About Me
In the last class, on the first day of ninth grade, our teacher rolled his cart into the computer lab wearing a three-piece black suit. He was “in mourning.” He gave a first day of class speech that was funny, hyperbolic, and peppered with profanity. The class was Mass Communications - an elective - but he treated it as a required course. It was imperative that we become better writers, and he was going to get us there.
I decided that as a fourteen year old who had never as much held hands with someone, had an abysmal social life, and recently graduated to “husky” jeans: getting this man’s approval was at the top of my to-do list. Our first real assignment was a review of the movie Casablanca. I was thrilled. Part of the reason my social life was so malnourished was because I spent Saturday nights with my grandparents watching TCM. I loved old movies, and I couldn’t wait to share my thoughts with someone other than my geriatric best friends. After we finished the movie I sat at my computer and stared at the blank Word document, waiting for inspiration to strike. He would joke with me later in the year that I spent half of my time that was meant for writing, staring blankly.
When I got the paper back the following week, I nervously scanned the page for my red marks. I already was running through a list of regrets: I didn’t sound sophisticated, my observations were obvious, the jokes I made didn’t land. I had convinced myself that he hated my writing. He put the paper in my sweaty palms and I nervously turned it over. Besides a few grammatical corrections, there was only a single note circled at the top: “Superb.” I felt dizzy with relief. I thought to myself “Maybe I am a good writer? In fact, maybe I’m better than everyone else in this room!” (my ability to oscillate between severe self-hatred/doubt, and delusional confidence is unmatched.) I went up to him after class seeking additional validation. He told me that he thought the essay was good and that I was a natural writer.
He may not have known it at the time, but that comment was life-saving. For someone who had to watch the other boys receive “Best defense” and “Best shot” badges at basketball practice while I was stuck with “Most Christlike” every week, I was in desperate need of something. I’ve never been athletic, I can’t act, I’ve been diagnosed as tone-deaf by all of my family and friends. I needed something to hang my hat on. I had that teacher for three years of high school. Along with my other English teachers, he helped me grow as a writer. He knew what I was capable of before I did.
All of that to say, if you’re looking for someone to blame for this blog, blame him. I haven’t looked back since receiving that compliment. I know I’m not the best writer, but writing is a muscle that needs to be exercised. Since college I haven’t needed to write. Previously, I had high school yearbook, my internship at a local paper, writing blog posts for a non-profit, or my communications classes. Now, I have no external forces making me write, so I figured I better make myself. And I challenge my inevitably small readership (that’s you) to make me stick to this as well. Because without writing what do I have? My collection of Most Christlike badges?
About Cephas
The first person I can remember being interested in what I had to say was my grandfather. Everyone in my family made the mistake of humoring me, but he especially encouraged me to talk. I called him Pop, but his name was William Cephas Farmer. I always loved Pop’s middle name. It sounded mythical and Southern.
My favorite thing to do with Pop was take walks around his neighborhood in the Northside of Richmond. We’d set off with a bag and stick - to collect aluminum cans, for my college fund - and talk until my grandma would beg us to stop. Even as a small kid, when my ramblings were nearly incoherent, Pop listened carefully and responded thoughtfully. He laughed at my jokes, asked questions about my life, and fielded my opinions on history, politics, literature, etc.. He made me feel interesting and funny. It’s the best gift I’ve ever received.
Pop was also a master storyteller. His stories ranged from his Depression-Era childhood on Fairmount Avenue all the way to the South Pacific during WWII to his business trips across the country. Although, exotic locations weren’t a requirement. He treated the shores of Okinawa with the same enthusiasm as his trip to the drug store. There was nothing too mundane, because he found the humor in everything. I think that’s why he was a great eulogizer. I know that sounds morbid, but he really understood the art of a eulogy. It’s a time to lift people’s spirits, not to be serious and depressing. When I was a kid and I’d go to my grandparents’ for the day, many times I’d get in the car and Pop would say “We’ll go run errands later but first I have a funeral.” I would stand at the back and listen to him talk about a person that he’d grown up with, or worked with, or maybe just met on the street one day. Each anecdote and phrase chosen carefully.
Now I haven’t had much practice eulogizing (although I did speak at Pop’s burial) but I have had plenty of practice story-telling. I do it the way us Farmers were taught: repeat the same story over and over until you perfect it. Pop always had something new to talk about, but there were his go-to’s that I had heard countless times. There’s the one about his cousin, the drunk, who had an idea for “Tarzanland” right in the middle of the Great Dismal swamp. Or when he was 19 and a naval doctor offered a two-for one appendectomy and circumcision, because why not? Or the crowd-pleaser: going on his morning run and finding a man crushed to death underneath a safe (it’s funnier than it sounds, I promise.) The trick is adding in new lines and taking out bits that don’t work. As you tell your story over and over you workshop and fine tune the flow so that it might be the best version of itself. My whole family does this. Nothing makes us happier than to get together and tell stories, whether the audience has heard them before or not. We laugh and egg each other on, in honor of Pop (all gossip sharing is in memory of my grandmother.)
I created this blog for a lot of reasons: to practice my writing, for a structured hobby, for vanity. But most of all, I am telling my stories because that’s what Pop wanted me to do. So here it is, Cephas.