The Original Posts

[Title] My Thoughts            

 

                     Cover Page

 

Welcome to my life, one year ago I had the notion of developing a website about safe Driving. When my website Designer got back to me with a name that he suggested,  without knowing my plans for the site knocked me for a loop. That’s how Savingkidssouls.com was born. The name of the website sent me scrambling to the Dashboard to produce ten Blogs in five days to meet the deadline for the website to be launched. Can you imagine posting Blogs about safe Driving with a name like that. I did some soul searching and came up with the format of Parenting, Relationships and life. The three topics surrounding my own life, before I wrote my first post I did a little research on what makes good Blogs. I was told that the number one sin, was writing blogs about yourself. Nonetheless I proceeded to write about my experiences in life. One hundred and twenty blogs later the site has been blessed with half a million visitors, one million visits and five thousand comments all positive one critical calling me an attention grabber. The objective of the website is to enrich other people’s lives with the positive side of life that I have experienced,  and to lead others away from the negative side of life. The following thoughts were Posted on my website and is presented on the following pages, they are chronicled from last to first.

 

Being a free thinker allow us to make objective choices and decision in our lives.

 

And being able to exercise them

 

Table of Contents>

Chapter1 Parenting Relationships Life Safe driving>

 

Chapter2 Parenting Relationships Life>

 

Chapter 3 Parenting Relationships>

 

Chapter 4 Parenting Safe driving>

 

Chapter 5 Parenting>

 

Chapter 6 Relationships Life>

 

Chapter 7 Parenting Relationships>

 

Chapter 8 Safe travels Life>

 

Chapter 9 Parenting Relationships>

 

Chapter 10 Parenting Relationships Life>

 

Chapter 11 Parenting Relationships Safe travels>

 

Chapter 12 Parenting>

 

Chapter 13 Parenting Relationships Life>

 

Chapter14 Parenting Relationships>

 

Chapter 15 Parenting Life>

 

Chapter 16 Parenting Relationships Life>

 

Chapter 17 Parenting Relationships>

 

Chapter 18 Stand up Dad>

 

                                     A Book Of Thoughts

                       

Chapter1>

 

To Your Own Self Be Real

 

Pretending can consume an entire life, it started when we are children, we play house she was the momma you were the poppa, you were the bad guy I was the good guy. fine and dandy what else are kids going to do but emulate others, the sad part is it never ends. Now you reach adolescent and the pretense grows into juvenile delinquent because you are pretending that you are cool and you know everything. Still it doesn’t end, a cool teenager who knows everything is dangerous to themselves and others because puberty is coming to an end and pretending to be a man is the ultimate pretense. You can make Babies but a man stands up to his responsibilities and stands by his woman, sometimes to the end.

 

Now you are a player you pretend to be someone  trustworthy and caring while you pretend with the concubine that you are serious about them while your eyes are glued on their girlfriends. So far nothing about you is real, you deceive your parents by undermining their wisdom, and those that live lifestyles you should avoid, you emulate pretending to be them.( cats in the cradle, I’m going to be just like you Dad) a deserter and an abuser. Where does the pretending ends, it doesn’t, you pretend to do better than your means hocked to your eyeballs keeping up with the Kardashian pretending to live a picture perfect lifestyle even though you know it’s only Hollywood life, make believe. My God will the real you please stand up.




The rest of your life you continue the Sham that you are better than your fellow man while you pretend to believe in God and is quick to kill to make a point. You profess your Love only to end in deceit, you take a Job to serve the People only to have them serve your pretentious and deceptive ideals. You pretends  to serve God but the Devil is your master  ( many will profess my name) I once knew a Preacher and a Deacon who bragged of their conquest among the Congregation. Years ago a church going God fearing man killed his wife and his Minister, I wonder how long he endured the deception before he lost his way. Even since childhood when I was not worthy of being a Christian Woman’s child I never pretended to be an Angel, I left that to the Hypocrites.

 

When I grew to be a Man I chose to be Real, I did  unto others and expect likewise, I  commanded respect for who and what I portrayed myself to be. I chose one Woman and over thirty seven years I stayed the course, never once unfaithful. When you tell lies, each time you try to cover your tracks you dig a deeper Hole. After a while the broken hearts, broken mind spirit and souls you put in that hole forms a mound to the high Heaven’s. To survive in a world of deception you need to read more than just print, body language is highly underrated. In High School one of my English Literature Teacher constantly challenged me to tell her what is the Author not saying, she taught me how to live in a deceptive World.

 

Later on in life I once told my supervisor that I could spot a slacker one mile in the Fog, she didn’t believe me. She got promoted to regional manager and was fired in six months. If you can read body language it becomes your Lighthouse in a storm of deception. Something I read once the subject goes, it is important to understand the role that deception plays in our emotional lives,  because it impedes self understanding and the formation of justified beliefs about ourselves, others and the world as a whole. Deception inhibits our attempt to become more reflective in our understanding, clarifying and evaluating our emotions. Self deception and willful ignorance pose a serious impediment to reflective cognitive affective and conative growth. It also inhibits our attempt to make more reflective evaluations of our institutions, social practices and ideologies that shape and are shaped by our self interpretations. Meaning that deception screws you up and all around you. In the end I say live the life and be proud of what you are.

 

 

Filicide




When Kids kill their Parents it is called Patricide, Filicide describe a deliberate act of  parents killing their infant child, other than murderous little Critters . Every time I read one of these heinous stories it involves teenage parents shaking, smothering or beating the life out of some poor infant that wouldn’t stop crying. This type of parenting occurs when immature Teenagers who could not wait to grow up and live the  adult life , which comes with responsibility, again that word. My Blogs are crawling with the word Responsibility. Raising two teenage boys by herself, my mother told us that it was a struggle raising us, and she was not about to raise our children.





Her advice was, when you are out there feeling your Oats thinking you are a Man, don’t forget to keep your Drawers up. That was the best Sex Talk a mother could have with their teenage sons. considering that at fourteen I thought I was a man. When I was eleven years old a thirteen years old Nymphomaniac introduced me and five other boys to sex, lined up. I wonder what became of  her. Probably fifteen kids with Breast hanging to her waist. Regardless the point is that Kids are crawling in the Sack before they learn to read, I know that to be a fact because I met them in High school, illiterate with big Boobs and spandex, school the farthest from their minds. Yet these same people are dropping kids like litter and when they can’t deal with the stress of an infant crying they shake, smother and bat them around like Rag Dolls.






They aren’t ready for the Job of parenting and their Parents never had that sex talk with them. I am not talking about the Birds and the Bees, way too late for that, I am talking about the responsibility that goes with having sex at sixteen with no protection. The consequences are monumental, including diseases no education and no skills to make a living to provide for their indiscretions.  When righteous minded people have children they know that basically their lives have stopped. The kids have to eat whether you do or not, they need clothes even if you don’t have, they need care even if you don’t care for yourself. They Cries for no reason, they are like the Boss that you hate, always wet and full of shit, but that’s what crawling in the Sack brings. That one moment of pleasure bring a lifetime of responsibility and neglect of yourself, because they come first in all facets of your life.






Immature children having babies don’t know this. When I was seventeen I observed a sixteen years old mother made a bed on the Floor placed her infant child on it and went out dancing on a Saturday night. What did I know at seventeen that I should have called child welfare agencies. These are the same people who shake their babies violently when they cries continuously till they are dead. I wrote about Annie the love child of two eighteen years old Kids,  thirteen years later from being raised by her single mom and the resentment of not being able to see her Dad who she was crazy about.





Annie was so rebellious and prone to trouble, she was one step away from becoming the ward of the juvenile justice system. That’s what happens when Kids have kids. In my neck of the woods 14, 15 and sixteen years old Kids losing their lives in a fiery crash at 4: 30 am after a night of stealing cars and racing them at speeds exceeding 100. That’s what you get from kids having kids, their Parents who are too busy living their own shoddy lives to know where their 14 year old is at 4:30 Sunday morning. Allowing them to run wild to their deaths at fourteen, is just as bad as shaking them to death at six months old. I am not being judgmental or critical, just angry that we are not having one of the most important conversation with kids. Letting them know that being sexually active comes with a very big price.

 

The Rut




Day to Day routine can quickly become a Rut, rudiments give structure, if your routine is structured in a positive and diversified way, you are moving forward. When you are in a rut and the last week or month is a carbon copy of the last, you need to do something different, especially if you are not satisfied with the way your life is going. People who do things the same way all the time looking for different results are looking through rose colored glass. It’s not going to happen, if you are in a job that all your efforts go unnoticed and unrewarded while others less deserving moves forward. You are in a Den of Nepotism.

 

If you are there for fifty years and your efforts keep moving the company forward all you can expect is Crumbs. You need to break the cycle, the World is full of corruption, why would the workplace be different. When I worked for Solomon Brothers, It was public knowledge that John Gutfreund made 12 million in salaries and another twelve in Bonus. My first year bonus in a low level Position was 8 thousand dollars and John knew who I was and always spoke. This was not a union Job but we all shared the spoils of profit. Not so for the majority of other Companies that I have worked for, one of them made 100 million in profit one year and the spoils were only divvy at the top. Companies like that as long as you are employed you should always be looking to jump Ship. When you are in a rut with Companies like that for twenty five years  they are always  looking to replace you with fresh blood to usurp them the same way that they did you.

 

People like that aren’t looking out for your best interest, that is your Job. I am not asking for a share of the company or a percentage of the profit, just to be recognized and rewarded accordingly. Sometimes the same situation exist at home, you are neglected, undermined and taken for granted. Great moments and great sex is a distance occurrence, your Dog gets more attention than you. Again you are in a rut, you can’t leave but you can’t stay, I am not a marriage counselor, I can’t tell you what to do but a blind man can tell you that something is wrong. In an earlier Blog titled Stand up Dad Phil raised his two daughters after their mother ran out of their lives with another man, abandoning the family. He went above and beyond in the Job of raising two Girls, put them through College living in a Condo he bought so they didn’t have to live in a Dorm.

 

Those girls made his Life a living Hell while growing up, treated him as if he was the one who abandoned them. In gratitude, when they graduated they moved back Home to finish him off with Stress. They disrespected his new Wife with confrontation daily, with one goal in mind, to split them up. They could not bare to see the Will split three ways and the Mansion going to the Wife. I told Phil many times that he should put them out on the Street, he never listened, to the point where his home life caused him his job. I  guess his rut succumbed him. All that I am saying is that there comes a point in every life when change must come, especially when your sanity takes a beating. You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine

 

 

 

 

Pot-luck Disposed

 

Having Children later in life can be a blessing and a burden. It’s a blessing if you’ve been trying for a long time without success. The burden comes when you treat the child the same way parents of an only child does. Spoiling them rotten and let them walk all over you for eighteen years.  My mother had me at thirty seven years old. Despite all advice to abort she gave me life. The consensus was that she was too old which made full term dangerous. She was in the prime of her life socially and otherwise, so I understand the burden I created being a rambunctious child getting into everything and trying to end my life with hijinks starting at two all the way to fourteen. I was a full time job. At this point in my life I look back and regret usurping her life the way I did with constant worries. All in all to the end I made her proud by making her last days the best they could be, with progressive Dementia all the way to full blown.

