I was my Big Daddy's Blue Bug and he was the center of my world during my first four years of life. He gifted me with coping mechanisms that help me to handle life's stresses.
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Good evening and welcome to my humble podcast abode. I am Cocoa Griot, just a 50 something who cherishes talking about life, love, and a plethora of other topics. A few months back I sat down to read my email, and one message stood out from the rest of the normal junk mail that litters my inbox. The message was from the website, Find A Grave, and it was an alert that someone had honored my picture request. Now I don't know what kind of person takes out the time to walk around cemeteries and take pictures, but boy, am I grateful to this person beyond measure. I hesitated for a moment to open the email and look at the photo. Once I've opened it, I could not stop looking at the grave marker. I kept thinking about how inadequate that space was to describe the man I knew as Big Daddy. Aww... Elbert Leon Lewis was born in the late 1890s, and he was my mother's grandfather. For the first four years of my life, he was truly the center of my world. Every day before my parents went to work, they marched us across the street to Big Daddy's house. I could not get there fast enough, because he always greeted me with tender forehead kisses and a squeeze of my oversized cheeks.
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Big Daddy was the only person allowed to call me Blue Bug, according to my rules. He made up the nickname, so he had the sole privilege of using the nickname. My first sanctuary was just being in Big Daddies presence. I didn't fret when my parents went to work, because I knew a day of adventure was a store for my siblings and me. Amazingly, over 50 years have passed since I last saw Big Daddy. I am not sad when I think of him though, the opposite is true. I get transported to a time of pure joy in my life when I think about him, and my memories. The activities he enjoyed were simple, and they bring me joy today as well. He gifted me with ways to cope when things are stressful in life. Let me start with music. If there was no Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, or Dizzy Gillespie playing on the Victrola, Big Daddy had to be sick. Music was such a huge part of his day, but I never remember him listening to blues music. There was always some kind of upbeat merriment that made me move my spindly legs, even though I had zero rhythm. I learned from him that music was a balm to your soul. He never directly spoke those words to me, but I could see how his eyes lit up when he heard the famous Night in Tunisia.
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Years later I got to hear Dizzy Gillespie's live performance, and I was overcome with joy. I could see Big Daddy's wide smile when I close my eyes and bobbed my head to the haunting melody. Music is a sanctuary I'm so grateful to have in my life today. I can listen to George Gershwin's Rhapsody and believe one minute, and then George Clinton's Not Just Knee Deep the next. It is not about the vehicle that takes me there, it is the journey itself, that allows me to get lost in my sanctuary. Some days when things are really rough. I tune out the world and just tune in to my music.
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An additional sanctuary that I got from him was reading. I remember when I researched Big Daddy's parents, they were both born in the 1870s, and so I was excited to found out they were both literate. I was excited when I read the information about them in the 1910 census. Big Daddy read the newspaper every day. He especially enjoyed the comics, seeing him read every day made me anxious to learn to want to read. I love to listen to his booming baritone voice narrate what was happening in the comments as my eyes darted across the page.
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