Debra Taylor and Eric Taylor

Recorded April 12, 2011 Archived April 12, 2011 01:17:04
0:00 / 0:00
Id: ATD000339

Description

Debra Taylor (59) tell her son Eric Taylor (28)

Subject Log / Time Code

She went to Bauder Fashion College in Atlanta in 1978
She stated writing at age 12
her father was from Algiers, New Orlean and her mom was from uptown
English was her best subject. She turned down a scholarship to Xavier university because she was sick of Catholic school
She started Tulane the same year Eric started college
She came to Charis and met Elizabeth Anderson and as participated in “Writing with Intent” for three years
She wrote a book originally entitled “Queering of a Black Man,” now entitled “George”
Her mother remembers walking home during the Storm on 1927
Her father was a Pullman Porter and her mom was a housewife

Participants

  • Debra Taylor
  • Eric Taylor

Venue / Recording Kit

Partnership Type

Outreach

Initiatives


Transcript

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00:03 My name is Eric Taylor. I am 28 today is April 12th 2011 in Atlanta, and I'm interviewing my mom Debra Taylor.

00:17 My name is Debra Taylor on 59. It's April 12th. 2011. I'm a Charis books in Atlanta. And I'm being interviewed by my son Eric Michael Taylor.

00:30 Okay going to ask you some questions. Obviously. I got a question for you.

00:38 We ended up in Atlanta after Katrina.

00:42 I'm curious about your thoughts on that. Like how do you see us ending up here like

00:50 Well, this was Atlanta was my second home. It wasn't my first choice morning that we decided to leave. We were just going to take a trip up the highway but 14 hours later. We found ourselves on 20 and so we came to Ellenwood where your dad and your sister were and

01:10 I hadn't.

01:12 With Tom being destroyed beat we stayed here but for me, it was a little like coming home because I lived here for eight years before I moved here in 1978 to go to college. I attended bauder fashion College not to be confused with bar College. It was located on Lenox Road across from Lenox Square and at that time in 1978. I lived on Lenox Road paid $150 a month for my apartment and I used to either ride my bicycle down the hills not up the hills. I block it out for a walk along Lenox Road. They were huge mansions between Buford Highway and Peachtree Street at that time and it was it was just it was wonderful being in that part of Atlanta that time.

01:56 Okay, have your hobbies and and

02:00 Past Times changed since you come in well water at that time was a fashion college and my interest at that time was fashion. I was very much into it. I even modeled at Davidson's I was a full figure model and I

02:19 II

02:23 With your hobbies. I mean, that's what you did then. Now they are you still in the fashion. Now one of those things after about eight years. I got a little bored with it. And so I'm I moved on the interest that I've had long as I think would be writing. I started writing when I was 12. I was the sixth child 27 years separated my sister from me. And so I felt a little bit lonely down at the bottom. I had 10 nephews when I was born my two older sisters both had children and I used to fantasize about how my life should be as a teenager. And so I would start writing stories about the other perfect life as a teen with social obligations and parties and that sort of thing but

03:16 I would I would never finish anything. I would just start them. I was wrong with it as you can tell him along with it now. So writing stories with just ramble on and on and then eventually I would stop writing them two brothers close to you in age. Don't you I do I do there was a my my oldest was born in 1922 Mercede. My sister Eugenie was born in 1923 and my brother Lloyd was born in 1924 and then 19 years later my brother Eugene Jr. Was born in 1943 and my brother Jimmy was born in 46 and then I was born in 1951. Okay. Okay. So how was growing up in New Orleans for you?

03:59 I am I love New Orleans. My my parents were from New Orleans to different New Orleans. My my dad was born in 1901 and algeria's which is the Westbank of New Orleans of Haitian descent. My mother was born in 1908.

