A Father’s Parting Advice to His 21-Year-Old Son

I hope you enjoy this conversation with my longtime friend and fellow journalist, Charles Farmer. 

We talk about his new book, “Time to Let the Little Boys Go: A Father’s Blueprint to His Son on Surviving Life Alone,” a touching memoir about the advice his father gave him before passing away when Charles was just 21 years old. 

We also reminisce about the glory days of working alongside each other in the Black Press at the newspapers the Call and Post and the Columbus Post in Ohio. 

You can reach Charles Farmer at https://www.facebook.com/charles.farmer.351 

You can reach me at chrisbournea@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:08

Hello, and welcome to the Culture Beats Podcast, featuring conversations about pop culture and many other aspects of life. I'm your host, Chris Bournay. I hope you enjoy this conversation with my longtime friend and fellow journalist, Charles Farmer. We talk about his new book, Time to Let the Little Boys Go. A father's blueprint to his son on surviving life alone. The book is a touching memoir about the advice Charles' father gave to him before passing away when Charles was just 21 years old. We also reminisce about the glory days of working alongside each other in the black press in the 90s at the newspapers, the Colin Post and the Columbus Post in Ohio. Without further ado, here's our conversation. As I like to call you, Farm, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

I'm blessed, brother. Very, very well blessed. Thank you, Chris.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

And congratulations on the memoir. You know, the time we, you know, we were just talking offline about how long we've known each other. So it's been, let's just say, since the 90s. And I know you've been working, you've been, you've had this idea, been working on it for many years. And so it's called Time to Let the Little Boys Go: A Father's Blueprint to His Son on Surviving Life Alone. So can you kind of give a little bit of background about the story behind it and why you wanted to write about this chapter of your life?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Sure. I would say that the story behind it is real simple. It really is. I used to always think about the way that my father raised me. It stems from the standpoint of losing my mother when I was young at age four, and my dad having the opportunity to make a decision. And the decision was simply that he could raise me, raise his son, or my mother's relatives offered for them to take over and raise me, allowing him to see me anytime that he wanted to. And he kindly thanked them, but he simply told them, I told my wife I will raise my son to be a man. Wow. And he stuck to that. And then during that course of that time, as I looked back, it was so instrumental as to the man I became, uh, the boy that I grew up to be, to a young man. And at some point, my dad simply saw that it was his duty to take care of me and not just raise me, but raise me a certain way because of the way that the world was changing. And mean it meant that there would have to be sometimes a more of a stern hand, not an iron fist, but a stern hand with severe, serious lessons, so that I could cope just in case something happened by myself. And I'm not sure if he knew the saw the future or whatever, but it was almost as if there's no way at that point I could be too soft because the world simply would gobble me up. So he gave me a, I would call like a blueprint that uh kind of started from like age 12 uh or 13 till about 21. And that's really in a in a nutshell what this book talks about and delivers the and shows you really the factor of the the man my father was, what he did for me in my life, and how uh awesome and outstanding uh he was to me. And hopefully somebody else can learn from it or receive it. But I guess it was weighing on me that I needed to let the world know who my father was and what we had in common and what it allowed me to do with the blueprint that I had, and basically learn how to live life by myself.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

What a great tribute to your father. So let's give the listeners a little bit of background. So you grew up in Dayton, the Dayton area, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Yes, Dayton, Ohio, yep.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

And um, so your your mom unfortunately passed away when you were young, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Right, four years old.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

And so you're so it was as you said, it was up to your father. He had the choice to let extended family raise you, but he chose to to continue to be the full-time father.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Right, and I was the only child, yeah, I was the only child at the same time as well.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

Right, right. So what kind of uh what kind of work did your father do?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

My father was uh he worked in the foundry, so he's a blue-collar. And those are old school foundries where you went into like what seemed like dark caves, right? Very little light. And when he wasn't working one way, they would make uh steel molds, right? One of the things my dad they made in the foundry was I remember I don't know if you remember the old school uh cash registers, right? Yeah, and they had the uh the little change uh holder at the end, it was silver and steel. Yeah, my dad made those. Wow. One of the things my dad made. So you had they had to form the mold, if you will, then they had to use the iron to with the with the with the fire and whatnot to make that mold and then bring it out and cool it and make those type of products. So it was all kind of noise and fire. It was it was grown man, grown man's work, right? And he did that all the time, like it was nothing. And and so many other men like him worked every day, came out with coal on their faces, and all kind of black, black uh smoke probably in their lungs, and they literally probably were uh, if you will, he probably was minimizing or limiting his life to the time that he spent in that foundry to uh come out and take care of his family.

SPEAKER_03 6:00

Right. And um did he ever tell you anything about what he wanted you to do as a career? I mean, did he ever say, well, you know, I want you to get an education so you don't have to, you know, do manual labor like I'm doing? You know, I think I I I give him all the you know credit. I mean, that's that's honorable work, all work is honorable. But did he ever did he ever tell you, well, I want you to, you know, get an education so you don't so you have more choices, or what kind of uh messages did he give to you about as far as the career path that he saw for you, or did he just kind of leave it up to you? All the time.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Okay, all the time. Now my dad had 10th grade education, right? Uh he didn't even get his GED. He was very intelligent, he read books all the time. He could have got his piece of paper and he said, I don't need it. But I can't even remember a time that he did not say education was the key for me to be successful in life. For myself though, I thought just the opposite. I wasn't a great student in high school. Uh I graduated, but it was it was not pretty. My GPA was not great, and I just struggled in school, but he kept insisting that you have to go to college. And I even came up uh near the time I was about to graduate high school, I had my mind, and I won't spoil the book, but I had a couple things I wanted I was gonna do, I had options, and one of them was if it don't work out, then I just go to the service. But my dad was like, I went to World War II, you I fought for you, you're not going. I was like, how you gonna tell me? But but then but really school was just a thing that he wanted me to do, and I just told him I didn't think I was ready. But in the end, um, the way that it came down, he was, I always thought that this is this was his dream for me and goal. Because I think he knew that if I could get through school, doors could open for me. I could do some things. But it was always his wish. It wasn't mine. I'll be honest with you, it was not mine. And once I started to learn and see what was going on and started to mature, and I understood started to understand the lessons of what it took to be a successful college student, I started to get it, then I became more driven because this was about my dad. I my main thing was once I started to understand and knew how to study and whatnot, because that was my biggest issue. I didn't know how to study early, even in high school. But once I started to get it, and I I started moving through forward in college, I always reminded myself that this would be my dad's degree. It wasn't mine. They should should have taken my name off of it and put my dad's name on it.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

