I’m often asked about the short stories in the Slice Of Life trilogy of stories, A Slice of Life, Another Slice of Life and The Rest of The Pie. Are they true stories? Do I know the people? Did I really make them up? Yes! Yes! And Yes!

“Yes” doesn’t mean I didn’t have help. Inspiration is everywhere if you just take a good look around. I take things I’ve heard and seen and lived and turn them into stories.

Much like an actor on an audition, I pull from my experience to come up with a new character. I’ve often gone into an audition and use an aspect of a person I know to pull off another character. It’s taken from somewhere or someone else, but it then becomes an original.

Actors and writers are observers. We watch people. We notice a tick in a character. We study mannerisms. And if you’ve lived an adventurous life, you have life to draw from.

One source of inspiration for me has been all of my past summer jobs. As a teen without connections and as a hungry young man, I worked all kinds of summer jobs with all kinds of people. My first job was at Shoney’s Big Boy at Eastwood Mall in Birmingham. It was a lesson in priorities. Once school started, I continued to work there on weekends. After a night of high school football, I was up at 6am and on my way to Shoney’s. I remember the night I scored my first touchdown. I was at work the next morning.

I spent two summers at US Steel. It was work for grown men, grueling, grinding, back breaking. I learned a lot from the men I worked with. They did what they had to do to support their families. It reminded me of my dad who did the same kind of work at another plant in town. Daddy always reinforced the idea in me that college would be my ticket out of the plant.

I sold shoes at a ladies shoe store in downtown Birmingham on 2^nd Avenue North. Don’t remember how I got that job but it was fun, especially the stretching machine. Some ladies would insist they were a size or two smaller than they actually were. It was a comic battle trying to get an oversized fat foot into shoes a size too small. That’s where the stretching machine came in. If they were repeat customers they’d heard of our stretching machine. They would ask if we could stretch the shoe. Trying to beg off did no good. The broom handle in the back room closet came in handy.

I worked on a Garbage truck one summer while in high school. Worked for a janitorial service, and worked construction; but at the top of the list were the two summers I worked as an ice cream man; truck, ringing bell and all. I sold ice cream all over the north side of Birmingham. I had a ball. Picked up my truck about 10:30am. Brought it back to the lot about 7:30pm. Counted up the Ice Cream and Popsicles I had left and got paid in cash. Everyday! Most of the drivers were full time, grown men. Every week the manager would post the top ten sales lists. My goal was to get into the top ten. Halfway through the first summer, I made it as high as #8 and stayed there through the next summer. The store manager was proud of me. I was proud of myself!

I met some characters through the many stops, construction sites, playgrounds, customer regulars, and the children. Oh man, the children! As soon as they heard the bell, whatever they were doing, playing ball, hopscotch, jacks; whatever, it was over until after they got their ice cream.

There was a method to ringing that bell just long enough to where the parent would give in and break down with the words directed to their children I waited to hear, “Go in the house, and get my purse.” I was in business.

My favorite stop was with the hippies – boys and girls, with their glazed eyes, and the munchies. “Heeey man!” They would drawl. I’d park the truck. Feel the cool breeze from the freezer in the back of the truck. Open it to ice cream goodies and proclaim to my audience “The Ice Cream Man is here.”

I’ve been involved in Television since the late 1970s. In those days of yesterday, I worked in television news at the local CBS affiliate in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. I was young, fresh, and somewhat of a hit in town because I had made a name for myself as pioneering black athlete at Auburn University. I was also one of the first two blacks anchors to be featured on the television evening news in Birmingham. It was fun! I learned a lot from very experienced people who were outstanding at what they did. I’m grateful to them for what they taught me. 

In the 1980s I did my first paid acting gigs. Some were for big screen movie theatres and many were for the small screen of television. I occasionally continue to do these, working as an actor for the big three networks, CBS, ABC, NBC, and pay channel HBO, among others. These jobs have always been fun, paid well, provided work opportunities throughout the United States, and opportunities to attend dress-up, star studded premiere parties in Los     Angeles. I’ve worked with stars Carroll O’Connor, Della Reese, Brad Pitt, Ed Norton, Candice Bergen, Luther Vandross, Sally Field, Alfree Woodward, Lawrence Fishburne and many, many others.

One season, I hired on as a radio sports analyst for a Canadian League football team and traveled all across Canada broadcasting games.

Never satisfied, and always seeking more, I’ve written a play, had it produced in Los Angeles, and wrote an autobiography that was published and sold in national retail outlets.

So it seems only natural, at least to me, that an evolutionary move would be to write, produce and direct a film for broadcast television.

That’s where Quiet Courage comes in. Quiet Courage is the story of James Owens, the first African American college scholarship football player in the powerful Southeastern Conference Deep South states of Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. Owens made history by signing with Auburn in 1969. He says now “I didn’t know what I was getting into.” My two favorite taglines from the film’s promotional materials are, “Owens loved his University. She learned to love him back;” and, “He was Bo Jackson before there was a Bo Jackson.” The film premiered on Auburn’s campus on November 10 to a sold out crowd of 350 excited and very appreciative supporters, who laughed, cried, and stood to applaud as the ending credits rolled.

Back to television. The film Quiet Courage will make its broadcast debut on November 26^th on the nine-station network belonging to Alabama Public Television. To say I’m excited is an understatement. Working as talent on television is a role I enjoy, but producing, writing, guiding and directing this project from ideas, to concept, financing, preproduction, hiring, collaboration, post production and identifying a broadcast partner is a joyful feeling of immense satisfaction.

Quiet is quite a story. It’s a story I’ve always wanted to tell. James is my friend. We were roommates for a couple of years at Auburn. I lived much of his story with him. To be entrusted with it is quite an honor. If past experience is an example, Quiet Courage will be around for a while. Talks with other broadcasters continue. DVDs are for sale at bestgurl.com.Check it out. You’ll laugh, cry, and gain a full appreciation for the film’s title and its relevance to the protagonist. Quiet Courage, “the ability to face difficulty, uncertainty, or disturbance without being deflected from a chosen course of action.”