Times Sho Is Hard

One of my regulars stopped by the hotel this afternoon. He and his family make it in once a month in the winter, to enjoy the pool. This is a good guy. We always shoot the breeze before he heads to his room. Today he looked somber when he greeted me.

“What’s going on, Doc?”

“Nothing much, Tim. I have no complaints.”

We both laughed, and then he said, “You know, Doc, nobody would listen. What’s with people these days? We’re all struggling. Why does someone think I want to hear their issues?”

“Like I got nothing better to do!” We both laughed.

He continued. “We all got ‘em. Problems. Let’s just get through them and quit whining.”

He leaned in closely. “You know, times are tough, Doc, but this crisis really isn’t that much for Black folk to handle.”

I thought about that for a minute.

“You know, Tim” I said, “You’re right. In fact, is this really a crisis? Yeah. Stuff is bad. But critical? No, sir I don’t see that. I think times are tight, and perhaps less disposable income will force folk to spend more time with their families, enjoy the simple things in life, and maybe do more of what we should have done when we had money to burn. But comparing this to a real struggle? Naw. Nobody I know is struggling. Hell, they all got cable.”

He began ticking off his fingers. “Cel phones…”

I chimed in. “Laptops. I mean, for folk to be claiming broke, everybody and their momma on Facebook…”

“I mean, Doc, are we really struggling? Are we? Or are we just inconvenienced?”

“Let me see, Tim…no. Black folk down south fifty years ago were struggling. We sharecropping, ain’t makin’ enough money to leave, and the Klan mad they drank up all the Jack Daniels in the county and just randomly kicking in doors…”

“People now mad because they bought houses they knew they couldn’t afford and have to rent a cool townhouse…”

“Hmmm…My peoples literally lived in a one room shack before they came north and upgraded to a kitchenette the size a one of these hotel tooms...let me see? Avoid lynching, or pay T-Mobile a day late? Somehow, there doesn’t seem to be much balance there.”

“There are people in the Caribbean and Africa right now thinking we’re crazy. ‘Wuffo you mean dis t’ing you gwan t’ou is a struggle? Man…You’sa strugglin’ cuz Moo ‘n’Oink increase da price of da ribs? I HAVEN’T EATEN IN FOUR DAYS!”

“Yeah, and den it wassa some grasshoppers!”

We laughed.

“You thought about selling your kids into slavery?”

“I wish, Doc. Any female relatives talking about joining the sex industry to send money home?”

“Hmmmm…not lately. A couple may find it more productive to do so…”

“Ain’t no rim shops gone outta business…”

“We still got a lot of fat people walking around, too…”


We looked hard at each other, then laughed.

“From all that sittin’…you know? Gotta drive to get anywhere.”

“Gas went up…”

“Damn if everybody kept driving.”

“Why it kept going up. My granddaddy walked everywhere…and often lined his shoes with newspapers. Probably kept him slim. Well, that, plus he couldn’t get a car ‘til the oldest two kids got out the house.”

“Yeah, Doc. We struggling. Just had to tell Junior to grow out of these Ones before giving Nike another dollar for a new pair.”

“My granny said they knew they were coming up when the family got a radio. They’d all sit around and listen. If a tube blew, it would take forever to afford to get it fixed.”

“My youngest lost her iPod…again. I think Best Buy is having a sale.This the last one...”

“Aiight, Doc, lemme get up here and see where the missus wants to go to dinner. Didn’t Malcolm X say his mom used to boil dandelion greens?”

“Yeah. Richard Wright’s grandmother made a pot roast out of peanuts. It looked like beef, but tasted like something else. Where ya’ll going?”

“Dunno. What’s open?”

“Sunday. After church. You know all the restaurants around here are packed.”

“Dag. OK. My pops said only cats who opened restaurants in his day was numbers bankers. For a front. It was always empty, but a good place to run policy from. People were too poor to eat out then…”

“We struggling, Tim. Whatcha think of your boy Obama?”

“Got his wife some twelve stack earrings. You know the old lady wants to blow my next few dollars on some jewelry. Man. My grandmother got one piece of jewelry from my granddad. And he worked three jobs. She still cherished that band, though. Geez…man, my granddaddy said when he was down south, he couldn’t vote. "

“They got some sales at the jewelrystores, but they lines too long. Hey, at least here in Chicago, though, ya grandad could vote for whomever the Machine told him to vote for.Oh, well, Doc, I’m up.”

“Kiss the kids for me.”

“My oldest just got into U of I. Gotta get him a car for graduation to take down there.”

“Congratulations!My granddaddy told me his daddy couldn’t read. It was a law. My momma got into Cornell but couldn’t go. Five other kids at home. They didn’t even have the money for trainfare there.”

“Damn, times sho’ is hard for us.”

“Yeah, we struggling alright.”