04:15 Uptown New Orleans and she was definitely mixed her cousins lived in the 7th Ward, but due to some circumstance earlier with my grandfather. My mother didn't my mother's whole family the names changed. My grandfather was born in New London Connecticut in 1875. And we think that he'd gotten up while he was born in New London. We think that his parents got up there on the Underground Railroad from New Orleans. And so he came back to New Orleans by way of things a roustabout. He's aroused about with circuses and he travel that way but his name was Stanton and in those days it seemed that Stanton was known as to be a black man's name in my grandfather didn't look black until you run into some trouble on the road and he was befriended by a Scotsman whose last name was Newton and the Scotsman recommended that he use his name to

05:15 Novel and nobody would know one way or the other What ethnicity he was so when he returned to New Orleans he kept the name Newton and so my mother and her siblings were all Newton's and all of her cousins remain standings in the standings all live in the seventh floor. You mentioned writing earlier as a child what really made you do it with just the idea of

05:39 Coming up with an imaginary life that was good for you and made you really want to write I lack of lack of any writing was always easy for me. The English was my easiest subject. Although I didn't like English at all. And I always have straight A's in English in high school. I was given a scholarship to the university in English, which I turned down. I never told anybody you don't like my folks. But but I did not accept the scholarship. I don't have Catholic schools for 12 years and wanted uniforms. I didn't want to do another uniform. I didn't want to go to a Catholic University. I was more interested in fashion at that time. Although I didn't immediately go to Fashion College. I waited almost 10 years before I went to border. Okay, but no writing is your writing is my passion when I wake up in the morning. The first thing I want to do is right and I would like to continue riding most of the day, but I have a 9 to 5 that I have to go to.

06:37 And I have to Katrina when I came to Atlanta.

06:43 I was looking for someone to read a completed manuscript that I finished back in 2000. I wrote a book and 2000. It's entitled Loz. It's a novel of Native America. It's about an imaginary tribe in South Dakota who are actually the first people and were charged with.

07:03 Rejuvenating the earth once it gets to a point where man is pretty much destroyed it and I sent it on to a few Publishers in 2000 and 2001. Then you you were graduating from high school at that time and I didn't want you to do like your sister and not go to college. So I said, hey, let's go to college together. So we started Tulane at the same time and then I finished August 15th 2005 two weeks before Katrina. I got my Bachelor of Arts and Media Arts with a minor in Louisiana history and I forgotten what your question is is about writing about writing. Okay go the book. Okay. So I so then after Katrina when I got to Atlanta I took out the manuscript again and I made a few changes. I reread that I still loved my story and I was looking for someone to read it for me. And the person that I asked was very busy, but recommended that I come over to Kara's so I came over to Charis. I met Elizabeth Anderson.

08:03 Is the facilitator for writing with intent here in Charis and she invited me to come to the writing and with intent group meetings, which I did for three consecutive years. I learned a lot. I have learned a lot. I continue to learn I'm always amazed at the amount of knowledge Elizabeth has in her young life and I'm always amazed that no matter what question someone in the group ask she has the right answer for and she will refer you to a book by giving you the title and the author I could read a book right now and not know what the title is definitely not know the author it's really impressed with her. But since I've been coming to writing with intent I have learned well as my writing has greatly improved and I've learned that just to write novels. I have learned to write short stories. I discovered that all that rambling that I do. I've learned how not to do it Saturday this past Saturday as a matter of fact when I woke up I was working on an

09:03 Happiest hour in the back of my mind. I had this idea for a short story and I stopped and I wrote the short story. I also learned how to write pantoum since I've been here. I've completed a screenplay and in 2009 while I was trying to write an article for the cameras review. I came up with this idea to write a short piece on the the clearing of a black man. And by the time I finished riding my peace, it was twice as long as it should be for the Time magazine article and I was told you can't use that so I brought it to riding with intent and it was critiqued and people say do keep on riding keep on writing and so I kept on writing and by July of last year. I had another completed novel.

09:49 And

09:52 And that one off to I actually did have a modified us until several places and I sent it off to you and I'll press back in October and then I inquired again 3 months later and I haven't heard anything. I don't know if that's a good sign or bad sign of a black man is not the title you stuck with no because it was pointed out to me during the writing group that that might suit a particular audience instead of soothing more people and I wanted to store to get out to more people. So I change name to George because my two main characters is a young black couple of 1926 1927, New Orleans.

