I’m in love with my dad.

Do I love him? Yes. But I’m talking about being in love. I like him. I like being around him. He’s funny. He makes me laugh.  He’s special.

You see I didn’t grow up throwing the ball with him in the backyard. We never sat by the fireplace and had older man, younger man talks. No, my dad worked all the time, all the time. He left home for his pipe shop job around 4:30 am, returned around 3 pm and would leave again around 4:00 pm for his nighttime janitorial job. On the weekends he did plumbing with a family friend, Goat.  

Yet, as much as he worked, we all knew he was there for us, a reasoning safe presence. For me, his oldest and only son, he foresaw a changing world. A world he was willing to send his son into but would not live in himself. He accepted his supporting role in life but wanted a starring role for his son. So he worked. He worked to make the funds necessary to send me, and my two sisters, to private school, buy us a house, allow us to live comfortable lives. When things got tight, we, the children, would be made aware of it because we were a team and everyone pitched in to make things work. 

What I remember most and what I enjoy most now is listening to him talk. Born in 1925, in Elmore County Alabama, he’s seen a world I could not have survived. Almost being accosted by white strangers because they thought my light-skinned mother was a white woman. Having to step off the sidewalk when a white couple approached. Working all day, sun up to sun down behind a mule for 50 cents. Building his own bicycle from spare parts and riding with his brother into downtown Wetumpka, Alabama to go to the movies, and of course, sit in the black section of the theatre.  Going to the army at 18. Afterward, moving to Birmingham to join his sisters and brothers as they transitioned from rural country life to city life, marriage and a family.

His wife, my mother, had been raised Catholic and had gone to Catholic schools. She set the standards. He converted to Catholicism. He worked so we could go to Catholic schools. When I became a popular athlete at the school where I integrated the sports teams, what he didn’t understand he didn’t stand in the way of. He never limited me. When I pushed back against his more restrained ways he supported me.

There are times, while visiting him that we will take a drive to visit with his friend, Kit. They worked together at Acipco Pipe. Kit’s ten years younger than my dad and babysits a tire service he runs with his wife. There are few customers so he and my dad can have an hour or two to just talk.

They both survived 35 years in the plant. Made it out. Retired and have lived long enough to enjoy it. They witnessed their place of work go from their supervisor referring to them as “These are my Ni_ _ ers,” to a measure of respect for who they were as men. They laugh a lot at the supervisor who they told jokes to in order to get him laughing and telling jokes. While he entertained them they got to rest.

Our adult worlds have been different; his blue collar, mine entrepreneurial. Sometimes that has been frustrating.  When I vent about a client issue, he comes back with “running the ball, but you got to be blocking and you need a tall receiver who can snatch that ball, then you can score the ball.”

Traveling in parallel universes is sometimes frustrating. “What are you talking about?” I wanted to say. But I studied him. Now 93 and hard of hearing, he still is the master of his shrinking domain, holding on to whatever control he can.

I thought about what he’d said. The light went on. It was a strategy. A strategy I could utilize. I would utilize. I had to get back on offense. Score some points. I would.

This trip I spent three days with him. My sisters, his angels, are his full time caregivers. I come in once a month to substitute and give them a tiny break. Daddy and I talk, watch television, go on rides through familiar territory, and eventually nod out on the couch in the evening.

The hardest part is leaving.  We always make good eye contact, our eyes express the thankfulness of being in each other’s lives and the loving words he cannot verbalize but doesn’t have to. I know.  

He always says,  “I hope I see you again.” I always give him a big hug and say, “You will.”  

I’m in love with my dad.

Happy Birthday Dad!

We met him in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris twenty years ago. He always said he was attracted to my wife’s (joyce) stylish hat, or at least that was his story and he stuck to it. An art history professor, an American living in Paris, he invited us to join him on a tour he was giving to his students. “Would you and your man like to join us?” he asked joyce.  With an invitation like that, how could we not? “Yes,” we agreed. For the next two hours we listened and learned. The man was a walking, talking art history lesson. After the tour, we were invited to lunch with the group. We politely declined, figuring we had imposed enough on their time.

