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reasoningdaily · 5 days

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In April 1976, my twenty-seven-year-old uncle, Craig Baskerville, made a tape recording of his great-uncle, Thomas Holcomb. The tape is scratchy, and Lady, the family dog, keeps barking in the background. “My father was a runaway man,” my great-great-uncle Tom says. “He was a slave” in Cumberland County, Virginia, near the Appomattox River, and “he had a boat.” Sometime in the spring of 1865, after the Battle of Richmond, when Confederate soldiers were “running all through the woods,” Jackson Holcomb “was down there” ferrying those “Jeff Davis men . . . across.” “And everybody he put em across the river they give him money.” They “paid him.” On the recording, my uncle Craig sounds a little puzzled. Thomas Holcomb seems to be saying that his father had a piece of property, and that he used that property to make deals that sound a lot like contracts: a promise to pay in exchange for a promise to ferry. Why would a band of heavily armed white men, who were risking their lives in a war to preserve slavery, treat an enslaved man as if he had rights?

Searching for an answer to this question sent me down the path toward this book, which reveals a hidden history of civil rights among African Americans. It’s a story that begins not in 1955 but in 1830. It is not about people mobilizing to march but about what made it possible for the people to march. It is about the rights to make a church, own a home, get paid. These civil rights are like an invisible thread woven into the fabric of Black people’s lives since before they even had rights, patterning how they loved, worshiped, worked, learned, and played. At bottom, this book is about how ordinary Black people used law in their everyday lives. People like my great-great-great uncle and aunt, Jackson and Louisa Holcomb.

They touched law at every step of their lives. A few years after freedom came, Jackson Holcomb made a marriage contract with Louisa Brown, who had also grown up in slavery. In 1883 they bought a hundred acres of farmland from a local white woman, with a swap of timber rights for eight months’ rent. Over the next few decades, they bought and sold and mortgaged more land, and each time they had a deed recorded at the Cumberland County courthouse. Every year, Jackson Holcomb rode the ten miles up Guinea Road to the courthouse and paid their property taxes. As time passed, the Holcombs bequeathed some of that land to their children and nieces and nephews, sold some of it to a Black neighbor, and donated still more to the Cotton Town Odd Fellows Lodge and to their church, Midway Baptist, an unincorporated religious association founded in 1874, where they held the rights and privileges of membership. In the 1920s, the Holcombs’ youngest son, Thomas, and his wife, Annie Reaves Holcomb, moved to South Orange, New Jersey, a small town next to the city of Newark.

Like most migrants, they never really left home. They started “fellowshipping” at First Baptist South Orange but they remained members of Midway Baptist. They bought a little house and paid taxes in South Orange but they also sent home money for Thomas’s brother Robert to take to the courthouse for their share of the taxes on the family’s land in Cumberland. They laid plans to move back for good, buying out some of Thomas’s relatives’ shares of the land. They were always driving down for funerals and family visits. Sometimes they brought along their niece and nephew, Yolanda and Osborne Reaves, who lived with them in South Orange after Yolanda and Osborne’s parents got divorced in the Cumberland courthouse. Later, they brought along Yolanda’s children, Craig and Penelope, my mother.

Uncle Tom died in 1976, five years after Aunt Annie and a few months after his interview with my uncle Craig. I was five years old. We all caravaned down from New Jersey, my little sister and I yawning in the back seat of our family’s powder-blue Plymouth Valiant. The burial was at Midway Baptist, on a strip of land Thomas and Annie had deeded to the church in 1965. Uncle Craig talked with lawyers to settle up the deeds, tax receipts, life insurance, and the title to the Holcombs’ old Buick, using notes Thomas had penciled out sometime earlier. Then Craig put the papers back into my uncle Tom’s dented, wood-grain-metal file box. I am looking at it now. It holds but a few of the millions of legal acts that are memorialized on scraps of paper in attics and basements and on a hundred thousand docket books in county courthouses all across America—the vast paper trail of “the law.” Once you start looking, you realize that the history of Black civil rights is all around us.

Article continues after advertisement Today, even as many historians remain committed to the idea of scholarship as struggle, they are debating what that struggle actually was and what lessons it holds today.

The story of Thomas and Louisa Holcomb and their descendants is not a very special one (though it is special to me). Probably many of you, reading this now, have a similar story. Yet precisely because it is so ordinary, it challenges much of what we think we know about civil rights— and about Black people and the law more generally.

The story of civil rights that most people are familiar with goes something like this. Once, the legal system was dominated by racist state and local officials who refused to recognize not only Black people’s civil rights, but their basic human dignity and even their lives. Law was a hostile, fearsome power to be avoided whenever possible: full of unknowable secrets and often deadly. Then, in the 1940s, a few brave lawyers ventured south, bent on changing the law. They confronted the system with a carefully planned series of strategic lawsuits and with the powerful symbolism of a Black lawyer in a white courthouse. Soon, ordinary African Americans, their sense of possibility awakened by Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and other Supreme Court victories and galvanized by racial justice activists, coalesced into a mass movement demanding that the federal government force those racist state and local officials to recognize Black people as free, full members of American society. This is the master narrative of civil rights. It is powerful, not least because it refuses to concede to right-wing reactionaries the right to say what “freedom” is.

It is also powerful because history is not just about the past. “History is literally present in all that we do,” James Baldwin wrote, at the height of the civil rights movement: “we carry it within us.” The choices historians make—what to write about, what counts as evidence and how to interpret it—are inevitably shaped by the world around us. African American history is no different. In its modern form it grew directly out of the civil rights movement itself. Activists in the 1960s created Black history units to teach in the Mississippi Freedom Schools; at colleges, a Black student movement demanded Black history courses, faculty to teach them, and a wholesale rethinking of what our country’s history is and how it should be taught. Many leading Black historians came into the field profoundly shaped by their experiences as activists in the 1960s; some explicitly said that their scholarship was a continuation of the struggle for Black freedom.

