THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 19, 1995 TAG: 9501190350
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Marc Tibbs
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
Within our universe, we occupy a thousand different galaxies - some governed by race, some by gender, others by class and prestige, or lack of same.
Charlise Lyles, a friend and colleague, has always known the cusps.
In her new book, ``Do I Dare Disturb the Universe? From the Projects to Prep School,'' Charlise goes lumbering, but learning, over these lines that too often divide us.
Growing up in Cleveland's public housing project, she found herself in a war zone, transcended only by a lively imagination, and a love and respect for her father who, even in his absence, helped guide her through the mine fields of urban living.
Readers may remember Charlise from her bylines in The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, where her name often appeared above stories that always were good to the last word.
As a reporter covering race and class issues, she became distinguished as a journalist who wouldn't quit until she found just the right voices to tell us new things about ourselves, or things we already new but refused to acknowledge.
Charlise also served as the newspaper's public editor, where her voice was often heard by readers calling to lodge a complaint or insist on a correction.
Her book brings together her many incarnations - writer, reporter, and empathetic friend.
She first moved into public housing at a time when public housing was considered a sign of ``affluence'' in the black community. I remember those times well.
At its inception, public housing seemed a wonderful idea. It was there, for the first time, that many blacks experienced life with a second floor; central heating instead of pot-bellied stoves; living rooms that didn't have to double as bedrooms, family rooms and parlors.
But it wasn't long before public housing became a menace to urban centers, and Charlise found herself smack in the middle of the transformation. Yet her story isn't one of crime, violence or cyclical poverty. Hers is a story of victory; of perseverance both on her part, and that of her mother, a former recipient of welfare who never seems to fit the timeworn stereotype.
And it's on that level that the book has its import.
Unlike contemporary urban scribes - Nathan McCall and Patrice Gaines among them - Charlise chronicles her life with a sense of who she was growing up.
When she talks of growing up in the King-Kennedy public housing projects, she not only takes readers along with physical description, she also makes them voyeurs of her young soul:
``Living in A-11 was like living inside a vault. The place seemed especially designed for me to play secret agent woman or `The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.' To enter Number 129, I had to go through three heavy doors. Each led deeper into the bowels of the building. Slamming and echoing behind me, each locked out some dreadful counteragent who sought to eliminate me and steal my files.''
She goes on:
``Every full garbage can was my chance to get closer to the incinerator. . together, hotter than all of Rev. Berry's sermons on the depths of hell. The flame moved like a woman dancing wildly, privately. She was sultry, liquid, licking off the sooty walls and gently murmuring some incantation. I let go of the garbage bag and stood back. The green plastic melted to a bright green flowy syrup. Flecks of black ash fell on my face and I was exalted.''
Moments after I cracked open her book, memories of quirky neighborhood characters and silly childhood games came rushing back to me. For anyone who hasn't lived through that time, Charlise's book offers an insight into the urban dwellers that is as close as it comes to virtual reality.
And reading her triumph is like reading a melanin-enriched Horatio Alger story.
``Do I Dare Disturb the Universe'' should be required reading for anyone whose current lot in life is a publicly owned, brick row house, and for anyone who too quickly drives past one. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Charlise Lyles
by CNB