Tuesday 10 July 2012

From a Very Distant Archive, far, far away. 10.

All this month of July the editorial staff of Bitsnbobs have shut themselves away in the distant archives. They hope to turn up a few gems, but whatever they find THERE will appear HERE.


11 comments:

Mary said...

Who wrote this? Is it from the writing workshop? Lots of good insight, I think.

Mx

popps said...

A problem with The Archives are that some things are not crdited. This is one, it just turned up on a pile lableled random.

Anne Hodgson said...

Yes, carving out the time and space is an issue.

popps said...

maybe the single biggest anne?

Anne Hodgson said...

Yes. I'm spending time in the archives too, so to speak, reading my way through a history project about the neighborhood I grew up in. How I would love to get in there and write. Am neglecting my corrections duties to read this. Have a look: http://www.capitolhillhistory.org/interviews/index.html

Anne Hodgson said...

MARTIN: What about race relations on the Hill, when you first came and how it evolved over the 30 years?

POWERS: Well, what was that time? Was it '68?

MARTIN: '68 was the riots.

POWERS: The riots, so-called riots. I went out... I was actually still over in Georgetown, I think. It was just before I moved over to A Street, Northeast.

MARTIN: But, that didn't stop you.

POWERS: No.

MARTIN: From moving to the Hill.

POWERS: No, no, no, no, no, no. no, no. Because that was vastly overdone in the press.

MARTIN: Um-hmm.

POWERS: It seemed to me. It was a tremendous press opportunity. I don't know whether there was a car burned, or something like that. It came and it went very quickly. And, apart from that, which was sort of a one timer, I thought race relations were rather good up here. No? I had a wonderful lady called Gentleness.

MARTIN: Gentleness?

POWERS: Gentleness. Well, that was the name given her by the head of her order, who was... The head of the order was known as Mother God. You know, when Gentleness got old and sick, Mother God just kicked her out. Isn't that awful? So, she died of abdominal cancer or something on her own. But, anyway, she was a wonderful lady.

MARTIN: What sort of organization was Mother of God?

POWERS: Mother God. Well, it was... It may have been descended from Daddy Grace, or one of those. It may have been an offshoot of Daddy Grace.

MARTIN: I don't know what that is.

POWERS: You've never heard of Daddy Grace?

MARTIN: No.

POWERS: In New York. It's a black organization. In any case, it doesn't matter.

MARTIN: Is it a separatist organization?

POWERS: It's a religious, a semi-religious organization. Black folks.

MARTIN: Humanitarian? Spiritual?

POWERS: Well, whatever. I don't know what they did.

MARTIN: All that.

POWERS: Yeah. All of the above.

MARTIN: Uh-huh.
END OF TAPE 1/SIDE 1
TAPE 1/SIDE 2

MARTIN: Mr. Powers was talking about a neighbor on the Hill named Gentleness.

POWERS: It wasn't a neighbor, it was a person that worked for us.

MARTIN: Ah.

POWERS: She lived with... Mother God had a house up on 16th Street, around P Street, and another place somewhere out in the country -- I forget where -- where they all lived. Anyway, that was just someone who worked for us. I forget how I inherited her.

MARTIN: Worked for you here at home?

POWERS: Yes.

MARTIN: Uh-huh.

POWERS: I first... She first worked for me when I lived in Georgetown.

MARTIN: Mm-hmm.

POWERS: I know. It was Justice, not Justice O'Connor, but one of the... In any case, it doesn't really matter. But I found out about her in Georgetown.

MARTIN: Mm-hmm.

POWERS: And she came and helped.

Anne Hodgson said...

An interview with my unbelievable ballet teacher :-) http://www.capitolhillhistory.org/interviews/2009/brooks_rosetta.html
Shit, I'm never gonna get my homework done!!

popps said...

Anne, i recently learnt about a piece of software - i think it's called freedom - that you set up so that it stops you going onto other websites when you are trying to work.
it stops you looking at your email, wikipedia, whatever for an amount of time that you set.
I had filed it under - hmm, what a state we are in if we need that - but maybe i should file it under Anne needs it and maybe i do too.

popps said...

ps
do you still do ballet?

Anne Hodgson said...

No, unfortunately. But reading Rosetta's story makes me want to start again. Real bad.

Anne Hodgson said...

http://macfreedom.com/ and http://annehodgson.de/2012/07/13/origins/