I may be an old dog – don’t mean that I can’t learn new tricks.

The other day, “my day off” as Mister John would call it – but let’s be honest, am I really working?- I paid a nickel for the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrel Sunday show. Now I ain’t gonna lie – it did get me a little bothered to see them white folks laugh and knee-slapping when Sambo would shuffle around and trip or when Mammy would sing some country song. But I don’t know what to think about that there.

White folks down here are cruel or good for nothing or evil to black folk because they as low-down as us. Most of the time the “quaint Southern Negro vernacular” John likes to call the way I speak is the same way I heard white folks down here speak. In fact, ask some of these white boys if they can read. They are as dense as me. Annie and John turn they noses up at them kind of white folks – whether they know it or not. They the same color – but a different breed. No better or worse. Just a different breed.

But with my research trip – if you will – to see minstrels get them white folks choking up and laughing and throwing dimes at them I wonder what it takes for a man like me to work them over. What about me makes John stare at me like I’m about to hatch an egg and makes Annie’s eyes get as big as dinner plates when I’m telling her some old tall tale? I know the obvious reason – but what makes me so damn special? Is every Negro special to these people or am I a good entertainer? Am I a minstrel? So why don’t I feel uncomfortable puttin’ on for these folks when I was uncomfortable watching it? We were having a slow afternoon the other day so I made a point to wolf down Annie’s bland pork and to cry a bit into my plate to get John to ask for a story. I picked that up from a Sambo at the minstrel show – worked like I was on stage and those two were paying customers. It felt nice – they revolve their dreary, bland lives around me and my livliness and my tall tales. They are the chumps willing to pay for the show that any Negro on this side of North Carolina can put on.

Sometimes I don’t like John staring at me like I’m a golden goose. Sometimes I catch him looking and I wonder how in the hell would he get along without me.

Anyways, I told my wife Andromeda that if she faints and frowns and frumps like Annie does I’ll leave her in a minute.

She looks at me and says, “You think I got white woman time to be fainting? Who is going to brine the ham?”

Annie really needs to brine that ham a little mo’. Maybe she would be a little happier if her food tasted better.

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