Wow, wow. And you went to an HBCU, right? Wilberforce?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah, Wilberforce, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

What was that his uh at his urging, or did how how did you choose Wilberforce?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Okay, my father didn't care where I went to. You just gotta go. But the way it came down was like I said, my grades were not the best. Um, I thought I was gonna try to play basketball somewhere because at that time I thought I was decent enough to maybe go to a small uh junior college or a small time school, uh like Urbana University, right? Go over there and try to play a little bit and whatnot. Shawnee State, there's some other schools, Heidelberg, Tiffin, things like that. I thought I might be able to do that. But uh at the time, my dad said, you gotta apply. So I just started applying a couple things and I applied to Whippleforce. And at the time, would you we know most HBCUs were struggling to like bring in students? Yeah, enrollments were low, but they knew if they brought in a bunch of people, even those that those that they thought may not make it four years, it looked good on paper, which would open the door for grants and and other monies. It's no secret, it's not just one school, a lot of them do it. So at that time, if you had a high school diploma, some people with GEDs, they were accepting them people. So I applied really just to have my father get off my back, right? So and he came back with a big old package, said congratulations. I'm like, uh, and my father said, What's that package? That package, nothing, nothing at all. And they had a big old thing, and it was nice because you felt like you were wanted, and I got the opportunity, but it was really just it was the best fit for me because the what my mindset the way I was growing up, I probably could not have gone to uh uh a school that was not an HBCU because the the difference in the way we grew up as far as segregation at home in Dayton, yeah, I wasn't ready to deal with the rest of the real world. So I needed time to grow, I needed time to develop and evolve in HBCU, particularly Wobbleforce University, was exactly what I needed.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

And you majored in communications, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Or yes, yes, mass media communications, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

How did you get interested in that? Did um did did your father steer you steer you toward that, or did a uh, you know, an advisor or somebody or a professor steer you toward communications, or did you know you had an interest in writing, or yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Uh my dad was slick, man. I'll tell you what. My dad was a and that's why I had to write this book. My dad was a very intelligent individual. It's almost like he's he knew how to work things as a kid. You don't know, you're just going along and think you know everything, and you have no understanding as to what parents really do to take the time to try to get you ready for the world. Yeah, and my dad, when I was real young, my dad would uh I used to love sports. I was always playing baseball, football, but all of that. And one of the things we used to do, I used to love to read the Sunday paper. So my dad would encourage me to read the paper, and he made me wait until he had to read it first, and I had to wait on him to give it to me, and I had to sit there and just be excited about it. But so, with that being said, he would also have conversations with me about what I read. He quizzed me about sports and he knew I loved it. So he said, Hey, well, who's leading the home, the the uh baseball and home runs, and I had to look it up in the paper. Who's doing this, who's doing that? And then he continued to advance that by saying, Okay, now that I have his attention, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go to the library, okay? So, like one week we go to the library, got a library card. He didn't care what I read, it could have been a Humpty Dumpty, just read. So I have my own library card, which means I had to be responsible. He said, You can only get five books because I want you to read them and we gotta take them back. So I couldn't lose that. And then the following, every other week, we will alternate and we would go to a bookstore. And he liked magazines and books, and he did crossword puzzles. So that meant I got to go and buy, I think it was either two or three. I love comic books. I was a big comic book fan. So I get my two comic books or three, and I get one piece of candy. That was it. So all that beautiful candy up there, I only get one piece. And that's what it was. So we alternated, and after a while, that's how it came to fruition, if you will, of me learning about things, me writing, and um the writing part too, because I used to spend as an independent kid a lot of times by myself, and sometimes I got bored. I'm gonna tell you how this worked. We had an old uh manual typewriter, and we always had the newspaper. So I think it was late at night, my dad wasn't home or whatever, and before I went to sleep, dozed off, really, was trying to stay up all night. I would literally sometimes pick the newspaper up and start reading it, and then I would put a piece of paper in like I was a reporter, and I'd just be banging on the keys real hard like I was doing something. I wasn't doing anything. But after a while, I started reading the paper, and I was like, I bet you I can rewrite that. So I started literally typing, trying to do that, and I was like, Oh, that's cool. And then the writing just kind of evolved.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yeah, crazy. That's what I was doing. Other kids doing whatever. I'm up about 12:30, 1 o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

So it's almost like you kind of I mean, I hate to use the woo-woo term manifest, but it's almost like you were preparing yourself to be for a career as a journalist from a very young age and didn't even kind of realize that's what you were doing.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

I had no idea. I yeah, I will say my babysitter made me do it, and my babysitter oftentimes was television, right? So I saw stuff on TV, and I saw them, the reporters working their fingers, and we had to typewriter. I was like, Well, I think that's kind of cool. Let me do that. And just from that standpoint, I just started to watch and learn, and like you said, you just never know how things are gonna kind of manifest. Yeah, but I started playing around, and then after a while, I was like, this is kind of interesting. Is this how they really do it? And before you know it, my dad was like, I don't care what you do, you need to find something that you do well. And English was pretty easy to me in school, and it just made sense. If I had to go to school, I need to give myself a chance because Lord knows I was not going to be anyone's mathematician.

