BEEN THERE, DONE THAT

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT

BY

BONITA D. EVANS, Ph.D.

 

 

Copyright 2016

by Bonita D. Evans

Published in 2017

Library of Congress

Been There, Done That

 

DISCLAIMER

The author would request that those who read the contents of this book, bear in mind that the events taking place in it occurred 45 to 55 years ago and focus on the conditions existing during that period in developing countries, Europe and areas in the Pacific. This being so, all incidents relate to that period and do not necessarily reflect present-day behavior or attitudes--in some cases, other than during the period they describe.

All individuals mentioned in the biography have, in most cases, had their names changed or partially obliterated, to ensure their anonymity; many are deceased.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Chapter: 1 Been There, Done That.

Chapter: 2 Surviving Family Life

Chapter: 3 Chemical Corn Exchange Bank.

Chapter: 4 Boul Mich (Boulevard St. Michel)

Chapter: 5 Moving to Munich.

Chapter: 6 Home Again

Chapter: 7 Nairobi, Kenya East Africa

Chapter: 8 Mount Kenya Safari Club

Chapter: 9 What Happened to the America I know?

Chapter: 10 If Anything can go Wrong, It Will

Chapter: 11 Lost and Seeking an Angel

Chapter: 12 Ain’t that Rich?

Chapter: 13 UNdoings

Chapter: 14 Windhoek, Namibia, Southwest, Africa

Chapter: 15 Katutura

Chapter: 16 Safari Hotel, Namibia Southwest Africa.

Chapter: 17 Going Home

Chapter: 18 UNEF (United Nations Peacekeeping Forces)

Chapter 19 No, this is nor Beirut, Lebanon

Chapter: 20 Sin Palace a Breathtaking Experience.

Chapter: 21 Going Up or Coming Down?

Chapter: 22 Five O’clock Exodus.

Chapter: 23 Everywhere in Israel and Beyond

Chapter: 24 Time to Fold the Teepee

Chapter: 25 Bleeding Out and Breeding Out

Chapter: 26 Fighting for the Right to Learn

Chapter: 27 Standing Against the Blows

Chapter: 28 There’s no such Thing as the “Trickle Down Theory”

Chapter: 29 Pushing Onward and Upward

Chapter: 30 Psychiatric Assessment

Chapter: 31 The Happiest Day of My Life

Chapter: 32 Graduation Day

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Margaret and Thelma Porter, Elizabeth Pharr, Kay Lopez, Lt. Col. Charles McLeod, Lopez, Yusef Beskri, Abdullah bin Abdullah, Sally Isige, Erskine Philip, Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Warren, Antoine Eyebe, Merris Jones, Mimi Diaz-Bonarti, Jan Schumacher and Pat Evans

Been There, Done That

Been There, Done That

By

Bonita Evans, Ph.D.

“What is life? It is a flash of a firefly in the night; the breath of a buffalo in wintertime; a shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”

Crowfeet -Blackfoot Chief

As we get older we tend to look back on our lives and tally up our experiences. What we are hoping to discover is, how well we’ve done. We want to know if what seemed like periods of tragedy in our lives were as severe as we thought at the time. We want to know whether the disappointments we encountered caused us to stumble and fail irrevocably. We are searching to discover if these events caused us to stagger through life, never quite able to maintain our balance. We are seeking an answer to the question, “Did I really achieve what I wanted to and push on to the next big challenge and succeed?” When I think back over my life, I often shake my head and ask myself, “Where did I get the nerve?” and “How did I ever manage to come up with ideas that would allow me to do the things I’ve done and take me to all the places I have been?”

I was always a feisty kid who couldn’t resist the temptation to say what was on my mind. At nine, I challenged my fourth-grade teacher about Columbus’s plan to get to the East via the West. “Well Miss _______, he was either very stupid or a very poor navigator,” I blurted out. “Sit down Bonita, I haven’t asked for comments on this lesson yet.” I was called Bonita at school and Dianne in the neighborhood because the American kids could not pronounce Bonita, but the kids at school were Latino, so it was easy for them. I have yet to find out the truth as to why I was called Bonita. [It wasn’t until I was in my sixties that I found I had a lot of cousins with this name and many of them had Latino first and last names.] My outburst cost me my reputation and when I was moved up to the next grade, I left with a scornful report on my school record. Not deterred by this event, I decided that I would never find the answers to the things I wanted to know, simply by listening to my teachers. This conclusion led me to the habit of daydreaming. I would float lazily down the Amazon River or become engrossed in conversation with another student. This tendency, caused some of my teachers to teach their lessons with one eye on the class, the other on me, in the hope of catching me in the act. Whenever I was caught daydreaming or talking to another student, they would immediately question me on something they had just discussed and which they assumed I would not be able to answer. I’d give them the correct answer and continue with my daydreaming or conversation. I’d always had the gift of being able to concentrate on two things at once. After a few failed attempts at trying to catch me not paying attention, and bereft of an appropriate response, they would give up. As for me, it was not a question of whether what they were saying was relevant, but rather it matched my perception of what was sensible.

Surviving Family Life (1940s-1958)

“Mary, Mary quite contrary;” that’s what my mother would say as I hesitantly carried out some task I hated. My lip would shoot out and a frown wend its way across my forehead. Even though I hated whatever it was I had to do, I never complained. If my mother was close enough to see me when she gave the order, I’d try to unfurl my brow and look as though I was not upset. In those days, not only was it not a good policy to talk back, but I was playing with fire if I looked like I was thinking negatively about anything I had been told to do. It wasn’t that my mother was a cruel person, in fact, she was very gentle. However, she didn’t spare the rod when it was required. Both she and my father would say, “Someday you’re going to be thankful for these spankings.” Somehow it took me nearly 25 years to appreciate this philosophy, and that was only after having seen what happened to some of the children I attended school with who had been given everything and who ended up badly.

I can’t remember any time when I enjoyed being a child. I hated being ‘a little person.’ “You’d better enjoy your childhood; it’s the best time of your life,” neighbors advised. “Oh brother,” I’d think, “if this is the best time, I wonder what happens later?”

