After leaving the Breakfast Club I drove to Larry’s Restaurant to have coffee with Herb McKenzie. I’ve known Herb for perhaps twenty years and for the past 14 he was one of my Board members at Union Mission and Chairman until he was replaced some nameless guy. Regardless Herb and I remain dear friends and in touch with one another.
I’ve been incognito (unless you happen to be on Tybee where I am the “Rev” and a member of “The Bored” and the Chaplain of the Breakfast Club; or you happen to be most anywhere else in the country where I’m an expert on ending homelessness, establishing health care programs for the uninsured, and a lot of other things) in Savannah for the past six months and rarely go into the city.
The main reason is that I’ve been on Sabbatical and after 31 years of taking care of everybody else, I’m now taking care of me. Herb has a very difficult time with this concept and said as much. “Straight ahead,” he told me for the hundredth time and I told him if he said it again I would hit him.
“We’re from different generations,” he said sighed slumping his shoulders.
I’ve also laid low out of respect for Francis Carter who was my last hire at Union Mission so that she doesn’t have me as a distraction as she establishes herself. I love the place far too much to not respect whatever the next incarnation is going to be.
I see my friend former Mayor Floyd Adams and interrupt his conversation. He is holding court with a table full of white people.
“Hey Stormin’ Norman,” he says. Floyd called me this in front of City Council one time because of my tenacity. We’ve been good friends a long time.
“Where you been,” he asked? “When we going to lunch?”
“Soon,” I replied smiling.”
He is now a member of the School Board when he should be a state legislator. I like Floyd a lot and he was good for my work and was the “City’s Mayor” attending Confederate Memorial Day Services even though he is black. It’s hard not to love Floyd.
Herb doesn’t care for politics save for the Chatham County Commission these days so he asks who Floyd is. “My friend,” I tell him.
Then we talked about Union Mission for a bit, what I’m doing and finally what I plan to do.
Before we got too far, Steph, Jay and their kids stopped by the table. “You look good,” they said.
I smiled and was glad to see them. They had a relative we’d helped. Mentally ill, he had lived a hard life. We got him into Grace House after she came to see me crying one day in my office. He did well and was the most stable he’d ever been in his life. But Union Mission kicked him out for not following all of the rules to the letter (see above reference to nameless Board Chairman). He disappeared leaving a very hopeful family in tears. They thanked me for my efforts. I wiped my eyes (this paragraph is dedicated to Letita).
“You pump up with energy when people come by,” Herb commented.
“It’s all about them Herb,” I replied. “That is what the work is.”
So we finished our conversation. My I-phone kept buzzing because some woman on my Twitter had decided to take picture of her boobs and send them to me. You don’t get that every day on you I-phone so it makes you pause. I must have groupies.
Larry Corey, “the Larry” of Larry’s Restaurant, came by to say hello. For years he kept a bucket beside the cash register asking customers to donate their change to Union Mission. It was several thousand dollars a year. He’s been a good friend.
Then I had a lunch meeting to learn about marketing what is next for me.
Then I rushed back to the safe Sabbatical confines of the beloved back deck, the Breakfast Club, Goddess, the Bored meeting and Shirley’s sad little holy dock. The afternoon was filled with phone calls from across the country where I’m still somebody.
A prophet is not honored in his home town. Doesn’t it say that in the Bible?
Then it started raining. And none of this mattered. I spent the better part of the evening looking for my rain boots. They are here somewhere. I need to put my put my hands on them. Now! It’s raining!!!
Then my I-pod buzzed and it was Twitter.
