wALKING IN aLABAMA

Walking in Alabama

Dexter Baptist church

I had the wonderful opportunity to go to Montgomery Alabama, to the Montgomery Museum of Fine art, for a lecture on my work and more for the “The show Ancestry and Innovation”.

The Montgomery Museum of Fine Art you really must see this place

The show Ancestry and Innovation The show Ancestry and Innovation

It was an incredible place, situated on tons and tons of land; it also included a Shakespearian theater on the property.

MMFA is a new beautiful place where the community comes to share in the wonderful art and sights. As well as to feed the fish and birds that live around the pond.

Now look, I must digress here, I am Stephen Sampson’s son, fishing is in my blood.

So I got some bread and my cousin Jessica and I fed the fish on Friday, while we awaited Alice who was finishing up officer work in the Museum.

But I am jumping ahead

Alice is the education director of the museum and the person who invited me down and made all of the arrangements. She is a beautiful young woman who I actually thought was my daughter’s age of twenty five, I wont gives out her age, but she isn’t much older than my daughter in any case

Ok So Alice picks me up at the airport and were talked and talked. She is a very bright articulate woman, who is from Montgomery, but has lived all over the world.

She recently returned to find out that she did like this town of hers……so she brought a house and settled.

Ok Ok

I get to this beautiful hotel the Hilton, and scan the room.

All I ever need is cnn a hot bath tub; I don’t have a bathtub at home

Yes I do have water, but just a shower.

Ok Coffee station………….pot and the likes

Ok

The director of the museum took me out to dinner the first night

She was another amazing woman

All of these fine southern gals were making an old guy feel alive

We talked and talked

And I had pulled pork,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, coleslaw

Aunt Vernell, I thought of right away

I decided to venture out to see Alabama this hotel was in an industrial park.

But their was a highway and I got feet so I walked

It’s in my nature to seek out folks so I could run my mouth

Anyway I found a gas station close by

And people

I made fast friends and spent the first night

Doing my cop thing

Where is it safe, where is the fun what is it like

Where was I the AD is kicking in

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……

The next day I was picked up by Alice early and taken to the museum

Where we set up the stuff for a lecture

And the events began

The show Ancestry and Innovation the show looked stunning

Again I was proud to be in the show

But looking at my work there or any where never gives me a rush

It’s the other art and the new places that get me excited

Once the work is done it’s done

I am a total process orientated guy

Where was I

I had lunch with two really exciting woman of different ages.

One lovely lady was my age she was some thing else

Lively smart

Every one was so damn smart and nice

And the other a recent transplant from Connecticut

Who was really brilliant and fun

Anyway my lunch

A fancy BLT with really fancy crusty bread

And cheese and dried tomatoes

Lord

Wait

I missed breakfast

My god grits grits and more grits

I still think I make the best grits around but these were close

Nothing like bacon over easy, eggs and grits.

Anyway

Back to the museum

They had a lot of stuff going on

They had a children’s art show, which simply amazed me

It was based on AI show

These kids out did their selves

I mean the work was amazing

It gave me tons and tons of ideas for my work

Just kidding

I actually got to meet many of the kids at the opening

I was walking around

When I saw this tow headed type

Walk over to my work

And start blowing on it

Blowing the tassels that hung down from the work

Look I have had compliments

What ever

But this is the best yet

To watch this kid

Look at my work and instinctly understand that it is moving

In my head

Was stunning

I love kids they always get things better than adults

Ok the opening was amazing

My god more food

Lions and tigers cheese and crackers oh my

Ok then on to my lecture

I won’t talk much about me talking but it was a nice crowd

And the talk went well

I run my mouth you guys all know

Love to talk never shut up

Oh oh

One of the nicest things was that

They asked me to record the descriptions of the work

To be used in conjunction with the show

I actually talked into a recorder and did this

It was some thing new

And major fun

I kept thinking of my boss Ivi

And how she always tells me about my loud mouth

I am sticking my tongue out at you now

I feel like what was that woman name

Macy gray or some thing like that

That strange black woman with that nasty voice

She said that her friends used to tell her that she couldn’t sing

She can’t but there is some thing in her voice

Maybe balls ……………..some times that enough

Ok

I was having a wonderful time

Ok Now I have to get to my cousin Jessica

I am scared to guess her age, I would say 70 some thing

I am scared to ask

But that will do for now

This woman my blood who is from Birmingham but now lives in a retirement community

Was a fireball of life wisdom and love

It only took me like five minutes to understand that I had found a new family member

We didn’t miss a beat she and I

She looked like us, like me

O.K she was pretty but still she looked like Aunt Vernell the color of her skin

That red color

She showed up looking good and brought some friends and we had a blast at the opening

Her son, my cousin lucky showed up for a minutes

He is a teacher who decided that he should seek out a life as musicians

And let me tell you

It was a good choice

Alive took me to the club where he was performing

Kevin got out

Out at night

In a club with other adults

Let see a bath, coffee, fine company and now a club

Lucky could sing, I mean sing

My Cousin Lucky who does he look like ?

