WOWZIE WOWZIE WOO WOO

Why do bad things happen to you? Schleprock Sam was a character on The Flintstone’s cartoon. He was always followed by a dark raining cloud. And known for having and being bad luck. That is luck defined as “success or failure brought by chance rather than one’s own actions.”

This belief about luck means Schleprock can never change his circumstances. He was born jinxed as well as a jinx. Like in the movie “The Bad “ eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark was born a sociopathic homicidal maniac because her biological mother was. And like unfortunate Schleprock birth was her bad luck as was she to those who crossed her.

Have you ever felt that you were born under a cloud or destined through DNA to be a failure? An addict? An Outcast? Unlucky? If so, many people have and do feel the same way too. Mostly because understanding awful and tragic events in life against one's best and most noble effort is almost if not impossible.

Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote the book “ When Bad Things Happen to Good People “ after losing his son to a premature aging disease. He found a faith to help him through it with a new assessment of his God. The rabbi concluded that his God was not all-powerful after all. But his God was still good he decided.

This makes it certainly sound like we are all destined for bad things no matter how good we are. Like the comedian Bert Williams we will have those “if it wasn’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have no luck at all”, “if it was raining soup I would be found with a fork and no spoon in sight “ days. And too determine an impotent God to blame.

We may try like others to counteract our luck with Talisman of some kind: a four leaf clover, a wishbone or maybe a rabbit’s foot. “Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will but remember it didn’t work for the rabbit quipped humorist R. E. Shay. These exterior physical amulets  hoped to change invisible realities causing natural tangible events is a bit backward to my thinking.

Events do fuel believes but beliefs  can also fuel events. Faith I mean. Complete trust or confidence in the greatest power in the universe. Love trumps luck in my book. Because I know that there is no such thing as a good person or people. Not completely anyway.

When we are honest with ourselves we know through thoughts, words and deeds we perform bad acts thus initiating Karma or reciprocity in degrees. But love… unconditional love allows us to accept ourselves as we are and believe the best for us and those we love. Through great and devastating loss looking through the eyes of faith we may not understand but we accept the unknowable as part and parcel to one known: we are because of love.

I DON'T WISH. I STRIVE.

In Harlem, there is "Striver's Row", a historic district located on both sides of West 138th and West 

139th Streets between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in Harlem. Noted for the residency of upwardly-mobile professionals or rather experts, or "strivers", Among those who lived in Striver's Row were:

musician Eubie Blake, comic actor Stepin Fetchit, composer W. C. Handy, bandleader Fletcher Henderson, preacher and congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., entertainer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and composer Noble Sissle. While living there then meant one had “arrived”, when I consider myself as a striver my objective is not to live in a certain place, but in a certain way. And, to be recognized as an expert in my chosen profession.

Wishing for a future is how I began. Now I strive for my future. The difference for me is action based on applied understanding of personal and professional goal setting and attainment. This requires, at a minimum, weekly self-assessment, change readiness, brainstorming and contingency management planning. Usually, my week has ONE task to accomplish, though my weeks are filled with other personal and professional obligations and objectives. However, there is always one task above all that is prioritized as essential to achieve long and short-term goals.

My mantra these days is, “How do you eat and elephant? One bite at a time.” So, I don’t wish the elephant eaten. I eat it. One bite at a time. Big goals do not intimidate me because I have learned that they are composed of little goals, which when attained result in the big goal being achieved. No, I no longer wish. I strive.

Trump Alright Already

Trump Alright Already

My Uncle Brewster used to say it’s alright already. And as I consider the Donald Trump presidency I remember the George W Bush presidency. I remember that he raised more campaign funds in the history of presidential elections in this country than ever before. I remember the hanging chad in Florida and Katherine Harris’s decision to accept the vote. I remember that we survived him, rap master Ronnie Reagan and tricky Dick Nixon and the list goes on. So when I consider uncle Brewster’s phrase it’s all right already I consider it in a different way.