As we exited the museum, I mentioned to joyce that we should have gotten the gentlemen’s contact information so we could send him a nice note of thanks. She confidently replied,  “Oh we’ll see him again.” True to my name as a doubting Thomas, I confidently spouted, “We’ll never see that man again!” Two days later, while lunching at an outdoor café, joyce jumped up shouting, “There he is.”

“Who?” I asked. She was already giving chase. “The Professor,” she replied on the run.

She brought him back to our table. That evening we had dinner with him and his friends who were also Americans living in Paris. After that we visited for the next twenty years until his passing in March of this year. He came to our homes in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and Birmingham, Alabama. We visited him in Maine after he moved back to the states.

A physically short man with encyclopedic knowledge and an inquisitive mind regarding social issues, he was stimulating to be around. We went to a jazz performance on the River Seine in Paris. We went to the Moulin Rouge. He spent a Christmas with us in Fort Walton. He visited us in Birmingham for the premiere of my play, Speak of Me As I Am. Issues of ethnicity and American racism peaked his interest and touched off lively conversations. He always inquired about our son, Dixson. He was just incredibly special! I will never forget him.

The last time we saw him was in Maine two years ago. Living with his son Peter, he was confined to a wheel chair, but insisting that he would go back to his beloved Paris as soon as he was able. This month, in his 9^th decade, weak and frail, he passed away.

His son Peter posted a wonderful picture of him with his beloved glass of wine and a twinkle in his eye. Brandt Kingsley, you were one of a kind!

I was looking through some friend requests on Facebook, when a smiling face jumped out at me. Before I confirmed it, I looked to make sure it wasn’t Spam. I also checked out the mutual friends we shared. There were five, a couple of the names looked familiar. A closer look, and I discovered that I recognized three of the five. I looked again at the request, the name and the photo. I grinned a big grin. The kind of grin reserved for those who have touched your soul.

Robert! He was one of my guys. Back in the 1970s, after graduating Auburn and moving back to Birmingham, I worked as a supply teacher at the legendary Parker High School. I subbed in the classroom.  The legendary principal, Bubba Thompson also made me his B-Team football coach. The Facebook request was from one of my players. Our mutual friends were also my players.

I only coached that one season, the siren song of television beckoned. We went 2-2-1. I can say as a coach I never had a losing season.

What has stayed with me and really matters are those guys and the relationships we built. They were young men searching for the person they would grow into, the way we all do at fifteen. They gave themselves to me.

Robert, a running back, always wore a smile. He was pleasant to be around. I wonder if his voice has grown into his body. He had a high-pitched voice. He loved to run the football. To be good, or great, a running back has to love to run the football. Robert wanted the ball.

The other guys on the list, Drake a linebacker, was smart, a thinker. Hardy, an offensive lineman, also very smart, a leader. Harrison, was a big kid, a running back, who would grow into a young man that could continue playing after high school. He was also smart.

I see Jake at Niki’s West in Birmingham. Niki’s has to be the most popular meat and three restaurant in Birmingham. Jake is a server. He was tall and rangy and played safety for us. His real name isn’t Jake, we renamed him after the Jake Scott who played at Georgia and with the Miami Dolphins. It is always good to see Jake.

The one recurring theme in my descriptions of these young men during their High School days is their smarts. They were good athletes, very respectful and also pursued their academics with the vigor of a big game against Carver.

They were wise enough to wonder what was next for their lives. The lure of big time college football was just spreading to the masses of southern black athletes. That was not in the picture. There was not the carrot of the NFL. There were no all-star camps to attend. ESPN was a thought in someone’s mind. My guys accepted this time in their lives for what it was, a wonderful season of life. One that would keep them bonded.

I am proud that I got to spend that year at Parker. Its reputation is outstanding. At the time it was a community public school. The black students who attended there would come from all over Birmingham. Most of my guys lived in the nearby community.

Whenever I am in Birmingham and I hear the word “Coach” directed at me I know it’s one of my players or students from that era. They are the only ones who call me “Coach.”  It’s special!

I’m proud of my guys. They are all productive citizens doing what they can for their families, their communities and each other. I am so honored that they would want to keep in touch with the old coach, who only coached one season.  My grin grows. They gave me one of the most wonderful seasons of my life.

