Abstract
In this 2024 interview, (which is the second one recorded with the participant) Bernard Long talks about his life after graduating from John Adams High School in 1972. Long discusses his experience in the United States Air Force, his later employment and education, and his love of music and drumming. Long ends the interview with a reflection on the role of religion in his life.
Interviewee
Long, Bernard (interviewee)
Interviewer
Carubia, Ava (interviewer)
Project
Union-Miles
Date
11-20-2024
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
60 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Bernard Long interview, 20 November 2024" (2024). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 483003.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1350
Transcript
Ava Carubia [00:00:00] All right, so today is November 20th, 2024. My name is Ava Carubia, and I’m here at the Thea Bowman center interviewing Mr. Bernard Long for his second interview for the Cleveland Regional Oral History Project. Can you please state your name and your birthday?
Bernard Long [00:00:16] That’s Bernard Long. Birthday: […] 1954.
Ava Carubia [00:00:27] All right.
Bernard Long [00:00:28] Tah-dah. I did it.
Ava Carubia [00:00:29] You did it. So we’re gonna continue off. Sort of what we were talking about last time. I feel like we talked about your early life, but I want to talk about: one, what it was like to be in the service, and then what it was like to come back after you’d gone away. So can you clarify what years you were in the service?
Bernard Long [00:00:49] Okay. I graduated in 1972. So after that, I joined the Air Force. And, man, that was. It was quite an experience. This is. Man, I was always athletic and stuff like that. So everything just went smoothly, you know. When I went into the service, we just go through the basic training, you know, you’re a man now, you know, and you try to follow the rules and just become disciplined. But I thought it was a great experience. It surely was. Lackland Air Force Base, and I actually went in. When I was in the service, I wanted to be in entertainment. You know, I always say, oh, man. Because they had the best bands would come through the military bases, especially when I was in Texas. I said, oh, man, these some great musicians and stuff. So I wanted to be, so when I joined, I wanted to be in the entertainment field, you know. And of course, it didn’t actually work out, they said. I ended up getting a job as a missile facility specialist. ICBM. It’s like Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. It’s like. It’s like, man, Titan II program, you know, so you learn about hydraulics, pneumatics, electronics and everything relative to being able to shoot a missile off. It’s kind of weird because when I joined in, I joined as a conscientious objector, which is controversial in a certain sense– “Don’t say that. They’ll think you’re gay or something like that.” Said, “No, I just.” He said, “Do you mind killing somebody?” Said, “Yes, I don’t want to do that, but I’m not afraid to represent my country anywhere”, you know. But you ask me, do I like killing people? I said, “No. I mean, read my lips.” But it was like, just don’t say that. Don’t say that. In other words, they just want your blind obedience, which you could have in. Because I always looked at it like we grew up with war, you know, my great grand or my grand. My great grandfather was probably in the military. He got shot somewhere and then he ended up in a military hospital in Chicago. He’s from Missouri. So I said, man, and then I looked him up, my pictures and stuff in. Rosa wrote my grandmother a letter and they were talking about what happened. It was like this terrible thing. And I was just wondering, I don’t know what the history of that is. I just got the letter and then Cookie, my brother in law, looking at our family history, found out that no, he didn’t die. He ended up in a military hospital in Chicago. I said, “Well, was he a soldier?” And since, well, so if you’re a soldier and you fighting in World War I or World War I or something like that, says, you’re not gonna. You’re gonna stand up for yours and be a man. Why did he get shot? And Rosa lost her arm. And my mama used to tell me that, you know, Rosa would take them to the farmer’s market and buy all kinds of vegetables and stuff. She holds Maria, or as you will, with her one arm. And she just was very loving and everything like that. But no one ever discussed what happened. You know, not, you know, we don’t know. We just. I didn’t even know. I just thought he got killed and it was an accident. So she got a streetcar or something like that. So the circumstances, it made me think I could. “Spiritorial” thoughts. Was he just like one of those belligerent people that’s just going to be a man or something, or was it just an accident? The shot is not an accident. So, you know, that’s. But I was talking about me and my service. But service with us goes back away. And so I know I was saying that I said I was a conscientious objector. I wanted to be involved in the music program. But I ended up. I graduated from missile school and I got a little scrape. I was in what they call fire watch. And for some odd reason, you know, you have to, you know, you have to guard the building. And I was, I was. I was feeling like real tired. And I said, is this. And so I decided to say, “Well, let me just try and sweep up or something.” Try to stay busy, you know, which probably, you know, it might have been something just to test you to see whether you would do the right thing. And, you know, at appropriate time. I went out and got a broom and I was sweeping in the bathroom. And when I got up, I kind of like felt dizzy. I went back down. I just did that. Next thing you know, somebody came to the window. “Here he is. He’s in here!” I said, I don’t have a broom in hand and everything, because