Saturday, December 20, 1997

Titanic came out yesterday. Kiara and three of her friends went to the first show after school and she came home and went straight to her room and would not talk to anybody because she was "still on the boat." Grandma knocked on her door with a plate of supper and said, "Well, the boat sank, baby. Come eat." I told Kiara I was NOT giving her movie money this month and then I gave her ten dollars. I know. I know.

I worked a double at the store today because of the Christmas rush. Everybody in Birmingham bought a ham today. My arms are still holding a ham right now while I type.

Big news: Mr. Hollins called the band office at the university and my audition is set for Saturday, February 21. That's nine weeks. Long tones every night. Lip slurs. The Arban book until the binding breaks. Grandma says she can hear me practicing from the back yard and so can the Lord.

What I want for Christmas is a new mouthpiece, a Bach 3C, because mine has a dent from when Kiara dropped it in fourth grade. Grandma says "we'll see." Grandma's "we'll see" is either yes or no and there is no way on this earth to tell which.

Merry Christmas to whoever reads this. The library is closed till after New Year's so I'll see you in 1998.

Thursday, November 27, 1997 -- Thanksgiving

Grandma started cooking on Tuesday. By this morning there was dressing, greens, macaroni and cheese, candied yams, a turkey AND a ham, rolls, three sweet potato pies and a pound cake, and every single dish had a dish towel over it like a little ghost.

Uncle Clarence (Mama's big brother) came over from Bessemer with Aunt Doris and my cousins, Reggie and the twins. Before the blessing Grandma asked me to play "Amazing Grace" on the trumpet. I didn't want to because the twins laugh at everything, but you don't say no to Grandma in her own kitchen. So I played it on the front porch so the sound would go out, and Mr. Lumpkin from next door came out on his porch and stood there with his hat off. The twins didn't laugh. Grandma cried a little, which she says is "just the onions," but the onions were done two days ago.

At the table Reggie asked me how it feels to be the first one going to college. I said I'm the first one going but I'm not the smartest one, Reggie's smarter than me. Grandma said, "You're the first one who ASKED." Everybody got quiet and then Uncle Clarence said pass the yams.

I'm thankful for Grandma. I'm thankful for Kiara even when she rolls her eyes at me so hard you can hear it. I'm thankful I didn't crack the high note at the last game. I'm thankful for sweet potato pie. Not in that order.

Wednesday, November 12, 1997

The applications are in the mail. All three. Grandma licked every stamp herself (32 cents each) and said a little something over the envelopes under her breath before I took them to the post office. I didn't ask what. Some things you don't ask.

The essay question on the one I want most was "Describe a person who has had a great influence on you." I wrote about Mama. I haven't written about her before, not even for school. She got sick when I was eleven and she passed when I was twelve and Kiara was eight. She worked at a dry cleaner downtown and sang alto in the choir, and she's the one who took me to the Classic the first time and let me stand on the bleacher so I could see the bands. I wrote about that. I wrote about how she used to sing the trumpet parts at me in the car, "bah-dah-DAH," so I'd know how they went.

I let Kiara read it before I mailed it. She read it at the kitchen table and didn't say anything. Then she handed it back and hugged me, which she has not done voluntarily since 1994. Then she said "you spelled 'influence' wrong in the second paragraph," and I had. So that's fixed.

Sunday, October 19, 1997

Church this morning. Grandma is one of the church mothers at Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist, so everybody calls her Mother Gaines, even grown men with gray hair. She sits up front and says "Well!" at the good parts, and if Pastor Pettway says something she doesn't agree with she just folds her hands, and he can see that, and you can watch him back up and try it another way. I love that.

Money stuff, because this is my journal and I can write about money if I want. I bag groceries at the store on Third Avenue about twenty hours a week. It went up to $5.15 an hour on September 1, and I'm not going to lie, I felt that fifteen cents. Most of it goes to Grandma for the light bill and the phone. Her Social Security comes on the 3rd and by about the 20th it's gone. She never says so. I just know because on the 20th we start having a lot of beans.

Kiara is in the ninth grade and it's changing her. She has new friends I don't know and she's on the phone with the door closed. Also she got one of those Tamagotchi egg pets and it died during the sermon today because Grandma won't let her push buttons in church. Kiara was really upset. Grandma said, "That egg is not a Christian," and went on singing.

Thursday, October 2, 1997

College application day. Mrs. Culpepper, the guidance counselor, has about four hundred seniors and one desk. I got there at 7:15 before first period and she gave me three application fee waivers "because you asked before everybody else did." So that's the lesson. Ask first.

I'm applying to three schools, all in Alabama. Two of them are historically Black colleges. The one I want most has the band I want most. I'm not going to say which one on here, because if I don't get in, I don't need the whole Internet knowing about it.

The band gives scholarships by audition in the spring. Mr. Hollins says I have a real shot if I work on my range and my sight-reading. My ACT was a 20. I'm taking it again in December.

Grandma asked me tonight why it costs money to ask a school to let you give them more money. I didn't have an answer for that. I don't think anybody does.

Saturday, September 20, 1997

Home game last night. The football team lost by a touchdown. The band did not lose. We did the Motown show at halftime ("My Girl" into "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" into "Signed, Sealed, Delivered") and I had the little solo at the top of "My Girl" and I did NOT crack the high note, which I have cracked at every single practice since August. Mr. Hollins pointed at me afterward. That's it, just pointed. That's Mr. Hollins for "I'm proud of you, son."

Here is what I want, since this is a journal. I want to march in a college band. Every year at the Classic at Legion Field I watch the bands the whole time and forget there's a football game. The horns up. The high step. A whole section moving like one person. When a band comes out of that tunnel it feels like church and a fight at the same time. I've wanted to be in that since I was nine years old.

Grandma doesn't come to Friday games because of her knees and the bleachers, but she waits up. Last night there was a plate on the stove with foil over it, smothered pork chops and rice, and she was asleep in her chair with the TV going. I ate standing at the stove so I wouldn't wake her. She woke up anyway and said "Did you crack it?" I said, "No ma'am." She said, "Good," and went to bed.

Monday, September 8, 1997

Hello to whoever is reading this. My name is Terrence Tolliver. I'm 18 years old and a senior in high school in Birmingham, Alabama. I play trumpet in the band (second chair right now, first chair after Christmas if there is any justice). I live with my grandmother and my little sister Kiara, who is 14 and would want me to tell you she is "almost 15." Her birthday is in April. That is not almost.

This is my journal. My English teacher Ms. Bledsoe says anybody who writes a page a week all year will write a better college essay than anybody who doesn't, and I'm going to hold her to it. My cousin Reggie showed me how to get a free page on GeoCities, so I'm doing this on the Internet computer at the downtown library. You get thirty minutes if you sign up. The lady at the desk already knows my name.

Saturday morning Grandma got up at three o'clock to watch Princess Diana's funeral. She woke me up too because she said I'd want to say I saw it. I fell back asleep on the couch before they even got to the church. When I woke up she was still sitting there with her coffee gone cold, saying "those poor boys" over and over. Then yesterday at church Pastor Pettway prayed for the princess's boys and for Mother Teresa in the same prayer, and Grandma said amen louder than anybody.

My goals for senior year, in order:

1. Graduate.
2. Get into college. I'll be the first one in our family to go. Grandma reminds me about every day at breakfast, like I might forget.
3. Get a band scholarship, so number 2 can actually happen.
4. Keep Kiara out of trouble.

Number 4 is the hardest one and it isn't close.

-- T.