EMMETT TILL’S ACCUSER COMES CLEAN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS…

Well, it is Black History Month.   And I really can’t remember when this actually took place… the year when a young 15 year old youth went south to Mississippi from Chicago, to spend the summer with relatives in the south.

http://nypost.com/2017/01/27/emmett-tills-accuser-admits-it-was-all-a-lie/

In looking back at a newspaper article on the story, I see where it took place in 1955.  The summer Emmett Till went to spend what was to be his lastsummer visiting those cousins, and an aunt and uncle down south.  Because somewhere during that visit in August 1955 it was said
that Emmett took certainly liberties with some white woman.  He got out of place… he crossed that divide that colored and white were not to cross… because he was just being a young innocent kid… unaware of the do’s and the don’t of the then… and maybe still in some parts of the south.

Supposedly young Emmett while in this woman’s family store had told the white woman how he had dated a woman just like her up in Chicago.   And upon leaving the store it was said that young Emmett Till gave that woman 1 of those big long whistles, that men did back in that time when they thought a woman was beautiful… somewhat of a wolf call or something.

It was that story of Emmett Till which always colored me and my thoughts about how when you leave home… if you lived north of the Mason/Dixon Line… how you should behave very differently if you were to go down south.

Something like how you had to remember when you crossed that line …that Mason/Dixon Line going into the south, that you were no longer in the north… or in your little Northern town or big city, like Chicago or Detroit.   And how remembering this… that this ‘black and white thang’ could possibly save your life.

I recall once just we had crossed that line 1 summer on 1 our many drives south to visit my grand mother in the south, that once we pulled up to a motel where my mother sent me out to go inside and ask how much it would cost to get a room?

An occasional stop at a motel to freshen up used to be a habit of my family sometimes while we were making the more that 20 hour trip down south to Florida.  But this particular day as I almost was about to reach for the door leading into the motel office, out came running two black boys… or teens… something I couldn’t really tell how old they were as they came running through that door shouting back to me, ‘Get of of here!  Go!  Go!’

I immediately ran back to our car and reported to my mother and father what those 2 boys had told me as they had whizzed pass me and shouted for me to get out of there.

Suddenly, my mother started screaming at me to get in the car… and she started hollering they ain’t gonna take my sons.   ‘They ain’t gonna take my sons.’

Boy, I had never seen anything like it or ever heard my mother react in such a way.  But years later I understood.

At that time my brothers were young kids… maybe 10 or 11 or something like that.  But my mother having grown up in the south… my being a Jamaican had grew up in Jamaica so he had not really experienced any that Jim Crow stuff of the deep south.  But my mother knew it well.   And she knew that it would not matter to white folks that my brothers had not robbed or done whatever those 2 boys had done… but that they were black and that in of itself would have been enough for my young brothers to have been taken …in place of the real crooks or whatever they were who had come running out of that motel office.

I do not think we ever again stopped at another motel in all the years we continued to travel back and forth to Florida after that.

For years, I think that up until this very point I had always felt that Emmett Till  should have been told how to behave, and carry himself while down there in the south.  I always thought it was his mother’s fault for not sitting him down, and telling him how to behave down there when it came to being around white folks.   It was the typical blaming that many people do when they blame the dead for being dead.  Like some people blame Trayvon Martin for being out late… or out in the rain in that white neighborhood when he got shot and killed.

I thought that way because I  was stupid.  I was  blind.  Ignorant of the fact that many times it just didn’t matter what we did do or not, irregardless there was a very likely could still come up dead

He was a kid.   And you could have told him something a thousand times, and would you believe you wouldn’t have to tell him it again… as we all do when it comes to talking to our children?
Emmett Till did not live in the south.   Nor was there any reason for me to believe that what had been said regarding that story had been true.   For you see, evidently I had believed something inappropriate must have been done for those white men to go in the middle of the night seeking this young boy, regarding something something he had said and/or done.

That is the irony of it.  How readily we eat up the things we see or hear.

It had been a lie.   It had all been a lie.   And because some white woman had lied on her son, Mrs. Till was forced to go down to Mississippi and collect the bloated remains of her young teen age son, her only child… I think… and bring him back to Chicago in order to bury him.

Years later after Emmett Till had been viciously murder by a group of white men in the middle of the night, after going to his relative’s house and demanding that they send him out to them or they would burn them out and all up in their home.

How could that woman possibly live with herself after that?

Years later, I moved to Chicago and while working as a church secretary for a pastor by the name of Dr. A. L. Reynolds, Jr.,  I was told something by Dr. Reynolds, who pastored Sixth Grace United Presbyterian Church, at Cottage Grove and 35th Street, on the South Side.

Dr. Reynolds 1 day came into the office and for some reason began telling a story, of how he had had to run away from his home, which had been back in Arkansas.   The reason he had to pick up and get out of there he told me, was because some white woman wanted him and he didn’t want her.   That is exactly how he put it.   He said, ‘she wanted me.  But I didn’t want her.  So, I had to leave.’   Because I did not want her to lie on me.   Because in those days a white woman could say a black man raped her and they (meaning the other white people… mostly men) would kill him.

So, Dr. Reynolds said he got of Arkansas as quickly as he could.

And he said he left Arkansas running because he didn’t want her to tell a lie on him.

Through the our history in this country many black people have found it necessary to get up and get out of town in the middle of night, headed north or to other points unknown.  Because they were afraid of some type of bad consequence which might take hold upon them… or befall them due to a lie… or some white person wanting something that belonged to them.

It comes to mind that even in Biblical text Abram lied.  He was forced to lie when he and Sarah went to enter Egypt.   And he became afraid that the king… otherwise known as Pharaoh… would want his wife, Sarai…as she was then before being renamed by God Sarah.   Because the Bible says she was fair and goodly to look upon.

So, Abram felt that he would be killed by Pharaoh.   So, therefore, told Sarai that they should say that he was her brother rather than her husband.

The end of this story is that Pharaoh and the people of his kingdom are overtaken by what the Bible calls a ‘great plague.’   Pharaoh questions Abram and asked him why he had not told him that the woman, Sarai… was his wife?

We come into the 21st Century now, some more than 60 years later and now we hear that the white woman who had told her husband and his white buddies, that Emmett Till had whistled and spoken to her… a white woman inappropriately… that she had lied.

All that pain and heartbreak … tears shed had been over a lie.

A young boy was pulled and dragged out into the dark of night… tortured and beaten …then partially burned and thrown into the river… to be found days later a bloated beyond recognition dead decomposing body.   Because that woman lied.   And now …I guess on her death bed… or on her near death bed she tells the truth… that she lied about the whole thing.
How did that woman do that… when she knew what the consequences for any black man would be?

She knew what times she lived in.   But just did not care.  She told that lie knowing that some out of control white drunken men were going to go and find them a white boy, and have what they called ‘have some fun.’    While they enjoyed torturing him and beating him…and eventually killing him.

How did this young boy respond?

Can you imagine what was going through his mind and heart… scared beyond his wits…
kicked…slapped…punched… stomped… cut… lit on fire…

And all because some white woman thought it nothing to lie on him.   And me thinking years later that it had been his fault… because nobody every trained him properly how to behave around white folks.

This reminds me of how I hear black commentators on television now when they are talking about black men being shot and killed by white police officers.   Everybody saying they should have kept their hands on the dashboard… or where they could be seen… or not moved too quickly… etc… etc… etc….

Blaming the victim because racist people still abound….

Well, God bless… It was sleeting a little bit this morning.  But I hope it is nice and warm
where you are.  Have a good day all… and remember it’s BLACK HISTORY MONTH.   “pass it on…” http://www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2017

 

 

 

Add a comment February 8, 2017

B. SCOTT…drag QUEEN…

I just happened to come across this person while writing my last blog.  And after watching some footage of him I knew I had to write something on him.

His name is B. Scott and he classifies himself as being androgynous… kind like what Michael wanted to be… somewhere between being male and female.

I have seen few people who have pretended to be as happy as B. Scott pretends like he is.  When I was in ‘the life’ I thought I was happy too.  But I never pretended like I was over joyed with it.  Over a period of time I just came to accept it… which I guess if you finally settle upon ‘this is who I am’ you tend to do.  You just start to kind of accept it.  Which is what B. Scott said he finally came to do.

Though I have seen thousands of gay guys and women who acted like they were super dupper happy being gay.  I had also seen them …many of them in the tears because they wished they could be like everyone else.

When I watched this video on YouTube by B. Scott… the 1 below… it really prompted me to write this blog.  Because there were a few things that he said that really gave me insight as to who he is… and why.

(I’ve got to find the right video)  But in the YouTube video  B. tells of how people used to say to him when he was a little boy, ‘You so pretty you should have been born a girl.’

In hearing that it made me think of my son, who at the age of 13… 1 day broke down and started crying saying to me that I would never be a grandmother.  Then he said that he must be ‘gay’ because everyone told he that.

How could I defeat what he was saying?

At the time I was not saved.  I was speechless and did not know what to say.  I was shocked.

Today I would rebuke that devil and call the devil and liar.  But that day… I was speechless.  I did not know what to say.

I must confess to being 1 of those gay mothers who was seriously homophobic… terribly.  But I never pushed my thoughts nor my fears over onto my son.    Well, I hope not… certainly never intentionally.   But there was a period in my life when he could nothing right.  I hollered at him about everything.  I did not realize that I was doing that though until a woman who was part of my film shoot on my short film… a niece to Florida of ‘Good Times’… pointed it out to me and talked to me about it.  She said, ‘Why are you always yelling at him?’

I never realized that I did.  But I am glad she brought it to my attention.  I might have drove my son away… but thank God that did not happened.  That big headed boy took me out to dinner last night… to very expensive sea food restaurant that we both like.  But I do not love him because he treats me to thing… or buys me stuff…  I love him because he is ‘my son.’  And I thank God for him.

I had never heard anyone call him that… that word… ‘gay.’   Though I think they were careful not to do so while I was around… as I would not have liked it.  Though I must say that at an early age I started to feel like I was seeing certain signs of it.  But here is where I want to tell you how the devil works.

You are not seeing anything that the devil has not put in your mind.  Your young children know nothing about sex… but the devil will toy with your brain and make you believe you are seeing things which are not there.

You don’t believe me????

Let me share with you this.  One night while in my apartment in downtown Brooklyn…. as I was leaving the living room to go towards my bedroom I looked down at the floor.  Upon looking down I saw the floor was covered with large water bugs everywhere.  I mean swarming with them everywhere.  I quickly looked up and said to myself, ‘the devil is a liar.’
I don’t know where that came from… but that is what I said.  Then I looked back down at the floor and there were no water bugs anywhere.  It had all been a figment of my imagination… brought about from the devil knowing that I had a fear of those things.  Which came about by the fact that occasionally I would see a water bug in my apartment…  something that my landlord refused to believe.

But that night the devil had decided that he was going to drive me mad… meaning crazy by presenting to me a ton of those horrible things crawling all over my apartment floor around me… and they covered my entire apartment floor.  But I did not go crazy.  God kept my mind… because He did not let me fall for it.  I merely shut my eyes for whatever reason… (as I did not know it was God’s doing at the time)…  I just started believing that they were not there.  You would have had to seen them.  They were so real.

This is how I know that people can see things… which look as real as anything you can touch or feel… and it not really be there.  It was just something that the devil presented to me… and had made it appear real to me because he knew I was afraid of those things. Of which New York seems to me have quite a few of them.

http://www.glaad.org/blog/oregon-mother-charged-killing-her-son-because-she-thought-he-was-gay

The woman in the above link killed her 4 year old son because she believed he was gay.  The devil truly had her mind that she would have done such an insane thing.  But he does and can plants seeds in your head… and make you see and hear things which are not really there.   And if you are not careful… and  you let them take root in you… you will believe what the devil has planted and will act out in whatever way he wants you to.

