Fort Scott Community College fall semester is in full force, and recently the administration approved the school’s budget.
FSCC Finance Director Julie Eichenberger provided Fort Scott Biz with information which was approved following a public hearing on August 14.
Information provided is on expenditures, leases/purchases, and tax rates.
Major expenditures in the budget are technical education and auxiliary expenditures.
Post-secondary technical education expenditures are for ” all the classes considered tech education,” Eichenberger said. “Those would be nursing/allied health/EMT, John Deere, construction trades, cosmetology, welding, Harley Davidson, agriculture.”
Total for this line item in the budget is $3,294,586.
For auxiliary expenditures – the dorm, cafeteria, and bookstore, the line item is budgeted for $2,073,486.
The cafeteria is an auxiliary budget item.
$8,458,958 are current funds unrestricted in the general fund.
The tax rate has stayed about the same, according to FSCC President Alysia Johnston.
Eichenberger provided Fort Scott Biz with the recent history of the mill levy and the statement of condition lease, lease purchase and certification of participation.
Cosmetology equipment, the environmental lease (formerly Chevron), the City of Fort Scott, Ellis Fine Arts Center, the baseball scoreboard, and the John Deere Building are all line items in the statement provided below in the link.
In addition, Johnston provided student enrollment information.
The full-time student headcount at the college is 1,792 for 2017 fall semester.
“About even from last year,” Johnston said Wednesday.
Tuition waiver for Bourbon County residents
Fort Scott Community College has expanded its tuition waiver for Bourbon County residents who wish to take classes at the Fort Scott campus or online, according to a press release from the college. FSCC will waive the tuition costs, up to fifteen credit hours, for any Bourbon County resident who enrolls at FSCC. Students will be responsible for covering fees and purchasing books.
FSCC students can take general education classes for transfer to a four-year institution or pursue a certificate or associate degree. FSCC offers 55 courses that are guaranteed by the Kansas Board of Regents to transfer to any public college or university in the state of Kansas.
To apply for the waiver, students should contact the FSCC Admissions Department at 620-223-2700, ext. 3520 or ext. 3530. Students must also complete a Bourbon County Tuition Waiver Form and return it to the Admissions Department prior to the start of the semester.
Ellis Fine Arts Center on the campus of Fort Scott Community College, 2401 S. Horton.
Gordon Parks Museum is located on the campus of Fort Scott Community College.
Fort Scott Munitions is located at 523 E. Wall, just east of U.S.69 Highway.
To cut down on confusion when the public would search online for their business, Fort Scott Munitions is deleting the storefront name and will be using the business name only.
“We are consolidating the product name and the store name under one name,” Phillip Edds, assistant manager, said.
This will require new billboards and a new metal sign to replace Velocity Tactics signs on the outside of the old Key Industries building at 523 E. Wall just off U.S. 69 Highway.
Velocity Tactics was the storefront name, the business name is Fort Scott Munitions.
“We went with Fort Scott Munitions since all the (product) boxes say that,” Edds said.
Ammunition is their specialty.
“We make solid copper and solid brass ammunition,” Edds said.
The business is under the auspices of Ward Kraft, Inc. a Fort Scott print manufacturer.
Ryan Kraft, son of owner Roger Kraft, “was an avid gun guy,” Edds said. “It was his interest.”
Five years ago the business started making ammunition.
One-and-one-half years ago a store was opened to sell that ammunition and expanded to sell other items as well.
The business sells guns, clothing, tactical items, coolers and Angus beef, Edds said.
Customer Henry Fleeman, right, purchases some Angus beef Monday at Fort Scott Munitions. Assistant Manager Phillip Edds is behind the cash register.
“We have plans to open an indoor gun range,” Edds said. “And in the future offer training for conceal and carry classes.”
The old grain silos on the business property have no plans currently, Edds said.
“There are some talks, but nothing in the works at this time,” he said.
There are no current plans for using the silo on the property of Fort Scott Munitions.Frozen KW Cattle Angus Beef is sold at Fort Scott Munitions.
Clothing and other hunting items are sold at the store.Fort Scott Munitions consolidated product and store name because of online confusion.
Looking north from First Street onto Main Street. Seven storefronts in a row are vacant.
