Jul 14

THE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
When I was still working for city government, I formed a great friendship with a female co-worker. We used to talk about everything. She knew I was gay and accepted that fact. She also knew years ago that I’d been through a nasty divorce just as she was going through one currently. We exchanged notes about how bad my ex-husband or her soon-to-be former husband were. We spoke about our husbands’ idiocy about misusing our children’s affections or playing games with child support, hoping if things were bad enough for us, we’d come running back to them. We shared the difficulties of raising children as single working mothers. On the job, we also wondered why this unqualified, lazy so and so was promoted or given a raise when we had more qualifications and better service records, but we were not considered promotable. We had typical girl talks. While I liked all the things I had in common with my good friend, what really fascinated me was our weekly discussions about televisions programs we watched, which sometimes led to political discussions. My friend convinced me to watch Sleepy Hollow. I truly loved idea of a young Black as a romantic interest […]
Jul 07

HISTORY & WHO TELLS IT

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The picture above was taken in 2015 around Thanksgiving. The shadows you see are my mother and me. We’re watching what’s left of our home being torn down. It’s a complete surprise to us. We both thought when she sold it to a nice young white couple for a great deal less than she imagined, the house … our house would be there forever. It just wouldn’t belong to us any longer. Two other unique houses built by the first Black families to live in this township, just outside of Akron, Ohio, were gone too. My home and my history as well as the homes and histories of the two other Black doctors had been torn down and buried in the in the grassy earth. Permit me to explain by going a bit backwards. My mother sold our home eight years ago in 2010. She’d been trying to sell the ranch-style home for years. She couldn’t get the asking price for it. Since the area my mother lived in had been zoned for commercial as well as residential use, she thought it would be easier to sell her house. Unfortunately for my mother, Ohio was one of those states that […]
Jul 01

WHAT YOU SEE AIN’T WHAT YOU GET, a story of abandonment, loyalty and love.

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The murder of an athlete’s long-time agent and good friend, Preston Walters, brings two former best friends, Charlotte Harris and Melanie Tailor, who haven’t spoken to each other in years, together. While life has been extremely good to Charlotte, the millionaire athlete, Melanie, the journalist is trying to make a name in her chosen profession. Melanie is still looking for that one big break that will change her career forever. She finds it when the local police charge her estranged best friend Charlotte Harris, with a sports agent’s murder. The dead agent is the same man the journalist slept with back in college but her best friend the athlete always refused his entreaties. It seems both women have been keeping secrets but the only way to solve the murder is to unlock those secrets. Who really killed Preston Walters, famous agent for star athlete Charlotte Harris and Melanie Tailor’s ex-lover? Will Melanie or Charlotte reveal the secrets they’ve been keeping for years? Will sheriff ex-deputy and now private investigator Delaney Carter uncover their secrets? Can the two women overcome their pasts and move into their futures? I hope you enjoy my novel. What You See Ain’t What You Get, a […]
Jun 23

WHY I WROTE: WHAT YOU SEE AIN’T WHAT YOU GET, a story of abandonment, loyalty and love.

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I wrote this novel in 2010. I knew it contained a story of child abuse worth telling. I just wasn’t sure when the time was ripe to tell it. That was because the abusers were members of a well-connected religious community. While their victims were essentially orphans of color who had no support systems in place to protect them. I worried that the acts of abuse and molestation might be too lewd to tell. Or worse when I described the acts, my book would be placed in the X-rated category. This story would never get to the people I wanted to reach. I also thought it was a story worth telling because I met several women and at least one man who went through something like this when they were kids. Their adult abusers were respected members in their communities and were believed. The child victims were blamed for what happened, if they were believed. If they weren’t believed, the children were left to suffer in silence. Either way the children were shunned by their communities. They had no caring adults help them through a difficult time. They had nobody to lean on and so they were forced to help […]
Jun 16

COMING OUT AT 47

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I read this article from a worried parent years ago. I found the question interesting enough to write about. The mother says, “My sixteen-year-old son told me that he is gay. What should I do about it?” Today, I’d add my own experience of coming out as a lesbian. I wasn’t as young as that mother’s son was when he said, “Guess what, Mom? I’m gay.” Nope, that wasn’t me. I was forty-seven years old before I finally admitted to me that I was gay and then I admitted it to my family. Question: Isn’t 47 a little old to discover one’s orientation? Shouldn’t a person know before they reach 30 who or what they like? At 47, a person has lived over half her life in the shadows and maybe with the wrong gender as well. How is a major life change possible at that age? Permit me to explain my particular situation. I’m a Baby Boomer. When I grew up, young women were just beginning to flex their muscles. They were thinking about working in non-traditional jobs and considered living non-traditional lives. Most of the women I knew when I was a kid wore traditional clothes to represent […]
Jun 09

