Finding Her Living in the Concrete Jungle

Finding Her Living in the Concrete Jungle

As you’re sitting there probably wondering how one or two people being animated real life characters can find love in a concrete jungle. Wait a minute, you could be standing or even sky diving. Let me try an explain what it means. There are a lot of intellectual readers out there who are not familiar with urban terminology. Concrete jungle (plural concrete jungles) (idiomatic) An urban or other populated area especially when perceived as an unpleasant or challenging place to live containing a high density of buildings constructed of concrete or similar materials, especially one which lacks greenery and which seems unattractive, harsh, or unsafe. Maybe unsafe is an understatement.

I met the lovely chocolate brown 6 year old Tameka Jennings in the fall of 1971 in Harlem, New York City. We were both in Miss Candy Cadbury’s first grade class. My family had moved to Harlem because my father made a huge career move to manage a new chocolate plant at the Harlem Chocolate Factory after resigning from the Hershey Chocolate Factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania. 

Later, I was to learn he moved because he was caught having an illicit romantic affair with the great granddaughter of Milton S. Hershey. That’s another story in itself in which I’ll unhappily share at a later date and time. She was wearing a short mini-dress featuring a Victorian accented style, double knitted with buttons and tie, with matching vest and low slung belt. Her hair was parted in the middle with one afro hair puff on each side of her head. She had a big gap between her two front teeth and a smile that could melt the peppermint patty in my faded bell bottom jeans in my right pocket.

For 8 happy years I walked her to her yellow school bus, while my mom picked me up in her Chrysler New Yorker Station Wagon. It wasn’t until I got invited to her 8^th grade graduation party at her Randolph Housing project apartments. I don’t know what scared me most if it was the 110 gang bangers wearing all blue, or the abandoned hypodermic needles left all over the ground, drunken stinking wino’s, garbage everywhere (especially over used soiled cheap Pampers) or the urine smell that permeated the air all the way up to her 12^th floor roach infested apartment. Things drastically changed between the two of us after that culture shocking day. When I spoke of our relationship drastically changing it wasn’t because of where she resided, it was due to the fact that I realized that we would be attending different high schools, that same dangerous day.

I would be attending Regis High School a top rated, private, all-boys, Catholic school located in New York, NY. We had 532 students in grades 9-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 8 to 1. Tuition was $0 for the highest grade offered. I maintained a 4.0 ever since pre-school and kindergarten. The school was ranked as both the best Catholic high school in the United States and the best all-boys school in New York. Regis is also consistently ranked in the top five high schools in the nation in regard to SAT/ACT scores. After graduation, 100% of students from my school go on to attend a 4-year college.

Tameka would be attending Stuyvesant High School a top rated, public school located in Harlem, New York, NY. It had 3,368 students in grades 9-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 21 to 1. According to state test scores, 99% of students were at least proficient in math and 99% in reading. Stuyvesant High School commonly referred to as Stuy is a specialized math and science high school. Stuyvesant High School is ranked #25 in the National Rankings. Tameka nickname in grade school was Miss Peabody. (Hector Peabody (mostly referred to as Mr. Peabody) was an anthropomorphic mathematical genius cartoon dog who appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s television animated series) Miss Peabody (aka Tameka) was blessed with an I.Q. of 170. We maintained an on and off communication relationship throughout our high school years, although I never went to her home again. During that time, she met someone from her high school and shared with me that she had fallen madly in love with him during her Junior year. I was totally devastated by the news. I couldn’t eat or sleep or even watch my favorite cartoon The Yogi Bear Show, along with his sidekicks Boo Boo and Ranger Smith living in Jellystone National Park.

I was just about to ask her to the Junior Prom at my all boy school to show her off. When you truly love someone as I loved Miss Peabody, I allowed her happiness to come far between my own happiness.

That same summer we shared our first kiss. She was having a problem with lover boy Dudley Do-Right being faithful. He was captain of the varsity Mounty basketball team and most likely to succeed it displayed in his senior yearbook. He would be enrolling at Mount Royal University in Canada that following summer. We were standing inside of the gazebo in my back yard when she suddenly embraced me and planted a long passionate kiss upon my virgin lips. From that time to this day I’ll never forget how I felt deep, deep inside. I wouldn’t get another kiss until several years later. Well, we did sleep together once on the first day of spring on her 25^th birthday.

