Every honor and accolade known in the theater. In the 1980s, and march 1981 the same month thats all lenas triumphant broadway return, doctor homer nash, the greatgrandson of moses sister died at the age of 94. In the words of the lentic constitution, doctor homers nash is dead ends and error. He was the longest practicing black dr. In georgia and the longest practicing dr. Of any race in atlanta. You could call the black calhouns lucky, lucky, but they were never selfish achievers. Te they shared their gift and achievement with their community in the country. It is fair to say to the black calhouns that it is much of a story is america as it is of the family. Thank you. [applause]. Dy have [applause]. Anybody have questions . Where did you live. I lived in pittsburgh but it was then called blank heights and she grew up and went to brooklyn girls high school. She went to Catholic Church in brooklyn. She adored brooklyn. She was a total brooklyn girl. [inaudible] thank you. With any other question . Y [inaudible] all my mother, thats a difficult question. We while the james bond stories one of them. She did not even say hi, she just said you have got to read this book when i walked in the door. So that is one of my favorite. She was a fun mother. We had fun. I didnt see her all the time but when i saw her, which is, which is always on summer. Vacation, christmas, big holiday, it was total fun. So that was the good part. [inaudible]france. [inaudible] reader she loved reading history, especially french history. She knew all knew all about the queens of france. She loved that. She was a voracious reader because shows felt she was uneducated because her mother took her at her school at the age of 16 and put her in the cotton club. Everybody around her was so bright she felt and she felt she was really uneducated. She was selftaught basically. In the south and the oneroom schoolhouse as she was always the teachers pet even though the children hated her. They hated her accent and everything about her. But she was always the teachers pet. She didnt really receive a bad education. Yo thank you for your question. Would you share about Stormy Weather and the onewoman show . The question is, why or how did my mother sings Stormy Weather twice in her onewoman broadway show. She did it did it twice because she sang at the first time she was told to sing it in holiday which always what lena, pretty lips. You always saying and spoke to the sound recording. You had to make your face very perfect. Ow she would she was always told to think of irene dunn. So the second time she sang it in the show was how she would sing it herself at her age then. So is a much richer, fuller version. The critics all noticed that. He [inaudible]lause] [inaudible]ll, i [applause]. [ any other questions . I hope youre going to buy the book. To i sing christmas carols, thats about it. So i think were going to go across the street. [applause]. Thank you. Cspans washington journal, live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up on saturday morning, the professor peace at the university of maryland join us for the views of muslims and islam, the wake of this weeks terrorism bombings in brussels. Comments made by donald trump and ted cruz. Former to test the effectiveness of the visa waiver program, the days after the attack in brussels. Be sure to watch cspan washington journal beginning live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on saturday. Join the discussion. Book tv has 48 hours hours of non Fiction Books and authors every weekend. Here are some programs to watch for. This weekend, join us for the 22nd annual virginia festival of the book in charlottesville. Starting saturday noon eastern. Programs include author verse hillman who discusses his book, the man who stalked einstein. How nazi scientists change the course of history. Then, saturday evening at seven, patricia bells scott, the book explores the relationship between civil rights activist paula murray adverse lady, eleanor, eleanor roosevelt. Patricia bell scott speaks with author and historian at roosevelt house in new york city. On sunday, beginning at 1 00 p. M. Eastern, more from the virginia festival of the book including kelly carlin, George Carlin starter who talks about her life growing up with the comedian in her book, a common home companion. Then sunday night at nine p. M. , afterwards with historian nancy , author of breakthrough, the making of americas first woman president. Ms. looks at Women Political leaders, the advances the air making in the political arena. She is interviewed by the chair and cofounder of cornell law schools Avon Global Center of women a justice. For a woman to be at the head of the most powerful country of the world, when one of my key allies does not allow women to drive in our most significant enemy at this time, isis, iswo literally executing women and girls simply for being women and girls. I think that sends a powerful message from the bully pulpits about what america stands for. Go to booktv. Org for the complete weekend schedule. Name t how are you doing . [laughter]t my name is steve a sport, used to be a new york city cop for 20 years. And yes, the accent is real. [laughter] the funny thing is i did not even know i had an accent until i came to savannah. I was a copper 20 years years and then i became a writer. People asked me how do you go from being a cop to a writer . I dont like telling the story especially at a book festival with other want to strangle me. It happened by accident. After retiring from the Police Department, my life went from the fast lane to the slow lane. All of a sudden i had all of n this time on my hands. That when you are a real cop and living that life, you have no life. Ome, im working aroundtheclock, nights, clock, nights, weekends, holidays, i am never home. The w then all of a sudden, imm retired. Im sitting im sittinm there and staring at the walls. Firstly i did was move this over from there to their. [laughter] and my wife says to me, what are you doing . She said you have not been home in ten years, put put that sofa back where it was. So i did. W so now i am sitting there and im kinda bored and i dont know why. I guess everybody had that little voice in the back of the head that whispers in their ear what to do. Was that same voice that me safe all of those years like watch out for this and watch