Thanksgiving night, Dinner and Subway ride home thoughts

(New York, NY) My sister, who was visiting from Maryland, and my nephew, who lives in New York City, had invited me to accompany them to see the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Hall, on the eve of Thanksgiving and after to his house in Rockaway Park, Queens, to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

Though hastily contrived, sometime betwixt the hours of late Thanksgiving eve’s mad and panicked dash to the supermarket, and early the next morning, my sister-in-law, my brother, my younger nephew and his most recent girlfriend, my sister and my older nephew came together to cook for a Thanksgiving dinner far exceeded any of our expectations. From the turkey, which was baked to a golden brown color, stuffing that was so rich my sister complained it was had a trifle too much salt and was too peppery, to the collard greens with ham hocks, candied yams, carrot and ginger soup, good ole Uncle Ben’s wild rice and my nephew’s indomitable mashed Idaho potatoes, the boiled corn, the warm spiced clove and cinnamon stick apple cider, and the apple pie with sugarless, but Splenda sweetened ice cream, all washed down with glasses of red or white, heavy in sulphites, Napa Valley wines, lots of conversation and a television stuck on CNN International where there were constant flashes and reminders of the carnage in Mumbai, a world away, all juxtaposed against a backdrop of reggae music, pulsating through speakers at my older nephew’s house.

At the end of this gastronomic gourmandizing, more food than any of us had had occasion to be near in the most recent past, we departed for our respective houses: my brother, sister-in-law, younger nephew and most recent girlfriend to their apartment, my sister staying with my older nephew to head to her house the next morning, my older nephew remaining in his house and retiring to bed, to sleep off the turkey, and I to my apartment.

I was dropped off at the subway station and after a short, but seemingly interminable wait on the platform, which was surprisingly populated, I boarded a local train to make a connection to an express train at the juncture of Utica and Fulton Streets in Brooklyn. When the A train arrived, Manhattan bound, odd assortments of people embarked and disembarked as the train made its express stops through neighborhoods, yet any given time, there were no more than 16 people sharing the car I occupied.

While sitting on one of the side facing seats, two young men came into the train, one at one of the lower stops in Brooklyn, just before heading through the tunnel under the East River to Manhattan, and the other at another station, also in the riverain bordering stations. Trying to read the latest issue of the New Yorker, I glanced up took notice of them both. One sat opposite me and the other, in one of the forward facing seats across from me. As the train barreled along its tracks the young man sitting facing me reached across to ask a question of the one in the forward facing seat. Not understanding what he was saying, the forward facing passenger looked in my direction and seeing that I was interrupted from my reading by this sudden and unusual activity: speaking to a stranger on the subway, he asked me in Spanish if I understood and spoke the language and to translate what the other young man was saying. Turning to him, I asked him of his problem and he explained that he had just been evicted from the apartment where he was staying and was asking the other young man if he could spare him a dollar to help him get to someplace. Translating the request, the Spanish-only speaking young man replied that he was “broke” and didn’t have money, the begging young man looking crestfallen and disappointed, leaned his head against the glass panel separating him from the doorway and closed his eyes.

Immediately, the thought occurred to me: I’ve written recently about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) homeless youth, and shelters like the Ali Forney Center and the planned True Colors Residence to provide permanent housing, but what to tell a homeless LGBT young person if one encounters one who is in need of shelter. Conscious of the falling temperature outside, the coldness in the air, the realization that this was Thanksgiving night, I was stumped. I racked my mind for what and where to tell this young man of a place he could go that would at least provide him with shelter, perhaps a warm place, if only for the night.

The Spanish-only speaking young man asked me where he could get a connection to the Bronx, and as I told him where he could get trains, the D or No. 4, the other young man expressed that he too was heading to the Bronx. He said that he had just moved from Philadelphia to the city to take a job which didn’t work out, his girlfriend had just thrown him out of the apartment, and he was heading to the Bronx, to a family member, with whom he hoped he could stay, at least, for the night.

My mind racing while he told his tale, I could only come up with a suggestion that if his family were unable to accommodate him, he could try calling the city’s help line, 311, and to ask about temporary shelter. The question, however, haunted me: where and what does someone who is either lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender do or go if they suddenly found themselves without a place to live?

At Broadway/Nassau Street station, both young men disembarked the train and headed for the No. 4 train. Yet, throughout these dramas, I still was able to read my magazine, until the train arrived at my station stop much further uptown.

When I arrived home, I immediately called my older nephew and my brother, answered by my sister-in-law, to tell them I had arrived safely home. Briefly, with each, we marveled at how we were able to put together a full three-course Thanksgiving meal in a less then 24 hours, reminisced and acknowledged the feeling of family we experienced and shared, how special and reinforcing it was to all of us. As a true journalist, I found the hint of a story and plan on following it, not only to see where it leads, but to provide information for the wider community.

Jonestown 30years later – what about Guyanese people?