SPEAKER_03 15:38

Did it did um the the fact that there were a whole lot of when we were growing up, a whole lot of you know really visible, famous black reporters, did that did you think, well, this is something you know that middle class white people do? I mean, did you even did that even cross your mind that that you know race might be a barrier at all going into uh becoming a reporter?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Not really, not until I got older, right? Because I had no clue. I was just messing around and playing around, and my dad was really from the old school. My dad uh was born and reborn and spent the majority, early part of his life in Tallahassee, Florida. Okay, okay, so he literally experienced Jim Crow. And I remember saying something one time to him about how I felt about people that were not of our hue, yeah. And being angry and mad because I didn't think it was fair with us struggling and how it seemed like certain individuals had everything and they didn't have to work for anything. That's my mindset. And I asked him, Why aren't you mad? And he says, Because I'm just not, and you shouldn't be mad either. And I was like, I can't stand, blah, blah, blah. And he says, You've never ever had to sit in the back of anything unless you wanted to. You never had to sit at the back of a bus. You never had to drink out of a different fountain. You never had to use another restroom. And you complaining? And he says, I'm not complaining. You haven't, you haven't been through anything. And he, I was like, Cut the pearls. I was like, Oh my god, what are you doing? And he goes, Nah, so at that point, it changed my perspective and of people. So I kept thinking, because I used to always think about getting mad, and if I if I had a problem, I you know, I'll try to fight somebody. That's what I need to do. You don't get understand what I'm saying, I hit your sentence. That was my mindset. But my dad was more or less like, it's don't make it about color. So, of course, in my own small little world, my little small brain at the time, I was like, Well, all right, if you mess with me, something happens. If you're purple, I'm gonna get with you. And I'm not gonna be about the color. If you're an a-ho, right? I'm gonna, I'm not gonna make it because you are a certain hue. I'm gonna make it because I don't like you and we had a disagreement. I'm gonna do what I need to do. Has nothing to do with your color. Now you might take that personally or think it may come that way, but nah, this is strictly based on who you are as an A-ho.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Did did your dad ever take you back to Florida did you still have family in Florida growing up? Would you did you ever like go back to Florida to see extended family?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Or yeah, in fact, my dad's uncle, my grandfather's brother, they had a family reunion. I think they would have it down in Florida every other year. Okay. And I used to ask my father, because my father, I knew my relatives in Dayton and knew the story a little bit, but I always wanted to go to Florida. I'm like, why don't we just go down there? I want to see how you grew up. I wanted the backstory. And he was like, ah, nah, nah. He took me down there one time. I was nine years old. And we went down and I met a lot of his cousins, and and I think that's the only time we ever visited. I went back on my own, but that was the only time. And just the way that he was treated, and you could tell that it was his family, he was just amazing. And and now that I think about it more, he just he I don't know why he didn't want to go back. He uh he was taking care of his family, but uh he just yeah, that one time, so only once I was nine.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

So tell me about the title, Time to Let the Little Boys Go. Is that a saying of your dad's or no?

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Actually, it's kind of um it's bizarre how this came about as I was thinking about writing a book. I've been thinking about this for a while, and once I said, okay, we're gonna do this, I thought about the title. And I also thought about the the cover came as a result of the title.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

And I thought about the situation about my dad, and once I started to learn more and more, it started to make sense. So I thought about uh what I call, and I think it's like chapter 11, it's called it's more or less titled like uneven parallels. And it's about the fact that my father and my childhoods, our childhoods were very similar. They were uneven, but they were very similar. I lost my mom when I was four. My grandmother, my dad's uh mother passed when he was nine. So he lived that life before. So he knew what it was like not to have your mom when he was young. So he knew what it would take, he knew what he probably was missing, and things of that nature. So I didn't really think about that. The more and more as I got older, and particularly back in writing this book, it made sense. So I came up with the idea of one of my friends mentioned it to me about we all have an inner child. Okay, and this is one of the last parts of the book that I said, that's what's missing. So I thought about my inner child from the standpoint of me having to, like from 12 or 13 up until whatever, I missed maybe five, six years of my childhood. Because I had my dad through the blueprint was teaching me how to drive, he taught me how to pay bills, taught me how to be ready in case he, you know, had a fall or something, anything happened, I had to be ready to be his backup. So I thought about that. And then I also thought about my dad that when my dad uh had lost his mom, we had a serious incident happen in our family. And my dad at 16 lied and joined the army, joined the Navy and went to World War II. Wow. At 16 years old, and because it was so tragic what happened, he felt like he didn't want to deal with he didn't want to stay home. So it's like, you know what? I'm gonna go to World War II. And I found documents of him going uh Jump being on a ship going from Guam to Pearl Harbor at like 17, 16, 17, about 17 years old. And he never talked about that. I used to ask him, what was it like in the Navy? Never talked about it. And so moving forward with that being said, my father was uh was a molder, he was a uh blue-collar worker, he's a hard-working man, really nice, very pleasant, unless you pushed him. But he never was, there wasn't too much stinting soft about my dad. He was nice to kids and people that was that deserved it, right? But he also would whoop some, if he had to, he was known, but not taking too much duty, right? But with that being said, when my dad passed, I went through some of his things. And one of the things I found out was he had and in possession was a box. And I looked in the box, I said, I saw uh something that seemed like a dress. And I said, Well, maybe this is my mother's dress or something, and it just seemed kind of small because my mother was a taller lady. And then I had it uh, I had them check it, check it out for me to kind of give me an idea what the material, what time time it came, time frame it came from. So it came from I think the late 1920s or the early 1930s, which means that was my grandmother's dress.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Wow, and he held on to it all that time.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

