My 8am appointment with the doctor wasn’t something I was looking forward to.  At least, the overindulgence of the Mardi Gras season provided me with enough motivation to get through the dreaded process.  So with my gut sufficiently cleansed of the seasonal moonpies, candy, and king cake I showed up on time for my scheduled colonoscopy.

The colon is a part of the body that I never really think about, until some overly spicy, fatty, or just abundant meal creates some discomfort.  Normally, it’s the quiet transport center for whatever I feed the stomach.  But, apparently, it’s much more. 

According to doctors the colon is part of the gastrointestinal tract referred to as the “second brain”.  Since two brains are obviously better than one, when mine work together, life is good.  Of course, things can go wrong in the small brain that you don’t become aware of until it’s too late. 

The polyps that can form in the colon over years can become cancerous.   Colon cancer is one of the deadliest forms of the disease, but it’s also one of the most preventable.  The idea is to remove the polyps before their become problematic. 

It’s simple, but who wants strangers probing an orifice of your body you can’t even see, and probably wouldn’t look if you could.  I mean it’s kind of like digging in the trash.   Unless you’re a drug smuggler, whatever’s there you’re more than willing to let go. 

It turns out the colonoscopy procedure wasn’t the traumatic experience I expected.  There’s not much to remember after you dawn the hospital gown with back ties.  The nurse wheeled me into a small room, where I exchanged a few words with the Doctor.   Of course, there’s not much to say to a man who’s about to get a bird’s eye view of  your “not so good side”.  

He left to get properly attired for the procedure I presume, leaving me with a very nice nurse who was obviously sympathetic to my nervousness.  I tried to distract myself by resorting to my journalistic questioning of the equipment in the tiny room.
 
After explaining the numbers representing my blood pressure, oxygen rate, and heart rate, the nurse injected a dose of anesthesia  into the intravenous device inserted into my arm earlier.  Minutes later as my questions continued she realized I needed a little more of the anesthetic.  That did the trick.  I suspect I was out mid-sentence. 

When I awoke I was in the recovery area.  I had no pain, and best of all no sensation that my body had ever been touched.  Oh, but it had. 

The doctor came in minutes later to give me the all clear.  I celebrated the good news with a cup of crushed ice.   Considering I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for hours, it tasted as good to me as the new mint moonpies. 

So, if you’re apprehensive about a colonoscopy take it from someone who knows, it really isn’t as bad as you think.  And, considering it’s potentially life saving benefits, it’s definitely a procedure you don’t want to skip.

I never dreamed there were so many conspirators out to get me.  There was a time in my life when I could conveniently blame all my woes on a single evil entity, the Devil.  Well, it turns out there are countless individuals, organizations, and governments that are out to control my mind, money, and even my world.  At least that’s what I’m hearing from friends who have recently discovered the nefarious machinations of various groups.  It’s got me thinking could there really be so many widespread plots afoot?

I was recently informed that many of the popular Hip Hop, R&B, and Rap stars I’ve seen in benefit concerts and awards shows are in league with conspiracy organizations. 
According to these sources, the singers are members of secretive and powerful groups including the Freemasons and the Illuminati.  Their goal is a New World Order, and to achieve their individual fame and fortune the artists had to make a pack with the Devil.  Wow!  Could this be true?  My friends tell me it is, and the evidence they say is clearly seen and heard in the stars lyrics, videos, and hand gestures they often flash.

Unfortunately,  I don’t keep up with the music industry as much as some of my friends.  I can’t name any of the songs that incorporate stealthy references to the conspiracy.  I doubt I’ve even heard some of the songs, and I just don’t have time to watch the music videos that support the infamous claims.  However, it’s such an important issue I did take some time to do a little research on conspiracy theories in general. 

It turns out they’ve been around a lot longer than the current hip hop singers.   In my search for answers I stumbled across one conspiracy stating back to the first century.   The Emperor Nero launched a conspiracy against Christians blaming them for the great fire in Rome.  The accusation ended badly for many of the new faith. 

In modern times we don’t often hear about the conspiracies of elite coalitions in the mainstream media.  That hasn’t deterred those who follow them religiously.  The fact that such claims are often ignored by traditional print and broadcast media may even make them more appealing to some.

The topic has actually been taken on by psychologist, scientist, and the academic community, who have come up with catagories for the individual theories.
For example, the Kennedy assassination conspiracy, or the more recent Haiti earthquake conspiracy would be labeled “Event conspiracy” theories.  According to political scientist Michael Barkun,  a “Systemic conspiracy”  would involve an organization like the Freemasons or the Illuminati.  Barkum might classify the current claims involving the music industry as a “Superconspiracy” theory, because it incorporates elements of the other two. 

I have also discovered there are individuals and groups dedicated to  proving or disproving the existence of conspiracy theories.  I’ve asked myself which side of this fence do I find myself?  The answer I’ve come up with is neither. 
I don’t feel the need to convince anyone of the evil nature of the Illuminati, nor am I compelled to defend the Freeman’s as free thinkers as opposed to control seekers.  I am content to allow people to make their on choices.   Instead, I’ve decided conspiracies will not control my life. 