The thing that gets me most about kids are the way in which some of them grow up with a bastard like mentality, makes you wonder did they switched babies in the Hospital. You give them all the love and care, sometimes way past the time that they should still be living off you, and when you grow old and need them they turn their backs on you. Don’t these people know that there’s a God and that he sees all. Ok so you are not in tuned with your spirituality and you are not concerned. Well then my friend let me tell you about a thing called Karma, it’s alive and well, and one day when your world turns upside down with the trimmings of misfortune and old age, don’t ask why me. Penny was a resident in a Nursing Home where I worked, all through her youthful years while she built the family business to a fifty million dollars fortune, she rode the backs of the little people who were the lifeblood of the business success like a Witch on a Broom and Whip in her hand.



The bad part about  this is that she never shed her Reptilian approach of how she treated people. She used to call the entire Staff Sons of Bitches of Bastards, needn’t I tell you how they reciprocated. One day while sitting in her Wheelchair in the Hallway she had an accident, the entire Hallway stunk to the high Heaven’s. Instead of changing her, the Aid she had just abused with venomous vulgarity wheeled her into her Room and closed the door for her to permeate in her own stench. Can you imagine being worth 50 million and to come to an end like that.



Her own children abandoned her. To the end they didn’t even visit her once a month, all the time waiting for her to die so they could spend her money. On the other hand I remembered all my mother had done and instilled in me, I visited her seven days a week, and spoiled her with tasteful food that she never got from the Nursing Home Cooks. I didn’t sit In the room and read a newspaper ignoring her like she was inanimate, I engaged her with meaningful conversation to keep the Dementia at bay. In the end I can only hope that someone remember all the good that I have done in my lifetime, and when I am sitting in a Nursing Home writing Blogs bring me a Whopper and Fries.

 

 

CHASING MOBY

 

Most eight year old Boys are only are only interested in playing with their toys and their Dog. Not me when I was eight I was a mother’s worst nightmare. Once my mother was cooking, she walked away from the kitchen for two minutes, that was all the time I needed to create catastrophe. Inquisitive me had to know what was cooking in the boiling hot Pot, pulling it down on myself causing third degree burn to the entire lower half of my body. At eight I was into everything that spelled danger. Several months earlier while walking the Beach I met a man called Lefty, the way he came by his name is nothing short of a horror movie.

 

Lefty was an avid Fisherman who preferred big Game fishing. One day while fishing in sixty feet depths a Marlin grab the bait connected to 100lb test line, lefty and I must have been born under the same Zodiac sign, the monster fish snapped the pole and took off still on the Hook. Lefty was of my same Heart, he refused to cut the line and live to fight another day. He wrapped the hundred pounds test around his arm just below the elbow. Well now you know how he got his name, the line cut straight through the bone like a Saw.

 

 

At eight I was an avid Fisherman lefty had taught me all I needed to know how to catch fish using only a hook and line the same way he lost his arm. It was danger in the make for a child like me, thank God I could never cast my line beyond the Shores. One day while I was fishing the Shore, Lefty’s  Boat rolled ashore dragging the ocean floor, the reason why the Boat was dragging is that Lefty had caught a four hundred pounds Marlin. He threw me the morning line that almost killed me trying to secure the Boat, screaming help from the top of my lungs.

 

 

Help soon arrived to get the monster fish out of the Boat. When it landed on the beach with my clothes all wet from going out to get the rope to tie the Boat, I could not tell if I had peed myself with excitement. This was Baby’s big day out, as soon as that fish hit the Sand lefty was all over it with his Machete cutting sixty pound stakes. Whoever was there took home a sixty pound marlin steak. As if I didn’t work hard enough securing the Boat, now I had to get this slab of fish home all sixty pounds of me. I had no intention of abandoning the spoils that I had worked so hard for, I dragged it through the Sand and dirt the entire hundred yards home. I guess it was that early on that Mother knew that I was happening guy, that was afraid of nothing and probably would die early from adventurism. Luckily enough the following years didn’t  kill me so today I live three miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Coincident? I’m here looking for my Moby.

 

______________________________________________________

Live Love Laugh



Teaching our kids to live, as in embracing life, is something just about all parents overlook. We teach them how to walk, talk, learn and make a living, however very few are taught to tap into their creativity, their spirituality and their spiritual being which is their soul. Ask any artistic people  and they will tell you that along the way of being creative they stumbled upon their spirituality. Everyone knows that education is a fundamental tool. But very few are aware that being artistic can introduce you to the inner person that most people live a lifetime and never met. Religion is also a venue to spirituality, your soul. Like the Bible says, what good is a man if he Gains the World and lose his Soul. A lot of people have no soul to lose,  they were never introduced to it, they never knew it existed.





Some of us are born perceptive, and enlightened others have to be led, being artistic sometimes leads us to our  perspectives. When you know how to look inside, there is a whole world in there. What you find in there, everything from empathy to the gift of love, being able to posses, accept and give it. Some infants needs no prodding or encouragement to walk, talk, swim and a do lot of things, they are natural born achievers,  some need encouragement, most of us you have to lead us to the water. It’s  the same with living. A Fish swims, that is what they do with infinity until they are caught or eaten by a bigger Fish. Man was not made to swim he is expected to take advantage of all that life offers, it is too short and unpredictable to swim your way through it, in a continuous motion of nothingness only to make money and survive. Personally I believe that we do ourselves a great disservice only using 10% of our Brain’s capacity, in that case it should not be too taxing to learn a skill and a craft unilaterally. For instance a carpenter who plays an instrument and write Poetry.



What magnetized me to this ideology is, in my hometown of Tampa we have a Lawyer who is also a Doctor. He is way out left field with the concept that I have in mind of being creative as well as having a skill. He has two skills, even though some Doctors are forced to be creative in their practices. A lot of us learned to play an instrument early in life, by the time we grow up it’s only a distant memory, because We never learned the importance of creativity in our lives and where it could lead us. Twenty seven years ago I started two Manuscripts that were never completed. Well anyway you know where I am coming from with this way of thinking. What I am really saying is, if your parents didn’t instigate you to be creative and  tapping into the inner you don’t follow the path. I once heard a story of a woman dying in an apartment similar to a homeless dwelling under a Bridge except her dwelling was in an expensive apartment building in it was 47 million dollars and feces everywhere, not having that money in a Bank said she worshipped it, the poor thing had lost her soul and mind, Howard Hughes died in similar situations. There you have it in a nutshell, there is so much more to life.

 

Chapter 2>

 

Forgive Me Lord



It’s eight A.M. Sunday morning, I look at the beautiful day that was unfolding over Tampa. The weather was perfect, I thought to myself this Would be a perfect day to go Fishing, but I knew that could never be, because this was just another work day for me. Working in the Resort business don’t allow me to be off weekends, you take whatever day given to you. Then I felt a moment of disgust, I thought to myself that I should be going to Church to give God thanks for all he’s given and done for me.





Then I began a silent prayer, forgive my in-gratitude that you have blessed me with another day to spread  enlightenment to my readers and fortunate to have great health at sixty four years old, one month away from my next Birthday and is able to continue working till my Health says otherwise. This is the focal point of this Blog, my Wife is forceful in matters of Health, she retired from the V.A. Hospital after twenty five years of seeing it all. Without her supervision I would not go to the Doctor every six months. On our last two check up our Doctor showered us with congratulations as to the conditions of our health and told us that she wished all her Patients were as healthy as we were.





In my Prayers I ask the Lord to forgive me for my ungrateful approach of self destruction by smoking Cigarettes since age fourteen and still  have not come to my crossroads. If I didn’t smoke I probably would live to be 100, my mother lived to be 97. I can’t in no stronger term vanquish you my young friends about picking up this dirty habit and to let you know that I find this Addiction to be as strong as any Drug addiction. As I continued praying I ask the Lord to help me to quit before I have wasted the great health that he’s given me to experience Longevity. A moment later I picked up my Phone and began to read Google news, there I stumbled upon the story of Britney Beadle .






This is how it went . Britney Beadle does not put off anything for tomorrow. “Do it now”she advises. Live in the moment and enjoy your Life. In May 2015 Britney was diagnosed metastatic  (stage 4) breast cancer, at the age of 18. I felt I was alone, Britney says. There are some young women in their 20s who I found, but still no one who was my age young,  with breast cancer. By sharing her journey she hopes to help others in a similar position. Whenever  I have to go through a new treatment that’s really hard- like when I had radiation to my brain- I think, OK, this sucks. I have to do this. But you know what? I get to live. Then I thought to myself my God how callus I am with the perfect health given to me and how for fifty years I have tried my best to throw  it away. Once again thank you Lord and forgive foolish me

 

 

Kids Absorb Your Values

 

An agnostic believes in nothing, a fool is someone who knows all, yet knows nothing. As far as I am concerned , they are one and the same. They go from the neighborhood to the office to high places in the World and spread their ignorance. For instance on a College Campus, a young ignoramus gets up on stage and begins to talk out of his Ass about Supremacy and separatism. Dimwits have always dwell on the  trivialities of our differences and the need for Purging. Intolerance is the Backbone of a Moron. I lived in Pennsylvania where Skinhead mentality ruled, the few God fearing good people are the minority. A coworker related a story of intolerance to me yesterday that prompted this Blog. It appears that his girlfriend and his Dad had a

conversation about something, the Dad didn’t agree with her point of view.

The ignorant Dad chose to belittle and berated the young woman, at one point calling  her a Bitch. Can you imagine, we are living in the twenty first century and two people with different views can’t engage in a debate without pulling out the Swords and Daggers of intolerance and begins to carve each other up with belligerence. That is not how civilized people do things, if necessary you walk away from the conversation, don’t forget he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. In today’s society with every fool owning a gun, a mishap on the Roadways and the skies are filled with unnecessary Slugs and a young College student is dead. As it did in Pennsylvania in a Road Rage incident where the Moron shot and killed a College student, after she cut him off,  then fled as most cowards with his mindset always do after screwing up.





My God we’ve come far in our evolving from the Caves, or did we. Smile when you say that stranger. On a stage at F.S.U the same Adolf Hitler look alike and think alike who  almost started a Civil war in Charlottesville  was given permission to spew his rhetoric of Racism and hate, to a campus audience. Not that they supported his Crap, but to avoid litigation of the first amendment.  It is irrelevant  whether a fallen tree makes a sound, what is relevant, is that there were no reaction to the diatribes. This time there were no bloodshed, Civilized America had spoken to an uncivilized Speaker. The mentality of the Civil War was beaten down with the mentality of Free speech and Tolerance even for a young Ignoramus. That is my America, Land that I love, Land of the free home of the Brave.





There were peaceful protests and nobody called anyone a Bitch. What I love about this Country is that someone like me can write about my distrust and disgust for the Government and not taken out in the middle of the night by the Secret service and never again to be heard from. You don’t know how lucky you are Boy, back in the USSR. Please don’t let the past remind us of what were, move out the square. Life is short and filled with uncertainty don’t let there come a time for us to be forced to unite and fight the enemy . No better time to unite instead of waiting till Bin Laden’s fifteen Children’s come calling. Don’t forget your Children are always watching and absorbing so  they can teach your Values to their Children.





A Heron with feathers platinum gray , on an Autumn day with the Skies over  Gray. Chose me to be a friend . A Species of the wild, to them  Humans aren’t  trusted,  to us they become  Pets . allows me to photograph almost to the point of touch. After I had scared it to death, all over it with Camera Lens , then decided to perch on the Hedge fifteen feet away, there he stayed the  entire time I write this Blog. Making eye contact with me like a chicken hawk, or an intrigued Eagle.