The City of Fort Scott is working to fill the historic downtown area, through a new grant for businesses.
Incentives are in place for business owners with buildings, but a need was seen for businesses who want to lease space in the historic district.
New Business Downtown Grant
“The city has a downtown improvement grant that’s used quite a bit,” Fort Scott Economic Development Director Rachel Pruitt said. “But to fill occupancy downtown, we needed something to lease space within the historic district. So we went to BEDCO (Bourbon County Economic Development Council) with a proposal to incent new businesses to open…whether they lease or own.”
To be eligible properties must be in the downtown area and must be a new business since May 1, 2017.
The applicant may receive a one-time grant of up to $500 per each new business.
“They are going to do 10 grants a year,” Pruitt said.
BEDCO has dedicated $5,000 a year for this program and will evaluate it on an annual basis to see if changes are needed.
Applications can be submitted online to [email protected] or in person at city hall, 123 S. Main. After review, the applicant will be notified within 30 days.
Pictured below are some of the Main Street and Wall Street properties that are vacant in the historic district of Fort Scott.
The Downtown Building Improvement Grant, a previous city improvement grant, is an incentive to help owners with the financial burden of maintaining and improving structures in the downtown historic district.
To be eligible for this grant all taxes, fees and other debts owed to the city need to be up-to-date. Grants will be made for a maximum of two buildings calendar year, per owner.
Improvements can include: electrical, plumbing, windows, doors, heating/air conditioning, historic renovation and rehabilitation, safety, energy efficiency, structural, code footprint or building inspections.
Grant monies will fund 50 percent of a qualifying improvement project, up to the amount of a building’s current annual property tax, with funding at 100 percent for building inspection or code footprint costs.
The grant needs to be applied for before any construction begins.
If successful, the improvement project must start within 30 days and be completed within 12 months of the grant pre-approval date.
When completed, grant money will be disbursed to the grant applicant.
For more information contact the city at (620) 223-0550 or Pruitt at [email protected].
All but two businesses on the west side of Main Street between Wall and First Street are vacant.
The audience listens to leaders of the group, Live Local BB, on Thursday.
Live Local BB is a grass-roots organization that had a public introductory meeting Thursday at Sharkey’s Pub and Grub.
BB stands for Bourbon County and Live Local BB encourages growth of local businesses in the county.
“We want to educate the community on how it benefits the community to live locally,” Geoff Southwell told the group of interested people. “Use local whenever possible. Money stays in the community. It’s creating and maintaining wealth and jobs”
Board member Geoff Southwell addresses a group of interested people Thursday at the initial public meeting of Live Local BB. Board member Melissa Wise listens in the background.
The group’s board members are Cindy Bartelsmeyer, Richard Goldston, Bryan Holt, Dave Lipe, Chris Maycumber, Andy Norris, Angie Simons, Southwell, Rebecca Sutterby and Melissa Wise.
Live Local BB Board Members Rebecca Sutterby, left, and Melissa Wise, facing away, sign in interested attendees at the initial public meeting of the organization.
Live Local BB board members from left: Andy Norris, Dave Lipe, Bryan Holt, Chris Maycumber and Richard Goldston listen as Geoff Southwell addresses the attendees at the initial meeting.
Fort Scott City and Chamber of Commerce officials “have jumped on board with us,” Southwell said.
The City of Fort Scott presented a $500 check to the group Thursday evening at the initial meeting.
To get the word out, the 65 businesses who have joined so far are encouraged to tell about their business on the local radio station.
“There will be 2 to 3 radio spots a day for the first twelve months,” Southwell said. “Talk in microphone, they will edit that. KMDO brings it together and it’s good. Volunteers are needed to get the word out.”
The group also has a Facebook page, Live Local BB.
Live Local BB is a grass-roots organization just formed in Fort Scott to encourage residents to buy from local businesses.
Construction is winding down on the highway improvement project through Fort Scott.
A construction crew of up to 10 men a day has been working on a section of U.S. Hwy. 69 that snakes through Fort Scott since April 2016.
“Hopefully, (the project) will be completed in the next two weeks,” Bob Vipt, superintendent for Laforge and Budd Construction, Parsons, said Tuesday.
