Day Two: Getting to Know You

Hello children, how are you all on this fine morning. I hope you are all right as rain. Now that I have had my coffee, I am. Well, where did we leave off, children. Oh, yes I remember, when last we spoke it was of Chicago 1966. Where does the story go from there I bet your asking yourselves. Well children from there we go to Mississippi. Mississippi!!!!!!!! I know, children I can hardly believe it myself. But our star cross lovers, Charles and Yvonne now have themselves two little bundles of joy, and they are just 14 months apart. While black folks are fleeing the state of Mississippi, many for their lives, and many ending up in Chicago, our couple is running head long into the fray like a pair of firemen into a burning house. Make no mistake children, it was the late sixties, early seventies, so Mississippi was indeed burning. August 16, 1969 Hurricane Camille, a level 5 storm devastated Mississippi's Gulf Coast. But storms were a brewing in Mississippi long before Camille. One of the most well know was over the death of a 14 year old boy. Who like Charles and Yvonne was also from Chicago. A little over 10 years, before our hapless duo decides to move to Mississippi, this young man is sent to visit his uncle in Money, MS.
Unfamiliar with the ways of Dixieland, Emmett, failed to heed the warnings of his mother and "mined his matters around white people". He was tragically murdered. His killing and the subsequent acquittal of the main suspects became a driving force in the American Civil Rights Movement. On June 12, 1963 Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers is gunned down in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi. He was just 37 years old. A year later on June 21, 1964 three young men, James Chaney 21, Michael Schwerner 24, and Andrew Goodman 20, who were also part of the Civil Rights movement were killed and their bodies buried in an earthen dam. Forty days later their bodies were found. Lynchings, mob violence and church burnings were common occurrences in those days. But for Charles and Yvonne, the only struggle they were aware of was keeping, their small family clothe, feed, warm and dry. A struggle that they succeed in, even managing to buy their own home, something that was rare for black folks back in those days.

What's that you say children, this is all ancient history? Well, you would be right children. This all happened a long, long time ago, and Mississippi, is a land, far, far away. Look at were we are today. Today there is a black man, or excuse me, children, an African American man on his way to the White House. A man who, just like Emmett Till and our fearless couple Charles and Yvonne, springs forth from Chicago. Life indeed, is a funny thing, children.

It is just amazing to me in a country were people of color were murdered with impunity, a man of color has now be elevated to the role of President. I have to say, I don't know what I think about that, children. I don't really know, what or how to feel. I think it just hasn't sunk in yet. It really doesn't seem real.

On that note I am going to have to leave you, children, until tomorrow, then. Your Auntie ZsaZsa can't just sit around blogging with you all day you know. Some many things to do, so little time. Till I blog again, mine your matters now, children.

Genesis-Birth of a Blog Day One

Hello children, welcome to my blog. You are witness to the birth of a blog and a blogger too, I guess. Well, children where should we begin. I guess the beginning is always a good placed to start. In the beginning there was a blog, and someone said write so I write.

July 9, 1966, Chicago, IL, is the day it all began for me. Illinois Masonic Hospital, located on Chicago's north side, is where. That year another Chicago native Walt Disney, dies. Along with him dies Americas innocence. Because it is also the year that America is introduced to "the serial killer". A new word, a new concept and a new kind of crime, what we didn't know then was there would be others. The 1st of note would be Richard Speck. Just 4 days after my life began the lives of 8 young nursing students were ended abruptly and savagely by the evil incarnate that was Richard Speck. Valentina Paison, Merlita Garguilo, Suzanne Farris,Mary Ann Jordan, Pamela Wilkening, Nina Schmale, Pat Matusek, and finally Gloria Davy, are the names of the young women who's lives ended that terrifying night. Corazon Amurao was the sole survivor. She saved her own life by rolling under a bed and hiding till the the next morning. Rich Speck was the dark side of 1966. He crawled from the seedy underbelly of that year, but there were bright spots. Me, of course, I was the brightest, shiniest, gleaming moment in the lives of my parents Charles and Yvonne.

But Auntie ZsaZsa was not all that was happening in the summer of 1966. 1967 may have been "The Summer of Love" for everyone else but as far as Charles and Yvonne were concerned everyone else was behind the times and need to catch up to them. As they barreled down the streets of Chicago in their Blue 1966 Dodge Dart, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass's Taste of Honey, on radio. Blissfully unaware that at the same time on the South Side of Chicago there was another birth. The Chicago Freedom Movement was also being born that summer. While blacks were struggling virtually unnoticed by whites in the south, The Chicago Freedom Movement splashed the struggle for civil rights onto national head lines. Largely because Chicago was where the Democratic Party machine was closely linked to the national party and the White House of President Lyndon Johnson, the movement raised the bar and gave the struggle for equality a national focus. Our pair of star-crossed lovers barely noticed, even
when Martin Luther (the) King, himself arrive in their fair city later that year. August 5, 1966 was a muggy Friday afternoon when he step out the car that brought him to Marquette Park on Chicago's Southwest Side to lead a march of about 700 people. Thousands of angry whites gathered to jeer and throw stones. Dr. King was one of 30 people injured that day, which later resulted in 40 arrest. How many of those arrested do you want to guess were white?
But to Charles and Yvonne, being a pair of political neophytes, the only struggle of any importance, was the one to pay the rent and keep their precious firstborn clothed and feed.

Some else, Charles and Yvonne were unaware of : The Food and Drug Administration had declared "the Pill" safe for human use. That is news they could have used, seeing that in the coming years they would go on the have six children. At the movies was: A Man for All Seasons, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Alfie, A Man and a Woman and let's not forget The Sound of Music, which went on to win a Oscar for Best Picture that year. What did Charles and Yvonne care about the movies, they could not afford the price of admission, anyway? Beside who would watch your sweet Auntie ZsaZsa, despite having close to twenty siblings between them? And their parents, well both sets still had kids in grammar school. No, children I am afraid Charles and Yvonne had no time for such frivolity. They were just happy if your Auntie ZsaZsa would stop crying long enough for them to sit through an episode of that new show Star Trek, who first aired in September 1966. Even thought Truman Capote's In Cold Blood was hot off the presses, they had no time for books either. Unless of course they were brightly colored and full of pretty, pretty pictures.

Also lost on Charles and Yvonne was the fact that, The old Metropolitan Opera House was abandoned as the company moves to Lincoln Center. The new Metropolitan Opera opens with Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra. Insulin is first synthesized in China . MIT biochemist Har Khorana finishes deciphering the DNA code. Fidel Castro declares martial law in Cuba because of a possible U.S. attack. In the summer of 1966 , a gallon of gas cost $0.32 , water was free, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were both still alive and well. The Beetles were still together, and Elvis was still king. My, my how far we have come, how far indeed, children.

Well now that we know how it began, stick around to see how it ends. That's all I have for you today children. Let's see what tomorrow will bring, shall we.