The New Year, 2019, full of promise, resolutions, and anticipation arrives with cold, rainy, windy weather and very little sunshine down on the Gulf Coast. So what’s a little weather? Right. Shortly thereafter I discover a water leak in the ceiling of our bathroom.  I check it out, reason we’re getting a new roof anyway, and determine it is a relatively easy fix.  My wife develops a sinus infection. “It’s nothing baby,” I say until she visits the doctor, comes home with prescriptions and says she (we) cannot travel. In the meantime, I develop a serious head cold and the annual early year pilgrimage to Santa Monica to visit relatives, view top notch independent and foreign films at my favorite independent cinema chain, get some writing done with an actor-writer colleague and of course my visit to Santa Anita horse track, is gone. I’m not a big bettor but I love these animal athletes. On an ordinary daily race day without the pomp and circumstance of a big money televised horse trace there are a few people like me there for the fun of it and there are the serious bettors there to earn some bill money.

 So it gets better, right? Well not yet, there is a mild disruption at work. But I am optimistic. Why? Two things I have learned. One, there’s not only always tomorrow, there is the rest of today. And I am excited about it. Yes! It’s the optimist in me. Since I became an independent business owner in 1987 and a full/part-time actor about that same time, I’ve learned two life-sustaining philosophies that always move me along.

One, the sun actually does come up tomorrow. That one sustained me during the height of my acting days in Hollywood. If I went for a really big, life-changing job and did not get it, I’d be disappointed. My family understood. They agreed I could be disappointed until… the next morning. Then as we would say on the football field, I had to “Shake it off,” and embrace the promise of a new day.

The other life-affirming axiom I learned from business ownership and the business of television and film is “I have enough for today.” Life as an artistic entrepreneur is like performing on the high wire with everyone watching on the edge of his or her seats, without the benefit of a safety net. You fall one time and…. the crowd holds its collective breath and… well you know the rest.  No matter the ups and downs, missed jobs, new employees, money hassles, torn rotator cuffs and really bad days on the golf course, we entrepreneurs, no matter where we are on the social and economic scale, always believe we have enough for today and thank goodness that sun will rise again tomorrow.

Enjoy the journey!

It was nearly 7 am in Savannah, Georgia, still dark enough for headlights. I was fourth in line at the drive-through at the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Shop on Abercrombie Drive. The flashing “HOT” sign lured me into its greedy web.

“I’ll only get three,” I told myself. “Three hot glazed,” Mmmmmm. I could taste them, already. “The last time I had some was the last time I was here, some four months ago,” I rationalized.

Waiting, I rested my arm on the stomach I had grown. My own personal armrest reminded me of the continual promise I kept making to myself. I would lose weight by getting back to eating to live rather than living to eat.

The nagging started.“This Monday will be the start,” I once again promised myself, “I’ll do it this time.”

The drive-through curved to the left and led to the pick-up window on the other side of the building. An adjacent road to the right, led back out into the street and in the direction of my hotel. I was literally at the fork in the road, or at least the fork in the drive-through.

I debated myself. “I could continue on the path I am on,” I thought. “Get my three Krispy Kremes.” I could still taste them!

“Or I can just win this moment,” I thought.

“Maybe this moment won’t be life changing but… if I win this moment…!”

I tried to turn away from the Krispy Kremes but I couldn’t. “Glazed,” was winning the moment, “Mmmmm!”

The debate continued. Could this moment be the start to the rest of my life? Would I let it slip away? I have a photo someone sent, of me in my football uniform in 1976. I am an athlete in top condition. I can be again I tell myself. No, not an athlete in top condition, but be conditioned through exercise and putting the right foods into my body.

Can I do it?

I won that small battle with the drive-through. At 7:05, I turned away from my three Krispy Kremes.

Is it a life changing moment? We’ll see. 

The CNN special 1968 is worth watching. Why? History matters. It always has. 1968, fifty years ago, resonates today through the resulting cultural and social changes of that year. That year changed our country and influenced many of us who lived through it.