The highway improvement project extends from the driveway of Extrusions Inc. north to Briggs Fort Scott on South Main Street, he said.
The crew has added a turning lane at the intersection of National and U.S. Hwy. 69 and also at 23rd Street and U.S.Hwy.69
The intersection of U.S. Hwy. 69 and South National Avenue, Fort Scott, where new traffic lights were installed and a turning lane added as part of a highway improvement project.
“I think these were congested intersections at times,” Vipt said.
Newly installed traffic lights and a turning lane at the intersection of U.S. Hwy. 69 and 23rd Street in Fort Scott.
Also included in the construction project paid for with federal, state and city funds are:
two new stop lights
new storm drains on the east and replaced storm drains on the west side
new curb and guttering
New curb, guttering and storm drains recently installed on U.S. Hwy. 69, also known as South Main Street in Fort Scott.
new sidewalks
A new sidewalk lines the west side of U.S. Hwy. 69/South Main Street in Fort Scott.
new asphalt surface
new striping down the middle
new landscape sod
To be completed are the new surface with roadway striping and also placing sod along both sides of U.S.Hwy. 69 adjacent to the project.
Laforge and Budd Construction is the general contractor, RFB Construction, Pittsburg, is a subcontractor on the project.
Highway expansion south of Fort Scott
Construction crews are also busy expanding a six-mile section of U.S. Hwy. 69 south of Fort Scott and north of Arma.
The section is being upgraded to an expressway, which is a four-lane highway but with access points.
This project was started in March 2017 and is scheduled for completion in November 2018, according to Priscilla Peterson, a Kansas Department of Transportation Public Affairs Manager.
RFB Construction workers were on site Tuesday in Fort Scott, working on the turn lanes..
Members of Fort Scott Bourbon County Riverfront Authority discuss updates on construction projects at Riverfront Park Tuesday evening at the Carriage House. Clockwise from left: Danny Magee, Bob Love, Allen Warren, Jerry Witt and Jeff Sweetser.
As part of the ongoing Riverfront Park project on North National Avenue in Fort Scott, a 30-foot by 50-foot pavilion will be available for public use next spring.
Schenkel Contracting, Fort Scott, will construct the building which will arrive in late October from Lester Building Systems of Minnesota.
“It will be a wooden frame, with commercial scissor trusses, with a steel roof and gable ends,” Schenkel said. “It’s an open concept. It will have electricity and lights.”
The pavilion will be located east of the parking area just inside Riverfront Park in the Belltown Trail area, north of the Marmaton River.
The Riverfront Park parking lot. The new pavilion will be east of this site.
Members of the Fort Scott Bourbon County Riverfront Authority met Tuesday evening at their regular monthly meeting to discuss this and other items upcoming in the park.
The board envisions this pavilion use for family gatherings or public concerts/meetings, according to Jerry Witt, chairman of the authority board.
The new pavilion will sit amidst the trees east of the parking lot.
The authority board has overseen the $2.2 million project, paid for with no taxpayer money, according to Jeff Sweetser, secretary/treasurer of the group, since 2007.
Reimbursements from Kansas Wildlife, Parks and Tourism were received in the amount of $20,114.02 for expenses on the pavilion and the overlook walkway. The City of Fort Scott provided in-kind labor for the park, which is an 80/20 cost split grant from KWPT.
The overlook will be a wooden, pentagon-shaped walkway which will be at the intersection of the Marmaton River and Mill Creek in the park. Westar Energy is supplying recycled electric power poles for the overlook construction.
The authority board approved the overlook design from Brian Leaders Design, and discussed adding seating to the overlook walkway.
In other business, the authority board:
Discussed where information kiosks will be located.
Was updated on the Mercy Hospice Memorial area, to be located in a wooded section of the park near the river. It will be circular with benches.
Learned that the Long Shoals Bridge bid-letting will start in December. The historic Parker Truss Bridge located in northeast Bourbon County will be relocated and restored over the Marmaton River in Riverfront Park.
Mercy Clinic staff in Fort Scott welcomed Amanda Stice on August 5, 2017 as a new nurse practitioner.
As a registered nurse, Stice decided to take on a bigger role in patient care and went on to become a family nurse practitioner.