One day I heard a friend of mine yelling at 1 of her grandsons… ‘Put that rope down, boy.  You ain’t no girl.’

What does having a jump rope in your hand have to do with being gay?

So, what if a little boy wants to jump rope.  It does not mean he wants to grow long hair and become a girl.

But my friend did not realize that she was planting seeds… that 1 day would grown into just what she was asking for.

I had wanted to badly to tell her that what she and other members in her family were doing to him in regards to calling her grandson a ‘girl’… or saying to him had some ‘girl in him’ was wrong.  But I knew they would not listen to me… so I did not.  But now in hindsight I realized I should have tried …if for no other reason other than for her grandson’s sake.

We must speak LIFE to your children.  And do not let anyone speak DEATH to them… not even in joking.  Calling your boy child a girl is speaking death to him… or your girl child a boy.  Don’t do it.  Encourage them to have fun… let them enjoy themselves as children without you putting all your own sexual hangups upon them.

So, when I watched and listened to the above video of B. Scott I realized just how he had come to be and why.  I understand him… not so much because of what my son had said to me.  But because I understand how little children can become confused as to who they are if people keep pushing them in some other direction by saying ignorant things to them that makes them believe what people are saying about them.  And I guess that does kind of fit directly with what my son had said to me.

My entrance into ‘the life’ was very different… it had nothing to do with anyone calling me a ‘boy.’   Because frankly I never looked like 1… nor did I ever want to be 1.  Though I wasn’t much of a baby doll playing little girl either.  I don’t think I tried climbing trees… but I did try my hand at trying to fix a couple of things when I was young.

But being the oldest my youth was superseded by my having to learn how to do things at an early age… like washing dishes.  I do not know how old I was when my father pushed a chair up to the kitchen sink… but that was the beginning of my years of me being our family dishwasher.  Then I was taught how to cook… and the list goes on and on…

I was introduced to sex at a very early age.  Not via any family members but outside of our home.  Only twice had it happened.  But it happened before I had a voice or knew I had a voice or any idea of what was happening.  That is not to say I was an infant.  I was just a very young innocent child of maybe 6…7… or 8.   And the 2 times it happened they happened at varying times… not close or together.  Maybe a year or so apart… can’t remember that part.

I made mention on 1 of the times in 1 of my other blogs not so long ago.  It was a time that I almost got gang raped… but God said ‘no.’  That was the first time that someone took advantage of me.  But those 2 experiences marked my life forever… and how I think and feel about people who take advantage or abuse children.

But contrary to what many people may say or think… sexual preference many times may not have anything to do with what you were indoctrinated to… or let me say it this way first introduced to sexually.

Though I have spoken to many gay guys and they had the opposite experience… and some women too.  It did lead them into a life of homosexuality.  And a lot of times it happened to them with someone who took advantage of them sitting in some position in the church… lived in their apartment building… was a close friend to their mother or father… and ‘yes’ even sometimes it was a relative… or a daughter or a son of the 1 their parent’s friend.  One of my times was such a case as that.  My mother must have known… as she never went to visit that friend ever again.

But going back to this guy B. Scott in watching his videos I felt sorry for him… because I understood him in ways that many people will never get to.  And I also recognized his gaiety… or supposed happiness… really to be his sadness.

Love you, B. Scott.  And hoping that 1 day God will do a work in your life like he did in mine.  I hope the same for my son…. and the many sons and daughters dealing with identity problems… issues… or sexual confusion.

And I hope your laughter and smiles will become ‘real’… and turn into a joy that surpasses all understanding 1 day.

And that 1 day you will look into a mirror and see how really handsome you are… and start loving the ‘real’ you’ and not that the ones who were agents of devil told you were… but who God really made you to be.

Well, God bless…. I am really supposed to be doing something else right now.  But I just wanted to take the time to do this blog really quickly.  I hope that it falls upon fertile ground…

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on…”  www.bsmith101.wordpress.com  ©2014

2 comments April 17, 2014

BERNICE KING I STAND WITH YOU… SHIRLEY TEMPLE and more…

I have been trying to find the time to get around to writing this blog ever since I heard the latest on the dispute between the King siblings.

What bothered me the most was that everyone seemingly is coming down on Bernice King, the youngest of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.’s children, over this latest controversy in her family amongst her and her brothers.

Looking at the pictures it appears that Martin L. King, III has jumped ship.  At one point it had been him and Bernice against Dexter King, their baby brother.  Dexter and Martin 3 want to take out of the hands of Bernice their father’s traveling Bible, and what has to be any families most valued treasure if we could all get 1… Dr. King’s Nobel Peace Prize medal.

Who in their right mind would dare part with these 2 things?

There are just some things you simply cannot put a price tag on.

Perhaps, some down and out someone or other might think differently.  Or just some plain greedy kids… out to liquidate everything they can get their grubby little hands on of their mother’s and father’s estate.

Is it not enough that the court ordered Bernice to surrender to Dexter personal cards and letters written to their mother by their father… items that Mrs. King had personal given to her youngest daughter?

Now, here comes Dexter again… and this time Martin 3 is with him.  They are in the boat together to snatch out of their sister’s hands their father’s Bible (the Bible that President Barack Obama placed his hand upon when he took his oath for his 2nd term in the White House) and Dr. King’s Nobel Peace Prize.

How low can you go, Dexter and Martin 3?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/martin-luther-king-jr-s-children-battling-estate-article-1.1605655

Unless you have been there you will never understand how hard it is to stand when everyone around is grabbing for what they can get… and all you can think of  ‘my parent’s are gone.’  Dealing with loss can be very difficult.  And especially when the responsibility somehow falls upon you… be it a sense of duty or whatever…  but you are the one who ends up trying to maintain what you see as what your parent’s desire would be.

I clearly understand Bernice King and her decision to try to keep her brothers from selling off every piece of their family legacy to the highest bidder.

And why should she?

We have all heard of down and out athletes and actors selling off their championship rings or Academy awards… when left with no other options.  But this is something else.  It is just pure and simple greed driving Dexter boy and his older and brother, Martin #3.

It is always very unfortunate when the value of your things winds up meaning more to your children than you… or what your desires would be… or the remembrance of you… or in this case have a higher cost than the King legacy and remembrance of their mother and father to some of them.

Bernice King has every right to try to hold onto the precious memories and legacy of both her mother and father, without having gifts which her mother gave to her… entrusted her with …being lost to a couple of greedy brothers who care nothing about the King legacy, or even how bad they are making their family and themselves looked by forcing the hand of their baby sister in this matter.

I heard an interview where Andrew Young, a man who I thought used to be a King family friend, commented on this matter by merely snickering at it and saying, “They sue too much.”

You know what Mr. Young?

When you have to take somebody to court ….or they want to take you to court.  Baby, you better learn how to fight.  Cause if you don’t learn how to swing back… then just crawl into a hole and pull some grass over you and die.

Thank goodness Bernice has not decided to die.  When you honor your mother and father, and their memory… you don’t try to sell off precious things that belonged to them, because you cherish them.  Those things were a part of them… and they should remain in the King family to get pass down.  Many people today can’t even put their hands on old family pictures or 8mm films that may have been taken of them as children.  Because somebody in their family grabbed them all up and years later discarded them… or they somehow got lost.

I long for a picture my mother had taken of me and my sister many years ago.  We were just young children then.  My sister took my parent’s picture and cut it up throwing away my half of that picture while keeping herself.  Today not even that part exist.  There had been other copies of that picture which my mother had sent to various relatives, but I have never been able to track not 1 down….or put my hands on them some 50 or more years later because they too were probably destroyed.

http://rollingout.com/politics/dr-kings-children-profiting-from-the-martin-luther-king-jr-national-memorial/

The problem in this story is one of greed.  Dexter boy has been selling off everything… every piece of the King family estate he can since the passing of their mother… down to making the Federal government pay him for the use of his father’s image and likeness in the creation of his monument in Washington, D.C..  One would have thought that the honor and recognition given to his father in the creation of the Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. monument in D.C. would have filled him with joy.  That he would have been eager for the King family to assist anyway it could.  But no…  not Dexter.  He saw it as a money-making opportunity and milked the creation and erection of a monument to his father for every dime he could get out of it… including forcing them to pay for the use of any of Dr. King’s quotes.

http://theatlantavoice.com/news/2013/jul/16/mlks-youngest-son-weds-longtime-girlfriend/

[LISTEN] Bernice King Sets Record Straight on the King Family Feud

Why anyone would want to throw stones at Bernice King for standing up to her brothers in their pursuit to sell off what has to be two of the most valued possessions of both their mother and father, Dr. King’s Bible and Nobel Peace Prize… is crazy.  Clearly, those people do not know the whole story. But it has always been my experience to know that it is usually the good person… the person who is trying to do the right thing… the one who is innocent of trying to do wrong that gets blamed for starting the whole thing and is singled out as the culprit in the eyes of almost everyone looking in on matters like this.  I have been there… and in many ways I still am.  Trust me me I know.

So, yes… I side with Bernice King.  I cheer you on Bernice King.  Do not give up the fight.  Fight the fight… it is well worth fighting.  And I pray you God speed and victory in this matter.  As there are some things you just do not sell off… like your birth right.  And the right of any 3rd or 4th generation King’s etc. to not have to go to a library or museum to see an award presented to their grand-father or great great grand-father, because his kids sold off everything.  Some things really are too sacred.

And I also pray for a changed mind and heart of both Dexter King and Martin #3.

In regards to Martin #3… I have no respect for him.

I recall going into court trying to fight for my father.  I went in thinking that 2 of my other siblings were on my side.  That is what they pretended… that is until we got before the Judge.  When we got before the Judge they said nothing.  They offered nothing not 1 agreement to anything to what I was saying.  I was left out there all alone trying to fight for our father to be returned home, and they said nothing.  I later came to realized that they never wanted daddy back home in the first place.  The house was divided and everybody had grabbed what they wanted.   My father’s house had been invaded and taken over… and daddy was forced out of his own property. A fact I never knew until some time after that court hearing.

It is amazing how quickly we can forget all the sacrifices and all the good times… and how much our parents poured into us.  If Dr. King had not struggled…  if he had not marched… if he not sacrificed his life… what would they have to fight over?

What would we all have to celebrate?

The car… the family house… everything that every family at the end is forced to fight over… I suspect they might have fought over that.  Because there will always be at least 1 who sees a bigger picture than just self and…  and thank God for that.  They see more than what they can get out of the passing of supposed love ones.  Always 1…  and it appears that Bernice King is the 1.   And yes… I stand with her.

http://blackamericaweb.com/tag/bernice-king/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/10/rev_bernice_king_elected_presi.html

On another note on the King family.  Dexter has gotten married.  This is really not new news.  But I know it is not mentioned or talked about but if the truth be told… Dexter is really not the marrying kind.  Everything for him is show.   His wife is a supposed ex-lesbian.  But I have known people who were gay who married with each 1 doing their own thing.

When I first encountered this it was a couple of the weirdest 2 people I had ever met.   The guy was flamingly gay… and between them they did have a child.  I really don’t know how she managed it?

But I figured out that they had been great friends and this is what laid the foundation for them agreeing to get together as husband and wife.

I also remember when once a lover of mine had been offered quite a considerable about of money from a man, who at the time was a boss of mine (he owned the radio station).  His son was very very gay and the father wanted a grand child… an heir or something I guess.  So, he proposed an offer to my girlfriend of this substantial amount of money to marry his 1 and only child, this gay son.   And no she did not do it… as it was totally out of the question.  But the point here is… is that there are some people who will do anything in order to have their gay children reform… get married… have children… even if it means they will not give them or leave them a dime unless they do.  Then there are some people who get married for various other reasons… other than love.   It’s called a ‘marriage or convenience.’