Not mad not aggressive only intent of letting me know that we’re all here on this planet together, and he can’t trust me to perch on my shoulder, without fear of me doing the right thing. Thanks for enlightening me as to your trust however small. I decided to push my lenses in video, fed him with Bread which he didn’t need, he walked away from me to return this time within ten feet . where he hung until I left. Is this love that I am feeling. After a while he ate the Bread because he was comfortable that I would not do anything to hurt him. You hear stories about people making pets out of wild animals such as Tigers  and you wonder how could they trust them. Well my friend the shoe is on their foot trusting us.





We are the only species that kill for fun and for no other reason than uncontrolled rage, and hate so why should they ever trust us. Look at the fine Cats we wear on our backs, the fine Ivory that sits on our shelves. We are forever swimming against the Tide of natural balance. That’s why when a different  specie befriends me I shudder with chills knowing that they use their exceptional senses to feel me out and know that they are safe around me, and not judge me to be like all the other rest. I have a long history of being befriended by all God’s creatures, like the time sitting on the River Banks and was surrounded by hundreds of Cardinals who have been known to be aggressive, and not one attacked.





Another time traveling northern Pennsylvania driving a company’s Truck to deliver building supplies to a jobsite in Erie. A Canadian Gross Hawk dive-bombing a prey from high up in the Sky, misjudged the moving truck, slammed into its side bounced off and landed in the Woods. I immediately pulled over and ran to its rescue.
My coworker out of curiosity ran over to the injured Bird, when we caught up to it we were both sharing a sight of wonderment. The Hawk had six feet wingspan and Talons bigger than my big hands. My coworker quickly backed off from helping the wounded Bird, saying this thing will kill us both for fun. As I said before only Humans kill for fun.





I ran to the Truck for water and ice, I have always known how to administer first aid since nine years old. I stuck my hand out to inspire good will, he waived his huge Talon at my hand. I realized that if I was going to help it first I had to get it to trust me. I gave it Water and food, I knew it would enjoy raw Chicken. A bond was now formed, we were now friends, administering first aid was easy. I made a bed in the back of the Truck and place this huge Bird of Prey not worrying that it could cut my throat with one swipe with it’s Talons. I took this majestic and fearsome Bird to the Jobsite, opened the Truck’s gate and everyone Ran. I felt like my name was Tarzan when I extended my hand and this Bird who never before came in contact with a human came to me. He knew that I could be trusted, when it came time to set this majestic creature free, my coworker wanted to keep it as a Pet. I told you that that’s the way Humans are.That is why they don’t trust us. If they can’t domesticate it they Kill it. The Hawk was set free after I told him that having possession of an endangered species carried a five thousand dollars fine and five years in prisons.                          

 

Save Driving



Every day I commute my least favorite Road in my travels, US-19. It’s a road that instigates speeding, the lights are approximately  one mile apart, the speed limit varies to 55 mph. Not good when you have six or more U turn lanes all within one light. The Roadway is always congested and everyone is always travelling above the speed limit. Smash Ups are daily, injury and fatalities are frequent. A lot of which could be avoided if people traveled in a conscientious state of mind,  knowing that each side of the street is lined with Stores. People are always doing stupid things like misjudging the distance of approaching traffic while making U- turns and crossing lanes to get to their destination. putting themselves  and others at risk. Just getting to the other side of the road is nothing short of playing a game of chicken. I am a driving enthusiast who appreciate the Automobile and  my life, so riding this Road five days a week back and forth is my primary Job. Navigating this treacherous road one hour each way every day become nothing short of a game of skills, and discipline.

 

 

By having the use of the internet I surf world wide to see how other Countries fare with their poorly designed roadways and bad drivers who think they are race car drivers, it’s the same everywhere. Why is this? It appears that some people who can’t cut an Onion without cutting off a finger. gets behind the wheel where they develop a Jekyll and Hyde personality. Mild mannered  courteous and intellectual, they get behind the wheel and all that change to a rude and abrasive Crud. Young people driving for less than one year, old people driving for fifty years, gets behind the wheel and the reckless speed demon comes out. I have got to tell you Road Maniacs that I have the driving skills to loose the Cops in a chase at speeds exceeding 140 mph yet I am one of the most civilized drivers on the road. Whether I am going five miles or fifteen hundred miles my goal is to get from point A- to point B without a scratch. While the majority of drivers I encounters daily travel on a wing and a prayer.

 

 

Driving is something you should excel at from the previous days experiences. Whims and flight of fancies behind the wheel is for fools with total disregard for their lives and yours. One day travelling my least favorite Road, my car driven less than nine thousand miles, it was early afternoon so the road wasn’t congested. On a stretch posted 45 Mph I was doing 55, I looked in my rear view mirror the traffic that was following was more than one mile behind. I decided to change lanes to the middle lane, it appears that this young flighty girl driving a twenty years old Heap must have traveled at eighty Mph to have caught up with me in the short time I looked away from the rear view, now we were both sharing the same Lane. If my car was not equipped with blind spot sensors we both would be dead.

 

 

This is the mindless operation of a Car I am always beating the Drum about. They are out there everywhere. So it is for you the contentious driver to always be on the lookout for the people with missing screws. The driving Instructor who crafted my skills told me to always drive like I am the only one who knows what I am doing. Ten minutes after writing this Blog on a trip to the Bank three miles away,  on a strip of road posted 35 Mph I see a Tow Truck pulling a newer car out of the Ditch with extensive front end damage. Two minutes later a Car driven by mister Flighty became glued to my bumper with his twenty five years old Heap as if I was Towing him. I put on my emergency flashing lights, he backed off slightly and continued driving in his usual mindless approach. Now at twenty nine thousand miles I still sweat bullets when it leaves the driveway.

 

Pinellas Kids

 

If you have been following my Web page you would have noticed that it is filled with mentioning my troubled youth. My goal is to inspire change in young people’s lives and to instigate quality parenting not only for people who have good kids who are capable of raising themselves, but for those who have kids who needs more attention like I did. My Mother made a full time job out of turning my life around from wallowing with the underbellies of society, and she succeeded. If she didn’t when I was seventeen and the Neighborhood Dealer approached me with an offer that I did refused and my cousin accepted the street would have won. My cousin became very wealthy, did fifteen years in Prison, along the way he caught five bullets and is now going blind from a disease that he picked up in Prison.





All parents aren’t cursed with bad ass children but if you do your Job early in their lives, you never have to face the grief my mother did being a good Christian Woman that she was, I went to H.S with a Preacher’s son who was womanizing and abusive. as the saying goes God help those who help themselves. She was in desperate need of his help with me, and he facilitated. Look at the way I turned out, never once arrested, never did one day in Jail, live in a private community that does background check in order for you to live there and well respected by all. I drive expensive cars from earning a honest living, a successful life if you asked me. I take no credit for the way my life turned out. I thank the Lord and you Mom.






That’s why this Blog is dedicated to the kids of Pinellas County. One month ago I posted a Blog titled Dying In the Name of fun three Kids age 14 15 and sixteen lost their lives in a fiery crash while driving in excess of 100 Mph. The County and the general public have been plagued with an epidemic of youthful car thieves, the General consensus is they are bored and it’s all for fun. BS I say to that, back in the my days you steal a Car and straight to the Chop Shop it goes, money in pocket eases the consequence. The Heart of the matter goes to the same reason Kids turn to Gang Life.






They see all the Wealth around them and they develop a defeatist attitude that they are never going to see any of it, so selling Drugs is the only way out. BS again,  when I was twenty one Organized Crime scouted me the same way that the Neighborhood Dealer did, offered me four thousand dollars per week to deliver Heroin to Harlem’ s Bodegas, Record Shops and other locations Kilos at a time. My cousin ran Kilos from Florida to New York, that’s what made him rich and got him fifteen years in Prison. The difference between the Kids in Pinellas County, my cousin and I was the woman I called Mom. My Aunt was money hungry she instilled her values in her Kids, they all did jail time except for one. The oldest boy had a mind of his own, so did I. I had the power of Reason I chose to be poor and free also to avoid Bullets.







Most of all mother had instilled Christian Values to live by, foundation to build the Life I now live. Another factor that I attribute Pinellas Kids Hi-jinks to, is their Parents, many of them just kids themselves. Also just grown-up kids themselves who were bad ass themselves who are still living bad lives. Kids learn values by watching the way you live your life. St Petersburg Chief of Police plans to visit with the ones who are locked up to find answers to the problem, I say go visit the parents and see where these kids are coming from, the offenders are in the thousand. I’ll give you 10-1 odds some of these homes one parent is incarcerated or should be. This website tells you over and over anyone can make Babies not all can be good Parents or should be Parents, because they have no values themselves so how can you teach what you don’t know.






I was sixteen when my Mother tried  crippling me for coming home five Am drunk and stoned. I have often wondered why she never put me in Juveniles Detention. Years later I realized that she had faith and confidence in me and in her parenting skills. She was Clergy, Cop and Psychologist to me. May God help those lost Souls in Pinellas.

 

Chapter3>

 

Blogging





One Reader asked how do I compose myself to write. When I sit down to write it depends on what is going on in my mind. If something is pressing in my thoughts writing blogs about it is easy, I hold a pen and it’s like my thoughts control my hand. Many times I have written a blog without having to stop and think about what goes next. That’s because what’s on my mind whether voluntarily or involuntary, it comes out either verbally or literary  that’s what  writing is about, not researching others work and putting it to your words. When you do that you’re transcribing.






Blogging is a true form of self expression. What I like most about it is that I can write about people without sounding like a gossip columnist, people make the most interesting subjects, because they are the subject. They go from the very best to the very worst, as the saying goes People makes the world go round. I could be wrong but I believe that when you excel, you are obligated to set standards, especially if you are in the public’s eye or trust. For instance a business Manager, a public accountant or handling public Funds. Let’s not forget about famous Comedians and Movie Moguls. But as the  story goes People will always be who they are, untrustworthy and down right Thieves, like the Bank Teller who stole a Nickel,  Dime, quarter and so on from every stack until apprehended a hundred thousand dollars later.





They never cease to amaze me and that’s why I will always have something to say. Years ago there was the Dentist who while his Patients were compromised by aesthetics he would further compromise them with a lot of foreplay and hand Jobs, they would wake up hot and bothered. Now he’s sitting in a Jail cell being being bothered by his Cellmates. When I was sixteen I could smell the Gin on my Dentist breath while he butchered me scaring my psych for life. How is that for  Hippocratic. Then there was the Pharmacist who turned up dead and buried in Hugo Zelenski’s backyard along with two or more known Drug Dealers, coincident? in all likelihood he was a supplier. I knew Hugo casually never asked him what he did for a living.  I would sit and talk about Horses at the Race Track with Hugo, never taught that ten years later I would be writing about him.





People give me things to write about. A Blog about Hugo is in the works, if you read my other Blogs you will see that I have known many people who are newsworthy. So there you have it in a Nutshell, there is always someone waiting around the corner to be written about.




Related Stories about unscrupulous people.

Currently, laws in place to protect child actors and their finances leaves 85% of their earnings up for grabs. And children who appear on reality television shows are, currently, not protected in any way.

Unfortunately, child actors from Hollywood’s past had to learn the hard way that not everyone is looking out for their best interests. Here are child actors whose parents squandered their fortunes.

Macaulay Culkin

A child star that the media continues to keep up with is Macaulay Culkin. The cute, fresh face of “Home Alone” stardom has appeared in a number of indie films over the years. But Culkin’s personal life has kept him in the headlines as well.

Culkin’s parents divorced in the late 90s, placing Culkin and his multimillion dollar fortune directly in the middle. After a bitter custody dispute and a fight for control over Culkin’s trust, the family accountant was put in charge until Culkin reached adulthood.

