“Never date a colored girl. They’s all got the clap. They get it from they mamas.” My grandmother’s sage advice to me at five years old.
In spite of all the glamour shots of Spanish moss, and cypress trees, Louisiana is about as out of luck as one can get when it comes to being from somewhere. It’s hot, muggy, racist, and nobody’s family tree has a fork in it. Mine was no exception. My grandparents were first cousins, and I guess that’s why we all look alike, have every health condition known to America and some third world countries, Louisiana being among that group in spite of it being positioned at the tail end of the Mississippi River.
Long about the time I was three years old God decided it was time to kill me so I contradicted polio and something called the “sleeping sickness.” I lived, no…