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/hong-kong-billionaire-cecil-chao-doubles-marriage-bounty-to-80m-for-man-who-marries-his-lesbian-daughter-9080919.html

Well, God bless… it has been snowing… snowing…  And I have been out shoveling… shoveling…   I hope you have been keeping warm and dry.

I must say though… that all this snow is beautiful.

If you are out there in the snow please remember safety rules.  Drive with care and caution in the snow and ice.  Apply brakes when riding on icy roadways lightly… come to a nice and easy stop by slowing up.  Do not slam on your brakes… it will send your car sliding out of control.

I like this little cartoon  thing that one of my friends made.  I makes me laugh every time I look at it.

Guess I’m moving a little bit too fast.  I had all but forgotten about it being BLACK HISTORY MONTH.  So, in celebration of Black History Month let me just quick tell you about a young lady in England.  The youngest person to ever become a barrister (that is practicing lawyer in their terms).  Her name is Gabrielle Turnquest.  She is from the States, Florida to be exact… and she is just 18 years old.  Amazing.  To be young gifted and black… is definitely where it is at.

Happy BLACK HISTORY  MONTH….

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2385505/Gabrielle-Turnquest-Florida-18-year-old-youngest-barrister-UK.html

And let me not forget that this week Shirley Temple passed  (Shirley Temple Black) at age 85.  I cannot begin to tell you the countless Saturdays I spent watching Shirley Temple dance and sing her way down long stair steps… or try to cheer up a friend.  She was more than just a favorite… Shirley was my friend.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/chi-shirley-temple-black-appreciation,0,3833749.column

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20787230,00.html

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on…”  www.bsmith101.wordpress.com  ©2014

Add a comment February 15, 2014

JEDA and WILL… could it be coming to an end… Living in ‘the Life’ …

You would think that 1 of the hottest topics at the Atlanta Hair Show would have been about some fantastic hair-do… but it wasn’t. Way from it.

The buzz on the floor and from booth to booth was about Will Smith and Jeda Pickett-Smith.

I had long ago wrote a glowing blog about them being great role models and a beautiful couple… but who knew that all was not what it seemed?

They seemed to be the perfect couple.  Happy… and certainly with it all going on.  But who knew what dark little secrets lurked deep down within?

Who knew that it was at all as it was made to seem?

I thought them happy.  I thought them perfectly matched.  I thought that they truly loved one another.  I thought that there was nothing that could drive them apart. I thought…

Well, I thought all was well.  But it seems that it wasn’t.  And that it was far from being well.

It was my son that broke the news to me saying-

“It was all everybody was talking about.”

But who knew?

Well… I knew someone who knew… and she told me it many years ago saying-

“Awh, come on, Bern… don’t you see it. If you don’t then you are the only 1 who doesn’t.”

But I refused to accept it. But it seems that she was right… that same friend who I wrote about in my blog about the DeBarge family…  the 1 who I used to laugh with when we would giggle over, and pick fun at how sissy the DeBarge brothers all seemed.  Yeah, her…

So, I asked my son what were they saying?

And why?

And he said they got tired of having an open marriage.

I said –

“What?  What do you mean an open marriage?”

I was thinking he was talking about the usual kind of thing maybe some other woman … or possibly another man. The man part was right… but he wasn’t talking about Jeda.

It was Will.

And my son said that everybody at the hair show was talking about it.  Since the hair show was made up of a large number of gay men… I immediately began to think that this had to be true.  Because  gay men are in the know about such things as this.  And from men to women at the hair show… they were all buzzing about it.

I have yet to pull myself up off the floor behind this. Some things really do come as such a surprise… and this was 1 for me.  Though I have to say it again… my friend had told me it long ago, when Will was playing as the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire.

It was something I guess I never wanted to see… and perhaps way down deep I was hoping it wasn’t so. And I STILL AM.

I really thought Will and Jeda made for a great couple. They seemed to be great parents …and they seemed to place a high value on family.

Though I wasn’t particular about their new-found religious beliefs… and how after coming into all that money they decided that they wanted to convert into becoming members of the Church of Scientology. Which struck me as a Hollywood thang… for the $20 million plus crowd. Which Will stepped into many years ago after leaping from the small screen onto the large screen… with a massive following.

It is disappointing really. But I guess we are all chased by demons at some point or other in our lives. The trick is to not allow them to consume us.  And to fight until we win… and not them.

There seems to be a rash of men and women stepping into the gay lifestyle. For some it seems to be hip…even fashionable.  But for others it is something that they have been drawn into … whether by their own fascination …or by some type of inducement… enticement… inquisitive nature … or whatever have you.  And clearly I forgot about acts of abuse as another root cause for some.

But for whatever reason it seems to be growing. Or maybe it is that it is more open. Perhaps, the latter is probably the real case.

And it seems to me that I see so many young school kids making choices at early ages about such things. And many of them… especially the girls are deep into role-playing… meaning dressing or acting out the male role.

Having come out ‘the life’… meaning having been gay myself… I cannot help but feel for them. So, I study them and watch them… and can’t seem to take my eyes off them. Because I hate to see anyone commit their lives to something that is so anti-them.

I can’t say that I hated me. But I did hate what I looked like… hated my size… and I can’t remember what else. But I never really liked me.

I never thought I was pretty or anything like that. And my interest were not really in girl-ly things.

But I never desired to be a boy… and certainly not a man. I did like that part about me.

So, I never considered role-playing as an option for me… though for most of  my relationships with women …I was designated as what would have been the male role. Because even in not playing roles… somehow you end up in them. Somebody is going to be more fem …and somebody butch. And it is because that is how life is… and we imitated life and the various categories of life as 2 people together.

But I really get disturbed at seeing so many young people gravitating towards an alternate lifestyle. And particular those who are so young… young girls and boys in the 7th or 8th grade.

CLICK.  It has just dawn on me that I was in the 9th grade when some girl first started following me around… and later began to stick letters into my locker. How quickly we forget.

I rarely think of it now. Her letters turned into phone calls when she happen to come upon my sister 1 day… telling my sister that I had given her our phone number… and that she had lost it.  So, my sister accommodated her by giving  it to her again… or so she thought.

This is when I found out that all those mysterious letters in my locker were coming from a girl. It is funny because I never ever talked to that girl face 2 face… until much later in our lives. Because for 1 thing I was afraid of her…

I was naive and had never heard of 2 women …or girls doing anything together. .. sexually that is. And secondly… well… I just thought that she was crazy.

Once I realized what was going on I soon began to notice that that girl used to walk pass all my classrooms.  She used to just stand there outside my classrooms looking through the glass door at me.  She also used to sneak into the 9th grade lunch… as she at the time was only an 8th grader…  and she would always sit somewhere across from me… watching me… staring at me.  It is funny how I had never noticed her before… but then I had thought it was some boy sending me all those letters.

Though the girl never tried to hurt me… or ask me to do anything sexually… I nevertheless kept my distance from her.

Believe it of not I had actually finished this blog…BUT LOST EVERYTHING BELOw THIS.   So, at some point maybe I may come back and redo it.  But not right now …or tonight it  is after 4 AM…

So, please forgive me while I get some sleep.

Well, God bless…

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on…”  www.bsmith101.wordpress.com  ©2011

Add a comment August 24, 2011

First Michael… now Gary Coleman… Blanche… and the oil mess… Boycott BP

If seems that fame brings about a lot of  problems that many of us would really rather not have.  But so many only see the glitz and the gleam of the big bright lights…and nothing else.

They clamor to be in the videos, on the cover of the magazines, on the big screen, sitting on the Oprah show… or on somebody’s reality show.  They want it… want it… or 15 minutes of  it… if  that is all they can get.

Some people have committed various acts… including murder… shooting up high schools …bombing buildings …etc…  all in order to get their name in print and/or picture on TV.

Many have sought it… and many who found it have also turned and tried to run from it.  Because all that glitters is  really not gold.

If  many knew what that life was really like I doubt that they would pursue it.  It is a life filled with lots of ups and downs.  And plenty of  its own uncertainties… and always lots of money and work woes.

There are some things in the video clip above that you should play close…very close attention to.  First of all, is the lack of any real care or concern by the woman who claims to be Gary Coleman’s wife.

Second of all, when she finally does start talking to him…listen to how she speaks rather…barks at him like she is talking to a little misbehaving child instead of a bleeding and near dying husband.

Third of all, how she announced to the operator that her name is Shannon Price…and not Shannon Coleman.

And Fourth of all, how much more concerned about herself and what she can’t stand and what is going on with her… which seems to be of  far more importance to her than a bleeding Gary Coleman.

Is it possible that Gary Coleman may have fallen prey to a person he should have chased back and away from him…instead of marrying her?

After several episodes of  run-ins with fans who seem to have gotten too close to him,  where Coleman had been noted as being mean and evil towards them.  And often it ended up with him punching 1 or 2 of them in the face.

Then how did he hook up with this woman?

Is it possible that she allowed Coleman to lay there bleeding until he was near death…and then decided to call 911 for emergency assistance for him?

Is it possible that she may have hit him or… somehow or other brought  about brain hemorrhage  that brought about his death?

Is it possible that she ever loved Gary Coleman at all?

Not if  you go by what you hear during that 911 call.

Gary Coleman’s burial has been postponed… though the article said ‘cancelled’ …hmmmm…

What does that mean?

At any rate Gary’s parents have sent their people to step into the picture between that woman and Gary…on their son’s behalf.   I really feel for them.

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/06/exclusive-todd-bridges-ex-manager-begged-gary-colemans-ex-wife-not-pull-plug

I had always thought it sad when Gary went into court with his parents, who are really foster parents to him.  But I guess the only parents he ever knew.  And after it happened, I had always hoped that time would have healed that wound between them. 

It does happen sometimes in families.  In fact in many families it does happen.  Most families experience some type of  falling out one time or other.  But then there are those families that go to grave not ever speaking again after whatever happened came between them.

Those family members who mature and/or come to know that ‘there is nothing like family,’  they learn to but aside differences in order to not to continue to tear the family apart.  Many times it is hard but you have to do it ‘for the sake of the family.’   Otherwise, there will be tons of  regrets on both sides years later… and usually well after it is too late.

I had to learn through the grace of  God to put aside some things dealing with family issues in our family.  The things that set us at each other, and all the name calling… finger pointing …can’t override the value of keeping the family together.  You have to work at keeping the family together… because no amount of things or ill  will or words can compensate for it…family.

Family is important.

Unfortunately, Gary Coleman may have elected to turn his back on the 2 people who may have well loved him the most… to run into the arms of people who filled him up with a bunch of  ill advice and evil counsel.

On the other hand Dana Plato’s, the young girl on Diff’rent Stroks, foster mother struck me as being much like Patty Duke’s family and aunt, who saw her as being a gold mine.  The same could be said about the father of  the star of  the movie  ‘Home Alone,’  McCaulay Culkin.

It is sad imagining any child who has to endure a life among people who really do not love them… or who value more what the child can earn for ‘them.’  At some point I guess this is exactly what Gary began to feel… though I must say I never believed it about the people who called him ‘their son.’

Personally, I think there should be an autopsy done on Gary Coleman.  Something just does not sound or smell right.  It is kind of  like how I still feel about Michael Jackson’s death.

I think it was murder.

And it would seem that he… Gary did still have  some money.  Look at what he was driving.

Michael Jackson was a young teen boy when people got in between him and his family too.  Over time and perhaps even out of  some degree of  necessity on both parts… their’s and his… they slowly came back together.  Because at the end of the day…family is all you have when you get right down to it.  All you have got to depend upon.

