I Can Imagine
By Charles Shea LeMone
With my semi-autobiographical, anti-gang novel, Corner Pride, about to be released by the Multicultural Educational Publishing Company, I see my next goal clearly defined. It’s back to the corner of Gratz and Oxford in North Philadelphia where my life and the story began unfolding. I’ll return there more than fifty-years later to write a brand-new act: the opening of a cultural arts center.
There, I said it!
It would be nice if the center is located near the corner--even sweeter if the venue was physically located right on the corner of Gratz and Oxford Streets.
Maybe that’s possible.
You see, while coming up with the cover for the novel, I contacted a Philadelphia photographer about taking shots of the old corner. He e-mailed me back, “You can’t take pictures of what’s no longer there.” Reading those cryptic words, I assumed change had once again come to the corner of Gratz and Oxford.
My family moved to West Oak Lane in the autumn of1959. By the early ‘70s, most of the crumbling-from-neglect, three-story tenement buildings were abandoned shells, half burned down or empty lots. In the early-eighties, the entire 1500 block (the one I was born on) was renovated. I’d bet my life that a lot of crack cocaine was sold on the corner in the coming years following that.
Then, some twenty odd years later, in an article my sister sent me, I read a reporter for the Enquire or Daily News describe the block as defined by a resident, “…the most dangerous street in North Philadelphia.”
So reading the photographer’s cryptic message, I figured all or most of the buildings on the block had been leveled to the ground. It would not be the first block in the vicinity to suffer the demolition ball. From a satellite’s view, take a look and you’ll see most of the surrounding neighborhood looks bombed out. But rising up from the present day ashes and dust, from my mountaintop in Virginia, it’s easy to imagine The Gratz and Oxford Cultural Arts Center.
Hmmm! Maybe it will take up a half-block or even more.
I love the thought of a structure that can stand the test of time, stronger than flesh and bones with a sea of tears tossed in yet a monument to all the families and friends I was close to for the first fourteen-and-a-half-years of my life.
Yes, I can easily imagine it as though it already stands—that building. For I first began to use my imagination, right there, on that block. I was born in the seventh house from the corner on the west side of the street; son to Charlie (no middle name) and Edna Rose, two supplanted New Yorkers who had grown up, met and married in the Bronx; younger brother to Norma Jean and Vivian Antoinette and young uncle to Antoinette (Toni) Jean Butler—four years younger.
Vivian, Toni and I often pretended we were characters from the “Boxcar Kids” books--stories about orphans on their own in the world with a freight train boxcar as their only shelter.
How brave we were back then, I write with a sniffle.
In the streets, playing with friends, we often imagined we were somewhere else, living adventurously. Sometimes we were cowboys or Indians, riding on the dusty plains, using broomsticks for horses. Other times, we’d slip back to the days of Samson and Delilah. If I was Samson then pretty walnut-skinned Pamela Hall was Delilah. She was also Dale Evans to my Roy Rogers and Jane in the jungle when I was Tarzan of the Apes.
Wherever we imagined we were, though, we saw far past those otherwise confining three-story redbrick walls on that narrow rat and roach infested side-street. Under the bright and strong summer sun, while we played, we saw through those barriers as though they did not exist because we were too far away from them in our minds. That was the nature of our play and the potency and power of our imaginations.
And we had plenty to spare.
Beyond how to use my imagination, as I mentioned in a recently written press release, there are some major lessons learned that I still apply from those Gratz and Oxford Street days: like how to be diplomatic rather than confrontational in the face of impending violence. How to build bridges and bonds to avoid future confrontations that might turn violent. Most importantly, I learned to be there for my friends in their times of need even if that meant confronting obstacles or violence.
With all that noted, there is no more important goal for me than to see that building stand (that cultural art center I mentioned earlier) right back where it all began for me on the Corner of Gratz and Oxford Streets in North Philadelphia.
I imagine the center surviving for many years, providing an enlightening oasis for thousands of children, a place where they can learn about art, dance, music, writing, acting and filmmaking. I can almost see the faces of many of them and the sparks of creative light that can change the very way they see and react to the world around them, a more optimistic, proactive view. I’ll hold on to that vision, and corresponding ones, until the day the center opens its door to the real world.
Now a shout out to all my boys wherever they may be along their journeys, whether it be on this planet or as roving spirits in other dimensions or angelic souls in the flow of some other galaxy:
William (Monkmeat) Hall,
George (Brother) Jackson,
Raymond (Ray Ray) Robinson,
Joseph (Reds) Brisco,
Poppy,
Ernest,
Cannonball,
Coon,
Hunky,
Peachy,
Bunknose,
Andy Panda,
Boo,
Randy Pierce
Moses Pierce,
Peanut from Gratz Street,
and Peanut from Garnet Street, too, and so many more.
Most of all, here’s a special word of thanks and a respectful nod of adoration to James Garnet, who taught so many others and me how to use our fists.
“Do you remember those days when the winner of a “fair one”, one person versus another, could settle arguments and even prevent a gang war?” someone in the crowd shouted.
The guys named on the list above do? They were there in the summer of 1957, when we knew the meaning of the words corner pride.
To see the cover of Corner Pride, click: www.allwordman.com
