Leslie Green Archives - Page 8 of 9

Random Memory of My Father: Gregory Hines edition

The common theme: both Darlanne Fluegal and my father really needed to get out of Binghamton.

Back in 1988, my sister Leslie (who was visiting from California) and I (visiting from New York State) were in the car with my parents and my sister Marcia, traveling from Charlotte, NC to Raleigh, NC for some event when the issue of the NAACP Image Awards came up. I hadn’t watched them, and I don’t think Leslie had either. But my father had done so, on television, and he was VERY upset with actor Gregory Hines (pictured). His failing? He was wearing an earring to the event, showing an intentional lack of respect for the NAACP and for the proceedings.

Leslie and I spent about an hour unsuccessfully trying to convince my father that this was not a slight, that Gregory Hines often wore an earring, that actors are just different, and that we seriously doubted that the NAACP was upset about this (for the aforementioned reasons).

I think I remember this, and that we argued about it for so long at the time, because it seemed so…parochial, narrow-minded, and that wasn’t how we viewed our father AT ALL.

It only recently occurred to me to wonder WHY Gregory Hines was getting that Image Award in the first place. Actually, Hines had been nominated a total of four times and won twice, the latter in 2002 for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special for Bojangles (2001), but my father had passed away by then, and Hines would, too, the following year.

The award in question was for Running Scared (1986), for which Hines was Outstanding Lead Actor in a Motion Picture. “Danny [Billy Crystal] and Ray [Hines] are two street-wise cops in Chicago. When they are almost killed on a case, they are forced to take a vacation by their captain. Key West offers a substantial change over frozen Chicago. They decide to quit and open a bar in Key West. Upon returning, they find that Julio [Jimmy Smits], the drug dealer who nearly killed them has made bail and is trying to complete a giant drug deal.”

Of particular interest to me: Darlanne Fluegel played the Crystal character’s wife, Anna. From this 1986 story about her appearance on the TV show Crime Story: Actually, Fluegel never intended to be a model. Raised in Binghamton, N.Y., she was a tomboy who felt more kinship with her three younger brothers than her two older sisters. When she was 16, her father, a chiropractor, died suddenly of a brain tumor. Darlanne turned to modeling “not to be a burden” on her mother, who worked with the Department of Social Security, and “as a quick way out of Binghamton.” Darlanne attended Binghamton Central High School for a time, and I knew her vaguely; I knew her sister Donna better.

In any case, the common theme: both Darlanne Fluegel and my father really needed to get out of Binghamton.

My father would have been 86 tomorrow.

Sidebar to Jaquandor: this is the same Darlanne Fluegel you wrote about here and to which I eventually replied here. Oh, and happy birthday tomorrow.

The Unresolved Father Lineage Stuff

What I REALLY want to know is who was my father’s biological father.

The item I wanted to check the most is where my father lived, and just as important, how he is listed. This is the listing for my paternal grandmother’s household in the 1930 Census:

Samuel E Walker, 56, janitor in a public building (my great grandfather, who I remember from my childhood)
Eugene M Walker, 52 [Mary Eugean Patterson Walker, from other sources] – deceased by the time I was born
Agatha H Walker, 27, housekeeper, private family (my grandmother, who died in the mid 1960s)
Earl S Walker, 25, caterer, hotels
Stanley E Walker, 20
Vera C Walker, 17
Melissa C Walker, 15
Jessie G Walker, 13
Morris S Walker, 11
Wesley H Walker, 3 [3 6/12]

Samuel is listed as head of household, Eugene as his wife. Everyone else is listed as his sons or daughters. The oddity is the Wesley Walker record. From the time frame, that is clearly my father, Agatha’s son, but I knew him as Leslie H Green. This begs the obvious questions.

I’m looking to see when the guy I knew as my grandfather, McKinley Green, entered the picture. From the 1938 Binghamton city directory, I can tell my grandmother’s last name was Green, but she appeared to be living at 339 Court Street, whereas McKinley was at 135 Susquehanna Street. The 1940 Census continues to show the Walker clan together, but my grandmother as Agatha Greene (enumerator error) and my father as Leslie Greene. McKinley lived in a boarding house.

