Everybody Despises Doreen/My Life In Cabrini Green

For Heavy D (Dwight Arrington Myers) May 24, 1967 --- Nov. 8, 2011

Today I shed tears

For the man who was

Light on his feet and

Easy on the ears

The party rapper

Who gave us hits like

Money Earnin' Mt. Vernon,

Mr. Big Stuff and Now That

We Found Love,

Who exited our earthly stage

on Nov. 8 and is now rapping

with the angels above.

I remember when I use to blast

his albums in my bedroom in

the late 80's and early nineties,

My mother would yell up the stairs,

'turn that down!!'

I did for a few minutes

then I'd turn it back up and she'd

come upstairs and find me-

Then she picked up the album and looked at the cover

and asked me 'who is that rapping?'

My reply was it's 'the OverWeight Lover!'

Then she said 'he sampled James Brown,

I like that... it's okay, Doreen, you don't have

to turn it down.'

Then she started tapping her foot and bobbing her head

Then she asked me 'is there a video for this record'

and with a smile 'yes' is what I said.

On that day, I was so happy my mother took interest in

one of my favorite MC's,

So from the bottom of my heart ,

I want to say I love you Hev, thanks

 for the memories..

I won't even go there...:o Hell Jane Byrne's  visit to Cabrini Green had the absolute same effect that Barbara Bush's visit had on New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina...NONE!

60,'s, 70's and 80's Soundtrack

Sam Cooke (Another Saturday Night, Chain Gang, Frankie and Johnny)

Nak King Cole

Billie Holiday

Roberta Flack (The FIrst TIme Ever I Saw Your Face)

Helen Reddy (Big Ole Ruby Red Dress, Leave Me Alone, Delta Dawn)

Four Tops (Ain't No Woman Like The One I've Got)

Jackson Five, Jacksons (DESTINY ALBUM)

O'Jay's (Backstabbers, Loving You, For The Love Of Money)

Gladys Knight and The Pips (Claudine Soundtrack) (Landlord)

Barkays (Holy Ghost)

Intruders ( I Will Always Love My Mama)

The Spinners, Sadie, Mighty Love, Games People Play

Stevie Wonder (Isn't She Lovely) Happy Birthday , As

Isley Brothers 

Rick James and Teena Marie (Fire and Desire)

Chic

Parliament Funkadelic (Knee Deep) One Nation Under A Groove

Frankie Beverly And Maze Happy Feelings, Look At California

Gloria Gaynor,  I Will Survive

Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes

Natalie Cole (Annie Mae, This Will Be,  Our Love)

Evelyn Champagne King (Shame)  (I  Don't Know If It's Right)

Whispers The Beat Goes On, Olivia

Kurtis Blow The Breaks

Sugar Hill Gang Rappers Delight

Sequence

Sometimes a ghetto gets under your skin

And has you revisiting it again and again

Beckoning you back to the 365 days a year that you slept and awoke

In Cabrini Green in a three bedroom apt located at 365 W. Oak

Taking you back to the day of your birth

When there was no silver spoon nor mirth

But  what you did have was two brothers and one sister

You all had so much fun playing Monopoly and Twister

When you played outside you couldn’t go any further than the ramp

In the summer and winter your mother signed you up for  camp

And at night kids would get together in singing groups and improvise

They’d pretend to be the Supremes, Temptations, or the Jackson Five!

The buildings were somewhat better maintained

And most of the residents were in a much better frame–

of mind...

And that is why it is so easy to go back and rewind...

I remember some summer days when I was about nine and I didn't go to summer camp, or outside to play with my friends, I'd sit in my room and make a tent with a bed sheet by tying it to the bed posts.  I'd make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and pour a glass of milk and watch a program that 'til this day I don't know the name of.  I know it starred actress Beah Richards as the fairy godmother.  She granted this little girl wishes who lived in I think it was Brookkyn. They were never elaborate things like Cinderella got though.  I guess you could  say It was 'Cinderella' with a ghetto twist.  The little girl would sit in her livingroom and the television was on and the fairy god mother would appear.  They had to be really quiet so no one else could hear.  For some reason I remember a raggedy old shopping cart.and a shawl...I think the most I would have probably wished for at the time was a skateboard, a double dutch rope, some jacks or a bike...