Perhaps, near the end of  Gary’s life he realized that too.

Going through pictures of  Gary Coleman, I can see that there were times when he wasn’t doing so well healthwise.  I produced a documentary on dialysis a while ago.  Before it I had never heard the word dialysis before or even knew that there people who could not urinate on their own due to problems with their kidneys.

But I had an aunt who started needing dialysis treatments due to her diabetes.  Through her I came to find out about the illness and how it ate away at  those who had to depend upon it.

In this picture you see a darker Gary Coleman.

Well,  that is one of the side effects of  dialysis.  Another is the obvious swelling of  his face… and the ashy-ness of  his skin tone.  Do you notice how his eyes appear to almost  be shut?

He does look sick doesn’t he?

With so many health issues due to his kidneys since being a young child and straight through his life… which also stunted his growth greatly… and other problems… it is not hard to see why Gary Coleman was as he was.  Though such adversity in the lives  of others has caused them to not only raise above their circumstances…but to truly go for the stars in ways that Gary did not.  They turn their circumstances around by working to benefit the lives of  others.  But it seems that  Gary could not rally that kind of strength.

He seemed to be alone in the world… and the 1 person left for him to depend upon wouldn’t even help him in his final hour of  need.   What a tragedy…for him …and maybe even for us.  As none us tried to help him either.

http://www.popeater.com/2010/06/04/gary-coleman-funeral-canceled/

If you would like to read the 911 call put in by Shannon Price, you can CLICK on the LINK  BELOW.

http://www.popeater.com/2010/06/04/gary-coleman-funeral-canceled/

I will never forget watching her taking some award where she graciously stepped to the mic  to said a few words to the teacher who told her that she would never make it as an actress.  It is amazing the things we remember.

Of course like millions I too sat watching nights of  Golden Girls.  Who didn’t love ‘ma’  Estelle Getty…or  Dorothy her larger than life daughter.  And that ditizy Betty White… and that over-aged sex kitten Blanche.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/arts/04mcclanahan.html?src=me

I had a lover… someone I lived with for over 9 years who loved to watch television.  She stayed in front of  it.  And Golden Girls was one of  the shows in the evening she would tune in to.

So, of course, over time I became quite familiar with them all.  The sassy Blanche, the dim-wit Rose and   Ma… and Dorothy.

One by 1 they are slowly departing this place.  First Estelle Getty, then  Bea Arthur,  and Rue McClanahan and leaving Betty White.  All of them better known by their character names… Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia…the Golden Girls.

And then there was 1…

Early this week Rue passed too…leaving Betty White as the lone survivor of  their lively cast.

Betty is lively as ever…spunky… and I guess you can even say sassy at times too.  She is hard at work on another series… and really hasn’t stopped working since her Golden Girls days.

Today there are reality shows… and shows about people trying to win a million dollars.  It all became so boring to me that I stopped watching TV a while ago.  And truthfully… I have not missed it.  Besides, as an adult person my schedule is way too busy for me to be sitting down and watching television.

Didn’t intend to write so much.  Now, I have a movie that I want to watch.

So, you have a good night… and a beautiful day tomorrow.

Update Saturday, June 5th:  I awoke this morning having left my son’s laptop up on some news items on the oil spill in the Gulf.  Listening to it… 1 news broadcast on the oil spill after another… the impact of  the breath of  this oil spill has finally really hit home to me.

The British people in the upper level of  BP really were such big liars.  They lied about everything… saying that they had it contained…that it was not going to hit the shores…and that it would not impact the local environment.   In the beginning that BP top guy was passing the buck of  responsibility on to someone else… some other company… and that it was not their oil rig at fault.  Their oil rig that had failed to have all the safety measures that by law they should have had in place. Yet other lies by BP.

Now, the oil slick has hit Florida and is on its way out into the Atlantic Ocean if  the clean up  doesn’t speed up and can’t contain it any better than BP already has.   It all makes me think about the Republican Convention during McCains’ run for the Presidency against Obama.  Where they walked around with ton of signs and cries of-

“Drill, baby…drill,” could be heard all over that convention floor.  The Republicans were excited about going out and digging more oil rigs… even stating that they would go into protected environmental areas to do so.

This is the video new items that awoke to.  And believe it became crystal clear to me that what is going on in the Gulf of Mexico right now is surely going to impact us all.

http://video.pbs.org/video/1499276788

It seems to me that we should all be boycotting BP gas stations.  And it is upsetting to me that this company is not even an American company.

How is it that a British oil company owns oil rigs in our own home waters… while we are seeking oil from foreign shores of countries such as those in the Middle East?

If we have oil right here in America then we should be producing it and controlling it for our own use.  And particularly since these oil rigs are so dangerous and can impact us in such a way as this gushing BP oil rig in the middle of  the Gulf of  Mexico.

Yes, I am advocating that we all boycott BP…it is time that they started feeling it in their pocketbook.  Perhaps then BP might realize that they can’t come into America and treat Americans any kind of way…or endanger us without a hefty price.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37463005/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf

God bless.

THE BISHOP’S WIFE  is now on sale…

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on…”  www.bsmith101.wordpress.com  ©2010

Add a comment June 5, 2010

Making the most of my day… Mothership and Parenting… Michelle O’ working soup kitchen line…

I must say…if I have to say so myself…that I am so proud of me today.  Oh…I mean this morning.  I do not know what time I got up but by the time I laid back down…it was only 7:57 AM. 

I got up and had my Cream of  Wheat.   And yes…I am still enjoying it.  I had me a cup of tea…and read my Bible and then laid back down.  A few minutes later…perhaps an hour later…I got up again.  I pulled out my bucket…got the scrub brush…and pulled out the cleaners and scrubbed down the kitchen again…then I hit the doors and wall in the small hall leading towards the bathroom.  I sprayed down and lightly scrubed down the bathroom…and left it soaking. 

Wow…yeah….  I think I should be proud of myself…and it is not even noon yet.

There is something about getting up early.  You will get so much more done for some reason or another…if you get up and get started early.  There is just something about getting up early…there really is.  I do not know what…but that makes you work a little bit quicker and harder…and you just acheve more.  And now I feel so good.  And so…so proud of myself for taking care of my parent’s house in their absence.  For me having gotten up early today..and gotten started the very first thing this morning.

I have been busy working on building my website for the past couple of weeks…and the pages are coming along well.  I am really impressed with the pages that I have created thus far.  A few years ago I decided to begin taking some graphic arts classes. 

When I was in New York and started my own homebased business, an advertising agency, Queen Bee Multi-Media Advertising Agency.  I used to hire students from the campus right around the corner from my apartment…Pratt Institute, to do artwork for me.  Pratt has a very high reputation as a good art school…which I never knew at the time…but the students on that campus turned out some fantastic work for me.  I never went to see a client without feeling proud of our presentations which they had prepared under, of course, my direction.

I represented schools, furniture stores, boutiques, concert promoters etc…  There is little about advertising that I do not know about…having also a history in radio sales, media buying, telemarketing, product placement…etc…etc…etc…  But I had always had an artistic bug.

When I was a child, I had begged and begged my mother to buy me a home study art school course.  After begging for some time my mother finally broke down and ordered it for me.  That home study art school cost $300…and my mother ordered it for me.  As much as I begged for it…I only did one lesson of that course.  

Eventually, I gave away one of the books…of which there had been 3.  They were very big and thick…in a large binder…bound in expensive red binding filled with my untouched drawing lessons…and I gave away one of the 3 large lesson books and never touched those books again.  Something that my mother had sacrificed to buy for me…and that I had begged and begged for it.   And I did nothing with it…short of giving it away…and back then $300 was an awful lot of money…that really had to have been a sacrifice.   But she did it for me.

I guess she always recognized that I had talent…that I was gifted.  Though she would have done no less for any of my other sisters or brothers…and did.  As we all had to take music lessons…and all had various interests.  She had bought us all our own instrutments which she had purchased for us one Christmas. 

I will never forget that Christmas…which was our musical Christmas.  My mother must have bought everything the music store had.  Whoever owned that music store must have loved her.  That Christmas morning when we awoke…we found a large electric keyboard, piano, drum set, guiatar & amp and accordian all up under our Christmas tree. 

Before the day was out I had mastered that keyboard and could play several songs on it.  The next day that keyboard was gone.  My mother replaced it was a real full size organ.  I think back on that now and believe that she did it…because it had posed no real challenge in order to learn.   Today both the piano and the organ are still here in the house with me…and nobody plays a note on them.  That is not to say that they cannot play them…they just do not bother to do so.

My father, who had a saxaphone, a ukalie and a trumpet…which you could hear him practicing on sometimes late at night…he made me play the accordian.  When he would come home from work…I would have to pull it out  after he ate dinner that is when he forced me to practice…night after night.  None of my sisters or brothers had to practice anything before him…but me.  And he always would fall asleep on me. 

The accordian which was under the Christmas tree was my 2nd accordian.  It was the bigger version of what they had already gotten for me before a year or so ago.  And I went out every week to accordian lessons for years. 

I hated the accordian.  I loathe pokas.  I wanted to play the piano…and in the beginning I had both piano and accordian lessons.  But daddy wanted me to play the accordian…and we never argued against my mother or my father’s wishes.  So, then my piano lessons were stopped.  

As I stated in an earlier blog…our piano teacher was also my mother’s voice instructor…a little white woman who used to pay a couple of visits per week to our home…Mrs. Marlow.   She was a very nice lady…and she knew her stuff.   We were fortunate to have her.   And that she didn’t mind coming to the home of black folks…though we lived well.  At that time my parents had bought their 2nd house.  This house had 15 rooms not including its full basement…and the house sat upon a hill overlooking the waterfront…with a long driveway leading in to our house.

I liked the house…but not as much as our other house.   But it was grand…and it was spacious…but it was far more for us to clean…and especially for me…being the oldest. 

Oh, man…the living room had windows all the way around so you could look across at the water no matter whether you stood or sat.  And it had a very big fireplace…where we used to roast marshmellows…as though we were at camp.   It was fun.  And that house also had a raspberry tree growing in front of it, with a big lawn and all these beautiful trees with branchs swirling within it that yielded beautiful blossoms in the spring and summer.  

I liked it…but it was a lot of work that house…and none of my sisters or brothers had to do more of it than me.  I never held that against my parents though.  But I did against my sisters and brothers though.  They could never just drink from ‘one’ cup…or ‘one’ glass…I was washing dishes all day and night long.  I truly know how Cinderella felt.

My parents were hard working people…who always did things for other people…and were always doing  for us.    Their lives centered around us.  Which is why I regret never appreciating them as much as I should have. 

I appreciated them…in that I never once caused them any problems…(well…except for the time I thought I could drive…I will tell you about that in some other blog, I am sure).  I can’t say I may not have been a heartache…because I am sure that my being gay was not something hard for them to deal with…though they never once spoke about it.  I am sure they would be surprised that I am no longer in gay life.   But perhaps they had already known that at some point God was going to change my mind and my heart. 

But I never gave them as much as I should have.  Though they gave us the world…and everything else.  There was nothing new that came out that they didn’t buy…from dishwashers on.   As we became of age they bought us all cars.  And we were always going on trips. 

We went to the World Fair…

Do you remember that?  

It was here in the states…in New York City that year.  Now, only the big globe of the world remains at that site as a reminder of that very huge event.  The location today is where they play the US Open.  

But we were going to this place and that place…by train mostly when we were smaller…as we grew and learned to drive…mostly by car…and on by plane.  They took us everywhere…and everything was a family thing. 

I guess they lived the life that people who work…live for.  To be able to buy whatever they wanted…when they wanted it…and to do as they wanted.  And then…to be able to educate and provide for their children…which they certainly did.   And they did it well…as well as, for their god children, neighborhood kids, church people…and those in need. 