Today, even as many historians remain committed to the idea of scholarship as struggle, they are debating what that struggle actually was and what lessons it holds today. Instead of looking from the top down— from the perspective of great leaders like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, famous lawyers like Thurgood Marshall, statesmen like Lyndon Johnson, and the liberal justices of Earl Warren’s Supreme Court—a “grassroots” approach has transformed our understanding of the movement by rethinking it from the perspective of “local people.”

Others have taken a long view of the era of mass protests commonly called The Movement—the dozen years or so between the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 and the Civil Rights Acts (1964, 1968) and Voting Rights Act (1965). Looking back to the 1930s and forward to the 1980s reveals a much bigger struggle, contend the proponents of the “long civil rights movement” view, a struggle for full citizenship, economic justice, and true grassroots democracy, a struggle that burned as fiercely in New York and Los Angeles as in Selma, Alabama. Movement activists realized that civil rights were not enough, the long-movement scholars argue. Real freedom required changing the underlying structures that kept most Black people poor, politically weak, undereducated, and abused by police. It meant transforming American democracy itself.

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What hasn’t been rethought is the fundamental moral drama of the movement, in which civil rights—and Black history more broadly—are framed as an unfinished “freedom struggle,” a battle against the forces of “plunder,” a journey from humiliation to dignity, from second-class citizenship to full citizenship, from Black fear in the face of white lawlessness to Black people defiantly asserting their rights under the law. That moral vision gleams bright today, as police killings mercilessly continue and as Republican politicians knowingly enact policies that systematically hurt Black people. Movement-centered scholarship is as urgent and necessary today as it was in the 1960s.

But the notion of Black history as a freedom struggle has also cost us something. It has helped make Black history almost synonymous with the history of race relations, as if Black lives only matter when white people are somehow in the picture. It has laid a moral burden on African American history that few other scholarly fields must carry, urging us to judge our ancestors according to how well they advanced the freedom struggle. It has often infused a subtle romanticism into African American history, with Black people playing the role of humble folk heroes overcoming adversity against the odds, or “fugitives” defined by a common history of dispossession and “yearning for freedom.”

Most of all, it has shrunk our vision of Black life down to the few areas of Black life where federal law and social movements made a difference. There are shelves full of books about the struggle for the right to vote, to open up the workplace, schools, and military, and to challenge a violently racist criminal justice system.

Overshadowed are many other parts of life that Black people might have cared about just as much but that do not fit into a story of freedom—things like marriage and divorce, old-age care, property-owning, running churches and businesses. Historians have echoed the racial justice advocates of the 1950s and 1960s, whose courthouse showdowns with hostile white officials have become canonized in films such as Selma and Just Mercy. Because African Americans were “ ‘afreaid to go to the court house to vote,’ ” as one Black farmworker wrote in a letter to the NAACP, scholars have assumed that they were afraid to go to the courthouse for anything else.

It has been easier to imagine Black people fighting for “freedom” or “ justice” or “full citizenship” than to imagine them arguing over alimony or a deed of trust. In the freedom struggle story, Black people are seen as ordinary and heroic precisely because they knew so little about law. But if that is so, then why, when a mass movement against racial injustice finally took hold in the 1950s, did so many Black people put their faith in law at all? Civil rights history has left Black people disconnected from our own legal commonsense, the way we actually think about and use law in our daily lives. It has made it harder to see Black people as people in full.

#The Hidden Story of Black History and Black Lives Before the Civil Rights Movement

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lemoncrushh · 26 days

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Cubicle // 18) Love in Store

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Word Count: 3992

Wednesday // Roni

"So tell me more about this Caleb," said Alice as she joined me at the table in the break room.

The day before, Harry and I had taken Alice to lunch, inviting her to join us on Friday for drinks at Tom's Pub and to meet Caleb. After her face had flushed a deep pink, and she received encouraging words from Harry and me, she'd agreed to go.

"I don't really know anything more," I shrugged. "He's a friend of Harry's and I only met him once. But he seems like a proper lad."

"And Harry thinks he'll like me?"

"I think what?" I heard a familiar voice behind me ask. I turned to catch a glimpse of his dimpled smiled before he headed to the cabinet to grab a cup.

"That Caleb with like Alice," I grinned.

"Yes," Harry nodded. "I do."

"Does he drive?" asked Alice.

"What?" Harry chuckled as he joined us at the table. "Does he drive?"

Alice pursed her lips. "The last guy I went out with didn't have a car. I was always driving him around or we'd have to walk. That got old real fast."

Harry raised his brows as he lifted his cup to his mouth. "I assure you he has a car."

"Good," Alice sat back in her chair.

"Where were you?" I asked Harry. "Usually you're in here before I am."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Nina. Everything I worked on Monday and Tuesday hadn't met her expectations, so she's having me do the reports over."

"What? Are you kidding?"

Harry shook his head, swallowing. "'fraid not."

"Somebody needs to put a sedative in her tea," I sighed.

Alice giggled.

"I'm serious," I eyed her. "This is the second time she's told him he's done his reports wrong."

"Not the second time, babe," remarked Harry. "It's been this way since I started here."

I glared at him. "What is her problem?"

"Same as Gerard's," piped Alice. "They think they're better than everyone."

"Well, I get that she's Donald's secretary, but it doesn't give her the right to treat you like that."

"It's okay, love," Harry patted my hand on the table. "It's not worth getting angry about. But unfortunately, it means I'm gonna have to work through lunch."

I crossed my arms and pouted. Stupid Nina.

"You guys know Nina used to be a salesperson, right?"

Harry and I both looked up at Alice's announcement. "What?"

"Ah, right then," Alice sat up straight. "When I first started working here, the sales team was made up of five people: Gerard, Nina, Charlie, who's been here forever, a girl named Kate, and a bloke named Storm."