10:32 And the man is a Pullman Porter and during those days Pullman Porters were all called George you they just called all the pain and Pullman Porters George. And and so I retitle the book George but I'm thinking that I may go back to the original title. I do too. I do too inspired you to write what makes you come up with a story well,

11:04 My mother was born in 1908 and my dad was born in 1901, but my mother was the historian for his family as well as her family and everybody else's family. My mother had a phenomenal memory. She was very detailed in her accounts. But the minute she started talking you forgot about everything else and you just listen to her and you put yourself wherever she was when she told her story. She wove tell that just captured your attention and made you feel as if you were part of it and onion her 99 years. She had a lot of tales to tell and I mean see that she wasn't making up anything. She was always reiterating family history is just said she made him he was very consistent and she always made the family. She made everybody interesting is like she only saw the the interesting side of everybody and when she told to tell no matter what it was how dreary you might think.

12:04 Subject was going to be when she told to tell you relive that day. She in her details. She always remembered weather this, you know, the Sun was shining what it was raining. If it was foggy. She used to tell us stories. We used to tease her she would always tell us about the great storm of 1927. She was coming from work that day. She'd gotten paid and she worked on baronne Street in the 200 block in a mother. She had to tell you every detail and so she stopped in the arcade and bought Lloyd my brother that was born in 1924. She bought him a little outfit but my mother loved movies and she never went through a pay. But I'll get him going to a movie. So she went to the show that night. She saw her double feature the world news and probably stayed to watch the features again, and it was raining when she went in but that didn't stop her it was storming when she came out in the water was up to her ankles, so she just started walking home.

13:02 And she walked to melpomene Street and dryads from downtown in the 200 block of a room. So that's maybe a mile and and then by that time of what I had gotten up to her thighs and she had to go out and up a mystery tour Claiborne Avenue will at that time play burn Avenue was Clayborn clavering Claiborne Avenue canal and across the canal was the Standard Oil company and she had to cross the bridge there. But by the time she got to Jackson Avenue and Magnolia the water was waist-high. And so she stopped at at a store there Campos Campos was cam Postino's it's probably still there, but it was way it was by their back in the twenties. And so she stopped She stepped up the two steps which gave her a little bit more height and she just stood there on that corner and she figured eventually the waters got to go down what she said later on that night. This man came up and asked me how he tipped his hat.

14:02 Evening Madam because you know people are so polite like then and he asked if he could stand there with her and she says well, yeah you can stand here because I'm about to continue and go home and he's able if you have to cross the canal don't because the bridge is out and so she spent the night there with this guy in the water came up chess level while they were up the two steps and we used to tease her about spending the night with a strange man.

14:25 But in all those years, you know, she just figured it was just another storm and it wasn't until either the 90s. I think it was a 90s when someone wrote a book about it and I read just how the whole country suffers from this so I bought all the books so that she can see what it happened on that night that to her was just a night of you know, buying something for Lord in the movie and then standing standing on on the steps of the Campos. She was there and didn't even realize the magnitude of the right and she didn't okay, but my mother had well, you know, she had she had a lot of stories and the older she got

15:02 Well that she got by the time she was in her eighties. She was the only sibling left her mother. My grandmother had 12 children and every other child died either died at Birth was stillborn. And so my mother was number four number for The Living children. So she would have been like number eight or nine of of of the 12th and she used to tell Tales her she was she was like I was her two older sisters or a lot older than she was just like my two little sisters were way older than I was and so my mother was born in 1908 and her first niece was born in 1909.

15:38 But my mother had such such good stories and she has such a good life. My mother enjoyed every day of her life. She just lived it to the fullest and I always wanted to capture my mother's life story, but I don't want to do a biography. What I would like to do is I would like to do stories about all the people that she encountered and from her perspective and then eventually after I've got these other books written that I would like to write one about Ethel okay today, but clearing of a black man is partially those kind of stories right as a matter of fact, it would be the first in the series. It's it takes place in 19 2627, but there would still be stories that go that would be older than that. I have one that I started a few years quite a few years ago, and it tells the story of my dad's people and it takes place in 1834.