My parents had 8 of us…and spared nothing…including correcting us when it was called for. 

Today, I think my mother would be proud to know that her $300 investment in me…really didn’t quite go wasted.   As I later taught art in high school…which is so funny that should have happened…but it did.  But I don’t think my mother saw any humor in my wasting her $300 the way I did…because I didn’t even try to pretend to do any of those lessons from that home art school once I got pass the 1st lesson. 

One day…I think I was asking her for something else and she flared up at me suddenly saying-

“You are too talented and that is why you will never do nothing.”

Which was the tail end of whatever else she had said…I cannot remember the first part of it.  But she was mad when she said it.  And I was quite young…but somehow that always stuck with me.  I don’t know if I quite understood what she meant…but I had somewhat of a clue.  That statement has made me look at everything I have ever done…or thought to do…and it governs the things I am now doing. 

Everything I have ever done is in media.  From that day…when my mother told me …‘that is why you will never do nothing’…I have sought to not  half learn anything…or half do anything…but to become proficient in everything I lay my hands to…no matter how long it takes me…or how many hours in a day or night.  But if I set out to do it…then to stick with it. 

I had to learn how spend the time learning to perfect things.  To not get up from anything that I am doing…becoming readily interested in other things…other gifts…practicing something else. 

I do not eat or drink when I am working on something.   Nor do I take lunch breaks…or go to the bathroom…nothing.  I am throughly engulfed. 

Someone, an ex-,  told me that I have tunnel vision.  Meaning whatever it is, at that point or moment of my life, that I decide that I am going to do…I become so emerged and engrossed in it.  So much so…that I only see it…think about it…and in some cases dream about it.   I eat…sleep…and drink thinking about only what I am doing…when I am working on something.  When I had my advertising business…which I still do…there have been many nights when a client’s project concept came to me in my sleep.

A wise elderly woman…my friend who passed this pass August…whom I have wrote about in a couple of these blogs…she told me that my habit of not eating or going to bathroom from morning into the very late hours of the evening was not a good thing.   She told me that I would ruin my stomach…if I continued that practice.  So, I have since been working on adjusting myself…my schedule and my body.  I would hate to cause myself any medical conditions that I could have avoided.  I had always found her wise in her counsel to me.

Yes, I was too talented…like my mother said.  I could do a lot of things…and still can.  And there is a trap to being able to do so.  Most people are good at just one thing.  So, they focus on that one thing.   But to be multi-talented or gifted…you have to struggle with balancing your gifts. 

I had to learn to direct all those gifts…or I would have become a ‘jack of all trades…and a master of none.’   

My mother saw that…and that is what caused her to flare up at me telling me what she did that day…and how she told it to me.   From that moment I began to focus upon everything I do…like these blogs which to date I have written nearly if not more…than a 130 of them since starting in mid to late June of last year.   So, if you have just started reading them…you have alot of catching up to do.  And you will have an exam in the morning…

I have always had to direct everything…just so I wouldn’t be all over the place.  Though I do not think I have quite been so successful at doing that…I have endeavored nonetheless.  But the most I can say…is that it has all been media related.  But thank God for my mother saying that to me…and at a time when I needed to hear it…or I would have never been aware of something that was so crucial for me to grasp…and to have graspped it early.

It did not prohibit me from being more or less talented.  But made me aware that I needed to channel those talents and not be flighty with them…but to engage them…focus them…and develop them to their highest levels.  So, through my years that is what I have been doing.  And from time to time…I find myself taking classes here or there…just like my mother.  

That is so funny…when I think of.  That I continue to take classes just like my mother…which is also something that I wrote about….in a blog or 2 prior to this one. 

So, a few years ago, I decided to take some graphic art classes.  The marketplace has changed so vastly with the influx of computers and software…everything is done totally differently today no matter what field you are in.  So, I began taking these classes…and when I take classes I invest many after hours outside of the class to master the thing. 

I do nothing without mastering it…and I invest the time to do exactly that…and the effort.  Which when I decided to learn video production… it required me lugging around tons of heavy and very bulky equipment.   It was not uncoummon to find me shouldering a 3/4″ video recorder deck, tripod, large light kit and large video camera trying to board a bus.  And people wonder why I have muscles now…(smile).   And I learned all that equipment…every piece of it…every cable connector…every cable…every kind of editing system, software etc…everything.

It was a joke then…people would see me coming and say-

“Here comes Spike Lee’s sister.”

They don’t laugh any more though.  No, not today…instead they ask about my film projects and what I’m getting ready to do next.  I am no longer a joke…but it did not come without struggle.  Hours upon hours of vested  time, training, exploring…learning what I was doing wrong and trying to trouble shoot on my own…and sitting there until I got it done.  Never looking for pay…but always looking to assist others so that I could learn more and sharpen my own skills.  But I did what it took…and I still do. 

Sometimes even in writing these blogs…I work on them straight for more than 6 or 10 hours…if not more…and it is usually more dependng upon what I am writing about…including searching for pictures…seeking out errors etc.  

A professional is what I am…but a perfectionist is what I seek to be.  

So, to date the classes I have taken in graphic arts are these…Photoshop, Quark and  Illustrator…and additional software I have learned is FinalCut, Adobe Primere, Director, Flash,  Dreamweaver, Avid,  Fireworks…not to mention being able to write and read html…and having learned also all the latest stuff in radio studios.  Though I played a bit  with Freehand and at some point will try my hand at InDesign.  I love playing with this stuff…exploring the capabilities.

So, I am proud of myself  for having gotten up early this morning and gotten off to an early start with my cleaning.  I am proud that the website is coming along too.  And here is a preview , at the bottom of this blog, of something which I did this past week using the skills I have learned in graphic arts.  Those Pratt students can eat their hearts out now.   But those kids taught me a lot though…when they used to come for our conferences to discuss what my clients wanted.

Thank God for my mother and father…which is why I cannot understand that girl in Florida who killed her daughter and posted drawings of skeltons and other things symbolizing her acts.  Clearly, she was troubled.  But a guilty conscience will trouble you everytime.

There is something about mothers…real mothers…that when their child is missing nothing in this world can contain them.  They act in a certain way…they become obssessed…and there is no consoling them.  They are overtaken by grief and concern…and they are not interested in anybody or anything other than finding their child.

Once my son got separated from me.  You will not know the sheer horror that ran all through me during that very brief span of time…but it seemed to me to be enternity.  I was terribly horrorified.  I was overcome and on verge of perhaps loosing my mind.  I had lost my child in a large crowd of people at an outdoor affair which was quite crowded.  One second he was right there with me and the next he was gone. 

I felt someone had stolen him.  And that was all I could think.  I did not know which way to turn.  People were all about me.  I thought to scream out…but suddenly I looked up and across the field.  It was as though a  path had opened up…and there was my son.  One of  our neighbors had found him somewhere in the midst of all those people…and was bringing him back to me.  

I dropped to my knees and embraced my son so hard…I know I must have been crying.   I was so relieved…so happy…so overjoyed that someone had found him…and that it was one of our neighbors.  I never experienced another moment like that…as I learned like every good mother who loves her child or children…how to keep my eyes or hands on my child at all times. 

So, I certainly know the state that a real mother can fall into just believing her child is gone.  She begins grieving immediately…because she will only think of the worst scenario.

That is what I thought about the Susan Smith case.  The mother down in South Carolina…or somewhere south…that said that some black man had leaped into her car while she was stopped at a stop light.  She said that he had stolen her car and drove off with her 2 small children in the back seat.  I do not think that many people had to think twice about that story…but it was her actions following the supposed incident which gave her away.  And likewise…were the actions of this young woman in Florida.  She was out partying and having a good time.  

http://news.aol.com/article/caylee-anthony-documents/373178

When I thought of this young woman’s actions following the supposed disappearance of her 2 year old daughter…it made me think of that teenager who was at the prom and gave birth to her baby in a bathroom stall.  And how she had walked off and left the bady there in that stall.  She had returned to prom dance floor…and continued to dance and enjoy herself as if nothing had happened.  For which she only got 2 years…or something…might have been counselling.

I understand denial.  I understand that mothership may be difficult for many.  But what I do not understand is when someone…a mother…or who be it…commits such acts as these young women against innocence.  I cannot understand it.   I just can’t…I just can’t…   There are so many other options.

Parenting is a process…but some people they are just not equipped or mature enough to handle the responsibilities that it brings.  This is the reason…that I know that young kids should never be bearing children.  Everybody deserves to enjoy their youth…and have a time to grow up before taking on the task of motherhood and fatherhood way beyond the grade school level…and many times even beyond college.  I was 48 years old before I realized that I had become a woman…and that I needed to grow up and start acting like one.  Truthfully.

Not  to say…that I did not mother my child.  Oh, no…  I was at doctor’s appointment, dentist appointment…sitting in the back of  of my son’s classes when I had to…at every open house almost…and when I wasn’t my mother was.  You have to stay on top of your children (just a frame of speech…not literally)…and certainly not in a bad way.  But you have be conscious of them…what they are doing…who they are with…caring of them…and for them.   And you should never feel that they are an inconvenience to you…and certainly never give them to feel that.  

Therein lays the problem for the 3 young women whom I mentioned above.  They felt that they could just rid themselves of their unwanted burdens by doing away with them.  How sad for their children.  How very very very sad……..  Sad.

I was checking through my blogs today…I watch to see what people are reading and who has linked up with me etc…  I came upon this link in which the blogger found fault with a person who was standing in a soup kitchen line…and that person having a cell phone.  The blogger felt outraged because the person was supposed to be down and out…yet he had a cell phone.

I found that to be as selfish…as a time I was waiting in the grocery checkout line.  I never pay attention to what other people are buying…but this person near me…I believe she was just ahead of me but after the person who was checking out.  I overheard her saying-

“Did you see that?  She’s buying shrimps with foodstamps.  And do you see her pocketbook?  Honestly, buying shrimps on our money.”

Overhearing that, my curiosity was pricked…so I leaned a bit and saw that the woman had a Louis Vuitton handbag…a very nice and big one…and very nice expensive coat.  These are things I also never pay attention to.  What do I care about what people have on…as long as they have on clothes…or what type of pocketbook or handbag they have?  

It doesn’t make a difference to me.  

But I thought it a bit aburd of that the woman making the comment…that she was upset about the shrimps being purchased with the government supplied foodstamps.

Now, how stupid is that?

Even if she had gotten upset over the woman’s handbag…that would have been stupid too.

But she got upset…as if  poor people can’t…or should not be allowed to eat shrimp.  And that is not to say that that woman was poor…as none of us standing in that line knew her circumstances.  But to question what people can or cannot eat depending upon what is or is not our preceived notion of them and as to their place or circumstances in life is absolutely foolish. 

Why should that woman in that line…or anyone else in that line…or the whole store, for that matter…care whether or not that woman paid for those shrimps with her foodstamps?

Or whether or not she should eat shrimps or not?

She can eat whatever she wants.  And she had legal tender by which to purchase it.

Perhaps, it is just me.   Maybe, I’m the one obssessing.   Could be…

But I think that some people concern themselves with so many things that really…that they have no right to be thinking about.  As it is simply not their concern…or any of their business…nor their place to assess who can eat or cannot eat whatever. 

Just how dumb is that? 

But that is how I felt about that blog about a supposed poor person standing in a soup kitchen line taking a picture with his cell phone.   And here is that picture…

Yeah, he was standing in a line that Michelle Obama, First Lady Obama, was assisting in at a shelter kitchen feeding needy people in Washington, DC…which I believe she does every Friday.  I imagine a bunch of people were taking her picture including the camera crew that got these shots.  If I was there…I would have taken her picture.  And then asked her-

“Can we get one together?”