a black r eye. It was that same little voice that was whispering in my ear to write. So i wrapped a pad and pen and i wrote a story, short story, about 12 pages, about just something that happened to me on the job. So after i wrote this thing i was looking at it and what now . What why do with it now . So i handed it to some family and friends and i said i just wrote this do you mind reading and tell me what you think. So they read it and said i we did not know you could rights. We did not not know you were that smart. [laughter] w but they loved it. So i was kind of surprise, is kind of taken back. So i wrote another one that i handed it out, everybody read it and they loved it. So i wrote another one. The first one had them crying, the second one had them laughing, so i wrote a third one and have them crying again. So i have the stories and i was just doing it to kill time. I did not know what to do now. A what i knew now . Knew now . Am i wasting my time . But it felt good to write. Its hard to explain but writing, the actual act of writing and putting those stories in my thoughts and feelings on paper stirred something in my soul. Atrol. It was the same way at 3 00 oclock in the morning, i would be on patrol, this is where i was supposed to be. I was not supposed to be home in bed, sleeping, watching a, watching a movie with the wife, i was supposed to be out on patrol at 3 00 oclock in the morning, chasing bad guys. It stirred something in my soul. So i have the stories and everybody was tell me they liked it but being a cop you are; wros skeptical their family or friends i figure theyre just tell me what i wanted to hear. But i was like enough to have a friend was a real writer. She wrote a bestseller, television show, bestseller, television show, movie. She knew what she was talkingutw about. I called her up and i said to me a favor, just read it and tell me if its any good or not. If its if its no good over the computer out the window and start a garden or something. Pre [laughter] so she read it. To me and she goes this is pretty good. A a little rough around the edges, needs to be polished up but this is pretty good. So i kept writing, i wrote another story. About a year later she calls me up out of the blue. She tells me she is doing a sho, and what a great organization. But so those that dont know the mob is a group where you get up on stage and bring the people tell a real story about their life. Ea so they had this show. The night before they had a cop was scheduled to appear and he had to bail out. Now they are stuck. So they asked my friend, do you know anybody who can fill it . A cop maybe . Sure enough she called me, the universe works in mysterious ways. Ht i a she tells me up and tells me about it. I pitched pitched the story over the phone, the next night i met the players club in gramercy park. I thought thisit was going to be like in the basement of a church, couple people sitting around. Going like this for applause. Whe i show up at the players club and theres like 300 people there. I. I was never so scared of my whole life. I was involved over the years and thousands of arrests, this is the scariest thing i ever had to do. I wanted to run out the door, told the producer, i would rather be chasing a guy with a gun down a dark alley then get up on that stage. But i got up there. Nervous i blew the roof off the joint. Everybody liked it. I was a little nervous because the theme of the show was crimes and misdemeanors. S the speakers before me all had the stories, one guy says he did 20 years for murder he did not commit. Another guy with the defense attorney talking about how screwed up the criminal Justice System was. En and then my friend gets up and talks about how she got arrested at the Republican National convention by some less than friendly riot cops. And how you you could use a bologna sandwicl as a pillow and central booking. So i was dead meat. I got up there and told the story and they loved it. I thought that was the end of it. About two two weeks later they said called and said theyre going on a nationwide tour and they want to bring me. I next thing i know im at ucla in front of 2400 people. Thats what i said. All, im not going to do that. But i did. Ver, we went to seattle, sanng francisco, denver, it encouraged me to keep writing so i wrote more stories. S i s and then they put me on npr radio to have their radio hour and a goes out to over 200 radio stations. One day one day i get a call from an editor and he says, i just saw all of your stuff, i think it think it is imperative you write a book. U and i said, i think youre right. So before i got up and i told the stories, i would write them out, it held me flush the stories out of my head, so i told him i maybe have half of one of just a first draft stuff so he said send it to me. I i said its first draft stuff because i was still never had written anything before i did know if it was really worthy. So i sent it to him in three days later he calls me up and says you got an agent . It . It just so happened that i did. An agent heard me on npr radio couple weeks before and says i would like to represent you. When i told him i like writing short stories, i enjoy that. A cops life is a series of short stories. When when you go out on patrol, i may handle ten, 15, 20 jobs in a night. Le, it every job is a story. It has a beginning, middle, and and. It has different characters, different dialogue, different consequences. So a cops life is really a series of short stories and that really a series of short stories and that is what i felt comfortable writing. But my agent told me that now, short stories that way to go. People dont really go for that. He wanted me to write a memoir. I thought about it and that really cover the words, it wasnt working. I dont want to do it. So my agent and i do not i do not talk for a couple of months. That all of a sudden the editor from doubleday offers me a contract so i call it my agent and i said check my email, we get a contract. But then i had to finish the book which was not that tough. So i kept writing and writing, and i finish the book. It was not as hard, i will once it was therapy but i i did enjoy it. Every cop out there, has great stories. As the nature of their job. Every. Every night you are involved in peoples lives. Youre involved in their lives during crisis. Not after doing that for 20 