MYSTORY: The Original Harold Lee Rush

MYSTORY: The Original
by
Harold Lee Rush
©2009
Published in the United States
with Global Rights 12/09/2009
by HAROLDLEERUSH
First Edition Volume 1
ISBN 1453626069
EAN-13 9781453626061
Chapter 1: Hell Aint Half Full Yet
Putting my life on paper is something I’ve been doing in one form or another
for a long time, sometimes as spoken word poetry and sometimes as events
documented. When I was very young, eleven or twelve, I got the idea to save
things about me, to document myself. Later I realized this had something to do
with my sense of identity, of wanting to feel that I was somebody in the world.
When I read “Invisible Man” and “1984” as a teenager, I saw that the world
would disappear your ass in a heartbeat, or worse, ignore you completely. It
seemed that the Black world I lived in didn’t exist in the world on tv, in the
movies or in the papers, and thus, I didn’t exist either. My family, friends,
neighbors, nobody I knew existed outside of us. One day it hit me that I was
looking at a white world, it was this white world that we didn’t exist in. And
since this white world seemed to be the only world that mattered. I wanted to
matter. I was born half-way into the 20th century, 1950. My being a ‘junior’ was
a problem for me as a kid because I thought it meant I was a continuation of
someone, of something but I didn’t know who or what that was. I heard stories
about my father being a basketball star in college and that he even played for
the Harlem Globetrotters for a minute, but since we had no relationship, I never
knew what was myth or what was true. I just remember resisting feelings of
being a reject every time I saw or heard that ‘junior’. I was determined to make
my name mean something, so that I would matter.
My earliest memories are of living in an apartment in Morgan Park on the
South Side of Chicago. My mother, my two younger brothers and me. I believe it
was in a building owned by my stepfather’s mother or sisters. Calling Stephen
my step-father is a stretch because he was only married to my mother for a
second or two and we never lived with him that I can recall. I do remember that
he worked at the Cook County Jail, that he drank a lot and he had a room at his
mother’s house where I once found these dime novels that had sex stuff in
them. I was maybe eight or nine then and most of it I didn’t understand, but
what I did comprehend excited me even then.
We moved into a house shared with the owner, a lady named Miss Bell. I have
good memories of the time there, although I started a fire that burned the
house down. Miss Bell was an older woman who looked after us while my mother
was at work. My mother worked two jobs, as a schoolteacher and as a counselor
at the Better Boys Foundation. Sometimes we’d only see her for a few minutes
in the mornings and on the weekends in the evenings. My brothers and I were
normal bad-ass little boys and we probably gave Miss Bell hell most of the time.
She would go out sometimes and we’d utilize that time to shake down the
house, just being nosy kids. Lo and behold, we discovered a sack full of coins in
her bedroom! Over the next few weeks, we’d steal handfuls of pennies, nickels
and dimes to spend at the candy story a couple of blocks over. Eventually, of
course, she noticed, told my mother, who investigated by visiting the candy
store and got the facts. Mom proceeded to do pull her ‘midnight whoopin’ thang;
when she would come in from work, wake us up, and whoop our ass! This was
my worst nightmare, especially when we didn’t know it was coming. You see,
most times we knew because we’d been busted for one thing or another, so we’d
be awake waiting. Those times, when she’d come in and start whoopin us, we’d
duck and dodge, bob and weave all over the room, managing to elude some of
the licks. But once in a while, we’d get caught by surprise, like the stolen coins
episode.
Burning down the house was an accident, a classic ‘playing with matches’
incident. This caused me years of trauma. This house, in Morgan Park, was a
nice big old house, with an enclosed back porch and back yard. My mother
created our first library there, converting a hallway closet by putting shelves
from top to bottom. She’d buy books every chance she got and I spent many
hours sorting through them and reading to my younger brothers, Gerald (two
years younger) and Reggie (four years younger). I read the Hardy Boys and
Nancy Drew mysteries too. I also read National Geographic and Reader’s Digest.