16:38 Which is the first actual recorded story about my dad's family his Greg his grandmother was a property owner in Algiers at 1834. So his people were free. They were not slaves. Where is my mother's mother? My mother is my mother's mother Emma. That's my grandmother. Her mother was 12 at the time. The slaves were freed in 1865 and she lived on the Palo Alto Plantation in Donaldsonville, Louisiana.

17:11 My grandmother's name is Emma. My great-grandmother's name was Katherine Rose, but I think that she named my grandmother after the plantation next to the one that she lived in and Donalsonville. It was a Palo Alto Plantation on which my great-grandmother was a slave but the people on the Palo Alto plantations best friend lived on a plantation call Emma Plantation, and I think that's how she got that name. Okay, we mentioned what life was like before Grandma earlier. What was it like for you in New Orleans? I know times have changed from when she was in her twenties and stuff to buy time. You got there life in the fifties. You have to remember was pre civil rights and my my my dad had stayed with my mom for a long time, but he ran away from home in 1959 when I was 7 so that made my mother has single and single

18:11 Interesting Lee enough. I always refer to it as running away from home. What happened was my grandfather. My dad's dad had 19 children.

18:22 And instead of writing a will hero to Taunton and a tontine the property goes to the last surviving family member living on the property or the last surviving child. Will he also procreated for over 50 years? So while I have I have uncles who probably have been dead since 2:30. My uncle Dewey was born in the 30s. And and so when my dad left him like he started realizing that you don't hate the brothers are disappearing and the sisters are married and living other places and he wanted to go back into on the property so that he can inherit it when my dad died in 1985 and he still got three living Brothers. No. No that didn't work out looking for you in the 50. Okay for me and I was born and I was right. I was born in 51 and even when my dad was there. My dad was a Pullman Porter, but the story

19:22 About George was not I-20 written about my dad. But if the reference is to pull in Port has a lot of them came from from stories that I was told.

19:32 So in the in the 50s when my mother was a housewife and

19:38 She was there Monday through Friday. My brothers went to school. Eventually I went to school but on Saturdays we did our house cleaning first thing in the morning you clean the sweat house from front to back mop the house dusted everything and then we were free and a mother would say do you want to go somewhere and we always said yes and we'd ask where and she would never say. Yes, but say where but that sounds familiar have no idea what you're talkin about. My mother would we go down the steps and and we found out later on like why did you plan on that stuff? She goes or I do it on the steps in whatever Direction my feet with pointy. That's the direction we would go and and so a lot of times especially after my dad left there was a lack of money and so we would walk place in Saturday's was the date of to go walk and we can walk to the river in New Orleans.

20:30 New Orleans such a great City you can walk to the river and on Saturday. Is there a longshoreman going to be working there the factories we were open the warehouse would be open we might walk that way occasionally people would see my mother and her three kids walking along and they sell we're making something in here you want to see how it's made and we go in and they chill with the Machinery. They show us how to make candidate show us how to do whatever they were doing in there. Sometimes we will walk in the French Quarter. Sometimes we walk Uptown. Sometimes we walk downtown to visit her relatives. Sometimes we would just walk and then my my grandmother

21:06 Was was still alive in the early fifties and my uncle Arthur and Aunt Dorothy had bought a house and Harvey so we would go over the river and through the woods to Grandma's house because at that time 1222 pellet Street where they lived was a third house from the river. So, you know now the 1200 block that's 12 blocks on the river and it was mostly wooded area. So we would walk there then there was there with the Sundays when we get out of church a lot of time as my mother would just we get on the bus. It depends on which church we went to but depending which bus we got on and since he did this so often and for so many years I think most of the bus drivers and street car drivers knew her and once you get on the bus and pay the $0.07 for each of us, they would move the time on the transfer and they would give her it could be 9 or 10 in the morning and they would give her till 9 or 10 or midnight to ride the buses and we might ride we might get on the bus play we say we