In 1968, I turned 16. Social changes rocked the country. Integration was now the law of the land. Old restrictive ways, legal and illegal, said and unsaid, began to erode. Civil unrest reigned. Riots, demonstrations, the struggle for women’s rights, a presidential election that included the governor from my home state of Alabama, and the Vietnam War dominated the headlines.

At 16, my priorities were simple teenage desires. I was focused on the freedom a driver’s license could bring me. I got my license in February, but initially there was little driving for me. I had to earn the money to pay my car insurance. It took me a while even though I had a weekend job. Finally! I had a license, insurance and occasional access to the family car.

While the world swirled around me I continued in my teenage world.

On January 14, I watched the Green Bay Packers with Alabama’s Bart Starr defeat the Oakland Raiders 33-14 in Super Bowl II at Miami’s Orange Bowl.

Five days after that, on January 21, my family celebrated my birthday with homemade vanilla ice cream and my favorite of my Mom’s cakes, chocolate icing with pecans.

In sports, I went out for spring football practice.

As a fledgling speaker, I admired Dr. Martin Luther King. That year he delivered two of my favorites. Years later, I would learn his The Drum Major Instinct and I See The Promise Land and would deliver them in churches.

On April 4, many of us who were teens had to grow up when a gunman ended Dr. King’s life, and the hopes and dreams of many Americans, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupted across the country. It was a scary night for me as I made my way home from spring football practice. The crosstown trip would take two-and a-half hours and three buses to make the trek from my private high school to my home.Since the age of 14, I had lived in the segregated world and the integrated private school world that my dad paid for with two and sometimes three jobs. I often said that I was an ambassador between those two worlds. That night, I felt as if both worlds had failed me. I was alone and afraid.

Two months later, Robert Kennedy, running for President, was assassinated like his brother President John Kennedy was in 1963. Literally, the world has never been the same. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in the same year two months apart. Five years after John Kennedy. What if, they had lived? What if’ was the question many of us asked over and over. A world of justice, peace, and love had seemed so close.

Change continued throughout the year.

On May 13, one million students marched through the streets of Paris.

In the fall of 1968, Henry Harris, a basketball player from Boligee, Alabama, entered Auburn University as its first African American scholarship Athlete. He was the first in the states of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. He would become a friend and big brother to me.

On September 24, 60 Minutes debuted on CBS.

On October 16, at the Olympics in Mexico City, with the world watching, African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists in a black power salute after winning, respectively, the gold and bronze medals in the Olympic men's 200 metres. They were both banned from future Olympic games.

On November 5, Republican challenger Richard Nixon defeated the Democratic candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and American Independent Party candidate and Alabama Governor, George Wallace. Nixon would become the President of the United States.

On November 14, Yale University announced it would admit women.

1968, like 1963, changed us all. Many of us remember what we were doing when those critical historical moments occurred. Some still debate the value of those times. I agree with Dr. King, “Time is neutral it can be used either constructively or destructively.”

“Nine o’clock the next day and I’m ready to go. I’ve got 600 miles to ride to do one more show.”

Those lyrics from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s What’s Your Name paint a picture of a raucous band going from city to city performing by night and traveling by day, sometimes on 600-mile journeys to the next evening’s show.

Such has been my adult business life. No, not the raucous, band playing part; but since 1979, starting as a management recruiter for South Central Bell/AT&T/ Bellsouth, I’ve been on the road from one gig to another, making my living as an actor, consultant, writer, or speaker, and then moving on to the next episode.

It started with recruiting new management hires for South Central Bell. It was technically a 9 to 5, however some weeks I left home on Monday and returned on Friday after visiting at least three college campuses. I could offer jobs to deserving young people and that was satisfying.

Later, I added acting in film and television to the consulting work I did in my firm after leaving BellSouth. For six years it was back and forth from my hometown of Birmingham to Conyers, Georgia to work on the television show In the Heat Of The Night. What started as community theatre and consultation has become a 30-year career in film and television and consultation. In the Southeast, I’ve traveled highways between Birmingham, Northwest Florida, Atlanta, Nashville, Jackson, Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah, for gigs on movies, speeches and corporate communications.

I’ve flown into airports in most major cities. I flew into Memphis from Los Angeles to catch a connecting flight home only to turn around and get back on the plane to LA, because duty called.