when I stood up, I felt dizzy. And I had what you call Article 15 because I wasn’t at my post. And so I had to go through all that, man. We marched through the service, and now I’m a criminal. They said, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. You have to speak.” “Airman Long requesting permission to speak, sir.” “Speak.” “Yes, sir.” “Sir, Airman Long, requesting permission to use the bathroom.” “Use the bathroom.” “Yes, yes, sir.” And then you have to march loudly and walk, you know, against your penance and stuff. And I got through that, and then I had to just wait for a new assignment. I was a missile facility specialist, so I probably failed big time for not, failing the fire watch. And I ended up in the motor pool. Best bunch of guys I ever met in my life because, you know, these tools. I was. I tell you, I was in there. They were working on cars, loving that. We always was kind of some grease monkeys. When I was coming up, all my cats went to Max Hayes or Jane Addams, you know, been learning to be nurses and the technical stuff, you know, So I really enjoyed that a lot. The guy was working on the Ford Flathead V8, and you couldn’t even hear it run. And I almost stuck my hand out. I said, “Ooh.” It was so quiet. He was just working on the old school out in Texas. There’s a lot of old cars. You could get you a nice piece of old car and really could really build a nice ride if you just got the right people in the corner. And I had that with being in the motor pool. I had never been so more happy because I really don’t want to just kill the whole world. So the way I would say, that’s the justice, you know, because I, you know, I probably failed that test and then was in with this motor pool cats, you know, and it was. It was more social, you know, it’s more to my liking, but it was. That was great. I was in New Mexico, where I got, you know, I sent out to New Mexico, which was really great place. I just loved the people: Indian jewelry and the different ethnicity in a high level. You could go out in New Mexico and be in, it’s like a Roadrunner cartoon and stuff, where the cloud. You end up there with the clouds or something. And it’s just like. It’s just like a giant desert. But the people are great. Clovis, New Mexico. And we would go to Albuquerque and just would hang out and then we would take. Pick up the girls from the Job Corps center in Albuquerque and bring them out to the base because we always had the best music. Same thing almost. So. So now we’re transporting. They didn’t want to invite us to come out to Albuquerque. We would go out there and we pick the people up just to come back and have a celebration at the base and make us, you know, it was a great time. It was a great time coming out. And then while I was in New Mexico, another scrape. Here I am in the music, music world and everything. And I had. I told you before, I had, you know, I wasn’t above that sweet leaf type of thing. And the military, they had the best weed, okay? They’re the ones the pilots are bringing us in. And so I didn’t have any marijuana or anything like that, but I thought it was cute to have a little mason jar that said “potholder.” Inside of it was a potholder for when you like cooking barbecue or something like that. And I put on there three roach clips, a red, a black one and a green one. And some papers were in there. And man, they came through and saw that. They said, “Uh oh.” I said, “Oh, snap.” So Article 15, paraphernalia. I said, okay. So the outcome was not so great. And I tell you, it’s funny, my first shirt, Duffy, that’s the guy, he got all these stripes from here to here. He said,“Oh, man, don’t worry about it Long.” He was a Christian. He said, “Man, me and my wife, we smoke.” And he was just like, oh, I’m not. And I said, I didn’t even get caught with. No, I didn’t even. But we were not above that sort of thing when we went to soldiers and stuff, man, we took us to barbecues. Hey, everybody had stereos. We didn’t service the best stereos. You know, that’s the first thing. You go out to the PX and you get your stereo and then you know something that might happen on the side, you know. But I had another article. So I had a discharge, honorable, under honorable conditions. And everybody was writing me letters. I had the letters. They said, “He never did anything wrong. He does his job.” I used to deliver the car, pick up the base commander’s car. Nobody liked doing that because I always look crisp and clean and stuff. And I’ll go get the car, you know, and sometimes I’ll leave the flag on, but it’s not good. You think the base commander is on board, but no one want to pick up the base commander’s car, they sent me. I said, “I’ll go get it.” I’m spit shining, my shoes is sharp. I’ll just go in there and grab the car, come back, clean it, and then bring his car back, you know, so it was. I didn’t have to kill anybody, so that was good. And when I was in basic training, man, I was like Forrest Gump or something. I couldn’t miss with the MCC. So when I got there, I said, man, this is crazy. No one should be doing some war. Because I looked down there, we go to the firing range and then we go all the follow the protocols, Man, I couldn’t miss. And so I got to wear ribbon while I’m in basic training because I couldn’t miss. I said,“This looks like a toy.” It’s a little plastic M16. Bam, bam, bam. The only time I hit on the line was I hit the ear. So I said, man, that’s gonna make somebody holler anyway, I said, this is crazy. So if they are as good as we are and you get it’s just fruitless. How would you want to get into a battlefield with people? They talk about tactics and stuff. Like in Vietnam, they would sit in these [unclear] and just wait for somebody to cross their path, right? And they’ll just wing you. You know, you hollering out. Now, you got a man screaming for a medic and Helter “Kelter” all breaks loose