My Life: If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time

By Brenda Bonds

My name is Brenda Bonds. Back in the day I was out there,

I should have been dead a long time ago, but by the grace of

God I was given a second chance. This book will make you

laugh, make you cry, and make you think. So dont judge

because you always have the chance to turn it around.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468586541

Brenda Bonds

On my first book somebody said I found Brenda Bonds.... Well I'm back again. It took me a long time but I've seen the light. Hopefully I can inspire others to do the same thing. When you try to reach your goals some people may say you can't do it but if you keep focused and keep postive you will make it and achiever your goals. You can contact me at [e-mail] Thank you.

Book preview

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

This story is dedicated to my parents: Christine Bonds (September 4, 1931 to December 10, 2005) and Oscar Bonds (December 25, 1925 to January 7, 2008). Rest in Peace! I would also like to thank Ray Combs been there with me through the bitter and the sweet. To my brother Oscar and his wife Francis. Brother Gay-Gay, and Robert, Dianne, Sisters Debbie, Mayann and Betty Bonds and my grandchildren and all the other Bonds. Big Ralph and little Ralph Sabathia. Special thanks to T-Town Bridget for standing by my side.

Chapter 1

My name is Brenda Kay Bonds. I was born on November 22, 1955, and at the time of writing this, I am fifty-five years old.

During my early childhood, my father was in the army, stationed in Frankfurt, Germany. One day when I was about six years old, my sisters and brothers and I were playing outside the barracks where we lived.

A white German lady looked at me and then said, You little nigger.

My sister ran in the house and told my mom what the lady had said. My mama came out, and without saying a word she hit the woman. I remember it so clearly. She told us kids to hurry inside before the MPs came, and she told us she might go jail. By the time Daddy came home, things had calmed down.

Mama was cooking dinner, and she said Bonds, (that’s what she called Daddy) a woman called Brenda a nigger today.

Daddy asked what she did, and my mama said, We corrected her way of thinking!

That was my first memory of prejudice.

I remember one other day very clearly when I was young. Things were happy around our house. Daddy had some of his friends over. They were laughing and dancing. We kids were playing outside. We had a big rope swing we would play on. My oldest brother, Oscar, (we called him Ya Ya) was swinging way up high in the sky. All of a sudden, we heard a snap. The rope had broken, and he fell to the ground. I ran over to him and saw blood everywhere.

We all started yelling, Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Ya Ya fell off the swing!

Daddy came out and yelled for Mama to call an ambulance. Ya Ya was alright.

When we left Germany, we went to stay with my grandmother (my mom’s mom) in Brooklyn, New York. My grandma was from the West Indies. She had beautiful, long, gray hair; I got my grandma’s hair, long and thick and a lot of curls. I remember I would comb her long hair, and she would rock me in her rocking chair.

When it was time for Daddy to come home in the evenings, we would get really excited. He always had quarters in his pockets for us. We would run to the door and say Daddy’s home! and he would reach in his pockets and give us some quarters so that we could go get candy. We loved going to the corner store for penny candy. I would skip all the way there.

Sometimes, we would go to my Aunt Millie’s house. I would see her throwing bottles under her bed.

One day, she caught me watching her; she said, Now don’t go telling my husband about this.

I didn’t know why she said that, but I didn’t tell. My Aunt Millie later died of cirrhosis of the liver.

We lived with my grandma for a couple of months. Then, my daddy got transferred to Tacoma, Washington. That was all the way on the other side of the country.

I remember a little about the long drive to Washington. We had a station wagon. My Daddy, Mama, and all eight of us kids had to fit, and it was crowded. Somewhere around Chicago, I think, my mom told Daddy to pull over so she could make us hotdogs. We ate, and when we were pulling back onto the road we saw a big truck coming at us. It was a big diesel truck, and it tried to run us back off the road, but my daddy was a brave man and he kept us all safe.

When we arrived in Tacoma, we stayed in the barracks at Fort Lewis for about six or seven months then we got a house in Tacoma. Daddy worked as a male nurse at Fort Lewis.

After the Vietnam War, our Daddy left the army and got a job at McDonalds in downtown Tacoma. It was the early sixties. Racial tension was high and heavy. One day, while Daddy was at work, my mom was cleaning the house, and all of a sudden we heard a big crash. Someone had thrown a fake bomb through the window; my daddy said it was the whites across the street.

We stayed in that house for a few years, while Daddy saved up for a bigger home for my mother and all of us children. We moved to a house a few blocks down the street to 1424 South L Street.

I remember our first TV was at that house. My mom would put a piece of special paper on the TV to make it turn from black and white to color.

One day, I and my brother Gay Gay (his name is Gregory, but we all called him Gay Gay) went to the store down the street from our house. We stole some bologna and got caught. The store manager called Mama and Daddy, so we knew we were in trouble and we going to get a whopping from Daddy. So I told my brother to put all our clothes on and it wouldn’t hurt, but Daddy made us take them off first.

On Halloween, my mama would make us costumes. Betty and Oscar would take us younger kids trick or treating.

My birthday was coming up in November. I was going to be eight years old. I can remember my mother was making my birthday cake, which usually would make her happy, but she was crying instead.

I asked her, Mama, are you sad? Why are you crying?

She told me the president of the United States had