This heartwarming story is one of historical relevance and recognition. As Marvon, an African American man in his 90’s beings to speak we immediately fall in love with his presence and how he sees the world. Growing up in a time when the live of the African American was one of many hardships and yet still grounded in love he always wanted one thing; to be a part of the Tuskegee Airmen. The scene opens with him diving deep into the new challenges of this new thing his great grandson has introduced him to, the internet. As he fumbles with the phone, he is encouraged to search any topic and he’ll be able to find information. All of this information at the touch of a screen. He searches “Tuskegee Airmen” and up pops on the screen a picture of him, his friends, his brothers. This then takes us on a trip into the past and present experiences of this African American war hero. A beautiful reminder that there are still heroes among us and something as simple as a search on the phone can take us away to a different time and a different place where little boys dreamed of flying in big planes and keeping us all safe. One never knows where the next memory is going to come from but what we must do is embrace them because passing them on to our children is how our history will continue to live well beyond our lifetimes.
Gaining Wings
My great grandson got me a phone for Christmas. One of those smart things- a smart experiences- oh no, a smart phone is what he called it. I didn’t realize that a smart phone was just a fancy way of reminding me just how dumb I was. I joke, I kid, but this thing is hard to maneuver. My grandson sat me down a couple of weeks ago and he told me to get on the Internet. Oh Lord this boy is trying to make his ninety-year-old grandfather feel like he’s, as they say, cool- again. He said on the Internet I can look up any and everything and I will be able to find information about it. Isn’t that wonderful. Knowledge at your fingertips. Still makes me laugh, back in my day we read if we could read, though there wasn’t much about black folk to read about, and well...we fought. There honestly weren’t many things that I felt the need to learn about now at my age. But he said anything so I took my smart phone and it took me a while but I typed in Tuskegee Airmen and there’s a little magnifying glass in the corner that my grandson said is how I make the Internet work. So I pressed it and a little thing came up and started swirling in the middle of my phone, I thought I broke it, but I got so excited. Now I didn’t know what was going to happen next but the anticipation made me happy. And then, I held my phone in my hand and found myself looking at a picture of some of the most amazing African American men to ever walk this earth and on the second row third from the left was me.