and they’re in these little, these little tubes and they just stay there. They don’t just wait till somebody crosses their path. You got somebody got to help them, right? And bam. Now you shot. Okay? It’s the nature of war, it’s terrible. I remember my Uncle Henry said the same thing. He didn’t say anything. He was in World War II. He fought with Patton, okay? He fought with Patton. He danced with Ginger Rogers. He was like my father’s oldest brother, you know, and he talked about, Dad asked him about war. He said nothing. No, because he’s seen the real thing. That’s no joke. He don’t want to talk about it. Don’t worry about that. Same thing with Scotty and all the other cats did. Like, Scotty was a family member to Mary Carlotta. Dave, the Jewish guy’s daughter, Mary. Scotty, he was in the Korean War. Used to say that he was in a similar field as my Uncle Henry. Logistics, communications. They’re bringing bullets and ordinance to the generals. And they called, like Henry, they called them the nickels. That’s a play on words. It’s niggers, okay? But they was like the Red Tails. You gonna get your bullets, we gonna get the gas. We ain’t afraid, you know, they go, “Bring me my gas. Where are my bullets?” You know, that’s what Henry did, you know, And Scotty was the same thing. And he said he used to tell war horror stories. He had to say, you can’t stop. They will try and put a child in front of the convoy. If you stop for the child, your bus gone. You have to run. Run them over. He says, “Don’t stop.” He says, “If they don’t get there, get out the way. You cannot stop. You have to just go. It’s just war.” So he’s telling me. I said, “Man, that’s terrible.” Some of my best friends, when I joined. Oscar and all them, they was telling me, Jerry. Jimmy Freeman, you know, they was in the war. They was in Vietnam. It’s terrible. It was terrible, know? But, you know, you do it for honor the country. It’s questionable after the fact. You say, you know, I’m not understanding. You know, I don’t. You got to keep believing that it’s a good cause. But I’m not so sure. I’m not so sure. It’s a military complex. And I remember seeing things with Eisenhower saying, “Hey, hey, Washington military complex.” Because this is America. We’re supposed to be all these safeguards against strong men. Okay? So be aware of that. Be aware of that. Because they’re just soldiers. They don’t. They’re not led to helm. You know, this country’s supposed to be run by we the people. He says, be aware of what’s going on. Because when you look at corporations and the military complex, it’s really our largest gross national product is deploying, making weapons for other people. Now, you gotta understand whose side. Is this really good, you know? And you don’t wanna call a pig a pig or a tree a tree. But I said, man, the shoe fits. And I said, man, this may not be a good thing. But I’m still glad I went through it, though, because it’s not the same. It’s like In World War II, there was this great evil guy named Hitler. And everybody had to, because they’re trying to take over the world. You know, they attacked us, Japan and all this. There was a big shakeup between the powers. You know, that’s kind of like biblical, because it was really running just between me, I think it’s like there’s powers and principalities. There is such a thing as fallen angels, but I won’t get into that. This is stuff that we just. You’re not going to understand unless you really look at the Bible and it’s like, oh, maybe they’re right. Maybe the Bible is telling you exactly what’s happening. But again, get back to military stuff.
Ava Carubia [00:18:36] Well, we can also. I have a question. What year were you discharged?
Bernard Long [00:18:41] Oh man, it was in 1974. It was. I, I think I got two years of it.
Ava Carubia [00:18:52] Okay.
Bernard Long [00:18:52] Yeah, it’s not a.
Ava Carubia [00:18:54] What was it like?
Bernard Long [00:18:54] Pride. Pride thing. I felt like a loser because I, you know, I messed up. I. I felt kind of bad because I was calling my uncle. Said, you know, he’s a master sergeant. He said, man, “Why you’d call me earlier?” You know, and all like that. And so I just pick up myself and came on home. Of course mama never loved me and said I still was, they still love me to death. It don’t matter. And so I felt kind of like a failure, you know, I said, wow, I couldn’t even do that, you know, so.
Ava Carubia [00:19:31] And what else was it like to come back to Cleveland after being away?
Bernard Long [00:19:35] I was back home. I was just like, I just rediscovering some great things, that’s all. I mean the things that we aspire about. I think I held on to that music thing. The idea of just being able to be musical, some joy, something, you know. You know, you know you have to work and stuff like that. So we pick up a job. But getting back home, you just come back home, your friends, your people love you, still love you, and you just pick up the pieces and. Well, I went to some schooling and stuff like that. I went to ITT which is a tech study, drafting. Then I went to Max Hayes and took auto body welding and some auto body stuff. It’s just, you know, while we were working jobs too, just trying to continue on because. And I took industrial electronics and drafting at IT&T. So that’s going to be gravitate towards some field of engineering. Just working with your hands and electrical and mechanical because I already had that background from missile facilities. So if I was going to get a degree it probably would be associate program in engineering. And you just come up through the ranks wherever you get your foot in the door. And home is home. It’s always just beautiful. So we went back to. When I got out of service, I wanted to get a car and I had little pieces of car, but I got one. My first car that I bought, I was working at JV Bargain Center, some Jews. I loved them, you know.
