Published: November 04, 2009 12:55 am      

BRADBERRY: Practice what you preach

It was just another one of those conversations, but it was deep. It took us back, way back, all the way back to the beginning where it all started for us, MacKenna Avenue on the city’s southeast side.

We were talking about our city and how much it has changed in our lifetimes and the fact that some of us survived while some of us thrived and how so many people and places seemed to just disappear.

Some moved up, some moved out and just about everybody has moved on, but we just could not help going back to the single most common thread that linked the four of us together as we chatted incessantly about our fond memories, while we lamented the misfortunes that befell or ensnarled so much and so many.

It was our parents, our extended family that bound us together in a community that cared about each other, looked out and watched out for each other. We played, prayed, won and lost together, and through the years, some of us who survived it all, have stuck together no matter how physically far apart we may have drifted.

Thanks to the miracle of technology we were sitting in a virtual living room where, using our imaginations and crisp memories, we could look out from our windows, or sit on our porches; even stroll up and down the streets that bordered our old neighborhood, and best of all we could see the places where, and the people who, as in the proverbial village, raised us, guided, coached, goaded and coaxed in the right direction us often against our will.

We went on and on for hours about places like Caps Grill, the Polish Nook (now re-opened as The Nook on Cudaback) Stopa’s Live Bait Shop, Rajczak’s Grocery store, Stan’s Barbershop, Martin’s Service Station, Ace Party Bazaar, Wrotniak’s Pharmacy, and of course, what we recalled as the scariest place for kids, Zajac’s Funeral Home.

Names of our neighbors kept coming up as if we could still see them, hear them. We even recalled in great detail, specific kickball games, conversations and incidents that are now glued into our common memories forever.

We remembered family the names, the colorful characters: Wooten, Battino, Myles Bulka, Bradley, Colvin, Gulley, Stallworth and Venuto all from Cudaback Avenue.

And from MacKenna Avenue, our street, we took a virtual walk past the once pristine and proud fortresses of families we remembered: Ward, Brinson, Matthews, Bowden, Dashineau, Williamson, Leshner, McRae, Walker, Daniels, Kimble, Betterson just to name a few ... and then we remembered Miss Daisy; Daisy Williams and her loving husband JD. His name was just JD, but oh what a great man was he.

We all stopped and took a mutual deep breath when Miss Daisy’s name came up.

She, like a character right out of one of Tyler Perry’s movies (Diary of a Mad Black Woman; Why Did I Get Marrie?, I Can Do Bad All By Myself ...) is still fresh on our minds.

Ninety-three years old, Miss Daisy is just as quick-witted and feisty as ever, still giving orders, still in command of everyone and everything around her.

We all had stories about Miss Daisy; she lived directly across the street from my family, and sometimes I got the distinct impression that she knew more about what was going on in our house (and everyone else’s) than I and anyone else.

Always the first to offer help and advise, Miss Daisy was and is to this day a treasure to the neighborhood, and to the entire city for that matter because back in the day she knew just about everyone and everything there was to know about anything; what they were or were not doing right or wrong to or for the community.

Like a neighborhood parent, she looked out for everyone, adults as well as children. She knew when Slipko’s had sales on, which doctors to see for whatever ailed anyone, who to call at City Hall and what to say or not to say if you had a problem. And Miss Daisy always got results.

If your transistor or car radio was too loud, if you used profanity within earshot of her, or said anything slightly off color in her presence, Miss Daisy would not hesitate to straighten you out straight up and in a hurry!

I can recall seeing her walking down the street, belt in hand ready to whup the butt of some brat who did not understand the rules on MacKenna Avenue.

There was no shouting, no unnecessary provocation, no craziness, no fighting, no nonsense allowed in her company; break the rules around Miss Daisy, and be ready to face the swift and awful consequences.

We remembered the names, the faces, the places and the things that made up the best of our beloved community and we wondered what went wrong; how did it all change so dramatically, so completely, so seemingly suddenly.

Arriving at no quick solutions, no easy answers, no single person, event or thing to blame, we agreed that the difference between then and now, besides the obvious loss of jobs, the consequential loss of the neighborhoods and the people who once populated them, shopped in the stores, played kickball in the streets, competed in Little League baseball, swung on the swings in the little neighborhood parks, and prayed in the churches; the biggest difference is that too few of us who are still around are willing to do what Miss Daisy and all the parents like her did back in the day.

We concluded that it is easier to say all the right things, to stand for nothing and fall for everything; that too many of us are too willing to remain complacent; unwilling to do what Miss Daisy would never hesitate to do.

She held herself and everyone around her accountable.

She practices what she preaches and she encourages all of us to do the same by doing it herself, a lesson we all agreed needs to be taught again by all of us to each of us.

Contact Bill Bradberry at bill.bradberry@yahoo.com.