Early in life I realized that being little meant being completely dependent. If anything happened to my parents, there was no telling where I might end up. I don’t remember exactly when I became aware of this, but I am certain I could not have been more than six or seven, and it may have been brought on by an event which took place in school around that time. To this day, I feel that the situation was further aggravated by the fact that my father was an abuser. While he never beat us, he physically abused my mother whenever he found a new girlfriend. This happened at least two or three times a year. The abuse took the form of knocking her down and kicking her in the stomach, blacking her eyes and punching her in the face. It was as though he wanted to punish her for existing. After the beating, he would go to the Kingdom Hall and tell members of the congregation what, “God had done for him.”

During these beatings, my sister Pat and I stood by helpless; too little to do anything to protect our mother. We made a vow that we would never let any man beat us. I speak of these experiences without any shame because I know that many women and children experience this despicable and dangerous situation in their lives and remain silent. I have always thought of men who abuse their wives as ‘rats in a dark closet.’ Their numbers proliferate, and they feel powerful because no one can see them. What is needed, is for the door to be opened and the light switched on. But most people ignore the cruelty and shrink from assisting its victims, under the guise of ‘protecting a neighbor’s privacy.’ Like many children who grow up under these conditions I became an adult who entered intimate relationships as a ‘crippled partner.’ I was distrustful and found it very difficult to share my life. Ironically, my father had the audacity to tell me when I was grown that I should listen to his advice and follow it up. “Never love any man more than you do yourself,” he advised, as though he had been a model parent. I looked at him with venom in my eyes and said, “Don’t worry, I never will.” When you’re a child of a bad marriage, you feel as though you have been married all your life. As an adult, I was always waiting for a relationship to end. I also had a tendency towards violence. As an adult I was ready to injure any man who posed a physical threat to me. The sight of any threat to a woman brought on a sense of raging anger in me, even if it was a scene in a movie. I always found myself thinking, “No man will ever do this to me and get away with it. I’ve been through all of this before.

We grew up in an upper middleclass neighborhood in New York, known as ‘Sugar Hill.’ Most of the residents in the area were from the West Indies. They were hard-working people whose British upbringing influenced the neighborhood children. Unlike today’s youth, we were always monitored. It was not unusual for a neighbor to pass by and give us a good smack if we were doing something wrong. When this happened, we prayed that he or she would not tell our mothers.

By today’s standards, adults of that era would have been reported to the authorities as child abusers, but I am thankful for them, because they kept us in line.

We didn’t dare call adults by their first names as children do today. If we did not know their last names, then we had to call them ‘Auntie’ or ‘Miss.’ Mothers didn’t beg children to behave in public places, they simply looked at them and it was enough to correct any behavioral inconsistencies. As a result, the children in the neighborhood felt loved and protected. We belonged to a community. It was not unusual for a neighbor to call from the window, “Pat, Dianne, you going to the store?” Get me a container of milk.” Twenty-five cents wrapped in a handkerchief would then come plummeting down from an apartment window.

When we were very young, my dad was very much respected and envied by the men in the neighborhood because he was always immaculately dressed. I was told that even during the depression, he had worn one hundred and fifty-dollar suits. He had always been fortunate enough to have a well-paying job. He was a chef at Fitch Sanitarium—a job he kept for thirty years, never missing a day. He ate all his meals there, so he worried very little about what we ate. When we asked what we were going to eat, he’d say to my sister, “You Momma and Dianne already too fat. they don’t need nuthin.” Since my sister was very thin (49 inches tall and 49 pounds), he sometimes relented and brought home some meat from the hospital—just meat. He would stand at the kitchen door and throw it into the sink, like a zookeeper throwing raw meat into a cage for wild animals.

With the money he earned, he bought a new car every year. This meant that from the time we were born until we were middle-aged adults, he had purchased 45 cars. He had what I came to call, “The Evans mentality.” The Evans’s always wanted the best of everything. Uncle George, my father’s brother, would walk into a store and when the salesperson asked if he or she could be of assistance, he would bellow out, “Show me the best, show me the best.” This attitude often angered my mother. However, I realize now that the attitude is born of the fact that whenever people of color walked into a department store, the first thing the salesperson did was usher them straight to the bargain area, or try to sell them something red. To this day, many people of my age resent being shown anything red by a salesperson.

My father and his brother looked a lot alike, except my uncle was shorter, which put his good looks at a disadvantage. Dad was six feet two inches tall and was never overweight. His tan complexion and chiseled features could I suppose, have been considered handsome. But he was so full of himself, that he needed very few compliments from others. “When I walk down the street, people look at me and think I’m from Hollywood. If I’m carrying my camera, they think I’m a big-time photographer.” Well, how does one respond to a person who thinks that much of himself?

Dad had a second-grade education. He did not perceive his lack of education as being a significant flaw. He made up for this shortcoming by never being less than well-dressed on any occasion. He would wash his car wearing one of his one-hundred fifty-dollar suits, so no one would catch him in overalls. My guess is that having grown up in the South, he never wanted to be thought of as poor. He’d stand for hours, rubbing his car, never getting a drop of water on his Florsheim shoes. [To this day, I dislike men who worship their cars.] He was on exhibit for everyone to see and admire, and admire him they did, “Oh Mr. Evans, you’re always so well dressed.” Silly women were taken by his appearance and often stopped to talk to him. Such attentions made him feel far superior to my mother, whom he considered quite ordinary.

My mother was a very attractive woman. Unfortunately, like me, she was never able to take a decent photo. Our family is so mixed that it really was hard to determine what she was if you didn’t know. Most people thought she was a Latina, however the German lady who lived in the next building looked as though she could be her sister. I once misidentified my mother, confusing her with the German neighbor and ran down the block so we could walk home together. When I realized my error, I pretended I hadn’t mistaken the neighbor for my mother, and we walked home together. In those days, it might have been considered an insult to mention to her that I had confused with my mom, but I doubt it, the lady liked my mother so much. Our family is so mixed that sometimes when someone asks me what I am, I say, “A flag.”