Culkin and his parents are, at present, estranged. But Culkin is no stranger to tabloid headlines. He was in a nine-year relationship with actress Mila Kunis. But after their breakup, Culkin’s health and alleged heroin addiction has come under fire.

Jackie Coogan And The Coogan Law

Discovered by Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan’s appearance in “The Kid” launched a career that would span over fifty years. He had made 19 films before his 18th birthday. And became one of the first heavily merchandised celebrities.

It’s estimated that, as a child star, Coogan made nearly $4 million. Little did he know that his mother and stepfather had squandered his wealth. His mother felt that because Coogan had earned his fortune as a child, she and her husband were entitled to spend the money however they saw fit. She stated, “No promises were ever made to give Jackie anything. Every dollar a kid earns before he is 21 belongs to his parents.” Coogan sued his parent in 1938. And after legal fees, was awarded a mere $126,000.

Coogan’s case got the attention of California local and state governments. And California Child Actor’s Bill, more widely referred to as The Coogan Law, was born. While not perfect, the law requires that a child actor’s employer set aside 15% of the earnings in a trust and codifies work hours and vacation time.

Shirley Temple

Retired from acting at 22, Shirley Temple was one of the most recognizable names and faces in cinema. Starring in 44 films before the age of twelve, Temple was 20th Century Fox’s biggest box office draw in the 1930s.

Her mother received $250 a week stipend from the studio. And Temple, as a child, only saw less than $20 in pocket money. At the peak of Temple’s career, she commanded $10,000 a week.

So, you can imagine the surprise of Shirley Temple, an adult at the time, when she discovered her accounts only showed $44,000 instead of the $3.2 million she had earned. Her father had allegedly failed to place her earnings as a child star in a court-ordered trust.

Mimi Gibson

In a decade, Mimi Gibson appeared in 35 films and over 100 TV programs. She has been cast opposite Cary Grant, John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. However, her finances had been substantially dwindled by Gibson’s mother. So much so, that she did not have enough saved for college tuition.

In 1999, Gibson sponsored a California bill that, currently, only allows the trust to be withdrawn from when a minor turns 18. She currently lives a very guarded and private life away from Hollywood.

Gary Coleman

Best remembered for his role as Arnold Jackson in “Diff’rent Strokes,” Gary Coleman’s relationship with his parents was severely strained. In 1989, Coleman sued his parents and a financial advisor for misappropriating his multi million fortune amassed from the popular TV sitcom. He was awarded $1.3 million, but his later life was plagued with personal and professional misfortunes.

 

 

 

 

Driving 101/Man And Machine

 

 

 

😐 If Driving bewilderes you, terrifies and inhibits you, you  need to go back to the drawing board (driving school) explain to them how you feel about driving and ask what can you do to improve your driving skills so you can feel more  relaxed behind the wheel . Harboring fears and not addressing them only eats you alive, especially if it’s something that you have to do everyday.  How I learned to be totally focused and relaxed behind the wheel, was by carrying one simple taught that my Driving instructor instilled in me. Know where you are on the road at all times, know who’s around you all the time, in front behind and beside. Make sure that your mirrors are properly adjusted,  know how to view them moving your head as little as possible by rolling your eyes. When you do have to move your head, don’t stare too long five seconds at fifteen mph can put you on the sidewalk. The trick is to focus beyond your Hood, sometime you need to focus as far as one or more miles down the road to see what’s developing.





Learn how to use your peripheral vision, that helps when some idiot catches up with you, sits on your rear quarter panel and out of the rearview mirror, also known as the blind spot. Seen as how this is turning out to be a driving institutions Blog, we might as well move on to the next step of feeling comfortable behind the wheel. Now we come to giving it gas and breaking. Never overdrive, that happens when you give the engine more gas than is needed to get you from one stop light to the next forcing you to apply your brakes hard.Your Engine has a section called the Combustion chamber, with today’s technology very little gas is needed to achieve performance. The amount of gas you gives it controls your speed, never become gas happy,  the more gas you give it makes it harder to stop, putting unnecessary wear on your Brake Pads. In other words when you are driving in City Limits you should never be driving Jack Rabbit style like you are a Taxi driver or an Ambulance Driver. All that does is put you and others at risk if someone isn’t paying attention and drifts in front of you.





I live in Florida we have no fault Insurance and no yearly vehicle inspections, so you never know that you need new brakes until your Front Bumper is embedded in someone’s Trunk. I have traveled just about every State in this country and I have never seen the amount of rear end accident like Florida, everyone overdrives and think that their name is Dale Earnhardt. I know how to make my Engine scream like a Formula one Race Car for twenty five yards and roll to a Stop Sign with minimal break use. It takes years of driving to be able to use your Engine like that without killing yourself, you can’t keep the gas pedal buried until you get to the STOP Sign to find out that you need new brakes. That’s how people gets killed. The trick is flow control and spacing your vehicle that way when a situation develope you never have to jam on your Break, only give it enough gas to stay with the traffic flow. Most people who are gas happy on congested City Streets, are piss poor drivers travelling eleven hundred miles, to tell the truth they don’t have the nerves to take on a trip like that, they take a Plane. I am a driving Fantastic,  if I could drive to Europe I would. That’s all the Yapping for now, I will try to expand on this topic at a later date.

 

Presumptuous People
As the saying goes,  when you assume you make an ass out of you and me. Making assumptions about people is one of the most ignorant way of thinking. People who presume are usually as empty as the Steel Drums that they are beating trying to sound like they know what they are talking about. The other day I was sitting at the Bus stop in front of the Company’s Property smoking a cigarette, smoking is not allowed on property. A beat up rust riddle Mustang drove up, the driver blows his horn and gave me the thumb, as in thumbing a ride, laugh and gunned the engine. Back in the days when I drove heaps I would take that Mustang to the Junkyard. The poor fool taught I was down on my luck and waiting for the Bus, while my SUV one year old sat behind me in the company parking lot.





How crude of people to expound on others misfortune, what if I was genuinely in need of a ride, he teased me and pulled off. People like that would never amount to a hill of Beans. On my Job at the Resort I don’t go around with a sign on my back advertising Blogger/ Website owner so a lot of people assume that I am what I do at the Resort, Guest Co Workers and all. When I open

 

my mouth they are blown away and ask Man what are you doing here. They don’t know that if I was worth millions I still would be unassuming and Humble, because I am a child of God and so are the people sleeping on sidewalks all over this country, land of abundant wealth. When I see people like that I don’t automatically assume that they are all Alcoholics or that they are all Bums. What I do consider is how did they get  there,  what are their circumstances and how did they allow themselves to slip through the cracks of Life.





I often wonder where is our spirit of humanity, when IRS allows a Restaurant to write off food thrown in the Dumpster,  if they placed it in a Box and  gave it to the so called indigent people no write off. I do understand that you don’t want them hanging out around your fine establishment waiting for you to close everyday,  but isn’t there something that we can do. Yes there’s something that we can do. One unusually cold day in Clearwater, Headquarters of Scientology I noticed a woman shivering from being outside all day,  obviously homeless, I walked over to her took off my brand new Sweatshirt and gave it to her. I felt a shiver came all over me and it was not from the cold. That was only  one act of kindness but it’s a start, that was not my only act of kindness and won’t be my last. I could not write off my Sweatshirt because she didn’t have an address, morbid humor on my part, I can laugh at myself but not at their plight. Like Phil said ” just another day in Paradise for you and me”. I am not trying to make anyone uncomfortable or stir conscience I am only responsible for my conscience and my soul when I meet my maker and he ask me why  I shunned him dressed as a Beggar.

PS. Thank God for keeping my head above the water.

 

Seasons Change


life is like two nano seconds, it happens way too fast not to seize precious time given to us. In my mind’s eye I still see my first day of school, not paying attention to the teacher, instead I watched the freightliners drifting across the Bay. Then in a flash the years had passed, and the child was now a man raising children of his own and his own childhood had drifted by. When my kids were eleven I went out of my way to provide play time and to make sure they weren’t burning themselves out with school work, what did I know  that the sooner you applied yourself to the task, the earlier  success can be achieved.





When my hero Mattie  Stepanek was eleven he was preparing to die while writing poems and Books. In Matt’s case he was forced to live his days in nano  time because his time on this Earth was etched with the urgency of his mortality, that extinguished his light at thirteen. Some of us are blessed or cursed with visions of our mortality, so we make hay while the sun shines.  When I was fourteen  I was barreling down on my mortality by wanting to live the street life. I once  beat a Bully  senseless not knowing that his two older brothers seventeen and eighteen had killed many people and that I was next, fate have always been my protective gear like a bullet proof vest, the hands of fate snatched the two executioners up in a hail of bullets before they caught up to me, to extract revenge.





Still oblivious of the urgency of steering the Ship called life fast and straight. High School was one big party it was the age of Disco,  party till you drop. Before I knew it the portal for higher learning was closed, a Husband and Father had no time for School. The Seasons had changed. Life comes at you fast, whatever your Hands touch do it with all your might. My life reflects the life of many who took it all for granted, wasted youth can never be relived, not realizing that your lifespan  is only a portal that allows you to maximize the time given us all, before it’s closed. Use it wisely before the last grain of sand descends.





That is why I am here  to tell, that it is never too early to reach your potential to do great things with your life, the way that God planned it for you. Don’t be distracted by frivolity. Growing up fast and straight at an early age  is prodigious and wise. Too many of us live our lives in a childlike wonder where playtime dictates adult life. My friend Mattie had lived four seasons in one early spring.  When he Died at thirteen he was an Author, Poet and friends with Presidents. If I knew then what I know now the winter of my discontent would be one of bountiful harvest. Neil Young puts it best when he said it’s better to burn out than fade away.

 

 

Toby

 

Toby was born a happy Baby,  some  babies  comes out screaming and kicking all the way to Kindergarten. Not Toby it’s as if he was happy to be here. All that happiness and contentment was about to change for him the day his Dad walked out on his mother. It’s the same old story misery loves company. Toby was the spitting image of his father, that spelled trouble for a child who was to become the recipient of the wrath, from a woman scorned. This is something that have troubled me the better part of my life, someone would have A bug up their Ass about someone or something, and they would take it out on the first person they came in contact with.  For instance  man who hates his job, instead of finding another one he stays at his place of misery while it eats him alive. Comes home to the ones who love him and make their lives a living hell.





Josh was a hardworking family man, his children were friends of mine, for the entire ten years I associated with them there was not one day that he came home straight from work and didn’t stop at the Bar. Did he hate his Job or his wife. Toby was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The abuse started with her screaming at him for the most trivial of mishaps. The poor kid’s nerves were shot before he started school with a speech impediment. The stuttering began when she asked him a question and didn’t give him time to collect his thoughts and give an answer. By the time he got to Grade School he was an introvert who spoke only when he was spoken to. Kids are more brutal than Adults, some people possess Tact and try not to hurt other people’s feelings whenever possible. Not Kids, maybe because they don’t know any better or weren’t  taught early.





The torture he endured at home began to multiply at school by heartless kids who taunted him about his stuttering. When I was twelve my friend Charles was a gifted student, he stuttered also. I learned to listen and give him all the time in the world to get it out. The other kids in school never messed with him, because they knew that once the stuttering stopped, a point was well made. Not so in Toby’s  case when he didn’t get it out fast enough the crude abandoned woman he called mom would ask him what! are you stupid, the kids were equally brutal, they called him Tu-Tu-B. With years of repressed anger one day he went berserk on one of his tormentors at school. He was now labeled aggressive and antisocial. Isn’t that always the case someone constantly pokes you with a stick one day you take it from them and hit them over the head, now you are the bad one.