President-elect Trump may well not be alright. And in fact he wears his character defects very proudly. I recognize them because I am struggling with my own character. So it is not unique that any man should have Character defects. Some hide them better than others and others have worked to minimize and even eliminate them from their lives for the most part. Which is of course my own personal aspirations. In any event I’m all ready for what God, faith, kismet and Trump has to serve.

I have a locked and loaded mind, armed with character virtues in both principle and practice that ensures I will never be left alone or wanting. This confidence supported by my AA program family as well as my own personal W.I.L.D. (Wellness In Life Discovery) daily ritual program continues to guide me in my quest to live a life of Justice, Mercy and Love. Yeah as Uncle Brewster would say it’s alright already. And even if Trump isn’t all right I am ever all ready. How about you?

King's Dream Conway's Vision

King’s Dream Conway’s Vision

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." The room was small and dark, the film was being projected onto a small screen. I was seated at a table with a copy of the I Have a Dream speech. Former Army Sergeant now dashiki wearing militant dramatist and Elementary School teacher Evelyn McCullough, Sr.  had selected me to read his speech at Walter Francis White Elementary School's annual black history month program. And had instructed me to study Reverend Dr. King and his delivery of this speech.

I was born on January 17th 1963. Dr. King was born January 15th 1929. We are both Capricorns. I was five years old when Dr. King was assassinated April 4th 1968. There were riots in River Rouge, a small suburb Downriver of Southwest Detroit. A small City then divided by railroad tracks with the African Americans living on the east side and the Anglo Americans living on the west side. With a primarily segregated Elementary School System student body from K through grade 7. Walter White and Northrup schools being the Black schools and Ann Visger and Dunn being the elementary schools on the White side. Even at 9 years old I could relate to the Civil Rights struggle which was very real in my hometown.

My mother of course admired Rev Dr. King and wept angrily before the television set as it blared news Dr. King’s assassination. White citizens were riding through the Black side throwing smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails and the like at us in our homes. Whites dominated and controlled River Rouge not unlike most other cities in America. Every year when Dr. King's  birthday comes around I feel honored to have my own personal recollection of who Dr. King was and what he represented to my mother to my people and to me. Justice in a word. Mercy in a word. And love in a word.

Today I walk out a vision in my business, Recovery Coaching Service of New York, a peer mentoring company, of people not being judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character. And nearly 49 years since Dr. King’s assassination his dream still echoes through the corridors of time in mind ever reminding me to be militant and vigilant in Justice, Mercy and Love, for these are the truest pillars of character I desire to be judged by.

Hard Head Makes A Soft Behind

A HARD HEAD MAKES A SOFT BEHIND

When me and my sisters were disobedient my mother with give as the “a hard head makes a soft behind” warning she got from her grandfather “Papa”. This warning was used alternately with the “look” that made us know we were cruising for a bruising. Being the baby boy and the boy baby she prayed to have to straighten my father out (it didn’t work), I often ignored the warnings.

My sisters have said Mama spoiled me. I insist I spoiled myself. I recall getting one whooping. It was for stealing a ring from a neighbor’s apartment (there’s a story there). I don’t count the time she pummeled me very lightly with her fist (there’s a story there too). And, even the whooping I count wasn’t so severe. Before she even hit me with belt I was whaling and saying “You killing me”.

She hit me maybe three licks. My Best Girl is as crazy about me as I am about her. 

Anyway, what made me think of that yesterday? Oh, I was thinking of reasons not to get into devilment. That was the reason that stopped me from getting into devilment and thinking about it. In Alcoholic’s and Narcotic’s Anonymous  rehab programs and meetings the phrase “play the tape all the way through”, referencing bad outcomes from “use”. How do I know? (there’s a story there).

What is important is that Mama’s warnings regarding my behavioral choices are still very vividly in my head, which is no longer so hard. I have learned to listen to that angel in my mind. 

