Hi folks! Here’s a sample of my upcoming book, Homeward Bound, coming soon. Enjoy!

4. Go South, Young Woman

My friends and I decided to travel as light as possible. I packed a dress to wear on Friday at the reunion, and another to wear at the graduation ceremony. The rest of the trip would be spent in t-shirts and jeans; comfortable clothes. I’ll look nice for the weekend events, but beyond that, I’m not going down there to impress anyone.

The closer the date of the trip came, the more I wondered about how my friends were going to react to Virginia. When you see a place through your own eyes, it’s one thing. But when you look at it through the eyes of others, things can change completely. 

Things you may think of when you think of the South:

• Banjos
• Sweet tea in a mason jar
• Country music
• Confederate flags
• Cornbread
• Hogs
• The Bible
• Churches on every corner
• More country music
• Pick-up trucks (lots of them)
• Deliverance

I was over at Amy’s house one night, watching TV. She turned to a channel and the movie In the Heat of the Night was playing. In my head, I started doing comparisons between the movie, and my hometown. “Oh God,” I said out loud.

“What’s up?” Amy asked, cocking her head to one side.

“This movie is making me think about Virginia,” I said.

Amy snorted and snickered. “Oh, come on! This is an old movie! And besides, this is the deep South. We’re not going all the way down there.”

“Still,” I said. “I’m beginning to feel a little embarrassed.”

She slapped me on the thigh. “Well, don’t,” she said. “You are not where you came from. You are not your hometown.”

“Easy for you to say,” I said. “You’re a native New Yorker. I wish I could claim New York as my hometown.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Amy said. “There’s nothing wrong with where you’re from.”

I sucked my teeth. 

You know that scene, where Sidney Portier’s Detective Tibbs talks to Endicott and Endicott slaps him? Tibbs slaps him right back, I mean right away. That was my other concern: racism. I’m going to be traveling with two black cats (Dee and Olivia) and a girl who’s half Puerto Rican and half Dominican (Carmen). It’s not that I don’t think they can handle themselves, it’s that they shouldn’t have to. I don’t want my friends to deal with any of that type of shit.