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Cotton Comes To Toledo…!
By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Guest Column
Aaah! Don’t you smell it! You can’t miss it! Come
on…take another
whiff and what do you smell? It’s cotton, man…cotton!
Unmistakable smell.
It is almost cotton time again for Toledo!
People are gearing up for this big shindig again.
Flowers….costly dresses…
tuxes…expensive dance lessons…practice sessions…hours and
hours of
meetings.
All about cotton! You are probably one of those who did
not know that
cotton was such a big deal in Toledo. Been that way for many
years.
Some black folk in Toledo simply love da smell of cotton. It
is clean. It is pure.
It is wholesome. And most of all, it is white! We just loves
dat white cotton!
Oh..I could say it over and over again and never tire of
saying it: COTTON…
COTTON…COTTON!
I think about cotton practically every day. It makes me
feel clean and with cotton by my side, I can do anything
because Cctton has taught me how to behave.
I know…I know. It sound silly but it is true. When
cotton came into my life
it changed everything. Now, everything looks different.
You..me..my family…
society…my hopes and dreams.
They all have been shaped, and for the good, by cotton.
I owe it all to cotton (slight pause as I wipe a tear
from my eye).
Without cotton, I have no way of telling you where I would
have ended up.
For you see, cotton gave me direction. It gave me hope when
there was none.
It has given me a vision when I was blind.
I don’t know about you but cotton was there for me when
no one else was.
So, if I get choked up about talking about cotton, now you
know why.
I cannot begin to tell you how cotton came into my life and
where it is now taking me.
It is taking me to heights and places that I never
dreamed of. Who would have thunk it that something so simple
as cotton could have such a power, have such an influence on
me that I can hardly sit still when I think about the
benefits of good ol’ cotton.
Now, it is close again to that time, when we celebrate
the joys and benefits of cotton. I am antsy just thinking
about the upcoming events that cotton has
spawned that I can hardly wait for tomorrow!
See, that what cotton does for me at least. It has
placed me on a firm foundation and the others that celebrate
cotton time with me would also agree that cotton is good.
Wait…! Oh no! I am so sorry! I am speaking about
something and the whole time I was spelling and misusing the
word, ‘cotton’ wrong.
My profuse apologies for this gross error. It just
shows you what can happen when you get caught up in the joys
and fun of cotton.
What I should have been saying in the place of the
word, “cotton” was the word, Cotillion.
Now that makes better sense doesn’t it!
I am rhapsodizing about the upcoming Cotillion where me
and my bros and sista’s can don formal tuxes and white
formal gowns with long white cotton gloves and we can waltz
(what is a waltz come to think of it?) away the night at the
Stranahan Theatre and do funny bows and have our names
announced before we enter the dance floor.
Now, don’t be asking me about why black teenagers are
running around dressing up looking like white folks from the
1920’s. I am doing what I am told.
I don’t know why we do these funny dances and put on airs as
if we are European royalty.
All I know is that this cotton….sorry, this Cotillion
Ball is supposed to make us act whiter and learn manners
(don’t black folks have manners?) and think that if we dance
waltzes we will be more civilized.
But answer me this question? Why don’t you see white
families spending hundreds of dollars each year on their
kids and prepping them to act like black kids and learning
“black” dances’ and desiring for them to be introduced to
“black society?”
Who came up with this cornball idea that if you have
black kids mimic white folks dancing and strutting around
and putting on airs, that you will be a better person?
The organizers says that this cotton dance, er,… I mean
this Cotillion Ball is our “introduction to society.”
Society….. whose society?
Funny, after last year’s dance night, I didn’t feel any
different and no one from their “society” has called me
about having lunch with them or giving me a chance at a job.
What is even odder. I still talk the same…think the same…
and what makes me mad is that when I left the Hall after the
last Ball, two white cops stopped me and frisked me on the
ground (my tux was ruined!) saying that I matched the
description of a burglary suspect of some local apartments
building.
They let me go when the drug dog found no hits and the
trunk of my car only turned up some battery jumper cables
and an empty gym bag.
Well, so much for that Cotillion. I thought it would
my “mojo” to protect me since there I was, a black man in a
180 dollar rented tux with my date in a 300 dollar rented
dress and still I was stopped by cops for no reason.
I thought these cops knew about Cotillion Balls and we
dancing to funny sounding waltzes. I thought it would make
“us” one of “them.”
I was wrong! That wasn’t no Cotillion…it is still just a
Cotton Ball after all!
Contact Lafe Tolliver at
Tolliver@Juno.com |