And whoever wrote that blog probably would have done the same thing. 

How many times do you come face to face with the President of the United States…or his wife?

“Better start snapping, baby.”

But why should anyone feel that other people…black… checkered….green…poor… or otherwise are not entitled to have certain things?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/05/at_miriams_kitchen_michelle_ob.html

That really seems stupid and quite selfish to me…and certanly demeaning.

It is the way I feel when I hear someone say-

“Well, if they couldn’t afford the mortgage they shouldn’t have bought the house.”

 And I have heard this more than a few times…particularly following the last bailout of the banks on Wall Street. 

Did not your parents struggle?

Don\’t we all struggle to pay off stuff?

Most people do.  And they are not wrong to do it.

I believe that everyone wishes they had the money to buy and pay for everything that they want…when they want it…or need it.  But that is not how life is. 

The unfortunate thing about it…is that no one knows what tomorrow will bring.  And we are all looking towards tomorrow. 

When I looked upon house after house..and business after business boarded up in Detroit…I know that those people had been looking towards tomorrow.  But none of them realized that when tomorrow came it would mean that jobs would be cut back.  They did not see that the company they worked for…that their father and grand father had worked before them…that they would be downsizing or laying them off.  Or as they call it now…’re-organizing.’

Who thinks like that? 

 The wrong does not lay with them…most of the people who find themselves in foreclosure…it lays with the mortgage companies which preyed upon people with over inflated interest rates…red lining, offering higher rates to certain people…higher closing costs…a bunch of double talk and small print…with high late payment penalties…and absorbent legal costs which they love attaching to their costs.

I don’t know if any of you have ever had anything repossessed.  But once they repossess your vehicle or house or whatever…the company then comes back at you to extract the money even though they repossessed and sold off whatever it was…and they leave it sitting on your credit reports for years upon years hindering you from getting anything else.   This clearly is double dipping…and these companies…none of them should be allowed to do that. 

Once they have repossess the object…and they have sold it off that should settle the debt.  But no…they come back after you.  And not for the debt minus whatever they got for it…but the entire debt plus all other costs. 

A friend of mine who worked for Greyhound buslines once told me how she had been sold a faulty vehicle.  She said it was a real lemon from the day she pulled it off the dealer lot.  So, she returned the vehicle several times to the dealership who in turn never did anything fix the problem. 

Finally, she became tired of trying to deal with the auto dealer…and just returned back to the car to the dealership where she had bought it.  She said that she drove right up on the lot in the middle of the day and left it there.   She stopped making payments on it…telling them as she left the lot that they could keep their car. 

Years later, however, she noticed that her pay was being garnished…it was the dealership.  They had kept the car but now they were forcing her company to withdraw payments from her pay check in order to pay them for a car which she had given back to them.  And at this point…she just folded her hands and gave up.  She let the company take her money…because she felt that it was a hopeless situation.  

There is something seriously wrong with the system that allows companies to use these kind of tricks to get over on and rob people.  Companies like that dealership abuse…exploit and use the system…to their benefit…a company that knowingly sold her automobile which was not in sound operating condition…and they knew it.

I had asked her if she hadn’t gotten the notice to go to court?   And she told me that she had not.  Without going into court to defend yourself…as I have stated in another blog…the other side wins automatically.  If summoned to go to court…go.  It is scary…yes, but go.

The most that can happen is that the judge won’t decide in your favor. 

There is always a case that you may not receive the  summon…if they have it sent to another address.   These are games that people play.   It is the game that CitiMortgage played against my parent’s property.   But they had not counted on the fact that I knew…by the grace of God…to go into court and file my own complaint against them…to stop the auction…and have since gotten that mortgage nullified and made void.  And believe me when I said…by the shear grace and mercy of God.  That is how it was done.

In closing let me just say…

“Stay away from bad deals.”

If you are interested in something…or getting ready to sign a contract for the purchase of  something and that contract is not in your favor…do not sign it.  Do not go into a deal…or debt…in any type of an agreement in which you are not at least a partial winner.  Or at the very least…where the pain is not so great. 

Sometime, we have all had to swallow a little pain…until we can fix things…like our credit.  But yet beware of the sharks…stay away from them.

In the claim I had to file against CitiMortgage…they claimed that my father had taken a loan against the house for some $27,000 at a 16.20%  interest rate.  This total agreement netted CitiMortgage over $60,000 in interest money…making the total contract for over $97,000 worth of debt against my parent’s house. 

My father would have never made an agreement like that.  And the other part of it is…he wasn’t much of a borrower.  Didn’t have any charge cards or anything like that…because he earned money to pay for what he wanted.  And that is what he did.

Nobody in there right mind would have signed a deal like that.  The company was making 3 times as such as it was giving out…that is robbery no matter how bad your credit may or may not be.  And my father did not have bad credit.  

I knew that document was a forgery even before I saw the signature upon.  So, I took the case to court…claiming that they had preyed upon my father, if indeed he had signed it.  At the time that contract was supposedly sign my father had been diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s which would have rendered him as being legally incompetent to enter any type of legal or binding agreement.  Plus my father had several bank accounts and definitely had at least one which had more money than that in it.   So, I sued…of which I wrote about in a prior blog also.

I continue to pray for you and whatever situation or condition you are facing.  Be encouraged.   And stay away from bad deals.

Well, my little siesta is over…it is time for me to go back to work.   Actually, it ended hours ago.  

I have to finish scrubbing down the bathroom.  And I am getting a bit hungry now too.   But enjoy your weekend.  

I just finished looking out and it looks like snow…again.  But it is warm on the inside.  Though it might be that I am running a slight fever.  Been fighting off a dry cough for the past few days…but I am winning.  Well…some times…I think.

Maybe, I will just finish the bathroom…take a shower and crawl back into bed…and forget about mopping the floors tonight.  It’s late now.

Well…God bless…

Oh…yes, here is a taste of what the website will look like.  Now, you tell me whether or not if  you think some of those classes that I have taken are starting to pay off? 

Thank goodness for a mother who was not afraid to speak truth into the life of her child.

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on “  www.bsmith101.wordpress.com  ©2009

4 comments March 8, 2009

Obama’s fight with the health Goliah… Corey Smith … Betty Nelson COGIC…

It is definitely clear that something needs to be done with the present health care system that we have here in America.  I don’t know maybe it is just me…but the system we used to have the one long ago sure seemed alot better than anything they have now.

A long time ago you used to go to the doctor…mostly general practitioners then.  Many of them did not even work out of a hospital or within some kind of medical facility.

No, they worked out of their house which they converted the downstairs into an office space, examining rooms and even had a waiting room…and they usually lived a few blocks away somewhere in the neighborhood.

But one thing about them though…you only had to tell them a symptom or 2…and those doctors…who were known back then as general practitioners…they knew right away what was wrong with you.

Now, today they have specialist after specialist…and  nobody knows anything.  Nobody can tell you anything.  They all say-

“I don’t know.  But lets run some tests.”

Now, how come the little old private practitioner could tell you exactly what was wrong…and all these big time fancy surgeons and specialist can’t tell you a thing?

What don’t they teach anything in medical school anymore?

Besides…how to make money?

There they sit in their big plush medical facilities…or hospitals…or whatever in white crispy starched shirts with their smocks on looking all official…but they don’t know nothing.  Except how to keep you running back and forth while milking you out of every dime your medical plan will pay them.

The other thing about things as they are today in the medical field that gets me…is REFERRALS.

Hate ’em.

I can’t stand the way the present system is set up.  You can’t go anywhere or see anybody unless some doctor gives you a referral.  And then you can only go where they will allow you.  Or you have to beg and beg  just to be referred with the hopes that somebody else can tell you what is wrong with you.

So, yes…this system is in dire need of correction.

I had been experiencing excruciating pain in my right arm a while back…and I truly mean excruciating.  I had no idea what it was but it was constant severe pain 24/7…and it grew measure by measure.  Finally, I realized that the pain was not going and I could no longer bear it…so, I got out and went to see a doctor.

The doctor asked if I had shoveled any snow.  And I told him no.

Then he asked me had had I lifted anything heavy.  And I told him no.

Then he asked me-

“Well, have you done anything which could have caused the pain?”

Well, if I knew that I wouldn’t have gone to see him.

Finally, he said well go home and if it persists come back and see me.

And I did…a whole week later…where he again sent me on my merry little way after asking a few questions.

Have you ever watched the second hand on a clock ticking the time down?

That’s how my money was going.  Tick…tick…tick…visit after visit and my arm pain by now had grown way beyond unbearable.

It was like the 4th visit and still the doctor had not done one thing to help me or my pain…but take my money…or my plan’s money…which is my money.  As he was about to send me once again on my merry little way…I had a fit in that office.  And I mean…I HAD A FIT.   I started yelling and demanding.  The pain was too much for me to bear and my temperament was far beyond allowing me to continue in the state that I was in.

Now, I am a person who hates it when people tell me that I am yelling when I am not yelling.   Sometimes I may raise my voice a bit…but I may be a long way from  yelling.   I often have to caution people when they tell me that by saying-

“Oh, I haven’t started yelling yet.  But when I do you will certainly know the difference.”

But I started yelling in that doctor’s office…and mean I yelled.

I demanded a referral right then and there…to see a special…and told him that no I was not coming back again so he could continue to take my money while that pain was killing me…and for him to keep telling me the same thing.  I told him to give me that referral…and  give it to me now.

That doctor could not give me a referral quick enough.  And if he hadn’t…    Well, I was in so much pain I was prepared to start turning things over and throwing a few things in that office (I will have to tell at some other time about this restaurant where I did just that…and it was warranted).

I was in dire pain…and I do mean dire.  And I had had enough of this doctor and all of that going back and forth for him to have not done anything to help me.

The next week I was in to see an orthopedic.  Come to find out I had a torn rotary  cuff.   And I had to have surgery done to my shoulder…and that was scheduled a couple of weeks later.   But it took my getting upset in order to get it done.  And this is what people go through day after day upon visiting doctors today…continual trips to the doctor’s office without relief.

The real problem with the medical system is the ‘referral plan.’   It plays against the plan holders.  Doctors somehow seem to believe that they have the upper hand.  They do want they want and when they feel like it…because we have no control over the plans…and we need a piece of paper from a doctor to seek out any form of treatment from anyone else.

The plans control us…and doctors buy into the various plans knowing that they have a free and clear playing field…a cash cow as soon as you hand them your medical card.   Before when the doctor didn’t do what you thought was best…or if you thought that you weren’t getting proper care or service…you just got up and found yourself  another doctor.   But not so any more…those medical plans cut all of that out.

Also, before if you heard from a friend or someone…that this doctor over there was better…you just got up and switched…no referral…no nothing.  But you can’t do that any more either.  These plans have you locked into certain doctors…certain medications etc…etc…

So, there is little wonder why you can’t find a good doctor anymore these days.  Because they do not have to be…because you are not going nowhere no matter how they treat you…or not.  Because they won’t let you.  And this is what is really wrong what today’s system here in America.

Now, none of them need to be any good any more…because we do not have the right or the freedom to go see any other doctor who is better…all because of some stupid medical plan that has us all roped in to them which guarantees these doctors business no matter how bad they are.

So, yeah…Obama-

“Re-vamp the medical system.”

In my opinion the entire system needs a major overhaul.  And it is just too bad that nobody has thought of returning back to the system we used to have years ago where we were not treated like mindless little children.  Where we have freedom of will and could seek out the best care for ourselves.  Believe me…they would get their acts back together then…or starve.

I truly believe what somebody said a long time ago-

“If  it is not broken…don’t fix it.”

