The best author story I've heard in a long time!

I couldn't figure out how to imbed this video, but you can just click on it to watch this inspiring story.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50149108n%3Ftag%3Dfacebook

My Tribute

(Daddy and me on the beach in Atlantic City, circa 1955)

 

 

Little Big Man

Back in the 70’s Dustin Hoffman starred in a western called “Little Big Man.” I don’t really know what the movie was about, but as soon as I started to write this essay, the title came to mind, because my father, Thomas Franklin Brown stood only five feet two inches tall, yet he commanded more respect than any man I’ve ever known personally.  He was an entrepreneur and a church leader, but it’s not the public man I want to tell you about. I want to tell you about Tommy Brown, my daddy.

One of my earliest memories is sitting with my cousins by the side of a dusty dirt road in Millville, New Jersey in front of my grandparent’s house watching him play softball with my aunts and uncles. Family was his top priority.  We worshipped together as a family, we vacationed as a family and often worked together in the business he started when I was five years old.

Contrary to the well-meaning advice of friends and relatives, he started his own part-time printing business in our basement while he worked days as a pressman at a large printing company. Two years later he left the job and never looked back.  When his business outgrew the house, he moved it to the first of a series of progressively larger rented buildings.  Though he never had more than three full-time employees at any given time, he supported a wife, four children and, from time to time, assorted relatives on the income this business produced.  I need to give my mother credit right here, because part of the reason he was able to do this was because she made a lot of our clothes and knew how to shop to save money. He never worked another outside job again, which was an amazing accomplishment for a black man in the 1950’s.

By today’s standards he would probably be considered strict in the sense that he expected us to be obedient. And we obeyed, not because we were afraid of him, but because the last thing we ever wanted to do was disappoint him. I’ll never forget the time when I was in seventh grade and got into a fight with the neighborhood bully.  Embarrassed and humiliated by having his daughter involved in a street brawl, he made arrangements with the Chief of Police in our small town and the other girl’s mother for us to be given a lecture and personal guided tour of the township jail by a uniformed officer in an effort to scare us straight.  I don’t know about her, but the experience sure did the trick for me. As a result of his ‘style,’ not one of his four children (now all over the age of fifty) has ever been arrested.

We weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but Tommy Brown was a giver from his heart.  He never failed to go overboard at Christmas and on birthdays, but when we wanted something in between those special occasions, his mantra was, ‘you save half and I’ll give you the other half.  Of course, we usually earned the money by working in his print shop folding, stapling, and collating and sweeping.  He definitely got his money’s worth out of us.

A jazz fanatic who had an impressive collection of 78’s and 33’s, he always worked with his music playing.  I believe his children all grew up to be avid music lovers because, prior to moving the business out of the house, he built speakers into the walls of the basement in order to hear the music over the hum of the presses.  When he cranked it up, we could feel the floors upstairs vibrate beneath our feet. Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington, Earl Grant, Jimmy Smith and Ray Charles provided the soundtrack for our childhood.  

Even though he worked ridiculously long hours, he knew how to have fun. In his younger days, he loved to host big backyard barbecues for which, of course, my mother did all of the work.  And those summertime gatherings usually ended with the kids toasting marshmallows over the fire on the grill while the grown-ups played rowdy games of badminton and horseshoes. I’m hard pressed to recall a time when our back yard wasn’t much more than two huge bare spots on either side of the net at the end of the summer.

Never one to put vacations on the back burner in favor of the business. he and my mother always came up with fun outings for us.  When money was low, we did local excursions to the early amusement parks, Olympic Park and Palisades Park, which have long since disappeared. With air fares being out of their financial reach back then, we traveled everywhere we went by car -- Atlantic City, Freedomland, Bear Mountain, Sebego Lake in New York and Hershey Park, Pennyslvania.  Once we grew up, he and my mother we finally able to fly to Bermuda, Puerto Rico and Canada, and took my daughter, Crystal along with them when she was little.

Sadly, in telling this story to people over the years, I’ve often received looks of disbelief.  That’s when I realized just how uncommon my story is and how blessed we were.  Tommy Brown’s name will never be written in any hall of fame, but he was a man of incredible pride, faith and integrity. He didn’t go to bars or hang out with his buddies. His idea of relaxation was to stretch out in his recliner and watch the Mets at Shea Stadium on television. He went to work, to church, to Chamber of Commerce meetings and spent his free time with his family, which included his nine brothers and sisters and their children.

During times that I only vaguely recall as stressful, his mother moved in to live with us when she became too sick to care for herself.  Years later, after her passing, another hospital bed was delivered for one of his brothers who came to live with us when he succumbed to the deterioration of advanced diabetes.