Mom was cream colored, like a Latina woman, but had a German body. On many occasions, she was approached by Spanish-speaking immigrants for help when they were lost, and who were astounded to find out she was not Latina. “You no speaking Spanish?” they’d questioned in surprise. “But, you looking Spanish.” [Spanglais is what we called this broken English].

She was about five feet two and was chubby. This, my father detested. He was always in pursuit of women who were about five feet six and who weighed about one hundred and thirty pounds. He gibed her all the time about her weight and height. “You a short-ass. I don’t like no short-assed women.” My mother was a gentle person. She never responded. I cannot remember her having ever shouted at me or my sister, or having a harsh word to say to anyone. When she died in her 80s, there wasn’t anyone who had a bad thing to say about her.

By the time I was 13, I began defending her against people who hurt her feelings. When she was abused by anyone, she would come home and cry. The superintendent was always on the lookout for her. He had a penchant for losing his temper. He would curse at her over something my sister had done. She would come upstairs and cry. At about thirteen I’d had enough of his harassment. One day fed up, I went down to the basement to see and threaten him. “If you ever say anything to my mother again besides good morning, evening, or night, I’m going to get some boys to fix you right up. You’re going to turn the corner and never make it down the block.” That stopped him because he knew I spent most of my time hanging out with the boys in the neighborhood, because I did not like girls; they were too ostentatious for me. He stopped his harassment and she no longer had to worry about him approaching her at full voice screaming, “Goddammit, Goddammit,” and stuttering as he did. Before he died, he had a stroke and lost his voice completely. God is merciful.

My father’s mother fell victim to the same thing, only she did not have a stroke. One day, she simply woke up and could not speak a word. Throughout her life, she had insulted many people without cause. She could not control her tongue. When she was angry, she just said anything that came to her mind. She once told my mother, who was pregnant with me at the time, “I hope your child comes here looking like a dog.” When the family discovered she could not talk, she was taken to several specialists. Not one of them could find a physiological reason for the condition. The thought that God shut her mouth, crossed many minds. My mother, whom she had repeatedly abused, was the only one to care for her in our home. Her own children did not want her. My mother cared for Grandma Evans’ as though she were her own mother. Although Grandma Evans could not speak, she used to look at my mother, smile and pat her on the shoulder. The experience was a lesson for me that I have remember throughout my entire life. After years of trying, I have learned to control my tongue. This is a good thing too, because my perception is very sharp, but my capacity to sear the soul is more so. On the few occasions when I have lost control, I have been told that my tongue is absolutely “surgical” I guess it’s because my perception of the person is accurate to a fault. Grandma Evans’s death ended most of what I remember about the late 1940s.

The abuse and beating of my mother continued until 1953. Once again, I decided to bring the whole matter to a close. Of course, as a thirteen-year old, there wasn’t anything physical that I could do to stop it and my mother insisted on letting Dad know how upset she was with his behavior. My sister took another approach to the whole situation by saying, “If she would just keep quiet, he wouldn’t hit her.” I think my sister found out how difficult that is when she became an adult. Personally, I doubt that abusers need any incentive to abuse; This is something I learned through my studies in psychology. Besides, what do you say to a man after he’s spent the night out with another woman, “Good morning, glad you made it home safely?” Having had this experience at such a young age, I learned not to hold any man in esteem above myself. Men have come and gone in my life as they wished. Instead of pleading with them, my only response was, “Next!”

If my mother hadn’t supported us during his sojourns, we would have been destitute. “I don’t want my little girls living down there in the ghetto,” she’d say to us. To keep us from living, “down there in the ghetto,” she worked two jobs. She left the house at six o’clock in the morning and returned at about eight in the evening. We were the original latchkey kids everyone talks about these days. However, this was not an unusual situation for children of color in those days, but we didn’t rob stores, take dope, or mug old ladies because of it. We would not have dared--after all; we had an entire neighborhood of fathers and mothers.

Ever so often, Dad’s affairs matured to the point that he would move out and live with the new sweetheart. When he did this, he would take some of the furniture from our apartment and move it into the apartment of the new girlfriend. Once we came home with our mother to find that there was not a stick of furniture in the house, except for the twin beds, which belonged to my sister and me. Obviously, the sweetheart did not have any children. My mother had to borrow a chair from a neighbor, so she could sit down and cry. When the woof and the weft of the love nest began to fray, he was back again. The furniture returned. and he acted as though nothing had ever happened. This situation was repetitive and habitual. I hated him, and I don’t think he had much love for me either.

Many years later when I was working with juvenile offenders I met a student whom I particularly liked.; I thought he was wonderful. One thing you never do, is ask why the offender is going to prison. I just couldn’t resist, because the boy was like a grandson to me. I had worked with him and a group of about 15 other boys who were attending school pending their sentencing.

“Why are you here? You’re such a good person?” I asked

“When I was growing up, my stepfather used to beat my mother. First, he would tie me and my brother to the radiator and then he would beat her up. I just got sick of it, and when I was 16, when he came in, in a bad mood, and began beating my mother. I shot him.

“So, they’re putting you in prison for that?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe it. The judge should be giving you a Meritorious Award for Service to Mankind,” I answered in a state of pure astonishment.

Of course, it doesn’t take an inordinate amount of intelligence to understand why I commiserated with this young man. Given a chance, I might have done the same thing, had I lived in the same house with my father until I was 16. I could understand the boy’s hate for his stepfather. He felt the same way I did about my natural father, and I don’t think he liked me too much either.

When I was about six years old, I caught my father sneaking out of the house at midnight. My mother had gotten a night job with the Federal Reserve Bank. She worked from twelve midnight to seven in the morning. She was trusting enough to think he would stay home and watch us.

“Where are you going, Daddy?” I asked’

“Don’t wake your sister up. C’mon you can go with me.”

So, we left my sister in the house all night by herself. For some reason, my mother got home before he could get back and she found that my sister had spent the entire night alone. At first, my mother was terrified to find that I was not there. The argument began the minute we arrived home

“What would have happened if this building had caught fire? The child would have been burned alive with no one to help her,” my mother questioned

“Ain’t gonna be no fire. You always worry about stupid things.”