"Storm?" Harry and I echoed at the same time. I laughed and he grabbed my knee under the table.

"Yeah," Alice continued. "So I was told Kate got another job offer and that's why she left, but Felicia said it was because she was tired of Gerard coming on to her."

"Oh that bloody figures," I muttered.

"Yeah, makes sense," Alice agreed. "But what I didn't know was there was an undercover office romance. Nina and Storm."

"Oh really," Harry quirked a brow.

"They were hot and heavy apparently, although they were keeping it under wraps. Until the office Christmas party." Alice tapped her fingers against her cup, keeping an eye on the door in case someone was to walk in. "Gerard let it slip that they were dating. I don't know all the details, but I think it was found out that they would sneak off together when they were supposed to be on sales calls. Storm was fired."

"Wow," I breathed. "Why not Nina?"

"Nina...was basically begging not to be let go. She was the top salesperson, Gerard coming in a close second. She'd made a lot of money for the company. So I guess it was agreed she wouldn't be fired, just moved to another position."

"So she's bitter," scowled Harry.

"Pretty much," Alice nodded.

"And so is Holcomb," Harry added. "Because he can't seem to get any."

"Harry!" I nudged his arm.

"What? It's true."

"Gerard Holcomb is a scumbag and a womanizer," stated Alice.

I nodded.

"So wait..." Harry considered, "Travis told me about there being a lawsuit. Something about a boss and his secretary."

Alice shrugged. "I dunno anything about that. Might've been before I came along. But nothing would surprise me."

I looked at Harry. "I guess we should be careful then," I said softly.

"Yeah," he squeezed my hand. "But we're not doing anything wrong as far as I know."

I bit my lip and nodded, though I couldn't help but feel a tinge of worry that remained with me the rest of the day.

Harry

I glanced at the time on the corner of my computer screen. 4:46 PM. Fuck. There was no way I was going to be finished with the reports for Nina by five. As I continued to type, I suddenly felt a presence behind me. Speak of the devil.

"How are we doing there, Harry?" she asked me.

I rolled my eyes, thankful she couldn't see my face. "We are doing fine," I spat. "Just a few more things to get through."

"Good," said Nina. "Think you can have them on my desk by morning?"

I spun around in my chair. "You mean you want me to stay late?"

"Would you?" she pleaded. "Donald really needs them by nine, and I'll need time to look over them first."

Of course. Anything for Donald. Even though you're his assistant, not me.

"Yeah," I mumbled. "No worries."

"Thank you, doll," she gave me two thumbs up before dancing out of my cubicle.

I rolled my eyes again and gave a groan as I turned my attention back to my computer. No doubt she was trying to butter me up. It was the first time she'd ever called me doll. Her own job must've been on the line, and after hearing about the past situation, I couldn't really blame her for being worried. Still, I wondered why the hell she couldn't just do the reports herself if she wanted them a certain way.

Ten minutes later, I heard my adjacent co-workers getting up from their desks to leave for the day. Travis gave me a half-assed salute to which I shot him the middle finger. He chuckled and patted my back, walking away with a smirk on his face.

I'd situated myself comfortably in my chair (as comfortable as one can get in an office chair) and was engrossed in my final report when I heard a rapping on my cubicle wall. Expecting to see Nina again, my eyes widened when I turned and saw Roni, her sweet smile making me melt.

"Such a busy man today," she commented, tilting her head and jutting out her bottom lip. Fuck me.

"Yeah," I blinked. "Sorry. Trying to rewrite two days' worth of reports in one."

"You have to stay?" she asked, stepping closer to me and laying her hand on my shoulder, rubbing it gently.

"Yep," I sighed.

"How long, do you reckon?"

"At least another hour, maybe two."

"Ugh," Roni made a face. "I guess that's not too bad. Will you text me when you're on your way home?"

I beamed up at her. "You bet."

"'kay," she grinned. Then she leant down and gave me a peck on the lips. "Love you."

I grabbed her hand, keeping her from walking away and making her giggle. "I love you, too," I said.

She squeezed my hand before letting go. After watching her leave, I turned back to my computer, cracked my knuckles and got back to work.

Almost an hour later, I'd put a good dent in the report, but I knew I wouldn't be leaving anytime soon. Stretching, I got up to grab something to drink in the break room. The office was nearly completely silent except for the light sounds of typing from other employees that'd had to stay late like me. Taking a Coke from the machine, I returned to my desk and popped open the can.

"Hi, gorgeous, are you hungry?" I heard behind me as I took a sip.

"What's this?" I smiled as Roni set a bag on my desk.

"Thought you might be here a while, so I brought you something to eat."

"Baby..." I watched her take the contents out of the bag. "You didn't have to do that."

She shrugged. "I know. I wanted to."

I slid my hand up her bum to her waist. "You're fucking amazing."

She chuckled, setting a massive salad and a bowl of soup in front of me. After handing me a fork and spoon, she walked to the cubicle next to mine and grabbed the chair, pulling it up beside me.

"You wouldn't rather eat this in the break room?" I asked her.

"Nah, this is cozy," she grinned. Then she held up a finger. "I do need to get something to drink though. Do you need anything?"

I shook my head. "No, love."

"Be right back," she winked.

I dove into my salad, suddenly realizing just how hungry I was. When Roni rejoined me and sat down, I covered her thigh with my hand, leaning in for a kiss.

"Thank you," I murmured against her lips.

"You're welcome," she whispered, her long lashes fluttering.

"Styles, what are you still doing here?"

The sound of his voice made Roni and me both jump, and I turned to see Gerard Holcomb standing in the hallway next to my cubicle. He had a smug look on his face that I was ready to wipe off if he came one step closer.

"I had some work to finish up," I replied.

"Doesn't look like you're working," he remarked, his eyes shifting between me and Roni. It was all I could do to keep settled in my seat and not blow a fuse.

"Taking a break," I muttered.

"Yeah, sure," he scoffed.