Alabama author,  Andy Andrews included seven principals of success in his best selling book “The Traveler’s Gift”.   I’ll tell you the first principal,  “The buck stops here”.  It means I take responsibility for the good and bad in my life.  By doing this I can make whatever adjustments are needed in my actions to end up where ever I choose to be.  It’s a simple concept, but it may not be easy.  I understand I’ll have to somehow maneuver around, over, or even through the obstacles that are sure to arise.  This includes any evil conspiracy, and perhaps the Devil himself. 

The English poet, William Ernest Henley survived tuberculosis as a child.  The disease cost him a leg.   In 1875, from a hospital bed he wrote the famous poem “Invictus”.   I was in middle school when I first heard it.  The closing words are still with me today, “I am the master of my fate.  I am the captain of my soul.”  No conspiracy will ever take that away.

From the first chapter Katheryn Stockett’s novel, “The Help” brings back a flood of memories from my own childhood.  Most of the important women in my life were maids.  It’s odd, how I never really thought much about their jobs in homes I’d never seen, for people I’d never met. 

The book spans a two year period in the lives of three woman, a young writer, and two maids in Jackson, Mississippi.  They secretly join together on a writing project that could change the southern town forever, and threaten their own lives.  The project is a book about  the black maids and their white employers.  Their stories run the gamut of emotions, sad, angry, frightening, tender, even funny.   The experiences often cross clearly drawn lines in the segregated south.

I wonder what stories the maids in my family could tell.  I grew up in Detroit, Michigan almost as far north from Jackson as you can get in the continental states.   My home was on the east side, an area called “the Black Bottom”.  There,  segregation was the result of “white flight”,  not the “Jim Crow Laws”,  found by the character Miss Skeeter  in a dusty pamphlet forgotten on a top shelf at the “white” library.  

I was too young to remember when the whites fled the inner city for Grosse Pointe, Oak Park, and Southfield.  City buses provided the transportation for the black maids to get to their jobs.  It was less than a 30 minute ride into the city for the white husbands who still had stores and businesses there. 

Aunt Carrie rode a bus to her job several days a week.  Like the maids in the book she wore a white dress that buttoned up the front.  Her black shoes were designed for women who were on their feet a lot.  Aunt Carrie never talked about the job, at least not to me. Aunt Maggie on my father’s side lived a block away on the same street.  She didn’t talk much about the white gentleman she worked for either, but I always felt her pay was better than Aunt Carrie’s.

The only stories I really remember came from the godparents who raised me.  They both worked as domestics in the south in their youth, jobs they left when they decided to move north.  Daddy landed a job at the Cadillac Plant in Detroit. 

Mama told me the story about her wedding rings. She was cook like the character Minny.  They were probably a lot alike in other ways.    I often admired the rings.  They were set in platinum with a full karat engagement stone surrounded by four smaller diamonds.  The wedding band had  six diamonds.  Together they sparkled so bright the set captured your attention from across a room.    Mama said it was the kind of wedding rings a woman would pick for herself, and she did.

I never saw the ring Daddy gave her when he proposed.  I’m not sure how long they’d been married when Mama decided she wanted a new set.  She spotted the rings she liked at an upscale store in downtown Dallas.  When she tried to buy them the clerk called in a manager who informed Mama, “We don‘t sell to Coloreds“.

Apparently, Mama worked for a family that was fairly well known.  I can see her now storming around their house fussing out loud to herself about the injustice.   I wonder how long it took the husband to realize his food was going to continue to be overcooked as long as his sassy maid was unhappy.  Her employer had a talk with the store manager, who agreed to sell Mama whatever she wanted.  She bought a diamond studded watch to go with the rings. 

Before he was married Daddy said he once quit a job working with a jackhammer on the street, because it was just too hard for his light frame.  After being unemployed for several months he vowed never to quit another job if he didn’t have a better one lined up.  It was a promise he kept.  Daddy retired from  GM after 41 years.   During that tough period  of unemployment though Daddy said he walked every day to his sister’s job.  She worked for a white family.   He had to go to the back door.  His sister would give him something to eat, and a little money if she had it.  Daddy was the kindest man I’ve ever known.  It hurts my heart even now to think someone felt he wasn’t good enough to enter the front door.

Rosa Parks was already living in Detroit in the mid 1960’s.  I’d never heard of her, until a young Michigan State Senator named Coleman Young spoke about  civil rights in the library of my elementary school.  I felt a sense of pride without really understanding the meaning of his words.   I do remember the sadness that engulf the same school when a teacher burst into my classroom one November day screaming,  “They shot the president.”   I was 10 years old. The teachers cried.  I cried too. 

I knew nothing of the Civil Rights Bill the president had introduced a few months earlier in June, and I only vaguely remember hearing Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s deep voice proclaim, “I have a dream,” on the “tee-vee”  in August of that same year. 

Yes, there were lots of maids in my life, and while they didn’t share many stories of their work with me, they encouraged me to dream of a better life.  I am grateful they worked hard to make sure Dr. King’s dream became my reality.