“When you do bad things like that, they come back on you. She was right about this.

Many years later my cousin and his wife lost their five children in a fire. It seems he and his wife were trying to avenge their adultery on each other. One night both left the house and while they were gone, there was a fire and all their children were burned to death. My father never thought in terms of anything ever punishing him and he would respond to her as he always did with the comment, “Ain’t nothing bad ever gonna happen to me.” After that he changed his clothes and left for work. He was right. Nothing bad ever happened to him. He lived to be 96 years old. [At the age of 85 he began to develop Alzheimer’s disease, but was not seriously afflicted with it until the last few months of his life. Even though he didn’t know his own children, he was comfortable, because mentally he had returned to his home in Virginia and anyone who visited him, he asked, “Have you seen Mama?” He was placed in a lovely nursing home by my sister, who faithfully visited him. He died there in his sleep. He never once suffered for all the cruel things he’d done to us. For three days after his death I tried to think of one good thing he had done for somebody else during his lifetime. Finally, I remembered he had made us memorize Psalm 23. It’s enough to make you lose hope. After he’d left the house, my mother said to me [she always spoke to me as though I was 45 years old.]

“I wish I knew where that woman lived.”

“I can take you, Mommy” I said.

“How can you take me? You’re only six years old. It was pitch black when you went there, and you were in a car.”

“I can take you, Mommy” I said.

“I can take you,” I repeated.

I took her right up to the woman’s door--something she never finished marveling at. I have always had a very keen memory and can bring to my conscious mind even observations which I have made subconsciously at very young ages. For example, I remember that my mother took me to stay with her mother at 11 months old, because she was pregnant with my sister and nearing delivery. I remember that my mother had a sister who looked a lot like her, but I knew the difference, because my aunt had a large birthmark on her face, other than that they were practically identical. As an adult I told my mother, to her surprise, that I remembered the day she came to get me. I must say my grandmother was not very good at looking after children. She allowed me to sit down in the driveway and dig up dirt with a bucket and a shovel. Had my father pulled into the driveway, instead of parking on the road I would have been killed. Of course, my mother told me that it was not possible for me to remember something like that at such an early age. I proved her wrong by describing the clothing they both had worn on that day. I remembered that my father was wearing a pale green tropical suit and a safari helmet, which was fashionable at the time. She was wearing a black dress and was carrying a baby in her arms. She listened in awe as I described what my Dad was wearing. It doesn’t seem unusual to me. I can remember many of the clothes I used to wear as a child. I even remember hating to have my sister share the same carriage with me and I would try to push her out. Much of this book is about events which occurred 50 years ago, and I still remember what the people said, verbatim.

Dad’s stay with us ended shortly after my thirteenth birthday. I said something that changed my mother’s perspective. One day, she was talking to a neighbor in the street. I stood beside her following the train of her conversation with intense interest, as most teenagers do. She intimated to her neighbor that the only reason she was putting up with my father was for the sake of her children. Before I could catch myself, I blurted out, “Hey, don’t do it for us; get rid of him.” It wasn’t long after that she put him out. This was done with a great deal of difficulty. She placed all his things outside the door, and locked it. He returned home after having spent some time with his new ‘thrill’ and found his luggage in the hall. He then proceeded to kick the door in. I don’t think I’ have ever been so afraid in my life. Mesmerized by fear, I stood watching the door as his heavy foot came down upon it repeatedly, until it finally gave way and he entered. In a furor, he grabbed my mother and began beating her. This time I came at him with a knife, which he wriggled out of my hand. A neighbor called the police and they removed him. My sister and I swore then, that we would never let anyone beat us.

Many years later, Pat became a black belt in Karate. I personally have only had one man hit me, AND AFTER HE CAME OUT OF THE HOSPITAL, he realized I was the wrong woman to try to beat into submission. He, of course was too ashamed to tell the doctors at the hospital that his wife had inflicted on him, the wounds that were being attended. Instead, he said he had been mugged. Having lived through my mother’s abusive marriage, I feel I have had enough beatings. If a man looks as though he’s getting angry, I start looking for something to kill him with. Every angry man is my father.

My mother, sister and I experienced first-hand poverty after my father left. Unlike other men who leave their homes, he insisted on staying nearby—not because he cared so much for us. He never gave us a dime and there was very little help coming from the court. My mother would go to court time and again, but we never received a single support payment and the child support was only $10.00 a week. He refused to pay it. He stayed nearby to torture my mother. Always a lucky man, he managed to get an apartment on the same floor as ours, at the other end of the hall. During the twenty-two remaining years of my mother’s stay in our apartment, after he left us, he had a procession of different women of all races and ages staying with him. He continued living there for an additional 22 years after my mother moved to her own home in New Jersey, where her relatives lived—another suggestion of mine. He finally became so senile he had to be placed in a nursing home. My sister who has always been made of sterner stuff than I, visited him in the nursing home until he died, but I refused. I’m sure that someday she will have wings of gold—mine, if I get them at all, will probably be tin.

The years following the breakup were very difficult, but Mom refused to leave our middle-class neighborhood. She was earning $49.00 a week after taxes, and our rent was $89.00 a month. I remember finding her pay slip when I was about 15—just old enough to understand the economics of the situation. I sat down on her bed and cried and cried. I felt so helpless, and growing up seemed to be an inordinately long process. During this time, my father was earning about two hundred dollars a week and paying $56.00 a month for his one-bedroom apartment. He was financially stable and able to continue purchasing his annual car.

Middle school and high school were a nightmare for us. I remember having only one bra, which I had to wash every night and wear the next morning, wet or dry. [When I got my first job, during my second year of high school, I went to Macy’s and bought 31 bras. The sales girl just looked at me, but didn’t say anything.]

Throughout Middle School we walked to class with holes in our shoes, covered from the inside with pieces of cardboard, and hoped it wouldn’t rain. Many times, we wore shoes that were too small, and our feet suffered for it with corns and bunions in adulthood. In my novel, “Kijani” I describe the life of a crippled beggar who lived in Kenya immediately after Independence. I sensed his concerns about living and his suffering, because some his woes had been visited on me.