SUCCESS MEANS LEARNING TO FAIL

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The picture above is a view of the Riverside Drive’s Park between West 144th Street and West 142nd Street. The strip park run along Riverside Drive and follows the Hudson River. Parts of the drive mingle with the West Side Highway and so the park overlooks the highway or 12th Avenue. Other parts of the park disappear and reappear further uptown and end somewhere in Inwood. The park still has uniquely antique elements. Note the water fountain, the cobblestone made of bricks, and the old-fashioned street lamps that work. What’s most interesting to me is the way one main road separates into two paths. It reminds me of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. For the past six months, my niece and I have grown particularly close. One reason is that my sister, who was also her mother, died six months ago. I’ve always considered my niece like a daughter and so this was a natural progression of things. Another reason we’ve grown close, I’ve been giving her some advice about jobs. Lately, my suggestions have been geared towards her new promotion. A little more than a year ago, she took a job as an entry level employee with a […]
Jun 01

WHAT YOU SEE AIN’T WHAT YOU GET, a story of abandonment, loyalty and love.

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The murder of an athlete’s long-time agent and good friend, Preston Walters, brings two former best friends, Charlotte Harris and Melanie Tailor, who haven’t spoken to each other in years, together. While life has been extremely good to Charlotte, the millionaire athlete, Melanie, the journalist is trying to make a name in her chosen profession. Melanie is still looking for that one big break that will change her career forever. She finds it when the local police charge her estranged best friend Charlotte Harris, with a sports agent’s murder. The dead agent is the same man the journalist slept with back in college but her best friend the athlete always refused his entreaties. It seems both women have been keeping secrets but the only way to solve the murder is to unlock those secrets. Who really killed Preston Walters, famous agent for star athlete Charlotte Harris and Melanie Tailor’s ex-lover? Will Melanie or Charlotte reveal the secrets they’ve been keeping for years? Will sheriff ex-deputy and now private investigator Delaney Carter uncover their secrets? Can the two women overcome their pasts and move into their futures? I hope you enjoy my novel. What You See Ain’t What You Get, a […]
May 26

WHY I WROTE: Dutch Chocolate8: It must be love. Nothing else feels this good.

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Years ago, long before the girl power, Black Girl Magic and the Me-Too movements, I watched Angela Jolie in the movie Laura Croft Tomb Raider. I was in love with movies again. I thought. Wow! Finally, an attractive woman in a lead role where she carries everything. She played the role of an adventurer, normally inhabited by a man. Think Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones series or Nicholas Cage in the National Treasure series, both men played adventurer roles. Their movies were quite popular with moviegoers. I decided I’d write a series of books about a Black lesbian with code name Dutch Chocolate. She has a background in NYPD as a sergeant in East Harlem, before joining the army and going to the Middle East to work in Intel. She returns to work in one of NYPD’s specialized street crime units. Dutch eventually decides to become a PI working for her people in Harlem. Over the years, she attracts a group of law enforcement misfits who have become her loyal crew and family. Dutch Chocolate stories include them as well. In the 8th novel of the Dutch Chocolate action series, it’s been years since FBI Agent Zita Fernandez was […]
May 19

WHY ARE APOLOGIES SO DIFFICULT TO MAKE?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Years ago, I had friend I was always trying to impress. She was in school earning her masters when I first met her. After twenty years of dancing around the edges of higher education, I returned to school for my BA first and then my masters, inspired by her quest for higher education. We grew close. We shared our hopes and dreams of the future. She wanted to be a lawyer, then a civil court judge. I wanted to be school psychologist until I learned how long my journey would be. I calculated I’d be a year or so from retirement before I met my career goal. In a particularly revealing moment, she told me how guilty she felt when her kid sister died in a fire and she couldn’t rescue her. I told her about suffering spousal abuse literally at the hands of my former husband. My tale of woe would come back to haunt me. My friend began to tease me about my domestic abuse. She made offhand, mean jokes about getting hit. The first time she did it, I ignored it, which was my mistake. The next time she said something offhand about spousal abuse, I stopped […]
May 12

Should you stick with the devil you know?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
  Years ago, when my father was still alive, I remember my mother complaining about his activities. She’d discovered he was buying international lottery tickets and sweepstakes tickets. She kept finding stubs from money orders where he’d purchased sweepstakes or lottery tickets. My parents lived across the street from a shopping mall, so while my father no longer drove, it wasn’t impossible for him to walk across the street and find a place to buy money orders. At the time, my mother was venting about wasting money on a foolish expense. “Nobody ever wins these,” she ranted. “How much money was he wasting?” she fussed. “He could use that money for something else. He could put it in the bank and let it draw interest. Or just give it to me and I’ll find a use for it,” my mother promised. As daughters sometimes do, I listened without too much comment. My mother needed to vent. And I let her. While she was complaining, I was busy congratulating myself on my goodness. Although I hung out with folks who did, I never played numbers. I didn’t place bets on the horses or sports teams. I never bought lottery tickets or […]
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