Lucky Bum

I was born lucky.

I know that.

I got practically nuthin' to complain about in my life. I was never starved as a child. I got parents that love and take care of me. I never had to walk miles in the snow to sit in a cold classroom and read outdated textbooks. I never had to eat a sugar sandwich. I don't get sick very often at all. I'm fairly strong and rumor has it I'm decently talented as a writer.

I got a lot goin' for me. Does that mean I'm outta touch with the people that don't have all that goin' for 'em? Perhaps. I'd hope not. There are plenty of examples of people that have a little money and lose track of what really matters. People with money put themselves in communities blocked by fences, key cards, guards, bright lights and cameras. They work in different areas, eat in different restaurants, they live in a whole other world with different problems. I never had anybody threaten me with tax evasion or had to worry if we had the right kind of caviar.

Other things create barriers between people too. Money isn't the root of all evil. Want is. Everybody wants what somebody else has. He wants to be stronger, she wants to be prettier, the poor want to be rich, the rich want to be richer, he wants that person to notice him, he wants to be invisible. All these wants make people think they have nuthin'. All they can focus on is what they're lackin instead of seein' what they do have.

I'm a bum and I got lucky. I was born into the right place, at the right time, to the right people. I didn't deserve those things but I got lucky. Someone else could've used those things but missed out on a few of 'em. I can't be blamed for where I got lucky and somebody else didn't.

Things could've easily been bad for me. I could have serious health problems, be in more debt, or any number of things could be worse than they are. I'm aware of this. I think that as long as I am and as long as I try to sympathize with those people I don't think I could lose touch with those less fortunate than myself. It's important to remember that we aren't always the least fortunate in the world. I know with things like myspace, youtube, facebook, and blogs it's easy to think we are the center of the universe. You get caught up in people visitin' your pages or payin' attention to what you're doin' you can forget what's important to the rest of the world. Sometimes it's your day, others it's not. Most of the time it's not. Gotta help those less fortunate than ourselves so they can get to a place where they can help themselves. Hold 'em in your heart and be kind to one another as best you can.

All we can do is appreciate what we got and do our best to create a lil luck for those that ain't got it. I'm lucky. I know it. I got lots worth appreciatin'. I could be much worse off but I'm not.

I'm thankful for that.

Humanity Never Disappoints

I work in customer service. I love it. I really do 'cause I get to help solve people's problems and tend to make people' days a lil bit better. My name labels me a defender of mankind but the other night something happened that forced me to question the hearts and souls of all men and women just for a moment. How can you defend the people if they are what you despise?



Two women had an altercation over a parkin' spot. One hispanic woman about forty with three daughters of different ages and a caucasian girl about twenty. The hispanic woman claimed the girl had told her "You need to learn to speak English" and then spit on her. They walked into my store as I'm helpin' another customer. I notice them walkin' through the doorway where the girl and the daughters were all callin' each other "stupid bitch". The hispanic woman then spit on the caucasian girl. Hit her right on the cheek. The girl then calls the police and both are ticketed.



I can't tell you how furious this made me. People spittin' on each other? God damned disgusting. I wanted to jump over my counter and shake 'em, make 'em realize that they were in a store for civilized people. Make 'em realize that people are s'posed to be civil to one another. People ain't s'posed to spit on each other like monkeys that fling crap at one another. We should be able to have a real discussion about what's botherin' us. Physical actions should come as a last resort.



A punch in the face or spit on the cheek doesn't make anyone right or wrong. A punch doesn't make red turn blue or up turn into down. In fact, to those around you bein' the first to throw a punch usually puts you in the wrong. A punch won't change someone's ideas. Hittin' a member of the Klan doesn't make him love people that got some color to 'em. Fightin' doesn't usually do much to settle an argument. So a fistfight for your side of the argument isn't really worth it.



I'm not really sure but it's never seemed to me that sumthin' like a parkin' space was really worth fightin' over in the first place. I've fought for sport and I've fought to defend myself. Never has it occurred to do more than call somebody a "bastard" in my car over some drivin' discourtesy.