Toby was poked at home, in the streets and at school someone going Postal was being created. Whenever I hear about someone going crazy and taking up a vantage location high up with enough firearms to start a war killing as many as they can before the cops kill them, I think of Toby and how many more are there waiting to strike. In that case there’s no end in sight, because making other people’s lives a living hell is a national epidemic, at school at work and at home. Today among teenagers we have what’s called the Beat down, as many as eight against one. It appears to me that we are creating these monsters with the lack of humanity and incivility. Cold headedness is the norm,  once having a conversation at work about the Homeless people, a coworker nineteen years old asked me in a snide way,  what would you have us do with them Tony. I said to myself welcome to the future.

 

Chapter4>

 

Living A Lie




The mendacity of thinking that you are better than someone else for whatever reason is nothing short of blind ignorance. For instance you are a blonde blue eyed Hunk whose family manufactured five Dollars Cuban Cigars, went to the finest Schools, had upstairs and downstairs maids. If you go to the Bathroom and wiped your Ass the as I do, dispel the thought that you are better than I am. Better off, yes better Educated yes  more privileged yes. That is the extent of your superiority. Jose R. Was a man with the features of a Greek God, with more money than the average millionaire which is not a bad thing. What was bad about Jose, was

that his Parents raised him to believe that he was better than everyone else. All that changed when Fidel Castro took Power in Cuba and nationalized all of America’s interest on the Island.







Castro was not prejudice, he took away whatever the Rich Cubans had also, including Jose’s Tobacco Plantation and Manufacturing facilities, his Yachts and Mansions. Jose and his family was now penniless and running for their lives. Dylan  puts it best “once upon a time in your Prime you dressed so fine and you throw the Bums a Dime” now Jose was down and out in Beverly hills flat on his back scrounging like the Bums he threw dimes at. My Cousin was a fine Seamstress who designed and fabricated clothes for many of the upper crust in America.  The good hearted soul she was married Jose thinking that she could nurse him back to life. Big mistake, when he was rolling in Dough it covered the ugly little man he was. Now poverty had undressed a Bum. He refused to work and pick himself back up to where he had been. He was now a beaten broken little man whose ambition was left in Cuba. Nonetheless he still possessed his feelings of superiority, while he took handouts from his hardworking wife.





I know that he still taught he was better than everyone else when Richard Nixon gave a speech on television while he watched and snickered calling him a little piece of shit. I thought to myself if he felt that way about Nixon,  what of me. The world is befuddled thinking  that rich and privileged people are better than us little shits. I have taught of Nixon to be many things, but not in Jose’s view. For that matter no one. But that’s how it is when your parents allowed you to grow up thinking that your shit don’t stink.Raising your kids to think like that poses future problems for them, society and you.  During my lifetime I was fortunate to have met two men whose combined worth was one Billion dollars neither of them made me feel that I was any less than they were . One of them was one of the original owners of Radioshack, he confide in me that when both of his sons graduated College, he gave them Jobs at the bottom of his Conglomerate to teach values and humility. That’s what Parenting is all about, not giving them office’s next to him on thirtieth floor so that they would  think that they were Royalty and have the same attitude as Jose. Life is short and unpredictable, the same wind that took you up can bring you down. That is why I try to live my life in a manner that God would be proud of me. Don’t forget that he made Man in his own Image. It would be cold of me not to tell you how he ended it all. He chased every skirt in the streets and every tight pants Boys, he contracted Aids and took his wife and his rambunctious attitude with him to the other life  I guess that he found out too late that change is good. May God rest his Soul.

 

Responsibility




When I was a teenager I thought that growing up meant being free of my mother’s constant nagging about the person she wanted me to be. A proud Man with values that others would admire. Having respect for my fellow man, not hurting anyone directly or indirectly, not stealing or cheating, to be precise do unto others as you would have them do to you. All through those turbulent teen years it never occurred to me that what Mother was doing was prepping me for the life ahead of me. She was teaching responsibility to an oblivious teen who could not wait to be an adult and do all the bad things that adults do, like too many sex partners, excessive use of alcohol and drugs. It never occurred to me that they were wasting their lives and killing themselves. I once worked with a twenty one years old man who had heart murmur  from the amount of coke that he ingested from seventeen to twenty one. Can you imagine a young man with the heart of an old man. I also met a Man who didn’t know the names of all his children, he had so many with different Women. Yet another man who drank anything other than milk or water and his stomach would bleed, from all the alcohol he drank .





All this boiled down to responsibility, something that too many adults lack. Immature and irresponsible they know how to scratch the itch but nothing about parenting, I would need a calculator to tabulate the amount of men that I have met in their forties and fifties with the mentality of a fifteen year old. Looking back I thank mom for all the nagging. Of all the misfits that I have been unfortunate to meet in my life, I must say mother did her Job raising two Boys by herself with great success. Neither one of us posses a compulsive obsessive disorder, both good husbands and  fathers, world class citizens who respect all of God’s Creatures.
Parenting comes easy for me, lead by example and pass on values through the way you live your life, it can’t be taught. Trying to teach values and living your life in a gregarious manner is contradicting.



The other day I noticed a young man with two young boys heading to the Beach, in one Hand he had a twelve pack of beer in the other was an opened can that he was sipping from. The message he was sending, public drunkenness was against the law but cool anyway, how contradictory. It’s the same when you invite a bunch of friends over, everybody gets shit-faced and trash talk when the kids are within earshot. That’s  irresponsibility , kids are like sponges they absorb their Environment. Once I was sitting at the kitchen table with my friend’s  wife having a conversation when her eight years old son could not get her attention he vehemently declared mommy you are a Bitch , instead of slapping his face and giving credibility to his vulgarity, she asked him why he called her that. He staunchly replied Daddy said that you are. It appeared that he and his dad had a conversation about something that his mother told him he couldn’t have and his response was, don’t mind her she is a Bitch. Like I have said over and again, anyone can make Babies, but we all don’t posses the level of responsibility to be Parents.

 

 

Raising Themselves


This is the part of working in the  Resort business that I love. Meeting people from all walks of life, from all over the world. Today I met a Teacher on her Honeymoon,  the conversation started with my Nametag, to where I was from, to parenting to Marriage. On the latter she wanted to know the secret of a long and happy marriage. I began by telling her that I have been married for thirty seven years,  also that without fidelity, communication, respect,  giving and taking I would not be here thirty seven years later giving advice. Next the subject of parenting ensued and how many kids I had also my secret to their level of consciousness. I began by telling her that by being interactive in their lives by setting guidance, interjecting values and telling them to select their friends instead of being selected. She was glued and mesmerized, I was rattling off with the advice. Then I broke the secret that I Blog about all we just discussed. She taught I was pulling her leg, went to the Site and was now a fan.





Even though I was enjoying the conversation, I thought to myself I should be moving on I had work to do that the shift before did not accomplish, also she was a newlywed that probably wanted to go upstairs and get busy.
Then she hits me with what do you think about Android Babies, children given the most expensive of Devices to fill the void of  parenting and not interacting in their lives. I said to myself oh my Lord, she just opened up a can of Worms that would take the entire Honeymoon to properly address. I thought, how can I put it in a nutshell quickly. My response, Children put in a position of raising themselves is equivalent to when I was growing up being raised by a single parent who had to work so we could eat. We were called latch key children, when we came home from school there was no one home for hours. We either prioritize by doing homework, cleaning up our mess and probably start preparing dinner so when she gets home there’s little to do.  For a weak and misguided child that is a recipe for being a badass Brat.  She was not a stay at home mom so there was a lot that we didn’t benefit, from her always being there.

 

A child in that situation has to grow up fast making sound decisions in how they spent their time and who they choose to be friends with. I told you that when I was fourteen I was smoking marijuana with a twelve year old that went to Catholic school. Both of us were lucky to have interactive parenting to turn our lives around. My mother busted me at fourteen with an ounce of Weed which started intervention. Without her interactive parenting I probably would have been a big Dealer by twenty. That didn’t happen because the Foundation was laid so was the Path filled with values.  Allowing kids to raise themselves comes with no small consequence.  Case in point a sixteen year old honor student had sex with a classmate, video tape and posted it. When confronted by the school he jumped to his death. I didn’t elaborate to the Teacher so I think she needs to revisit Sks.

 

 

Making Connections





Connecting with people is one of the coolest things, encountering someone for the first time and within 10-15 minutes you are talking with them like you know them. Communicating and touching each other’s soul mentality and spiritually. These are the moments that I live for, here I am sitting in the Park at the farthest of six Gazebos, minding my own business trying to create my next Blog . It was noon so people eating their lunch at a Park Bench is common. What is uncommon is that they choose my Bench  (my space). Two Ladies walked right up to my Bench bypassing five others, at that point I could have been a Snob or acted in an unfriendly manner, got up and changed Benches, as many would do seeing all the other empty tables but choose mine. They asked me if I mind, I welcomed them, one lady inquired about my camera equipment, being a people person I opened up. I introduced myself and began to tell them that I was a Blogger and that I wrote on my own Website. She asked for my website address punched it in scanned it quickly and asked what do I write about.







Unwittingly she had opened the Floodgates of dialogue, we spoke for a good while about a lot of things. Finally we got around to the subject of Parenting. Then she posed the hardest question about parenting, what do you do with Children that you pour your Heart, Soul and resources into and the underBelly of Society intrigues them more  than embracing your Values. My response was lightning, you leave them alone after the umpteenth time of beating your Gums. I elaborated, some people you can perform Lobotomy on and you are not going to change their way of thinking and who they choose to be. She agreed instantly and congratulated me for the insight. It’s almost time to go, they had to go meet her Daughter high up in the RNA’ s Rankings, seemed the daughter worked long hours at the Hospital. So when the opportunity arises to spend time together they jumped on it. I am loving every minute of it, some kids grow up get their Degrees, their dream jobs and Homes and forget, as my mother would say who put them there.







My perception of this Lady was that she was a hardworking woman who had raised her children to the best of her ability, had success with some and not with others. It appears that she had either seen or experienced the heartbreaking trauma of pouring your Life in a child and they turn out to be Bastards that you don’t even know who or what they are. I used to kid my mother that she brought home the wrong baby from the Hospital. Many times it seemed like I was right, the grief that I caused. Some of us kids find their way to the Light and become enlightened to the fact that our Parents aren’t our Enemies. I continued by telling her that when we have done our best and they turn out bad, that those are just blows that life throws at us. Also that it’s for us to deal with it and move forward.

 

It’s one thing to write about the subject and another to speak  up front, up close and personal with one who picked your Brain to see how much you know about the subject that you are writing about. As a parent, been there, growing up badass ,been there done that. That’s why it doesn’t surprise me how people choose to live their lives and who they choose to be. This was one of the best encounter with a stranger. We said goodbye and just like that a bond was formed and I had a new reader on the Site. So there it is in a nutshell people being people and getting along. It’s amazing how we focus on the bad in people and forget to embrace the good when we encounter it. As I said before I could have been a Snob, instead we communicated and touch each other’s lives, isn’t it a shame that the World can’t live like this. ” reach out and touch somebody’s hand and make this World a better place ” Diana Ross.

 

 

Guns Don’t kill




Among the most intelligent and the most rational of us mental illness crops up from nowhere, without a warning. It doesn’t even take mental illness to tip some of us off, sometimes a bad day Will do it. With some people a bad attitude is all it takes to send them off in a murderous rampage. With a gun handily available rationality is out the window. Let’s look at crimes of passion and vengeance, these people aren’t thinking about punishment, all they know is something needs to be done and they have a gun. After the carnage back to reality they realize that without having a gun readily available their loved ones or enemies would still be alive. With all the stark reality gun lobbyists never stop pushing the idea of a gun in each household.



