Oni Lasana, Thee Storyteller

 12/2015

(Dedicated to Dr. Hugh “Brother Blue” Morgan – the Storyteller, who's energy felt like my daddy's - William Henry Morris, - may they both Rest In Peace till we meet again)

< Brother Blue with his wife Dr. Ruth Hill-Morgan of Cambridge, Mass

One day as I organized stories for a school assembly on index cards, I  compiled many stories and poems I knew by heart. I want to tell them all. I then paused to reflect on something I read years ago. It came to light in my present consciousness. At 62, in my minds eye, I re-visioned childhood memories.

Once I read, (and I paraphrase), “Whatever you have a passion for as a child, under the age of 10, it would, or should be the occupation you pursue as an adult.” Today, remembering the quote brought tears to my eyes. Today and hopefully many more to come, I am switching off my historical fictional character of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “‘Lias’ Mother” and turning on my modern new school persona of “Oni Lasana, The Storyteller.”

In happy tears, I call my big sister Cheryl to ask her if she remembers how old I was when our mother would stand at the screen door to watch me go visit our neighbor’s. I can still see Mother’s face watching me skip off to Mr. & Mrs. Clark’s front porch on Huntingdon St. in North Philly. Cheryl said yes, she remembers. I was about 3 or 4.

“Do you remember how I use to act out for the neighbor’s, pretending I was Shirley Temple?”  “How I would sing all her songs and could recite Nursery Rhymes by heart?” I asked.  “Yes, I do.”  she said. We laughed. She also said it was her job to comb my hair and dress me up, and so I was way cuter than Shirley Temple.

I told my sister about the quote and how I was feeling overwhelmed with joy as I prepare to honor my role as a storyteller. It felt like a sacred moment, I am so overwhelmed with gratitude. To be hired and compensated for something I have loved doing, since I was 4 years old? Why didn’t I think of doing this storytelling thing sooner?

Four houses down from us on our block of row homes, lived, Mr. & Mrs. Clark a African American couple. The Clark's worked on the “main line” for the same wealthy European family. I admired them in their black and white uniforms walking to the Lehigh Avenue bus stop together. Sometimes, Mr. Clark drove a big black car and wore a shiny black Captain Kangaroo hat. I just knew he was a general or a captain of some huge ship that sailed the seven seas.

In reality, he was a dapper chauffeur and Mrs. Clarke an elegant well-dressed maid. Mrs. Clarke had a little dead mink fur around the collar of her winter coat. His eyes glared at me when she lifted me up and kissed me on the cheek. She was very stylish, especially out of uniform.

Next door to them, lived Mr. & Mrs. Smith, a European couple, I had no idea what they did for a living. But whenever Mr. & Mrs Clark wasn’t around, Mrs. Smith would coax me onto her porch with sweets and cookies so I could tell them Mother Goose stories, rhymes and songs front row center.  The warmth I felt from Mr. & Mrs. Clark and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, fulfilled my longing for grand parenting love. Mother’s parents lived far away from Philadelphia, in Louisiana. Daddy’s unknown kinfolk in Cross, South Carolina.

On both couples day off, they would sit on steel iron gliders and rocking chairs with floral cushions on adjacent porches. Separated by a rose designed cast iron railing. I would usually stay on Mrs. Clark’s porch and occasionally sashay up and down the steps from one porch to the other. Dancing and marching in place singing at the top of my lungs,  “The ants go marching one by one Hoorah, Hoorah!”  “Ten little Indian’s sleeping in the bed, and the little one said, roll over, roll over! “Davey, Davey Crockett, king of the wild frontier,” “On the Good Ship Lollipop, what a nice trip to the candy shop."

I’d go on and on…acting out and carrying on…singing every song I knew and telling every story and rhyme I could remember. Mother read to me from our leather bound red Child Craft books. We were also the proud owners of The World Book Encyclopedia and Mother “scrimped and saved” to pay on time for both sets of books.

When I was older, mother use to tell me when I was 3, I would pretend that I could read. My little finger moving across the book. I would sit on our front step, book in hand and retell the story so animated, people in the neighborhood often asked my mom, “Can that little girl really read?”

I remember shaking and dancing inside my play pen that kept me safe while my mom cooked and cleaned the house. She'd dart back and fort changing the record laughing and kissing my fat cheeks. My favorite record was about Kitty Konga. I knew it word for word. A ladies voice with a Hispanic accent musically spoke of a girl who was an outsider cause she walked so strange. She and I danced and sang out together on the daily.  “Nobody love me, nobody like me…cause when I walk, I walk like 1,2,3 kick, 1, 2, 3, kick!” Kitty eventually found acceptance and love when a music band came to town. She was the only one who naturally walked in sync with the music. In the end, everyone in town lined up behind her and copied her style of walking. Everyone sang along with Kitty Konga in a Spanish accent. “Everybody love me, everybody like me..”Cause when I walk, I walk like, 1, 2, 3 kick, 1, 2, 3 kick.”

I loved Kitty Konga’s story of overcoming. Triumph of the underdog. I thought she was a real person. It wasn’t till I was much older that I realized it was a recording that taught the popular “Konga” line dance in the mid 1950’s. I googled “Kitty Konga” a few years ago, but had no success in finding my muse. Guess I’ll have to re-write her story. Maybe other storytellers can rewrite and tell it too.

One day, Mrs. Clark took me inside to her spotless kitchen. Sometimes I’d stay so long chatting up a storm, eating all the goodies and delicious food she serve me on her flower trimmed china. My mother would call her on the phone to send me home. On that day, Mrs. Clark reached up high over the fridge for the envy of my eye, the white ceramic, Aunt Jemima Cookie jar. The brown face on the cookie jar looked stern and scolding, she made me laugh. Her head was a brown knob that lifted up from her folded arms resting under her bust at her waist. Her wide dress had “Cookies” written across the bottom of the pleated stone skirt.

Mrs. Clark had given me cookies from inside her dress for years. I was about 7 or 8, on this very special day. Mrs. Clark took her beloved Aunt Jemima Cookie jar and placed it in my arms. She wrapped both my arms around the cookie jar. She said, “Here sweetheart, this is for you, you take good care of her ok.”

I was finally speechless. I looked inside. It was filled with Mrs. Clark’s homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. I put my cheeks to the warm cookie jar and cried. I carefully put the jar on the table and pulled Mrs. Clark to me, hugging her tightly. I looked up at Mrs. Clark’s loving brown face and saw tears in her eyes. Mr. & Mrs. Clark had no children. I was her little girl.

I clutched the cookie jar to my beating chest, carefully walk/running home. Jumping for joy as I danced in to the living room. I plopped down next to my mother on the sofa, hugging my cookie jar, half sitting in her lap. I was elated. Mother was sitting on her French Provincial plastic covered sofa on the phone.  “Look, mommie, Look! At what Mrs. Clark gave me!”  She was on the phone talking to her mother in a french creole dialect. 

“Shhhhhh, I’m on the phone!” She put her arms around my shoulders and gently covered my mouth in her hand.  She laughed and spoke to her mother in English I clearly recognized. “Yes, it’s my baby, the littlest one, Wild Billy, she’s so crazy and full of stories, just like him.”

William Henry Morris of Cross, South Carolina was my daddy. When I was born he asked my mom “Where’s me?” because I looked so much like my mom. I still look like my mother, on the outside, but on the inside, I look just like him.  I’ve always remembered that day. Especially what my mother said about my intelligent, vivacious, gregarious, charming dad. However, the story telling part never made any real sense to me, until today.

(c) 2015 Just Like Him by Oni Lasana