That Southern thang and BB King

Oh but when I was growin up

in Jackson

Nigras was somethin different then.

Ole fellas black as coal said Mistuh and Miz

but they were humble like the kind of person

God would favor, if

He was here, which I don't think he is here but maybe

he was at one time.

Whereas

those ole white fellas, really more pink than

white, or even red-faced, beneath them bald heads and glasses

with black frames, walkin 'round like

they own the place,

which I guess they did, yeah they did down there in

Miss'ippi at that time

but they a-feared, like deer in the headlights, when President

Kennedy

or maybe it was Johnson sent troops down hea'h

to teach Wallace a thing or two 'bout

integration,

and they said the whole damn thang go back to the War and

all that conflummucks when Sherman march to the sea

through Giawga

and such n such an' so forth.

But what I remember was that delta, flat as

the day is long, and hot as blue blazes and

them shotgun shacks where the Nigras lived,

so different and dilapidated compared to, you know,

where us white folk lived.

Latah on I heard 'bout Medgar Evers and

the night he got shot in his own front yard

in Jackson cuz

he be tryin de git them Nigras registered

to vote, and his last spoken words were at

New Jerusalem Baptist Church,

like Moses or Jesus.

But hell, I was just a snotty-nose white kid out

on the edge of town.

I mean I had no clue 'bout what be goin' on,

what groundswell of civil rights was buildin up and then

all them smart college kids from up Nawth come down

in '63 or maybe it was '64. But three of 'em never

got back home again,

leastwise not alive.

Now I say three, mighta been more.

Damn shame.

Meanwhile this man BB King

was doin his bluesy thang

out there in that hot delta, maybe sittin' on

a bale of cotton or sump'n like dat.

But thinkin' back on it now-- he musta gone to Memphis

or maybe even Chicago by then.

And I say I say yesterday I heard him on the radio talkin'

to Terri,

even though he died two days ago, an' he shonuf was a

well spoken Negro,

yes he was,

helluva lot better human specimen than Ross Barnett, that ole fart.

Now Ole BB could shonuf now sing de blues

'nuf to make a white man cry,

and so I guess if somethin' like BB King could come outa

the great state uh Miss'ippi, this southern thang

can't be all bad,

what all happened then

back in the day.

But its all gone now,

witherin' like a magnolia blossom

on the ground.

Still, yet what a sound

when ole BB King came around,

nuf to make a white man cry,

in the sweet by and bye.

No pain, no gain,

that's what I say.



Glass half-Full