"I brought him dinner," Roni piped up.

Though the food on my desk should confirmed her statement, Holcomb continue to roll his eyes. "Is that what it's called?"

"Listen-" I started to get up my Roni grabbed me by the arm.

"Harry," she said softly yet firmly. Then she turned to Holcomb. "Gerard, last time I checked you weren't Harry's supervisor. In fact, you're not even in the same department. So I suggest you go back to your desk and do whatever it was you were doing, and leave us alone."

Holcomb sneered, ran a hand through his hair and straightened his tie. "No need. I was just headed out to dinner myself."

"Right," I said with a curt nod.

"Good evening," he raised his brows and continued to stroll down the hall.

"Fucking wanker!" I shouted. Roni eyed me. "I hate him!"

"I know," she agreed, turning around to grab a forkful of salad. "I'm pretty sure he watches porn at his desk."

"What?" I chuckled.

"Okay, I'm not positive," she said, licking her lips, "but this afternoon when Alice and I got back from lunch, I had to bring him something and he was eating at his desk with his earbuds in his phone. He nearly dropped it when I walked up and I could've sworn I caught a glimpse of some fucking."

"Oh Jesus," I shook my head with a laugh. "Did he have a boner?"

"Eww," she twisted her mouth. "I didn't look at his crotch, Harry!"

I laughed harder. "Sorry."

Roni and I had a lovely dinner together, but when it was over, it was back to the computer for me. Roni rose from her chair, pushing it back to the desk where it belonged. Then she put all of the trash in the bag, ready to take it to the large bin in the break room.

"I'm gonna stop by my cubicle for a bit also," she explained, "so that I can get started on something Greta has me working on tomorrow."

"Baby, you don't have to stay," I told her.

"It'll just take me a minute," she shrugged. "Then I can check and see if Gerard actually left or not."

With a kiss on my forehead, she turned down the hall, and I got back to work. I must've been so deep in thought when Roni returned, I didn't know she was standing behind me until her hands touched my shoulders and I jumped.

"Fuck, you scared me," I breathed.

"Sorry, didn't mean to," she said just above a whisper. "Guess what?"

"What?"

Roni leaned closer to my ear. "We're the only ones here."

"Really?"

"Yep," she strolled around me to prop herself against my desk. "I just walked around the whole office. It's empty."

"Right," I mouthed, though I was really just focusing on my report. "I'm just about done."

"Good. I'll wait."

I looked up at her then. "Seriously, Roni, you don't have to. I still have to print these out and put them on Nina's desk. I could be another thirty minutes at least."

"You don't want me to stay?" she inquired with a sexy pout.

"No, it's not that," I replied, still typing. "You just don't have to. For me."

"You're really cute when you get that crinkle above your nose from concentrating."

I side-eyed her with a smirk.

"Okay, I'm distracting you. I'm sorry," she sighed, sliding her bum off my desk. When she started to pass me, I grabbed her around the waist with my arm.

"Hey. Don't go."

She blinked, her beautiful eyes doing their magic.

"Stay."

She gave me a gentle smile as she pulled away from my arm. "Maybe I should wait in the break room until you're done."

"Ten minutes. Okay? Give me ten minutes."

She nodded, lifting my hand to her lips and kissing it. After she'd gone, I was able to finish my final thought for the last report. Then I hit the print button, stood up and stretched, then made my way to the large printer.

Once I'd gathered all the papers and put them on Nina's desk, I returned to my own, realising that Roni hadn't returned. I walked to the break room, but finding it empty as well, I pulled out my phone to text her.

Where are you?

Toilet. Are you finished?

Yes

Okay, I need to grab something from my desk. Meet me there?

Okay

Just as I rounded the corner, Roni was emerging from the ladies room. I stopped in my tracks when I noticed she was wearing the same tank top and joggers she had been wearing that afternoon I'd showed up at her flat. And like that day, her hair was up in a loose bun and her face was fresh and clean.

"Just thought I'd go ahead and get comfortable," she smiled.

"Well, alright then," I nodded. I knew I had a goofy grin on my face, but I didn't care.

"Let me get my bag," she said.

As I waited outside of her cubicle, it didn't dawn on me that she was carrying a large tote bag on her shoulder. And it still didn't dawn on me as we walked hand in hand outside. I guess sometimes I'm a stupid git, and I don't catch on as quickly as I should. But I most definitely noticed when we reached the parking lot that her car was not in it.

"Where's your car?" I stared out into the empty spaces.

"Specifically...it's parked next to my flat," Roni replied.

I turned to her, incredulous.

With a sly grin, she shrugged. "Took a taxi back here. Didn't reckon I'd need it."

As I continued to stare at her, the pieces slowly coming together, she tugged on the large bag on her shoulder, clearly weighted by its contents.

"So are you gonna take me home, love, or aren't you?"

I separated the space between us in a split second, taking her in my arms and kissing her. My forehead against hers, her breath mixed with mine, I suddenly felt a chill.

"Roni...baby, I...I thought...you said..."

"I know what I said," she confirmed. "But maybe...maybe we can make an exception. An amendment to the rule?"

I swallowed hard.

"Because...I don't know if I can stand to be without you for five days," she continued, her voice nearly raspy. "It's...it's just too long."

"I agree," I nodded before kissing her again. Then I walked her to my car, throwing her bag in the back seat.

"I even brought a change of clothes," said Roni when I got in the front next to her.

"I see that," I grinned.

She gave me cutest little giggle then, like a young girl filled with glee. And I was thrilled to be the cause of it.

Roni

With a loud yawn, I stretched my legs across Harry's lap, laying my head back on the armrest of the sofa. He winked at me as he grabbed my feet, softly massaging them.

"You realise that's one of my major erogenous zones," I stated with a sigh.

"Is it now?" he raised his brows with a cocky smirk.