Specializing in family medicine, she is board certified by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners and earned her master’s degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, according to a press release from Mercy.
She offers routine health care, management of chronic diseases, wellness exams, well woman exams, sports and school physicals, vaccinations and immunizations, treatment of minor illness and injuries and more.
Experiences in her practice have created many rewarding moments, Stice said.
“These experiences are what keep me passionate about my career and role in my patient’s health,” she said.
Previously, she worked for nearly six years at University of Kansas Hospital as a registered nurse in acute care units.
After earning her master’s degree, she worked in urgent care in Independence, transitioning into primary care at the same location.
She and her husband live in Fort Scott with their two children.
Stice will see patients at Mercy Clinic Suite A, located in the hospital.
Zoe Self reacts to the surprise announcement that she is a winner of the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes 2017 Discovery Award.
Local Fort Scott High School student Zoe Self was the recipient of an award that gifted her with $7,500 in unrestricted funds Friday.
Prior to the announcement, students and staff gathered in the school’s media room, where Lowell Milken told the audience that the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes “considers ourselves incubators of history.”
The Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes Discovery Award is an international competition that awards creative projects highlighting role models whose positive impact on history remains largely unnoticed.
Self created a performance which depicted the story of Lilla Day Monroe.
Monroe was a Topeka-based suffragette who advocated for women’s rights. She established and edited The Club Woman and The Kansas Woman’s Journal. In addition, she served as the president of the Kansas State Suffragette Association.
“Lilla Day Monroe was the first female lawyer in Kansas,” Self told the audience. “She helped pass the Nineteenth Amendment…she was determined to effect change by working through the court system. She was an incredible woman.”
“This unsung hero project changed my life,” she said.
Fort Scott High School staff along with Lowell Milken Center staff pose with Discovery Award recipient Zoe Self. From left are FSHS Principal Shawn Thomas, Lowell Milken, Self, LMC Program Director Megan Felt, USD 234 Superintendent Bob Beckham, FSHS Gifted Instructor Angie Kemmerer and LMC Director Norm Conard.
Fort Scott High School students and staff listen to Lowell Milken preceding the surprise announcement of Zoe Self’s winning the Discovery Award.
In the Discovery Award process, students in fourth through twelfth grades are invited to use their creative talents to develop projects that feature people from history who demonstrate that one person can make a positive change in the world. Projects can take the form of documentary/multimedia, performance or website. Projects must show potential for the ability to inspire people to take sustainable actions that carry out the legacies of their subjects, according to an LMC press release.
Domino’s Pizza opens in Fort Scott Monday, September 18 at 1709 S. National.
The franchise is owned by Emily and Dan Elwell, Jasper, Mo.
Owner Emily Elwell, right, works the front during the soft opening Friday. Employee Nathan Carey is at left.Matt Ebert, assistant manager; Emily Elwell, owner; and Kevin Knippelberger, manager pose in front of the store Friday. The ribbon cutting for the business is 10:15 a.m. Monday September 18.
The Elwell’s looked at different markets when deciding where to expand their business and through happenstance discovered the abandoned building on National Avenue.
They just happened to pull off Hwy. 69 at the strip mall site, she said, saw the for sale sign and a drive-through window and went directly to the real estate agent next door to the property to inquire.
“It’s been eerie how it worked out,” Emily Elwell said. “We are supposed to be in Fort Scott.”
They currently have 17 employees, all local.
Hours for the pizza eatery are 10:30 a.m. to midnight, Sunday through Thursday; 10:30 a.m.to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday.
Manager Kevin Knippelberger visits with a drive-through customer Friday.
Lowell Milken speaks during the 10th Anniversary of the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes.
Art, dinner, and a movie is the way The Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes celebrated their tenth anniversary Thursday evening.
“We are at the top of the second inning of what we want to accomplish,” Founder Lowell Milken told the audience about the future of the center.
At the exhibition gallery, at Wall and Main Streets, the founder and staff showcased six ArtEffect Project winners and four new Unsung Hero Exhibits.
