Unfinished Business

By Mignon Brown

This idea of mine, to write a book, has long been on the back
burner of my mind. I think of this book as life lessons learned from my
experiences, some good, some not so good. What seems to prove true is
that love and faith will get us through many a challenge. It was easier to
present this work in a journal-like format, straight- forward and truthful.
I have been blessed with the passage of enough time to see the humor in
some of my experiences.
Detroit is a good place to be from. I grew up in Detroit when it was
a beautiful, lively, and interesting city. I am a product of its educational
system, Kindergarten through Wayne State University, Masters Program.
Motown flourished and so did I! I was there until the beginning of
the end. After losing my brother, stepfather, and husband in Detroit I
escaped to Los Angeles, California. I continued my career as a special
education teacher in Los Angeles and later in Las Vegas. In 2002 I retired
after 40 years of teaching. Now in 2011 at 71 years of age I have found
a new passion!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465336781

Mignon Brown

This idea of mine, to write a book, has long been on the back burner of my mind. I think of this book as life lessons learned from my experiences, some good, some not so good. What seems to prove true is that love and faith will get us through many a challenge. It was easier to present this work in a journal-like format, straight- forward and truthful. I have been blessed with the passage of enough time to see the humor in some of my experiences. Detroit is a good place to be from. I grew up in Detroit when it was a beautiful, lively, and interesting city. I am a product of its educational system, Kindergarten through Wayne State University, Masters Program. Motown flourished and so did I! I was there until the beginning of the end. After losing my brother, stepfather, and husband in Detroit I escaped to Los Angeles, California. I continued my career as a special education teacher in Los Angeles and later in Las Vegas. In 2002 I retired after 40 years of teaching. Now in 2011 at 71 years of age I have found a new passion!

Book preview

Copyright © 2011 by Mignon Brown.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011912469

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4653-3677-4

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4653-3676-7

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4653-3678-1

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This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Scene 7

Scene 8

Scene 9

Final Thoughts

Unfinished Business

Acknowledgements

I want to say that I appreciate all the people who have left their footprints upon my heart. Some of them were easier to bear than others. Truly people pass through your life for a reason. It may not be apparent at the moment but sooner or later the lesson they came to teach is learned. Sorority sisters, girl friends, significant others, spouses, and children have all left me wiser in some way. Most never knew this book was underway. I surely hope no one is offended or hurt by my recollections because certainly that is not my intent. I am only sharing my perspective of my life experiences and how they affected me. Nita has known me for more than fifty years. I have tried to keep this project a secret. She was made aware of it only when I thought I might not finish it. I wanted to be accountable to someone. She alone could ask me about my progress and not judge me. Another close friend, who shares my literary interests, encouraged me to stick with it and shared technical advice. Thank you Bernie!

Lastly, to my son and grandson, I want to say how grateful I am that you let me create this work without interrupting me as I sat for long hours working on the computer. Thank you Russell and Omari!

Preface

It seems you become all-knowing after you reach your senior years and you have lived, loved, and faced many challenges. I seem to recall a saying that went something like this. Youth is wasted on the young. I think about being 30ish again knowing what I know at 70ish! What would I change or do differently? After all I am who I am . . . I like me an awful lot but there are some circumstances I wish I could do over like in that game of jacks. Your best friends would allow you to have a second chance—do over—take another turn when you made a mistake. If an unfortunate outcome was not your fault you could get a second chance. That would be ooh so nice to be able to reset some of the Scenes of my life and start again. Scene 1:take 2!

It would be fun to choose some new characters, settings, and outcomes. Some family and close friends may catch a glimpse of themselves in this panorama view of my life. I’d like to take you with me, dear reader, as we travel through my life as I have recalled it. Starting with my birth in Oklahoma City, growing up in Detroit, and migrating West to Los Angeles and finally to Las Vegas. This book project began in Los Angeles when I was in my 67th year. It is an out-growth of keeping journals for several years. It has been revealing to me as I get reacquainted with myself through the early years. Time can bring about a change in many things but my heartaches remain. I have wept afresh over the losses I have sustained . . . . and still I rise as Maya Angelou reminds us. My mom’s spirit drapes itself about my shoulders to offer me comfort as I revisit these heartaches we both faced together. I laugh when I recall those times when my brain went awol. Of course I am using hindsight which we all know is 20-20, right?

