Bernie Mac's Book Excerpt

— -- It might be hard for his many fans to imagine — but Bernie Mac wasn't always the funny one. When he was growing up in a tough section of Chicago, he was a shy boy who "didn't have much in the way of social skills."

In his new memoir Maybe You Never Cry Again, the comedian tells the story of his childhood and the woman who made him who he is today — his mother.

Read the following excerpt from Maybe You Never Cry Again:

My name is Bernard Jeffrey McCullough, but people know me as Bernie Mac.My mama, God rest her soul — she used to call me Beanie.Used to say, Don't you worry about Beanie. Beanie gonna be just fine. Beanie gonna surprise everyone.

Woman believed in me. She believed in me long before I believed.I loved my mama with all my heart.

I was born October 5, 1957, on the South Side of Chicago, in the Woodlawn area, a neighborhood that hasn't changed much in forty-five years. Our house was on 66th and Blackstone, but the city tore it down when the rats took over. We moved to a new place on 69th and Morgan, in Englewood, right above the Burning Bush Baptist Church, a two-story, redbrick building. My grandfather was a deacon at the church, and I think he got a deal on the place. So we packed up: my mother, Mary McCullough; her sister, Evelyn; my older brother, Darryl; my grandparents, Lorraine and Thurman; and little me. Somewhere along the line, maybe during the move to our new digs, we lost Daddy.

We were poor. You know how to tell if a person's poor? You look in the fridge. If there's nothing in there but bologna, you're talkin' serious poor. Mmmm, but that bologna was good! We used to fry it up till a black circle formed at the edges, then roll it like a hot dog and eat it slow, make it last. You'd be chewing with your eyes closed, telling yourself, Never had nothin' taste so good!

Lot of beans in our house, too. Pinto beans. Lima beans. Red beans.

And cereal. Only you'd be eating it with a fork, leave the milk at the bottom for the next guy. I ain't lyin'. You think I'm lyin', you don't know what poor is.