From left: teacher Nathan McAlister and students Luke Boyden, Colin Caviness and Colin Everts from Royal Valley Middle School, Mayetta, stand in front of the Unsung Hero project the students are exhibiting in the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes. The title of their project “A Light In The Darkness: The Emma Darling Cushman Project.”
Later, dinner in the courtyard of the Liberty Theater happened to be on a perfect Kansas weather evening, with temperatures in the 70s.
Local author and retired Fort Scott teacher, Cathy Werling, was showcased with her new children’s book “Why Did Grandpa Cry?”
Children’s book author Cathy Werling sells her first book at the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes dinner party. Purchasing the book and giving a hug is Kelly Nelson. At right, LMC Administrative Assistant Mary Kerr assists at the sales table.
Since her retirement a few years back, Werling has been employed by the center.
One thing led to another and Werling was asked to write a children’s book about some of the unsung heroes.
“I saw this as an opportunity to move this (story) down to their level of understanding,” Werling said.
“Why Did Grandpa Cry?” is about Unsung Heroes Ken Reinhardt and Ann Williams, who were a part of the American story of desegregation in the late 1950s.
It is first in a series of 12 children’s books that Werling has been asked to write about unsung heroes.
Books can be purchased through the center and other online sources.
“If purchased through the center, it’s matched by the Lowell Milken Family,” she said. Those funds help the local center.
A documentary film “Teach Us All” by Sonia Lowman followed the dinner.
Film director Sonia Lowman speaks with members of the audience following the showing of the documentary “Teach Us All.”
Lowman is director of Communications for the Lowell Milken Family Foundation in Santa Monica, Calif.
She came to Milken with an idea about racial inequality, Milken said.
The film was created to “inspire and activate young people to understand the legacy of The Little Rock Nine and why they need to act on that legacy,” Lowman said.
The film also focuses on the need to support teachers and schools, she said.
The film will debut on Netflix on September 25, which marks the 60th anniversary of The Little Rock Nine desegregation battle.
Local Fort Scott teachers and retirees enjoy conversation at the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes 10th Anniversary Dinner.
The premier of the documentary produced by the Lowell Milken Center followed the dinner party at the 10th anniversary celebration.
Director Sonia Lowman speaks to the audience at the premier of “Teach Us All” at the Liberty Theater Thursday.
If all goes as anticipated, the recently moved John Deere Tech Program at Fort Scott Community College should have all parts of the facility completed in December.
The facility is located at 2223 S. Horton, formerly the Kansas National Guard Armory.
“They are building a bigger shop for big machinery,” Kent Aikin, one of the program’s two instructors, said Wednesday. A second instructor is Dale Griffiths, hired around one month ago.
The building being constructed is just to the east of the current tech program facility. The general contractor for the project is Tri-State Building, Pittsburg.
The current building is used for instruction on smaller machines and classrooms, Aikin said. The instructor’s offices are housed in this building as well.
The auditorium of the current facility is used for instruction on smaller engines.
“John Deere sends us three to six machines every year, for training purposes,” Aikin said.
Renovation of the current building started a month ago with the addition of new air lines and electrical lines.
Even though all is not completed in the facility, classes began in August with 13 first-year students and 10 second-year students.
Three first-year John Deere Tech Program students work on lessons in a classroom Wednesday.
Students who fulfill all requirements for the program have options of electrical, hydraulic or service advisor certification.
The program’s students must be sponsored by a John Deere dealership, and go through an interview process, Aikin said.
Aikin and Griffiths help the students through the whole process.
“We help locate a dealership to sponsor them,” Aikin said.
“There is a high demand for these jobs,” Aikin said. “The job prospects are good. I’d say over 90 percent have a job waiting for them.”
The move from Frontenac to the repurposed facility on the FSCC campus was precipitated by the selling of the building they were leasing, FSCC Director of Public Relations Heather Browne said.
Students have more accessibility for living in the dorms now, Browne said.
They also have easier accessibility for completing their general education classes, Griffiths said.
An open house for any interested students will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, November 2 and 8 a.m. to noon, Friday, November 3.
Following completion of the new part of the facility in December, a grand opening for the public will be in February, Aikin said.
A whole power-train for a John Deere 8300 tractor is used in instruction during the tech program.