At my father’s seventieth birthday party, my sister, who lived in Atlanta, was unable to attend.  She sent a taped message thanking him for being the man he was.  As she spoke through tears, she told him how grateful she was that we never had those stories to tell like so many children unfortunately do - the ones about eating mayonnaise sandwiches because there wasn’t any food in the house, or having to do their homework by candlelight because the electricity was turned off, or watching their mother go down to the local bar to drag their father out.

My father went home to be with the Lord in 1995.  His funeral was a testament to the greatness of an “everyday” man.  My brothers, sister and I were overwhelmed by the turnout of not only friends and neighbors, but also of township officials, former business associates and even the ninety-year-old doctor who had delivered all of us into the world.

Today’s fathers could learn a lot from the lives of men like Tommy Brown.  He stood only five feet two inches tall, but to me he was a giant.

Thank you, Daddy!

Juneteenth Sale! Coming At You Live!

If you haven't guessed it, yes, it's time to break open your Kindles or Nooks and get to buying. From June 13th to June 19th you can pick up these titles on discount from new to you or your favorite IR/MC authors:

$1.79 to $0.99

Bad Boy Next Door by Melissa Blue
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

$2.99 to $0.99

Fifty Shades of Jungle Fever by LV Lewis
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

 $3.99 to $1.99

A Kiss of a Different Color by Bettye Griffin
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

$2.99 to $1.49

Framing Felipe Holley Trent
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

$2.99 to $0.99

Donor by Ambrielle Kirk

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

$3.99 to $0.99

Jaded Hearts by Olivia Linden

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

$3.90 to $2.50

Abandoned But Not Alone by Theresa Henry
Amazon

 $3.99 to $2.99

Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing by Chicki Brown
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

$2.99 to 1.99
D.N.A. -Nothing Would Ever be the Same Again by Ey Wade
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

Juneteenth Sale!

It's June and you know what that means? It's hotter than hades outside. It  also means Juneteenth is right around a corner. And THAT means it's almost time for the Juneteenth sale I'm a part of it.

Why Juneteenth?

The simple fact is there was a time in America's history where folks would get fined, punished or thrown in jail for teaching people of color to read. More specifically, teaching slaves to read. The general fear was if you taught slaves how to write they might, you know, think about their lot in life. They may not be happy about it. They just might educate themselves. And then the nightmare would begin: they might educate others.

What I do every day as a passion, for a living was illegal in the United States. Took some time for the word to get out that slavery had been abolished and that was just one step closer to where I'm sitting now. I don't know about you, but I think that's cause for a celebration. It's worthy of taking a moment.

 

From June 13th to June 19th you can pick up these titles on discount from new to you or your favorite IR/MC authors:
 

$1.79 to $0.99
Bad Boy Next Door by Melissa Blue
Website

$2.99 to $0.99

Fifty Shades of Jungle Fever by LV Lewis
Website

$3.99 to $1.99

A Kiss of a Different Color by Bettye Griffin
Website

$2.99 to $1.49

Framing Felipe by Holley Trent
Website

$2.99 to $0.99

Donor by Ambrielle Kirk
Website

$3.99 to $0.99

Jaded Hearts by Olivia Linden
Website

$3.90 to $2.50

Abandoned But Not Alone by Theresa Henry
Facebook Page

$3.99 to $2.99

Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing by Chicki Brown
Website

 $2.99 to 1.99
D.N.A. - Nothing Would Ever be the Same Again by Ey Wade

Stay tuned for more information...

Facebook overload!

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend.

I had to turn off the notifications on all of my groups. Yesterday I was away from the computer from 9 AM-4 PM, and when I got home, I had 1,100+ messages! I can't handle that kind of volume, so from now on I'll just visit each page to look at the posts and say hello...

 

Authors, how do you handle being a member of multiple reading/writing groups?

 

Are you done?



I read this quote below this morning, and it really impressed me. No matter what your age, are you still learning? Think about it...

 

 

”For every man, education should be a process which continues all his life. We have to abandon, as swiftly as possible, the idea that schooling is something restricted to youth. How can it be, in a world where half the things a man knows at 20 are no longer true at 40—and half the things he knows at 40 hadn’t been discovered when he was 20?” - author and inventor, Arthur C. Clarke

A tribute to the pioneers

A great article from Michelle Monkou in USA Today. It's a wonderful reminder for those of us who already know, and a fine lesson for those who don't.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/happyeverafter/2013/06/03/michelle-monkou-african-american-romance-pioneers/2383373/
If you love romance, please check it out, and also check out here latest release: