Raised or spoiled

Point of order:
1] left the shop round 830. A woman was driving in front of me weaving and I could see she was like texting on her phone, I flashed my lights she threw the finger weaved and sped some more and a cop pulled her over. Are folks that stupid? I laughed as I passed her under I20.

2] I slept to 945 today and turned in almost as soon as I got home last night – yum.

3] My folk did a book review and interview on me, im flattered.

Ok, sorry about that, I mean yawl having to deal with the back in forth with a commenter and myself and several others. Any who, on these few days before father’s day, I just wanted to say a few words and offer some blessings to fathers that are putting it down for lack of a better phrase.

See as men, we know the value of family, which means that family and especially our children are the most important tangible asset we have. We know it is not how many cars we drive or how much money we obtain but rather how much time we give providing, nurturing and raising our kids to hopefully become responsible adults.

Too many of our boys do not see this and as a consequence fail to recognize and worse replicate manhood in one form of attribution – being a father. Likewise, too many of our little girls grow up without a father in their household and fail to recognize what role the father plays in said household. For boys, it may manifest in running the streets and never being man enough to be faithful to a single woman or even respecting women as one would their sister or mother. Foe girls, it may manifest itself in that traditional view of I don’t need a man or that their looks and sex is all that defines them.

So you fathers out there, hats off to you. We know it is not a single day but each second of each minute of each hour we receive our reward and understanding of fatherhood. We know that we want to give and spoil all of those under our roof what ever we can even when we cant, but don’t because we know that by spoiling our children, we do a dis-service to our ultimate goal – raising them to be hardworking and responsible adult human beings that never feel sorry for themselves or blame others for the miss steps and bad experiences in their lives. Yep, there is a difference between spoiling a child and raising a child and I would like to think that fathers, who are fathers, know the differences and intentionally shy away from the first. So keep on doing and for those of us who have women in our lives that cant value our role or need, turn the other cheek, for although they may not admit it, God knows what we do is a good thing, something we are supposed to do, and remarkable and for me that reward enough.

ps: props to Ken Griffey Jr on that 600th jack

u are the earth

The hardest job in the world, next to being committed to ones definition or view or belief in God is being a parent. Yep its tough. As such, I think that there is no greater love than the love one receives from their mother. Maybe I say this because I did not have a father in my life. Or maybe because what she showed me allowed for me to understand that it was ok for a man to be passionate, humble, confident and appreciative of all that he had even if they had nothing. I remember as a little child, in Castalia Heights (CTO), sitting at that red little table in that cramped little kitchen in that two bedroom apartment that my mother, her older sister and my grandmother and I lived in, eating what they called milktoast (toast with cinnamon and sugar with a little butter crunched up in a bowl of milk). She was the one who was most proud of me, not when i got my PHD but when she got me a set of encyclopedias when i was 11 and i read them from A to Z that summer. She taught me that if you wanted to hide something from a nigger, put it a book and that if i was a ditch digger, be the best, for they will always call Torrance to dig that ditch. No matter what or when, even until we moved to our house (all of us when I was four) between she and my grand mother, she made sure that I had what I needed to be secure and comfortable.

She was the one who brought me comic books everyday from work at St. Joseph Hospital as the only Black Chief dietician in the city of Memphis, and the first for a major hospital. She was the one who brought me test tubes and lab equipment from other black men who did such at the hospital and got them to let me sit in on their test and experiments when I was in grade school. She was the one who told me that they Brought Martin Luther King Jr to her hospital in a Wonder Bread truck so folks wouldn’t try to mutilate his body. It was these women who taught me how to treat and value a woman, even if they could not do the same - talking about character.

Yep, a mom’s love. You mother’s are the shit. You never place yourself or anything above your children and family. I would give yawl all flowers, so just take this pic of the Verbena growing in my yard as a token of my respect for you all - yep folk here grow flowers. No, you are not baby momma’s just as I am not a baby daddy. You give us the precious intricacies in a cellular form that become children. You bless us with the ability to maintain a pleasant disposition in torrid times. Yes you give us life for you are the Earth, just as mother nature is the earth

So I just wanted to take this chance to toast to you, my breakfast of champions, tequila with a shot of hot sauce in honor of yawl. I have got my mom and last grandmother living cards today. For me and my kids. I have gotten both of my kids mother cards and gifts, although my son’s mom has never given me a fathers day card nor Christmas gift since we went our separate ways, and my daughters mother would not even call me last year on fathers day to let her daughter wish me such while I was in Quebec City, Quebec. But that is neither here nor there for they gave me the greatest gifts any man can cherish. Which means I will be indebted to them always.