The longest commute began in 1997, Birmingham to Los Angeles working as an actor out of the Los Angeles market. Then came Florida to LA, back and forth and back and forth until we got a place in Santa Monica and used it as our work home. I still enjoy spending time in Santa Monica with friends, Irish Joe, Michael O, and Sterfon.

Into this second decade of the 21^st century it’s been, Charleston, Atlanta, Charlotte, Auburn, Birmingham, Nashville, Washington DC, Dallas, New York. I identify cities by the gig I worked there, Atlanta: Containment, Nashville: Sing Me the Blues Lena, Wilmington: Miracle In The Woods, Jackson: The Chamber, Los Angeles: Fight Club, NYPD Blue, etc etc.

The latest gig was in Charleston, South Carolina. I’ve worked Charleston now a half dozen times. I could know more about it. I could have seen more, even visited the few people I know who live there, but that’s the road life. Go in do your gig, enjoy the crew and fellow cast members, another temporary family, and head for home awaiting the next episode of life to call. Home for me is the cherry on top of my life’s bowl of ice cream. Home is where I live my life.

How many final checks have I done? You know where you walk through the room and make sure you haven’t left anything, only in the back of your mind you feel you’re leaving something. It’s a road ritual; like zipping up the final item in your suitcase only to then remember something you specifically and meticulously planned not to forget only to have to unzip, reposition and remember what you promised to remember to pack, in the first place.

Leaving Charleston, I fired up some Allman Brothers and headed to Savannah. In Savannah, I stayed in a hotel I’d stayed in before. For every night I have paid for a hotel room, I could own an entire hotel by now. Sometimes I get to mix business and pleasure. In Savannah, I got to visit with Dixson (our son) and his family.

I am working out of Atlanta again. Looking back there is a sense of pride in having made it work. In having honored my commitments, both business and personal.

When will I stop? I don’t know. What I’ve done for money over the years, I’ve also done for free. It’s what I enjoy. I love the actual performing, consulting, and writing.

There is little more satisfying to me than siting in my office in the early hours of morning writing a piece and watching the sun come up over the Bay.

Then the phone rings, an e-mail hits, a text gets my attention.

“Nine O’clock, the next day and I’m ready to go!”

I’ve learned that:
Mornings are beautiful! 
Life is good. 
The Future is now.

I’ve learned that:
Life is complicated! 
Ignorance is not bliss. 
Change is messy but necessary.

I’ve learned that:
The grass is green right where it is. 
Love feels best when you give it to someone. 
It’s great to live life as a free agent. 
The back roads of life are as exciting as its superhighways.

I’ve learned that:
Anger doesn’t help a whole lot. 
The fruit you reach for is better than that which falls at your feet. 
I’m just passing through.

In the 11^th grade, Miss Hilda Horn, my speech teacher, asked us to prepare a speech for presentation for the next day’s class. When giving out the assignment, she specifically stared at me in my seat in the back of the classroom.

Why was I in a speech class in the first place? Someone told me it was easy and I liked to talk. Sounded like a perfect match.

The next day I gave a speech on How to prepare a hot dog. Everybody laughed. It was funny. It was meant to be funny. But Miss Horn, in that voice that says, “You have crossed the line,” sternly requested that I stay after class. It would be just the two of us. That was not a comforting thought.

Miss Horn was and remains my favorite teacher. She was stern in a friendly way. Physically, she was a large woman and she could be imposing. But, she liked me. She thought I had talent. After that class she told me so. She suggested that I could make a difference in the world, if I applied myself. Exercised my talents. She made me think. She planted seeds in my head that sprouted and grew. She inspired me. Two weeks later, I was writing for the school     newspaper.

Today, I love speaking before an audience. I connect, inspire, motivate and entertain.

As my life has unfolded, as an actor, writer, corporate exec, 30-year business owner, athlete, Dad, husband, son, uncle, godfather, and friend to many, the stories of my life are lodged into my head. When I stand in front of an audience I partner with them, taking them for a ride. Whether it’s The Film Of MY Life (Inspirational), The Moments of our Lives, (Inspirational), I Never Had an Entourage (Educators), The Billion Dollar Man, (Fundraising), Diversity, Access and Inclusion and Leading through Transition with Dr. joyce gillie gossom, I’ve been lucky. I get to do what I love and I’m good at it. Thank you, Miss Horn.

