Crown Me!

Peggy Fleming and I met approximately two and a half lifetimes ago when I was still in the DC metro area. The Arena Stage had a production of the play which also featured a back stage workshop after the performance. This was years ago and the title of the production fails me (actually I think it was Radio Mambo), but the experience has stayed with me.  It was in this experiential workshop where the audience was transformed into active participants in the act of creating dialogue from the varied voices we shared. Peggy was there along with her husband Pat, and at some point or another throughout the group building exercises, we were linked together. -- and linked we were. There was instant connection between us and needless to say, a friendship was born right there.
 Along the years we have stayed in touch and I have always admired her work. I Loved her In Her Place and always seemed to give my copy away as gifts { read a critical review on The Critical Eye }. I also think Peggy has been a hero, of sorts, for me because she is Always reinventing herself. The most dynamic people in life do this and she is no exception, even in her very soft-spoken and quiet manner. I had the good fortune of a very brief visit with Peggy and Pat a few weeks back and there she was inventing another aspect of herself - a film maker. This borne from the Crown Me! project and her desire to capture more story in another media.
Needless to say, Peggy is a fantastic photographer and she provides exquisite narrative photography which tells much of the stories of these men taking part in this great game of the mind. As the men share their stories of their involvement of checkers, we learn that they are from all walks of life - from taxi cab driver to physicist.
Over and again I continue to enjoy the personal narratives of this great book. I am partial to the imagery of the photographic storytelling, and even more so to the prose that I call, oral memoir.
I guess this piece resonates with me in a particular space because being a young adult who was educated at Howard University and raised in Atlanta,  I see in these faces my professors, mentors, uncles, fathers, cousins ...all of whom shaped and inspired me along the way.

Read more:  Just Crown Me! in the Washington Post
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