Michael Charton

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. The sarcasm meter is going wild. I better explain. When I attended Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn, New York, much of the student body was Haitian. Before Tilden, I’m not sure I knew what a Haitian was. Anyway, they were in my honors French classes. Why were they in French classes, don’t they speak French? I will do more about Haitian history another time. They were using the French classes as a way to learn English. Also, only the educated spoke standard French. Haitian Creole is the main language. I met one of my oldest friends in these classes. We’ve been friends for fifty years. The first time I went to visit Patrick they did not have Cats and Dogs to eat, but three chickens…Live! In a Brooklyn apartment. Needless to say, I was a little taken aback. Uh, you can guess who helped to deal with the chickens. Wow. The cats and dogs are a hoax. People are just being catty and dogging them, but maybe not chickening out. People forget. The Haitians in Springfield, Ohio were INVITED there to fill a labor shortage. They are here legally. They fled the madness of Haiti for Springfield, Ohio?! The only madness in Springfield should be a bad blizzard and turn back to comedy. It was the hometown of comedian Jonathan Winters. Most of you reading this are probably too young to remember Jonathan Winters. No pets were eaten in the writing of this post. No Haitians were eaten either. They would have objected. Sacre bleu! Sorry, I am learning Spanish and starting to forget French.