Looking Down to See What’s Up

By A.J. Crow

Sticks and bones, and dislocated homes.

And parasites, and insights,

And just let me make it to the mic.

And you will see,

There is a real mystery,

To life, to love, to longevity.

The poem above was written during recess, at a chartered school where I was employed as a General Assistant. Nestled behind Brick Church Pike was Smithson Craighead Academy’s playground.

Amongst the future Gen Alphas, and Thornburgs; the poem took flight. Sometimes, the external, and internal exploits of life are exactly as they seem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781643783796

A.J. Crow

A.J. Crow grew up in the South, in a town known as the Athens of the South, born to parents who divorced before she could walk. Strong-willed and nature nurtured is the best way to describe her life. She has always been determined to live her life and not that of others. She wrote her first poem in middle school at the age of 14. She is an explorer of her world.

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About the Author

A.J. Crow grew up in the South, in a town known as the Athens of the South, born to parents who divorced before she could walk. Strong-willed and nature nurtured is the best way to describe her life. She has always been determined to live her life and not that of others. She wrote her first poem in middle school at the age of 14. She is an explorer of her world.

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this memoir to all my ancestors, past and present, and to my friends, and all those who like me, love moving ahead.

May we all continue to search and find that one truth

that will enable us to continue our spiritual move forward and to put forth our very best.

To those true to themselves, and the paths, beliefs, and dedications they have for those living entities that have preceded the paths now taken, and that will hopefully lead in the direction of finality.

Copyright Information ©

Copyright © A.J. Crow 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Crow, A.J.

Looking Down to See What’s Up

ISBN 9781643784809 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781641828567 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781643783796 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020918697

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgment

"You’ll learn to care for yourselves, with our help.

And there is no trick to putting fruit on

trees, you might even enjoy it.

You will learn to build for yourselves, think

for yourselves, work for yourselves.

And what you create, is yours.

That’s what we call freedom,

you’ll like it, a lot."

These words are spoken by the fictitious character of Caption James T Kirk of the Star Trek Ship and the USS Enterprise. Spoken during one of the episodes that aired between the years of 1969-1976. I too believe that what we create is ours, with the exceptions of the spirit.

I know I was an adolescent when this episode premiered. Ironically, this episode was called, "The Apple."

Now is a good time to thank all those who have come to my rescue, laying down the foundations to what good friends are meant to be to each other. They have laughed at my jokes, and through those years kept me sane and moving forward.

Childhood friends that were with me during my education from elementary, and through High School Graduation. What a wonderful experience it was. None of us then knew what plans were laid ahead, but the beforehand examples let us know what could be, and we must continue to push ahead to what is to come.

I wish also to express my gratitude to all those whose songs and actions have created a foundation on which I could stand and hatch out my own plans.

Know that I know the challenges have been difficult, and that there have been footings made more of sand than mortar.

But the die is cast, the roles assigned, and we are the created, and we should believe we belong to the one who created us in his image. Even though we chose to forget, we are nevertheless a product of what we believe to be the truth, and or a product of our own imaginations.

Our faith, or lack of faith is the center for our belief systems; we are all, an unfinished product.

I have been forced to live a life of incontestable reproach and fundamentalism, that I also believed was enforced upon friends and family members, as well, but I can only speculate on the experiences of others.

What I do know is that the civil liberties all are entitled to receive during my experiences, then, and now have not been enforced.

And as was my mother’s acceptance of believing she had no guarantee of freedom and protection from the conformed systems that kept her in a state of disillusion and hopelessness, I too was believed to accept the same mistreatments as had been assigned to her.

Mutations of life lived vicariously through someone else has never been a dream of mine. Living by the terms outlined by oppressors, have also not been in my radar.

I choose to believe that those who have committed to living according to their beliefs, and who base those beliefs on something concrete, something Godly, and on ideas that liberate, will receive the yoke of easiness.

The universe has lost its songs of harmony.

Songs of peace still exist, but they have no power,

not like the songs of love,

nor like the sighs of completeness.

There are no sounds you can trust.

Words coming from lips

have little to no power either.

But you will speak for me.

You will come through

that part of me

uninhibited by the mortal man.

