RIP Meadowlark Lemon

Yesterday morning’s internet reading of the news took my eyes to a headline that read: Former Harlem Globetrotters star Meadowlark Lemon dies at 83.  

This was news this middle-aged man wanted to read because it brought back a youthful memory.

Meadowlark Lemon was the leader-of-the-pack of the basketball entertainment show known as the Harlem Globetrotters.  During the Harlem Globetrotter’s prime years from the mid-1950's to the late 1970's, Meadowlark Lemon was the team’s star clown prince delighting fans with his acrobatic and magic-like basketball skills and humor.

As a young boy of less than a dozen years, I fondly remember going to our hometown Memorial Auditorium one evening with a friend to see the Harlem Globetrotters take on and “whup”, again, their perennial losing opponents, the Washington Generals.

It was a show that left both of us laughing so hard and giving us great stories to tell our classmates the following morning at school.

This was an innocent era when parents felt safe letting their young children walk the neighborhood streets, take the bus downtown and even get dropped off at the local downtown auditorium to watch an evening show of the Harlem Globetrotters Show. 

A time when black was black, white was white, good guys were good guys and bad guys were bad guys.  The goodness line in the sand was something easily visible with the naked eye and confusion, in the context of the good life, was a mere word in the dictionary.

But that was then and this is now.

The memory of this boyhood experience is mine forever and for this I’m so grateful.  Thanks for the pleasant memories and RIP Meadowlark Lemon.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum