Riding Shotgun with Mama Jones
By Hamilton Jones
The ConTextos Authors Circle was developed in collaboration with young people at-risk of, victims of, or perpetrators of violence in El Salvador. In 2017 this innovative program expanded into Chicago to create tangible, high quality opportunities that nourish the minds, expand the voices and share the personal truths of individuals who have long been underserved and underestimated. Through the process of drafting, revising and publishing memoirs, participants develop self-reflection, critical thinking, camaraderie and positive self-projection to author new life narratives.
Since January 2017 ConTextos has partnered with Cook County Sheriff's Office to implement Authors Circle in Cook County Department of Corrections as part of a vision for reform that recognizes the value of mental health, rehabilitation and reflection. These powerful memoirs complicate the narratives of violence and peace building, and help author a hopeful future for human beings behind walls, their families and our collective communities.
While each author’s text is solely the work of the Author, the image used to create this book’s illustrations have been sourced by various print publications. Authors curate these images and then, using only their hands, manipulate the images through tearing, folding, layering and careful positioning. By applying these collage techniques, Authors transform their written memoirs into illustrated books.
This project is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number ALN 21.027 awarded to Cook County by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Riding Shotgun with Mama Jones
Hamilton Jones
Foreword:
For as long as I can remember one of my favorite things to do is to take a ride with my mother. Some of the rides were for business and the others for pleasure. The smell of the house, along with the time of day, and who was taking a bath first would be a sign of whether or not I'd be able to go along. Early morning bacon and eggs, dial soap, and TCB hair grease. That's a ride that I’ll be taking. Late evening, me, perfume, dinner on the stove, dial soap, and Mister Bubbles, I’m sitting this one out.
It was a cold winter day in the very early 80s – between ‘80 and ‘83. I was in the backseat of my mom ’ s Chevy Monza when boom!! I remember seeing my mother looking at the rearview mirror and at the same time taking control of the steering wheel and manipulating the brake and accelerator pedals.
We got rear ended by somebody. Somehow, we made it across the intersection of Kostner and Roosevelt without getting hit again by cross traffic. My mother pulled over to the curb, checked on me, and got out to deal with the driver of the other vehicle.
I can’t begin to tell you what she said to the fellow, but knowing Mama Jones, it was something he’d not soon forget. I don't know what happened to the Red Monza with the white vinyl top, but if I owned it today, I would be cutting it up and turning it into a pro-touring dream machine. Monzas are extremely rare these days and highly sought after by all sorts of car people.
The very next ride I can remember taking with Mama was in my dad's 77 Buick Limited. That thing was a beast. An iron fist in a velvet glove. It had a 383 Buick V8, positraction and plush velvet maroon interior.
Back then car seats weren’t common or required. I sat on the hump in the middle as mom wheeled the full size coupe through the Westside of Chicago. That was the most awesome view a little person could get. I could see everything. We would pull through the drive-through she would always eat a few fries out of the bag and hand me some too. She would sit her ice cold pop between her legs and then put the bag of burgers, fries, and nuggets on top of the cup holder/change holder/mess collector thing that was bought from trak and placed on the transmission tunnel.
The Buick was a column shift, so Mama would ease into a park or pull over to the right and she would set my meal up. We would either eat there or hit the road again because she always had someplace to go.
Mama Jones has always been a jack of all trades as well as a master of many.
During the days of the Buick, she worked as a seamstress for a great couple of people named Broadwaters. My mother was nice with the needle and thread whether by hand or machine. She would alter clothes to make them fit the wearer.
FYI “skinny jeans” are nothing new. We called them straight leg and Ms. Ann was the lady to see on the West side if you wanted it done right.
As time went on, my Mama learned what she could from the Broadwaters and took that knowledge with her into her own dry cleaning and seamstress business. She opened a cleaners on Cicero avenue between Harrison and Van Buren. The onsite service included hems and alterations, while the dry cleaning was contracted out to Poly Cleaners on Madison. I remember taking many rides in the Buick to and from in order to get the contracts between Sunrise Cleaners and Poly Cleaners worked out. After a short lived success, Mama Jones' first cleaner was vandalized and burglarized, so she closed up and went back to the Broadwaters and began to regroup.