“Hunger, filth, homelessness and deprivation, this is the legacy bequeathed to the poor by life. What does his future look like? One has only to look at his past or present; born into poverty, live in poverty, die in poverty. Someday, when he lies stiffened by death, another crippled beggar will push him off his roller board, which had allowed him the mobility his useless legs had denied. The new owner will thank him and roll away; such is the cycle of poverty. He bears it because there is nothing else he can do. Who can say he is brave? Who can say he is strong because he survives—no one. He does not survive. The word ‘survive’ portends a day of overcoming. He simply exists because he lives another day. He does not have a past, he does not think about tomorrow; it just comes and once again he is challenged by “today.”

I would suppose my perspective of poverty in many of the developing countries I lived in was enhanced by my own life experience. We had so few clothes that we were the laughing stock of the school. Pat wore the same outfit so often, that when she came to class the students sang Holey, Holey, Holey to the tune of the hymn

Always an optimist, I was able to escape some of the sadder aspects of growing up poor in an upper Middle-class neighborhood. After my father left, we lived from month-to-month. As a result, I grew up without any idea of how to plan financially. I would often hear people talking about what they were going to do next year, or ten years from now. The first question that came to my mind during those times was, “How did they know that they were even going to be alive by that time?” This question was not a contentious response, but a sincere inquiry. Living day-to-day is something one does when one is without any idea of how to plan financially. Long-range planning is for people who are free to plan long range and not those cramped, crippled and stifled by poverty.

No one should ever be cursed with poverty. I have always believed that this period in our lives was responsible for my mother’s heart condition and high blood pressure. We often hear that African-Americans are more prone to high blood pressure and heart disease than people of other races. I believe that is not a matter of genetics, but economics and our consequent poverty after my father’s departure. It is easier to be poor in a poor country than to be poor in a rich country.

At home, the three of us managed to get by, despite the lack of help from my father. I had done well at school and had found a group of boys and girls who did not mind that I happened to be overweight. The one thing we had in common was that we were all poor people living in a middle-class environment. The school we attended was nearly a mile from our homes, and located in the ghetto, P.S.43 Junior High School. While some of us could afford bus passes, at fifty cents a week, others couldn’t, so we all decided that we would all walk to school and back home together. This way, we would save our mothers the expense of buying the passes every week. There was Charles, Thelma, Pat, Edna and me. We walked to school every morning and back at the end of the day. The long walks to and from school helped me lose the excess weight I had struggled with for so long. By the time I was 14, I was the right height and weight.

On Friday the 13th as we were walking home, we began to discuss superstition

“You believe that Friday the 13th is a bad luck day?” Charles asked me.

“No, I don’t. That’s superstition.”

“You mean you would walk under a ladder on Friday the 13th, Edna dared.”

“Yes, I would,” I answered.

“Good there’s one,” she said, pointing to a painter’s ladder leaning against the side of an apartment building. “Walk under that one.” I did.

As we were approaching our apartment buildings, a neighbor ran up to us and said, “Dianne, I have some bad news for you; your mother has had a terrible accident.” My heart began pounding and a feeling of disconnection swept over me. I was afraid to even ask the question that was forcing its way into my consciousness. However, before I could say anything, she continued speaking.

“Your mother was in the kitchen on her job [she had been forced to quit the night job at the bank after moving my father out.] Someone put a can of sauerkraut on the stove by mistake. The person didn’t realize that there was a flame under it. Then just as your mother walked up to the stove, the can exploded, and the sauerkraut went up into her face and eyes. She’s in the hospital now.”

The “Oh no, oh God no. Not my mother; not my mother,” I thought. I had always had a desperate fear of losing my mother. Often as a child, I believed that if my mother died before I grew up, my entire life would be destroyed because no one else would care for us. She was the center of my universe. I adored my mother and still do today. Everything that I have ever done that was of value, was to honor her sacrifice of bringing us up. I was overcome with dizziness. My mind was swirling. I kept thinking. “I can’t afford to lose my mother.” She just couldn’t die. We had just been through so much together. If she died, life wouldn’t be worth living. Oh, my God, I didn’t want her to be blinded either. How would any of us survive if she were reduced to walking around with a white cane? They would take us away from her. I began crying inconsolably, as did Pat. I was limp with fear. I felt as weak as a rag on the end of a mop stick.

The period between the time I was told of her accident and our first visit to the hospital to see her is a blur. I cannot remember who came to stay with us, or how we survived while she was away. I only know that my father did absolutely nothing.

The first visit to the hospital was horrifying. Mom had her faced wrapped in bandages. As I sat by her side, the pain I felt was so deep that I was barely able to talk. Like all good mothers, she was more concerned with how we were surviving without her. Weak with fear, I found it difficult to speak. It was as though each word was coming from a place so deep within me, the effort to produce it so great, that talking became physically wrenching. I have only had that debilitating experience twice, then and many years later when my mother died. It was as though a plate glass separated me from the world. I saw everything from the other side of it, and as a result, it was of very little consequence.

Pat and I continued going to school and after two weeks were allowed to see her again. I trembled as I walked down the hall, overwhelmed with fear of what I might see. I reached the door to her room and began to open it slowly. When it was far enough open, for me to see into the room, I saw her beautiful face turn in my direction and her large dark eyes focus on the open door. “You can come in Dianne” No one can imagine the joy those words brought to my heart. My mother could see. and she hadn’t been disfigured either. She told me that the moment she arrived at the hospital, the doctors covered her face with a special cream. Later when the bandages were removed, the scalded skin lifted off, leaving her face as beautiful as it had always been. Thank God! Her eyes didn’t deteriorate after the accident either. At eighty years old, her eyesight was better than mine. She once took a news article from me and read it without glasses because I couldn’t read it without mine

By the final year of Middle School, I had been placed in gifted classes for three successive years, but I was not happy with the placement. I was in 9-2. I wanted to know why I had not been placed in 9-1, like my friend Charles who lived in my neighborhood. When I asked the Principal, he said, “We didn’t have enough room to put everyone in 9-1, so we put you in 9-2.” I looked at him and thought to myself, “Yeah, rrrright!” I had been wrapping up ‘A’s in foreign language and doing very well in math, also. The only thing I didn’t like, nor did I do well was gym.

