Woke up this morning at 10:30am, the kids slept until 10:29am. Got up made breakfast, decide that since the condo’s pool is closed, We would go to Tom Sawyer to swim. It cost us 15 dollars to swim. It used to cost 15 dollars at Kentucky Kingdom. My son just jumped into the water (Sorry no pictures). Luckily we had floaters on him. My Daughter was terrified of the water and would only let daddy hold her while she Swim. An Hour and Half goes by and we are loving the pool, we tried to remember why we stopped going. And Band-Aid floated by it had some brown stuff on the cotton, we then remembered why we stopped going to public pools and pray that ours is fixed next week. We came home and I laid down to rest, my wife asked the kids to give me a few minutes and thank god they did. My son said good-night daddy and cut off my bedroom light. I could hear whispering in the next room. Trying not to wake me. I got up after five minutes. My car needed to be cleaned and the kids still had energy, as I’m writing this at 10:04 pm, they still have energy. Tonight, I made Tofu Stir-fried for the first time. I like Tofu, could become a vegetarian But love chicken and turkey too much.

Sometimes the world throws me a curve so low and so wild that it stuns me. I work with children and not just any children but those with real issues. Most issues are deepened, hidden, buried so far deep that it takes a negative event to bring them out. But that's the world we live and so I come come to an important reality that the father is around. Now I'm not taking about God, but I'm sure he too is a witness, But I'm speaking about men in the home and men knowing the images of their children, having the ability to speak to them, to hug them, to have a relationship him them. But yet the mother still calls me to raise their children. To understand this blog, you must understand what I do. I work one on one with young children and even teens. We set goals of better education, respect for parents, to clean their rooms. But as of late I've been receiving calls from a school asking for my help with my client. Day one, he refused to go to class, day two, he road his chair like a horse and refuse to behave in class. Day three, Tuesday, I will be in class with him, sitting next to him for three hours. And I know what you are thinking, his poor mother must be stressed with the situation, she is calling you apologising for the calls from school. But she appreciates your hard work, because he doesn't have a father in his life. Well no. I never received a call nor do I know if the mother, step father or biological father knows about the situation at school. When I was growing up I didn't have a father. Now that doesn't mean that I only saw my father on weekends, or that I saw him every six months, but I saw him 3 times in my life, I talked to him once. It wasn't even a conversation. My mother asked me if i knew how he was, and I said yes, my father. That's was it, that was my big man speech, that was talk that made me a man, that formed my man hood. At the time my father was a passing man, I could not see any features that resembles me, let alone any mannerism. I was 10 years. He died when i was 21. Now to say I didn't have a father figure would be wrong. My grandfather was my father, and he taught me respect, punctuality, responsibility and discipline. And so he became a man that I respect. The young man I work, he has a stepfather living with him, he also has a biological father that care about, but both man lack the ability to raise their son. They lack the tools, maturity and understanding of their roles. They are soul-less, using the mom for sexual pleasure, yet running from the responsibility of their actions. I don't know what happen between the time of my grandfather, (a self indulging alcoholic who raised 6 kids with his wife and continued to raised three kids without her.) and two decades later my father, but I pray, I practice and I push the ideal of father hood. Because even though our fathers are in the house, their souls are lost, they are gaps in our souls from the lack of fathers that must be filled.

Sometimes we face challenges in our lives that makes it hard for us to see tomorrow, it's those challenges that makes us see today and the past that we have. I accept those challegnes knowing that tomorrow will come and it will make that day a brighter day.

I didn't get my freebies, but I got something else after I voted. I got a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging to a country, that never wanted me before 2008. So I thought. In order to process the victory of Obama, I had to first go back into past. Not to slavery, but to the 60's, to king which took me back to slavery. His struggle and death path the way for Obama and all of us. That's no longer the question. But the question reminds what now? What do we do now since "we have arrive" to America. That's what it feels like. That we have been living, working, breathing on a land that we was not apart of. Right? We wasn't really Americans where we? Most white America don't understand that awkward feeling of not belonging. Picture a black child going through the American school system and they read about King and King is associated with the civil rights movement and that movement to associated to Jim Crow and Jim Crow is associated to slavery and Slavery is associated to weakness and embarrassment. Now the weakness and embarrassment can be argue since it took strength and wisdom to survive but this is where we are today. But if take King and Kings associations to slavery, many Black children see King as a hero, and get angry that he was killed, but they are not moved to "do better." Sure we helped build America, but we never received our rewards. Where's our accolades for making the stop light, the light bulb, the show making machine, the peanut butter, the perm, the pace maker, the guide control missile and the IBM Computer? Why Don't our children know their history? It's a beautiful history. And if we all knew our history, Obama rise to power wouldn't be so surprising, especially if you know how greatly we change America for the better. So slavery and King are huge parts of American, but lets study Otis Boykin, Garrett Morgan, George Washington Carver and Madam C. J. Walker so that we can better know American History.