Ava Carubia [00:21:28] Where was that?
Bernard Long [00:21:29] It was on West 6th Street, West 6th Street. And, you know, Gary Mann was a pianist, his son. And of course, you know, always had the best cars and stuff. And I worked there for, man, a good spell. But I was able to go ahead and buy a car about a 1979 Jeep CJ7 with a 304 V8 engine. They don’t make them with it. And I put me some Mohawk tires on it. I was rolling. I was rolling, strong. You would pull the top off. We would go downtown, go to work every day. And, you know, these guys, JV [unclear], there’s this connection to, like, all my guys. The salesmen were all like some street guys with some street cred. You know, they was gamblers and Henry and all. They were very colorful people rolling and. And, you know, there was a underworld connection there because we used to get our suits and stuff. Well, they had money, more than. They had money. So they go to New York, and when they’re going to buy something, they’ll buy it all, right? So now Higbee’s and Macy’s, May company. They got to come to him because he done bought all the suits. And they’ll get. They’ll send their guy from Higbee’s out to get. Because, you know, it was a guy named Muhammad out of New York. And then these gangsters, John Gotti, okay, these guys used to come in and pick out suits. They was all gang. They were. Now, I won’t say that, but they were. They looked like made men. And we were what you call the kids. We’re the kids. And I would. I would work there. It was a fun place to work. You know, we would get the clothes in from New York, line them up, and then they will call in the other people, just the other merchants to get merchandise and start to see how the world works. You know, money, money, that’s it. And even Mort said. I remember them back in the day saying things, “The biggest thing is now you got to be in is plastics.” And I was just looking. It didn’t register me. But that’s where I’m at now. All the laser plastic, it’s just. It’s high tech. Everything is molds and plastic. But I worked for them, bought my CJ7. Then I decided, you know, because I was in school at the same time, I got a job working at Allen Bradley as an electrical technician. I would do, I would do tests on equipment that they were building. Modular stuff. They make automation equipment for General Motors and Ford and all that stuff. And then what you would do is, you’ll get different modules and stuff and you have to test points on it and make sure everything is up to specs. Okay, this should have X amount of bullshit or the resistance should be this or that. So you have a Volkswagen femur and you just make tests. So I was working the Allen Bradley Company and I was making more money now. I said, oh man, I’m thinking I could make it. And he said we never had a layoff. Don’t you know, soon as I got there, it was just during Reagan, I got laid off. Not the problem, you know, because I still got all, you know, so it seems like. And then when the season come back around, you get to go back to work, then you get laid off. I said, oh, there’s a plan to this. This is not very stable. It’s not like you’re going to go out and buy a house because this is man, I’m not sure where I’m going to be the next layoff. I don’t know how the politics behind it so, but life was still good. I had my little car. But you know, you not really thinking too much about buying no home and American dream like that. But the money was a little better. You could really afford transportation back and forth to work and go clubbing, you know, go to the club. So buy your friends a drink or something like that. So finally, I had gotten laid off, I think.
Ava Carubia [00:25:56] What year was that?
Bernard Long [00:25:57] Oh my God. So it was got to be ’79. It was in the 80s. So I was working was on and off at that point. I was, I felt like a good job because it was really all government related stuff. You know, this job in Solon, you know, so. But you know, it wasn’t too, you know, it wasn’t too secure. And then I got laid off again. And I said, man. And then my godmother said, Nicolina Napoli, she said, “Come on down to Model Box.” Oh my God. That’s, that’s, that’s where Gary is, you know, so some more Jews. Gary. So I got that confused. I said when I went to JV Bargain Center, that’s not Gary. That was more Vinnie and Jacob and his family and all my gangsters. And then I went to Model Box after a period of being laid off and back to work and not to work and worked in. Oh man. I just came in at $3.75 an hour or something like that. But all we were doing is just catching boxes. There’s packaging materials just like, pizza boxes, cake boxes and different types of bakery boxes. 3 color flexo. So I just work under people because I knew electronics, I got to work with maintenance man and move up a little bit. And because of my mechanical aptitude, I was easy understanding machinery. So I learned how to run all the machines. And then they have to pay you, right? So then you start getting them. So I got. Now I’m like $20 an hour. And I said, “Ooh.” And then I worked there for 26 years.
Ava Carubia [00:28:05] And where was that?
Bernard Long [00:28:06] Well, Model Box is on 79th Street.
Ava Carubia [00:28:09] Okay.
