Hello World, I Have For Years Tried To remainQuiet. Because I met The Man Over Sixty Years Ago. And At the time I Was an adolescent approximently 11, or 12 years old. I was a Broken Person, with no direction or purpose, lost without a moral compass. My sister who knew and had worked on the same stage with him, handed me the telephone receiver. Believe it or not in those days,the telephone was hardwired into the wall. It had a catchphrase that was "the next best thing to being there". Just think you could be in Chicago and actually Talk to someone in Las Vegas. We had what was Called long Distance calling for which we paid through the nose. My sister a Gospel Singer, with the Clara Ward singers. She was on the phone talking to him and she handed me the telephone, saying "Bill" wants to talk to you. She had always spoken highly of him and let me listen to his album. "Bill Cosby" is a Very Funny Fellow...Right! Well she told him that I did impressions and I wanted to be a comedian, in those days he was the new "hot" comic on the scene. Along with "Richard Pryor", "Flip Wilson" "George Carlin" Dick Gregory, etc., etc., etc.,. The sixties were hard times, my people needed to have something to laugh about. He used his education as a "WordSmith" to communicate with the masses. Earning him favor with people of every hue known to "MAN". Well he gave me a lecture, on how to be funny without putting on a dress, or abandoning my core principals. This all stuck with me. Because I had just lost my Mother, in those days children weren't allow to visit parents that were gravely ill, oddly enough nothing has changed. My Mom was in the hospital suffering from complications "diabetes". She died and two very strong women my sisters took on the task of raising a loquacios and bitter young boy. This was my first experience regarding my First"Hero" Mr. William Henry Cosby Jr., Gave me a path to walk. To Be Continued...
The Second Time I encountered Mr. Bill Cosby was ten years later in The City of Cleveland, Ohio He was working At a Venue in 1973 or 1974 The Name of the Place where they Setup the tents Was in Warrensville Hts., At "Music Carnival". There were two Comedians that had gotten back Stage to Talk to him after his performance. A teenager That called himself "Champ Peyton" he was about Four, or Five years Younger than I was and had local businessmen that introduced him to Mr. Cosby, He did a fair impression of another one of "Heroes" Muhammad Ali, Well to make a long story Short. The Kid was so "Obnoxious" that he imitated ALi, "Saying Bill Cosby ain't Nobody! I'm the Greatest of all time. He kept the Rant going until Cosby Got Pissed off and He refused to talk me, or anybody else and That was That! It was first and last time I attended one of his live shows he told me ten years earlier, to come see his Show. I Did but he didn't remember me. Who other than a kid remembers a conversation that they had with a stranger ten years earlier...