It was the early 80's and 'How Do I Say Goodbye to Yesterday' by GC Cameron was playing on the record player because my oldest brother had borrowed the soundtrack.  It was the only tune that could soothe my broken heart after Glenn Hairiston was murdered.  Glenn  was a friend of the family he lived in the white projects and his cousins lived on the third floor of 365 W. Oak.  He was a very handsome teenager.  When he would come by looking for my brother and say, 'Doreen where's Marsay,' my heart skipped a beat.  He had the prettiest brown eyes and handsomest facial features I had ever seen. Looking back I had a crush on him as I am sure many a girl did. One night that I will never forget is when his aunt came to our apartment and she was trying to speak low but she couldn't because she was so distraught.  She asked my mother if she could drive her to the hospital to see Glenn.  I heard the word 'bat' and I just thought maybe he got into a fight but he'd be alright..  I stayed up waiting for my mother to return and when she came back she was crying and I knew he didn't make it.  She told us what happened and my heart just sank. An older boy ambushed him with a bat and beat him to death.  I went into the room I shared with my oldest sister and cried.  I woke up the next morning crying.  I went to bed crying.  I didn't go outside I just sat in the house crying.  I didn't want to talk because it hurt so bad.  I would go in the bathroom and just sit in the dark for hours at a time.  I guess because it offered complete darkness.  I couldn't go to his funeral because I couldn't even comprehend what was going on.  My mother noticed how depressed I was and she told me that everyone loved Glenn but we have to go on with our lives and she suggested since I enjoyed writing so much that I write a poem or story about him to help ease the pain. But there were no words that I could find to express how I felt. I think I bottled my emotions or they lied in my brain until they were ready to come out.  I think a decade later the words began to flow from my pen.  So I started writing and I decided that if I ever got anything published i would dedicate it to Glenn Hairston and Derrick Savage.   In October of 1993 the Chicago Defender published 'Growing up  In Cabrini Green'  and I dedicated it to their memories.

doreenambrose@yahoo.com or cooleyhighinreverse@gmail.com

    I remember waking up weekdays listening to WBMX or WJPC in Cabrini before school.  It was about 6:30 am in the morning and Ma would get up and turn the radio. In that instance we knew that it was time to wake up.  I loved listening to Lu Palmer and another page from his notebook. I loved listening to the morning show personalities. Somedays Ma would throw on some bacon or sausage and each of us would take our time in the bathroom.  There was a happy mood in the morning that I can't really explain.  You really were tired and didn't want to get up but the day kind of welcomed you. Ma worked at our school Richard E. Byrd School so we had to be on time and we had to behave.  Mostly all of the children in the building went to Byrd School...other kids in other buildngs went to Jenner.  Back in those days we didn't wear uniforms or even expensive clothes or shoes like Jordan's.  We were just coming up out of flare leg jeans and everyone was trying to wear straight leg jeans.  Sometimes before I left for school I'd watch the Bozo Show or Bewitch. Then off to the 4 story blue, yellow and gray brick building.I vividly recall when it was doughnut day that I'd make it to the morning Breakfast program at 8:30.  Mrs.Sloss who was the lunchroom lady would give us a milk and a doughnut.  Those doughnuts were the bomb!  Sometimes I'd get in line twice!  Some people could get away with getting in line twice and not be noticed...but I really wasn't one of them but I'd try it anyway...and she'dlook at me and smile and hand me one anyway.... Years ago, I saw a skit with Cedric The Entertainer called 'Ain't No Mo' and it's about a lunchroom lady who was always antagonizing the students and the faculty... I laughed so hard because I have seen people act like the lunchroom lady he portrayed...but not our Mrs. Sloss.  Shortly after the bell raing and we'd like up at the front door on Hill Street and be greeted by Principal MaritaT. Hogan or . Mrs. Janis Todd...

She lost her virginity

in the vicinity

of Clark and Rush Street in Chicago

She tried to go back and retrieve it

But her Johns and her Jones couldn't conceive of it

So now she's lost her mind

and stands on the corner of Broadway and Vine

Talking to herself

She sees tin men and elves

Over her left shoulder

Now that so many winters have passed

She's gotten much older

She ain't cute no more

Nobody wants to score

She's applied for disability

But it's not enough to keep her in

the local facility

So she continues to roam the street

Smelling of trash from her head to her feet

Uttering nothing

Feeling nothing

Trying to remember when

She was innocent and had not a care,

But it's hard to conjure up a memory that

was never there.