Fort Scott Community College’s Ellis Arts Center is the venue for the 14th annual Gordon Parks Celebration. The Gordon Parks Museum is located in the arts center.
As part of the annual Gordon Parks Celebration
scheduled for October 12-14, at Fort Scott Community College, there will be a “Parks Poetry Out Loud” contest this year. Participants will pick one of seven selected poems written by Gordon Parks and will present it in front of an audience at noon on Friday, October 13 in the Gordon Parks Museum in the Ellis Fine Arts Center on campus.
“I have wanted to do this for years,” said Jill Warford, Gordon Parks Museum Director. “We hope a lot of people take part in the poetry contest, it will be a lot of fun.”
There is no fee to enter and participants will be judged on how they present the poem through voice, diction, and interpretation. Cash prizes will be awarded: first place will win $100; second, $75 and third, $50.
“You don’t have to register to enter,” Warford said. “Just show up.”
It is open to anyone and both students and adults alike, are encouraged to take part, she said. The seven poems are available on the Gordon Parks Museum website: gordonparkscenter.org .
Select poems from the website, then print them out for use, she said.
For more information email [email protected] or by phone call (620) 223-2700, ext. 5850
Poems to choose from are:
MOMMA
by Gordon Parks
Now and then she said things that made my ears frown.
More than likely they were just too young to understand.
“Brush those teeth, and wash your feet before you go to bed.
And stop snoring so loud. You keep everybody awake.”
Pig feet, turnip greens and chitlins put hair on the chest.
My stomach craved apple butter and crackling bread.
It had a mind of its own. It wasn’t looking for hair.
Sunday school was particularly necessary, but not enough.
Reverend Frockcoat’s bland sermons had to sanctify the day.
Some other things stood in my way
Talking too much when I should have listened,
Crying when laughing was better,
Shooting marbles when the cattle needed feed.
Momma’s most relentless warning stuck like claws.
“Son, don’t ever come home blaming your skin’s blackness
For tumbling you downward.
If a white boy can do something worth doing,
Remember you can do it too. When the time comes
Just get out there and do it or forget to come home.”
Much later, long after she was gone,
And swimming in her advice, I’ve tried to keep going,
Going and going.
Down through the years, her warnings helped push clouds away
While sopping tears from stars that insisted on falling.
Yes, it was Momma who spread the checkered tablecloth.
But it was my good fortune to sit down and eat.
Her love filled the space between heaven and hell.
She was a mother beyond all other mothers.
I owe her everything
My breath in the half light of autumn,
For spreading patience when doubt surfaced,
For smiling at the unrest that over took my anxious feet,
For guidance that walked me away from my mistakes,
And for hands that pulled me out of the storms.
Yes, I owe her for these things and many, many more.
So no goodbyes, Momma. The love petals
Falling like rain upon your grave
Are mine all mine.
COME SING WITH ME
By Gordon Parks
Despite the turmoil, anguish and despair
Disrupting the planet we inherited,
There is something good I choose to sing about.
That something lies within us, patiently waiting
Beneath us, above us and around us.
Its peaceful message yearns to fill
Our places of murderous anger and hatred,
To flourish forever.
Hope is the song I have chosen to sing
A deathless song, flowing steadily beside my faith.
Whenever the fist of doubt knocks at my door,
It is powerfully turned away by my hopeful singing.
When things go from bad to worse I still sing my song.
Why not?
It helps me endure the bloodthirsty days.
Once earth’s fire had devoured my hopes.
As my twisted soul slid toward Hell,
Fate came racing from another direction.
Pinned to it was a belt of sun with new instructions.
These, it said, are for you! Suddenly fear was gone.
I made peace with the mean roads I’d walked.
My jackals could now lie down in truce.
From that day on, I began singing the song called Hope.
I still sing it loud
Above the waves, fire, darkness and mud.
From The Huge Silence
by Gordon Parks
The prairie is still in me,
in my talk and manners.
I still sniff the air for rain or snow,
know the loneliness of night,
and distrust the wind
when things get too quiet.
Having been away so long
and changed my face so often,
I sometimes suspect that this place
no longer recognizes me
despite these cowboy boots,
this western hat and
my father’s mustache that I wear.
To this place I must seem
like wood from a different forest,
and as secretive as black loam.
