"Where's all the white women?"

Cleveland - News - Pragmatic Racism -- I really got a kick out of Pete Kotz' line "the pursuit of white women." It reminded me of an old friend of mine, Felton Page, and I know if he's still out there (odds were back then he'd be shot by somebody's husband), he'd give me permission to put down this anecdote.

Back in 1973, I rotated back to the states from Korea and was sent to Fort Riley, Kansas, where all the officers with attitudes were sent on a semi-punitive basis. One of my friends from Korea, Felton Page, was there, and Felton introduced me to some subversive new humor albums coming from an outrageous new young comic called Richard Pryor. Richard spoke to all of us who were tired of the same old stuffy stuff, especially at command performances at the officers' club and at the lieutenant colonel's house. Felton channeled for Richard, bringing the taboo lines up close and personal, exposing Kansas to the talk and free-wheeling ways of the ghetto.

In an heroic effort to save all of us younger officers with attitudes from being invited to the "command performances" too often, Felton, to announce our presence, would stand at the door, rub his hands together, give a big belly laugh, and boom out, with a big smile and flashing eyes, "Hey, where's all the white women?!?!" Oops, I almost forgot to tell you, Felton was quite black; the Fort Riley establishment wasn't.

We did have some fun. This was better back then than a weekend in Topeka.

Gordon Findlay's funeral service tomorrow

Tomorrow at 0930, we're going over to a funeral home at East 65th and Quincy for services for an old friend, Gordon R. Findlay, born in Detroit December 31st, 1923, attended M.I.T. during the Second World War, class of 1944, worked on top-secret projects for the US government that kept his thesis classified and Gordon without an advanced degree. He was a friend of Gloria's since the 1970s, and he had been helping us with our computers since the early days, when the monitor displays were black with amber or green letters and a good IBM A/T cost over $10,000, with software, of course. MultiMate was all the rage. Gordon was brilliant.

The reason I'm writing about Gordon is that there's no death notice for him, nor will there be; we understand this was a decision left up to his final caregivers, whom none of us here in Cleveland know. There's a service for him at that funeral home at 65th and Quincy, but he died down in Kent and lived most of his time in Cleveland here on the West side. He is a father and has a family, but nobody knows how to contact them. We understand that at one time, in another life, he had been a prosperous businessowner, one of the early tech pioneers.

Given the way things are arranged now, it's going to be hard for anyone to note his passing.

Hence, the entry here.