Before I jump the gun let me update you upon why it took so long to feel as if a human angel lovingly embraced me and kissed my lips. That same summer her father was murdered in a drive by shooting from rival gang members. The sad part about the entire pathetic ordeal was the fact that he was on his way home to inform the family they would be moving to a safer environment. My ex-father had gotten him a job at the Harlem Chocolate Factory. His untimely death changed the lives of his entire family. Her mother (nicknamed Wilma Flintstone) had a nervous breakdown after her husband unnecessary death and whined up getting herself a permanent bed at Bedrock Bellevue Psychiatric hospital. Doctor of Internal Medicine at Planet Express. (Dr. John A. Zoidberg) said that Temeka’s mother was suffering from (PDST) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The family was split up and Tameka was shipped off to finish her senior year of high school in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. While forced to live with her grandmother (her nickname was Pearl Slaghoople) and her mother’s drug addict sister (nickname Betty Rubble) and her 8 children born out of wedlock nieces and nephews. That household was so poor that she had to use an outhouse bathroom facility and no access to a telephone. I was seriously wondering was she dropped off in that Lil Abner comic strip in Dog Patch USA, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in an impoverished mountain village. All I could do for her at that time is to write Tameka a long letter. 

Dear, Tameka,

I know in life we’ll discover that ups and downs are a part of life, part of our humanity. They just teach us to stay grounded, centered within our Sacred Self, and centered within our Being. And they remind us that the peace we so desperately seek out there, is already “within ourselves”. Tameka, we go through life experiencing many pains, struggles, and trials. And even though some of them feel way bigger and more powerful than us, in truth, they aren’t! There is nothing in this world more powerful than you yourself are. Just ask Deputy Dog or even Mickey and Minnie Mouse? And it is my hope that the words I will share with you today along with my philosophical fellow cartoon comrades the meaning behind our wisdom that will help you, not only to deal with the ups and downs of life but also to see yourself as you truly are: Powerful, Courageous, Unlimited, and Divine just like King Kong himself. I’d like you to look over what we’re about to share with you in which how I was able to deal with the ups and downs after my parents’ cartoon like divorced. My father (nicknamed George Jetson) was a cheater and my mother (nicknamed Jane Jetson) finally had, had enough of his infidelity. She made out good on the divorce decree. She even got to keep Rosie the purple robotic Maid. Tameka seek not to know the reason for your unhappiness as Homer Simpson would say. But rather, seek to develop the necessary skills and maintain “the right attitude”, that will help you navigate through the ups and downs of life with peace and serenity. Seek to find the way to your center that sacred place within yourself that is always at peace. For in doing so, according to Snow White and the 7 dwarfs from Detroit, Michigan nothing and no one will ever be able to disturb your inner peace or steal your joy. Not even the Grinch who tried to steal Christmas. I learned to be kind to myself like Shrek. Allow yourself to go through whatever you are going through without shame, guilt, and regrets like Sponge Bob Square Pants. It wasn’t your fault that things changed as they did. You are only human and half cartoon character. Ha! Ha! Ha! I had to laugh at that silly thought myself Tameka. To be human or cartoonist is to fall down and make mistakes; to get hurt and even hurt others along the way like Yosemite Sam or the Tasmanian Devil. And even though you might feel tempted to judge and condemn yourself for not being the perfect being you think you should be, it is better to treat yourself with gentleness, love, and compassion like Princess Leia. Please do not be fooled by your fears. Fear is a liar. It cheats, it deceives, and it tricks us into believing we are all alone, lost, and unworthy of the life we deep down inside know we deserve to live, like Beauty and the Homosexual Beast. Fear wants us to live in pain, poverty, and unhappiness. And it will do whatever it takes to bring us down to its level, just asked Eric Cartman of South Park fame. Do not take your fears seriously. See them for what they truly are games and illusions and turn your back on them. Trust only Love and Scooby Doo. I know that’s easy for me to say because I don’t need a flashlight or shot gun to go to the bathroom late at night. Could you imagine a futuristic city boy like me facing a Rocky the Flying Squirrel and not having my best friend Bullwinkle the Moose nowhere to be found? What? What about Boris and Natasha. I’ll get back to those cartoon villains later. Smile for me Tameka. Pease! Sufferin succotash. As Sylvester Jackson Pussycat Sr. would say. That’s why it’s good to blame your newfound pathetic circumstances on no one. Blame is a thief just like that McDonald character the Hamburglar. It robs you of your power like Aladdin and gives it all away by turning the world into your master, and you into a slave. To blame another is to see yourself as helpless and those you have been blaming as mighty powerful. But you are not a helpless victim and the world is not your mighty powerful abuser. Reclaim your dignity like Thor. Give up on blame. And take back your power like those Nija Turtles and Power Rangers. Try and let the healing take place. When pain comes knocking on your door call Squidward Tentacles, he’s not there to punish you. But to invite you to make room for healing to take place. He comes to show you the way out of pain and into joy out of fear and onto love and out of darkness into the light. Make peace with your past Tameka Obi-Wan Kenobi. The life you are now living with its many ups and downs, is the result of all your past thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. If there is suffering in the present, the past has not been forgiven. If you want to heal your present, make peace with your past. If you want to create a better future,forgive yourself and forgive the past. Allow your Inner Being to guide you. Humble yourself before your Inner Being and allow that sacred part of you that is always at peace to help you navigate through the ups and downs of life with grace and serenity. Surrender yourself to your Sacred Self in love, faith, and humility, and allow the Truth of you to bring you out of the darkness and back into the light. Walk by faith, not by sight. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and look deep within your heart to SEE the wonderful being you aspire to become and the beautiful life you dream of living. See that person. Experience that life. Become one with it in mind, body, and spirit. And no matter what your senses might tell you, surrender yourself completely to that wonderful life. Follow the advice of The Lucky Charms Leprechaun Mr. Potato Head. No matter what you are currently experiencing and no matter how painful and unbearable it may seem, I want you to know that it will eventually come to pass because all things do pass no matter if its good or bad or comical. And if you “have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear. If you “Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself like the sunken Titanic,” as it is so beautifully written in the Daffy Duck diaries, you will soon realize that nothing in this life happens to you, it happens for you. None of it was meant to hurt you, but only to cleanse you, to heal you, and to awaken you to your true Beauty, Wisdom, Courage and Divine Power. Seek the guidance of the brave ones like Casper the Ghost. At one point in time before BC or AD or without indoor plumbing, there has been someone who went through something similar to what you are now going through; an incredible being who managed to move past their insecurities, their fears and many ups and downs in a way that made them feel stronger, braver, and wiser like Woodsy The Owl. Seek the guidance of that person through books, art, science, movies, paintings, music, etc., and allow their story to inspire you to look within for your inner hero that brave and courageous being who will help you come out of your battles, victorious! And these are the ways in which I and my cartoon allies were able to relive my mind and to deal with the ups and downs of life. I hope that we have inspired you to stand strong in your Truth and Power so that you can meet with courage and confidence whatever life sends your way, knowing that none of it happens to you, it all happens for you. Love, Always Bartholomew (aka Elroy Jetson).