You must speak now,

or my rhythm, words and way will become lost forever…

A.J. Crow…

Introduction

Beyond dust, in a capital city first known as The Athens of the South, because of its educational advantages, and also because it was first to implement a public school system, is Ashville, Tennessee, hometown to A.J Crow. The time is irrelevant, but it is definite a lengthy time before A.J. realized her purpose and place amongst the other Ashville residents.

Looking Down to See What’s Up is about the consciousness of man. Are we who we claim to be? Set in Music City USA, the protagonist begins a journey of incompleteness. She is led by an inward spiritual quest to many non-spiritual events. Inwardly there are safeguards, but as she discovers, outwardly there are plans against any plans for her to ever reach the destiny set in place by the unknowing spiritual powers of her time.

And although it is never made the main focus of this story, she doesn’t elude from the obvious great-kept secrets about her life, and she finds out that the secrets are shielded by predators, near and far, and that what they want is her destiny, her visions, and to misdirect her purpose.

As the characters begin to develop, so does she. She is slow to discover at first, that her life is not to be about her. And as many individuals that surrounded her during her time of self-discovery, little was done to help shape who she was to become.

It was her interactive connections with those characters of her past, that helped her to understand the operatives that would either help in her voyage, or dislodge her from her rightful place amongst all the other self-discovery voyagers.

But as a particle of dust blowing in the winds of Tennessee, much can be formed by the Southern winds.

One certain theory during the time was that the expectations from disadvantaged families plagued by deliberate oppression, heartaches, and stagnation, would make it very hard for them to focus on purpose. Most attention was focused on survival.

Living with purpose was not meant to be an easy task while being blown through those ferocious southern winds.

The winds had color, and heights and could impose the freight of dislodging habitants from shelter and placing them in an environment that would not only neglect to protect their civil liberties, but also leave them without protection from other elements as well.

Who knew how low the bar had been set for the developing communities during the mid-sixties? How were any of us expected to accept the passages paved by those who had higher expectations for themselves, and had destined themselves to see some as a theoretical practice to be overshadowed by the harsh realities of life.

The discoveries brought about a new purpose for A.J., and each purpose she had for herself, began to form first out of her needs to survive.

When the decision was made by her; after decades of just blowing in the dusty wind-blown southern city of confusion; to write about her experiences, she does so first in the form of poetry.

This story helps to explain what she was feeling when she wrote several poems and letters and sent them to a local DJ named Brother Dave. The poetry was never returned to her, and because of their unusual descriptions of her unusual everyday life, they became a major inspirational remedy to be explored by those who would abandon their paths of self-discovery to exploit hers.

When she approached Brother Dave and asked for the return of her poems, she was told, by him, that they had been thrown away. It was a lie, because the music he began to play on the air, at the radio station, WVOL, was in the very nature of the feelings, words and expression of emotions, revealed in her poems, and letters.

Brother Dave received this information, through the mail at the WVOL Radio Station, during the years of 1978, 79, 80, and possibly beyond.

His sharing of that information was, and still is the waywardness of his continued celebrated state of success, the references are still overwhelming. For years, the musical influences from the poems and letters, had become a melodramatic expression of a stolen life. It still is. If more thought was ever given to the truth about the poems, letters, and audio recordings held with Brother Dave on the phone, an infraction of ingenuity would be his loss.

Any comparison of the information he had to have shared would draw a conclusion that he indulged in illegal activities involving his handling of intellectual properties, that he did not create.

The truth has to be revealed, there’s no other way around it.

The Poem Just A Dreamer extended into a personal and professional, private life, as she was literally being denied her civil liberties of freedom and expression of thought.

The Deal between all those who had pirated her intellectual properties had to make the literature true for her and profitable for them.

She had no way of knowing what arrangements had been made between Brother Dave, and his associates, but she knew they would never want the truth to be revealed, or the comparisons made.

So how do you challenge a collective mount of indifference. Like air, people take what they need, and like my mother, there has always blown about them an air of inferiority in contrast to how the two of us were to be treated.

The proof was made obvious by the artist themselves. The coincident in the origins of the poems, and the work that eluded to the contents of the poetry and letter was then and is today, undisputable.

