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Fools Never Raise Their Thoughts So High

AuthorHouse

Contents

2. They Met at the Savoy Ballroom...................................................................73. Projects and House Aside.........................................................................134. Around the Corner and Up the Street..............................................................185. Down Home is Harlem..............................................................................236. Prize Fighter....................................................................................287. A Fantastic Memory...............................................................................368. It Finally Dawned on Me..........................................................................43

Chapter One

" 'Twas a balmy summer evening, and a goodly crowd was there," is the first line of the poem by Hugh Antoine d'Arcy, "The Face Upon the (Barroom) Floor." But, Daddy always began it with, "'Twas a cold December evening and a goodly crowd was there." He would continue with the rest of the poem word for word. He loved to recite poems, monologues, and dialogues. "The Face ..." was one of his favorites. It became one of my favorites, too. He would always let out a shriek, punctuating the last line of the poem. "With a fearful shriek," Daddy lets out a shriek and continues, "he leaped and fell across the picture — dead."

Reflecting on life with my father, as I grew from infancy into adulthood, is relaxing, amusing and stress relieving. There are times when I'm brought to tears, times when I laugh out loud, and other times when all I can say is, "Wow! He really had insight." He had strong religious opinions, political opinions, and opinions about the social fabric of America and the world.

As you read further I hope you can hear the music and feel the beat. Listen carefully. You'll hear the blues, jazz, pop, and some calypso. As you read, imagine Jimmy Rushing singing, "Good Morning Blues," in the background. Or maybe it's Ivory Joe Hunter singing, "Since I Met You Baby." I hope you feel the tap dancing of the Step Brothers or the tap and stomp of Peg Leg Bates. When you do, keep the rhythm and keep reading. I'll give you prompts here and there. But Daddy has a rhythm that's uniquely his. Daddy played a little boogie woogie on the piano and taught us kids to play boogie woogie too. Listen! Do you hear it?

"Duma duma duma duma, Duma duma duma duma, Bomp bomp_bomp bomp"

Daddy came to America from La Ceiba, Honduras in Central America with his family at around age six. Daddy, Robert Lloyd Johnson, had only an eighth grade education but he read everything he got his hands on. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized how much poetry and other things he must have read and committed to memory. Sometimes we would hear him recite only a line or two from some poem. I never tried to figure out where the lines came from until now that I am retired. He would also recite long poems, monologues and dialogues. In high school, I recognized some of the poems he recited at home from the poems we read in American and English literature.

I was riding in my car one day when I remembered two lines of some poem Daddy would recite from time to time that always intrigued me. The lines are:

"Fools never raise their thoughts so high,

Like brutes they live, like brutes they die." I went to google.com and found those lines were from the fourth stanza of an eight stanza hymn by Isaac Watts, "Sweet is the Work, My God, My King." The hymn was written back in 1719. I have tried to recall on what occasions he would quote those particular lines. Another of his frequent quotes was, "Follow not a fool according to his folly, or you will likewise become a fool." He sort of paraphrased Proverbs 26:4 kjv, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him." As you read further you will see other instances where the words fool, fools, and foolish are included or implied in his quotes, monologues, and dialogues. They are also used when he is talking about certain people or applying wisdom and wit to the circumstances he faced in life.

I can remember a whole bunch of other lines he would lift out of poems he recited. One of them is:

"So live, that when thy summons comes to join

That enumerable caravan that moves

To that mysterious realm."

That is the beginning of the last verse of the poem, "Thanatopsis," by William Cullen Bryant. The full phrase, which includes that line, is also used at funerals by the Fraternal Order of Masons. Bryant first wrote "Thanatopsis" when he was about seventeen years old and enlarged it seven years later in 1821.

Daddy was a member of a Masonic lodge at one time. He may have remembered the line from "Thanatopsis" having attended funerals of his lodge brothers. Memorizing all or part of the poem may have been required by the masons. He had lots of Masonic paraphernalia at home. One day while he was at a Masonic lodge meeting one of their members came to the lodge and sadly told the brothers about a fire in his apartment. He and his family lost everything. The response was to pass the hat and collect a few dollars. Daddy thought they should have done a lot more for the brother and treated him better than that. But, that was all they did for the unfortunate soul and Daddy quit the lodge in protest. He kept his Masonic paraphernalia though. And he wore his Masonic ring very often. Later in life my son, Raymond, became a mason. I never did. Mother gave Raymond, Daddy's Masonic stuff. My father-in-law, the late Prentis Robinson, had also been a mason. Raymond now has Masonic paraphernalia from both of his grandfathers. There's the ring with the Masonic symbol, a Masonic Bible, and several other items.

Another of Daddy's favorites was quoting Robert Browning's "Rabbi Ben Ezra." He was very fond of the words,

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made." I don't recall him finishing it as the first verse continues with, "... Our times are in His hand Who saith, 'A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"'

There are more quotes which I will sprinkle throughout this book.

"Sly mongoose,__ your name gone abroad."

Although Louisiana is where the family first came when they left Honduras, they eventually moved to New York City and Daddy pretty much grew up in Harlem. The family called him Robby. He was Uncle Robby to his nieces and nephews. He also acquired the nickname, Slick from Sugar Hill or just plain Slick. I never learned how he got that nickname. It may have been because he was what you would call a sharp dresser. Daddy took pride in his clothes. "Sharp as a tack," he would exclaim as he looked at himself in a full length mirror. He had silk shirts, elegant ties, diamond stick pins and several dress hats. On special occasions his favorite hat to wear was his white Silk Beaver. When my parents were invited to weddings, Daddy wore his own tuxedo. That really impressed me. He wore only Florsheim shoes and they were always polished and shined before he would go out. Whenever he was going out and someone asked, "Where...