He continued to press on the arch of my foot with his thumbs, slowly moving outward. Then with his thumb and forefinger, he gently pinched my heel, gliding up my ankle, adding just the tiniest bit of pressure. I threw my head back, covering my eyes with my arm.

"Oh my God, that feels good," I cried.

Harry chuckled. "I had no idea you had a foot thing."

"I don't," I swallowed. "I have a massage thing."

"Just feet though?" he asked, his voice suddenly lower somehow.

"No. Anywhere."

"Hmm," Harry sounded. "I like learning new things about you."

My eyes still closed, I could feel him pushing the joggers up my legs to my knees. Then I felt the sofa cushions shift and he began to rub his hands up and down my calves. The sensation was both erotic and relaxing as I found myself breathing in and out deeply. His hands stopping just under my knees, he whispered my name.

"Yes?" I managed to find my voice.

"If you want more, baby, we'll have to move to the bed."

Lowering my arm, I looked at him. He was situated between my legs, his arms wound around my knees, his eyelids heavy.

"That's probably a good idea," I agreed.

Biting his lip, Harry rose from the couch, taking my hand. I followed him as he turned out the lights, leaving on only the lamp next to his bed.

"Is it okay if I get undressed now?" I asked him.

"Are you kidding?"

"Well...I mean..." I nervously gestured between us, "I didn't know if you were wanting to do it for me or..."

"Oh!" Harry exclaimed. "Um...that'd be great too."

I giggled. "Here," I began to pull my shirt over my head. "I'll just go ahead. It'll make things easier."

Harry smiled as he watched me get undressed. When I was down to my lace thong, he bit his lip again, furrowing his brows. Then he grabbed me by the waist, pulling me flush against him.

"You're so fucking sexy," he growled in my ear.

Slipping his fingers through the back of my thong, he pushed it down, his palms cupping my bum. Licking my lips, I grabbed hold of his shoulders and stepped out of the tiny lacy garment. My fingers making their way to the curls on the nape of his neck, I kissed him passionately.

"Lie down, baby," he instructed.

With a nod, I climbed onto the bed, lying back on the pillow. I watched as Harry got undressed, his semi-erection already prominent. Then he resumed his position between my legs, just as he'd been on the sofa.

"Now where was I?" he mused out loud.

"My knees," I replied.

"Ah, yes."

Turning his head, Harry left a light kiss on the inside of my left knee, then repeated the gesture on my right. In tiny slithering movements, Harry continued up my thighs, leaving kisses on either side until he finally stopped.

"Hmm, I suppose that's not really a massage, is it?" he remarked in a sly tone as his ran his hands up the outsides of my legs.

"Mmm, Harry..." I squirmed under his touch.

Sitting up on his knees, he continued to rub my thighs, adding pressure as he moved up and down. It tickled a little, but mostly it was driving me insane. Especially when his fingers got really close to the spot I wanted him the most. I could feel myself getting wetter and wetter by the minute.

"I'm not a very good masseuse," he declared with a pout.

"Coulda fooled me," I moaned, shutting my eyes again and spreading my arms out to my sides.

A low chuckle rose from his throat. "Feels good, yeah?"

"Incredible."

When his hands met my waist, I felt him kiss the skin just below my belly button.

"Heyyy," I groaned. "You missed a spot."

"No, I didn't." I could feel his mouth grinning against me.

"Yes. Yes, you did."

"Where?"

"You know where, cheeky boy."

Harry laughed, tickling me fully this time and I giggled. "Maybe I was saving that spot for last," he said.

"Oh. That makes sense."

Harry continued to massage and caress me, nearly making me come undone when he began to suck on my nipples.

"I...most certainly know...this is not...part of a massage," I breathed. "Holy shit."

Arching my back, I finally released my arms from their T position so that I could run my fingers through his hair.

"Jesus, Harry..." I begged. "Please. I'm so wet."

"Are you?" he asked, raising his head to look at me.

"Yes. Please."

I squirmed again under his weight, my body ready for him. Lifting himself to hover over me, he leant down to kiss me, his tongue meeting mine with hunger. I gasped for air when we separated, just a fraction of a second before his hard cock filled me. I cried out at the sweet sting, immediately wanting more.

We made love slowly at first. I could feel every bit of him. Each time he'd pull back, I could feel my body tremble until he pushed back in again, hitting me as deeply as possible. We watched each other the entire time, our gazes never faltering.

Finally, he began pick up speed. I could no longer keep my eyes fixed on his as the sensation became too much to bear. I moaned his name, begging him to go faster. He obliged, fucking me harder, hitting the spot that made me cry out.

"Oh! Oh God, yes! Yes! Oh!"

Harry came close behind, his body shuttering above me until he unraveled. Panting softly, his breath tickling my face, he left a trail of kisses down my nose to my lips.

"I love you," I whispered.

"I love you, too."

Harry laid his head on my chest, and I played with his curls until I needed a toilet break. When I returned, Harry went as I cuddled under the sheets. With an endearing smile on his face, Harry waltzed back into the room, plopping his long frame beside me on the bed.

"We should probably get some sleep," I whispered when he pulled me close to him once more.

"Yeah," he agreed, reaching over for his phone on the night stand.

"What are you doing?" I asked as he tapped on the screen.

"Setting the alarm." Then with the same grin still plastered on his face, he set the phone down and rolled over on top of me.

"I'm so glad you decided to stay over on a weeknight," he said.

"I'm glad you finally got the hint," I teased.

"Took me a minute. You're very clever."

"And lucky," I added.