I communed with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Many nights I’d read under
cover with a flashlight till I fell asleep. Miss Bell would put the newspapers on
the back porch and I would sneak out there at night sometimes to read. One
night my flashlight batteries were low, so I tried reading by match light. I heard
Miss Bell coming to the kitchen, so I dropped the 6 papers and ran back to the
bedroom in the back, believing the matches were out. Apparently not, as a while
later, we were hurriedly awakened and rushed out of the house, as the house
burned down. I’ll never forget huddling in front of the house, in blankets the Red
Cross gave us and not even realizing that I was the cause of that fire. Only days
later did it hit me and I was haunted for years by the guilt. My mother had to
send us to live with her parents in Kentucky for a year and I actually had my
grandmother as my teacher that year.
Glasgow, Kentucky is the county seat of Barren County, a few hundred miles
from Louisville. My mother would send us ‘down south’ during the summer break
every year, so we were familiar with the little town. In the earlier years, roughly
1958-60, my mother’s brother’s children would be there also, so we got to hang
with our cousins. Even though they lived in Chicago, we hardly ever saw them.
To some degree, we were privileged kids because my grandfather was a baptist
minister and my grandmother was one of the first teachers. In fact, she had
been my mother’s teacher all thru elementary school. I wasn’t conscious back
then of the colorism factors: my grandfather was fairly light-skinned with
straight hair, while my grandmother was dark. My grandfather would take us
places and we were treated somewhat special as “Rev Murrell’s grandkids from
Chicago”. Even white people treated my grandfather with a little respect. They
called him “Reverend”, while they called most Black men “boy”. At that age, I
was aware of some aspects of race but I wasn’t racially conscious. I knew that
we were negroes and they were white people. I knew there were certain things
we couldn’t do and places we couldn’t go but I wasn’t real clear on the whys. I
knew that the Black people thought we were different, even though we all lived
in ‘the kingdom’, as the Black area was called. My grandfather’s brother, Arthur,
had a big farm back then and we loved to go out there. Uncle Arthur had five
daughters, no sons and, looking back, I realize they were all light and were
considered ‘fine’. I was grown before I understood we were supposed to be part
of the colored elite of Glasgow. Those summers were a special time in my life.
The year I spent there after the fire was different. I learned first hand about
being Black in the south.
The fact that my grandmother was my teacher that year was coincidence. She
taught fifth grade, which was the grade I was in. Of course, I caught hell in
school because everyone thought I was 7 getting special treatment because she
was my grandmother and she gave me more work, in school and after, to show
that I wasn’t. Plus we had ‘chores’ and they were unavoidable. In Chicago, I
could trick my brothers into handling my share of work, but grandma wasn’t
havin’ it. I had to beat rugs, clean the entire house (seemed like), clean the
yard, pick weeds in the garden, slop hogs and clean the chicken coop. (Okay,
the last two I made up, but it was almost). Until I started writing this book, I
hadn’t thought about certain things, like my grandmother wouldn’t let us go to
the other kids houses to play (she called them “them little heathens”); we had
to be in church every Sunday and sing. This was the church down the street,
where my grandmother had been a member forever and my mother and uncles
had attended all their lives at home. My grandfather wasn’t the pastor however.
He never had a church that I recall. He just traveled all over Kentucky and
Tennessee preaching. We went with him many times and he’d have us sing. He
seemed to specialize in Baptist Conventions. I don’t know how many times “Rev
Murrell’s grandsons” sang “I want to be ready” in those years, but it was enough
that I detest that song to this day. I do remember riding in the front seat of my
grandfather’s corvair and listening to him talk about all kinds of things that only
many years later would I understand. One of my favorite sayings of his was, “Go
head, fool, hell aint half full yet!”, which would be said to someone passing us in
a hurry on the highway.