22:06 Church downtown at the Cathedral are we went to the Immaculate Conception Church that we might get on the st. Claude bus and ride down to the sugar refinery and then we would transfer to another bus baby the Louisa and we go out to where Pontchartrain Park was new in those days. It was built in 1955. And then from over there we might catch a broad bus and we might come back Uptown or we might go out to miss you when NASA was or if you rode back Uptown we could transfer to Louisiana bus we might we might get off by my Godmother's house and go have dinner with them or go visit with them or something. And then from there we could walk back down the street to get on a ride bus and bring us two or three blocks from home until 4:28 since we had an Excursion and a great day and my mother was very good at this sort of thing all the time plus New Orleans being a port city. A lot of times the Navy would bring him battleships destroyers and one time a submarine even aircraft carriers back in those days the aircraft carriers could fit

23:05 Yes, yes and they would they would put them at the Canal Street Wharf in openings for people to go see so I have been on a battleship. I've been on a destroyer went on a submarine once because because my mother was like my mother was one of those, you know, she was old fashioned, you know, man to do stuff boys could do stuff for girls couldn't put one time she wore down and she did let me go down into the submarine. She didn't go but I see my muscles when we went to the aircraft carrier and then we also had the army base there and a lot of times they would bring tanks and equipment to the Municipal Auditorium and have things opened my brother. Just got to go down in a tank. I couldn't go down in her tank cuz I'm a girl are there was tanks are for boys and the New Orleans was just such a great City and it was always a place where there was some activities some event some sort of a celebration because we like to party so Thanksgiving, you know, it's a family day and then we would go over the river and through the woods and my uncles and their

24:05 Kids with would show up and after Thanksgiving there was the the Christmas parade Santa Claus will come to town my mother never miss the parade regardless of what it was Santa Claus came to town. We want to see him even after Santa came to town than Maison Blanche decorated the store with mr. Bingle and Daytona's were decorated store in the big clock. And then of course during Christmas in those days people will buy their Christmas trees closer to Christmas Day because the trees was there for the whole 12 Days of Christmas which ended on Epiphany January 6th, which was also Twelfth Night the beginning of the Carnival season the once the Carnival season start at the number balls to go to my dad used to pick up my mother and take her balls, even though you know, he was living in in the big house across the river and

24:49 He was still pick her up and take her two balls and my godmother would go to balls and their balls and we could go out at any time and just see people on the street and evening gowns or if if it will restore that stayed over there in the sixties when the stores that stay open later. You can see people shopping because a lot of times and social and pleasure club would have these Carnival balls and people would bring food and you came at the last minute going into a Swagman or Winn-Dixie one of these stores picking a booze because it's New Orleans and you can buy alcohol anytime of the day or night in a 7-Eleven. So then of course the parades with start and also back in those days the parades didn't just run out St. Charles Avenue, the floats were a lot smaller and every parade went through the French quarter and ended up at the Municipal Auditorium the parade parade started Uptown it for rent on freret Street about where to buy University is Carrollton sorted Uptown in Carrollton Mid-City started out at the river on Oak Street.

25:48 And then there was some Paraiso did store downtown But whichever way they started they always wolves their way through the French quarter and ended up at the Municipal Auditorium not like now with the big parades like Bacchus and Endymion in the float too big. Sometimes I get stuck at Lee Circle either and I was being built when I was in high school my my grandfather. My mother's father actually used to work on Girard Street where the Superdome is now he worked in a Bag Factory only really been made bags like cloth bags. Yes, because when my mother was a kid, there were no paper bags and it was all sex people would have sex and it wasn't it wasn't like for anybody to go to the store with the fact. These were big sacks the kind of June have rice milk VR produce or whatever it is is he worked in a sack Factory but all of those factories all those train tracks, everything was replaced in the Superdome was still

26:48 Late 60s do a lot of this pair of parallels when I was a kid like we used to walk around a lot. I guess I took it for granted the parties and stuff going to family houses. I hated it, but I'll have to talk to my cousin, but I never see have to talk to Uncle that. I don't know.