(As published on westernjournalism.com, Sept. 28, 2017)

I saw him last spring in Montgomery, Alabama. I was there to speak to a Leadership Montgomery group. As I looked out over the crowd, he sat there, grinning. Grinning at me! Grinning as if he had a secret no one else in the room knew. As it turns out he did. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago, we found the time to get together and talk about it.

The story travels back into not only my past, but also, our mutual history. Back into a time I call yesteryear. Memories fade. Details get fuzzy but the essence of the story, he remembers in full.

We were freshmen at Auburn University. We had at least one class together. We obviously struck up a relationship.

Sam Johnson tells it like this. We both started Auburn in fall 1970. As freshmen we were coming at the early integration of the University from different perspectives. Sam is white. He chose to get to know me. Not just in class and not just as an athlete. Sam chose to befriend me and get to know me in a time when not many on the white side of the integration experiment at Auburn chose to cross over to that other side. He could have chosen to avoid the integration debacle. It wasn’t his fight. He was secure socially in a fraternity and had the advantage of not being the first in his family to venture to Auburn. I was at the other end of that spectrum.

When we met this September, Sam remembers, that we talked a lot in those days; or rather I talked… a lot. Sam says I was angry and voiced my anger to him about the experience between classes while sitting outside of The Haley Center building. Some of that is fuzzy for me but I don’t doubt I was angry. I do wonder about my sharing my feelings with him. That was something I did not do with people I did not know well. It was part of my anger. Integration was lonely, boring, demeaning and more like the drudgery of a miserable mission than a fun education experience. Today when I hear my fellow white alums from that era or teammates tell stories of their college days, I wonder if we went to the same University. The few of us black students who ventured into integration during that time were pioneers on a mission to make things better for those who would follow. Was it fun for us? Nope. The black athletes, at that time there were three of us in the Auburn athletic department (1basketball, 2 football), were the forerunners to today’s games, but we were not the beneficiaries of our efforts. I kept who I was and what I was thinking bottled up inside. My insides were tied up in knots, knots of anger. I often kidded some of my white teammates telling them, “If you knew what I was thinking, you’d be scared of me.” Sam must not have been afraid. Because according to Sam, I let him in.

The visible proof of our relationship appeared in the school newspaper, The Plainsman that I would later write for. The paper ran an article on race relations on campus, with an accompanying photo. Sam brought a copy of the photo to our meeting in September. The photo was of Sam and a white female, two other black males: Joe Nathan Allen and Rufus Felton, two black females who I do not remember, and me. We were all smiling. We had been recruited to pose for the picture. Someone walked up to Sam and me and asked if we would pose. Someone else recruited the others. We agreed and met the others on the steps outside Haley Center. In the photo we were all smiling like friends. Sam did not know any of the others, just me.

The cut line under the photo in The Plainsman read, Communication. Cold weather does not deter students both black and white from gathering for conversation on the steps of Haley Center before going to class. Integration problems still exist but progress is being made.

The photo is dated February 12, 1971.

Sam caught hell from some of his fraternity brothers and others for being in the photo with five black students. But he went even further. Because of my venting, Sam took it upon himself to go to the University recruiting office and tell the officials what I had said. Not telling on me but repeating the things that I had said needed to be done to make progress at the University. At first he was given the run around but they eventually listened. Auburn administrators even went so far as to put some things in place to recruit more black students and improve the social atmosphere.

Before we left our September meeting, Sam says that I inspired the little progress that was made in those days. I thank him but know that it was in part, credited to him. I could not have gone and done what he did. I would have been viewed as the angry radical in the administrator’s eyes. I could have lost my spot on the team, lost my scholarship, gotten kicked out of school. On the other hand, Sam would not have known what to say if he had not listened to me. When Sam took it to the administrators it became a university problem not just the angry black guy’s problem. He did what I couldn’t do. It takes us all. Sam taught me that. Thanks Sam!