The President say that the victims have the support of the Nation. Does he means that we are going to push for higher gun control laws, does he means that we are going to get automatic weapons off the street and out of the hands of every Nut with an ax to grind. The enthusiast waves the second  Amendment . After each disaster as the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando the question is asked, how can this be prevented in the  future.  Getting every automatic weapons off the Street would be a start , only law-enforcement agencies should have them .





When I worked with Mark Harshberger he bragged to me that he owned over one hundred guns, he was an avid activist of the second amendment. One day at work a minor confrontation developed between us, to my surprise he offered me six bullets from his forty five that he carried daily. It was at that point in my life that I realized that guns weren’t dangerous, only the people who owned them. Years later while hunting in Canada with his wife a marksman who have hit bullseye at one thousand yards. Mark was heavily insured while his wife Marybeth having a relationship with his brother, shot and killed him claiming that it was an accident. Yet people like Mark argues that we want to take away their rights to bear arms, he died with his convictions. It behooves me how these activists think, all we are asking is stronger restrictions to the availability of automatic weapons and the ease of ownership overall.







Keeping in mind that the most rational of us gets his pride hurt, out the holster comes the gun as it did in a movie theater in Tampa where a retired police officer involved in an altercation with another patron pulled his gun, shot and killed him in front of his infant child, his wife and scores of other horrified patrons. This one incident left scars on my brain, knowing that cops are trained in the use of firearms and the burdens of frivolously and callously discharging them. If a Cop can pull his gun and fire in a movie theater, where does it leaves the average Nut with a gun. God help us all. The history of people going off the deep end in this country, taking a high vantage point on a building and creating carnage is in huge volume. Look at the Las Vegas shooter, no one knows what set him off and may never know. Regardless look at the arsenal he brought with him, enough to start a war. Forget disarmament, it would cause civil war. All I am concerned with is availability.







The gun manufacturers have to make their profits, only a revolution can bring blind profit and warmongers who have to sell their products or close shop. Never happen, too much money. They don’t care if their products are handed out on a street corner, pretty much the same when junior a family friend, coming home on furlough after boot camp. Traveled through Texas, got possession of a shotgun within a one hour stopover, brings it home, shoots off three fingers that I picked up and put on ice and take to the ambulance who left them behind. Now he was damaged goods, the U.S. Army prosecutes him and put him in jail, how about the person who sold him, eighteen years old. I have seen the damage .







When I was fourteen across the street from my house, A Detective came for a neighbor of mine, dead or alive, the man choose death charging the officer with a machete. The officer aimed to save the man by taking a lower shot to the groin, slow death waiting for the ambulance. Still fourteen going to the funeral of two brothers who were gunning for me for beating their baby brother badly and embarrassed him. The brothers both caught sixteen bullets each at a party that I had planned to visit ,their faces were dimpled with bullet holes. That’s how bad men end in gang warfare, I was in the middle for a short period. Don’t tell me that Guns don’t kill. At fourteen I made the decision, never to own a gun, one reason is if you kicked my ass and I know where you live, I would go home get my gun and shoot you. Everyone shouldn’t have a gun, I was true to myself. Those inalienable rights were given to the settlers to protect themselves from the Red coats and the natives. So put that in your Tea Cup and sip that.

 

Chapter5>

 

Blind Justice

 

Our Prisons are overcrowded with people serving time for what could be considered nuisance crimes, failure to pay child support, Dui, possession of a controlled substance, possession of a small amount with intent to distribute, shoplifting, petty theft, and so on . Such prisoners instead of being fined and on probation are taking up precious space for hard core offenders who needs to be off the streets. Career Criminals buy their freedom all the time with Criminal lawyers who knows how to work the system. The big disgrace is, the failure of the System to protect defenceless Children from their whacked out parents and the child welfare system nation wide. Every day you read about some poor Child dying in the care of unfit parents. People who should not even be entrusted with the care of Dogs and Cats, yet the child welfare agencies go to these homes and leave Children in visible danger in a House of Horror, to return and find the innocent and defenseless Corpse of one more case that they bungled.







And the beat goes on. It was sweltering in the bedroom of the Largo Fl. Mobile Home the day a child welfare case manager visited in July. Yet she left 8-month old William Hendrickson IV there with no air-conditioning and in the care of an erratic father, who had been refusing to take his (medication) noticed the word not medicine . Hello, ding dong, is anyone out there paying attention. A Mobile Home without AC is an Oven , a Nut that doesn’t take his medication is a time Bomb, if he can’t take care of himself how is going to care for an Infant. Yet the agency failed to take action. There was still time to save the child when a call was made to the Florida Abuse Hotline later that day. However the Hotline operator mistakenly marked the call as a non-priority case. It wasn’t until the next morning that child protective investigators arrived. By then the infant was not breathing and his two year old sister was severely dehydrated. I once heard a man say that Education makes fools out of people without common sense. Many who holds these Jobs have a Degree in Social Science. A State investigation into the death of the infant found multiple failures on the part of the child welfare system that left the boy in a Room where Police investigating the death recorded temperatures of 109 degrees.







Are these people mentally deficient leaving an eight months old infant in that Oven, do they have Children, do they have a conscience, do they believe in God or the almighty Dollar. Holding a Job like that just to make a Buck is downright scary, dangerous and criminal. Investigators found the case manager who visited the home one day before the child’s death failed to take needed actions. The abuse hotline operator failed to code an abuse report as immediate which would have sent investigators to the home within four hours. Why four hours, this was a 911 situation, other 911 calls are handled with immediacy aren’t  helpless infants in a situation like this a priority.  The case manager and her supervisor failed on several occasions to escalate the case to the State Attorney’s Office when it was clear their safety plan had broken down out of fear of embarrassment and callousness. The two children had been under the watch of a case manager since January, as a result of ongoing  Drug use and domestic violence between the parents. In an effort to keep the family together, the couple were receiving in home services to improve their parenting skills. That safety plan included random drug testing and three surprise visit a week to the home. You don’t need a PhD to know that the inept Bureaucracy were playing Devil’s advocate with these children’s lives and that they dropped the Ball. All I can say in conclusion is suffer not the little Children for theirs is the kingdom of God.

P.S. anyone can make Babies, not everyone can be Parents, also not everyone should be put in a position of Trust. May God help the unprotected ones.

 

 

Taking Shape

How they grow up is all up to you

 

Moulding your children does not mean creating a carbon copy of you. It means shaping, creating structure and adding values to their lives. Being controlling  overbearing and a Dictator robs them of their individuality. No one has the right to deny one’s individualism, not even a parent. Your job is to cultivate them to be the best they can be as an individual thinker. Your ideals can of the greatest Christian teaching, but we all have faults, it’s for us to highlight their shortcomings to them and allowing them to repair themselves. By constantly browbeating and berating, all that does is to create resentment and Rebellion. Don’t forget that God made Man in his own image, look around you and see how many of us walk in his teaching, loving our neighbors and following the other nine Commandments. If he could not bring out the perfection that’s within us . What makes you think that as a Parent we can have success with our Offsprings all the time. Remember that you can lead a mule to the water, making him drink is another story. People will always be who they are. Even though they carry your genes there can be night and day contrast in personality.






Don’t forget Freud had a hard time putting it all together, it didn’t come to him overnight, you never know what a mind is going to gravitate toward, good or bad. You can perform Lobotomy on some people and you still aren’t going to change their thinking. Your heroic efforts are noted, but all you can do is show them the way and hope that they gravitate to your teaching. Several weeks ago one of my coworker slept while her fourteen year old was out four am with his friends stealing cars and racing them at speeds exceeding 100 mph. They were part of a click who played Devil’s advocate video recording themselves and Posting it on Social media, three of them died that Sunday morning. I will say it again Lobotomy can’t save some people. If your life has been charted ill- fatefully only the hand of God can alter it’s course. And on the other hand the Lord helps those who help themselves. If you don’t teach them values and put structure in their lives and when they choose to live on the fringes of death and insanity, then the inevitable happens don’t ask why me Lord.





It goes back to the first two people on earth they chose  to listen to the voice of the Serpent who represented evil, it continued to the the young Farmer who killed his brother out of jealousy  and It never got any better to the point where Jesus had to lay down his Life. All this and you expect me to be amazed at anything that people allows themselves to become. you can invest a lifetime of teaching and Money in a child and they choose to be exactly who they choose to be. When I was fourteen years old, I smoked Marijuana with a twelve year old kid who went to Catholic school he introduced me to the finest Weed grown in every corner of the world. So don’t tell me about Public Schools and Home Environment, his Parents were top of the Heap, upstanding citizens. It’s amazing how both of our lives paralleled, we both could have turned out to be big time Drug Dealers but instead we both grew up straight and strong. What good would it have been if we both became Kingpins, but in the process we lost our Souls. Remember, we are going to be who we want to be, don’t forget that we are individuals, individual thinkers and no one can tell us at fourteen that we are stupid. The only double edge sword in Parenting is when you don’t try to show them the way how to let their lives take shape, when you allow them to run amuck without a Compass, then it’s all on you.

 

I Will Always Be There

 

You are young and in school, you meet  mr right,  your heart tells you so. Things get hot and heavy,  bam you are pregnant, you marry him all is well and good, it’s the logical thing to do.  Baby is thriving well, it’s time to go go back to school. His male dominance surfaces, I would prefer if you stayed home he utters. I will always be here to provide for the family. Magnanimous gesture for sure, nonetheless finishing your education is as tangible as an insurance policy. Matter of fact more so if his testicles leads him from you. I have been married for thirty seven years, never once unfaithful, had many opportunities though I stayed the course. Whenever one of my friends got busted in their extra curricular activity, all I hear from her is, Men are Dogs.



I say to myself, not necessarily so they just think with their shortcomings. A childhood friend of mine with a beautiful loving wife, taught that his Joystick was too much for one woman. He had a woman in just about every State, he was away from Home more than a Traveling Salesman. The grief he caused this Woman, also a friend, her mother cared for me like a son. I had no choice  but to distance myself from him. I hope you  are following my drift. Not all men is led by their Joystick. I stayed true to my wife and have no regrets for not being a Dog. There are so many contingencies why he may not be there for the long haul other than being  unfaithful, it is of the utmost for you to be able to provide for yourself if the day comes. Another friend of mine had a good marriage and a nice family, his wife however was an overbearing woman who taught her job was to mold him into the perfect Husband, always correcting and criticizing. One day he packed an overnight bag, telling her that he was working on a project that had to get done. No one had ever seen him again, nothing in this life is guaranteed.