My first major racial episode occurred when our school went on a trip to the
town movie house. Once a year, all the schools, including the colored school,
(named Ralph Bunche, of course), got to attend a school day showing of some
movie. I don’t recall what the purpose of this was, but I do remember we had to
take a can of lard to school in order to go. I guess it was a way of building the
school’s supply of cooking grease for our lunches. Anyway, we got on the school
buses and went downtown. When we get to the show, we unload and all the
Black folks go around to the back and up the steps to the balcony. Me, being
from Chicago, didn’t know that’s where all the Black people had to go. At home,
we sat anywhere in the show. Of course, the whole neighborhood was
segregated but we didn’t realize it. As the movie started, I saw that there were
seats downstairs that were closer, so I told a couple of the other students I was
going down there. They just looked at me like I was crazy, but I had no idea
why. I went downstairs, strolled down to about the fourth or fifth row and 8 sat
down. The joint got quiet and the white kids sitting around me got up and
moved. After a few minutes, a cop came down and asked me what the hell I
thought I was doin’. I don’t recall what I said, but I do remember he took me by
the arm, walked me out of there and they put the whole colored school out.
Nobody said anything on the bus on the way back and my grandmother never
said anything to me. When we got home, she and grandaddy talked privately
and he took me out in the backyard and told me that, while what I did wasn’t
wrong, I was not to do it again because it scared the white folks to death and
they might not let the negro school come there again. Worse, they might have
taken me away and nobody would’ve heard from me again. I really didn’t
comprehend this at all but after that, I was a hero to the boys at school. They
thought I was the bravest dude in the world. I just wanted to see the movie
better. Little did I know this was a prelude to my getting banned from the state
the next summer. More on this later.
My mother brought us back to Chicago at the end of Summer 1961, where we
lived in one room in an apartment with two older ladies. It was a tight squeeze,
my mother, my two brothers and me in one room, but we were glad to be with
our mom. She went through a period of religious fanaticism and we were going
to church almost every night. It was at 63rd and Halsted, under an evangelist
named Baker. I became caught-up in religious fervor and even preached a little.
But this was somewhat driven by my guilt about setting the house on fire.
Finally I broke down and told to my mother what I’d done. When the weight fell
away from me, I understood for the first time how confession is good for the
soul. I was able to sleep peacefully for the first time in years and I could look
her in the eye again without shame.
About six months later, we moved into a house (614 e. 92 nd Pl), where life
changed dramatically over the next few years. This was the first house that was
ours, not shared with anyone. This was a middle class community, just south of
Chatham, and still mostly white. We went to Burnside school, which was fairly
integrated, although it was changing fast. ‘White flight’ was in full effect but we
weren’t aware of it. Years later I realized my mother had been able to purchase
that house ‘on contract’, as part of the infamous ‘block busting’ program, where
real estate brokers would use a Black family to scare the whites into selling fast
before the property values fell and they’d lose their investment. For most of my
youth, I watched this process without understanding it was a program of greed
and Black people were used to make millions for politicians and real estate
brokers, breaking up neighborhood after neighborhood, south and west. My
mother, in wanting a better environment to raise us in, was one of those Black
people used. Twice after this, we were able to move into mostly white areas and
watch as for sale signs go up virtually overnight. For a long time I thought this
was the natural order of things. At Burnside school I had my first brush with
fame and my first racial embarrassment. Gwendolyn Brooks was Poet Laureate
of the state at the time and sponsored poetry writing contests at Chicago Public
Schools. I entered and won first place for my grade (7 th) and Ms Brooks came to
the school to recognize the winners and give out awards. I don’t remember the
poem, just her, a ‘famous’ person, telling me to “keep writing” because my work
was good. Many years later we met again and I was able to thank her her for
inspiring me. She was one of the reasons I visited so many schools years later
when I was a local ‘celebrity’. My racial embarrassment came when a white girl
in my class came to school one day wearing a button that said, “Support the
N.A.A.C.P.” I asked her what it stood for and she laughed at me and made a big
deal out of it in front of everyone, painstakingly explaining that it was an
organization for “you negro people” and that her family were lifetime members.
