Troubling

It is troubling to me that the country is so evenly divided over the presidential race. What does this say about us as a nation? It is not a simple preference as say would you prefer an apple or an orange. The two leading candidates have totally different philosophies and outlooks when it comes to the nation. We are a nation divided into three different categories; the haves, the haves not, and what I like to call the fence sitters. The fence sitters are the people that are doing okay but are one incident away from being a have not. They are the people with a house, two nice vehicles, and a couple of kids. They are also the people with a $900.00 mortgage payment, a $500.00 SUV payment, and a $400.00 car payment. They are basically two checks away from their world falling apart. The sad thing is that a lot of them don’t realize it. They think that the economy is great. They think the job market is good. If you think the job market is good go to the paper and the internet and do a job search as if you were fired today. Do you see any jobs that have the pay and the benefits of your current job?

Weekend

This weekend was great. I started out bright and early Friday morning chilling with the kids. My daughter school had Donuts for Dads. All the dads were invited to school for breakfast. They had Muffins for Moms a couple of weeks ago and it was a sell out hit. I enjoyed DFD. There was a great turnout. There were dads, uncles, grandfathers and a couple of mothers in the bunch. I was a little disappointed that we had Krispy Kreme. I was hoping for some old school super donuts with the flying donut man on the front. They were cooking regular breakfast by time we got settled in to our seats. They were cooking bacon, eggs, and biscuits. That led me to tell my daughter about the good old days when our only option was a super donut and a carton of milk. Heck they didn’t even start warming the donuts up until I was in around the sixth grade. The plates they were serving looked nice. One little guy came by with two strips of bacon, a steaming helping of eggs and buttery looking biscuit. This caused the Reverend at the next table to exclaim “now that is what I call a breakfast”. After I left the school I had to pick my son up from before and after school since he was too sick to go to school but somehow well enough to hang out in Little Rock with me for part of the day. I figured what the heck you only live once plus I had taken the whole day off. We went back to the house to a little nap and started our journey around eleven. We both picked up a pair of kicks since I needed a new pair and the last pair his mother bought him he says look like girl shoes and I whole heartedly agree with him. He was happy when he left the mall Jordans on feet girly shoes in the box. We next stopped at Circuit City to pick up a couple of cd’s. Circuit City’s jazz section sucks, Best Buy’s jazz section suction. If you want to listen to jazz you are just about forced to order over the internet. After a fruitless search we headed to McDonald’s for lunch. We then headed back towards the house I dropped him off at daycare and I went and packed to leave for Jonesboro.

I was really about going back to Jonesboro. It has been dang near two years since I had seen my old school. I miss my people but the town of Jonesboro has some different type of white people. They are off the chain. They are rude as hell. They make you want to put a good stomping on their ass. For this precise reason I don’t like the city of Jonesboro or the surrounding area. I guess I was used to it when I went to school there but after spending time in Central Arkansas where our white neighbors tend to be friendly at best and cordial most of the time I am always amazed when I go to Jonesboro. Don’t get me wrong not all of the white people in Jonesboro are like this but there are enough there with this attitude to make a brother not want to come back. I was welcomed to the city about five miles outside of the city limits. A random middle aged woman was driving and talking on her phone. She was crossing the yellow line enough to make you not want to try and pass her. I thought I would help back to her present task of driving with a friendly toot of the horn. She straightened up and I proceeded to pass her. I gave her a friendly wave when I got beside her and she flipped me the bird. I knew then that I was back in the great city of Jonesboro. I then proceeded to my LB’s apartment. He told me to hurry up and change into some slacks because they were having a 25th Year Celebration for the chapter. He ironed my shirt while I freshened up. I got dressed and jumped in the car with him. We were driving and chatting then and before I knew it we were sitting in the church yard. LB failed to mention that the event would be taking place in a house of worship. I failed to write above that I had popped a couple of beers after getting the bird from the welcoming committee. My words were “LB I am going straight to Hell and it is all your fault”. I felt better once I got a peppermint and a stick of gum in my mouth but still felt uncomfortable sitting in church with fresh liquor in my system. The program was put together nicely. You could tell that someone had spent a lot of time with the actual programs and also with a nice power point slide show at the end of the program. Soon To Be Dr. an older frat that was our chapter adviser when I was in school gave a nice talk. I learned a lot from that brother about being a professional black man during my stay at ASU. After the program we headed to the hotel to do some old school kicking it.

Part II Coming Soon………………..