P.S. I will meet you under the gazebo at my mother’s home on the first day of spring until you return to me.

I didn’t hear from her until I received a letter one day.

Dear Bart,

Don’t look so surprised or be reluctant to open this letter from your favorite girl Miss Peabody. Rumor has it through the cartoon grape vine that you have tried to replace me with that skinny Olive Oyl or is it Alice in Wonderland. I aint going nowhere and will always be your number one cartoon gal. All jokes aside I been missing you like crazy over the years, there is no substitute for my cartoon faraway lover. I mean grown man. I won’t take up too much of your cartoon creating mind, but there’s something I know I must share with you in person if you allow me. Remember the time we. No, no, no I can’t do this in print. I’ll come see you in your mothers Gazebo in a few days. I have some vacation time, so it won’t be a problem the problem I foresee if you let me ever leave your side and I know I’m going to feel the same way to. All my love will always belong to you Miss Peabody. Xo Xo hugs and leftover kisses.

I was sitting on my sofa watching reruns of Huckleberry Finn in my Hawaiian Island Condominium. I had been filled with mixed emotions ever since I receive that letter from Tameka. I would finally reacquaint myself with my first and last true love on the first day of spring as I had promised long ago.

When I seen her while sitting in the Gazebo? I didn’t realize that a cartoon character, I mean real woman could get extremely beautiful with age. She was holding the hand of a light brown skin boy who was wearing a tee shirt that depicted that dog from the Jetson’s Astro. She introduced me to her son and said his name was Bartholomew (aka Little Elroy Jetsons Jr.).