Asbury Court United Methodist Church
Brooklyn, New York 11215
December 5, 2003
Dear Mrs. Scott,
Thank you for the opportunity to have prayer together yesterday. I join you in your grief at the loss of your son, Lt. Colonel Steve Scott.
As I promised, I did speak to the local Army people here in Brooklyn and they confirm that his body should be released from Dover Air Base early next week. By then you will need to have told me whether or not you wish to have a funeral service here first or just a simple committal service at Arlington Cemetery. If you wish to use the church, the ladies of the Abigail Circle will be glad to hold a reception afterwards in the Church Parlor.
Please give my warmest regards to your son and daughter. I look forward to meeting them here or in Washington. Christ’s love comforts us all in this time of sorrow.
Sincerely,
Pastor Roger
128 Stoll Avenue
Louisville, KY 40206
July 22, 2013
Dear GGM* Lucy,
You are really great! Thank you again for helping me with the video for my communications class this summer at U of L. Everybody I know has seen it and they all are impressed with your vitality as your 85th birthday approaches. In the last three weeks Age Is an Attitude, Not a Condition has scored 10,500 hits on the internet. Wow! Not bad for a first try, huh?
I did not see Granddad Jim and his wife while I was in NYC that weekend. He was busy at some conference or something. As you know, my father and Granddad Jim had a falling out some years ago. Over what, I’ve never discovered but I suspect it was about Granddad’s divorce from Dad’s mom Kate. I should have asked you when I had the chance, but it really is ancient history for me. I like to think about the future and not the past.
Please thank Fred for letting me stay at his apartment for the weekend. You and Fred are “the real thing!”
Above is my new address. It is a three-room (plus kitchen and bath) “shotgun house.” That is the description for old houses in this part of the ‘Ville. All the doors are in line, so if you open the front door, it is said you could fire a shotgun all the way through! My friend Ray and I are sharing the space. (No shotguns allowed!)
The other excitement here is the football and basketball teams, as well as baseball and women’s basketball teams, who all look good to repeat their successes of last year. Go, Cards!
Affectionately, your GGS,
Alex
*I am using GGM because it is easier than Great Grandmother.
September 9, 2013
Mon très estimé professeur,
Merci beaucoup pour notre conversation d’aujourd’hui. Elle a réveillé beaucoup de bons et tendres souvenirs de ma mère et des conversations que nous avons partagées, du professeur de français qui vous a suivi à Johnson Tech, des gens que j’aide (la plupart des haïtiens) quand ils viennent à la pharmacie pour les ordonnances. Mais maintenant je passé à l’anglais. Je peux bavarder en français, “la belle langue,” mais je trouve que c’est plus difficile de écrire en français.
[For those readers not conversant in French, I have translated Mr. K’s first paragraph. “Esteemed Professor: Thank you very much for our conversation today. It brought back many warm memories — of my mother and the conversations we would have, of the French teacher who followed you at Johnson Tech, of the people whom I help (mostly Haitian) when they come for prescriptions at the pharmacy. But now I switch to English. I can chatter away in ‘the beautiful language’, but I find it more difficult when it comes to the written word.”]
I find it very pleasant to converse with you. I am glad to hear that your successor, Madam Bonner, is still holding forth at school. She frequently expressed her chagrin when I would mix up my tenses.
During our last conversation in the lobby, please forgive my silence when you asked me what my name is. I told you my surname is Dugay. I did not know how to respond when you then asked what Mr. K stands for. Please forgive me if I seemed rude as I turned away.
Let me tell you now, but I beg your patience as I recite some family history.
My mother, Lucinda Dugay, was born in French Guiana in South America. The family had moderate means to support her older sister and her two younger brothers. When my mother was eighteen, she became involved with a man of low repute and her parents sent her to live with her older sister, Violet, who by then was working in a pharmacy in Manhattan while she pursued a pharmacy degree. Violet agreed to let my mother stay with her rent-free on the condition that she also enroll in a pharmacy program. She did so.
By age twenty-five she had her pharmacy degree and was employed at a pharmacy in Brooklyn. Shortly after she began there, one of her customers took a liking to her and asked her out. They hit it off. She moved out of Violet’s apartment and into his. He was a rising Big Name in racial matters in Manhattan.
Her father, alerted by Violet, came to New York to dissuade her from the relationship. She would not, she told him, because she was pregnant by the man and he had promised to marry her.
I was born on December 26, 1987. He gave me my name, Kwanzaa, the African-American celebration that begins on the 26th. My father by then supervised the local office of a congressman from New York City. Two weeks after my birth he was promoted to a staff position in Washington and left my mother with no marriage and no support. He claimed that she had had affairs with other men, one of whom was the actual father. She countered his claim, stating that he was the only man in her life.
Unfortunately there was no such thing as DNA testing in those days. Nevertheless, an understanding administrator ruled that she was eligible for child support. My father protested but, to avoid controversy harmful to his career, he paid up.
I have attempted several times to be in touch with my father. My letters were never answered. On a high school tour to Washington, I went to the congressman’s office where he was employed. The receptionist told me he was not available. When I said I was his son and would wait, she gave me a hard look and repeated that he was not available.
I wish to retain a tie to the man who fathered me. But I will not use the name he gave me.
That is why I go by “Mr. K.”
My mother subsequently never married. She returned to her work in the pharmacy, found day care for me, and insisted from my youngest years that I would follow in her steps.
In high school I took French because she wanted me to learn “better French” than the conversations we had in her Guianese version.
In many ways I was a disappointment to my mother. My grades were okay but not as outstanding as she had hoped. In my college years I was involved in a rap group as lead singer. That pretty much led nowhere, though we still do occasional gigs in the older establishments in DUMBO. (That may be an unknown term to you: Downtown Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.) My mother pressured me to follow the family path toward a professional pharmacy degree, and she knew the right people to make it happen for me. She also found a job for me as an assistant at the CVS pharmacy where you have your prescriptions.
My mother died of breast cancer two years ago. I took care of her until the end. When she died, one of her brothers insisted that she be buried in the family plot. I accompanied the coffin to her hometown, Cayenne. It was my first visit. I found the people friendly, especially my Uncle Christophe, who received a doctorate from MIT and is involved back home as senior staff at ESA, the European Space Agency. You may