Having heard the Principal’s explanation, I could not resist the temptation to sneak downstairs and visit to the records office when no one was there. I found an opportune moment during lunch hour one day and sneaked into the office, found my file and read everything. I wanted to know about my teachers’ opinions of me.

In those days’ teachers in Harlem did not discuss college with Negro children; it was assumed that they would go to a technical high school and then straight to work on graduation. For all intents and purposes, we were ignored in respect to any knowledge that might result in our considering college. This was also the case with Hispanic students; we were shuffled off in the direction of schools which would teach us how to be good ‘workers, ‘not ‘leaders.’

One day an older, Jewish teacher who taught one of my classes, called me to her desk after everyone had left. I thought she was going to scold me because every time we had a review of a topic I would say, “Why are we reviewing this? We just studied it yesterday.

“Bonita, have you ever considered going to college?’

“No one’s ever talked to me about it.”

“You know you could go to Hunter College if you wanted to. [obviously, she had seen my school record.]

I knew Hunter was for very smart students and I didn’t feel that I would be successful attending a college. We colored students had always been taught that college was for brilliant people. Naturally, I told her I would not be interested and thanked her for letting me know.

Although it would be many years before I considered college, I kept her words in mind. Instead, like many young women in the 1950s, I spent a good deal of time socializing. I had a very close friend, Thelma. We spent a lot of time selecting other attractive girls as friends to ensure we were asked to parties. Thelma quit high school and I nearly followed her, but my mother’s menacing “No!” when I asked her if I could quit school, turned that proposition around and brought it to an abrupt end.

My intellectual compass and determination to succeed were refocused by a wonderful teacher, Elizabeth Pharr, at high school. I will never forget her. She did for me what I hope I have done for my students; she took what was inside me and reshaped it. She changed my life.

My high school, Central Commercial, was located on 42nd and Third Avenue, two long blocks from the United Nations. From time to time, I would look in its direction. It was a beacon of hope for me. “Someday I’m going to work there,” I’d think each time I saw it, and each time I promised, a voice within me whispered, “Yes but not now.”

One spring day Thelma asked me to go for a ride with her to Long Island in the second-hand car she’d bought. She told me she was going to see a fortune teller, to find what her future was going to be. She’d always been in pursuit of ‘the prince.’ Perhaps this soothsayer could provide her with some information as to which direction to take, to find him.

“Now you stay in the car, while I go upstairs,” she said. “They don’t like uninvited visitors.”

“Okay, but are you sure you don’t want me to walk upstairs with you?” I didn’t like the neighborhood. I sat for what seemed an inordinately long time, waiting for her return and when she did, I waited an entire ten seconds before I began my interrogation,

“What did the lady say?”

“Nothing much.”

“Well,” I said thinking to myself, “It’s all a lot of Malarkey anyway.”

“You know what she said, that WAS interesting?” she asked, studying my reaction as she spoke.

“No, what?”

“She said, “Your girlfriend who is waiting for you in the car downstairs, is going to travel all over the world.

“Me, travel all over the world; that’s a joke.”

“No, she was serious,” Thelma responded.

I have thought about that day many times since. The fortuneteller was right. I would spend nearly 25 years in foreign countries. She would not be the only person to tell me things that would happen to me in the future, with 100% accuracy during my stays in various countries.

The early post high school years were to say the least, lousy. It was 1958 and New York appeared to be deeply impacted by the ‘hippie’ movement. Greenwich Village was attractive to me for a while, but within a very short period of time I realized I didn’t care for the culture or the attitudes. The Village seemed to me, the womb of lost children. It gave birth to people like “Big Brown. Brown would have been a sculptor’s delight during the Greek and Roman eras. His body was perfect, but his mind was in a state of permanent recess. He would say things like, “How high is up?” Today in my old age, I would have the perfect answer for him, “Brown, as high as you want it to be.” It was whispered throughout the Village, that a famous, white movie star had fallen in love with Brown, but every dog and his fool knew that wasn’t going anywhere.

Ted Joans, a very well-known writer and poet, befriended my sister and me, and the three of us would sit in the Circle and watch events unfold. After a while in the Village, Ted and I both decided we were going to go overseas, he to Timbuktu and I had not yet decided. We’d soon tired of all the superficiality of Village life imposed on us by people whose only interest was to impress us with their visits overseas, ostensibly to France. Since I have always been very good at identifying liars, I began to weary of their efforts to impress us about adventures they never had. Greenwich Village appeared to offer too many of its residents, an empty life, the sole goal of which, was to garner the unmerited esteem of inexperienced youth. Although I was only 19 years old, I could see the direction in which many of these young people were headed. Their excuse for not pulling themselves out of the nothingness in which they functioned daily, was that the capitalist system did not allow for the blossoming of humanity in a manner that would benefit mankind. I pointed out to several people that the Village was just a hop, skip and a jump from the exuberance of a youthful, care-free life, to the gutters of the Bowery. However, the ‘fairy flossed’ minds of those who were perpetually high or drunk, ignored me. Some years later, I would make a visit to the Village during a return trip from Europe. Amazingly, I ran in to Ted Joans who had just returned from Timbuktu. I had read some of the articles about his trip. He looked at me and said, “You know, it’s Halloween down here every day.” The Circle in the Square was no longer there, and neither were many of the familiar faces; life had swept them into the Bowery.

After High School graduation, I had started working on a full-time basis. I believe that the late 1950s were the most difficult period for employment in my life. It was during this time that I worked on some of the worst jobs I’ve ever had. I remember being fired from one job because the secretary who worked in the office with me, did not like me. She told her boss she would quit if he kept me on. Her excuse, “She can’t put her figures into alignment.” That was ridiculous because even in those days, the archaic typewriter had tab stops which allowed the typist to line up the figures, so both he and she were lying. It was alright with me because by this time I had begun to plan my trip to Europe. I thought it would be interesting to see how people overseas were living.

