragged along to Wendell’s basement and to too many card games at Peanut’s house. When I say dragged, I do mean dragged; wherever Ray went, I went.

It was around the same time that I had my 1st flying lesson that ended up introducing me to my 1st of many miles of stitches. Dad was carrying me down the stairs on his shoulders and I was carrying my stuffed Snoopy dog on my shoulders. Snoopy’s dumb ass suddenly decided that he wanted to go sky diving. We were only a few steps from the top and were headed down when Snoopy took flight. I tried to jump after him to catch him like I was a little stunt man, look out belooooow! Dad tried to catch me but I was too far gone and he missed and I slapped the steps face 1st before Snoopy landed. I never caught Snoopy but I did catch a few of the steps with my face and my head.

I have many great childhood memories of that house and the yard. Some were a lot of fun, but at the same time, some were not so great and filled with pain. Another memory that I will never forget also led me to the emergency room to be stitched up again. I was about 4 or 5 years old playing some kind of ball game with some of my friends in my backyard. When the ball went over our fence I tried to climb over it before anybody else could. If I had known what I know now, I would’ve sat my goofy ass down and waited for someone else to get it.

Instead of letting one of the bigger kids climb over the fence to get it, nooooo, I decided that I just haaaaad to get it before they could. It would’ve been simple if my feet hadn’t slipped when I was at the top of the fence. My head was above the top of the fence and I was just about to put my leg over to the other side when I slipped. The sharpest and pointiest part of the fence went straight through my top lip. Can you say ouch? I know that you can. It didn’t take Dad long to untangle my lip from the fence, then we were off to get me stitched up for the 2nd time in my young life.

With Mom working nights and Dad working days, it was Mom’s law that Ray and $ybil kept me super quiet in the summer while she tried to sleep during the day. It was their job to make sure that I didn’t make enough noise to disrupt her sleep. Easier said than done! If Mom heard me making too much noise she got out of her bed and then came downstairs and wrecked shop. I always made the majority of all of the noise in the house unless Ray and $ybil were fighting, but they always had to pay dearly for it because I was the baby and they were watching me, sucka’s!

I guess after paying the piper a few times they came up with a plan to shut me up. My siblings lured me into the basement and tied me up to the shit pipe, then they threatened me with the thought of stuffing my mouth with a pair of Ray’s most hardened, violent and crunchiest sweat socks. Just thinking about it makes me want to chuck chowder!

After being kidnapped, tied up and held for ransom a few times by a pair of sweat socks that were known to do more damage than a gang of violent kamikaze porcupines I quickly and quietly learned how to keep my mouth shut.

I was about 4 years old when my parents started making Ray and $ybil take me with them when they went downtown on Saturdays. I wanted to go but I seriously doubt they wanted me to. I barely remember $ybil taking me anywhere other than trick or treating or visiting with her friends. She took me to see a few movies and to the Hanna Theatre to see The Wiz years later, but that was about it. I do remember her flat out refusing to babysit me; that always caused giant arguments between her and Mom but she was still somehow able to get away with it, and so much more.

Ray was stuck with me and it seemed like every time I went downtown with him he couldn’t go another step further without spending half a million on submarine samages and at least another 100 grand on pistachios for him. Oh yeah, he did spend a whopping 4 cents on a sliver of candy for me. After we walked around downtown for a little while it was time to hop on the # 15 bus and head back to the crib; without fail and just before he went to sleep he told me to wake him up when we got to E.127th and Corlett Avenue. I knew there would be hell for me to pay in the form of hours of elbow smashes and drop kicks if I forgot to wake him up.

It was a warm Saturday afternoon and Ray was snoring up a storm on the bus like always. I was in the middle of a dice game with some old brawd in a trench coat and sunglasses who kept trying to get me to pull her finger and sit on her lap. I was busy collecting my loot and I wasn’t paying attention to much more than that when all of a sudden I heard the driver say that we were at Warrensville Road. I really didn’t know for sure but something told me that we were way beyond our stop and that Ray was going to kill me when he found out, oh crap! I panicked when he suddenly opened his eyes and quickly realized where we were. The look in his eyes told me that he was madder than mad, he’s going to kill me dead again, oh chit!