Early in my Marriage I once told my wife that she was driving me crazy. Her response, it’s a wife’s job. No one knows what the future holds for us, that’s why you need to cushion yourself for whatever life throws at you. Janice was  sixteen years old when she hooked up with an older Man with plenty of money, by twenty she had three children for him. He told her there was no need to finish her education and no need to further her ambition of becoming a nurse, because he made enough money and would always be there. Ten years later he was convicted of murder never to walk the street again. She was now twenty six with three children to feed, no education and no skills entering the workforce for the first time. All that I am saying is, don’t get caught up in the Honey Trap when everything is so sweet and cushy that you are unable to be objective and pragmatic about the rest of your Life. Don’t forget that Momma may have, Pops may have, Husband may have, Boyfriend may have but God bless the Girl that’s got her own. I once knew a Man who was married for twenty five years, he told me that he had fifty thousand dollars that his wife knew nothing about. I asked him why, he responded that it was his runaway Money if the day comes. Anyone can wake up with their Running Shoes on a Sunday morning. Like No Doubt puts it, you came up with the Breeze without a warning

 

Fads

 

Not long ago it was fashionable to wear your Pants over your knees, exposing your Ass-Crack.  Some still do, I guess that old habits die hard. It is amazing how people would choose to follow other idiots off a Cliff, instead of setting their own trends and being an independent thinker, free of idiocy and bad taste. Fashion is not the only trend setter, how about fad diets, portion control and exercise can save you a lot of grief. The Internet was created as a Grapevine for information to flow, a lot of people see it a different way. They see it as a place to let it all hang out, literally. A place where bad Taste and hideous graphics rules. Instead of using it as I have, to let your creative juices flow, to let information be accessible to every corner of the world. No they use it to show crimes being committed by themselves, acts of brutality and gruesome deeds, such as High School Girls involved in a Beat down.



Youngest girl, 14, in McDonald’s beatdown.
A teen girl was brutally beaten in a gang attack inside a crowded Brooklyn McDonald’s on March 9.
A teen girl was brutally beaten in a gang attack inside a crowded Brooklyn McDonald’s on Mar ninth
The youngest girl involved in the brutal beatdown inside a Brooklyn McDonald’s admitted her guilt Monday and will likely be placed in a group home as punishment.The 14-year-old is the second teen to take a plea in the revolting caught-on-video assault that shook the city last month.“I punched, dragged, kicked the victim,” she said in Brooklyn Family Court of Ariana Taylor, 15, who was set upon at the Flatbush fast food joint.

The girl, whose name is withholding because of her age, will be moved from a juvenile jail to a non-secure facility operated by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services.

She is likely to stay there for a year following her sentencing next week, a source said, although the penalty can be modified based on her behavior.

She was caught in Atlanta trying to board a plane to Jamaica and is facing a stiffer sentence than the probation a 15-year-old accomplice was handed last week because the younger girl was already on probation for an earlier fight.

“She’s taking responsibility and realizing it’s time for her to grow up.

One other girl has her case pending in Family Court.

While the wheels of juvenile justice grind fairly fast, the cases against three teens who were over the age of 16 at the time of the March 9 incident — meaning they’re considered adults — are still in the preliminary stages .

Accused ringleader Aniah Ferguson and one alleged cohort have been indicted for attempted gang assault while the case against a sixth defendant is still pending, records show.

Like always Fads have taken over and ruined a good thing, by posting any crap that comes to their small minds such as hard core Pornography of themselves and sometimes unsuspecting participants. Then there are the ones who live on the edge of death and insanity they puts it all on the line. Not long ago in Pinellas county Florida three kids 14, 15 and 16 , part of a click that stole Cars from Dealerships, video recording themselves racing and playing Tag on city streets at speeds exceeding 100 mph. The reason for this insanity, Posting their Brainless Balls of Steel acts on Social media, seeking their moment. Well Sunday morning four am was their last ride, when the car they were in doing over a hundred flipped several times bursting into flames killing all three. If that video survived the crash and was Posted it would have been viral instantly. There you have it the viral fad. One question,  has sensibility and rationalism taken a vacation. Way back in the days Russian roulette was the fad and wagering game. Six people sat at a table, empty the chamber of a Gun, load one live round, spun the Magazine and passed it till one fool found the Bullet in his head. As I have said stupid Fads have been here forever, and will be here. All I want to know,  is stupidity inherited and is it contagious.





Today we have the Bullet of  Social media posting, not made of lead but also carry deadly outcomes. For that minute of fame we have sixteen year old posting derogatory information about themselves and others including having Sex. Like any other teenagers I also was intrigued, I started a collection of Playboy at fourteen which I grew out of in High school. If we had Social media back then, I still would not have posted myself deflowering someone’s Daughter on the WWW. It probably would have gotten me killed by her Dad. Fads are not only embraced by mindless Drones, but also by smart people. In 1939 on a dare a Harvard student swallowed a live Goldfish, by end of the year one hundred others had swallowed who knows how many Gold Fish. The Fad was how many Goldfish could be Gulped in one sitting. Posting yourself and others in a compromising position could come back and bite you on the ass, ten years later while applying for your dream job. Some Social Media posting is nothing short of swallowing baby Piranha, the exit wounds can be of monumental consequences.




Related stories.

 

 

Suicide of teen who made sex video shows dilemma for schools
Staff at a suburban Chicago high school called 16-year-old Corey Walgren to the dean’s office to ask about a video he made of himself having sex with a classmate. A few hours later, the teen walked to the top of a five-story parking deck and jumped.

The suicide of the honor-roll student underscored a dilemma for schools when confronting students suspected of recording and sharing sexual images: Should school officials wait until parents arrive to pose questions and search cell phones for illicit photos or video? Or do they, as de facto parents, have the authority to investigate crimes that might include child pornography?

The issue also raises a high-stakes legal question because many child porn laws predate the phenomena of teens sharing sexual images by cellphone. And neither they nor their parents usually have any idea that doing so can trigger serious penalties, including being labeled a sex offender for life.

“It’s not that big a deal until it happens to your school,” said Joshua Herman, a lawyer who represents schools across Illinois. “Then it’s a nightmare.”



His parents have sued the school, accusing it in a federal lawsuit of unnecessarily traumatizing their son by warning him he could be charged and forced to register as a sex offender. They are seeking more than $5 million in damages.

“They scared the hell out of the kid, and that’s what drove Corey to kill himself,” said Maureen and Doug Walgren attorney, Terry Ekl.

In the documents, officials at the 2,800-student school in an upper middle-class suburb west of Chicago say they conveyed to Walgren the seriousness of the matter while also reassuring him that their goal was to keep it out of court.

 

Chapter6>

 

Save Driving / Testing Fate




A man once said,  if he lives to be a hundred that he never would understand women. I am saying that if I live to be a hundred I will never understand People’s gregarious nature when they get behind the wheel. I always travel at a reasonable fast pace so as to leave the clutter behind me. Today I am navigating Us 19 doing sixty in a fifty five mph zone. I looked in my rear  view and I noticed a car travelling faster than I was, barreling down on me, this is all within a one mile spaced stop light. I changed lanes as I always do when someone is barreling down on me. At the light while we were stopped, I glanced into his car, to my surprise an infant sat in his car seat while his Dad puts his Life at risk, pushing a subcompact to its limit. Bad enough to be gregarious with your own life, but with your own children, that is unconscionable. Truthfully, you are a Jackass. I am a fast driver with years of Commercial experience, but when I have a passenger their safety is my number one concerns. Most of all I don’t like to create anxiety.





Cars backing up have ran over Kids, Toys and  Pets also, so if with such gentle force the damage can be great, multiply sixty five Mph. with your children sharing your Callousness, on a whim. Once travelling the Pa Turnpike Traffic came to a dead stop, after inching by the accident scene, I noticed a SUV that was making an illegal U turn on a highway that a hundred has been done many times. He got broadside by a vehicle coming around a blind Bend at a high rate of speed, all was airlifted. I peered at the SUV to see a Teddy Bear,  where the Bear sat the Quarter Panel took a huge impact.





Like Spock would say totally illogical, for you to hear and see bad accidents and you say to yourself  it doesn’t affect me, yes it does affect you, it is a learning experience for you to store in your head for, the next time you take off on a Flight of fancy. Regardless of whether or not you are alone, the General Public’s safety is in your Hands . In my neighborhood a hardworking Man made a Decision to Drink and Drive with a very fast Car. That Decision cost his Life and his two young Sons, injuring his Wife permanently. The Maserati disintegrated .
Please do not test the  hand of Fate, drunk or sober, you can’t Win. When carrying precious Cargo you need to be extremely focused on the task at hand.

 

 

Money For Nothing




There are four kinds of people in the world. People that makes things happen, People who wonder how they did it, People who wonder what just happened here and People who just don’t give a dam. I was only a teenager when I  started noticing how we passed time calling it work. Something that so called productive People do. The first time I noticed a time passer, was the first job I held right out of HS. I worked for a major Conglomerate, I started in the mail room, there I met a Man who’s been there for twenty five years. Can you imagine working in the mail room for a Company that had over three thousand employees and never advanced any further in twenty five years. Well if that doesn’t  speak for itself, then what does. He knew every mail slot for each department and employees company wide, he could do it with his eyes closed. Yet Charles took an average of three minutes to place the envelope in the slot  ( big procrastinator) he could have done it in five seconds but that was how he passed time for twenty five years, not giving the company a honest days work.





That is why he kept the same position for twenty five years, if he took another job in another department he might have to work. I figured that in twenty five years he had not given the Company five years of work. If that’s not giving a dam, then make him Employee of the month.
Years later I observed an economic trend that justified a weakness in the manufacturing sector of the economy,  especially the Automobile production. I believe it was seventy nine, Toyota introduced an inexpensive Car that was well built and great on gas. During all of this, Detroit workforce was fiddling, putting out inferior products and not seeing the coming effects, today many Neighborhoods are Ghost Towns where People once lived, who went to work and stood around discussing how can Toyota do that and what the Hell just happened here. Today America imports more goods than they export .





Unions were created to protect the American Workers  (keyword) not to Drive the Entrepreneur out of business who Mortgaged his Soul to start his Business and end up hiring a bunch of non productive People who felt entitled to have their Jobs, who went to work all day and did Squat. All this time Hard workers like myself collected unemployment. Is it any wonder that what we owe Japan and China is enough to Foreclose on the White House. Wake up America it’s time to give a damn about your Job, which is your primary means of support and your Economy. Today I work in the Hospitality industry where if your Guests don’t feel that you have  treated them special, they would take their business to your competition leaving you out of work. Pay day I noticed an Employee of one year counting his Money that he had not earned just like Charles.  All I could hear in my mind was Dire straits, Money for nothing and your (Checks) for free. Forget the Chicks, nothing is free.

Over Tampa




it is seven AM the day after Irma visited the tranquility of my Sanctuary called Home. The appearance of daybreak was bleak as late Dusk. Nonetheless I said a silent Prayer, giving God thanks for doing his thing of man-handling and controlling his atmosphere. The damage done in the southern hemisphere was catastrophic for many Islanders, the lost of lives due to the Havoc laid by a category five monster Hurricane was condolencing. For many days I was apprehensive as to weather I made a mistake of not evacuating further North to safer ground. On the other hand the  me of years ago who lived the life of Tom Sawyer didn’t have the slightest intent of leaving and missing the greatest adventure of my life.



Moving from the Sanctuary of the Pocono mountains to the Flatlands of Florida was a willing choice four years ago. I could hear Tom’s voice as he Rafted the mighty Mississippi “you have lived all these years and have never experienced the life and death Rush of a Hurricane, now you are going to evacuate ” the twelve year old in me said you are in it for the Ride. My only concern was that of my Wife, I would not have made the decision to ride out the Storm if she wanted to leave. She had no intention of leaving, her reason far aloft of mine
Her reason  was you can’t circumnavigate the will of God. Her unshakable Faith was a Revelation for me.
In my Community all the Homes are twenty two years old built to storm specifications, which gave most of my neighbors a feeling of false security, their preparation was miniscule. Not me , after following their lead for days, I finally decided to at least take minimal precautions.