Bernard Long [00:28:10] Close to the hospital where I was born. Okay. They go down 79th. Well, Larchmere turns into. Larchmere’s a beautiful spot around Shaker Square, where a lot of antique shops. And it’s a really nice place, but it goes down to Woodland, where also as a kid I stayed with my grandmother and my grandfather. So when I go to work every day, I will pass my grandfather’s house on Woodland next to the fire station, you know, so. And then I would go down 79th and go past Van Dorn Electric. One of my cousins worked there. And I just go to work. So. And I became like a supervisor. And finally I see Gary’s dad passed away and there was like, his wife was this money thing. And so Gary was going to have to just drop the business and stuff. He said, man, I said, well, Gary, we had a good run. I felt. I call him a friend because he, he liked the same things I like because I always told him about, I was telling about Thelonious Monk, you know, And I said, man, this cat’s nuts. I love this guy. And he said, yeah, he’s pure. He described Thelonious as being pure and didn’t know. He knew some of the licks and then the chord forms and stuff, man. I was like, whoa, you know, I said, that’s great. So we, I said, well, Gary, we had a good run, you know. So 26 years in packaging materials. So I just went on and I had my little 401-K. I had like 30 something thousand because we didn’t get into the game till really late. That ain’t no money, you know. Ain’t no money. So I said, I chewed up really quick because in that period when he got. When the job went under in 2008, well, we still. It was before that, but we stayed because he had paper and he could still get some product out. We just going to keep rolling until we could liquidate, you know, the business, like what he wants to do. And it was. I was still. I feel pretty good. I said, man, I had some money in my pocket, so I wasn’t really stressed. But at that same time, my mom had an aneurysm of the aortic artery, right? This was happening while I was working. And then I remember the doctor, my dad, was like, screaming, I run downstairs. And she had, like, passed out, right? And so we got her to the hospital and then stayed. And then the doctor said, no, don’t go home, because you not understanding. People don’t survive this. So I stuck there. I got my little Bible, and I just stayed. And they got a doctor. Lee was the one who worked on her, and he had to take veins from her arm and put it into her neck. So, you know, and then when he did that, man, she was good. She came back. She was like John Wayne. She lost a lot of weight and stuff, but mama was still there. And then my dad, you know. So we got through that, and I got pictures of her. She lost a lot of weight, but she was like the. The matriarch, you know. Did I get that right? Patriarch matriarch. She’s the leader of the pack, you know, so. And then my dad, he had got. He got cancer, and then it was a colonoscopy, so he had to wear the bag and stuff. And that was, that was awful. And so I had a couple chances. I was going to go back into the job market, but due to those two facts, I never got back into the job market. I just said, you know what? We just. We’re in this together, so we just do what we got to do to stay, you know, in the house, you know. Well, no, he had that lock. He had a lock on everything. But because he was saying, “I don’t know if I could take care.” We had to put her in nursing. I said, oh, no, no, we’re not doing that. I said, I’ll just stay here. And you would just, you know, don’t worry about it. We just. I would do it again, too. It was a good time because it was. All the grandbabies was the stuff coming up, you know, Asia and Margarita had Noel and Matthew, so we was family. It was really good. It was really good. And I would say that it was the best time. It was the best time. We’ll do it again.
Ava Carubia [00:33:28] It’s totally okay. [Recording pauses]
Bernard Long [00:33:30] What’s important to you. That’s. When I. When I did that, I started making drums. Because this was. I just started making drums. I needed to do something.
Ava Carubia [00:34:11] Mhm. What year was that when you started making drums?
Bernard Long [00:34:15] Well, when she took ill. Yep, that was it. Because that was it. I started up, you know, you got to do something, you know. So I went. I go back to church. And this here is a lot. We did Sapphire, she got two kids and her brother, he’s in the Air Force now. He got some kids. I think he’s in Hawaii. And we made these drums out of cardboard from Mdel Box. At the end of a job when we’re making these big presses are like sewing machines. And you’re making pizza box with four color flexograph cranium. And at the end you have these cords left over. And I know Father Dan bought these for the kids to play at that church. And I went out and bought this. It’s a Remo drum called the tumbalo. I said, oh, man, I could make that, right? I could make that. And I got free material. And so that’s what I did here. I took the drums and we just. The kids. We made that with the kids here. And we covered it with African fabric for decoration. And then you just put hooks and brackets. I got some hardware that I design now. This is Ahmad. He’s like LeBron James now. And then and Sapphire, we put the skins on. I got these skins from Jersey, New York City. And we just. We started mass producing these. I don’t know where they are now. A lot of the kids took them. It’s cool. And, you know, it was. You’re doing something, you know, and we sit down in the hallway and we’ll play together. This used to be the pantry. And then we would come and get people come get food. And they would walk out the side door and we’d be sitting on a pew on the side door with our drums. And when they come by, they’d be walking. They’ll get the groove, you know, they’ll be dancing, you know, because when we do that with it, they’ll be dancing. And this is just these drums I made for the Parade of the Circle. That’s two, 1999, 2000 to 2001. We did the Parade