Last evening, at 9pm EST, CNN showed a documentary that was hosted and presented by Soledad O’Brien, who did Black in America, on the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre. Many of us would recall the effect and impact of this event on the Guyanese national consciousness.
Prior to Jonestown, Guyana’s impact on the world’s stage was restricted to vague references such as the Dryfus Affair, the 1963-64 race riots, and a few notable personages, such as Sir Shridat Ramphal, who was Secretary General of the Commonwealth and one of Guyana’s best scholars and representatives, and the semi-autobiographical novel of E.R. Braithwaite’s To Sir With Love.
Guyana, as we who lived through the Prime Minister-ship, Presidential turned dictatorship of L. Forbes S. Burnham era know only too well, was a country by northern hemispherical classification standards a third world underdeveloped country, that was provincial and rural, but to its Caribbean counterparts, because of the fertile land, was considered the bread basket, rated one of the highest in literacy and a steady ship of state. It was anything but bucolic. Rather Guyana was a country caught up and living in a post-colonial ideological confusion: couldn’t quite decide how to define its republic self whether as socialist or just simply anti-American and by extension to the British, anti-imperialist.
We who have lived through the evolutions of Guyana’s history, despite our present allegiances, are still proud of our heritage – our parents, close friends, the unique amalgams of African, Indian, and Amerindian foods – holding fast to gastronomic maxims such as a person who ate labba and drank creek water was bound to return, our particular lilting sing-song Creolese speech, our conversations that sound like full-scale disagreements as each of us tries to out speak the other, to make our point, and our intelligence, general knowledge and education, which placed many of us at odds against those with whom we work or attend schools; made us undeniably and identifiably Guyanese. It is a history and heritage we share to the extent that we still shudder at the memory of the 1963-64 race riots, telling ourselves that we would not ever and warning our children, against a repeat; where we cringe at the shame the recent allegations of two of our fellow Guyanese accused of plotting to blow up the John F Kennedy Airport in New York; and we shake our heads in horror at “Fineman’s” rampage through the country. We who live afar but still retain contact with our family, friends, or business associates in Guyana shake our heads uncomprehendingly at the economic state of affairs, asking ourselves: how could this be, why are prices so high, how are people making it and surviving, isn’t there a government committed to serving the people instead of their own interests, how is it that there is such a bloom and narcotic pervasiveness, which has seemed to become and support a sub-economy? These are some of the questions we ask each other and ourselves.
But have we asked what was behind the deal that Burnham made with the “Reverend” Jim Jones to lease 3,800 acres of virgin land, a turn off from the railroad that plied between Port Kaituma and Arakaka in the Kaituma region, for a commune. As rumors go, which undeniably contains a modicum of truth, Burnham received coveted U.S. dollars for allowing Jim Jones into Guyana. What really was the arrangement that not only gave Jones land in the Northwest region, but a house and land in Prashad Nagar, at the time an affluent section of northeastern Campbelville? Was there an enquiry into why did Guyana have the shame and stain of 918 deaths on its national pride? How was Guyana perceived then and how is it seen now? Guyana’s attraction to Jones was, as Burham was reported to have said after the tragedy, “he wanted to use cooperatives as the basis for the establishment of socialism, and maybe his idea of setting up a commune meshed with that,” and that coming to Guyana “would afford black members of the Temple a peaceful place to live.”
Every year, there has been some mention of Jonestown, but this year marks 30 years since the murder-suicide happened. We who live in the U.S. have witnessed the holding on to and dredging up of the memories of the past: Pearl Harbor, Jonestown, and September 11; incidentally, only those which were caused by others, and which rekindle memories and make healing and forgetting that much harder. How do we as Guyanese feel about this re-hashing of an event we would rather forget? Isn’t healing supposed to involve forgetting and allowing the past to remain in the past? While many of us know that Guyanese, in the main, had no active part in this blot on our country’s pride, are we somehow culpable by our passivity?
I could feel the bile rise in me when I listen to O’Brien recount, in a behind the scenes interview of the making of the documentary, the experience of Traci Parks, a survivor of Jonestown, who was 12 years old at the time and who returned to the area for the documentary. Parks, according to O’Brien said that as it was then, so it is now, she is still trying to wash off the oppressive heat, the sweat and the smell of Guyana from her skin. Parks speaks of the darkness and fear she experienced as she fled for her life in the jungle bordering the airstrip. Earlier this week, MSNBC carried a two-hour long presentation of Jim Jones and the Jonestown massacre.
While Guyana has come a long way since the events of Nov 18, 1978 on that turn off from the stretch of railroad between Port Kaituma and Arakaka, questions still linger. Just as in the U.S. there were investigations into what happened and who caused September 11, was there ever an enquiry by Guyanese into all that was Jonestown?

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown

Excerpt from Slavery of Faith by Leslie Wagner-Wilson: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/11/12/jonestown.wilson.excerpt/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People

Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor’s Story of Life and Death in the People’s Temple

Dear People: Remembering Jonestown

Jonestown – The Life & Death of Peoples Temple