CM: “So do you have a place to live?”
LINDA: “I’m in supported housing. The place I’ve been staying just lost their funding and they’re closing, but Door of Hope is taking over, so we’re not going to be put out on the street. I just found out.”
LINDA: “I went back to Ole Miss when my children were grown and I was divorced, thinking I would start a new career and how much fun that would be. I was in the Engineering Department working on a Computer Science degree, had a full scholarship, was an honor student, and had my dreams at my fingertips. But then I got sick and just kept getting sicker and sicker until finally I couldn’t do school anymore. I moved down close to my son and kept trying to work, but I—I just couldn’t do it. So I came back up to Memphis because I knew the Med was here, and even if I didn’t have health insurance, I could be seen. After four and a half years, I was finally diagnosed with stage three liver disease and congestive heart failure. I’m only getting 34% of the amount of oxygen I need from my lungs into my bloodstream. Tennessee decided not to expand Medicaid to include people without dependents, so I can’t get insurance via Obamacare. I’m still waiting on Social Security, which, even though I can’t breathe, they’ve still turned me down. I think they’re just waiting for me to die and then they’re going to give it to me. I’m still trying to put the word out that if anybody’s got a spare tank or one of those oxygen concentrators, it sure would help. I never dreamed that it would be so hard to get something --- air --- that’s all around us every day --- free --- but I was told there’s no charitable organization anywhere that helps you get oxygen, so I’m just making it as best as can. Three years ago, I started selling The Bridge to make a little money, and I did real well at first, but now I’m weaker, sicker, and so I just do it when I can, you know, which is not really regular. I’m very thankful for The Bridge though. It gave me back my self-respect because I’m not out there begging or panhandling, which I really never did because I just wasn’t raised like that. But give me a way to make money, and I’ll be glad to stand there and sell. I’ve been a sales manager before, so I have experience and I can talk. You have to be able to talk to people. Students at Rhodes College publish the paper, we [vendors] buy them for 25-cents, sell them for a dollar, and get to keep the 75-cent profit from each one. People tip sometimes too. The Rhodes students don’t make anything from it; they just do it as a service to the homeless community. So I’m doing the best I can, and I’m just happy I’m making enough that I don’t have to call my kids for every medication refill or every personal hygiene item I need. I would be selling papers again full-time if I still could.” CM: “So do you have a place to live?” LINDA: “I’m in supported housing. The place I’ve been staying just lost their funding and they’re closing, but Door of Hope is taking over, so we’re not going to be put out on the street. I just found out.” The Bridge is sold by certified vendors (all of whom wear an official badge on a lanyard, similar to the one above). The paper is available all over the city, including at the Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market, 1000 Cooper Street, on Saturdays year-round from 8am - 1pm.
"Early on, when my husband and I got married, we made the choice not to pursue upward mobility, but instead to commit to being part of a diverse neighborhood. We wanted to get to know people who were different from us and see life from that perspective. Our faith shaped our decision, but I think the fact that I’m a special education teacher also had something to do with it; I've always felt that it's important to acknowledge the value of every single person.