He held it for 50 years. 50 years, which to me says his little boy was crying out. He had to have something to hold on to for his mother as he raised his son, right? Without a wit without a mother, right? He had to have something that kept him going. So for 50 years, he's probably crying out. And with that being said, that came the point of the book after my dad had told me prior to him passing, maybe even a year or two before, even before that. He says, when I'm gone, no one will ever take care of you. So I had to teach you how to be a man and grow how to learn to deal with this. They might feed you, they may give you a couple dollars, they may let you stay for a little bit, but they're not gonna let you, you're not gonna, they're not gonna take care of you because you're not theirs. And you can't be mad, because it's just what it is. So that's why I had to prepare you for this. So with that being said, it came down to me thinking about this, going, he's right, and he was and he was thinking about it too. When my dad passed, and that dress, he left that dress, he was gone as a man, but his little boy died too. Right, and then my little boy wasn't dead, but he had to take a back seat because now grown Charles has to evolve and take care of himself. So, what I did in two cents, in a two two-part situation, or a sense, I had to let two little boys go. Wow. And Charles had to rise, so that's what it says. At that point, time to let the little boys go. Time for the grown man Charles to step up.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

That's that's very profound. And you were how old when your dad passed?

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Uh I was 21.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

Okay. Do you do you feel like I mean, I'm sure you can never the loss of a parent, let alone both your parents at that so young. You you know, I'm sure that that um void never goes away. But do you feel like your dad prepared you, did a good job of preparing you for adult life?

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Oh, no doubt. It was it now that I look back at it, 13 or 12 to 21 was amazing. My dad, he was hardcore, and sometimes he never let up, but the lessons were second to none. Yeah. Because they were hard sometimes. It wasn't like he wasn't caring, but I learned it was like uh what's the word, on-the-job training.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

So you don't get a couple do overs, right? Yeah. I learned how to drive a car at a stick shift. Well, I'm driving in the parking lot. One day it says, Let's get on the road, and we go get on the road, and I'm in rush hour traffic. I get I panic, get nervous, I take my foot off the gas and try to start the car. Car will not start, will not start. And people are blowing their horn, they're screaming at me. You know, I'm 14 years old, and I asked my dad to help me. He just says, take your time, do it. I'm crying at this point. And I got myself together, I started the car, and then I started driving like a bat out of hell because I got mad. And I and we were driving in this traffic, and I'll never forget this. We're pulling up towards a light, and these cars are slowing down, and I'm like in fourth gear, I'm punching it. And I need to have time to slow down. My dad's screaming, slow down, slow down. And I'm like, woo, he's like, Oh my gosh, slow down. So, of course, showing him a little something. I'm in fourth gear, hit that clutch, I down shifted the second gear. When he came to a stop like that, he goes, Boy, I said, You want me to drive? I'm driving this month. Yeah, so stuff like that. It was real, it was real time, but no, amazing job because he knew that he had to get me ready for the the reality of life, and life, unfortunately, oftentimes it's not fair. Yeah, and you being soft, and then I call about names or being soft, not saying calling out names about genders and stuff, but yeah, you just had to have an edge to you to survive.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Yeah. Well, I know a lot of people, myself included, even when you get into your 20s, it's like you still need support. Did you ever go through your I'm sure the process of grieving, you know, probably continues throughout your life, but did you ever see, well, well, why does that person have parents or why does that person have someone to lean on and I don't? Did you ever go through envy like that?

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Ooh, Chris, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Yeah, very much so, to a point where I became real angry, bitter. I was mad at the world. I wasn't mad at the Lord because I love the Lord. Yeah, but I was just trying to figure out why. I mean, you already took my mom, right? Yeah, and now it's me, I'm by myself. I mean, what? Really? Really? And so a lot of people that I saw that had more than me as far as their parents and things like that, I was just real short. And I had a fuse. And I would sometimes think like I wish you would say something.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Just because, because I'm mad. I'm like, you got everything, you over here, you you spoiled, whatever. I'm looking for a reason to take my my uh anger out on somebody. Right. And it took me a long time to get over that. I became um closed off, even to some of my relatives, because I didn't want to be anybody's burden, yeah, and I didn't just flight being bothered. So no, yeah, my dad was my mother, my father, my brother, my protector, my playmate. My dad was every he did everything in the world for me. And he never, you'll see in the book, he never asked me really for anything. Yeah, he just did. And when you lose the number one uh significant person in your life, talk about the void. I'm like, now what? Yeah, it was it was, yeah, and to this day, uh, I have a um picture of my dad nearby, just near nearby my bedroom, just to go, you know what? And he's be like, I'm like, I told you, boy. So he's he's still a guiding force, it sounds like oh man, I and and and such a force, Chris. That now he's still his his blueprint and and his know and knowledge continues to live through other people. Because now people were come starting to come to me and for advice, and younger people, and people saying, I can't know, I don't know what to do with my child, and now you need to take care of them and me and stilling some of those same lessons into the said people where I became a mentor, even somebody that is even from my relatives to other people, as a source of knowledge and and and well-being for individuals, and everyone, and I keep telling them a lot of it just came from what my dad gave me.

SPEAKER_03 30:24

Yeah. Did you um were you ever able to find a mentor for yourself or anyone who kind of was able to take you under their wing, or was it just kind of like you were truly on your own once your father passed away?

