By Norman Cain, January 2, 2020 — Several weeks ago at Center in the Park I wrote a story about the hardships and the joy that people go through during the holiday period. Well, during this particular holiday period, I kind of thought that perhaps I was too hard and I would take a different stance. So, I had at least 10 or 12 activities during the holiday period that I had to attend.
And the first activity took place in this very room with the W.E.B. Dubois group that meets every other Friday, and we have a flyer on the board about that. It was a great affair because we had 13 people attend. Table cloths, cocktail glasses for the non-alcoholic beverages and the food, it was gourmet. That’s what started it.
And then, being a line-dancer, I attended two line-dancing affairs, one on City Line Avenue and one at the Carousel House at 41st and Parkside Avenue. In the line-dance class that I have on Monday nights in Southwest Philly, we had a big party and a lot of gifts were given out. Then there was the annual Senior Holiday Gala at the Marriott Hotel in Center City. We had up to 600 people attend. The live band, dancing and you got a chance to see people that you hadn’t seen for a while.
Right here at this center, 509, I attended the Christmas and New Year’s affair. And then I also attended an affair at the Martin Luther King Center at 22nd and Cecil B. Moore. And then I went to a Kwanzaa affair on a Saturday at West Philadelphia High School. Sometimes these affairs overlap so I had to miss an affair at my Best Day class at Center in the Park.
My holiday started with, like I said, a Dubois activity at the room we are in now and it ended last night, Sunday, in West Philadelphia, at a family gathering on each New Year’s Day that started before I was born and I’m 77 years old. I remember when I was a kid going and now, I’m the eldest person there, and we get a chance to go back and talk about our experiences down south and here in Philadelphia. Initially, I said that I would have a brand-new outlook about the holiday season, that it wouldn’t just be a love anguish holiday season revisited, but it was. I enjoyed it but I am tired.