That is the principle which should have been applied years ago…then maybe now we would not be in the predicament that we are in today with all these large medical plans and pharmaceutical companies dictating things to us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/us/politics/06web-health.html?_r=1&hp

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=12341496&ch=4226713&src=news

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&d=12336205&ch=422676720&src=news

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090305/ap_on_go_pr_wh/health_care_overhaul

I was just thinking about the NFL football players, Corey Smith, Marquis Cooper and other man, who were lost at sea this past week.  For some reason my mind keeps telling me that the search team should have looked east of where they were searching.

I feel for them…and their families…and I have yet to give up hope for them.

The families were disenchanted when the coast guard called off their search of the missing parties the other day.  I could not help but think…that rather than waiting on the shorelines their families should have been out on those waters looking too.

It was not like those football players didn’t have money.  Sometimes you have got to mobilize your own efforts rather than leaving everything up to everyone else.  When you love and care for someone…who can be more determine or seek them out or more fervent in finding them than you?

Their boat flipped over casting the 4 boat members into the sea.  Last week one lone party of the boat was found siting a top of the flipped over boat.  It all happened in the Tampa Bay area…in the city of Clearwater which is an island sitting with one part of it in the Atlantic Ocean…and the other side in the Gulf of Mexico.  So, you can imagine the amount of territory that would they had to cover in their attempts in trying to find the 4 men.

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/29454121/

http://news.aol.com/article/missing-nfl-players/363480

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/football/sfl-flspboaters03sbmar03,0,6839198.story

Well, it seems that the families and friends must have read my mind…but they should have gotten out there searching from the very beginning.  But you can read more on that by CLICK the LINK below.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090304/ap_on_re_us/missing_boaters_nfl

There is this woman in the Church of God in Christ, by the name of Betty Nelson, who tells this story of her daughter.  She tells how her daughter had taken to a wayward turn in her young life.  She started hanging out and got caught up in drugs and things.

Her mother tried dealing with the situation as much and best as she could…but her daughter grew worst.  Harder to control and was totally out of order because the drugs and the wayward life had taken her over.  Eventually Betty Nelson said that her daughter ceased coming home.  And over this her mother shed many tears…and many long nights and days praying to God that her daughter would come out of the life she had fallen into.

Finally, Betty Nelson says that she decided that she was not going to let her daughter be lost to the streets.   She says she called out saying-

“Devil, you can’t have my daughter.  I don’t care what I have to do.  But I’m going to find my daughter.  And I’m taking her back…out of the drugs…out of the prostitution…out of…”

She says she hit the streets searching for daughter.  Searching and searching until she came to some crack house.  She says the place was run down…with people’s children laying everywhere all strung out on drugs…but she did not let fear overtake her.  She walked into that old broken down crack house and began searching through it looking for her daughter.  And in the midst of that house she found her daughter…all drugged out…and out of her head.  But she says she took her daughter out of there.  And she says that she dared anybody to try to stop her.

It is funny about a mother…with a made up mind.  She cannot be swayed when it comes to her child.

Today, Betty Nelson’s daughter is free from her addiction and is a living testimony of a mother’s love for her child…and how sometimes we as parents have to be willing to do the unthinkable…and the seemingly impossible in order to save our children from themselves.

I am a believer of  ‘tough love.’ But sometimes being too tough can prove to be worst…and have more dire consequences.   There must be a balance.  Be tough if it is required…but never unloving…or uncaring.

Gandhi Items Sold for $1.8 Million

It was an auction of  items once owned by Mohandas K. Gandhi, including a pocket watch and spectacles, which has touched off outrage in India as its government continues to talk with the items’ owner.

It seems that when you are dead everybody wants a piece of  you.

Had those items meant so much to the government of India it would seem to me that it would have tried to acquire them before the auction.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/india-rejects-owners-proposal-on-gandhi-items/?hp

Well, the Obama’s are working hard to ensure that their daughters do not miss one moment of enjoying their childhood…and rightly so.  The girls, Malia and Sasha were pleasantly surprised last week by a new addition in their new back yard.   And it looks like so much fun.  http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/ny-usswing0306,0,7640326.story

Well, the dignitaries are starting to come ‘a visiting.’  On yesterday, Gordon Brown the Prime Ministry of England came a courting.  It would be interesting to know exactly what they discussed.

The one good thing about Obama…and there are many good things about him.  But this I like best of all.  He is not a chump.  He walks, talks and carries himself like a man…and he is not afraid of speak up.  And another thing…that I like about him.  He is not a game player.   Not a person who relies upon lies and deceit to get over on us…the voters of America.

I guess that is what we all saw in him…and that is why he is now President of the United States.

I am so glad for a breath of fresh air…that breath of fresh air called Barack Obama.  I was beginning to suffocate.

Well, at last it stopped snowing and now we have mounds of it all over the place again.  But…yes…I LOVE IT.

Last night I made up my mind that I do not care how hot it gets this summer…I am not going to complain.  I will merely pull the fan a little closer…and remember this winter…all the snow…the cold…and furnace being blown.

So, yes…I love looking at the beauty of winter…but I will sure be happy when summer comes.  And weather like today’s…makes me long for it all the more.

Well, God bless…

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on” www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2009

CLICK the ABOVE video a COUPLE of TIMES and just ignore the text.

1 comment March 6, 2009

Appalling…

Last night I started thinking about something and it began to strike me as being funny.   And yes, the funny ha-ha kind of funny.   I thought –

“Wow, if I told my gay friends this they would fall over and die laughing.”

And they would.

So, then I tried to call one of them…one of my gay women friends but she wasn’t home.

So, then I thought to call another friend…and finally I called a cousin of mine who I knew would understand what it was that I had found to be so humorous.

I should preface this first by saying…I have never been funny.  I couldn’t tell a joke if they gave me all of Oprah’s money to tell one. 

This is what I felt was so humorous.  As you may or may not know I am saved and have been so now for at least six  or so years.  But during this time…I have run into some very strange things in the church.    Here in lays the joke…when I was in the club and hanging out I understood what it meant if I exchanged my phone number with someone.  It was one of the main reasons we hung out. 

Since having come out of gay life…I do not find it necessary for me to want to exchange my phone number with any woman and particularly any woman I don’t know.  Don’t know her name…and do not share anything in common with…just somebody out of the clear blue sky.  No.  

 And if you have ever been stalked…you too soon learn.   No.

While in the school library computer lab a couple of days ago, this woman who has stopped to talk to me on a few occasions came and began a conversation with me again…near the end she asked me for my phone number so she could call me.  Before I could think about what it was I was going to say…I blabbed out-

“No, I’m not giving you my number.”

To which the woman just grinned at me and asked me why not?

I had not meant to sound so…I don’t know what.  But I thought I had been a bit harsh in my response so I soften a bit.

Then the woman offered me her number…grabbed up a piece of paper and wrote down her number and gave it to me…to which I told her I would not be calling her.

But I recanted…somewhat and said…

“But if you want here is my number.”

And she gave me a piece of paper to write it on.  While I tore up her phone number and handed it back to her saying-

“Here.”

And with that the woman was gone.

I never thought anything of that incident until last night…and then I started laughing.  I have all of my life been naive.  It is something that all of my friends can clearly tell you about me.   It had never dawn on me from the moment that woman started talking to me…I don’t even know how long ago…that she was trying to hit on me.   It is funny but last night…while doing something…I can’t remember what…but that woman asking for my phone number came back to me.  And I started laughing…it struck me humorous.

Once while in church, I was called into one of the church hallways by a very older church mother.  I had no idea what she wanted to say to me.  From the point I had joined this church I had been friendly towards this very older woman.  I respect and have a great love for older women.   I loved my own grand-mother very dearly.  But the thing that this older called me into the hallway to discuss with me horrified me.  I was shock…and …and…   And…oh, I don’t know…insulted.  

Yes, I was insulted…that some woman older than my mother and grand-mother could have possibly thought that I was interested in her.  A woman who was very exceedingly old…with…with…     Well,  with false teeth…and…lots and lots of  wrinkles…and…   And…she was real old…and a church mother too?

It was absolutely appalling to me.  Who would expect such a thing from an old church mother?

What could have been going on in her mind?

 How could she have possibly have thought such a thing? 

This was so far fetch…and yes…again…absolutely appalling to me.  That when our conversation ended…where she had called me out into a hallway to talk to me… I went immediately to my friend, the one I wrote about in a blog earlier who passed, another church mother in this church with whom I had become very close to.  She was a friend… a confidant… a counselor…and  an ear to me and for me…and I told her.  The blog that I wrote about her was back in August 2008…if  you go back through the calendar to the right of this blog you can go right to it…if you would like to read it.

At any rate…I told mother about what the other  older  woman had just said to me.  I had thought about telling it to the pastor.  But mother said no.  She counseled me to not tell anyone and she told me to stay away from that  woman.  There is something which can be said about wisdom…it is wise….and wise always.  I did as mother told me…and have continued to do it even though that older woman seems to changed towards me somewhat…and though my friend has since passed.

In another blog I told you of another church woman…whom following the end of an evening service I offered her a ride home along with someone else.  I have always offered people rides…I do it as this is how I have been trained…my mother taught us.   When we were growing up before church service my mother had us up and out picking up people from the nursing homes and nearby towns to bring them to church.  And at the end of the morning service those people would go home with us to have dinner and then return back to church for the evening service…after which my mother had us take them back to their nursing homes or homes in nearby towns.  So, if  I am driving and I know I am going to pass near somebody’s house and that they do not have a car…I offer a ride to them and to as many people who can fit into my car.

But as I told you in a prior blog about this woman…as I drove up to her apartment.  And it was just me and her in the car…as she started to get out…suddenly  this woman turned back to me and gave me this kiss that even when I was in gay life I never allowed anyone to kiss me that way.  You know that all in the mouth…tongue…everything.    No…it was horrible.  I withdrew from her…and acted like I had not noticed…if you can believe that.

So, last night I thought of  the woman who wanted to exchange phone numbers with me…I thought of the very old church mother…and I thought of that woman who after service I had driven home…and I started laughing.  I thought-

“If my gay friends only knew this they would die laughing.”

Here it was I had gotten out of the life…meaning gay life.  And this was happening to me.

So, I called my cousin because none of my gay friends were home to hear this story…and I…I felt that I just had to share it with someone who could…and would understand what I was talking about.  So, I called my cousin.   And yeah…she understood.

She enjoyed hearing it and began to share some things with me as well.  And by the time I had laid down to go to sleep following my conversation with my cousin I had started to regret having called her at all.

She had taken too much pleasure in my little stories. 

But here is one of the stories she shared with me.

She told me of a church she used to go to where there were a group of older women just like the old church mother I had told her about in my story.  The only difference was…was that they had all become involved with a very good-looking young male who also went to their church.  As time went on the young male died…and he died from AIDS.   Thus the story broke about his involvement with some old church women in the church who were in their latter 70’s and 80’s.

Since Viagra…I understand that the nursing homes have gone crazy.   But the church too?

Though women do not need viagra…or anything else.

If you have been really reading any of these blogs which I have written…then you would know I find all of this absolutely shocking…appalling really.  It is unthinkable to me…that such older women would be behaving in such a way.  And the other part about it  is that they are so loose…that they don’t care who knows.

In hearing this, I said to my cousin-

“You know some people are just in church because their mother is or was in the church…or their father was in the church…or because they just grew up in the church and have nothing else to do.  Some are in the church because they want to find a husband…some because they want to find a good wife…some because they view it as a great networking opportunity.  So, they are just sitting in the church but they have nothing in them…they are just there.”

And I came to find out as we continued to talk that was also true of my cousin.

I had oftentimes admired her for how she could quote scripture and knew where stuff could be found in the Bible.  But I found out last night that that was about it…she could quote it.  Because she sure wasn’t living it.

