Columns

Can You Have Longtime Friends Who Were Never Your Friends?

November 29, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray 

I ran across
a picture of me
and two of my closest friends
growing up,
and I thought
of something I read that said:
“You can be friends with people
for years
and it could take years
for you to realize they were
never your friend”

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The ‘Mango Caper’ – Wider Curry Victimized by Next Door Work Crew

November 20, 2023 by Judi Curry

By Judi Curry

Let me start by saying that there are many different kinds of “victims.” Some are extremely serious; some are annoying; some are worthy of complaint to the right people.  Some “victims” find relief in many different ways.  This “victim” – me – hopes to find relief by writing about a situation that festers as each minute goes by.  I realize that some of you will think I have blown this completely out of proportion; others of you will scoff at my feelings, but I, personally, will feel better and, at this time, that is all I can ask for.

I am known as a “jammer” amongst my friends and relatives.  I have 18 fruit trees and make jam year round.  Some I sell; some I give away, and an awful lot we eat.  I pride myself in the varieties I make, and have yet to find someone tell me that the jam was not tasty.  I love trying new fruits and wines; and even mark potential calendar days to begin a new batch.

One of my most memorable jams is my mango. 

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No Salary Ever Made Me Stop Reaching for My Dreams

November 14, 2023 by Ernie McCray

By Ernie McCray

I read somewhere that
“A salary is the amount your employer
pays you to forget your dreams.”
And my take on the idea is
are you kidding me,
with some of the poorly paying jobs I had early in my life,
sweeping and mopping
and buffing and dusting
in between
wiping tears from my eyes
and cussing?

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Keeping the Spirits of Lost Ones Alive

November 8, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

There’s a meme
that reads
“Be the things
you loved most about
the people who are gone”
and when I think about it
I can see that
I’ve been doing that all along,
keeping the spirit of lost ones alive –
through how I live my life,
|going back to my teens

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America’s Stand Should Be With the Seekers of Peace  

November 2, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I turn on the TV
and I hear the news
that Hamas
had taken the lives of
hundreds of Jews
and my eyes teared
and like dust being vacuumed
my breath was sucked away
just thinking that human beings
can treat each other this way
putting them in harm’s way
as they listen to music being played
and then I became equally dismayed,
knowing that Netanyahu’s
retaliation to this horrible display
of heinous madness
would be more deadly

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Remembering Tommy   

October 30, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

The seventy
and eighty
and ninety-year-olds
and beyond
compose a generation
whose days,
after so many yearly journeys
revolving around the sun,
are moving on,
yet,|
though their days will be done,
along with their memories
of a war that was won,
the ending of Jim Crow shenanigans
and marches in the street
for peace and justice and equality
that faced firehoses and snarling dogs
with bared teeth
and so many things –

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We Should ‘Make America Governable Again’

October 5, 2023 by Ernie McCray

By Ernie McCray

What if the slogan,
“Make America Great Again,”
was replaced
with a more hopeful
and promising acronym
such as
“Make America Governable Again”
like the time
when the powers that be
set, although rather unenthusiastically,
its slaves free
or when they laid down highways
allowing motorists
to travel the country
more easily and economically
or gave birth to voting rights
for all of our citizenry.

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One Thought Leading to Another   

September 28, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

When I think of one thing
that one thing,
especially if it’s something
that makes me cringe,
leads me to think
of something a bit more promising.
I mean,
for example,
when I think about
climate change,
my mind sets in motion
dreams of gentle rains
or if the thought is about
the armed conflict in Ukraine
I wish war,
like old soldiers,
would just slowly fadeaway

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Reflecting on a Life Filled with Music

September 25, 2023 by Ernie McCray

By Ernest McCray

I find myself lately
from time to time
thinking about the good time
I had on stage,
just a wee bit of time ago,
doing some rhymes
of mine
and poetry of a friend of mine
and the work
of poets who rank
among the best of all time,
poems referring to a people
still rising,

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Jesus Living On in Chicano Park

September 13, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Every time I’d look over
at my good brother, Jesus Nieto,
while a rapper
was doing his thing
to funk beats
or while other music played
or while the Kumeyaay elders prayed,
blessing this rather sublime day,
he’d be sitting back in his wheelchair
wearing that soft gentle smile of his
on his contented face

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‘Oh Well’ Is Way Past its Time  

September 7, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

We seem to be a country
that looks at its most pressing
social and political problems
with mystified eyes
and shoulder shrugs
that say
“Oh well.”
Like we dismiss
the nation’s propensity
for mass murders
that break hearts in two
with a prayer or two
and get right back
to whatever it is we do.

