HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BABY SIS, BRENDA DULAN-MOORE

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Hello All:

This is a birthday shout out to my baby sister Brenda - Chicago's finest muralist and artiste extraordinaire. Her work is on display in the Chicago Museum of Art. - Brenda was an artistic genius from the day she was born. She has more talent in her little left pinky finger than most artists have in all their body of work. But that's not the only reason why I love her!!

I'm so proud of her - particularly since she survived me - i.e. I was a tough big sister. But Brenda always maintained her cool - which is the way Librans do - they are mad cool! Aries are always over the top - LIBRANS just flow with it and remain elegantly serene.

We were the first two for a long time in our family - our two brothers came later.

The first time I ever saw Brenda she was sleeping in the top of a dresser that Mom had lined with a pillow, because where we lived at the time was so small there was only one bedroom and we all slept together.  

When we later moved to a larger house - a shotgun house, we had two bedrooms but we slept together in one bed, and our parents had the other.  

Mom was a stay at home mom then - so we got a lot of attention. She always made all our clothes and dressed us up like twins - even though we weren't. People used to ask if we were - used to really annoy me - it was clear that we didn't look like twins - well, at least I didn't think so - Brenda had a head full of hair that went down to her waist (what we called Indian grade) and my hair was shorter.

We managed to get into a sufficient amount of mischief to keep our parents on their toes. 

We used to play trampoline on our parents beds and jump up and down til the slats fell out - then we were too skinny to pick the bed back up - so you know that was a behind whipping.  

We used to make mud pies in the back yard, and trample it into the house - another behind whipping. 

We used to run in and out of the freshly washed sheets on the clothes line and get them dirty again - another behind whipping.  

Continued after the break:

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But we would also play dress up and put on Mom's high heels and her hats and dresses and have tea in the living room with our dolls. Great fun.  

Or sit on the front porch and shake up the root beer in the bottles until they fizzed all over the place. More fun.  

Or play hide and seek with all our friends on the block; or roast weenies in the back yard; or make potted meat sandwiches (primarily because Brenda couldn't/wouldn't cook) when it was her turn to do the food. Yuck!  

Or sit up all night in bed and tell each other silly stories - and Daddy would come in and say "I bet you better go to sleep, or you'll be in trouble." And we'd pull the sheets over our heads and giggle all night, because we knew he didn't mean it.

Or the times when Daddy would come home from the Split-T with bar-b-q'd ribs, and we'd talk him out of half of them. Yumm!

Or swinging in the swing set that Daddy put up for us in the back yard to see who could go the highest. 
Or hanging upside down by our knees on the jungle gym til our faces turned red (oh wait, that was me).

Or playing hop scotch and jump rope in the driveway.

Or swinging from the rope on the Lucky Bean tree and then seeing who could jump the farthest.

And we would sit with Mom and look through all her photo albums - Mother should have been a model - she was drop dead gorgeous.

Or licking the spoon and the egg beater after Mom made a cake from scratch - it was always a fight to see who would get the bowl.

Or when we would sit in the middle of the living room floor with Mom and eat freshly popped popcorn and draw pictures - Brenda was definitely an artist from day one. She won a "Draw Me Contest" at age 9, and was offered a full scholarship to go to art school - they held it for her til she graduated from High School.

We used to recite poetry from Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes and other famous poets - and have contests to see who could say it the fastest.

Brenda was the "good" kid. I was always in hot water - she'd see me get switched and decide she wanted no parts of that; kept her out of a lot of trouble - so you see, I was a good example for her (LOLOLOLOL!!)

I remember when Brenda went away to college - she went to Central State in Wilberforce, OH; I was already at Hampton (and then later transferred to Lincoln U); she came back her Freshman year with her hair completely cut off - Daddy had a hissy fit - Brenda's hair used to hang down her back - like Mom's - she didn't even save him a braid -as was part of the tradition - don't think he ever got over that. (Of course that was nothing to my coming home my Junior with my hair in an Afrol!! - they quickly got over her hair cut - nappy hair was even more scandalous than a short hair cut Black then - once again I saved her from hot water - the focus shifted to getting me to "straighten" my hair. I never did, though. LOL

We're proud of our Black and Indian Heritage - and Brenda has done a wonderful series of art work and jewelry designs reflecting that - including a fantastic portrait of our Maternal Grandmom who was Cherokee and our Paternal Grandmom who was Black and Creek.
The interesting thing is that neither of us returned to Oklahoma City to live - she moved to Chicago; I moved to New York. We both consider each other's city "dangerous" LOL.

I featured some of her art work on my Blog last year - but that was only a sampling of the wonderful work she does - Brenda has a beautiful heart, mind, soul and spirit, and it shows in the work she does. 

Here's the link.

http://gloria-dulan-wilson.blogspot.com/2015/07/by-gloria-dulan-wilson-hello-all-ive.html

So this is 
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BABY SIS BRENDA DULAN-MOORE!!!

LUV4U from

Gloria Jeanne

Stay Blessed &

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