When handlin' a conflict I find it best to take a minute and ask yourself "What are you really arguin' about?" Just take a breath and figure out if you're about to say sumthin' stupid over sumthin' stupid. If it's just a parkin' spot or bein' cut off in traffic, is it really worth it? What's an extra 50 feet to walk? Most of us in the U.S. are over weight anyway, a lil walkin' wouldn't kill us. Or is it that this issue had racial tensions hidden in the conflict? That's possible I suppose. Both of 'em have prolly had bad experiences or at least ignorant views on each other's culture. So, bottom line chalk it up to both women bein' short on patience and feelin' wronged. Odds are they ain't evil. But bein' a decent human bein' the day before doesn't justify what either of them did either. I'm glad they were both ticketed. They were actin' like animals and despite our human nature I believe that people have the potential to be better than we are.



Odds are they are lovable and funny and a dozen other wonderful things that they weren't at that particular moment. It wasn't either one's proudest moment I'm sure. I think one of the most important things people should know is that nothing is absolute. Not everyone is good. Not everyone is evil. Not everyone is any one thing. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone acts selfishly from time to time. Everyone has so many sides to them you can't say that people are anything but everything.

You want that little nugget to take with you and think about? Here it is: If you expect to be disappointed by humanity, you won't be disappointed. People aren't perfect. We do the best we can, I believe. And yes that means we're jerks sometimes or that we aren't as good as we could be. But I think at any random moment most people are tryin' to be good or better than they are. If a man walks a hundred miles he's bound to fall sooner or later. Just gotta keep in mind we all do and offer those that get tripped up by life the love in your heart instead of anger and misunderstanding.

And don't spit on people.

It's a Long Walk 'til You're in Love

Altogether my parents have been married a total of five times. Dad three times and my mom twice. More or less 'cause the details are a bit shady on those stories. Not sure if Mom was actually married to that first guy. Dad is rumored to have been married to a woman he had no kids with and doesn't talk to anymore and only my brother has told me about it and for some reason never mentioned it 'til last year.

I hear the statistic is now that two out of three marriages fail now. That's quite a bit you know? "Divorced", "Divorced", "Yeah, we're doin' okay. It takes a lot of work but we're makin' it."

You know what makes love so special? It's a rare thing. Not just rare but if you don't know what it is you can go your whole life without ever recognizin' you ever had it. And if you don't know what love is, no one can tell you. "You just know.", They say.

And I suppose you do but I guess a lot of people think they know when they really ain't gotta clue. Met quite a few people in recent weeks, none of 'em old enough to drink but all of 'em certain they found that someone to spend their lives with. I can't help but think they made a big mistake. Maybe they haven't, I hope they haven't, but two nineteen-year-olds bein' married just doesn't seem like a good idea.

I know I've been through a thing or two in my day, and maybe those things have hardened this heart o' mine, but I think love, real can't live without it, standin' in the rain waitin' for it love is damn near impossible to find. I once met a couple that had known each other since the third grade. When I met them they were pushin' eighty. Assumin' they married at twenty, that's sixty years of marriage and all but seven of those years they've known each other.

You think that old man hasn't stood in the rain for his woman? You think if she got sick he'd wait to see her when she was better? You think if they were gettin' on each other's nerves they'd break up? You think if one of 'em died the other would do anything but follow?

That's real love. I'm sure they've had their problems and odds are they've broken up a few times. I'm sure there are things he's always done that get on her nerves. I'm sure if he died and didn't do those things anymore that she'd miss them anyway.

They knew each other a long time before they were able to get married. By that time they would've been the other's best friend. People get married after six months and wonder why it didn't work out. People convince themselves they've fallen in love because they wanna be in love. It sounds like a good place to be. To be that certain of the person next to you. To know that she's gonna take care of you as best she can no matter what. To know he's gonna love you when your looks start to fade. To know that if you left them for a long period of time the only thing that's gonna happen is that they're gonna miss you.