of the Circle and the same thing, but I did these with just drum heads. These will hold a 13-inch drum. So what we did, the kids would have to. We played the Parade of the Circle. I got pictures of that, a lot of them. And we just. We marched around Wade Oval. I started crying and crap, unclear. And it’s just joy to be able to do something. Of course, the backdrop is. I made this giant collage with all my peeps. This is me, my kids at the ball game, my nephew. We went to the ball game. We used to do stuff like that. And just a picture, my whole family on the wall. Because that’s what’s important to me. When you start losing that, you know, you have to focus on that. And then I got these, these are my muds. This is the same thing. It’s made from cardboard. We just make your drums with cardboard. But on the inside I line it with wood. And then I got my skins, man. They’re like for a large calf skin, a 30 inch. It’s almost 70 bucks for a whole skin. So it’s kind of an expensive venture to do that. So that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s because you know you got to do something. It just clicked with me. These drums, I got a whole set of drums like these. I designed them so that you could play them standing up. A guy from Canada made me this hardware. His name was Yonder. And I got one of my engineers, he made a design for me or he catted it out. This is my hardware. So now I could go to a manufacturer or get bending equipment and teach myself how to make this piece of hardware for all the drums. And now I don’t have to do nothing else but play drums and make drums. That’s all I gotta do. I gotta live. When I met Harry, all what we were doing, this was ours. This whole, this thing was our endeavor. Because you know, it’s just something that we were passionate about. Cause we could do something within the community, but covert like, took it away from us big time and gave us the new world order. That’s okay, you just gotta be through it. But I made this drum. And Harry said, “Man, I want to be part of some drum circles.” And I told him, I said, “Well man, I would like that. But I have some financial challenges.” I got a place to play, you know, now they don’t even let you play, you know, hard space. They don’t want you to play. And he, he said, “Well, give me your number, right?” So I gave him my number. He called me back up, said, “You coming down?” I said, “Okay, okay, okay.” I wouldn’t holler. I said, “I put in the application, the automation plastic and I put his name down.” He says, she said, “No, you got to give him some more names in that because he’s the CEO.” I said, “Oh snap, I got a job.” Okay, I’ve been there like six years now, coming on six years. But he saw this, you know, and, and hey, that, that job opened the door to do other things because I was always wanting to do myself rather than be applying for grant and it’s not me anymore. Then somebody give me some money if they want to know what I did with their money. And she’ll be the fiduciary. It’s her money, right? And then I got a program. I don’t want a program. I don’t want a program. I just want to play. That’s all. That’s all I want. I’m a man. I just want to be that. Give me that much, you know, I say, I say, why are you. You know what construction is, is coming in here, you know. But this is the first drum set that I made out of cardboard. It’s nice. And I’m working on some. Some new hardware. One time it’s like this one time it’s like this one time is like this. And one time it’s really long. So they sound kind of throaty if you’re playing with some rods. They sound good. They sound good. I was going up and my boys at work, I’m buying some chain. I’m gonna do red or gold, black and green. And then I’m gonna have it. I’m gonna drill out 2 by 4 or plywood, put the chain in a semicircle and they’re gonna weld it for me. So the drums will be mounted on the chain. And these guys make stuff from scratch with automation, but automatic automated machinery. I’ll tell you, they some great guys. I really enjoy being around them, you know.
Ava Carubia [00:42:31] Well, let me ask you one more question.
Bernard Long [00:42:33] Okay, okay.
Ava Carubia [00:42:34] You’ve kind of talked about your involvement with young people and your work with music. What is one message you’d like to leave future generations?
Bernard Long [00:42:45] Oh, man. Trust in God. Read the Bible for yourself. Don’t let nobody tell you, cuz everybody’s. You’re going to get a whole lot of false history or they give you a lot of commentary, their perception or what God means to say this. Don’t listen to them. Read it for yourself and just follow. Connection with God is a spiritual one. The cross is Roman. I come to believe a lot different now because they will always have you do things like you kiss the cross and then like for exorcism, you roll. You know, they show people using the cross like it’s this magic amulet, is going to just save our people. No. And it’s in the Bible. It is exactly the opposite. Do not make graven images. Do not say, oh my God, I got my little solid gold angel. What Michael says, “Do not make an image of the angels. Do not make an image of me. Do not.” Oh my God, it’s just plain and simple, it says that. But as Christians, and they used to war and kill each other over that. You believe in statues. And you know, that’s not. That’s. That’s, you know, they would go to war and kill each other just from little things that they believe. They. Look, it says, son of the Most High is not named Jesus. But I understand that, that’s language. If it says in the Bible, between me and you, it says no one perceived God to give him a name. It’s not like my mama betrothed me and you. He said no one perceived God to give him a name. He says, rather. And I got. I bought the Jewish language so I could start to just understand words. And he says, name. And he says, of course, there’s our betrothed name. What’s the word for Mama gave me a new name? It says no one preceded God to give him a name. So when you say