"We have a four-year-old granddaughter now, and we hope that the way we live out our commitment will influence how she views the world. We’re part of a wonderful, supportive faith community, and we really hope that for her too there will be some component of faith to her life. I want her always to remember how much she is loved by us and by God, to make friends with all kinds of people, to be kind, and to know that everyone is as special as she is." “Before my wife Donovan died, she told me, ‘If I go first, don’t stay home and mope. And when you get back out there on the dating market, don’t be lookin’ for women your own age. She said, ‘If you’re good-lookin’ enough and you’re smooth enough to attract young ladies, you do that.’ And I was the same way. She was stunning when she was 65, 66 years old. A beautiful woman. “We met in the theater at Memphis State, and we would up having similar musical interests. For the longest time, we were just friends. We went out to LA just friends, all on the up-and-up, renting the same house, staying in different rooms, completely platonic. When Thanksgiving came that year, she went off to San Francisco to spend the weekend with a friend, and I was stuck back in LA. I didn’t sleep. When I got to San Francisco, I found out she hadn’t been sleeping very well either, so we said, ‘Golly, maybe we better look into this situation.’ We were 27 and 28 when we got married, and we were married for 41 years and 4 months. She died on Easter Sunday of 2012. You don’t get over something like that. “I’ve only written one song for her. I tried several times. She was not musical, but she had a very, very keen musical ear and she could tell if it was good enough. I’d write her a song, and there would be all be the obligatory, ‘Oh, you sweet thing. Kiss kiss kiss, hug hug hug’ and I’d sing it for about a week. Then I’d finally turn to her, and I’d say, ‘Donna, this thing is really not that good is it?’ She’d say, ‘No, not really.’ I was trying to do all that sappy, sentimental stuff. But there’s one I’ve written since she passed, called 'Cactozo Dot Bunny', that I’m gonna make a single out of. It’s set in New Orleans, and it’s about the rowdy side of the whole situation. It’s about her dancing. There’s one part in there that’s really something. Let’s just say, Bourbon Street wasn’t the main show. The Quarter was lit, lit up for Cactozo, which was one of her nicknames. “I started writing songs when I was just out of college. They weren’t very good, but after Donna died, I just hit this burst of songwriting that’s still going on. I’ve written about 70 since then. I’m very proud of my tribute songs to Memphis Minnie, Furry Lewis, Bukka White, and a whole bunch of others. I’ve written mountain music, blues, all kinds. I guess maybe my favorite serious song, romantic song, is ‘Simone.’ She and I were kind of close for a minute or two. Didn’t last very long, knew it wasn’t going to, because she’s way younger than I am. I’ve got quite a few about women. I fear commitment though; I’ll probably never marry again, but the truth is, I simply cannot survive without female company. I can’t, you know, and it can be casual, it can be completely platonic, or it can be intensely romantic. Women have appeal. I can’t deny that. I ain’t ready to sit down and play checkers for the rest of my life. I ain’t ready for that yet.” Zeke Johnson, blues legend
YouTube: Zeke Johnson performs both blues classics and originals. Here are a few selections: FB: Zeke Johnson FB: Zeke Johnson FB: The Old Goat's Music FB: Zeke's Three Generation Jug Rascals Zeke Johnson: Memphis Blues Society Feature Story... (article, 2014) An Exclusive Interview with Zeke Johnson (article, 2015) "Have a blessed morning! Don’t work hard, but work smart! And don’t let nothing nor nobody in the world steal the joy. Cause God made a brand new day for us. He woke us up to love us, bless us, shield us, and protect us all day long. If he wasn’t gonna do it, he wouldn’t have woke us up this morning. Satan know it, so Satan gonna tackle us all day long. He ain’t gonna tackle us with our enemies, 'cause we watch them. He always attack us with the closest thing to us, and if we let him in, we ain’t gonna get nothing done. So we gotta stay focused and say 'No' to Satan and 'Yes' to God, and we gonna win all day. I love you!"
“One of the things you need in order to thrive in the business world is courage. So this year, I did something a little weird: I decided I wanted to learn to drive a train. Not exactly what you would expect from a person who’s arrived --- yeah, I’ve arrived, I wear suits every day, I have cute shoes, I have cute bags to match --- and now as a global leader with 18 years of sales and marketing experience, I want to learn how to drive a train. Why? Because I work for an international transportation company in an industry I did not fully understand. You get a lot of grace in the beginning, right? You graduate from high school, you graduate from college, and then that grace sort of runs out and you have to show up. You have to put yourself out there. You have to walk in the shoes of the people you say you represent. I was telling young men and young women every day: ‘You can do anything. You can be an engineer, a conductor, a sales and marketing exec, you can do anything!’ (I won’t do it, but you can!). ‘You’ll make a lot of money, you can do it!’ (But I won’t.) I knew that had to change, so I decided I was going to learn how to do this courageous thing. “I went to Chicago for the training. Now, I have my MBA, I graduated from Sheffield High School at 16, my dad is allegedly a mathematical genius --- some of that got passed on to me ---, and I’m supposed to be a really bright person. But I go to the first week of conductor training to learn how to actually conduct a train, and they showed me the air brake system, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know even where the rotors are on my car!’ My own limitations kind of came and smacked me upside the head. I was a mess. I called my mama in tears, saying, ‘Mom, I need you to come to Chicago. I need you here with me. I can’t do this! Everybody’s going to know I’m a fraud. I’m not really that smart. If I fail, I’m going to look terrible because I’m one of only two African-American women in our U.S. network going through this program.’ And my mama said, ‘So what’s the problem?’ “There was not a problem. I had the opportunity to do something that I asked to do, and I was now standing in that moment, nervous and fearful and questioning my own capacity, so I had to have the courage to say, ‘I’m afraid.’ That was an issue, but I had to find the courage to overcome my fear. And I had to have the courage to fail, if that was going happen, because that was a part of my process. Now, thankfully I did not fail. I finished the course, learned what I needed to learn, and passed the test. Conducting is not one of my job responsibilities, but that’s not the point. The point is that I understand things about the industry now that I never knew before. AND I am one of very few African-American women in the United States certified to drive a train!” Did Kai inherit Mom's superpowers? :-) Roquita Coleman-Williams, commissioner of the Memphis Area Transit Authority and manager of Sales & Marketing with CN Railway Co.