But that ain't always the case. Some people want to be there so much, they set up camp wherever they are and pretend to be in love. Love's a journey and it takes so many miles to get there. You can't take a few steps towards it and say you're there. You gotta endure the trials to get there. You earn bein' in love or you find out the person goin' with you ain't who you want to be in love with.

Love is precious. Love is rare. To find it at every turn cheapens the entire experience and sucks all the romance outta bein' romantic.

Fathers and Sons

Whatever happened to the men of the world?



What's bein' raised today ain't what I'd call men. A few pop up here and there but for the most part I see a buncha lil girls. They wax and shave everything. They whine and are afraid of a lil hard work. They refuse to get dirty. They worry 'bout lookin' pretty. They hit women. They respect no one. Whatever that is, it ain't a man.



I was raised by a man that picked cotton to help his family survive. I was raised by a man that wasn't afraid to defend himself or the people around him. He never hit a woman. He never disrespected anybody that didn't disrespect him first. He'll be 60 next year and at the moment is diggin' a ditch while I type away at a computer. Quite frankly, I'd rather be with him or doin' the work for him. He's always believed I'm better than that but has shown me that hard work is important to anything you do.



Maybe I got off lucky in life 'cause I got one helluva father and I know it. Maybe this new generation of boys ain't got anybody to show 'em how to really be a man. If that's the case, it's a damn shame.

Single mothers do a helluva a job. It's a hard situation to be in. It's hard to be a parent in a house with a mother and a father but when everythin' is ridin' on your single set of shoulders you'll know what Atlas felt like. One person to do the dishes. One person to do the laundry. One person to help the kids with their homework. One person to make enough money to feed everyone, pay all the bills, but still have enough time left over to actually raise the kids.

That's hard. There's no way that doin' all that can be made easy. And because it is so difficult the children are always gonna be lackin' somethin'. The best mother can not teach her son everything it takes to be a man anymore than the best father can teach his daughter what it takes to be a woman. The genders are always gonna have some unknown element that we don't get about each other. It's there. It's always gonna be there. It's why guys and girls get together and talk 'bout how the other doesn't make any damn sense.

"What's hard about puttin' up a damn toilet seat before you pee?"

"What's so hard about puttin' it down before you pee?"

A boy needs a man in his life to model himself after. That man ain't gotta be perfect, he's just gonna be a template. The son will figure out how to improve what's there in front of him. A father just has to live his life as a man. The son then follows the father's lead. He walks the way he walks. He talks the way he talks. He drinks what he drinks. He respects the people his father respects. The father shows the boy how to be responsible, how to take care of himself, how to take care of others, how to do things a man needs to know how to do.

A woman can tell a boy how to shave his face but she lives her life shavin' her legs. Kanye West was raised by his momma. She taught him how to be bold, creative, confident, and hard workin'. She did not teach him humility, respect, or honor. If you ask me he's a prime example of what's wrong with these boys in the world.

In my mind my father is God. I know he watches what I do and sees in his mind what I should be doin'. He's always done his best to steer me to what I should be doin'. I can't bring myself to disobey him or do anything that I feel he would disapprove of. The times that I have I am very much stricken with guilt. When I think of what God would look like or sounds like I can only think of my father. When I think of how God should judge people I think of how my father does it. He's always been reasonable and for the most part understanding. If every father is the absolute for his son, just think of how important his role is for that boy.

When a man shirks his duties in favor of doin' sumthin' fun on a regular basis, or whines instead of fixin' his problems, or puts himself ahead of others, he's not a man at all. Boys want new toys. Boys want to play and fight and be lazy all day long. Boys want their mommies to protect them from the world. Boys lie about things they don't wanna get in trouble for. Boys are mean to girls.

When a man works hard, respects those that have yet to disrespect him, and protects those around him, he is a man. Men pay their bills. Men take care of what they have. Men put their family's well being ahead of their own. Men respect all women. Men deal with their problems.

Bein' a boy is fine for a while. Sooner or later you gotta grow out of it. I don't think any man ever lets it all go away anyway. It's why we laugh at dirty jokes. It's why we don't always like doin' chores. It's why we like tools and gadgets and cars. But a man knows when to put those childish things to rest and grow up.