When I was chalking today’s quote, I was thinking about Don Cornelius.
I don’t know how it happened, but in the early 1970’s, I stumbled upon “SoulTrain” on channel nine.
I heard a lot of the songs already on my transistor radio. The people on the dance floor looked like the same people on one of my favorite cartoons, “Fat Albert.”
At the end of the show the cool man with the deep voice and the Afro used his catch phrase that stuck with me for the rest of my life….
I immediately wanted my dad to take me to the barber shop and get my hair fixed like the man on “SoulTrain.”
My parents' living room had a dance line of its very own every Saturday morning. Albeit, there was only one dancer involved. A husky white kid with sandy hair parted to the side hanging over his blue eyes…
…but as far as that little boy was concerned, he was a soul brother dancing to Sly and the Family Stone.
I can hear that deep lush baritone voice saying, “We are enthusiastic to have with us today a seven year old gentleman from Chicago, Illinois. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Johnny Shepley….”
Black Moses starts playing “Shaft” and I’m in the middle of a Sea of Afros.
…and the world is a beautiful place!
Suddenly I heard the roar of my father’s voice telling me to put the furniture back in its place. I quickly turn off the television and grab my jacket while my dad is telling me the show that I was watching originated in Chicago.
He then told me that Don Cornelius is way better than Dick Clark.
The day finally arrived when I realized my hair couldn’t hold a ‘fro. I noticed the difference between the stiff vanilla people on “American Bandstand” and the funkiness that the chocolate people had on my television show.
That was when America was great. That was my MAGA. I woke up to the security of my parent's love. I had cereal and cartoons. I had a transistor radio, a Schwinn bike, a AlKaline baseball bat and Don Cornelius was playing songs that I could dance to.
Years later, I’m up in the middle of the night watching a lunar eclipse in the Divorced Dad’s District of Riverside, Illinois.
When I go to heaven… I’ll be on an episode of “SoulTrain.”
Because like my dad always told me during that period when I realized the difference in skin color…
“We all end up together in Eternal Love, we all need to learn how to love now before we get up to heaven Moose.”
So, happy Friday… go find Peace, Love and Soul this weekend!
