Tag Archives: Richard

Quarropas, Tales Out of School

Marathon 65

Sometimes through life this runner stumbled. While there was never any first place, crossing the line signifying 65 eventually became a major goal.

On some plane, I should grumble about not living in opulence and swaddled by elegance. People who do are part of my circle. Cosseted as such, some still haven’t found satisfaction. Deep or otherwise. Indeed, you can have plentitude and realize it means little.

In lieu of close family, I’m lucky to have a network of trustworthy and understanding contemporaries. Can’t buy those. Continue reading Marathon 65 →

Observed

Solstice Serenades

Despite the mounting profusion of ads for Halloween, the bloom of summer remains fragrant. Besides, this was written in September. At least two weeks yet before Michael Myers, Freddie Krueger, and Jason Voorhees start invading screens for marathon gore sessions. Continue reading Solstice Serenades →

Pop Culture, Quarropas

The Mohicans

Vernon is dying. He is a cousin who inquired about Edna Long three years ago. She was an unknown figure who appeared in one of our family branch’s turn-of-the-century census tracts. Turn of the 20th century.

The people who may’ve known about her, remembered her, they’ve been all good and dead way before curiosity aroused his present-day fascination with this stranger who’ll remain a mystery. Continue reading The Mohicans →

Quarropas

She Humanized Him

This post follows Phony Gold and Our Patrimony. Language and characterizations reflect the times, people and places. 

    Without Waymon our two-family home shrunk. That’s a statement I couldn’t attribute to his wife Camille, or sons Richard and Junior together. Combined my aunt and cousins lacked my uncle’s single vitality. Waymon’s subtraction multiplied emptiness.

    Although obviously gone, one truly became aware of his absence after the funeral. Esteem him, fear him, my uncle lived 93 years. He’d known a lot of people. Not all of whom went before him.

    The significance of Waymon’s death was such that even mother made a pilgrimage to our old modest homestead. Certainly acrimony ruptured my parents. However, that happened in 1966. So long ago time had blurred its sharpness.

Continue reading She Humanized Him →

Quarropas

Our Patrimony

            In their reckless haste to denude Waymon and Camille’s portion of our house, my cousin Boopy and her husband Dim overlooked “the pen.” To them, the instrument must’ve been among the most meaningless of trifles. Like all those photographs of her family.

            The implement was more than an expensive writing tool. Boopy’s grandfather Waymon bought it for a single use, a distinct purpose. He’d paid attention to the processes which granted blacks greater inclusion into American life. All of them affirmed through signatures. What he had in mind was no less momentous than those bills enacted. Continue reading Our Patrimony →

Quarropas

Phony Gold


    This is a piece of what shall become a lengthier whole. The language and characterizations below reflect the times, places, and people.

    Were the Debutante a proper mother throughout the 1970s into 80s, our family would’ve suffered milder disruption. Surely being present in her daughter Boopy’s life, instructing the girl, might’ve made the child impervious to Dim.

    While I blame Richard for his premature avoidable 1990 demise, Boopy was the one who pulled down our home in 2005. She performed this by marrying Dim, a rancid example of puerile white trash. Then she let him willingly lead her disastrously astray. Who could’ve foreseen their nuptial the lowlight of 1993?

     Had Junior, heir to Richard’s spare, not succumbed to emphysema in 1999 our family presence in Quarropas does not dissolve. It would’ve helped us had he taken a woman better than the Debutante as his bride. That alone should’ve improved the likelihood of his leaving a worthwhile successor.

     The Debutante didn’t necessarily need to remain Junior’s wife. Even from afar some maternal instinct alone ought’ve sufficed for her to guide Boopy and deflect catastrophe.

     Wife? Nope! Mother? Pah! Continue reading Phony Gold →