SPEAKER_00 30:37

I had a couple people, uh, like a couple of my professors at Wobber Force. Um, I had some other people too that were uh, even when I went to grad school, a couple people that just kind of saw my plight and they were very helpful. So yeah, I think they were like mentors, but I wasn't a person that really needed to have, I guess you will, you didn't need to grab me and coax me or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

I just needed you, if you can look out, do a little something for me, if that's what you felt you want to do, some advice, open the door or two. I was on, I was kind of already, I wouldn't say self-ready made, but I was on my journey and mature enough where I those people were, they sprinkle a little something into you and you thank them, but they saw I was already on that path because as I said earlier, after I received the blueprint from my dad, I was grown. I really started becoming grown when I was about 14. I was doing grown man stuff. I was at driving for five years. I think I got my license when I was like 19. So from 13 to 19, I didn't have a license, but I drove every day. You know, the book showed you. I just did what I had to do. And the one thing that I'll say, which is crazy about this whole book, is and I look back on it, yeah, is the independence that I had to have.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

The independence, and and not only that, I mean, I'm sure people would tell you now, oh yeah, here, talk your head off. But back then, I had to learn how to be quiet and be still. So other people wouldn't think I was doing too much. I was like, if I'm quiet, you don't notice me. I had to be still because there were situations I was put in, and if people knew what was going on with between my dad and I, my dad not being here at this time, whatever, they might have turned it into another situation.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

You know, so I had to keep the peace.

SPEAKER_03 32:36

So I was gonna ask you, you know, a lot of kids that are left unsupervised, they just go into they take the wrong path, they you know, they fall into the wrong crowd, or you know, they start having people over knowing their parents are you are not gonna be home for a long time. What do you think saved you from going down the wrong path? I mean, not saying that you're a saint or you know, no, but I mean what what what what saved you from really going down the wrong path to where you could be sitting in jail right now?

SPEAKER_00 33:06

The wrath of my daddy. He let it be known there's no reason for you to be to act a fool or do the wrong thing because nobody's watching.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

These are particularly stuff we were going through with different marriages with different stepmothers. I had to have a lot of, I was I was provided with a lot of um a lot of independence, a lot of responsibility. So with that being said, the rules were clear. He just laid it out. Do this, do that, be here, do that. A couple times I had people over and they probably did something stupid, and he's warned me, okay, here's where we at. But it was more or less the rules were there, and I knew if I followed the rules, I was gonna be okay. So I never felt like, even though I mean you talk about the book, you'll see where I talk about being a pyromaniac, right? Oh, I never said it. Oh, yeah, I was in the in the book, you'll see that I took I saw a list of there's like six uh uh things that on the list of what meant a child pyromaniac, which is one of the rarest of pyromaniacs, right? Out of the six things on the list, I matched five of the six. Wow, wow, yeah, yeah, five of the six. But with all that being said, I knew I had enough common sense that I never set a fire in our home. Okay, I set everything outside, even to a point where I used to have a little crew with me because I wanted to be a fireman at some point, too. I ran through that phase. We were going to, yeah, well, you know, fire. I love fire. I love there's the the thing about a pyromaniac, as it says in the book, is the fact that a pyromaniac doesn't set fires because they're mad or something happened or they're despondent or anything. They like the look of it, they get joy in watching the fire, the color of the fire. It's like it's something about it, it's the warmth of it, it's just a lot of things. So you're not doing this because you're mad, right? Doing it because maybe you may have a behavioral issue and it calms you. So fires calm me. I would always have matches. One of my friends says, You have matches every day. I say, No, I didn't. I guess you did. But I would go to a couple, uh, we had uh vacant houses that you go in there, and I come here, take some paper, they have a trash can, and we set my little crew, we set a fire in the basement and let it come up, and then we go outside and then wait, and then I always have some water come back in there, and then we'll be talking. That's all right, crew, let's put it out. And sometimes we get a little hot. We put it out, and that was our that was our journey. Firemen and uh and pyromaniac.

SPEAKER_03 35:55

Well, thank God it sounds like nothing ever really serious happened, like a fire that caused a whole lot of damage.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

No, no, I and that wasn't about damaging. I always felt, and I think the reason why I was attracted to it is because it allowed me to be dangerous enough without supervision, without I I was in control. Right. The same way where my dad would buy a bunch of fireworks, and he taught me how to deal with fireworks, and I think he must have known something because there was times we would have uh fireworks fights where people would shoot bottle rockets at us, and I go to my house and come back down with a 10-ball Roman candle and use it like a boom, like you know what I mean? So that's what I was on because I was, you know, fire was my thing. Fire was man, fire was it. I remember uh taking old aerosol right guard cans, and I wanted to make a torch, and you press it, and I wanted to be a Viking, and Viking always had torches, right? Lick up man, yeah, bro. Fire was my thing to this day. If you haven't a cook out, you got it lit up, you need a fire, let me know, or and I'll put my hand in it too just to let you know not playing.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

Wow, I don't know how I knew you all these years and never knew that about you.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

You can't tell, you can't let the a great pyromaniac or a great uh uh maestro never tells all the secrets.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

That's true. That's true, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

Cause some people wouldn't understand. That's the other thing.

SPEAKER_03 37:37

That's right, right. So, what are some takeaways or some lessons you would like people to get from the book when they read it?

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Ooh. Uh I would say the importance of love, man, and learning to love the people around you. Because we all have circles, some of us, we all go through things, right? But I think there are a lot of people that have individuals in their lives that they care for or they take for granted. Like if you have still your mom and dad, nothing's always perfect, right? Yeah, if you have these people in your life and you get along with them somewhat, they didn't do anything too horrendous. You might have your brother, your sister, your cousins. I think that it's important to connect with them because I know as we get older, I know I'm older, yeah, that life is short.

SPEAKER_03 38:31

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

And in whatever, sometimes you just need to get away from all of the antics, the jealousy, and everything, and realize, just take a moment to realize what you have. And if you have your mom, your dad, or your grandmother, or aunties, or whoever in your life, take time to love them.