27:08 But you kind of treasured it then and I don't know. I don't know why I take it for granted cuz I guess cuz we did it so young and so often and kind of wore me down and like parades. I don't do friends and I understand exactly how you feel. Because being the youngest one growing up and being a girl which means I couldn't do with the boys did even though the families would meet at these places. They really weren't things that I charged. It was great to go there because I knew it was going to get cake. It was always going to be cake and the food even wasn't all that great. The potato salad was pretty good, but there was going to be cake but if we want to cross the river to my Aunt Dorothy's house, my brothers would get to go out and climb the trees and they would go down by the Harvey Canal and they can watch the boats and I had to sit in the living room or sit on the front porch and talked to my uncle order which was fine.

27:58 Now I would love to talk to my uncle or I thought he was older he was blind and he only had one leg because of an accident as a longshoreman. He was hurt on a Saturday.

28:10 And Doctor guys more who was a doctor for the black ones. She wasn't back in those days and now has a city named after him. He they called him to come because my uncle was hurt really bad in his leg was bleeding and desperately and he said, oh just it's a colored man will just bring him to the hospital and so because he was a colored man. He just went to the hospital. He obviously lost too much blood and eventually lost his sight from it and so he was permanently retired and then not only just retired he was he was also living out in the woods pretty much because at that time hobby was not built up like it is now he lost his leg and his eyes in the same day as kids that tell you about the tiniest kidnapped. Yes. He was when we have migrated.

29:10 Grandfather on my mother's side was Chinese and my Uncle George is seems he just looked totally Chinese and he was very light skinned. So my Aunt Vicky my mother's second oldest sister was going to the General Store and she had my Uncle George in the pram and she was supposed to be looking after him. She didn't want to look after him. She didn't want to go to the store. She was a teenager. She wanted to follow musicians and do her big sister was doing and she was looking forward to Friday nights and Saturday nights and partying. But anyway, so she went to the General Store. She left my Uncle George outside in the pram because she don't want to listen to Prime up a step into the store and it was right next to the Chinese Laundry. The Chinese man came out of the laundry. So the baby in the pram and picked him up and took him inside. I guess he was wondering why his wife had left the baby outside. So my Aunt Vicky was she was my smallest and she was she's like 4 and 1/2 ft tall if she was that tall and she was she was saying always her entire life and

30:10 He saw this man taking Uncle George and she ran after me. She jumped on his back and she beat him in his head and he just kind of backed her off and took the baby and wanted to the house. So then she had to go let my grandmother know that the Chinaman had stolen her on her brother all of a sudden with her brother. She want to be bothered with them before but now it's my brother and so my grandmother went over and talked to the man and she said some words in Chinese. I guess you'd pick them up from her mother because the Chinese population in Donalsonville near the plantation or worked on the plantation at that time. So she said some words in Chinese and talk to the man and got him to release my Uncle George.

30:51 Okay, I think they would have noticed anyway, when they had an extra child later, right? Well the joke was that he had so many children. He didn't notice that he had an extra one to tell the story. But anyway, my Uncle George had a had a daughter and her daughter had three daughters at the time, but they drank beer he always let my mind cousins drink beer and my mother didn't want me to drink beer and she knew that if I were with them then they would definitely let me drink beer. So again, I was isolated.

31:23 As far as being with, you know cousin, but it did it got old. I understand what you mean. You got older I didn't want to do that and I was looking forward to the days when I would not have to go to these family gatherings. But then as I got older I left the city. I was born 11 years when I came back. I didn't want you guys to miss the family gatherings. And so I I would take you there my kind of treasure Romero giant family reunions at cousin Katherine's house and make it right and so big it made the newspaper had my files and family members. I knew maybe tent

31:57 It's at all day with a block up the street. It was a pretty good and the interesting thing about that. My mother would have my mother would have known all of them. She might not have known The Offspring, you know to generate two generations removed, but it was interesting. What was really interesting about it. Was that Katherine sister Marie did I saw her and she did not know that we were cousins, but she thought I was related to the secretary and I said only if she's a day was from Algiers and she goes well imma Davis from Algiers and I said, we're probably related I said, my dad was Eugenie lived on Sox playing skills with my dad was my dad was already lived on Fox Lane assist so he was but he didn't have a brother named Eugene and I said my dad had a brother named Albert and at that time I was doing a family history. And so I brought her to my office. We were both working at Tulane University and I showed her what I done on the family history. She knew some of the other people but she's always been told her dad was one of three and I said, no my dad's one of 18 cuz that that time we didn't know there was a 19th 1

