Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto...by Paula Neal Mooney...that was just one of James Brown's songs
that has been ringing in my soul all day. I also loved the haunting, echoing tone when James Brown
sang "This is a man's world, but it wouldn't be nothing without a woman..."How fitting that a man who commanded Santa to go the ghetto and "fill every stocking you see...'cause that was once -- me!" would pass away on Christmas day.
It's even stranger and a little more melancholy that the folks close to me who loved James Brown the most -- my grandfather (Daddy Elmer), my mother and grandmother (GranRuby) -- have all died themselves, so I can't call them up and say, "Wow, can you believe James Brown died?"
I first felt that feeling when, shortly after my mom died, I saw Muhammad Ali in a Vegas casino. I went back to my hotel and glanced at the phone, but realized that the folks who nurtured me on the sounds of James Brown while rallying for the rumbler in the jungle on TV were all gone.
Still, this Christmas day was the best on record. It wasn't all the stuff that made it great, the materialism that threatened to swallow me whole -- even more noticeable with the Pope's edict today to worship God and not technology, which I read about, ironically, thru technology.
It was the peace, the family time. The lolling about and being warmed watching Cheaper By the Dozen 2
on satellite.Then it was the satisfaction I felt my driving thru the rain to drop off two of the Turbo Tail Tiggers that I'd stocked up on, planning to flip them on eBay or somewhere, but landing them at a women's shelter instead. Obeying Jesus and being His hands for one moment was really the gist of what it's all about. I've got a long way to go...
Bookmark http://www.paulamooney.blogspot.com/ and travel with me.
Tags: james,brown ,santa ,claus ,ghetto ,mans ,world
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