The Late Arrival

A true story. They always seem to come without warning out of the clear blue with some deep truth that's eluded me for most of my adult life. This was one of those times. I was feeling all high and mighty for encouraging my kiddo's discipline throughout the stay at home order (like that's not part of the parenting gig, but whatever). Well...what was I supposed to say? Seriously, what is it like to be a teen right now, nonetheless a teen who's busting her butt academically, much less one whose school year was shut down in the blink of an eye? But to hear her articulate MOM. I'M BLACK. THIS IS WHAT WE DO. And yes, she's white and black, but she's realized in her whole short seventeen years, she is perceived as black, so she embraces it. But still... THIS IS WHAT WE DO. I've always taken the THIS IS WHAT WE DO as a given. She's well aware of my family being at the center of a triple lynching and then starting a new life here in M

Fresh bread, still warm from the oven, freshly fried chicken and perhaps a cooled peach cobbler went into the picnic basket, gently and carefully covered with a red and white checkered cloth. Kids were packed up and toted down to the battlefield for the day's festivities. After all, it wasn't a Civil War back in the early days, it was just a skirmish that'd be over in a few months. The "skirmish" would end up ricocheting States' Rights from one century into the next. Its fruit would blossom into today's racial disparities ranging from prison populations, to history curricula, to economic and housing disparities and... . ..health disparities. (see Covid-19 )   Zoom Meetings weren't a thing back then, so... . I'm a history buff, and in my early fangirling days of Civil War history and all things Lincoln, I remember thinking about families packing up picnic baskets to watch skirmishes as if they were tennis matches and marveling ho