They do not dictate what is great and that which should be cherished buy one who came from a mother, no, such is concomitant of my heart and respect and appreciation for the gifts they gave me that hold and hug and kiss and laugh with me; that call me pappa. The are mother's an can never be worthy of anything less as such. So happy mother’s day (especially to momma, granny, Fallon, Sue, Aunt Cecelia, Aunt Trevor,my cousin Monique, my uncle's wife phylis, aunt joyce, grandma Pee wee, Momma-D, and Angie). I love you all.

4getting what real folk go through

It is not difficult out here in cyberville, to get lost and caught up in the mundane. I know, because I write about the mundane among other things. And I complain also. The question is what is it that I have to complain for? Nothing, for I am blessed and I actually see and welcome my blessings. Over the last three months I have been dismissed from my place of employment, been attacked with a butcher knife and cut with scissors, strapped with the worry of providing for my family, fleshed wounded in the face by my daughters mother with a fork, and had my crab cakes spit in by said daughters mother, just last night (had restraint not to kill her). Add to this my grandmother had congestive heart failure Monday and I have been back and forth to Macon, I still see nothing to frown or complain about. Not to mention had a child hood chum die who I grew up in Memphis with (Shouts out MilkDud) and one of my best friends mothers just died.

I do not ever want to be said that I have forgotten about what real folk go through, race and gender aside. I know there are homeless and that I have a home; that there are foreclosures left and right down here in these parts, but I have no such edict; that people come back from wars diseased, distraught and penniless; that my children are safe and healthy and shown love by me incessantly, and that they are not the victims of drive bys, pedophiles or illiteracy.

Yep its hard, but we can never forget about real folks and what they go through, those that ride the bus every day, work two jobs or make the average annual income of 17,000K a year. Them folks that battle to keep lights on and food on the table, or worse a roof over their family head.

We forget too much, we don’t see our blessings and give the value of those blessing to those responsible for such. Simply put we take what we have, to see, to walk, to fuck, and to have companionship and health for granted. So I guess what im trying to say is that we should appreciate and value that which provides value in our lives unconditionally. We should bestow blessings on those who bless others and us for the sake of value and pray even when we not asking nothing, but just to say hank you.

I do not have rats in my house, and I have my heart. So even if I did, I wont forget that’s what real folk go through. I’m blessed; I have access to cyberville and most folk’s aint.

The next generation

…and I am not speaking of star trek, I am talking about our own, and if we are to SAVE the aforementioned:

1] Stop smoking weed in front of your kids

2] Don’t curse around your kids or even worse curse at them.

3] Take that money from the clubs and bars and spend it on some piano or tap lessons or basketball

4] Turn them videos off and the radio on the morning and listen to NPR, sports talk, or suffer with the Disney radio (they good for teaching sentence structure and vocabulary).

5] If you are not working, do not put your children off with the baby sitter. Spend as much time with them as you can.

6] Stop fighting or beating on your woman (or man) in front of your children. They will suffer the most in the end. Violence is not the answer – least always.

7] Read to them all the time, and let the see you reading, especially newspapers each day.

8] When you can, sit at the table together and eat and talk

9] let them see honor, integrity and character by letting them see you live your life as such and by standing for what you believe and what is right.

i know im missing some, so all additional info is welcome, and thanks for the love folk. good lookn.

Pawns of the Game

I do not know where it started, but there are some of us so insecure and filled with vile thoughts, that we will do anything to hurt others. This is something that I would never expect to happen from a god-fearing and loving person, especially a parent.

I just want to know what is it about some men and women who would use their children to inflict pain on others. Yes, if the shoe fits wear it. Truth is that many of us, especially women, often have problems in relationships and with themselves to the point that they will use children to inflict pain on the other parent. I think this problem is more prevalent with women, but the question remains, why? Why would a woman use the love that a male parent has for a child as a weapon? Does she not know that it is the child that should come first and not herself? Some even go as far as to disrupt the child’s perspective of the other parent in an effort to make this occur. Still others use their children to get back at the other parent. I would never do such and have not. But I will not ever understand it. I will always support and encourage my children to love and never disrespect their mother's. But that's just me. But Others may and this terse essay is for them.

People, please, and men too, let us just love out children completely and honestly, and let them know all they meet love them. Otherwise, we will continue to see the degradation within our communities and we will have no one to blame but ourselves. In particular, if we know the other parent is a great, wonderful and loving parent. Maybe even more loving than we do. In the final observation, a relationship and its survival is based on each person meeting the needs of the other. If they are unmet, then leave, but please leave the children out of it.