Christopher Paul Curtis Read Online Free PDF Page A

feed a large number of people. So do I. And who are these people? For both me and the military they're a large, diverse, often unwilling and ungrateful group who most likely are where they are as a last resort. It's a group of people that needs to have their minds and their time completely occupied or they get antsy. It's a group that finds safety in the group—they may not know it but they neither want nor need individuality.
    “Another thing they don't need is that whole warm, touchy-feely nonsense. That brings emotion into it, and emotion is a loss of control. Oh, sure, it's a great feeling tohave people looking up and cooing at you, but when you're the one in charge it doesn't work. When push comes to shove you have to be in control at all times. That's something that goes from raising a family to running one of these group homes all the way up to commanding the U.S. Army.”
    She told me, “I know you're deep into philosophy and love to flip these sayings out all the time so let me run it down to you in a way that you'll get: as a great philosopher once said, ‘It is far better to be feared than to be loved.’ ”
    That's another thing that ain't exactly what you're gonna hear on the Parenting Network, but it's worked all these years for the Sarge.
    The first mandate I remember her teaching me is the no PDA, or no Public Displays of Affection, mandate.
    I was nine or ten years old and the Sarge and Darnell and me had just made our monthly trip to Sleet-Sterling to buy some clothes for her clients. She had an arrangement with Mr. Brandon, who was the manager of the Thrifty Living clothing department, that on the last Wednesday of every month she'd come in and charge a thousand dollars' worth of clothes for the clients. The next day she'd return all the clothes and slip Mr. Brandon a hundred dollars cash money. He worked some kind of magic with the receipts and the Sarge kept the original copies, which she just-like-that turned in to the Department of Social Services. In a week or two she'd get a check in the mail reimbursing her as part of the clients' clothing allowance. When the clients really did need clothes we'd head over to the Goodwill to do their shopping.
    But there was a reason for this and it all was for the good of the clients.
    “Your average Goodwill clothes are so old they've been washed hundreds of times,” the Sarge told me as another take-over-her-business lesson. “That's a virtual guarantee that they're nice and soft and not irritating to people's skin. If the clothes have survived that many washings you know they're high-quality garments. Besides, that designer junk is way overrated, way overpriced and way too flimsy.”
    She taught me the same lesson with food. We'd buy steaks and lobster once a month and they'd all go right over to the Sarge's place and not to the homes. Then we'd head to Costco or the Warehouse Club and buy a ton of boxes of macaroni and cheese or spaghetti sauce and ramen noodles for the clients. If she was feeling real generous we'd go to the army surplus store and buy a bunch of Meals Ready to Eat. Social Services paid the Sarge back from the steak receipts.
    “Steak and lobster are detrimental to their cholesterol levels,” she'd told me back when I was young and dumb. “Besides, if those MREs are good enough for the brave, patriotic men and women defending this country, then by God, they're good enough for anyone living in one of my homes.”
    Those are nothing but Sargeisms, where you have a long list of reasons why something you do is good for someone else, but surprise! surprise! it always seems that you get something even better out of it.
    Anyway, on that day I first learned about the no PDA mandate, we were leaving Sleet-Sterling and going out the front door of the mall. I saw something that nearly mademe puke out my breakfast right on the floor: slick Darnell Dixon reached his hand out and gave the Sarge a good, long, healthy squeeze on her behind when he