I started screaming for Dad to save me but then he kicked that crap out of me and dragged me off the bus. I cried, kicked and screamed as we walked down Harvard. By the time we made it back down to Lee Road I was done and I wasn’t going to take another step, I’m telling!

I don’t know why we didn’t wait for another bus to take us back towards home. It had to be a 5 mile walk from way up there to our house, I’m telling again!

I was tired of walking and I decided that I wasn’t going to take another step and he was going to have to drag me or carry me all the way home, but I wasn’t taking another step, I’m telling! Ray dragged my tired little body across Lee Road while I kept screaming that I was going to tell Mom. He finally got the picture and then he put me on his shoulders and carried me all the way home and kicked the rest of the crap out of me again when we got there, I’m telling! I’m still telling Mom! What else are little brothers for? There would be no sugary candy bribes accepted that time to keep me from calling 555-MOMSTOPPERS and turning him in to collect my reward for his conviction and Motherly beat down.

I have always wanted a little brother of my own that I could smack around, drop kick while he slept, punch in his throat while he ate, kick in the back of his head while he was on the toilet, kick in his forehead while he sat in a chair, stuff into the clothes hamper, put into a headlock while not wearing deodorant, sit on his back and hit him with some tunes from the funky trumpet as he tried to watch TV, push down the stairs every time he tried to walk up, throw across the room as he slept, slap with a wet sock as he ate and throw out of the house every time a girl came over to visit me, just like Ray did to me!

Dad might have wanted another kid after my hard-headed wild ass showed up on the spot, but it was out of the question because Mom was not having it after dealing with the likes of me. I know I was way more than a hand full and drove them up and down the walls and across the room. I’m sorry, Mother; I’m sorry, Father.

My parents bought a brand new 1971 Chevrolet Biscayne from Bass Chevrolet a week or so before my 4th birthday. They didn’t agree on much but I guess they agreed that it had to be the ugliest color possible and a stripped down low budget taxi version of the top of the line Caprice. It had the dog dish hub caps which are also known as poverty caps, they had the tires turned around so the whitewalls couldn’t be seen, and I’m still shocked that it did at least have an AM radio and wasn’t a radio delete deal.

At a very young age I already knew some of the cosmetic differences between a top of the line car and its low budget stripped down cousin. I don’t know where I picked that up but my parents were amazed when they realized it. I remember riding pass a few truck loads of factory fresh full size Chevrolets on our way out of Detroit that year. I noticed all of them but the Caprices caught my eye like no other Chevy has ever done in all of the years that I have spent drooling over them. Even way back then I wished that our car was the real deal; I would’ve even settled for an Impala if it was a hard top with skirts. Our Biscayne did its thing for us but it was sure one uuuuugly automobile.

I didn’t have the cash to walk into a dealership to order the car that I wanted my parents to roll me around in so I had to deal with a car that made me very carsick for years. I can almost smell the interior now, so excuse me while I hurl. I could deal with the smell of the interior in the summer until it rained, but in the winter I had to roll the window down to Ralph one just about every other time I rode in it. I learned to deal with the impending vehicular vomit gallery whenever I heard my parents arguing on a weekend; that usually meant that I would get a chance to drive.

Just like clockwork Dad sat me on his lap and let me steer the Biscayne up and down the driveway. I don’t know if seeing me enjoying myself calmed him down or not but it sure as shit made my day.

I went with my parents a few times to take the Biscayne back to the dealership for repairs or whatever; I can still hear Dad screaming about the rearview mirror that kept falling down, and I’ll never forget the time that Mom almost ripped the whole right side off the car when she sideswiped a pole on our way out of the shop.

Mom told me that before we got the new car she went to another local Chevrolet dealership with a pair of her nephews to buy themselves 3 new cars. She said they were ignored by several White salesmen who watched them but never said a word to them. Of course they took their business elsewhere and some racist bastard lost out on a serious triple commission that day, stupid ass!

Our other next door neighbors had a light tan ’71 Caprice coupe with the factory skirts. I loved everything about that car and it made ours look corny and old even though they got theirs a few years after my parents got ours. That neighbor’s son, Doug, had a red 1966 SS 396 Chevelle. His friends hung out over there and worked on their cars, too. I don’t remember all of them but I do remember a red ’63 SS Impala and a blue ’70 GS/Stage 1 Buick Skylark; now, those were cars! I used to ask Doug and his brother Billy a million questions about cars and how they worked. I spent many hours watching them and their friends working on their cars through the fence, so I guess I could say that I owe them for sparking my motor vehicle interest at an early age.

