Scratch that. There was this dude named Aaron Douglas. A painter in the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Mrs. Caperdeen, my art teacher freshman year, turned me on to him during a lesson about artists from that period. Now, I had already been into art, way before Mrs. Caperdeen’s class. I’ve been drawing since I was like five or six. It came from hanging out with my dad after church on Sundays. Well, Spoony and Ma would be there too, but for some reason, when I think back on it, it always seemed like it was just me and Dad, probably because we had our own thing. Our own after-church tradition. He would drive the whole family to this diner downtown. Ma would order the eggs and English muffin, Spoony always got the French toast, and me and Dad both got pancakes. Then Spoony and Ma would go back and forth trading corny jokes, which I was usually all about, except on Sundays. Sundays was when I butted out and let the two of them have their dry humor because me and Dad, we had pancakes, coffee (hot chocolate for me), and the newspaper.