Hair

About a year ago my fiancé went natural. She let her perm grow out and cut her down to a very mini afro. I was shocked when she did it. She looked funny for a month or so but then I got used to it. Once it grew out she had a nice puffy afro. It was cute on her. Then she went and got it twisted. It took a while for her twists to grow on me. I liked the afro better. Her twists have now turned to locks. It is good not to have to worry about burning yourself on a curling iron when you reach for something on the sink counter. It is good not having to shell out the money every other week to the hair stylist. It is good not to have to wait fifteen extra minutes before leaving to go somewhere while she does something to her hair. My daughter is now the only person in the family with time consuming hair. It is going to stay that way for now. I spent too much money on PCJ products and spent too much time learning how to comb it to get rid of it just yet. Black hair is at a nice state right now. Everybody is rocking a little of everything. Brothers are sporting afros, cornrows, locks, low fades, bald, heck I seen a brother rocking a low shag with a kit in it the other day. Sisters are sporting, afros, cornrows, locks, twists, low fades, micros, weave, perms in all shapes and sizes, wigs (the over 60 crowd), heck I seen a lady at church Sunday with the pretties crinkles I have seen in years. Black folks do your thing rock whatever you do as long as it is done. I hate to see a brother with raggedy cornrows with dandruff. I hate to see a sister with an inch of new growth in her braids. I hate to see a brother with a small patch of hair in the back that he missed when he was shaving his head. I hate to see a sister with a bunch of old gel around the edges of her head. You are not fooling anyone we know you are trying to hide the new growth until you can get another perm. I keep my hair low with a couple of waves. I know it is time to give up since my cow lick is steady edging backwards. I am a soldier I will rock the waves as long as I have hair on my head.

HARD WORK

“God, who gave us minds for thinking and bodies for working, would defeat his own purpose if he permitted us to obtain through prayer what may come through work and intelligence.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Get Away

You ever feel like just getting away from it all? That is how I feel right now. It is that deep down drained feeling. The feeling you are giving a hell of a lot more than you are receiving. The worst part is that the giving that you do is utterly unappreciated. You get to a point where you feel like you would like to go somewhere where nobody knows your name. You add up the tally and the figures show that you would come out way ahead if you just did for yourself and the little ones of course and tell everyone else you do you and I do me. They say you don’t miss your water till the well runs dry. I feel like cutting the rope on the damn bucket. I am happy to be able to lose myself in work most of the day and night. I am up for a nice promotion. If I get it I don’t see giving up my night job. I enjoy work. Work is my hobby. I think I am thinking too much today, if that is possible. I have so many things running through my head I can’t listen to music with words right now for fear of brain overload. I am angry right now more at myself than anyone else. The saying is true give an inch and they’ll take a mile. There are a lot of people that take kindness for weakness. They do this perhaps because they are so selfish themselves that they could never think of freely giving of themselves. I feel sorry for people in this state of mind. I really don’t I feel sorry for people that are around people in this state of mind. They make it hard for everyone else to interact with each other. There is always an undertone of distrust. People that take kindness for weakness go right up there with people that think everyone owes them something. I for one know exactly who I owe. They send me little envelopes with little envelopes inside of them on a monthly basis. The people that seem to think that someone owes them something always really owe the most. Well that is all I need to say right now. I needed to get that there ramble off of my chest. I will not be correcting anyone at work tonight. I will be keeping to myself. I think I will go play Miles Davis “Blue In Green” and see if that helps me feel better.

PART ll

Saturday was a great day. I had a wedding to attend. It was all good though because it didn’t start until five. Five is a great time to have a wedding. It gives everyone time to sober up and recover before the weddings. I can’t count the number of weddings I have been to and seen red eyed groomsmen with eighty proof sweat pouring out of him just about to faint. It was one of the most beautiful weddings I’ve ever been to. It was an outdoor affair set on the steps of a grand historic building with a brick walkway serving as the aisle. The bridesmaids’ dresses looked great. There was a white stretched limo. The bride arrived by way of horse and buggy. The fresh flowers were in true abundance. The bride looked great and the groom never stopped smiling. It was so beautiful brothers were walking around humming “He Proposed to Me” after it was over. It is great to see young black couples in true love. Each guest received a souvenir cd with all of the weddings songs with a couple of love classics thrown in. I did not get a chance to stay for the whole reception. I had to take the kids to choir rehearsal. I cooked some catfish and fries later that night and it was off the chain. I went to sleep a happy man Saturday night with “He Proposed to Me” lingering in my head. LOL

WHAT A WEEKEND PART 1

This was one of the greatest weekends ever. It doesn’t get much better than this. It all started around noon Friday. I was restless at work so I took a few vacation hours and hit the mall. I finally got the ring out of layaway. That is great those payments were a mutha for the last few months but it is mine. I don’t owe anyone anything for it. I was talking to a friend a little while back and he said he was still paying for his rings and he has been married three years. Once I sent the ring off for sizing I decided to look around and see were there any sales going on. BAM the first store I hit was dang near giving away clothes. I got two pair of slacks and two dress shirts for twenty five dollars. The great thing is that the slacks do not have to be altered. This is the first time I ever bought slack and not have to alter them. I was so excited I started to come back to work and blog about it. After that I hit the shoe section and bam they were giving shoes away also. I seen the shoes I had been contemplating buying for the last few months and they were marked down like 66%. I had to have them. Then I remembered that it was time to buy Sunday shoes for the kids again. I had planned on doing that Saturday morning but I figured I would go ahead and give it a shot since I had time left. BAM hit the kids shoe store up and they had a buy one get the next for a dollar sale going on. That was the lick right there. Shopping complete I hit up CiCi’s pizza for a long lunch of cheap thin pizza and reading. Fast forward to that night my cousin’s bachelor party was off the chain for real. I wish I could say what happened but what goes on at the bachelor party stays at the bachelor party.