What I REALLY want to know is who was my father’s biological father. Rumor had it that my grandmother got pregnant by some minister. Of course, I never asked my father about this. Whatever info I got was from my mother, who got the info secondhand, and from his cousins, all of whom were younger than my father, and thus not present either.

My sisters have mused that, in retrospect, we should have brought this up to my father, but that wasn’t going to happen. NONE of the info I know, or think I know, originated from him, so it would have been mighty difficult to casually slide it into the conversation.

In the picture is my father (center) with his mother, Agatha (right). I have no idea who the others are, though the boy sure looks like a Walker.

The baby sister as caretaker

On Marcia’s birthday, I just wanted to thank her publicly for all she did for our mom.

Back in the mid-1980s, my “baby” sister Marcia, who was in her mid-20s, was living at home with our parents in Charlotte, NC. I said to her at the time, “You’d better get out of there. You’re going to get stuck taking care of our aging parents,” who were approaching 60 (in other words, about my current age – yeesh.)

After my father died in 2000, my mother, my sister, and her daughter lived together. I would help out and visit when I could, but I had a family in Albany, NY. My sister Leslie also had her life in San Diego, CA.

As the one left at home, Marcia, with her daughter, became the one to take care of our mother, when, in the last few months of her life, she became more erratic and forgetful. Much of what was going on I was totally not aware of until well after the fact.

So on Marcia’s birthday, I just wanted to thank her publicly for all she did for our mom. When one has the caretaker role, sometimes it’s difficult when the role ends, I realize. And now she’s the head of the household. I wish her love and good fortune moving forward.

40 Years Ago: March 5, 1972 – did not see that coming

It was a surprise birthday party for me!

In the Scudder Hall dorm, at the State University College of New Paltz, my room was B-2. I had a roommate named Ron, who was a graduate student; an odd pairing, a freshman and someone doing post-graduate work. But he was a pretty easy-going guy, and I guess I didn’t drive him too crazy.

It was surprising, though, that one day, Ron decided that we really needed to thoroughly clean the room. I didn’t think it looked that bad, but surely I would not have been the gold standard for that kind of thing.

A couple of days later, which was a Sunday, my friend Uthaclena was over at one of the dining halls playing billiards. I must admit here that 1) I love playing pool, but in spite of that, 2) I’ve never gotten very good at it.

After a time, he and I went back to my dorm room. If you have had glasses, you know how it was when it’s a bit cool out, then you walk into a room that’s a bit warmer? Right – the glasses steam up. So I walk into my room, and there are my girlfriend, the Okie (I think – I’m having trouble seeing), and our friend Alice, Ron of course, but wait? Is that my father, mother, and sisters? And who is THAT guy? (It turned out to be the quasi-boyfriend of one of my sisters.) And possibly others, though it was a small room.

It was a surprise birthday party for me! My birthday wasn’t for a couple of days, and so it caught me unawares. But it was great. I was feeling a bit melancholy, my first birthday away from home. And, more than that, they brought a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken ((back when they called it that), and there was enough left over for me to have for a couple more meals.

The event had a profound impact on me. I have subsequently helped pull off a number of surprise birthday parties over the years. Of course, I can still be surprised myself; the very next year, my parents, coordinating with the Okie, puled off another event; I think we went out to dinner. And much more recently, Uthaclena and his wife plotted with my wife to surprise me.

One last thing about the plan two score ago: my father called our dorm room one morning at 7 a.m. Ron answered the phone, and my father revealed the plan. But even as I lay on my bed half-awake, Ron never let on who he was talking to. But it DID lead to a clean dorm room.

Leslie

My father’s cousin Ruth sent this picture of my sister Leslie, her friend Linda, our cousin Debby, and Leslie’s friend Nita. We all went to Trinity AME Zion Church in Binghamton when we were growing up, which was two very short blocks from our house.

Not sure of the vintage of the photo. I’m guessing that Leslie’s in 8th or 9th grade, but it might be off by a year. It was before she got her ‘fro and her wire-rimmed glasses, which she had by 11th grade.

I’m posting this because it’s Leslie’s birthday. Happy birthday to the middle child!

I suppose I should note that of the two other people in the photo to whom I was not related, one I had a mad, unrequited crush on, and the other I thought was a royal PITA.