As my 54^th birthday approaches (January 17^th) I am noticing a distinct shift in my thinking process. It’s more “spiritual” or maybe just less physical. No it’s more spiritual. Though I am the same weight I was through junior high and high school (145), for some reason it seems my belly protrudes far more now than it did then. And my chest… breast sag. Is a man’s chest called breast? Whatever they’re called, they sag. I thought about doing push ups and sit ups and stuff. Then I told myself I know I wouldn’t do it consistently enough to make a difference. And, why bother anyway nobody sees it but me. And, should anyone else see it, its not to the degree that it would gross a person out, but it would definitely be a deterrent to any ideas of an intimate encounter. But that’s not likely anyway, because no one ever really flirts with me like that.

Sorry, I got a bit sidetracked. What I was saying is that experience and time has taught me finally to enjoy doing what is right and viewed in its proper perspective, devilment ain’t all that much fun after all. You know up until about a month ago you might have argued that I had a hard head and I might have argued with you that I didn’t. Today, I hear and agree with Mama, a hard head makes a soft behind. And, I don’t know about you, but there ain’t nothing in life worth a whooping. Things to die for to be sure but to take whooping for… at 54? Nah. 

The Linen Closet Library

THE LINEN CLOSET LIBRARY 

"You need to read so you'll know about life." That's what mama told me and my sisters. And that is why the last three shelves the hallway linen closet (from the floor up) were made our family library.
My Best Girl! Mama graduated from Dunbar High School in Broken Bow, Oklahoma in 1954. A single mother twice by that time, she still loved books and believed they were the key to life. She moved from her grandparents home in Eagletown, Oklahoma, the last stop of the Choctaw Nation's March of Death from Mississippi at the insistence of the United States Calvary, when she tuned 18 and lived, for the first time in her life with her single parent mother who had since married and was living happily ever after in River Rouge, Michigan.

My mom met, married and was divorced from my dad (there's a story there), during which time she birth 3 girls, a boy and then finally a girl. After a rocky marriage, struggling for her and children's survival, she moved her five children with her to the two bedroom apartment in the rear of her mom and stepfathers home, which also boasted a two bedroom apartment at the front of the house, and a two bedroom apartment over the garage with an underground passageway from the Big House Basement to the detached garage behind the house.

Still my mother and her children were poor despite her mother's semi-affluent status (there's a story there). Finally, applying for and receiving public assistance to secure her independence and improve the welfare of her children she moved to the projects. Always Mama told us, "Just because you live in the projects don't mean the projects have to live in you." And she reared the perfect gentleman and 5 exquisite young ladies. At the heart of our training is epitomized by out linen closet library.

Sheets, pillowcases, blankets and the like filed the top three shelves. The forth and fifth shelves as well as the floor were filled with school text books, a set of encyclopedia Britannica and a small assortment of Bible story books. In addition to her mandate that we learn from these tools, she encouraged and instilled in us a love of books. This love was exhibited as me and sisters each had personal libraries on the top shelf of each of our bedroom closets. We were never afraid to read. And, mama taught us to use a dictionary when we ran into words we didn't understand.

In retrospect, she reared autodidacts (self-taught persons). In this revelation I have discovered that my love of law and success in defending myself in criminal cases successfully (the only cases I lost is when I allowed the public defender to set me up... I mean represent me). I have also successfully represented a number of others across the country in Administrative Courts where a license to practice law is not required, which is good, because I have never had one. Not to take anything from my father, who represented and won in a suit against the Worker's Compensation Commission of Michigan, but Mama trained me to read!

While I am college educated and applaud those who have and do follow that course of study, I believe, and this quotable me talking, I believe, "True learning is not what you've been taught, but the knowledge that you have independently sought." I argue that formal education merely requires rote memory: Rote learning is a memorization technique based on repetition. The idea is that one will be able to quickly recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it. Some of the alternatives to rote learning include meaningful learning, associative learning, and active learning.

It is my belief that Mama made us active learners, which is why we have never had any trouble finding or creating paid work. God I love my Mama. She not only gave us treasures. She made us treasures! Any treasure hunters out there? :-)

For another day part 2

the sun has come out and its far more spring like than winter. And now as I reflect on the morning with its dark, ominous clouds, I see me wearing black. Serious. Thoughtful. In my sprit and not my flesh. Feeling The Power of One with all the universe.

It is midday and like Mama Said, I thank God for another day. Consider this my first break. Have you taken yours?