SPEAKER_03 38:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Don't wait till Easter to go see your grandmother if she had a home somewhere. Go spend some time with these people. Let them know you love them because when they're gone, bruh, they're gone. So I I would say that for sure. You got to show love to people. Um, the other thing too is we got to encourage our our young people. Because I think so many times that you something happens or parents get busy, and extended family can do the same thing too. Uncles, aunts, what have you. We need to invest in these kids because you are the foundation for these children. Instead of letting as great as these uh some of these uh teachers are, and and they spend time as far as being inspiring and whatnot, this needs to start at home. Because it does make a difference when kids know that they're loved and disciplined and structured and shown the way. Yeah. And a lot of times people go left, whatever, because of that. And I'm not gonna lie, I was on the edge. Uh, in the book, it shows you that I had a couple little uh homeboys, one of them that ended up be uh doing some real things in life. And I was this close on the edge going right before I went to college, I told my dad, he said, What you gonna do? I said, Well, I'm gonna get a part-time job. So I was gonna work during the day and hang out at night and get my money, right? But I said, I told my dad, after he gave me those options, I said, Well, uh, I'm going to, uh I need, I like money. And I need money. So I'm gonna get it legally or illegally. And I put my hand up because I know that that cross is coming. But he he simply did not, he didn't raise his hand, he had his back to me, towards me, and he turned around and looked at me and told me, You carry yo to school. And when he gave me that look, I was like, Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So, yeah, but I mean, just those things, and and always, no matter what happens, I don't know what you believe in spiritually, there has to be something that you got to connect with. Because if you don't, in those moments, I always say this to people what is it like when you take that mask off and you're looking at yourself in the mirror? Can you look at yourself? Are you crying? Are you sad? Can you look at yourself and be honest with yourself? Or do you just want to break down because the world is weighing on you? And sometimes when that's happening, if you don't have anything spiritual or something that you believe in, it will break you down. Because some things we can't all handle, and I'm not preaching to nobody, I'm just going through my experience. Some things you just got to turn over, man.

SPEAKER_03 41:35

Yeah.

unknown 41:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

It's out of your control, and you can try to fight it all you want to. This is not fair. I know I can, okay. Sometimes you can be like, hey, I can't do it. And it's just one of those things that you just have to figure out for yourself and get good people, as I said, around you, good friends and whatnot. And and if I had one other thing that I would say to uh people to encourage them, is you gotta be your own best friend, bro.

SPEAKER_03 42:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

People ask me, they go, Well, did you have an imaginary friend? Hell no. But I did you talk to your no, I yeah, I talked to myself all the time, but I wasn't imaginary, yeah. I had an ultra ego. Carlos.

SPEAKER_03 42:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Carlos is my ultra ego, and he didn't care about anything, and he is he's ruthless. But the point of it is you have to love yourself. Yeah, I don't care how you look, whatever's going on, and whatever you may be down upon yourself, you had to be your own best friend, your own best, you had to be your own cheerleader. And uh as a kid, uh especially an only child for a while until my my brothers came from marriage came into the play. I never got bored. I made ways to stupid games, and I talk about a little bit in the book. I made ways to entertain myself. In fact, I gave myself a nickname and I call myself the Home Entertainment Center because I never got bored. I could always find something, it could be stupid, it could be pick, whatever, something simple. I didn't really need anybody else to help me be happy. And from music, that's how I developed such a love for music.

SPEAKER_03 43:21

Yeah, and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

Yeah, percussion, yeah, yeah. So, with that being said, there's so many things that I learned. I'll be like, I'm bored. I'm like, like my dad, we go to grown-up adult parties and people disappear, right? And they had the phonographs. Can I play play records? I'm like, hey, what you know about this? I'm down there playing records because I'm entertaining myself.

SPEAKER_03 43:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

And if you don't know how to entertain yourself via reading, a book, whatever it is, good times for yourself. You don't always need, I never really needed a group. I'm not a big group person. I have a Great teammate. But I love Charles and Charles gonna Charles is not gonna be bored. And to a point where now, as we get older, my brothers and I, especially when my one brother, James, we have so much fun together. It don't matter, we could be sitting on the porch, just looking, watching life go by. And after a while, depending on the individuals, if we're in a closet, just he and I, they're gonna be knocking on the door trying to get in. How do they have so much fun in a damn closet? Because we love each other so much and we can connect with one another that it does not take much. It can be a joke, it can be whatever. We are have a bond that you can find that circle of people that don't take money, don't take anything else. It's just connections and life. So many people don't have that, and that's one of the things I'd say. You gotta find your people.

SPEAKER_03 44:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Wherever that is, I don't know who they are. They might be at a uh comic book convention, they might be at whatever. I mean, whatever, whatever it is, you gotta find your people that circle, and they can keep supporting you. Doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. It's kind of like music, which I love music. You make your own playlist, bruh. Right. There's several of them. I mean that's I mean that music is crazy. Chris, what you listen to that for? Yeah, and but it's yours, as long as it makes you happy the same way as your crew, your group of people, and and they support you, you love them, that's all that matters. Because nowhere that everybody else thinks, it don't matter. But find your people so when you go through the good times, the bad times, whatever times, along with music, whatever sues you, find an outlet. So when you had the worst day in the world, you can go, I need to go to wherever I'm going, get to my my place and exhale and relax, because that's where you are able to decompress and then come back and get ready for the next day. So many people don't do that, and it doesn't always take a therapist to make that happen.