Jesus, it’s not a name, it’s a title. It’s Greek and Roman. Jesus Christ. Greek and Roman. And they say Christos means anointed one. I said, well, why not use the Hebrew language as a savior? You know, that’s what they’re saying. And then Jesus is not a name. It means savior. It’s the same thing. One of them is Greek and one of them is Roman. Don’t get. Don’t quote me. Which is what Christos I believe is Roman. I ain’t mad at the Romans because they have to speak their language. You understand from the Tower of Babel, languages were dispersed. He says, I’m going to put these people under jurisdiction of the other gods. There’s a pantheon. Those are the fallen ones. Right. That’s a deep story. It’s, you know, I enjoy researching and just looking at it. But like, people, you know, this is, you know, God makes God, you know, so you gotta. You gotta find that spiritual center, you know, and just entrusting that, because everything you got that you need is in you. You gotta believe that. Because as sure as you speak, that’s God. You are. You are God. That energy, that’s God. You say, I want my life back. No, that’s God. It’s in you right now. You know, so you just got to keep believing that. I mean, people believe in it enough, but it’s just that, you know, so I do not. And I still love my Catholics, Baptists, Evangelists or whatever. You just gotta love us all because nobody got the whole answer by itself. We just a piece of the puzzle. We all got the answer collectively, you all gotta try to be about the love. Period. Cause, you know, education and finance provides us, it puts us, you know, it’s a class system or something. See, we’re all slaves, but we just got a different piece of the totem pole. I’m the low man, but I still got. I think. I like to think that I got the faith of a mustard seed, as opposed to being huge. So. So it’s the problem. Just got to stay in the boat. That’s all you got to do. Because a lot of times you’re going to be, you know, especially like now, people are so venomous and. And so stressed out. You know, they’re ready. It’s like a powder keg out here, you know, it’s just not too long ago, they just got rallies with the Nazi class and stuff. It’s a whole different discipline. But you know what? You gotta love them too. You gotta love your enemies. It’s maybe not their fault that they went that way. So if God forgive them, you gotta forgive them. It’s crazy. Just. You gotta stay in the love because that’s all that freaking matters. And then like I was looking at that in the Bible, it say, come out of her. And some people have the idea that they’re talking about Christianity. Come out of here from the daughters of Babylon. I say, man, when they say that, I always think about Ms. Ella and this educated one who go for the grand purpose. I love them. You gotta do what you gotta do to try and think it’s right. But it feels like that almost. It’s like Satan lift women up. And at the same time, all around here would be Ms. Gloria. She’s a woman who got a whole bunch of broken men younger than me, you know, at the halfway houses where just men just stay. And then it was just in the news a little while ago that a woman got stabbed on the halfway house. I know so many women are using that as a platform for business. And they’re warehousing the broken men. American Black men, I mean, they had heart attacks and strokes and all this kind of thing, and they’re just sitting there like zombies, you know? You know, just, just. Just existing. I said, man, I think about it, but I can’t. You know, you gotta. Did you just doing what they. What they. What they can do is that it’s a labor of love for the woman to do that. But, you know, I said. Man, I may have said too much.
Ava Carubia [00:49:46] That’s okay. I think we’re at the end of time now, but I want to-
Bernard Long [00:49:51] Man, I haven’t even touched the iceberg.
Ava Carubia [00:49:53] I know. We could talk for so long. But unfortunately these interviews are just about an hour at a time. But if there’s just one last thing. Is there anything that we didn’t touch on that you really want to make a part of this interview?
Bernard Long [00:50:07] You know, it’s just that if we. You know what. Love multiplies. And so. And it’s just like it’ll grow if it affects people. So if each one touch one, eventually we’re going to just block some modernist [unclear] usher hope. Maybe not. Maybe it’s gonna. You know, it could get worse. But if you stay, stay strong, you know, just try to do what you can. This is my like my niece playing my drumset. She is such marvelous. This is Marlena. She plays guitar and singing and stuff. I gotta believe that in that, just people seeking out just some joyfulness, you know, that’s a good thing. You know, it could be a distraction. But I say just to be able to sit together and not really worry about passing or failing, but just to be. You are somebody now, right now. Don’t. If you study and then you get some money and that don’t make you say that’s not gonna make you somebody. When you’re born, you have breath of God in you. You somebody now. You gotta say that to them because that’s when this kid came back. Henry came back here. They dogged him out. I said man, he said he just came for love. He just want to hang out because he used to be here as a child and now he grew up and he’s in a family and he got a four point grade average now and he’s at Kent State, which is. Wow, man. I said I love Kent State. My cousin Larry, he was a marine and he never conformed. He never conformed. He just. He don’t believe in society. He just never conformed. I love him for that. He’s just. When I got his candle yesterday for All Saints day and. And I thought about that when I had reminisce about Larry and I just read it. I was reading the Bible with Lurch. His nickname was Lurch. He was the one who played baseball. He could knock the skin off of that, you know, but. And he was always a socialite, but he would never conform. Not in school. He went to Benedictine, the priests paddled him and he would