Trapped in a Funeral Procession with Big Daddy.....by Diane Ogden

As you all or most of you know, I do not have a working gas gauge in the old Buick. I have to guess when to buy gas and after the "run out" last month I am ever so careful.  Hey, I am the one that carries the emergency kit and the flashlight that blink a dinks and so on.  Like I keep an extra water bottle and a can of tuna under the seat in case I drive off a bluff and need to stay alive until some one finds me.  Yes I am laughing too.  Okay so....today the Buick gas gauge dinged.  It does ding when it has four gallons left.  But come on the damn ding is scary.  The lever goes to NAUGHT and dings.  Even though I have learned I have four gallons left I panic at the ding ding.  Today was the second ding ding day so I pulled into a BP station where I get 5 cents off a gallon for purchasing overpriced groceries at a certain store. 
Suddenly I see about a hundred and fifty African American
people descending on the BP Gas station like ants.  Yes where I am purchasing gas.  I mean whoa.....what's going on H E L L O! And they were all so pretty!  Let me say there were hats and white patent shoes and suits like you don't see everyday anywhere around here. The children looked like models. That is when I turned my head a tad and saw the CHURCH!  The Church next door to the gas station mini mart that is.  O-M-G  Its a funeral fool! (Talking to self )  And I am parked vertically and they are lined up with their lil orange flags in each of their 150 cars all lined up A-HEAD of me and "in my way!" Now I am in no way being disrespectful.  But I cannot even get turned around to get back to the  exit.  Truly all I could do was laugh.  Not at the death, but at the stupid of it all.  How'd I pull into a BP so I could save a nickle and lose an hour.  But I gotta say I received quiet the show cause those folks know how to do it all.  They dress better then we do (white folks that is).  They sing better, they dance better, they show their emotions better.  All the while we white folk are trying to darken our skin and keep them in their place.  What place?  We should  show such emotion at our funerals etc.  And let me say when I finally got to turn around and get out of there and onto the main road......There he was.  Big Daddy, A fancy dressed African man directing the traffic on a main highway thoroughfare all around him as well as maintaining the line up of the 150 cars with the orange flags.  Who do you know that would have the nards (and they are probably restin' in gold plated unders)to take in on.  This procession meant to stay together mama!  And if it took him getting out of his fancy Lincoln and directing all traffic, who obeyed his commands might I add....so that family could drive to the cemetery as "one," so be it baby.  What one of us white folks would do that?  Bout none that I know.  When I lived in the South it was proper to pull your car over to the side of the road to show respect for the deceased and family.  Around these parts notsomuch! P.S. If you want to see a real Jesus Sunday-visit one of their fine church services.  I have done this and it uplifting for sure.  Well except when they throw themselves (a select few) off the bench and wiggle around in the spirit.  (Absolutely no offense intended)

photos compliments of:  #1  www.masterfile.com
                                        #3  www.oldhippie.org
                                        #2  www.independent.co.uk