SPEAKER_03 46:08

Yeah, yeah. That's all great advice. Yeah, and I and in a kind of a strange way, our upbringings were kind of similar because I didn't know my biological father growing up, but I had my stepfather and my um grandfather, my mom's father was my father figure because I spent a lot of time over my grandparents, but my grandparents, you know, were older and they didn't really spend a lot of time interacting with me. They would just be watching TV and letting me play on my own. So I had to I had to learn to entertain myself, and I came up with imaginary friends, and so I had to learn to entertain. And my stepfather was not communicative at all. I can't, he didn't pass on any lessons to me like your father did to you. It was like, you know, this is my house, you follow the rules, and that, you know, that that was his way of uh doing things.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Yeah, and like you say though, yeah. Once you found your people though, yeah. I mean you you're a very charismatic individual, you're very intelligent, you're very loyal in a lot of ways, and that's what I'm glad to see as you continue to evolve. Other people see you evolving and they clap for you, but you have found your niche, you found your people, several niches, in fact. You found a lot of things, and I'm happy for you because I know that's what you really wanted to do, and to see how that can come together and see you continue to rise and rise. I'm like, there he is, there he's doing that other thing. I'm so happy for you. But again, you found your truth, you found you see other people that you connect with, and you made a lot of connections throughout, and you found your people. And when you find your people, you can evolve, you can fly because there's no restrictions. Yeah, and whatever Google people, whoever that is, no one needs to tell you whether or not you're on the right path. Because just let's just say, let's spread your wings. You remember that?

SPEAKER_03 48:00

I remember we in the newsroom and we'd be killing time, waiting on uh Mr. Lynch to finish making up the pages of for the of the paper that we so we could lay everything out and go home. Yeah, we'd be yeah, we just be singing singing silly songs like that. Yeah, like you said, entertaining ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

Yeah, but that's the connection because we were in the fight together.

SPEAKER_03 48:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

We're in the fight together. Once you do that, it's like, okay, we can be here bored, crying and whining all the time. Oh, we can just be stupid, spread your wine, so you know.

SPEAKER_03 48:33

Yeah, and I should say when I'm talking about Mr. Lynch, we we started out together at first the Colin Post and the Columbus Post, and the general manager was Amos Lynch, who is known as the godfather of the the black community and and the black press in in Columbus, Ohio. So we he was a tough taskmaster, but we learned a lot from him as far as I mean, we had to learn everything. We had to know how to write, uh uh do the the layout, physical layout with pen and paper. We had to take our own photos. So we we really that was a trial by talk about fire. That was a trial by fire.

SPEAKER_00 49:10

Yeah, I agree with that. I think the one of the best things out of that whole experience for me was as you said, you had to learn how to do everything. Yeah, and then when you realize as things became to evolve, become began to evolve, the profession that is, yeah, people become a specialist, right? You only did one thing, but you had the opportunity to do whatever was needed, yeah. Because you learned from Mr. Lynch, and the one thing that I was saying about him, even though he was tough as heck at times, yeah, he allowed each individual to really blossom into themselves.

SPEAKER_03 49:44

He truly did.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

And yeah, and I think about it all the time because I remember I always wanted to write for a daily newspaper and write sports. I always wanted to do that. I know you wanted to write for entertainment and some big publication, uh, but we were always, I can say for myself, I was always looking outside for approvals for somebody to let me do something. Right but what I didn't realize until later on, I'm sure you you did it all the time, I had to look inside my hand. I'm the editor of a sports page, pages. Every week I can do what I want to do. Now, my point was to quit whining and crying about the outside world or the so-called larger papers and focus what is the landscape that was in front of me. Make masterpieces. We made how many great pages did we make that never got the recognition, but that's for another story. Even though we know they were the best at day in the thing, even though we not never got the recognition, but knowing that you had a landscape to make beautiful art, and that's what we did.

SPEAKER_03 50:51

What was what was some of your most memorable interviews and events that you covered?

SPEAKER_00 50:57

I'm gonna say one out top. You know, this one this was really, and and I don't know what happened to her down the line, but uh where we were talking about the movie Soul Fool, everybody remember, we're in the newsroom, and I said I could interview anybody. I said, I don't care who it is, I had to be sports related. And I said, Somebody said something, they made a bet. I bet you can't uh you can't interview Vimica Fox. I said, I bet you I can. And something, whatever it was, we made a bet, and I just started digging. And before you know it, I got the interview and I wrote the story, and they had to pay up. So I still got to send it off photo from her, but uh but that let's see, I'm trying to think. Um, memories is really watching the Columbus Post evolve after the Carlin Post, right? Everybody coming together and watching the color, watching all of these beautiful things and certain things where Chris had the story that was second to none, and we celebrated Chris because Chris Pat, your uh story was so amazing. You got front page that week, right? So we're clapping because it was so amazing. You got this opportunity. So watching that paper grow, and particularly when you saw Big Brother, I would say, the major paper in Columbus, emulating what we did.

SPEAKER_03 52:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

And and you knew it was happening because we were first, and watching that grow and watching people of color, people from a certain background do amazing things, was like, yeah, so stuff like that. Of course, uh being the blessed go to the Super Bowl for the first time.

SPEAKER_03 52:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

You know, things like that, other sport events, and meeting people that I never dreamed of, finally getting a chance to uh at a Super Bowl by happenstance. It was a snowstorm, and uh we were kind of locked in in Atlanta, and they brought this special person in because I think Mike Tyson was in jail, was coming back after his first fight, fighting in London. So they're showing in on all the TVs and the media people started going crazy. I'm like, y'all going crazy? It was some old football guy. And they went around the corner and brought this guy out, and it's Muhammad Ali.

SPEAKER_03 53:16

Oh my god, wow. The greatest the greatest, the goat.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

I was like, Yeah, and people were going over there talking to him, and I said, No, I'm gonna be a professional. I'm not going over there. And my heart was like, You should go over there. You never get this opportunity again. People were shaking his hand, and you know, he had this condition where sometimes he'd be shaking, but whatnot. And then I'm watching him from the time he walked in, they sat him down all the way through, and I said, You're blowing it. You got, and I'd have my pick camera ready. And I said, You're blowing it. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. This is your hero. Go over there. I said, Nah, that's not what real journalists do. That's how life works. And I'm just staring at this man, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. And at one point, out of the blue, we matched eyes. Wow. He saw me, I saw him, and you know what he did? What he pointed at me. I still had that picture to this day. Wow. He pointed at me. I said, Thank you. I'm good. That's all I need. You saw me. Nobody else in this room at this time. You saw me and you recognized me. That's all the picture I need. That's all my hero.