At sixty-seven years of age I would never have guessed that I could have had these experiences I’m about to share. They chose me. Science of Mind or New Thought teaches us that there are no coincidences. God, Infinite Spirit, and the law of the universe arranged all my life before my chromosomes were all lined up to create me! It truly boggles the mind.

This spiritual being is simply using this body. I merely have to clothe myself in this garment that has been prepared for me. Perhaps, dear reader, you will learn to make the best of the rest of your life each day. Learn the lessons presented as they pass before your eyes. Take your time while you are in this dimension. You will all too soon pass into the next dimension and into eternal life on another plane. I truly believe that this is so. I take great comfort in this belief. I wish I had known it when I first experienced the loss of someone dear to me, my brother. My Baptist upbringing taught me that our loved ones died and went to heaven or hell depending on how their life was spent on earth. Now, I am getting ahead of myself so I will have to back up and paint the backdrop to go along with the many Scenes of my life. Looking back over the past years I think of some situations I think I could have handled with more ease, intellect, and grace. These events I will say are unfinished business needing some clarification with the benefit of hindsight, growth, and prayer.

Hang on . . . . here goes!! It has been quite a ride!

Scene 1

FIRST BIG MOVE

My entrance on the stage was made November 15, 1939 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. After 2 years of college at Fisk University my mother was taken to Oklahoma by her mother. She was wanting my mother to make a good marriage and be secure. She met and married my father, John Scruggs . . . Florence and John moved to Detroit, Michigan when I was about nine months old., thank God! Just let me add now that there are no coincidences. My mother was born in Detroit so she was returning home. She had a circle of friends who were also starting their families. The first house I can remember was on Log Cabin Street and my first school was Custer Elementary School. My dad’s hobby was home improvement projects. He was quite good at it. He had all the tools imaginable. I could always find him on the weekends in his shop in the basement of our home. This house was a two story family flat. We lived up stairs. The house was at the alley. Next door to us was a playground. Unfortunately the entrance was all the way to the corner of my street. I had only one other friend. She lived down the street from me. Her family owned a dry cleaners. I had learned how to use many of my Dad’s tools by watching and helping him on some of his projects. He took great pride in the orderliness of his work area. Every tool had a place to hang. One day I borrowed the wire cutters. I went to the fence and cut a hole in it large enough for me to crawl through. I was quite proud of myself. Now I did not have to walk down to the entrance on the corner to get in to play. I considered this my private entrance. However one day, to my horror, I saw Jean crawl through the fence using my entrance. I ran downstairs and climbed through the opening. I caught her at home plate and started hitting her. I was putting sand in her mouth and yelling at her about how she had no permission to use my entrance. The next thing I knew I was being jerked off of her and dragged to the real opening and all the way down the sidewalk back to my house. I was mortified. My Dad had a switch and was switching my bare legs all the way up the stairs. Those stairs seemed unending! I can still see the back of my outstretched hand as I was stretching to reach the doorknob and run into the house. I was so embarrassed and hurt. That was my first and last spanking. I also had to apologize to Jean later that day. My dad repaired the hole in the fence and I had to walk to the corner from then on if I wanted to play on the playground. My brother John was born on September 3, 1943 while we lived in this house. I was so happy to have a little brother. My mom stayed home all through our childhoods. Our downstairs neighbor was a wonderful lady I only knew as Mrs. Love. She was a grandma type. She sometimes babysat us while mom went to the supermarket. There was a corner store where I went for the usual milk and bread purchases. I learned how to care for Corky to help my mom. Corky had a baby swing that could be attached to the molding above a doorway. It had a spring at the top. Corky could maneuver himself so he never hit the door frame. It was amazing to watch him control that contraption. I used to feed him while he sat in his highchair. I have such fond memories of that home. I had an uncle who lived in Washington D.C. I remember him visiting us. I had a little wooden wash tub. He would put it on his head and make faces and funny noises to make me and Corky laugh.