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It’s Nice Having Sha’Carri Back

August 29, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Sha’Carri Richardson.
I just love that young woman.
Watching her win the hundred
in a World Track Championship
puts a smile on my face
like the one she planted there
when I first saw her race,

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Thinking of a Wonderful Place  

August 24, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I look at a picture of me at a mic
and my son, Guy,
playing the guitar at my right
and I think,
“Man, I’ve had a great life”
because that moment, in the photo,
captured me having the time of my life,
giving a graduation speech,
via a song,
to people I dearly loved
as sure as I was born,
students at Muir,
a K-12 alternative school,

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With the Help of Hollywood We’ll Define Ourselves

August 18, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I see the movie industry
as a huge answer to
the way our society
defines Black people
so negatively
because Hollywood is a master
when it comes to painting an image
of a people,
as I remember growing up
watching many a movie
that made the world seem

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Slavery Was a Sin Against Humanity

August 8, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

There’s an unsound
idea going around
that slavery
benefited those held in bondage
by giving them the opportunity
to learn trades
like blacksmithing
and carpentry
and whatnot.
And in some places
there are intentions to teach this sham
about slavery being a “Job Skills Program”

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Remembering Tony Bennett

July 26, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Tony Bennett,
a singer for the ages,
is gone
but not the memories
of what he,
with a delivery
that encompassed
an incomparable
style of grace and ease,
could do with a song,
making standards,
old show tunes,
his own,
in ways that made you hum
and sing a song

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To My Old Lady

July 25, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Hey,
Maria Ester Nieto.
I was just thinking
how many years ago
we used to refer to our girlfriends
as our “old lady,”
with no thought
that a day might come
when your squeeze is just that,”
an old lady,
a beauty like you
turning eighty,
rocking it,

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What Does it Take to Be a Peacemaker?

July 18, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I had the honor of hanging out with some kids
at the Youth Peace Camp
at the
San Diego First Church of The Brethren,
and I enjoyed every single second I spent
with those beautiful people,
leaving them at the end of the evening,
with a glowing smile on my face
which I maintained
listening to some soulful
old school rhythm and blues
as I kick-backed

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Getting Away from It All with Ahmad Jamal

July 7, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Sometimes when
I need to momentarily free
myself from humanity
and all its insanity,
I’ll listen to my man, Ahmad Jamal,
tickle the ivories
as only he can,
captivated
with the way|
he can finger the keys
in a tinkling fashion

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A Note to ‘the Luckiest Guy in the World’ — Bill Walton

June 30, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Hey, Bill,
loved “The Luckiest Guy in the World”
30 on 30 documentary.
It reminded me
of when I first saw you play
in high school,
in a game
where you, excuse the cliché,
literally blew me away
as you and your crew
descended on some poor team
like a tornado,
with you
swatting their shots
away in ways
that made them
not want to take shots,

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Be-Bopping with Supersax

June 27, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I was
listening to Supersax,
superbly relaxed,
scatting along with the brilliantly constructed tones
they blow through their saxophones,
like I was Lambert Hendricks and Ross
and the Manhattan Transfer
all wrapped up in one,
their songs
ferrying me
deep into a 1940’s
state-of-mind,

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Feeling Hope with My Offspring

June 19, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I dined
at a rather nice café
the other day
where a host,
in this lovely place,
in a very friendly way,
led me
and my twin daughters
and my oldest grandson
and his wife
and their three sons,
to an outdoor table,

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Feeling Glee Over a Witch-Hunt

June 16, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

An ex-president
getting a portion
of his due
through an indictment
and now an arraignment
that are about as overdue
as a book checked out of the library
in 1892,
makes me want to dance a jig,
bad back and all.
And the claim
that the charges against him,
amongst other things,
have been
a witch-hunt, from the get-go,
makes me want to chuckle

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G.O.A.T. Talking to Ease My Mind

June 15, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Pondering
some of what’s going on
in the nation
and the world,
I was in a low-grade funk
and then
I turned my TV on
to two talking heads
on ESPN
who were going on and on
about who was
the G.O.A.T.,
the greatest to ever play
in the NBA,

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Making Amanda’s Dream for a Better Us Is Up to Us

June 2, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Amanda Gorman
gifted us with
“The Hill We Climb”
at an
inaugural celebration,
a poem inspiring hope
which hangs on weakly
by a thread
in our nation,
a poem a parent had
removed from a school
because in her narrowed way
of looking at things

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Tina Turner: Simply the Best

May 31, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Tina Turner.
Gone.
I first saw her on stage
around 1957
or ’58,
and it was love at first sight.
Couldn’t help myself,
if I tried with all my might.
Not with the way
she and the Ikettes
moved and grooved

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One Love Story Giving Rise to Another

May 30, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I was moving
my old bones
to the music of San Diego’s
Hoover High School Mariachi Band
which put me in a deeply responsive mood
for what was next
that afternoon,
a premiere of
“A Chicano Love Story,”
a documentary
featuring Linda and Carlos LeGerrette,
two of Cesar Chavez’s
most valued right-hand
woman and man.

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Lay Those Pistols Down, Ja!

May 23, 2023 by Ernie McCray

By Ernie McCray

Hey,
LAY THOSE PISTOLS DOWN, Ja!
Enough of
all that jive foolishness,
flashing guns on videos
as though you’re a gangster wannabe
or some kind of an OG.
If it’s attention you want
you’ve already got that,
it seems to me,
because on a basketball court
your fans eat up
your razzle and dazzle
and wizardry and artistry
with unadulterated glee.

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Sleepover at Grampy and Maria’s House

May 18, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Two of my grandchildren,
Lyric and Marley,
Lyric almost ten,
Marley, eight,
slept over
the other night
and things went great.

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Feeling a More Caring World

May 12, 2023 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Had a nice weekend at the
“The 2023 Annual Conference of
California Community College
Trustees”
at the
Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa
with mi querida
who is a trustee.

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