And sing every thing he did

I was so proud

And happy

Now let me get real

I am a northern Black

Going to Alabama

My reference is the civil rights movement

And one of my favorite movies

Sweet home Alabama

Ok so I am in this bar

In Alabama with a beautiful white woman

Look this might scare me in New Jersey

But I still had this strange fruit thing in my head

But look I am a ex cop

So what I did was scan the room for weapons

Exits and the like

But you know what

Let me say one thing

They grow white boys big in Alabama

In fact everyone is big

They call me big man up north

Probably peanut or some thing in the south

Anyway

Turned out that these were nice folks

Friendly friendly courteous people

And what a time I had

Food, marinated olives and cheeses and shrimp

On a rollup what ever you call them things

Now I rarely eat shrimp

In fact it makes me a bit sick

My brother Ronnie and I used to laugh about this

I might have just gotten this from him

Anyway but that shrimp even tasted good

Ok

The last day I got to see a bit of Montgomery

Let me just say

What a nice bunch of people live in this town

Good morning

How yawl doing

Every one was so courteous and upright

It was amazing and restorative

Ok

So my cousin Jessica

Meets us at the museum

At the start of this narrative

I told you about

The fish

Well we are there again

Damn I should have jumped in and caught one for dad

Anyway my cousin and I stood out in the sun of this beautiful day

We made people give us bread crumbs

And we stood side by side feeding the birds and fish and being at piece

I won’t forget that moment

They Alice and us got into the car and drove into Montgomery

Now you must understand what Alabama means to me to us to mine

I must confess that when I first got to Alabama

I knew that I was home

The last time I got this feeling was when I was in Jamaica

That feeling of belonging and being one with the land

But here it was even stronger

I could feel the pull of the south

I could see my people walking living and dying

It was so real

We went into the town its lush houses and not so lush houses

All wrapped up in the south and its graciousness

This indeed was a new south

But the stains remain and not so much as to hinder

But to inspire

It’s a place to remember

Not to dwell

So we went to the king memorial

And I again

Thought of my father

And taking this trip for him

I want to see all of the places that Dad didn’t see

I want to take him

With me and to have him whispering in my ear

The things that he always did

My father stood next me me

As I stood before its fountains

I must confess another thing

Memorials rarely do any thing for me

Unless they are made by a crack head

Crying over a dead friend

Or constructed in remembrance by real people

But this one

Was amazing

To run your hands over the letters of those that died in the struggle

To know that Ms King and Rosa and Emmitt tills mother all

Touched this

Just like you

It offered continence

Emmitt till

Emmitt till to this day is one of the most painful racial memories of my youth

That Jet magazine picture

Mutilated my mind as a child

So when they began showing a short film about Emmitt I almost ran out of there

But it was tastefully down

Had they showed that picture I would have fled

So my cousin began talking about being here

Down here when this was going on

I offered my two cents but was shot down

She told me some thing

That rocked me

She told me that she couldn’t vote until the 1970’s because she was a teacher

And if you were a state worker, city worker or teacher

And you voted you got fired

I was shocked

She turned into my father

The fire came into her eyes

We she spoke of her life

During these segregated days

Her standing before me,

This brilliant cousin of mine

She had been a project director

Had taught at Tuskegee

Tuskegee

Peanuts and buckets and blood

Her knowledge of the city

Was incredible

She knew where every is

And where every thing was

This cousin of mine turned into my father

My aunt Vernell

Gran ruby

I could see all of these folks in this woman

And so wished I could see all of them talking together

Obama Obama

And boy no one loves Obama

Like my cousin

I made the mistake of speaking of her in a too critical way

What I say was

Is that Obama has to be thought of as more than a man

As more than a person

He has to become a dream

Realized

So that this time

They can’t hinder or kill

The dreamer

Obama

Has to become a movement

To heal a people and country

Then to move it forward

But that is not what got my cousins Irish up

It was when I said he looked goofy

I almost got smacked

But I quickly back tracked

My cousin was one of the brightest, well read and traveled people I have ever met

She is also a swimmer and has been at the senior Olympics

I couldn’t even keep up with her

What a day

We had lunch at a cool hip new place

That could have been in New York

Had it not been for the gumbo

Lord Lord

We drove around those streets

And the feeling for me

Was home

I really could feel Alabama

The University of Alabama

And since my cousin told me

That in Mobile and Birmingham that there are so many McCarroll

That live there that they always have two or three family reunions

Just to fit people in

I knew I had

This place reeked of history

Of struggle and transcendence

I loved Montgomery

And I will return for a visit

My cousin Jessie who is Jessica brother

I have known him all of my life

He is a music genius teacher, who has taught at the best colleges in New York

Jessie thank you for setting it all up

And you were right

Northerners think they know the south

But they don’t have a clue

I could live in this place any time

It’s about the history and the good people

Yup Jessie

Mother, sister, brother, cousins

Run to Alabama

I found out

Here in the south

How much I didn’t know

I found out a lot more about who I am

And from whence I come

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