years, you have a million stories. Not just everybody can write it and put it on paper. So i wrote the book, as i wasi i writing it, through some of the. Stories i was afraid, i thought nobody was going to believe this. Theyre going to think i made this stuff up. I wrote one story about a busy night that i had in a four hour period, really in a four hour. I had a seven to 18yearold shot, and two women stepped, and a family dispute that went crazy and a 24yearold kid fall oute of a fourth floor window at a party and right before he hit the ground he clipped the back of his head on a fire hydrant. I was on my hands and needs and i talked to him while he died. T after that i looked at my watch and i was like all that happened in four hours. Nobodys going to believe this. But it is true. That is a cops life. The next night was probably a quiet night, nothing memorable. But every night when you go to work, you do not know what is going to happen from one minute to the next. As i got to the end of the book, there is one story that had to be written. I did not want to write about it , i did not feel the need to write about it, i felt very selfconscious writing about it, but it was about 911. If i did not write about it i think that would have been a big hole in the book. When i started writing about it was like the first couple of days i dont remember much, its all a blur to me. Even when i hook up with guys who were with me at the time, they say the same thing. Collec they remember something very vividly, i have no recollection. I. I remember something vividly, they can remember. So all of us for the first couple of days is kind of a w blur. After that, i was working 12 hours on, 12 hours off for the next two months. My unit within the detective borough so we got assigned to the morgue. Our job was to identify the the remains coming in. I couldnt write about what i said what we did, those are peoples families families and family members. I cannot write about it. But i think i wrote about my feelings and how i dealt with it and i think you get a good picture about what happened. You might find it hard to believe, but it it was one funny story about 911. You might find it hard to believe but i was assigned toot the more and my friendsm me i 80yearold mother called my house, nobody had seen or heard from you in weeks, i was down there every day. So my friends 80yearold mother and asked my wife how stephen is doing and she said stephen is in the morgue. He is a [laughter] and she is a little hard of hearing to but she got that much as shes like oh, and so sorry, and my wife is like no thats okay, a lot of wives dont know where the husbands are. [laughter] at least i know where he is. W is [laughter] from there the story gets little blurry, we we dont how it spread but it spread. T and there is this one bar down the jersey shore that i used to hang out at and i knew the guys there and they heard that i was in the morgue. Ured the [laughter]ld none of them knew my wife so nobody felt comfortable calling my house to find out what their arrangements were going to be. They figured they would just hear about it sooner or later. So this goes on, finally after two months i get it couple of days off and im like i need a beer. I walk into the front door of the bar and it was like if they saw ghosts. [laughter] but before doing this i never wrote anything, hated brady. The Police Department i would have to write reports, hated writingi him, i writing him, i would keep everything to a minimum. A lot of guys would really dress the reports out with big words come i kept my very basic and simple. I didnt like it. Even when i was a kid, i was not a good student in school, i was a solid c student. T. All my best day. Is and i dont know if anybody went to captains tool but sister kathleen used to beat the crap out of me on a regular basis and remind me that i was not going to amount to nothing. I wish you could see me now. [laughter] so writing was never on my radar. When when i was writing i find it funny like i kind of enjoyed looking at some of the stupid things i did. Like the dumb things you do as a rookie. Like chasing a guy down a set of weights, we just in a robbery. Wyatt and think that a trade might be,. [laughter] at the time, veg, limits bumping, just i didnt really a think the lex event that a trade would come. But im still here to talk aboui it. When i was a kid my father was s cop, i guess i got thats where i learned about the job from the inside out. I saw it through him. He worked in a precinct not too far from my house and sometimes my mother would make him dinner and say bring this up to your father. I would get on my bicycle and w bring him dinner. I wouldnt leave. I would stay at the station house and sit behind with the desk is sergeant and tell their sad stories and heres a 12yearold Kid Listening to every word. Im thinking like this is the life for me, this is what i really want to do. When his his buddies would come around the house to me they were the coolest guys in the world. They were real men and i wanted to be just like them. So i guess from a kid i knewgu that i never wanted to be a doctor, i never never wanted to be a lawyer or astronaut, i wanted to be the guy standing over the dead guy in the middle of the street trying to figure out who killed him. Urprise. I really know had no choice. Rs writing really took me byy surprise. In 20 years of police work it gives you plenty to write about. Sometimes writers get mad at me like this whole writing thing happened by accident. I paid my dues. 20 years on the street in new york city, you pay your dues, and that i didnt know it at the time but thats where i was doing my research. In the back my head i head i was recording all of these things that i saw and did. It gave me plenty of stuff to write about. Ucky i guess i feel lucky because when you write like that it stiy something in your soul. Once you leave the policeil department my life was kind of empty. Writing fill that void. It was good to think back because you forget all of the things that you did. Like i worked at a lot of the places and i remember being a desk sergeant in a busy precinct. The neighborhood was insane. My first night there i was sitting at the desk and looking around in the building was falling down, there is cracked walls and peeling paint, and not im sitting there in the front door flies open. This guy