my father had memorized many sayings that he liked to 
repeat over and over: 
“if you can’t succeed, suck eggs!” 
“my country, right or wrong!” 
“early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, 
wealthy and wise!” 

my mother just smiled as he mouthed these 
pearls of wisdom. 
me? 
I thought, this man is a fool. 

“any man who wants a job can get one!” was one 
of his favorites during the Depression years. 

almost everything he said was stupid. 

he called my mother “mama.” 
“mama, we gotta move out of this neighborhood!” 
“why, daddy?” 
“because I saw one, mama!” 
“one what, daddy?” 
“a nigger…”  

another one of his favorites was: 
“eenie, meanie, miney, mo, catch a nigger by the 
toe, if he hollers make him pay, 50 dollars every 
day!” 

he never voiced these aphorisms while sitting down 
but always while marching smartly about the 
house. 

“God helps those who help themselves!” 
“you listen to your father, Henry,” my mother would 
tell me. 
that poor woman, she meant it. 

“don’t do as I do,” he’d shout, “but do as I 
say!” 

I ended up doing neither. 
and the day I looked down at him in his 
coffin 
I almost expected him to say something 
but he didn’t so I spoke up for 
him: 
“dead men tell no more tales.” 

thank Christ, I had heard enough. 
then 
they closed the lid and my uncle Jack and 
I went out for hamburgers and fries. 

we sat there with the food in front of us. 
“your father was a good man,” Uncle Jack 
said. 

“Jack,” I replied, “good for what?”