I DIDN'T EVEN TELL GOD

I know that most people reading this

Will find this quite odd,

But I swear, I didn't even tell God,

When you touched me

underneath my dress as

we played beneath

The crab apple tree on Oak St.,

I didn't let my private parts discuss

your intruding touch with my brain,

I couldn't because it would have droven me insane.

I was so naive,

But yet and still I knew enough not to tell

Anyone, not even God because I didn't think

He'd believe,

That I was still pure, didn't want him to think

that somehow I invited your touch,

Sometimes, I wish you would just,

Take your hands and your smile,

Somewhere else and defile--

But no one else deserves that kind of treatment

Because the things you did to me are cemented

Into my brain,

And my soul and though our ages

Were similiar it

Didn't give you the right to get familiar--

With me,

Let me just end this---

To hear a radio broadcast of me please click link:

http://vocalo.org/explore/content/60289

I was born on the near north side of the Windy City in one of the most notorious ghettos on August 3, 1969, a smoldering hot yet peaceful day. A place that is now on the auction block and the center of much controversy. A place that in a few years from now residents who lived there for more than twenty years won't be able to recognize. But in its heyday it was the subject of the 1970's movie Cooley High and sitcomGood Times. Also, the subject of the 80's movies Heaven is aPlayground, Candy Man I and II, The 90's, There are No Children Here,and the subject of the 1998 film Down in the Delta. Once home to thelate great singer producer Curtis Mayfield. Former home to Rear AdmiralAnthony Watson. Yes, Cabrini Green a housing project which in the 80's boasted a whopping 14,000 residents. Cabrini is comprised of red andbeige colored high rises or the "reds" and the "whites" and rowhouses.A little city within a city. I was born an entire year after theassassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in Memphis, Tenn,and the subsequent riots that followed. My initial breath into thisworld came four months before the death of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton at the hands of the Chicago police.

I was born when Chicago Bulls were just charging rodeo animals! A timewhen Afro picks with a red and green casing on either side could beseen protruding out of the back pockets of many a brother or sister.These were days when Motown was king, and proclamations like "Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm proud," and "I Am Somebody" leaped from the lips of many politically and socially conscious brothers and sisters. Atime when Black fists stood tall in the air at the 1968 Olympic Games! It was also a period when Edwin G. Cooley High loomed larger than life and seemed to stretch for six city blocks, directly in front ofthe Oscar Mayer plant on Sedgwick Avenue.

I came into existence when the foundation was being laid for politiciansin the Windy City to fall into a succession of broken promises in thearea of creating job opportunities. Nevertheless, I arrived in this world as a bundle of joy and another mouth to feed for Rosetta, asubstitute teacher and Maurice Ambrose a factory worker. It is not withblind ambition that I recount these memories of a faltering housing project which has played an integral part of my past and hundreds of thousands of others. I have met more than a few people who want toforget they ever lived in Cabrini and wash it away like an ugly stain.But if we do not embrace and understand our past, how can we expect to decipher our futures? To me, Cabrini was a place where black faces ruled, where seeds were planted and then raised by strong black hands.During my time in Cabrini I never really considered it to be a ghetto.A ghetto isn't made by men, it's constructed by minds - idle minds. Andmy life in Cabrini Green by any stretch of the imagination wasdefinitely not an idle one. Cabrini set the tone for my life experiences because I spent my formative years growing up there. Inthese pages you will find a child, a student, a woman, a mother, awife, a friend, a co-worker, a writer a poet but more than anything youwill find a human being dealing with the cards she was dealt. Welcome to my world...

Excerpt printed in Chicago Defender, 1994

Second print Philadelphia Tribune 1995

I KNOW WHO AM

When I tell you about my life and the place where I was born in this city,

Which is Cabrini Green, I'm not asking for your praise nor your pity,

I KNOW WHO I AM.

 When I tell you that a pen and paper got me through some tumultuous times

in my life,

I am not expecting a gasp or a raised eyebrow,

I am not lookng for a standing ovation nor a bow,

I KNOW WHO I AM.

 When some people smugly state that they have the right to live,

I state boldly that I live to write.

I am not asking for a look of astonishment,

Your approval is not my plight.

I KNOW WHO I AM..

 When I lose my way sometimes and make bad choices,

No longer do I beat up on myself and give into the voices --that say:

Oh, her reaction is indicative of her upbringing...blazay, skippy, que sera sera...

I KNOW WHO I AM..

Do you know who you are?

 Published in the Austin Voice April 2010

http://www.publishamerica.com /Raised In Da Sun