In those days, most people were terrified of airplanes. Not only did they not want to fly, but in 1959 women rarely went to the next state without a man or a herd of other women. Of course, I saw things differently. I was approaching 20 and planning to go to Europe alone. My mother was traumatized by the mere thought of it. She knew that once I made up my mind about something I would not change it. I had to discover things myself.

Chemical Corn Exchange Bank

Today this seems like a bizarre name for a bank, but in the 1950s no one found it odd at all. Later they would call it the Chemical Bank, having dropped the ‘Corn’--I guess they were no longer trading with the Indians. I took the job because I wanted to ensure a consistent flow of money for my trip. I had given up everything for the trip. I hadn’t had a pair of shoes in a year, no new clothes, no movies, no lunches, or anything that wasn’t free. The job however, was the most boring I’ve ever had. First of all, it was about four blocks from our apartment, which meant I was incarcerated in the neighborhood at least five days out of seven. Secondly, it was a job that required no initiative and no intelligence. I was a “switchBORED” operator. I told my mother that I could never consider working on that job as a career and that as soon as I could find something worthwhile I would change. I wanted ‘more’ but I just didn’t know what the ‘more’ was. She on the other hand, thought of it as a good job, but then she came up in an era where the major source of income for Negro women was housework. Any job that didn’t require people to be on their knees scrubbing floors was a good job. “Why can’t you settle down?” she’d ask, and I’d always respond, “Mommy, dust settles, not people.”

At the same time, I thought it might be interesting to try my hand at acting. My sister and I were both thrilled by the prospect that “West Side Story” was auditioning dancers, so we auditioned and failed miserably. Never mind, that didn’t quench my desire to work in show business. I had taken some acting classes at a professional studio, before starting this job. In my last year at Central Commercial High School, I attended classes from 7:00a.m.-1:00 p.m., worked as a dental assistant 4-8 and then took classes at The Actors’ Workshop, where I met Sydney Poitier. He knew Paul Mann, the instructor and from time to time he would stop by and watch the students. Classes started at about 10:00 at night and ended around 12:00 am. The weird hours were for the convenience of those who had jobs on Broadway. Classes for beginners took place once a week. In those days, a person could ride the subway, walk home and not be accosted, though this didn’t always hold true.

During this period, I met actors who would become famous. Robert Duval, whom we called Bobby and Anthony Perkins, (Tony), Harry Belafonte, Sydney Poitier, Robert Hooks, Maupessa Dawn and many others. Most of us were poor as all ‘get out,’ except for Anthony Perkins who had just finished “Psycho.” He was possibly the only one at the time who was becoming well known. He was a very shy person who loved acting, but didn’t like the accompanying celebrity. One day a group of us were standing on a corner in the Village, when several rather silly girls screamed at the sight of Tony and headed in his direction. By the time they’d made their way down the block, we’d closed ranks until he had a chance to dash across the street and down between two open metal doors which lead into the basement of a small store. The silly girls had not seen which way he’d gone, and he was safe. Of course, we all laughed. It’s difficult being a well-known actor if you don’t like celebrity. Most actors would die for it. One night while returning home from acting class, I sat on the train across from a young African-American man who kept staring at me. When I got off the train, he got off too. I had to walk up the steep hill from St. Nicholas Avenue at 145th Street to Convent Avenue, where I lived. This young man walked a distance behind me. Instead of being afraid, I became angry. When he turned left at the top of the hill, I was certain he was tagging me, because on Convent Avenue, everyone knew everyone else and he wasn’t one of us. So, midway the block I turned around under the street light. “I hope you are not thinking about mugging me, because I don’t have any money.” He stopped in his tracks. “You mean you don’t even have five dollars?” “If I had five dollars, 1’d have taken a taxi from St. Nicholas up to my building and this conversation would not be taking place.” He was so shocked by my brashness that he walked away. That experience never stopped me from taking my lessons. I still came home at 1:00 a.m. once a week after classes.

When I started working at Chemical Bank, I stopped many extra-curricular activities in the evening because it would have been impossible with a full-time job. I no longer took the night classes I had taken prior to working full time. My sister and I decided that we would attend a school where they taught students on Saturdays, who were interested in working in commercials; it was there we met Telly Savalas; he was instructing. I think he must have been too honest for the job, because one day he confessed to me that the school really wasn’t worth going to and I should quit and try to get into the Actor’s Studio. There was always a long list of potential actors auditioning for the school.

Every Saturday morning, I took my few pieces of change and rode the subway to 42nd Street to get a copy of “Show Biz,” so I could read the audition announcements section. I would ride down, pick up my copy of the paper and read it on the way back home. On this particular Saturday I had just enough money for carfare, and to buy the newspaper. I didn’t waste any time looking at the sights on 42nd Street, I simply got back on the “A” train and headed back home. As I rode, I browsed through the auditions section. Suddenly I saw one that I knew I could audition for; it was for CBS television. The producer was looking for an actress to play the part of a 16-year-old girl from the West Indies, in a play titled “Brown girl, Brownstones.” Of course, I was nearly 20, but so what? There have been some pretty old actors playing parts of younger characters, who have stretched fictional credibility to the point of bursting. I figured 20 wasn’t too far from 16, so, I jumped up from my seat in an effort to get out of the train before the door closed at 59th Street; I wasn’t fast enough. The door shut and I was stuck on the train until it reached 125th Street. By the time I arrived, I had nearly exhausted all my patience. I’d worried all the way uptown about whether I would miss the opportunity to audition earlier than Monday, which was the day cited in the ad for the audition. At 125th Street, I dashed up the stairs and crossed over to the downtown side of the station. When the train finally pulled into Columbus Circle I ran all the way to the CBS building. It wasn’t until I arrived that I realized, I did not know which studio or office the director was in. Worse yet, I didn’t even know which floor he might be on, or whether he was there at all. This made the entire venture problematical in that if I checked every floor, I ran two risks: first, a guard might find me and toss me out; second the director might leave before I located the right studio. Taking a chance on fate, I pressed the elevator button and when it arrived at the first floor, I got on. Now the real challenge was to select a floor. None of the hindrances deterred me. I stood in front of the elevator’s button board, closed my eyes, circled the board with my index finger three times and pushed a button. When the elevator door opened, I got off in full anticipation that I had selected the correct floor. I moved along the hall looking into the glass triangle of each door. Finally, I found one in which actors were rehearsing. I knocked on the door. Nothing happened. I knocked again and waited for what seemed an eternity. Finally, a man opened the door and asked if he could help me. He had an air about him that immediately signaled he was not the one I wanted to see.