I felt about two inches tall and right then, I swore I would never again let a
white person know more about my own people than me. Our time in this house
was bittersweet. Once we ditched school for a month, causing my middle
brother, Gerald, to be held back a year; we stood off some bullies on the front
porch; I stole money from my mother to buy radios; Carol became our adopted
sister; the IRS took two months pay from my mother for back taxes (putting her
in a hole she couldn’t recover from) and John F. Kennedy was shot while I was
standing my corner as a Patrol Boy.
The first cover of “Being Single” magazine 1984
I Am Black Chicago
Who walks around all day with nothing on but
W-V-O-N
the voice of the negro/nation
Gwen Brooks sprang from the breast of us
Harold Washington spoke to the best in us
the policy kings organized the rest of us
and the mobs have truly tested us
tried to turn our heroes into dust to dust
stole our history-left us pixie dust
but they never really busted us
where we used to own the vote
where we used to hold the note
where we used to sail our boat
where we put fur to coat
I am Black Chicago
Africa was my mother
DuSable was my father
I have family all over america
And you may even be kin to me
This is where Charlie chewed
Where Nat Cole kinged
Where Joe Louis scronched
Where Lena horned and Billie holidaid
Where Ernie banked
Where Oscar browned
Where Jerry butlered
Where the Duke was earled
Where Yvonne danieled
And the Chi-Lites seen her
Where engle wooded
Where princeton parked
Where chester fielded
Where rose landed
Where cottage groved
Where altgeld gardened
Where spooks sit by the door
And Pervis don’t want to talk to no mens
I am Black Chicago
From the lakefront all the way to ford city
From heavenston down to cal city
From maywood to blue island
That’s me in gary and over in k-town
This is where freedom rang
When Mahalia sang
Where GoodFellows clubbed
And schoolteachers subbed
Where thousands have passed thru
the cook county jail
And the almighty hawk’s told many a tale
Where Dr Margaret told us children we were Black
And carried a whole museum on her back
I am Black Chicago
I’m the projects and the Globetrotters
Where Soul Train started
I’m baptist and catholic and santified
Where Chaka Kanye West come from
And the Nation of Islam
Where Quincy Jones sat at the feet of the elders
I am the center of Chicago
In Bronzeville’s international music colleges
And the soul of your life
Where you can jet to ebony to defend her
I am Black Chicago.
I am Black Chicago
Born on the southside
Flavored with the west-side
Footprints on the north side
A Provident baby
Delivered by dr steptoe
Went to school in a willis wagon
And 6 or 7 grammar schools
From shoop to burnside to lewis-champlain
Hung out at the YMCA
Learned to shoot pool at the BBF
Got fifty-leven cousins all over Chi-town
Some of them were the true OGB’s
(original gang-bangers, back in the day)
growing up Black in Chicago
I know what it meant
To get out of cicero before dark
To get off the ‘L’ downtown
And have the po-leece jack you up
I remember when we couldn’t go to
Marshall Field’s, Carson Pirie Scott or Sears & Roebuck
I laughed my troubles away at Riverview
(way before Go Cart Land & Fun Town)
listened to the poets and drummers
as they Pointed to the Afro-Arts
before there was Earth, Wind and Fire
there was Artistic Heritage Ensemble
when Amazon and Hiddekel were learning how to braid
when Darlene Blackburn was just starting to dance
when OBASI came on the scene
when the Bud Billiken Parade was Black folks
(and mickey mouse wouldn’t be caught dead in washington
park)
and blue lights in the basement quarter parties
is where I first learned how to ‘grind’
and got fonky with James Brown’s ‘cold sweat’
drinking white port and kool-aid
smokin reefer and doo-whoppin under the viaduct
going to Lem’s for some tips at 2AM
and throwing up at 4
being ‘gouster’ or ‘ivy league’
working at 63rd and halsted
sneaking in the show
puttin’ balloons on the spokes of our bikes
and riding up and down the ramps
of the dan ryan before it opened
seeing the 5 Stairsteps beat the Jackson 5
at the Regal Theatre talent shows
ditching classes by hiding out in the oldest parts
of the ‘castle’ of Englewood
History is not the past, its how the story is told.
This is my story.
-Harold Lee Rush-