"What I want is to have peace of mind and live life like I’m supposed to. Normal. It’s getting there. Things are looking up. A lot of times I've wanted to give up, but then I start thinking about how the situation could get better. You gotta stay positive through the rough times, you know? Hang in there. Stay strong. Being around a lot of negativity can turn you the wrong way. You gotta walk away from it."
KEVIN: “It’s rough living on the street. It gets pretty cold in the winter. Finding the simple amenities sometimes is hard, like finding a place to use the restroom. Simple things like that. I go to different churches for meals, and if it’s cold, I go to the shelter or sometimes to the Room in the Inn. You heard of that place? I haven’t always been on the street. Life used to be pretty good. I was born here in Memphis. My mother was a nurse and she got a job at one of the hospitals up in Milwaukee, so we moved. I was a teenager when we left, so I finished high school up there. After that, I got recruited for football to the University of Minnesota. Went four years and majored in history. I was fortunate enough to make it into the NFL as a free agent. Played for the San Diego Chargers. I was bringing in good money playing ball, but I didn’t know what to do with it. They don’t teach you how to manage it. Played for four years, but then I got hurt, couldn’t make the team anymore, and I lost it all. Some have lost millions. After that, I went back to Milwaukee and got a job working for the state of Wisconsin as a youth counselor. I worked that job for 9 years. Then my father got sick here in Memphis. I knew he was dying, and I came back to be with him. I lived with him for a while and had a job with Zomax out in East Memphis --- it was a distribution company --- but they closed down and moved out of the state. Then my father passed away. That was about three years ago, and since I’d lost my job and I didn’t have any income, I couldn’t afford to keep a place to live. It made life difficult. Some people told me about the Union Mission, so I stayed there for a while. Now I stay wherever I can find. I hope I can get another job and make my way back up again. I wish somebody had told me there were going to be rough times ahead, that I needed to put something back. You never know what’s going to happen. You could be up one day and completely down the next.” CM: “When you think about what it's like to live on the street, what do you want people to know? How do you want to be treated out there?” KEVIN: “I want to be treated like a human being. Maybe I’m just down on my luck, but I’m still a human being.” “I consider myself a survivor, not a victim. I don’t talk to many people about what I’ve been through, but if telling my story can save even one person’s life, it will be worth it. I was 24 when I met J***. I should have listened to his former girlfriend who was also a friend of mine, when she told me: ‘J*** doesn’t love you; he’s just using you.’ But I thought, ‘Maybe he used YOU, but it’s different with me. He really cares about me.’ He had a good job, wore a suit to work every day --- he was an engineer --- and was just so charming. I knew he had been in a few bad relationships before, but I was certain things would be different with me. Whatever his issues were, I could help. I’d be the one to save him.
