Clearing up a Few Things

I must say, some of you are really paying close attention. I recieved a message the other day from a woman who is reading my book My Mother's Rules and had a question about what was in it. In my book I talk about my father who was a lawyer, but Ruthie (hello) says she remembers me saying that my father worked in a linoleum factory and that he had a problem that made it difficult for him to walk or talk (I can't remember which she said)

The first two things are both true. My father was a lawyer but when he first got out of law school in 1947 he could not get a job practicing law. White firms just wouldn't hire black lawyers so he had to start his own practice. Until it got off the ground though, he worked in a linoleum factory because he needed money to live. I told that story in court because I was talking to a man who said he didn't have a job because of a 'series of unfortunate circumstances' all of which, in HIS case turned out to be excuses.

My father was a black man born in 1919 he was 5'2" tall born in the hills of West Virgina. He worked his way through college digging coal in coal mines. He is what I look to when I think things are tough.

And as for the disability thing the only one dad had was psychosis. And trust me, that was enough!!!!!