Prior to the events of the past five months, we had been following the story of young Gerald as he ran the streets of New Orleans in the 1980s. Gerald plans to return to the concluding chapters in this series in upcoming issues, and it will become his second book. But before returning to the New Orleans of his youth, however, Gerald has a special message he wants to convey to his readers about the passion he has for his work as an author and as a Street Sense vendor at his longstanding Metro stop at 9th and G NW.
The game is cut low down and dirty. You ain’t gonna last forever. You can only make so much. I don’t care how much you think you made, it still gonna be the same. Today I’m still the same.
And I can’t turn back the hand of time, what I did. I did what I did. I don’t regret it. But I look at life now and it’s totally different. It’s totally different.
The best part about it — I can sit here and look at it like, “I’m 50, I’m still living, and I’m still moving on with life.”
Life carry a lot of weight with me. I never thought I’d see 50. The day I made 50, I kissed the ground because it was a blessing.
As a boy, my friend’s mother told me I wasn’t gonna be here for 15, 16, 18 years old. But look at me now, I’m still here.
That’s why I put it the way I put it in the title of my first book: “Still Standing.” I’m gonna stand as I be. Be as I be. And try to help as many people as much as I can.
When I talk, I’m not trying to preach to you. I just want you to understand.
Like what they try to do to me when I was a young boy. But with me it was going in one, and out the other. I had to jump the rope to know that the rope can be jumped.
That’s why I like talking with the young generation. I meet a lot of kids at my Metro. I tell ‘em. “Hey … Let me tell you something. Pull up your phone.”
They pull up their phone.
I say, “Put this name in your phone.”
They put in my name. They say, “Dang, he’s a writer.”
I say, “But you know what about this writer, I stopped at the 7th grade. And if you finish school, you can be a better writer.”
I talk to all of ‘em. They daddy or mama tell me, “Thanks, Gerald, thanks for talking to them.” That’s how God work with me with people, man. I don’t try to be preachin’ nobody. But I call myself gifted, so I gotta give back.
Now I’m makin’ plans for my next series, Inside D.C. Corona, including the protests. It’s amazing how I was right here in the midst of this stuff. When I write this book, I promise you gonna enjoy readin’ and you gonna know this ain’t nothing I just put together. I’m a gifted writer. This is something I do and I like doing it.
Sorry about the passing of John Lewis. Hope his family stay strong and everybody else stay strong. Rest in peace.
Just stay with me and follow me, and everyone have a blessed and safe day. And God bless y’all.
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Anderson’s first book, “Still Standing: How an Ex-Con Found Salvation in the Floodwaters of Katrina,” is available on Amazon.com.
