Afternoon,
Guys…
So,
Thursday, we went to Penny’s to get our haircuts. We’ve been going there for years with the
same stylist, Melissa, after my stylist, Pilar, was out for a while on medical
leave. She’s alright, and I still see
her when we come through. It just works better
for Joey and I to have the same stylist.
Although Melissa was hers first, I don’t think Joey minds sharing, I
hope. The three of us mesh well, and the
convo’s always stimulating.
Anyhoo, Joey
was done in, like, two minutes, because she’s letting her hair grow out from
the swoop she’s been sporting for the last few years, which was cute, but she’s
ready for change. I’m ready to see her
longer again too. I love it either way,
but it’s been a while since I’ve see it long and down.
Me, I almost
always never know what I’m gonna do with myself. I’m always trying to reinvent myself every
time we go. I’ve been everything from
bald to having dreds with various colors populating my hair…blue being the
last. We’d talked about letting it fully
grow out, which, I think, would be cool, but I was at that stage when I had
wings. Farah Fawcett wings…HELL naw! I
guess I could’ve thought Wolverine, but, still, they were bugging me, plus, the
back was a nappy mess every morning.
Curly hair in the morning’s a bitch to comb out, so I did a strip, which’s
versatile, AND stylish. Needless to say,
mine took longer than two minutes.
While we
played with my hair, we talked about life, which is always cool. Joey and I like learning others’ lives, and,
for some reason, people are curious about ours.
Thursday, we talked about Melissa’a impending move from Penny’s to a
stand-alone shop since the company deemed it necessary to retire their
highest-grossing stylist. She was telling
us where she’d be moving, and invited us to come with if the buses
allowed. Bus or not, we’d make it happen
as we do with everything we do. It’s
just the way it is.
The convo
migrated to her younger years and how crips weren’t in her school. They were either in a “special” school or
institutionalized, in which they probably were just left to die without a face
or history. Just facts.
I’ve brought
up mainstreaming here, I have haven’t gone in-depth. I told Melissa it was probaby the
institutionalized bit as to why she didn’t see crips running the halls of her
schools. I told her my brother and I,
among a few others like Carter, Russell, Chelsea were selected to be “mainstreamed”
to the public schools in ’83, 31 years AFTER desegregation. Before that, we went to the CP Center, where
we got PT as well as rudimentary school skills (sharing…sort of), your
alphabet, colors, some math and geography, and computers on old Apples…forget
Mac.
I remember
the folks gathering with other folks for meetings in the CP Center’s Big Room
while we either came with and played or stayed home with the babysitter. It all boiled down to politics as it ALWAYS
does with us. Then end result was we
were to be mainstreamed to Bowie Elementary.
The catch was we were held back from the grade we were SUPPOSED to be
in, because we didn’t get the education needed to be, say, in 1st
grade or 2nd grade that I was supposed to be in.
Today, there’re
remedial classes for those with learning disabilities (cripnesses just didn’t
roll off the tongue in this incidence to me) as well as the ability for the kid
to stay up to 21 if need be to graduate, which I know of a couple.
I’m not mad,
though, because the friends I made and came up with are history-makers whether
we’re known as such. Also, the friends I
made in the public school system, I’m still friends with to this day, some 35
years later.
Be good to
each other.
-J-
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