Fudge

If you’re looking for a baking recipe, you are at the wrong place. I regret to inform you this message isn’t taken from a cook book, but you are welcome to stay if you would like to read about a recipe on life.

Let me begin by acknowledging something about myself, as a youth close relatives consistently reminded me, “Don’t trust white people!”

This view has been passed on to others throughout black communities and it does dominate the perception of many whom engage into its meaning. As I absorbed the rage relatives felt and developed my own dynamo of fury from the energy of their hate.

During my youth I was taught by white nuns and was instructed on spiritual matters by white priests in parochial schools. But by the time I left their institution and began to attend public high school, I had rejected my former white tutors and their spiritual beliefs, especially the belief in God. I would not submit to a white savior in Jesus Christ. At that point in my life, I openly proclaimed myself an atheist and black militant in the making.

Though I continued to encounter remarkable white teachers, whose mastery of their skills helped to increase my knowledge and perceptions, nonetheless, I kept keenly focused on them as being the enemy, while I listened to what they taught with both ears. I still clung onto what I had been advised by some of my family. I would not trust white people.

My views and attitudes did not change much after I graduated and briefly attended college. I remained a black radical, defiant against the system.

The responsibilities of a dad who fathers his children have ways of turning many boys into men. So I emerged from my youthful cocoon to spread my wings as daddy.

I was hired to work a job as a telephone lineman in order to feed my family. It was a hard and dangerous job, but I was determined to do what I had to do to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I was during those times, one of a few black men who were hired to be linemen.

When I began the job, two white experienced linemen were assigned to teach us what we had to do on our “training crew”.

One was a brutish muscular man who was blunt and seemed to cuss with every sentence he uttered. He was always anxious and easily enraged. He constantly yelled and screamed how stupid you were if you made a mistake. We called him Wild Bill.