I can just barely remember a visit from Grandpa Jefferson. He was Mom’s step-father. He was an unusual person from all accounts. He was a business man from the word go. He wanted an office in his home. He had a basement dug under the house on La Belle Street in Highland Park, Michigan. No one had done such a thing before. He had a cement floor poured under the entire two story house. He died in 1947. Corky was only three years old. Sometime before 1946 we all moved to Pasadena Street. Another brother, Charles, came on the Scene in 1946. I was officially the big sister. I went to Longfellow School at this point. I also started having migraine headaches. Headaches began every Wednesday lasting at least a day and a half. They alternated from the left to the right side of my head. I never had a headache on the same side consecutively. It was a source of great concern for my mom and grandma naturally. I carried on normally, even going to school. I felt worse if I missed school. There was no medicine that was effective in treating headaches in children at that time. I went to many doctors in an effort to try to get to the cause. Usually the pills prescribed made me sicker than the migraine. At one time I was hospitalized so that the doctors could evaluate me more thoroughly. I was taken off all foods and introduced to one vegetable at a time. It was thought that I might have an allergy to something. That did not pan out at all. My mom started coming to school on Wednesdays to see what was going on that could possibly cause me to have a headache. There did not seem to be a physical or emotional cause that anyone could connect to the headaches. I eventually asked that all efforts to find a cause be stopped. I felt my parents were wasting time and money. The most severe illness to occur in my family was yet to come. Charles developed polio and had to be put in an iron lung. We were all very much afraid for him. Children were dying or becoming severely handicapped by this disease. The vaccine was just being developed. Fortunately, Charles made a full recovery. I recall all of us having to take polio shots before returning to school I can still see Charles inside the iron lung. He was so small. Only his head stuck out of one end. It was a scary time for us. Charles was left with a slight limp but it disappeared over time.

My father worked in a factory, the American Brass Company. We did not feel that we lacked for anything. John was a provider but not particularly a daddy-type. He fancied himself an inventor of sorts. He had a complete workshop in the basement of this home too. I was the inspiration of one invention I recall. Having the typical Negro hair my mother had the dubious honor of washing and pressing my long fine hair. This was long before products that could lessen the tangles. This was a stressful time for my mom and me. Dad constructed a device that was supposed to eliminate pressing. Many of us can recall holding our ears down so we didn’t get burned by the pressing comb. I can recall going to school with tell-tale evidence of getting my hair pressed. Don’t even mention the smell that permeated the house! With my dad’s contraption one simply gathered small snatches of hair and attached the ends to rods that fanned out in a circular formation. A dryer blew hot air on the oiled hanks of hair until they were dry. All I could say was, Dad, don’t quit your day job!. My hair was indeed dry but the ends were all crimped and still had to be pressed. At least I did not suffer the indiscriminate touches of the hot comb to my edges leaving hot spots. The whole process took less time also. Unfortunately, the contraption never left the BASEMENT.

Somewhere along the way my mom became unhappy with her life married to John. It is to her credit that we never felt that there was anything going wrong. He was a provider and spent little time with us as a family. I think he enjoyed having me watch him tinker in the basement. He made furniture, hung shelves that he made, and kept our home in great repair. I only remember having the neighbor’s daughter babysit us once or twice. Mom went out with her girlfriends since John worked the night shift. Doris Jean to me was a worldly-wise teenager. She smoked!!! She took me with her to a street party near my Grandma’s one night. She left the boys asleep at home, if you can believe it! This was when people hardly locked their front door. I was thrilled to be out at night first of all. To be with older kids was really pushing it. We got discovered when we were sneaking back in the house. Her father was out on the front porch. I could hear her getting a whipping that night. She never sat with us again. There were three sisters in that family. The youngest was my age. Many years later I spoke to her on the phone after we had moved to Los Angeles! She had become a nurse and had moved out West. Our paths never crossed