MASTERLIST | KO-FI | FEEDBACK

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anthonymhowellblog · 4 months

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Writing at The Room - June 9 at 3 pm

WRITING AT THE ROOM – Poetry, text, sound, song 3 pm Sunday June 9. Featuring Tom Bland and Dominic Lyne Hosted by Anthony Howell and Patricia Ahern The Room, 33 Holcombe Road, Tottenham Hale/Bruce Grove London N17 9AS – enquiries: 0208 801 8577 Open mike. BYO. (Please come 20 minutes early to book for the open mike. Tom Bland has two books out, Camp Fear and The Death of a Clown, with Bad…

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#poetry reading #The Room #Tottenham poetry reading

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byneddiedingo · 2 years

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Tom Hulce in Animal House (John Landis, 1978)

Cast: John Belushi, Tim Matheson, Peter Riegert, Tom Hulce, Stephen Furst, Bruce McGill, Kevin Bacon, John Vernon, Verna Bloom, Donald Sutherland, Karen Allen, Sarah Holcomb, Cesare Danova. Screenplay: Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, Chris Miller. Cinematography: Charles Correll. Art direction: John J. Lloyd. Film editing: George Folsey Jr. Music: Elmer Bernstein.

The granddaddy of gross-out comedies, Animal House has a certain innocence to it 45 years later. For one thing, it goes lightly on the gross-outs, the most famous one being Bluto's zit joke. We don't even get to see Flounder (Stephen Furst) throw up on Dean Wormer (John Vernon). For another, without their familiar lined faces and grayed, thinning hair, such veteran actors as Peter Riegert, Tom Hulce, and Kevin Bacon look almost naked. The film has maintained its reputation, even being inducted into the National Film Registry in 2001. There are things in it, however, that wouldn't pass muster today, including the blatant objectification of the young women, especially in the scene in which Bluto (John Belushi) spies on them undressing. And would any reputable filmmaker today dare to include the scene in which Pinto (Hulce) debates whether to rape the unconscious Clorette (Sarah Holcomb), abetted by a roguish devil and a prissy-voiced angel? There are also touches of unchecked homophobia throughout. John Landis's direction, too, sometimes seems a bit stiff-limbed, as if waiting for the audience to laugh before proceeding with the next line. There are flashes of wit in the screenplay, as when Bluto refers to the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor, and Boon (Riegert) tells Otter (Tim Matheson), "Forget it, he's rolling." But many of the sight gags, such as the climactic assault on the homecoming parade, weren't worked out enough in advance, the exception being the marching band that gets led into a blind alley and then can't extricate itself. Still there's a fine energy to the performances, and even Dean Wormer gets to make a good point: "Fat, drunk, and stupid" really "is no way to go through life." But mostly the film is a strong reminder of what we lost with the early death of John Belushi -- and, more recently, of Stephen Furst.

#Animal House #John Landis #Tom Hulce

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omsdoortodoor · 22 days

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OMS Door to Door Challenge – Departure Date minus 1 week

Ian's fortnight

Playlist: Classics

Riding on My Bike - Madness

The Bike Song - Mark Ronson

Bicycle - John Cale

Bicycle Race - Queen

Broken Bicycles - Tom Waits

Bicycle Song - Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Bike - Pink Floyd

Silver Machine - Hawkweed

Nine Million Bicycles - Katie Melua

Riding On My Bike - Sia

From The Little Book of Cycling.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve contributed to our blog so I thought it was time I wrote something.

The last few weeks have been my out on several rides of different lengths including a circuit going past Wellington Monument to Culm Head before going passed Smeatharpe airfield to Dunkeswell. I then headed towards Culmstock, through Uffculme to Willand, Sampford Peverell, Uplowman, Huntsham ant the Staple Cross before retuning to Holcombe through Hockworthy. A ride of about forty-six miles which I completed in three and a half hours at an average speed of thirteen and a half miles an hour.

I have also completed several other rides as well as visiting the gym a few times to do some leg and back exercises.

Last week I had both the bikes serviced in Exeter, Bike No1 just needed a check over, but Bike No2 required some attention as it hadn’t had much done to it since I bought it about twelve years ago. It did give me the opportunity to cycle back from Exeter. Approaching Cullompton I was overtaken by a bunch of about ten keen cyclists, and I managed to tag onto the back go the group & cadge a lift to near Willand. I showed the benefits of slip-streaming, which I won’t have the benefit of during the challenge.

I also saw my Osteopath this week, I tend to go every three months, probably in a vain attempt to keep myself as fit as I can. She went through a number of exercises and stretches someone of my age should be doing when taking on a long cycle like this one.

With just a week left before we set off, I have several rides planned which will hopefully include a couple of longer routes and going out on consecutive days, I’m happy with my level of fitness so it’s now just about spending time on the bike.

Celeste our motorhome went in for a service and wash this week and I decided to go for a ride while I was waiting. I rode what will be part of the first day, leaving Wellington I climbed on to The Blackdown hills and on to Chard, through Winsham to Drimpton where I turned round and did it all in reverse. It’s fairly hilly but with some lovely countryside and pretty villages. The climb back on to The Blackdowns was tough but in all I rode 51 miles in about four hours which I was pleased with. Unfortunately, my phone went flat halfway through the ride, so I only managed to record part of the ride on Strava through which I monitor my performance.

I have to keep Jane and my cousin Heather musically happy during our time away so I have been buying CDs and downloading songs by the likes of ABBA, Lionel Richie, Whitney Houston and Coldplay to name a few. There may be times when I’m glad to be on my bike!

Heading into the final week before departure I have a couple of jobs to finish off on Celeste before packing her up ready for the off and of course we have our Fundraiser on Friday the 6th, The final Holcombe Rogus Pop Up Pub in the village hall so hopefully we will see you there.

Once we are on the challenge, there will be far fewer text blogs and more videos, pictures and interviews.

Thank you for your support and readership over the last few months. Your comments and support has really helped us to prepare for our journey.

As you know we are raising funds for Overcoming MS. If you would like to support this amazing charity which helps to improve the life of people with MS you can follow this link.

#multiple sclerosis #overcomingms #omsdoortodoor #msdiagnosis #ms awareness

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thelenazavaroniarchive · 2 months

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15th July 2024.

𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐥 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟒. Lena was on The Tonight Show. along with Jimmy Stewart, Willie Mays and Paul Anka. Burt Reynolds stood in for Johnny Carson. She sang Swinging on a star, was interviewed, and then sang Help me make it through the night.

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𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐥 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟔. The Grand Prix Night Of The Stars was broadcast on BBC 1 from 8.00 pm - 9.00 pm. In the week of Britain’s round of the World Motor Racing Championship - The British Grand Prix stars from the world of entertainment and the world’s top Grand Prix drivers share the stage at the Royal Albert Hall. starring Shirley Bassey with The Brotherhood of Man, Lena Zavaroni , Patrick Moore Chris Barber and his Jazz Band, James Hunt , Barry Gill Henry Cooper. Jackie Stewart Vincent Zara , The Minstrel Dancers with World Champion Nikki Lauda Tom Jody Scheckter , Patrick Depailler, Ronnie Peterson , Vittorio Brambilla Mario Andretti , Gunnar Nilsson Chris Amon and former World Champions, Emerson Fittipaldi, John Surtees and Denny Hulme

Choreography; GERALDINE YATES, Orchestra directed by ARTHUR GREENSLADE and RONNIE HAZLEBURST, Sound CHRIS HOLCOMBE Lighting HUGH CARTWRIGHT Designer KEN STARKEY Producers ERNEST MAXIN , STEWART MORRIS.

Lena sang This Is My Song, and then was serenaded by Henry Cooper and Barrie Gill, who sang Lena, My Little Honey Lena.

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟕. On it’s television page, the Harrow Observer had a photograph of Lena with a chimp to promote Hi! Summer on Sunday.

The chimp was from Longleat Zoo.

𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐥 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟖. Lena wrote her fourth article for emma, she describes dressing up in her mums clothes to put on shows for her friends when she was a child., she also described how she enjoyed working with Morecambe and Wise.

𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐥 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟖. The fan club had a small ad in Record Mirror.

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟐. In The Stage, Walkerprint used a photograph of Lena in their advert.

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟐. In The Stage, Lena’s show at the White Rock Pavilion, Hastings from 3rd August - 4th September was advertised in the Summer shows section.

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟐. In The Stage, Lena’s show at the Winter Gardens, Margate, on the 22nd - 24th July was in the “Next Week” section.

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡, 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟔𝐭𝐡, 𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟕𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟐. Lena appeared in Summer With The Stars at the Cliffs Pavilion, Southend. Two shows per night at 6:15pm and 8:45pm. photograph courtesy of lenazavaroni.com

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟏. Sarah Burge mentioned Lena in her book "The half a million pound Girl".

#lena zavaroni #Youtube

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openingnightposts · 8 months

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#IrishRep #NYCTheater #OffBroadway #TulisMcCall

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thorntonkrell-blog-blog · 1 year

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Every child is born into a new family. The family that I was born into had no other children. I was gonna turn out to be either an only child or a big brother.

I was born into a house on Parsells Avenue which my parents had bought from my grandparents who moved to Holcomb. Our house on Parsells had an upstairs a downstairs an attic and a basement. For some reason, I was afraid of the attic but loved the cellar. The cellar even had a coal bin within which I enjoyed playing and making a mess.

My father had a workroom which fascinated me in its organization but never interested me as much as his bookshelves. I opened every book on that shelf and over the years I have read many of them including Walden, In Dubious Battle, Arrowsmith, Tom Sawyer, Animal Farm and many others. My favorite was Pinocchio which contained a particularly horrifying picture of Monstro the whale.

None of those original books have made it into my library although Pinocchio came close.

I do have one heirloom from that library and it is a curious one. The survivor is a catalogue and price list for the Match Corporation of America out of Chicago published in 1949. It is one of my most prized possessions.

I had to be at least four years old the first time that I saw it. It didn't look like other books. The cover was embossed leather, black red and white. When I opened it for the first time, I immediately became obsessed. The book was filled with sample match packs of different quality, style and expense. Every match pack was designed to catch the eye of a potential customer as well as to feature certain specific lines of business.

According to the text on pager 10.

Colors have great advertising value. Skillfully employed, they are a powerful stimulus. The right color treatment can make a picture of a fireplace look hotter…..a summer lake or an iced drink cooler.

The stimulus and color treatments started working on me. My father was a fireman so from my earliest days, I had a respect for fire and would never play with matches. Perhaps I substiuted that taboo with a passion for looking at matchbook covers rather than lighting matches.

During the summers, we spent glorious days at our cottages on Canandaigua Lake both of which were built by my grandfather after many a cool drink.

I'm figuring that the late forties and early fifties were the golden days of matchbook advertising, an advertising angle that was based upon good will and let's face it; smoking.

Watch movies from this era. Everybody is smoking. Watch the seductive method in which femme fatales accept a light from their victims; the touch of the fingertips to steady the match, the look into the eyes. and then the blow.Yeah, ya know.

So everybody liked to carry matches around just in case somebody wanted to strike up a conversation with that suggestive question, "Hey there, gotta match."

Book matches were an excellent way for businesspeople to give their customers and prospects an item that would be in continual use while serving as a daily necessity.

"Book matches are always on the job rendering essential service every hour of the day and night. As they serve, they repeat your advertising message constantly, insistently but inoffensively. Book matches are never refused when offered and are rarely if ever thrown away until the last match in the book has done its job."

Today, I took the book off the library shelf in my Southern home again. Yup, the catalogue survived our trip to Carolina. I opened the book for the first time in decades and I remembered even more secrets about the book and its influence on my life.

Amidst the dozens of matchbook front covers, top folds (saddles) and back covers neatly adhesed to the pages of the catalogue, there was an ironic total absence of matches as the adhesion to the printed page was made where the matches and the inside covers would have been if the models were complete and functional.