32:57 And so she pursued that she talked to our see my cousin and she talked to she talked to someone else. I don't remember who it was to find the family histories. Then she researched too much detergent to find baptismal records. She went to go to find death certificates and she found the 1970s and then she and Marie and Catherine put this together. They were all baptized in All Saints Church. They went to school together let mr. Williams everybody say hey, mr. Williams. Why are you here? Mr. Williams had taught three generations of his cousins and did not know any of them are related to him until that day because in in the Davis side of the family if you upset someone then they said don't talk to that child and you couldn't talk to them when you grow up not talkin to him until these people never knew they were related to each other all these people in the thing about it my mother and I never could understand if 1341 Fox Lane was the Davis address. That was a property that my grant my great-grandmother had been given

33:57 What is an eminent domain when they took her property from the river? She's been giving his property on South Wayne. So if you were a Davis and you lived on socks when coming since we say will you related but somewhere along the line they miss that when I was growing up. Maybe it might be because of your history in New Orleans. I couldn't get away with anything because everyone I know your mother. I know your mother and anytime mother what I see you on the bus and the bus driver didn't say anything and I get to your work and you were like all I heard from the bus driver that you did this how I just got off the bus was as possible. But yes, you know a lot real quick. Talk about your writing earlier.

34:43 Do you have anything published?

34:45 Well, I'd like to have a novel published but at the moment the only things I have published I have I wrote three articles for the Louisiana weekly, which is you know, the black newspaper New Orleans been around for 91 years since 1925 and I wrote two articles in the summer of 2005 one was the headline for the Essence Festival in July, but I wrote it in June and then July I wrote another article and it was telling how 14.1 million dollars could prevent a Katrina. It was 14.1 million times what it would take to refill the wetlands and keep New Orleans at a greater distance from the Gulf and I went to a meeting in Baton Rouge and they said old, you know 14 million dollars is too much can't be done then look at the billions would have been spent since 4 and then in December of 2010. I also would an article because I'm still missing a cousin Althea Joseph white. I wrote an article.

35:45 We need someone to read it and be able to tell me where she is also was published in the cameras review in August of 2008. But I'm looking forward to being published having some my novels published and some short stories may be published. Okay. I know that you interned at the Louisiana weekly. Do you see yourself writing any more louisiana-based?

36:10 Writing that all well, I would I really would I really would like to write books in a series with George being the first one telling chronicling my mother's life stories or make his why not like a family tree as well since we have thousands of family when it was literally just on your side.

36:31 What about having a family tree type book written or Ledger with everybody know it would take up a lot of pages could be done right. But but I'm still more interested. I am interested in writing my mother's story in fictionalizing some of the stories that she's told you prefer novel writing write I prefer and definitely before writing novels. Definitely, okay.

36:58 Is there anything else you want to add? Well, I think it's important for people to remember that.

37:06 But history we're losing a lot of our history and especially black history that our history is not written in the white newspapers and so support black newspapers.

37:18 If you need to find something, especially genealogical e looking in a black newspaper, like going to be Ziana weekly. I know there's another black newspaper that's even older that's been continuously published. But in those days it wasn't a lot of news but it was parties. It was arrivals by boat or arrivals by playing it was Cub Scouts in his meetings. These newspapers have names that they have facts that are things that are documented as part of our history and you're not going to find black history and white newspapers last week. I heard one of the anchors on TV. She said that she was surprised that blacks were not included in statistics that happened sixty or seventy years ago and I would have been embarrassed to say that I would have been embarrassed to say that because our histories are not written in those papers unless it was a murder and hopefully none of us have relatives who were involved in that sort of thing. It is important to keep

38:15 And in mind all the histories and everything. Well, I'd like to thank you very much for doing this interview with me and Eric. I want to thank you for being the world's greatest fun and for helping me to do this interview. You're welcome. You're very very welcome.