“We hadn’t been together long before the abuse started: physical, emotional, mental, and sexual. As soon as he got home from work in the evenings, he started drinking and then got mean. He went through a case of beer every night. He hit me and left bruises, but not where people could see them, except for once when he busted my lip. He broke my finger, but I told my boss I’d accidentally slammed it in a car door. He took the cash I brought home from my job waiting tables and left me with nothing. He made good money, but it all went for cocaine, something he got addicted to a few months into our relationship. On my 25th birthday, he held a knife to my throat and threatened to kill me. Once, when I was in the shower, he terrorized me so badly that I couldn’t stop screaming and a neighbor came banging on our door. He said to me, ‘You go out there and tell her you’re fine, and then get her the hell away from here!’ I look back on that time now and think, Who was that person? Why did I stay? I wasn’t even trying to get away from the abuse. I guess the only answer is that I cared about him and thought I would be the one who could fix him. I would be the heroine of the story. But he was a sociopath; I know that now. You can’t save someone bent on self-destruction, and eventually the relationship ended. “After a while I met my (now-husband) Neale and we began to get serious, but I still had some casual contact with J***. I hadn’t completely cut ties with him. When I asked Neale whether he would mind my inviting J*** to our wedding, he said, ‘Sure, he can come. But there won’t be a groom.’ That sealed it for me. Neale recognized how damaging and manipulative J*** was and helped me finally draw healthy boundaries so I wouldn’t get sucked back in. That was a turning point, but even after Neale and I were married, J*** continued to contact me. I tried to get him to leave me alone, and he did for a while, but then it started up again. In 2009, two days after Christmas, I got a call from his sister that he had died of an overdose. He was only 35. I still have nightmares about him coming after me; I relive it again and again. I know if I had stayed with him, he would have killed me. It was only a matter of time. “I’ve been married for eight years now and, even though there is no perfect relationship, I have the greatest respect for my husband Neale. He’s my best friend. He’s kind, and he works hard to overcome the difficulties he faces in life. Everything he does, he does for me and for our marriage. We help each other in any way we can, but helping and saving are not the same thing, and I know that now. I recognize the difference between a charismatic man and a sociopath. I would caution other women to watch for red flags when they meet an especially charming gentleman, and don’t rationalize bad behavior. It’s easy for women to get caught up in playing the savior. I see them sometimes, see them trying to hide their bruises, and I just want to tell them to find a way to leave before it’s too late.” “My mom worked for 36 years at the same job, retired, and bought and paid for a house while she was living. She's the one who taught me to be steady. She passed away in March, but I think about her every day. I miss her being around; I’m at home and I think, ‘I’m gonna go see Mama’, but she’s not there anymore. I wish I had a picture of her with me, but I don’t. She was a good-looking lady in her day, my color, medium tall, not a big woman. She taught me the rules of life and to be truthful and honest, although I have to say I haven’t been either one of those all my life. I’m human. She lived to be 93 years old; she was the baby of 11 children and the last one to pass. She kept her memory up until the end. She couldn’t see that well, but she remembered everybody. She remembered things from 40, 50, 60 years before and told stories about them. She told me about people I never knew who passed before I was ever born.”
“I’ve been writing since I was nine years old. Even though I went to school to study Political Science, I feel almost like I have a double major --- one in Poetry also --- because college is where I found my voice as a writer. The environment there was so free, so beautiful, and it was geared toward nerdy, bookish people like me. Writing is how I process the ups and downs of life: It’s how I’ve dealt with some of my biggest heartbreaks, biggest disappointments, and biggest triumphs. Poetry has been almost like that older sister who guides you through life. I don’t know where I’d be without it. That's one of the reasons I founded the Spartan City Poetry Club five years ago. We meet monthly at the Cordova Library to share our work, and it's almost like therapy for some of us. We've really bonded over words. “So far I’ve written five books of poetry [all available on Amazon], and they’ve received positive reviews from Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou (before she passed), and President Barack Obama. Hearing from President Obama really inspired me to keep going. He actually sent me a letter on presidential letterhead, which I’m going to frame and keep. I’m still excited about that!” Jessica L. Crenshaw, Poet / Author / Communications Consultant
President / Founder of Spartan City Poetry Club Email: JLCPoetry@yahoo.com Website: http://www.livingbreathingpoetry.com/ Jessica's books are available on Amazon. |
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