Drug Suicides in London. Bell Ringer in Camden.

Drug Suicides in London. Bell Ringer in Camden.

Yesterday, for my Rutgers-Camden film class I saw a heartbreaking movie about drug suicides by young addicts in London.

Today, for four hours,  I was standing outside Walmart ringing the bell for the Salvation Army.  Talk about contrasts!

I needed the joyful faces of Americans of every stripe and age dropping bills into the Red Kettle after their shopping and making comments.

“As a child, my mother always had me drop money into the bucket and now my daughter and I are doing the same thing.”

“My brother is an addict in Florida and he’s getting help from the Salvation Army to break his habit.”

Two very different verbal contributions to me that summed up my last forty-eight hours…

 

 

Thanksgiving in Modacius

It’s so quiet in Liney Ditch Park at 7:30 a.m. The dogs lead me across the open space to the berm where forty-foot evergreens grow as well as a great variety of other trees.

My Great Dane mix puppy will be one year old on Christmas Day. He dwarfs my six year old pitbull mix. The neighbors are asleep and safe in their row houses.  The Philadelphia Inquirer was just delivered with a million shining ads for Black Friday and I have no desire to look at even one of them – for which I’m grateful.

I have an abundance of gratitude for the roof over my head, my family, the neighbors, the government, schools, churches, organizations, police and all those

who support a good life for so many in Modacius (the mostdangerouscityinU.S.)

Post Election Conversation in Hot Tub

Post Election Conversation in Hot Tub     11/12/16

Setting: A white senior female (WSF) and a black senior male (BSM) friend are sitting in the hot tube at the Salvation Army Kroc Center in Camden, New Jersey. After a short while, a black middle-aged female (BMAF) friend of the male joins them.

WSF: Have you recovered from the election?

BSM: Well, what do you think of who you put in office?

WSF: Can you believe a bunch of white males from the boondocks did this? They know nothing except their own tiny tribe set far away in the backwoods. And they voted for someone who knows nothing outside of his own privileged white tribe! He has NO experience!

BSM: And women voted for him too.

WSF: Yes! 53% of them. What is wrong with people. A man who disrespects women, has been married three times, accused of rape…

BSM: And black women voted for him too…(a black middle-aged female friend heads into the hot tub and he whispers to WSF)…and here comes one who did just that…

BMAF: Ohhhhhh – this feels good…

WSF: Yup – 102 degrees.

BSM: We were just talking about the election. How could some black folk vote for him?

BMAF: And how could so many not vote at all…?

BSM: But how could any woman vote for him?

BMAF: I don’t have any answers. I just leave it all in the hands of Jesus.

(BSM and WSF raise their eyes (only their heads showing above the steaming water) to heaven