“I’m here about this audition,” I said showing him the advertisement in the paper.

“That’s next Monday,” he said.

“I know that, but I’m here now and I want to see the director.”

“He’s directing another play.” “Tell him to stop!” I retorted.

“What is your name?” he asked as though fearing he had insulted someone of significance. “Bonita Evans.”

You would have thought I’d said Lena Horne. More out of shock than anything else he asked me to wait as he turned towards the door and went back into the studio. Another eternity passed before the director came out.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m here about the audition.” “Which audition?”

“You mean you’re holding an audition on Monday and you don’t even know which play it’s for?” I asked, shoving the newspaper into his hand.

“Can you speak with a West Indian accent?”

“Which one, Jamaican, Trinidadian or Barbadian? I can speak with all of them”

Personally, I didn’t find that exceptional. I grew up in a West Indian neighborhood and as you know small children will mimic any and everything when they’re growing up. I had perfected those accents to such an extent, that many times people from those countries thought I was from the islands.

“I have a photo here which you can have so you won’t forget me.”

“I don’t need it, I won’t forget you,” he answered, looked me up and down. After he had

overcome his initial astonishment, smiled.

“Come on Monday and pick up your script.” He turned, opened the studio door and disappeared.

I couldn’t believe he had offered me the script. That meant I’d gotten the part. Anyway, I would see on Monday. It had begun to snow while I was in the building. Having no money, I had to walk all the way from 57th street nearly 90 blocks to get home, in the snow. It didn’t matter, I couldn’t help feeling toasty all over. This was the first professional acting job I’d ever had, and it was on CBS TV Monday couldn’t come soon enough for me. I was up most of Sunday night. I arrived at the time cited in the advertisement. If you’ve ever thought of yourself as a one of a kind item, forget it. One thing auditions do, is they humble you. There were about 25 women on line to audition for the part I had already taken. Each one could have been my sister, my cousin or someone closely related to me. I walked past the very long line of girls for which I was the prototype, straight through to the secretary’s office and asked for my script. She quickly advised me that I could not have the script until I had auditioned. I asked her to call her boss and tell him the lady to whom he had spoken to on Saturday, has come for the script. You can’t imagine the shocked expression on her face, when he said, “Give it to her.”

Wonders of wonders, the play had an all-star cast: Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Cicely Tyson. I played her older sister. The character had a spitfire personality. I supposed, once I became familiar with the script, that is what the director saw in me that Saturday. Paule Marshall, Brown girl’s author said, that when I left, the director that Saturday morning, he called her and said, “I’ve found the perfect girl for the part. She’s just as snippy as the character.”

On Tuesday morning, I told the Vice President of the bank that I would need the following week off, because I was doing a play for CBS television. “You’ll have to make up your mind whether you want to do the television show or work here,” he responded. “Do the television show,” I said and walked out. I suppose I would have been more successful in keeping my job had I lied, but I rarely lie. I couldn’t believe that he had was threatening me with the loss of my job. Some people never get over trying to enslave people who dare to try to get ahead in life.

My next job was as a clerical and even more loathsome than the bank, but since I had decided to see France for myself, I just kept my head down and continued to work. Although there were about seven girls working in the office, I never told them what I was planning. I was afraid they would tell the boss. After several months, I learned that we all hated him, but I kept my mouth hermetically sealed. The job had one redeeming feature, it’s office was located on the wharf site where the ship I planned to take to Europe docked once a month. I could see it arrive and depart from the window of my office. I counted the number of trips it had to make before I got on it and floated away. Every time it came in, I would cross off its arrival from my list and reduce the number. No matter how tough the job became I could see the promise of my new adventure once a month during the long, dreary period I was enslaved. The girls in the office were not allowed to speak to one another. Our job was to type up the papers used to distribute films to various theaters in the New York area. We worked like plantation slaves and were never allowed to say one word to the person sitting next to us. I may be wrong, but it seems to me, even plantation slaves could talk to one another. The “overseer” as I called him, ran the business using a set of rules that would not be acceptable today. Under the existing employment statutes: (1) we could not talk to one another; (2) bathroom breaks were to be only seven minutes in duration, including the time it took to walk there and return. Any time expended beyond that was deducted from our salaries. How he figured out that women required only seven minutes, was beyond me. Anatomy alone decrees that it would take longer than that for a woman; (3) employees were given a thirty-minute lunch period. However, no consideration was given to the fact that the office was on the 11th floor, and there were several floors above us. Those working in offices at the highest levels had the most access to the elevators on their way down. By the time it reached our floor, it was usually full, so it kept going. On paydays, we were given minutes to cash our checks and eat lunch. No food was to be eaten in the office. The main problem was, everyone in the building was paid on the same day. There was no way, we could cash a check and eat lunch in 45 minutes. Our ‘overseer’ docked us for any time expended beyond the period designated. The day I left for France was a payday, I worked up until it was time for lunch. The girls accompanied me to the bank as usual. As we were walking I said:

“Ladies, I want to tell you something. I’ve been keeping a secret. Today is the last day I’m going to be working here. In fact, today is the last half day I’m going to be working here. After I cash my check, I’m going to get on the boat that pulls into the harbor every month, and go to France. I just wanted you to know I enjoyed working with you.”

“Oh, can we come to the wharf with you?” they chorused

“Sure!” Everybody was late returning to work that day. I

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 28.02.2018
ISBN: 978-3-7438-5869-5

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