Awhile back, she had told me of a guy in her church with whom she had a flirting relationship…but she kept saying-

“I just thank God for keeping me.”

This guy sent her pictures of himself…in the nude via their cell phones.  That right there spoke volumes to me as to character of the guy.

So, last night since my cousin had not said anything about this guy for a while, I asked her about him. 

 Yes…the flirtation was over.  She had done it…and that in of  itself was not what was shocking or appalling to me…because I knew it was going to happen.  She had told me how she had gone to Victoria Secret…well, need I say more?    

She had all the while been preparing to do it.   This mind you while she was thanking God for keeping her from doing it.  Yet, she prepped herself to do it.   So, yes…I knew she was going to do it…sooner of  later she and that guy were going to end up in bed with each other.  And they did…and evidently not with the results she had been hoping for either.

She is in her 40’s now…and she sometimes speaks about how she would like to get married.

It seems that very few people save themselves for marriage any more.   And that is quite curious to me.  I would think you would only want to give your husband the best.  Not something used up and all ran through already. 

Isn’t that suppose to be part of  the beauty about  marriage?

I guess I am just old fashion in my thinking. 

But then my cousin went on and commenced to tell about her female supervisor for which she would love to go to bed with…and that is when I started regretting having called my cousin. 

It is hard to believe that she is an active church member and is readily carrying on in such a way.  But her state is not unusual only to her…there are many fallen pastors to go along with all those old church mothers who seem to not be too old to want to get enough of sex either. 

It is disheartening to me…but it does not sway me.  I intend to stand.   I know that everyone may not know what that means…but there are many who do.

Talking about something that is also somewhat appalling.  Blagojevich.

You do remember him don’t you?

Well, he is rather hard to forget since the guy is popping up all over the place.  If we thought he was insane for trying to get paid-off for selling off the Obama Senate seat of the State of Illinois.  We  know now for sure that he is. 

He seems to be getting a charge out of his 15 minutes of fame that is what is really unbelievable to me.  It just goes to show that some people have no shame.  And Blagojevich is one of the biggest of them.   What ah…ah…(I hate to say this)…but what a fool.  And everybody is inviting him on their show…and he is loving every minute of it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2009/02/04/VI2009020401667.html?sid=ST2009020301282

And yes…   Why is it that people who know that they have issues which will probably be found out…such as having not paid their taxes. 

Why do they accept positions when they know that this information is going to be sought after and checked?

Is it that they secretly hate the people who approach them and say-

“Hey, have I got a great job for you.   And I believe you are the best person for it.”

Do they really hate these people so much to want to embarrass them for having asked you in the first place, Tom Daschle?

I don’t know who Ann Coulter is but clearly she either has issues or she lacks a large amount of understanding.  I had heard this interview with her on the View before…but at last I get a chance to comment on it.

It is interesting to me to hear any white person be critical of a black person for celebrating their blackness…or being African-American… or being a non-white person in America or anywhere else in this world.  Or celebrating the lives and legacies of other black folk.   

After years of  black folks trying become more like ‘them’ and less like us.  I think it was great for Halle Barry to accept the Academy Award in remembrance of all the black women who had stared in movies and never received anything…not even a nod in their direction for their great work.  And there were some truly highly fabulous and talented black women actors who had done some outstanding work…both on stage and screen..and now are little known for those efforts. While everybody knows Bette Davis and their other white counter-parts of the screen.

I also think that it is equally as great for Barack Obama to celebrate his blackness and to be proud of who he is and the forces behind him which have all aided in him getting to where he is today.

If Ann Coulter had grown up as a Halle Barry or a Barrack Obama…when people looked at them and didn’t see screen actor or president…but a little black girl or little black boy whom they didn’t want their little children associating with…much less playing with.   Then maybe Ms. Coulter might have a clue as to why they celebrate their blackness…which has and has always been a prominent part of their everyday lives.   (Also just DOUBLE CLICK on below screen to see and hear Halle make the best acceptance speech of the Academy of all times…and ignore the text that appears.)

Wow, having said all of that…and I am just realizing that it is “Black History Month.”   February will never be the same.

Well, I had to shovel some more snow today.   And I am not tired of it yet…though it was very cold out today.  But it is winter…and we haven’t had a real winter in such a long time.  This winter is making up for those past few years.  And I just love…just wish I could lite a fire in our fireplace.  But I rather be safe than sorry.   For now I will just enjoy looking over at my parent’s fireplace and dream ‘fire.’   Smile…and enjoy.

 THE BISHOP’S WIFE  is now on sale…CLICK this LINK to purchase my book.  You do not need a paypal account to purchase, and you can purchase using a debit card.  Thank you. 

Well, God bless…

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on” www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2009  

Add a comment February 5, 2009

Talented…

I had never heard a group that I thought more should have made it than these girls.

The Jones Girls…I really didn’t play much by them when I was on the radio…basically, because I was not the one programming the radio stations that I worked on back then.  But if I had…

It is hard to say exactly why their career as a recording group didn’t take off.  It certainly was not because they couldn’t sing.  Because they could definitely sing.  Nor was it because  they didn’t want it bad enough…because they did.   Nor was it because they were from the wrong place…because they came from the Motor City…Detroit.   And everybody comes out of Detroit.    Stevie Wonder is from Detroit…the  Clark Sisters are from Detroit…Rance Allen…Aretha Franklin…Temptations, Diana Ross, the Supremes…Motown…etc…  Almost everybody comes out of Detroit.

In fact, when I first saw or heard of the Jones Girls they were on tour with Diana Ross.   They were so good it was hard not to notice the singers backing up Diana in that show.  And then Diana showcased them…and I have never forgotten their names since that night.  They were more than just talented…far more.  And far better than just good.

And even the Boss Ms Ross knew it…who was far from being shabby herself that night.   And so didn’t Motown to have packaged the Jones Girls on tour with their diva of all divas at the time…Diana Ross.

So, then what happened?

I don’t know.   But whenever I hear ‘Nights over Egypt’….I think of them…those Jones Girls.

It sadden me to read last year sometime while searching the internet for something or other at the time….that one of the Jones Girls had passed some years ago.  And more surprising was the fact that she had died supposedly…based on the information I was reading…that she had died from sclerosis of the liver…due to alcoholism. 

What a sad end to a story I would have thought would have ended otherwise.

http://www.radiocafe.co.uk/jones-girls

http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/Respect2001.html

Valorie Jones died in Detroit on December 2, 2001…she was the middle sister of the Jones Girls.  She was 46 years old.

Have another young nephew who will be heading to DC for Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday.  And I am so happy.

It is so important for our young children to know that nothing can hold them back…block them…or stop them from achieving success in their lives but them…themselves.

I believe in successful living…and living well.   And to do that is very hard to achieve…today…without a good education.

There is something about accomplishments that make you feel good all over.  No wonder Barack Obama’s smile is as pretty as it is….he has managed to achieve one accomphishment after another.  And he never let anything hold him back…or let anybody tell him that ‘he couldn’t.’

 The sky is the limit.  Set your goals and start working towards them now…you just may surprise yourself. 

But remember to be deligent in everything that you do.  And never let anything bearing your name not be done to the best…or to its  highest level.

Well, God bless…

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on” www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2009  

For history on Diana Ross CLICK LINK BELOW.http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/r/diana_ross/index.html

Add a comment January 19, 2009

Trying to keep warm…

As I lay here trying to keep warm…and happy about not having to go outside and shovel any more snow.   But I love it.

I am so thankful that my parent’s house is still standing…that water is not leaking down through the roof…that the raccoons are blocked off from traveling downstairs to meet me in our back hallway…and that God  blocked my parent’s house from going up on the auction block earlier this year in March.

I have much to be thankful for…including not having suffered what I thought was an on-coming stroke or heart attack last week when my right hand started shaking very badly, and then just froze up on me.  And ultimately forced me to have to rush from my class to go directly to a hospital emergency room.

But after having endured that…this past weekend I was out shoveling snow straight up to the day before yesterday.  We are buried in it.  And I am loving every minute of it…and I am so blessed not to have to be spending my holidays in a hospital.

Though the weather is cold…freeeeezzzing to be exact.  It looks pretty.  No, beautiful to me…because if I take a notion…I can get up and go outside and walk through it…when I know that I should not be able to do so.

But in regards to my warmth…I keep looking at our fireplace wishing I  could make a big bustling fire in it.   But I am afraid of risking starting a fire in the wall of the chimney since we haven’t used it or had it cleaned out for a while.  But a big bright and warm fireplace lighting up our living room would be nice…and especially on days like this.  And even more especially since the furnace is still not fixed. 

So, yes the house is cold…but not as cold as it should or  even  could be.  Though the oven is on (and I am being very careful monitoring it)…and most of the doors are closed to block off the cold.  And I do have a portable electric heater (which I am also keeping a close eye on) which you really have do when you run electrical items overtime.  And then on top of it all…I still have hot water.  

So, I’m doing pretty good.  Thank God for the hot water.

And believe me having hot water is important. 

I will not forget how last year this time I was almost in the same situation though the circumstances were different.  From August straight through the  1st of January we had no gas.  This meant that there was not any hot water either…which is a very hard situation…and particularly for women.   Because unlike men…women must bathe.   Washing up is okay…but it is not the same.   And to do it for months…in freezing cold water… 

Well, let me just say it again…women must bathe.

So, I was forced to have to bathe in freezing cold 2 times a day…once in the morning before leaving out from the house and again once I got back in.  And this I did religously in the freezing cold of the house…and cold water only gets colder as it runs.   It was quite quite quite freeeezzzing cold.  In fact, it was far colder inside our house than it was at any point outside of it.  

I know I was miserable during all those days.   But thank God…He brought me through it.  And I got through it without a sniffle or a sneeze.

And so though I can’t light a fire in our fireplace…I am not as cold as I should be either…and no where near as cold as I was in this house  last year. 

I am blessed.   

And I am finally finished with all my classes and their assignments…I got everything in even though at times my right hand continued to occasionally act up.  But I made it through…and yesterday I returned to the school library 2 books that I owed them.

 So, I am in the house for the duration of the holiday…short of having to go back out to shovel more snow…or throw down some more salt if it gets slippery again.

I can’t imagine what the temperture outside is today.  But  I know it is in the low something.    It looks very cold and dark outside.   There is no sun anywhere to be found…nothing but snow upon snow. 

It is like a freezer outside.  So, I am inside…trying to keep warm.  But I am loving it…because God has been good to me.

Remember those who have less than you and who may or may not have a roof over their heads…or a car in their garage…or food in their refrigerator…or in their pantry…or a coat to put on…or electricity…or gas to heat their home.    Let us pray for them…and keep them lifted up in our prayers throughout the year.   They would love to be in my situation I have no doubt.   So, I have nothing to complain about.   I’m blessed. 

Yes, I am blessed…and very highly favored.  And I thank God for His ever loving mercies.

So, whatever your holiday plans are…be careful and enjoy those whom you love.  And may God grant you to step into a wonderful 2009.   I am looking forward to it…and all the God has in store for me.

And always be mindful…that there is nothing like family.  And nothing at all like a good family…definitely worth more than gold.  

We pray also for family unity…unity from this point on…in Jesus’ name.

God bless….Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

And may your Santa give you exactly and everything that you are hoping and looking for.   

Praise ye the Lord…for He is mighty in all things.   And I am sure He has so much more for you…in 2009.

Well, God bless…and thanks for reading this blog…and  please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on” www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2008

Double CLICK the screen above in order to view the second video…ignor the text on the screen monitor

Happy holidays…and may God richly bless you too.

Just DOUBLE CLICK the screen to view the above video.

Add a comment December 24, 2008