Bowling Green

Bowling Green appears to be a sleepy ordinary town with not much happening. Nothing could be further from the truth. As you read on, you will find that "everything is going on." As old folks used to say "all eyes closed ain’t sleep." They are people you would find in every part of the world, where the only link between them and the mainstream society is death and taxes. This town made up of 3500 people, African Americans, Mexicans and white farmers are no different then those black angus steer, ambling along slowly, silhouetted against the red evening sky. Time has stood still for them. The powers that be were quite content to have it remain that way, purposely and systematically excluding the people, to maintain the power balance. Oddly enough, not often recognized on this complex planet, many people like staying just the way they are, the "silent majority."

Would you believe this is modern time and we still have a "Mason & Dixon Line?" We’re standing at the crossroads at seventy-six, knee deep in politics. Now, here comes the prospect of big business in 2001. A major international airport, hotels, mega superstores and supermarkets coming in, forcing economic change. Creating a new balance of power. Bowling Green cannot remain the same underprivileged small town where in this case, the motion picture The Defiant Ones was filmed, supposedly putting the town on the map, still nobody seeming to know where it is. Here, folks have one thing in common, their children. They either talk about them or they don’t, depending upon whether they’ve made them proud or disappointed. They have their Pastors and Reverends in church every Sunday, preaching the good life in the hereafter. However, how to go about empowering themselves to share the good life in the here and now escapes them. The people are not frustrated, they don’t appear to be suffering from absence of thought, nor do they seem unhappy. They are simply "left out!"

Most of it’s citizens both black and white live on "fixed incomes" and still reside on properties left to them by their forefathers. However, there are a number of black households with children being raised by a single parent. Usually the mother. There is no father around to protect them, or go into battle for them, to shoulder the responsibilities. Why? Because it is black and brown men who make up the majority of those who are incarcerated in jails and prisons.

Some of them have found God but lost the joy and legacy of spiritual wealth promised to them at the beginning of time, before they were made to feel "no good" thus losing their self esteem, dignity and culture. Nevertheless, you cannot contain a plague. Ruined families takes it’s toll on everyone. For, in Bowling Green and everywhere else in the world, "when there is a drought--.there is no harvest.

I grew up in New York City when it was truly a melting pot. Depression and immigrants all living together in the same block. I was there when it changed from Pumpernickle Broad, Gifelte Fish and Kanish, to Arroz con Poyo y Habichuelas Rojas..."Spanish Harlem". Julliard trained, I incorporated all the flavors of the classical, Latin jazz, blues and gospel music I'd heard as a child, into the songs I composed, as early as five years old. Instead of becoming a concert pianist, my path led to a career as lead singer with the group Odyssey. Do you remember Native New Yorker? It was our first worldwide hit in 1977. I was honored to receive the coveted Grammy Award for co-writing with Emmy Kemp and Danny Holgate the opening number entitled Bubbling Brown Sugar for the famous Broadway musical. The real thrill of my life came when Duke Ellington's sister came over to me after the awards and said her brother had done everything he'd wanted to during his life but had always wanted something on Broadway. She then took my hand, embraced me and said "thank you for helping to make that possible." Unbeknownst to her, it was her brother who had encouraged me, at the age of eight, when my sisters Louise and Carmen and myself, then known as the "Lopez Sisters" appeared on the same show with "The Duke". He was sitting backstage waiting to go on when I asked, "did you enjoy our singing?" He sat me on his knee and said, "if you think you did good, then you did good." His simple words stayed with me throughout my life. Oddly enough, when I accepted the award earlier, at that moment I was thinking, thank you Duke for helping to make this possible.

Some of my works soon to be published in the U.S. are: I Tell You Frankly, Beast In The East, Anna's Room, Backstage Life and my first children's book, Jamaica.

You may wonder why I am now focusing on publishing books. It's very simple.

For what is life but . . . "one long song".