3/2/2025

 Sunday, March 2, 2025

D+115

In bed at 9:15 and up at 5:20!!!. 17° outside, wind chill of 3°, and "I Don't Know Enough About You" perseverating in my head.   

Prednisone, day 315, 5 mg., day 26, Kevzara, day 12/14.  2.5 prednisone at 5:30 a.m. and 6:40 p.m.  Other meds at   .   

The St. Francis church van & regular passengers.  I'm the one looking like a stray white marshmallow mixed in with a bag of colored ones.  Next to me is my dear friend till he died, Roland Wright.  On the right is Miss Willie Grant.  Next to her is Tiffany Clayton and her mother, Hattie.  In the front row are her other children, with Chrystal on the left.

Mississippi Marsala and St. Francis.  Last night, we watched the 1992 film Mississippi Marsala, or I should say Geri watched it, and I saw pieces of it between dozing off in the recliner and cleaning up the kitchen after our dinner of macaroni and cheese and a salad.  I should watch the entire film, which is about racism in Uganda and America and interracial marriage.  The story's main setting is Greenwood, Mississippi, but it also has a scene in Indianola, MS, 30 miles down the road.  The references to Indianola reminded me of an old friend of mine, Willie Mae Grant, an elderly Black woman who lived in an apartment at 27th and Highland.  Willie was the aunt of another friend of mine, Hattie Clayton, who lived in a rented house on 7th Street, across from Messmer High School.   Hattie had 6 children: Tiffany, Chrystal, Kelly, Brian, Lovie, and the one who was dearest to me and whose name I can't recall.  I knew Willie, Hattie, and the children because we all attended St. Francis of Assisi Church at 4th and Brown Streets, a Capuchin Franciscan parish.  I was a member of the parish for only 6 years or so, at a time in my life when I felt drawn back to my Catholic roots by what?  nostalgia?  spiritual yearning or loneliness?  curiosity?  whatever.  In any case, I became a member of the Parish Council, a friend of the parish priests Niles and Paul, and every Sunday morning and Holy Day of Obligation, the driver of the church van, picking up and dropping off parishioners who didn't own a car or have other transportation, including Willie and Hattie and her children.  Willie was from Indianola, Mississippi.  She was the slowest talking person I have ever met.  When she took her seat in the van and said "Good morning, Charles," it seemed that a full minute elapsed between the "Good" and the "Charles."  (At St. Francis, I was known as "Charles," never "Chuck.")  Hattie's roots were also in Indianola.  I have a pretty clear memory of how I became the regular van driver when other volunteers turned out to be unreliable, but I have no memory of how I stopped or who picked up the service.  Ir must have been connected with my leaving the House of Peace, St. Francis parish, and the Church, but that's another story.  

In any event, what I remember most about Miss Willie, besides her slow drawl, was attending with her the funeral of Country Supervisor Terrence Pitts at St. Mark AME Church at 16th and Atkinson in December 1995.  I knew Terry Pitts from the years when I represented Milwaukee County Executive Bill O'Donnell in his various disputes with the County Board.  I wrote an opinion letter for Bill that Pitts excoriated in the press, suggesting I was incompetent, a hack.   Terry's funeral service lasted more than 3 hours, with all sorts of eulogies and politicking, but Miss Willie and I departed with our full bladders at the 3-hour mark.

My connections with Hattie and her children were much more extensive and stronger.  I became almost a member of her family.  Indeed, I was godfather to baby Lovie and almost an uncle to the other children.  I provided Hattie with financial help on occasion and provided other help.  I had a good relationship with Brian, the only boy in the family, who had an on-again, off-again relationship with his father, who never married Harttie.  Indeed, none of Hattie's children's fathers married her.  Tiffany's father maintained some sort of relationship with her, but no child support.  I don't know that any of the 3 or 4 fathers provided child support or were much of a presence in their children's lives.  I believe that for several years,  I was the most regular, supporting, male presence in the family's life.  I broke away from the family when both Tiffany and Hattie got pregnant.  Tiffany was 17 and still a student at North Division High School.  She got pregnant intentionally because her unmarried cousin (whose mother was one of my irregular Sunday van passengers) got pregnant and Tiffany wanted a baby of her own.  She said her boyfriend loved her and would help take care of the baby but, what a surprise, her boyfriend lost interest in her as her girth expanded.  Hattie's pregnancy resulted in her 7th child, a brother for Brian.  Those two pregnancies, each with no responsible father in the picture, were too much for me.  I foresaw Chrystal and Kelly getting pregnant in their turns and again, probably with no responsible father in sight.  I couldn't understand the reasoning that so casually brought new babies into existence with hardly any means to support them and, selfishly, I saw years ahead of their relying on me to come to their assistance during times of need.  I distanced myself from the family, literally as Geri and I moved to Saukville, and emotionally.  This distancing all coincided roughly with my leaving the House of Peace and St. Francis parish and, as I look back on that time, I realize what a tumultuous time it was and a time of personal loss.  Hattie and her children, Miss Grant, and many other parishioners at St. Francis were friends; they were important to me.  Being a member of that community was important to me.  I hope to take up these thoughts tomorrow.