As for the missing matches themselves, they would have been carefully designed to avoid delayed action sputtering and fireworks. Each match head would have been carefully dipped into an ignition material to assure quick flaming with velvet smoothness. Each missing match would offer an equal distribution of ignition on every well formed striking head.

Die cutters used strong sturdy board was used for the creation of perfectly uniform match stems stems, which would always be stiff and firm always stiff to assure the reduction of bending and breaking. The collection of match heads in each book was carefully centered and stitched into the covers.

All of these qualities can only be imagined due to the adhesion of the sample books to the catalogue.

What can still be appreciated even after all these years are the front covers, the back covers the saddles and the striking surface.

The striking surface itself is smooth, even, responsive and prepared with exacting standards.

The manufacturers selected the paper stock of the covers based upon toughness, texture and smooth retentive coating. Skillful artists created the designs created using fine inks from skillfully etched engravings.

The matches can only be imagined like the places that the books advertised: The Nook on Roosevelt Blvd in Philadlephia Pa. The Nook was a "friendly place" where "you are a stranger but once" or Kit's Cocktail Lounge 333 A Street in Oxnard California; "a continental spot, you'll like a lot" or The Blue Moon 8436 Jefferson where the customers can dine and dance and "everybody has a good time".

I was so little at the time that I didn't even know what a "cocktail' was but it looked like the people ont covers were having a good time. These were all Sunburst quality designs. Someone had removed order 3106-SB from the catalogue which always bothered me. Who would do such a thing? Why would anybody want to ruin perfection.

There was a lot that I didn't understand as a child some of which still remains a mystery.

I have learned the importance of careful design, avoiding accidental fireworks, equal distribution of ignition, stiff resistance, centering, exact standards, smooth and even response, toughness, texture, reduction of breakage and retentive coating.

I'm gonna need all the emotional help I can gather from my learning resources, as my lifelong friend Johnny passed away yesterday. The calls are coming in and going out.

I got the call while composing this very piece

I showed him the book sixty five years ago.

Today he's Order 3106 SB.

Unlike 3106 SB, however, Johnny is gone but not ripped off. He led a full life and lived it according to his toughness, standards, measured ignition, indomitability, responsivity and good will.

We never know when we're gonna put away childish things. The last time that I opened the catalogue was the day that I showed Johnny the book. I think we paused at the pin-up matchbooks which I had once thought forbidden but had long since been blown away by Playboy magazine. We were good Catholic boys.

Sixty years have passed between the time I opened the book for Johnny which was the last time that I had opened the catalogue for anybody including myself. The catalogue had a brief hey day around the time, five years earlier, when Jimmy Welsh, Tom Bissonette, Mike Drexel, Richard Insalaco, Feeb and I embarked upon a stamp collecting fad that lasted about six months.

We all got these cheap stamp books and started collecting. Woolworth's and Neisner's downtown sold small bags of cancelled stamps and we all thought that we'd find a treasure amongst these throwaways. Hundred stamps cost a quarter which was the equivalent of five packs of baseball cards.

We bought those sticky things that you put on the back of the stamps to make them adhere and went about with our collections. My stamp book was a goddamned mess. Stamps in wrong places. Stamps losing their adhesive and dangling every time that I opened the book. The disorganized mess that was the stamp book revealed my lack of maintenace skills and disdain for organization.

My buddies would come over and bring their stamp books and we would compare collections. I would be continually surprised at the comparative shittiness of my collection. One day I got an idea, whenever my friends came over with their collections, I claimed that I had never really been a stamp collector and that my real passion was collecting match books. I would take out the catalogue with its formidable organization and consistent adhesion and present that book as my "collection." Most of my friends were amazed and some were scandalized/aroused when they happened over to the pin up section which I tried to avoid as near occasions of sin leading to temptation and awkward confession.

Hence, I gathered a false reputation as a fastidious collector who knew how to organize, adhese and value.. even as our innocence was slipping way like our boyhoods.

Fortunately for me, the stamp collecting craze ended as quickly as it began and I could put the catalogue away before my gimmick was discovered. I only took it out that one last time.

Baseball cards replaced stamps. I took care of those cards and still have many of them today.

I became friends with Johnny. We were together in the classroom of Sister Matthias in fifth grade. He sat across the room from me but when something unusual happened in the class or Sister made a joke or Father Feeney came in and started challenging us to think beyond the catechism, we would look across the room at each other and laugh. We both understood something about each other and the world that was common knowledge to us but hidden from others.

Many of the folks to whom I showed the catalogue and the baseball cards and the stamps are no longer with us although they remain with me in spirit and thus add soul to my cards and catechism to the catalogue. I hadn't opened the match catalogue until I was inspired to do so with a writing challenge to write about an heirloom which I am doing now in the midst of which as you now know, Johnny passed away suddenly but not unexpectedly.

Johnny had undergone way too many trials; Heart surgery, bone marrow, colon cancer, liver disease, radiation, chemotherapy. He sustained his good will and his humor throughout every struggle. He remained a faithful husband and loving father as he was going the distance with his wife of 42 years.

During one of his cardiac crises Johnny had been resusitated from the dead. This experience changed him even further as it gave him an even deeper appreciation of life and decreased his fear of passing. Plato claimed that philosophers didn't fear death because they practiced it every day with sacrifice, contemplation and meditation. By the time of his passing Johnny had become quite a philosopher.

I had spoken with him only a week earlier. He had been through a series of "procedures" since I moved down South. He was about to have his bladder removed which we knew was a dangerous and complicated operation. We had an opportunity during this phone call to reminisce about our days together. I got to tell him that I loved him. He remarked that somehow, through it all, we had emerged as successful happy men. His last words to me were "We'll see each other again."

I'll be contemplating the contents of that final conversation for the rest of my life

In between that final phone call and today I took the catalogue off the shelf. It did its job. I'm gonna put it back on the shelf now , maybe for the last time and contemplate Johnny in the spiritual world most assuredly not for the last time.

I'll see you again Johnny when I get home.

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