If ever confronted, they could say: I just came to stop and play.

Since no one had come forward to legally claim ownership, everyone but the intellectual owner, could benefit from their use. It was all part of the game, to fame.

And while life has been as abstract as the poetry, it was inevitable that the dreams that fed the purpose, and the purpose which gave meanings to the poetry, and self-expression were needed to overcome any misguided labels targeting self-identity, and any abilities to overcome anything predestined by man.

The real purpose is to shine light on those without any; and in other words, all worlds would collide and become one of vision and truth.

A life-long series of the beforehand events would lead one to conclude that Music City USA is also the city without a conscious, that somewhere lying underneath the thriving neighborhoods, and communities of the southern city; the sounds of conquer and defeat bellows out.

They were sounds A.J. would hear and identify with; sounds descriptive of the life she had written about and mailed to the Disc-Jockey who in return shared that misinformation with music artist, future artist to be, and also those who were in the market for new ideas.

They became sweat sounds of victory some were inclined to experience and believe.

Looking Down to See What’s Up is a faith-based story, it has all the elements of life without hope, misguided realities and for A.J., a destiny without a destination.

But God has had his plan all along. His purpose comes with an aspect of fearlessness, and truth.

A. J. had been subjected to a life of predestined poverty, and as it would be hard to envision an act as bold as believing in a cause that requires the debilitation of a predetermined purpose, it is her belief that poetry redefined her life, and gave her a voice to proclaim her destiny and her purpose. Both had been buried underneath the dusty blowing winds in the Tennessee hills.

One of her mother’s oldest and closest confidant was able to reconstruct the debris of dirt and dust, and create for herself, and her family, a hill of success and power, where she was allowed to look down on all those who stood at a lower level.

All her success was achieved from the pain and suffering from those who knew little about her lack of integrity and abilities to create and execute havoc and mayhem. It has been her dirty little secret, one she has cherished, and made very profitable.

The musical beats of the city brought about a new unforeseeable beat, resounding in the rhythm of acquiescence, and degradation.

As the years preceded to succumb to the new wave of the unfathomed rhythmic dialogue, little was seen nor heard in the ways of progress and maintaining to the needs of those who knew nothing about the new meanings in The Godfather of souls, Popa’s Got a Brand-New Bag, and The Payback.

And in 1979, when the Whispers got wind of what Popa had in his brand-new bag, they came out of their own bag with And the Beat Goes On. So the question for A.J. will always be, How sweet is it to be loved by you?

Finally, everything became clear to A.J., and she began to see what no one ever thought she would see. The dust had settled in Music City USA, and regardless of the purpose she had been given at birth, the new beat of the city resounded louder than any theological words ever spoken in the Athens of the South. A.J. had come to terms with the fact that she had been destined to be great things to many, at the cost of being almost nothing to herself.

A buh-buh buh buh

You went to school to learn, girl

Things you never, never knew before…

Like I before E except after C.

Chapter 1

Just a Dreamer

I hear many whispering, Terror on every side! All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying, Perhaps he will be decided; then we will prevail over him.

But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.

They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten…

Jeremiah 20:10-11

The voices in the wind tell me I should hate my life, but they don’t tell me why. But I know why, and I think it is because I am a visionary, and I am always searching for the truth. I value and respect all life, especially those entities embraced by the creator of life. I must live with as much truth as I can find. I can’t survive well in chaos, and I don’t rely on others to interpret my reality.

But who really understands reality? How many of us are willing to accept who we are, or what we become to get what we think we can’t live without.

My lifelong experience is that many have increasingly begun to live their lives in want of connecting to those who have what they want, and miss out on what they have, and have been given by the one who created them.

They want the power that comes from being financially successful, they want beautiful people to embrace, and all the pleasure the eyes and flesh can give. We all want the bling, and the fantasies that ride along saying, What you see is what you can get.

But if you want more than just what you see, you can find it in those who have no idea that they are being incorporated into funding and supplying your needs. Unknowingly, some will never know why the odds are stacked against them, and are therefore on a path of being without the necessary resources to fulfill their own wants and needs. The thought that life is not fair would be a shared