Mama resumed her role as a seamstress and put another cleaning business together. During this time we rode around in V8 rear wheel drive coupes and Sedans. Those long, comfortable, gas guzzlers would make the “burning rubber sound” whenever she would turn left or right. I got dropped off at St. Catherine St. Lucy School which is now St. Catherine of Sienna every morning and Mama Jones would give me a big kiss on my cheek that would leave a burgundy lipstick print on my face and use “Mama spit” to wipe the crusties from my eye that we missed that morning. Mama spit can wipe crust off a chrome bumper. Back then that lipstick would have me so very much embarrassed but I now understand that the kiss was all about love and adoration for me, her baby boy.
In the late 80s Mama Jones ride was a 77 Cadillac Fleetwood with matching burnt orange interior and point. She continued on as an entrepreneur, running a record store and a candy store/gameroom on Madison and Austin. The store was owned by a longtime friend of her’s son. By that time, I was beyond riding on the arm rest or in the back seat, I was riding shotgun with Mama Jones. These times were great. Mama Jones would ride all over Chicago doing business with all sorts of distributors and wholesalers. We would listen to WGCI, V103, and I believe Gospel, radio 1390. I learned my way around the city and how to behave when Mama was handling business. Most of the distributors and wholesalers we met would almost always offer me a toy, a new video cassette, or candy or something. I would look at my mother for approval and when she said yes, I would accept it graciously, say thank you and wait for her to get a chance to inspect it before I played with it or ate it.
Mama Jones has always been a strong resilient woman but she has always dealt with some sickness or health condition. This woman has been struck by lightning, bitten by a snake, abused by men, in three comas and under anesthesia at least 7 times. My Mama spent lots of time in and out of emergency rooms for her asthma which seemed to be terrible during the 80s and 90s. It was so bad that if I got separated from her while out at the shopping center or grocery store, all I had to do was follow her cough and I’d find her soon enough.
Also if Mama Jones would go to the hospital for a breathing treatment and not return soon, I knew to start calling the different emergency rooms to see if she had been admitted.
During the Christmas season of “89” Mama Jones was grinding hard, burning the candle at both ends. She had made a promise to take me and big cousin Tommy to Kohls. Kohls used to be open 24 hours the week before Christmas. It was Christmas Eve evening and my Mama hadn't made it home or called to let me knew she would be late. I got on the phone and started dialing. I got the number to Loretto Hospital because that was the hospital that was on the route home from the video store. The lady on the phone asked me who I was and after I told her, she let me know that Mama Jones was in intensive care. As a kid I had no idea what that meant. I told my daddy and we were on the very next thing smoking to the hospital. My daddy “Hamp” wasn't driving at the time but this man was never late for anything. Needless to say we got there quickly.
When we got to the floor Mama Jones was on, I could tell that this part of the hospital was different. My father was at the desk talking to somebody, but I wandered down the hall for some reason. As I was moving down the corridor I saw two glass sliding doors. I heard alarms and sirens and beeps, not like the police or the fire department, but it still sounded like an emergency.
Between all these large, fast, moving people dressed in white coats, and others dressed in colorful matching tops and bottoms, I saw my mother. As those two glass doors began closing, I screamed out “Mama!”
As she lay on this bed with tubes coming out and wires connected to her, we made eye contact. She reached out towards me and everything went silent. It was like the only two people at either end of a dark tunnel were my mother and me. I can't tell you who it was that pulled me back, but I can tell you that it wasn't easy. The only thing I could compare it to was when those German soldiers pulled on Young Magneto when we got separated from his family and his force bent that iron gate.
At that moment I experienced so many emotions, out of all those, fear was the strongest. The fear that I wasn’t going to ride with my Mama Jones again was overwhelming. But I told you, Mama Jones was, and is, strong.
After this incident in life, Mama Jones who had been a bit of a hell raiser changed. She was still nothing to play with but she was different. During one of our rides while she was playing with the pinky finger on my left hand as she always did, (which was so annoying then but missed now) she told me how and why she pulled through. Mama Jones confided in me that she had died and through her faith, with Unca Thomas praying at the foot of her ICU bed, and her promise to Tommy and me shopping. She came back.