This earth breathes uneasily under my boots.
Their odor of city asphalt
doesn’t mix well with the clean smell
of wild alfalfa and purple lovegrass.
It puzzles me that I live so far away
from our old clapboard house
where, in oak tree shade,
I used to sit and dream
of what I wanted to become.
I always return here weary,
but to draw strength from
This huge silence that surrounds me,
knowing now that all I thought
was dead here is still alive,
that there is warmth here
even when the wind blows hard and cold.
The First Bud
by Gordon Parks
Through winter locked and hungered days,
And during trials of doubtful years,
I walked mistaken roads searching for you.
So when as you say during pillowtalk,
You do not know me,
remember that I am you.
We have been one for thousands of years.
Our love is older than the sky.
That love tremored every windflow
While waiting to be summoned
By a cry, a moan from my heart
That was ablaze with loneliness.
Then, with the silence of a cloud,
It emerged through shadowless mist
and, with pity,
Ripped my outraged soul apart,
Then strung it together with stars
That light your peaceful shade.
Now those nights
That were once without splendor
Dance in on wings that sing.
And the sound of rain
Falling on the roof is joyous.
A Bottle’s Worth of Tomorrow
by Gordon Parks
Time slipped out of my house last night
As I was bringing in the cat.
Angry, worried, frowning,
I went in search of it
Where it lay wrinkled and disgruntled
Behind a stubborn door among thorns.
I knocked and knocked;
The door refused to open.
Time, it finally said, is tired,
And in need of a long rest.
The hours it spent on you
Were far too exhausting
And moved much too slowly.
Remember your running from sky to sky,
With fog falling on you like fire?
The suit my soul wears
Was growing threadbare.
I had eaten salt for supper
And been killed so many times.
I was about to die some more
when the stranger appeared,
Asked me to wait,
handed me a scrap to paper
Then left as quietly as he had come.
He had scribbled his name: Tomorrow.
Wait? Where? For how long?
Distraught, I went toward home,
Worried and frowning even more.
Who was this fellow Tomorrow anyway,
And where was he last night
When time ran out on me?
Later I slept among bad memories.
Having lived in the forest under my scalp,
They knew me well; but I no longer knew them.
I had drowned the worst in waves of skepticism.
But when I awoke to let the cat out
They were stirring inside me, moving as I moved.
I opened the door
and there stood tomorrow,
Grinning, with a sack full of sun, stars
And a little bottle filled with a little more time.
He dropped the sack and then hurried off.
Content, at least for the moment,
I gave a thankful sigh for those signs
That had quietly walked out with my cat.
But after a close look at that little bottle,
It all became clear. No time was left
To wait for myself.
I snatched a bunch of thoughts from the air,
Then I too was off in a hurry.
Homecoming
by Gordon Parks
This small town into which I was born,
has, for me, grown into the largest,
and most important city in the universe.
Fort Scott is not as tall, or heralded
as New York, Paris, or London
or other places my feet have roamed,
but it is home.
Surely I remember the harsh days,
the sordid bigotry and segregated schools
and indeed the graveyard for Black people,
(where my beloved mother and father
still rest beneath Kansas earth).
But recently, the bitterness,
that hung around for so many years seems
to have asked for silence, for escape
from the weariness of those ugly days past.
Thankfully hatred is suddenly remaining quiet,
Keeping its mouth shut! And I’m thankful
For the contentment we lost along the way.
My hope now is that each of us can find
What GOD put us here to find
LOVE!
Let us have no more truck with the devil!
No Apologies
by Gordon Parks
Fate holds no reason to frown at what Providence granted me.
My thanks remain uncountable.
After long talks with my
past I now realize that life held a divine purpose,
For shoving me into places that were as changeable as the wind.
In between the floundering of then and now, the eyes of fate were following me
watching, always watching with
narrowing glances.
Now, having given deep thought to life’s offerings,
I realize everything that happened should have happened.
So my heart lifts praise to a smiling autumn
To those fallen years that no longer exist.
With this, and with no respite, I give thanks
To each dawn,
To each night,
To all the falling and climbing that patiently carried me through unpredictable wanderings.
Crowned in the confusion that hammered my journey,
.