not conform. He went out to John F. Kennedy and he was always with the thugs and the hoodlums, what you would call. And so all Larry’s friends was my friends. And so man, I get along with everybody. Even the thugs. Because a lot of people who slip through the nest, they become hardened, I think. And he was a little hard. He’s a marine. And these guys are good, man, but if you roll your eyes at them, they’ll whoop your ass. It’s just that simple, you know? So you have to. You know, I think it’s balance. I should, but that’s. Bones. That was Larry’s brother, Victoria. And I don’t want to. You know, she. Man, that’s my girl. She’s a teacher. She was in special ed and stuff. But she went back to the Holy Land and got baptized in denial. And she just flourished me, you know, because she’s got this whole new thing, you know, she’s woke. I like to say it, and it’s just real important She did very well for herself. And I learned that her dad was Portuguese. If you look scripture, it says when the temple went down, a lot of Blacks went to Spain and Portuguese. And Niggerland, they called it, or Niger. And then you follow the slave trade. And when you look at what God says going to happen to the people who are the Israelites, he says, man, we fit that. We fit that description. That’s us. Even Hitler said it. When they got the Jews, they got, you know. You know, I said, man, it’s for real. I said, there was. We was from slaves. And I got real choked up about it. It felt great when Mama Ruth said that. And I got the history like Kroger. The big food industry. Guys own it on them. See, there was. After. We got our freedom, emancipation. We. We got green Jim Crow. No, y’all can’t leave. We need you to. You know, they literally. Where’s the currency? You can see it in the history books. They got us burning at the stake, hanging men and women in trees. It’s just there. It’s just right there in your face. And the Bible telling you. So if you look at the Bible, you say, okay, you start to see some things. But the thing is, you got to stay in the love, man. And that malice, I told you before, the hardest thing I have to deal with is my own malice. I say, now, don’t forget it. So even when I disagree with administrative peoples, I apologize. When I say the Daughters of Babylon, that’s harsh. But that’s the first thing I thought about how they doing business and stuff. And they’re making it all about educational finance. Talk a lot about training. I say, training?You train animals, you know, it’s not about that. It’s about love and life. We got to reach out as there’s so many people coming here disenchanted, it could be a powder keg. They’ll fight, could jump out, but you gotta. You gotta stand strong and just bring, bring peace to the world. Okay? Can we just stay in the love, y’all? That’s one of my favorite sayings. But, man, that’s what I say. You got. It’s all biblical and spiritual in all this. It truly is. You hold on to that, you’ll be all right. You might take. Get your butt whooping and some licks, but you’re gonna be all right. Okay? Because he said that. He said it’s gonna be all right. But we. We got ourselves into this mess, and it’s like, we gotta get ourselves out. Okay? I’m not. I got. I saved you now. You do. You do the work. That’s God’s work. Do God’s work. That’s it. That’s it. You might fail, but he don’t mind. You do what you can do, you know, maybe if at the end of all of this, I get an honorable mention of him, I would probably explode with joy. I couldn’t. I don’t know if I could take it, you know, if he said just even a little. He did, you know, just a little honorable mention, you know, but it’s you. You know, you see, where the world was going. And pretty, kids is pretty. They know what’s going on. You know, it’s. It’s a struggle. It’s not. It’s not a cold war. It’s a. It truly is a battle between God and the gods that he created. But nobody looks at it that way. They don’t like talking about it. But no, when you look at. In the Bible, he talks about. He says it says. He said there are gods, there are powers and principalities that came down here, you know, and. And some of them, I like to think, came down for love. They don’t think that the people could handle Satan. I said, man, he’s a cherub. He’s like guardian of the throne. He ain’t no joke. He’s like God, Jews. So. But maybe God provided all that just for a lesson for us to see what we made of, you know, the test. So if you can stay in love, you know, man, you do it. That’s all. Just keep struggling. You might get knocked down, but just. Just try and have no malice, man. It’s like. Here, think about it, here is God, who could tell a tree to die, who can walk on water, split them down. Give a man eyes, right. He’s performing all these miracles and stuff, and he. He’s God and he could protect himself. You don’t need no angels. He couldn’t get it. But he just came through. In the flesh. “Word made flesh. Word made flesh. Lamb of God, Truth and righteousness.” And. And he took a beating for us. And. And then gave his life up. And then what? They say he rose again. Man. That’s the most happiest thing, you know. So if you sitting up there and have to suffer, you should think of that as being man. Now you really feel kind of like God, you know, maybe not even. Not close. But we are like God, truly. I mean, image and likeness. You want to know what God looks like? Look in the mirror. Okay. Right. You know, don’t get caught up in color at all. None of that stuff, you know, But. But he came for all of us. I like to think that. I mean, I know that. I don’t have to think it. I just. It’s just truly, I feel it, you know, you cannot know nothing until he tells you, “Yes, that’s it.” You know, I could just, you know, like to think that, you know, just what your spiritual gut feeling might be right most of the time, you know.
Ava Carubia [00:59:59] Thank you so much. I think that that’s a good point to end our interview. So I’m going to stop the recording now.
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