SPEAKER_03 54:28

He acknowledged you.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

Yes, he did. Yes, he acknowledged me. Yes, he did. Right, he acknowledged me. So, with that being said, I was like, there's no greater gift. None. I was like, you know, done.

SPEAKER_03 54:41

Yeah, we yeah, we really had some good times back then.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

Yeah, yeah. He did, you know, you live and learn, and weren't make weren't getting rich, Lord knows that was okay. No. But but we did it for the love, right?

SPEAKER_03 54:54

Right, the passion, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Did it for the passion and the love because we believed in what we were doing, and collectively, it was an amazing team. And I truthfully don't think, and may Mr. Lynch rest in peace, I don't think he understood how great of a staff he had. It was some very talented people.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

Yeah, we we really had a dream team back then. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

I agree with you 100% for sure.

SPEAKER_03 55:21

So with Father's Day coming up, time to let the little boys go would be a perfect Father's Day gift. Uh I think men and women can learn from it uh from your story. So far, I just commend you for sharing your story and for just sharing your journey and uh to to manhood. And if people want so it's on Amazon, right? Yes, okay. Is there any other way if people want to reach reach out to you, or you know, maybe somebody would like to invite you to you know come speak about the book or oh yeah, no doubt.

SPEAKER_00 55:55

Um, I do have a Facebook page, right? As an author. So it's uh CE Farmer author, or again, like I said, or even on my personal uh Facebook page as well. Just reach out to me, let me know. I would love to uh connect and I'll tell you this as we're growing the uh author page, I will definitely have the uh my personal information, my contact information on there for anybody that's interested, and anybody too that want me to come to their uh book clubs and and check those things out like that. I'm very open to that as well.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

Well, I hope you also consider having some kind of signing or or launch event because you should really celebrate. This is a milestone.

SPEAKER_00 56:39

Yeah, and I and I plan on that. As you know, these are things that they say, they tell you as you're putting this together, right? Yeah, that you should have done ahead of time. But the one thing I'll say uh very quickly on this one of the last notes is this that the journey for me became even more special and deeper because I tried to have other people assist me with it. And everything I tried for I had a great editor, somebody that found was dynamite helped me get through the majority of it. And then at that point, it came the layout and design. I tried to connect with a couple publishers, and it just didn't fit. Okay, and I had to go in and learn it myself, how to self-publish, and the newspaper background helped tremendously. Yeah, yeah. And it took a long time because I was I was like, man, I just I'll pay somebody just to help me do it. And it was almost as if it was my destiny to do this by myself, which made me appreciate it more. So, with that being said, that's that made it even more special. And to see how you go through the process and you have to go through a group like Amazon, and if they don't think it's right, they don't have to let it go out, come out. Right, right. You know, that's that's you have no control over that, but to see that happen like that, it it's uh it makes you really appreciate the work that you have to put into it.

SPEAKER_03 58:04

Yeah, but it's it's like a full circle moment because you grew up being self-sufficient, so you're just continuing that self-sufficient, uh just learning how on your own to get things done that you need to do to move forward in life.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

Yeah, I agree with that 100%, but every once in a while, like, you know what? I wish somebody else would do this. What's like that's not your journey, you have to do this. And I'm like, people like you just go ahead and finish it. When's it coming out? When's it coming out? Which I appreciate. Also, too, real quick, thank you to everyone so far who has purchased this book. I mean that with all my heart. It has already, in the first 20 days or whatever, even a little longer than that, surpassed anything I ever thought was possible. So thank you to those that have bought and will continue to buy because you just don't understand. I I'm doing it because I want to bring light and acknowledge my dad's story. But if you took the time to purchase this, I am forever indebted to you. And just in general, thank you, thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 59:11

Well, my copy is on the way, and I gotta get you to autograph it.

SPEAKER_00 59:16

For sure. And I want to know what you think. This is beautiful because that there's certain individuals that I know you write books, you read, you do a lot of different things. I really want to see that because I've been blown away by some of the comments. People that really have they're book readers and they they love the story and different things like that. I've been blown away because I had no expectations. I just wanted to get it out.

SPEAKER_03 59:38

Well, I think when something comes from your heart and it's sincere, people can feel that.

SPEAKER_00 59:44

Yeah, yeah, I agree with that, but as you know, as an author, you don't know. You just yeah, yeah, yeah. And and one of my buddies was telling me, he said, just like a baby, it has a birth, it has a life of its own, it's gonna take off.

SPEAKER_03 59:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 59:58

And you have no control over, you just put it out into the world.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:01

Yeah, you know, even Michelle Obama, she said when she wrote her memoir, she said she felt vulnerable. She said there were things she didn't necessarily want to put out in public, but she said, you know, she she had to be, you know, back to sincerity, she had to be authentic. And she said, even she at her her stature, being, you know, the former first lady, she felt like, oh, how are people gonna receive this? So that's that's certain that's perfectly natural to feel that way.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:25

No doubt. I want to give real kudos also to my guy Don, Don Waddell, who really encouraged me to write this book and helped me along the way. And he's the person that told me that I have to write two books. And I was like, I'm barely trying to get one. But he says, there's too much in your life that it has to be two-parted because you can't get everything in one book. I agree. So that's what he told me. And this was the first one, so I guess I'm writing a second one.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:54

Well, I look forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

Thank you, Chris. Much love, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:00

Much love. Thank you for listening to the Culture Beats Podcast. If you like this content and would like to lend your support, please leave us a review, a rating, andor a comment. That helps other people discover the podcast. Culture Beats is an independent endeavor. Views expressed by guests are their own. Thanks again, and talk to you soon.