| Several years ago I watched a made for television movie called "You Must Remember This" with Robert Guillaume, the actor who used to play Benson on the TV show of the same name. Guillaume played Uncle Buddy in the movie, who lived with his sister, his sister's husband, and his niece. Uncle Buddy was a barber and we all know that the popularity of barbers is built on way more than their ability to cut hair. They are the neighborhood psychologists, historians, mediators, oracles, and griots. Uncle Buddy held the esteemed status of barber in his community, but you could tell that, no matter how essential the role of barber, there was much more to Uncle Buddy. One day, a large trunk was delivered to the house where Uncle Buddy and his family lived. Uncle Buddy stowed the trunk in the garage with the explicit instructions that nobody open it. This order, or course, made the mysterious trunk irresistible to Uncle Buddy's niece who opened the trunk at the earliest opportunity. The trunk held parts of Uncle Buddy's past that he had never talked about with his family. There were love letters, clothing, and other fond memories of a woman whom he had loved dearly many years before. There were several metal canisters that contained old reels of film. The niece took the films to an area university and had them examined. It turned out that they were early Black westerns made by a brilliant and innovative director who never got his due because he was Black and Black film directors were invisible in the '30s, '40s, '50s and some would say that their anonymity persists to this day with a couple of notable exceptions. Uncle Buddy was the director of the Black westerns -- a core part of his being that would have died in a trunk if it had not been for his audacious and disobedient niece. The movie "Purple Rain" cast Clarence Williams, III as Prince's father. In the movie, Williams was horribly abusive to Prince's mother and it was hard to feel anything but contempt for him. There was a part of the movie where Prince perused the basement of their home where his father spent considerable time playing the piano and getting high. Stowed in the piano bench, Prince found reams of music that his father had composed. The assumption was that the music was beautiful, brilliant, and deserved a life outside of a piano bench in a basement. In both "You Must Remember This" and "Purple Rain," you are left to wonder what the lives of Uncle Buddy and Prince's father would have been like if their immense talent had been allowed to flourish. And beyond that, I wondered what the lives of their families would have been like -- what their neighborhoods would have looked like if Uncle Buddy and Prince's father had blossomed into their full humanhood. My guess is that other people in their respective neighborhoods would have been encouraged to dust off their talents and ambitions, give them wings, and release them to the wind to see how long and far they could fly. I didn't know Uncle Buddy and I didn't know Prince's father. But I did know my father and I am learning more about myself every day and I know that I am not immune to the dusty, atrophied dream syndrome. I also know that talents and ambitions must be nurtured or they will turn to mold and then dust to dissipate until they become the faintest of memories. My guess is that many of us have uncles, fathers, and other older relatives and family friends who were genius in some way or other but never seemed to get over -- never had their talent see the light of day or translate into sustenance. My father had significant parts of his life jammed into a small, dark closet in the hallway of the housing projects I grew up in on the Lower East Side of New York City. But he didn't keep these things totally hidden like Uncle Buddy tried to do. They were pulled out on occasion to punctuate stories about what could have been. The closet provided props for the stories like the spurs, riding pants and a bridle from the days when my father was a cavalryman in the U.S. Army during the closing days of WW II. No. He didn't wear blue pants with broad yellow stripes on the outsides of the legs like Cavalry soldiers wore on television shows and in movies. But he was part of the modern-day Cavalry. He loved horses and continued to until the day he died. He cared for and trained horses that were used for caisson details -- the horses that pulled caskets in funeral processions. My father always lamented over the many horses that were sent off to the glue factory when they were considered no longer suitable for caisson duty. Maybe my father identified with them. Obsolete before their talents ever came to full fruition. The hallway closet was also home to the blue suede shoes and black suit that he wore to his high school graduation in Paris, Tennessee in 1943. The Central High School yearbook had a very handsome picture of my father under which many of his accomplishments were listed, such as captain of the basketball team and honors that he had received in chemistry and math. All this despite the fact that he worked to support his seven sisters, two brothers, and mother in the absence of his father. The dark and musty closet archived papers that were once important, but now only served as proof of past accomplishments that had no utility in the present, like the diploma my father had earned from the dental mechanic's school that he attended for two years, while working a full-time night job, and graduated at the top of his class. After many attempts at trying to get a job doing the precise and technical work of making false teeth, a proprietor of a dental mechanic's shop finally told my father that he could make the best false teeth in the world, but he would still not be hired as a dental mechanic "because colored men were just not hired to do that kind of work." My father told me stories of his bitter disappointments hundreds of times over the years. The story that was repeated most often was the one where he was told that he would not be hired as a dental mechanic for reasons that had nothing to do with his ability, initiative, sacrifice or talent. Maybe this kick to the groin was all the more painful because my father believed that he had left discrimination behind when he left the south. In addition, he believed that his service in the U.S. Army would have dissolved any remaining barriers to accessing all the good stuff that was supposed to be synonymous with America. Maybe Les Brown -- the dynamic, articulate, insightful, and brilliant Black motivational speaker -- said it best when he said that the graveyard is the richest place on the planet because that's where all the unrealized, unused talent is stored. It is incumbent upon all of us to not make the graveyard the repository of the best of who we are. What underutilized talents and ideas do you possess? Where do you keep these things hidden, other than in the deeper recesses of your heart? Is there a shelf or room or closet where you hide your gifts? Making ourselves small and minimizing our talents do not benefit anyone. I believe that we are here to manifest the best of who we are. This need not be done arrogantly or boisterously, but in ways that generate personal excitement and encourage others to stretch the perhaps limited notions of who they have come to believe themselves to be. Thank you for listening. And now if you'll excuse me, I have to go. There are several boxes on a bottom shelf in my basement that I have to go through. The boxes contain pieces of my essence in the form of things I've written over the years. It is past time to dust them off to take a new look at what's there. Then I'll be faced with the simultaneously frightening, delightful, mournful and necessary task of throwing away what is no longer useful and breathing new life into the rest. |
| Simple Things/Lang Kenneth Haynes Garages, piano benches, and closets: hidden treasures |
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