Like I said, Mama Jones changed. The video store days brought lots of money and good times, but it also came with lots of stress. I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes until much later in life. My mother had become well respected and well known in the streets which was both good and bad. The factory custom Cadillac was gone and the Ford Taurus with vinyl top was here. Mama Jones slowed down and we moved from our apartment on Keeler in K-Town to Cicero and Bloomingdale.
Mama Jones would still drive me to school on occasion, but I was too big for those kisses and I would also choose to walk most time because I was a young man who wanted to learn independence. I ended up getting my 8th grade diploma and went to Archbishop Weber High School. I would sneak out at night in both my mother’s Taurus and my sister's 5 speed Nissan Sentra. I taught myself to drive both automatic and stick. Of course both cars ended up with dents and dings and mystery malfunctions. When I did learn to drive, Momma had no problem lending me the car, but as most teenagers are, I was not responsible. I would smoke, have people in the car and stay out a little later than I was supposed to.
One day Mama Jones let me use the Taurus to go shopping at Old Orchard mall with my buddy, Bugs. We went shopping, grabbed a bite to eat, and visited some friends. On the way home I had a wreck. Bugs and I both grabbed the “oh shit handles,” and held on for the ride. When the car came to a stop, we had come from the hammer lane of the expressway and ended up under the fence right before the surface street. To this day Momma believes I was hot dogging, but I wasn't. Anyway she bought a newer model Taurus and honestly I drove it more than she did.
On a cold winter day around my junior year of high school, I was driving the car and it stopped. I walked home and told my mother what happened and she told me to get her “mother fucking car back home.” This was probably the first time that I had to put on my big boy underwear, somehow I ran into my best friend Quinton, who became my brother. Quinton and I found out that the problem was the alternator. We sourced the parts and tools, then got to work. That would not be the last time I called on “Q” and he came running every single time.
Mama and I continued to ride, but now I was a big boy so Mama Jones road shotgun with me lots of times. During the summer after my senior year of high school, it was time for us to go car shopping. An older buddy of mine who was cool as a breeze but participated in lots of unsavory activities, asked me to take a ride with him one day and I did. I got in and it was life-changing. The ride was black with black leather interior and a manual transmission. She was beautiful and I was smitten. I looked around, careful not to touch anything as I've never been a touchy feely type of fellow. I noticed the ignition was not there and he noticed that I noticed. My homie said " I lost the keys and had to get creative.” I said “cool.” We pulled out on North avenue, and he opened her up. I was scared and shocked at the time. I got home and told Mama Jones about it and that I wanted one so my daddy gave my mother a $5,000 budget and we started looking.
When it comes to buying your kid a new car everyone has their own suggestion. My personal preferences were a two-door pickup, a G-Body (Cutlass or Monte Carlo) and a Thunderbird. After riding in that car with my older buddy, I knew it was a Thunderbird. Mama Jones and I rode north/south and east/west. I test drove all types and colors of Thunderbirds but none felt right. After many visits with private owners and dealers we had all but given up. On the way back home though Elmwood Park on West Gand Ave. I looked up and there she was ‘Ursula.’ We went to the shop, the owner test drove the car for me and I was sold. We went home and got my big sister and she drove us home down Grand Avenue. It was late evening and we all went inside, ate, and went to bed. Notice that I didn't drive the car yet.
I slept well, but got up early as a rooster in anticipation of my first day with my new love, “Ursula” my 1989 Thunderbird SC. She even had an Alpine Stereo and speakers. I popped in Nas, “ If I Ruled the World” CD and pulled out the parking spot in front of my house. Mama Jones waved at me from the porch. Now I was a full-fledged driver and Mama Jones could ride shotgun with me.
As a grown man who buys his own and takes care of his own, my ride has to have certain textures. First I got to have a custom stereo system with sub-woofer amps, signal processing, Hi-Fi speakers, and multimedia receivers. Second, a custom exhaust and cold air intake . Third, leather seats and moonroof. Lastly but most certainly not least, the smile on “Mama Jones” face when I open the car door and help her in and she smells my cologne and air freshener, feels the power of that V8 engine and stereo system, and she knows that her baby boy put the machine together.
I did my best to condense this as much as I could because this is a memoir and not a series. That kiss on the cheek and Mama Jones playing with my pinky finger on my left hand were probably the best things about me riding with Mama Jones.
Hamilton Jones
Until the lion learns to write their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter - African Proverb
