Uncle
Yah Yah 21st Century Man of Wisdom - Part II
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by Al Dickens
Hardcover: 196 pages
Publisher: Yah Yah Publications
Publication Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN-10: 1936649012
ISBN-13: 978-1936649013
Reviewed by Carol Taylor
“My name is Rudy Hawkins, and I’m a reporter for the Essex Weekly Forum News. Dottie ... a beautiful black sister and typist in the office, was the first to inform me of the man called Uncle Yah Yah.” So starts the first Uncle Yah Yah, 21st Century Man of Wisdom. Dottie had spent a week at the bucolic Paradise Gardens in upstate New York where the “acme of her pleasure” was meeting an old man called Uncle Yah Yah. Rudy is self-involved and over-confident when we first meet him and when he sees his chance to seduce Dottie who wants him, as a favor to her, to interview Uncle Yah Yah, he agrees. After Rudy meets the sage Uncle Yah Yah and reads the manuscript he gives him, his life changes forever.
Uncle Yah Yah Part 2, 21st Century Man of Wisdom opens with Rudy calling on Uncle Yah Yah for advice. Having separated from his wife and children, “Rudy Hawkins, the star reporter” is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, due in part to Uncle Yah Yah; at least that’s what his wife thinks. “Rudy... ever since you went to Paradise Gardens, you can’t think about nothing, or talk about nothing but that old man Yah Yah. If you want to give up all that we have worked for and go up there and live in the woods with that old man, then go ahead. But you can forget about me and the children because we are leaving.”
So Rudy finds his way back to Uncle Yah Yah, once again not knowing that his whole life is about to change. He is given a second manuscript, which contains a secret letter that might actually be from out of this world. We too return to Paradise Gardens and Uncle Yah Yah who reminds us of our storytelling past, and of a time when we respected and sought knowledge from our elders. He cautions of a society where public schools are raising our children because “women are becoming independent ... and are demanding more of an individual choice in marriage, having and rearing children and in their careers.” Add to this, the deterioration of marriage, family ties and values, the growing power of the government in the private sector, and the reader is left wondering if this is a message of hope or despair. Uncle Yah Yah’s message is not defeatist, ultimately; he wants us to believe that change is possible.
The prose, and message are basic, simple and straightforward, but nothing about these books, their messages or Uncle Yah Yah is what they seem, when you realize that Al Dickens, the author of this book of practical wisdom and commonsense advice is serving a sentence of fifty-one years for bank robbery. Three years ago he was sent to the New Jersey Hospital for the Criminally Insane, diagnosed as a dangerous schizophrenic and classified “a madman”.
Al Dickens wrote Uncle Yah Yah not only to inspire and inform, but also in an attempt to hold on to his sanity while those around him had long lost theirs. This truly resonates when he writes: “I know, because I crawled into this prison cell-like cocoon a lowly caterpillar, but I shall emerge a butterfly... Watch for me.” And it seems, we are.
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