I could tell what kinds of cars most of the neighbor’s on my block drove before I was 5 years old. I remember Dad asking me how I knew; other than paying attention, I still don’t know. The man who lived at 12612 drove a ’69 or ’70 Plymouth Road Runner. I don’t remember hearing its special horn but I do remember seeing him laying a lot of rubber. The man who lived at 12701 drove a 4 door ’63 Buick LeSabre. The loud exhaust scared the spaghetti out of me every time he drove up and down the street so I ran up on my porch every time I heard it coming.

My all-time favorite was the man who drove a ’67 Impala coupe at 12705. I don’t remember if it was a Super Sport or not but I do remember him making my day every time he pulled off from the stop sign on his way home. He only lived 3 inches from the stop sign but that didn’t show any signs of stopping him from mashing the pedal to the floor as he pulled off from the corner at a thousand MPH; the left turn that he whipped into his driveway was so hard that it looked like he was going to roll over, foot to the flo whatcha want frum da sto? I never saw him hold the pedal to the metal from the other direction; maybe he thought a full block head start was for sucka’s and only a true professional could do it in just a few feet. Now, that was a sight to see if you were lucky enough to be paying attention when the show started.

I remember other neighbors saying, Here he comes or There he goes. As a young kid I hated missing out on seeing him do that. I looked forward to seeing it because it made my day. I ain’t fooling nobody, that would make my day now! Those were the days!

I paid attention to cars wherever I went especially if I was bored. I can’t tell you how many times I was bored to death listening to Mom and Aunt Beulah talk when we visited her. I usually ended up sitting on the downstairs front porch if the weather allowed. I watched traffic or her neighbors work on a lot of Mopar products that had to be started from under the dash. I guess they lost the keys. Yeah, right! They never said a word to me and probably knew that cars fascinated me, but I doubt they knew that I knew what was going on over there. They weren’t as slick as they thought they were.

I remember sneaking with my friends into a backyard on our block to raid a cherry tree when we were little dudes. The garage doors were always closed and that made me wonder if there was an old car in there.

I finally got the nerve to peak through a crack between the doors and I could see 2 cars sitting in there. They both looked like they were a powdery light blue color but I couldn’t tell what they were. That really got me wondering but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

The residents parked their cars in the driveway so they didn’t use the garage. I’m not sure of the year but I think it was a ’60 Plymouth Valiant that had been sitting in front of the garage for years. I never saw their garage doors open at any time back then; that always made me wonder every time I saw any closed garage if there were any old cars in it. When I was about 15 years old, and after sneaking a million pounds of cherries out of that yard and still wondering exactly what kind of old cars were in that garage, my questions were finally answered.

I just happened to be in the right place at the right time when I walked by and finally saw the garage doors open for the 1st time in my life. There was a Miles Auto Wrecking tow truck in the driveway that stopped me dead in my tracks. I stood there and watched it drag out a very dirty but in great condition ’50 or ’51 Ford coupe. General Motors cars have always been my thing but an old car is an old car. Just seeing that time capsule that probably hadn’t been out of that garage in decades blew my mind that day, but that was just the tip of the historical automotive ice berg.

I couldn’t believe my own eyes when the next car came out; I think I bumped my head on the sidewalk when they dragged out a very dirty ’61 Impala. I couldn’t stop drooling until this morning. If I had known that Impala was in that garage I would’ve quietly begged those people to sell it to me. My allowance probably would have covered the cost because I’m sure the junk yard probably only paid them less than $75.00 for both of those well preserved antiques. I don’t remember if that old Plymouth was gone before that day or not but they probably got rid of that too if it was still there.

From that day on, whenever I saw an old locked up garage that any friend lived near I nagged that particular friend until they found out if there was an old car in there or not.

You never know what someone doesn’t want anymore and just wants to get rid of; they could be sitting on a goldmine. I was scammed by a former so-called friend in 1990 when I asked him to find out if there was