Shut Up and Dribble

 Memorial Day in the hood  - back in the day

 

I have a confession to make.  Although I have celebrated Memorial Day since I learned to walk, it was not until I was an adult that I learned what Memorial Day was. So for most of that time, I had no clue that it was connected to war and military service, honoring those who had died.   We celebrated a different kind of war and our dead who had died fighting to just survive.  You see, for my family in East St. Louis -a.k.a. the Hood, Memorial Day was a day to honor the elders. Elders who had paved the way lived in the harshest of times, and endured the strain of America's stain -the racial warriors.   So early, before breakfast, we would gather at what had been the only graveyard where Blacks could be buried.  And there we would go through the ritual of pulling weeds, cutting grass, trimming bushes, and laying reefs and flowers.  There was always a senior member of the family that would scout out each grave site and with us young’uns in tow would tell the story about this family member.  We would spend half the morning thus learning and serving the elders until everyone had been redeemed from oblivion.  I learned of the life and times of my elders, of what it was like to live in the racially segregated north, and how they survived and thrived despite the “color line.”  The stories were sometimes wild and crazy, filled with twists and turns, spectacles, and sorrows, but most of all, they were about surviving and thriving in a world where being Black was a sin.  After the yearly reclamation and remembrances, off we would go to one of the Matriarch's homes where a feast was being prepared waffles, eggs, rice, ham, bacon, fried chicken, and homemade yeast rolls that had spent the night rising.  What a feast.  And this was just the beginning…we often would go to the park and swimming pool set apart for blacks, and there we would spend the afternoon but not too long, for there was always BBQ to attend and, of course, the party.  Jams, old school jams, dancing, singing, and the elders would be drinking (we, well, we had our amusements).  Damn, I miss those days.