I spent an hour travelling to all the fair weather big names  Commercial outlets to find them all closed the day before the event. Lowes was the only one open to assist their faithful customers in their hour of need. Supplies had dwindled,  what was left was only of use to someone with MacGyver’s mentality, I took what was left,  went home and put my neighbors to shame with ingenuity. I prepared for the worst making the House airtight and waterproof. When  Irma  made landfall one hundred and fifty miles from me it had sustained winds of one hundred and twenty MPH and a category four. Not the same as it was over Cuba, nonetheless enough to vanquish trees and Buildings. Before the crest the wind was fierce with sheeting Rain. Something I witnessed, with lasting memory, Lightening turning the Sky a perfect Turquoise Hue. I can still hear the song my wife kept singing all day long, God will take care of you. by the time it got to Tampa which was lined up to the Eye, it had withered to a category two. The song had given tranquility to my adventurous anticipation, I slept like a Baby when it passed over Tampa. my wife kept vigil.

To Your Own Self Be True




If you are in a relationship that is circumventing of you the person, controlling and inhibiting who you aspire to be, no matter what the chain that binds you. I don’t care how much money, how good the sex or whatever that keeps you on the Hook. When a relationship puts you in deep water over your head, compromising your beliefs, your personality, your drive, your ambition  and your spirituality, you need to step. The Bible says that if your right hand offends you, cut it off. We are living in a Player’s World, every other Jerk wants to play you like a Violin. Their goal is to have you Brainwashed, having you believing that they have your best interest at Heart. Not so my Friend, that’s how they tie you up in a knot. Like Gladys knight said “make me the Woman you come home to” that’s how Pimps control.





Janice was only fifteen years old when Roger a well dressed suave older Man latched eyes on her, waited for her after School in his fancy car, always offering to give her a ride. Like most good looking young Girls who can’t wait to to be a Woman, she was intrigued, this Guy had all the trappings to break down the walls of her chastity.  One day nearing sixteen she broke down and got in his Eldorado. Back in the old days growing up in the Bronx, the only people who drove Ld’s were old men, Pimps and Drug Dealers. That was the greatest mistake of her life, she had stepped into his Webb, exactly what the Spider had hope for since the first day he laid eyes on her sprouting young body. Unbeknownst to her this Man was a ruthless Drug Dealer. He showered her with gifts over the next couple of months, his only intent, to de- flower the naive little wannabe Woman. It worked. The Cradle Robber cajoled her from the Sanctuary of her single moms Roof to his Den of ill-repute.





The rest is History, a broken Record of Parents warning their young Daughters, don’t take Candy from a Old Dirty Bastard. All he wants is to get in your Drawers, and so did he . Didn’t take long for her to start showing, because she was now compromised. Janice had compromised herself to a Dog, before twenty she was Knocked up three times and had a Monkey on her back. To create a dependency  and be the supplier, puts him in the driver’s seat sometimes they beat her up for using up too much.  Back in Pa when you had a Dog that was bent on bad, you take it out in the Woods and shoot it.There was nothing we could for Matthew Brodrick when he killed his pregnant girlfriend friend for the last hit of Crack. Also  far too humane for Roger the Dodger, as he was known. The damage he had done to her was irreparable, all the time telling her that she didn’t need an education or training  because he would always be there for them. The ignorant young Girl she was, believed him that she didn’t need skills, until eleven years later when he was convicted of Murder and given Life. Now she had to clean up her act and go to work with no skills. Poor Kid twenty six years and no skills entering the workforce for the first time so she can provide for her Children, without going on Welfare.





My Mother always told us that if you lay with Fleas, you are bound to itch, man was Jan ever scratching. She was scratching from withdrawal and scratching for a living. Bad enough to be fifteen entering a relationship and giving it up to a cradle Robber of ill repute. How dumb can you be? in some society fifteen is considered to be a Woman, not in Florida. She was only a child when she started having his Babies. He tied her up mentally and psychologically, in some way I don’t blame her. She was only a misguided Child getting caught up in the Webb that he had spun. This is an ongoing cycle for young Girls wanting to be Women too fast, instead of concentrating on the benefits of an education. They become pre occupied in growing up fast and in doing all the dumb shit that adults do like doing Drugs. I was not different, except I had a Mother who was bent on steering my Ship straight. Finally I would like to say thanks Mom for being a great Mother and Father.

 

 

Prudence




Like anything else in life such as skills,  mannerisms,  personalities,  behavior and parenting, people refuse to ascend to be the best they can be. Most people are quite comfortable with complacency and mediocrity.  Of all the things to be half assed at, parenting is not the place. If you were raised by mediocre parents, you should not raise your kids in the same mindset. Parenting is not just about putting a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. It’s a little more than that,  like setting a path for them to travel their lives, showing them good values and graciousness. Most parents want their children’s lives to be better than theirs. There is nothing wrong with your children being more developed than you, socially and all around. In an earlier Blog titled Jasoul, I was so impressed with an eight year old child,  that I had to do her parents justice by what I had observed in their child. Jasoul had great mannerisms, style, grace and a ton of class. That is what prompted me to to write this Blog.



Today while walking down Beach Boulevard I noticed a twelve year old girl walking wearing half of a Bathing suit with both hands covering her little Breasts. The tragedy of this scenario was that she was walking with her family. The poor Girl was showing modesty in an age where girls barely older than her walks down the same Blvd with their ass cheeks hanging out of their Hooker shorts. It appears that she was being taught a lesson or being punished,  why I came to the conclusion is, she was showing modesty and her brother wasn’t asked to give her his T-shirt and dear old Dumb Dad didn’t offer her his shirt  while mediocre Mom didn’t come to her female child’s aid. That scenario left a lasting impression on me,  I am quite sure it left one on the little girl. Now do you see what I consider to be half assed  parenting. We are supposed to be there for them in all their times of need. Even though we are in Resorts City where Grownups are walking around with their ass cheeks hanging out of their Bikini, this child wants to be Prudent, for God’s sake work with her and don’t diminish her self pride.



That’s what Great parenting is about. just because you come from a household where your Dad walked around the house in his Boxer shorts always scratching himself in public and always had your Mother pregnant and barefoot, that shouldn’t be good enough for your Daughter who wants to be Prudent and smarter than you. let her be the person who she chose to be and help her to be that person. Your Children should not be a carbon copy of you, your job is teaching them individuality and responsibility. I will say it again parenting is not for everyone who makes Babies.

 

 

Chapter7>

 

Blue Bottom




Nestled at the bottom of a one mile hike of treacherous terrain, where a slip of foot could leave you badly damaged, or dead. Lies one  of the most beautiful creation of Nature, it might even be where a Meteor fell hundreds of years ago. Nevertheless it’s a beautiful Gorge with Mountains and tall Timbers on both sides of a bountiful stream. The water flow was controlled by a man made Dam, trapped in a deep crevice of land. That is how it got its name Blue Bottom. When the sun shines high overhead, you see nothing but blue water, no matter how deep you go. It’s been a prohibited area for many years, story told that back in the days of the Flower Children, Hippies would camp out here for long periods of time, nothing short of Squatting.





Living in a primitive state just like the Mohegan and Pocono Indians did centuries ago. Don’t forget this place is part of the Pocono mountains. The Flower Children, many of them the children of Farmers were self sufficient, they grow what they needed for their Hermit lifestyle including Marijuana. Free Love, Rock and roll and Drugs were the Theme of the sixties and seventies. As in all societies there have always been Dim Witts quickly to take the lives of others in a fit of drunken rage. I guess after Cain killed  his brother, we were doomed forever with the Curse of Murder. At this same Pristine Ground that I hiked many times even though Prohibited, one day one of these peace loving Flower Children whacked out on Acid, killed a couple of his friends, on what I consider to be sacred Grounds. That act of Barbarism got them all Evicted from Eden. Once again the proof is in the Pudding Drugs are tolerated differently by different people, and taking drugs that you don’t know their composition and interaction is like playing Russian roulette with your Life and others.





These Woods were Posted No Trespassing for the longest time. Once Memories are erased by time, each new Generation forget and imitates the previous. Drug Epidemics are typical. Thirty years later the Curse of Blue Bottom re-manifests itself, this time a bunch of privileged kids. The kids would gather at the top of the Gorge with their expensive ATVs, sometimes they raced to the bottom. Once there, let the party begin. Sometimes the party lasted deep into nightmare, drinking and smoking marijuana. The retainer wall of the Dam was ten feet wide with a one hundred and eighty feet drop. Where else would a bunch of young Stoned kids ride their ATVs. The hands of faith have known to be tested long before Evel Knievel, and will forever be. It’s an absolute disaster when teenagers have no structure in their lives and too much time on their hands with dangerous toys to boot. on one occasion one kid raced across the top of the Dam’ s wall, lost control and fell to the bottom of the outside wall, to the rocks that awaited. The Caverns of this Beautiful hideaway is a horror chamber for many. Living in Florida eleven hundred miles away, many times I would think of my secret place at Blue Bottom and my Spirit world make the trip, return and paint a picture in my mind’s eye of this little piece of Heaven nestled in the Pocono mountains.

 

 

Save Driving/Experience Count

 

Most smart people practice safe sex. So why don’t these same smart people practice safe Driving. The average person who gets a driver’s license automatically believes he is a good driver, filled with overconfidence and smitten by the speed bug, some people do the same thing fifty years and never got good at it. Mediocrity and complacency may be cool elsewhere, not driving. You can be the most skilled operator, without common sense, good judgement and adherence to fundamental rules of the road , you are a statistic waiting to happen. There are so many contingencies on the road, it takes the most astute motorists at least ten years to be an accomplished driver, preventing accidents and compensating for other drivers mistakes. Many times the safest drivers lose their lives because of other drivers mistakes. In football a wide receiver is only as good as being able to read the play in motion being orchestrated by the quarterback, It is the same with driving. When you are out there one the roadways, you need to be able to look a mile down the road and tell by the taillights that something is wrong.  One day travelling I- 81 leaving Hazelton coming around a blind bend I taught someone was playing a Halloween trick on fellow Drivers. I almost crashed into the traffic that was stand still, watching a head roll down the road. If I was not practicing what my driving instructor told me,  he told me never over-drive, you can’t see around a blind bend, take your foot off the gas.







As I took my eyes off the Head I had just enough time and distance to stop from pushing the VW that was embedded under the Tractor Trailer. Apparently the Driver of the VW did not have astute training as I did about overdrive which is something not only found in Transmissions. The average person knows nothing about overdrive, it’s the same with night driving. If you can’t see beyond your headlights, take your foot off the gas. This is beginning to look like a VW fatality Blog. Another time traveling through Connecticut I noticed a Flatbed truck transporting a Caterpillar tire unsecured with no tie-downs . I was directly behind the Tractor Trailer, I noticed that the unsecured Tire was bouncing, I immediately put my flashers on, I started honking my horn to alert the truck and fellow Drivers that there was a hazardous situation developing. No one paid any attention to me , the Tractor Trailer kept on hammering and drivers blew me off.







Not being able to read the play,  a VW passing the Tractor Trailer was flattened by the one ton Tire that fell from the flatbed Truck. Of all the twenty vehicles that passed me, along with the Truck Driver none of them was able to read the play that I laid out in front of them.  All that could have been avoided if everyone didn’t think I was nuts blowing my horn frantically. Getting back to contingencies, reading the Traffic is only one of the many others that no one ever took the time to teach you, things like pumping your brakes instead of locking them up. I once observed a car travelling way too fast for the road conditions, came up on a wall of traffic in the pouring rain. Overconfident as he was doing 75mph on a wet road he knew enough to pump his brakes, instead of locking them up, he came to a perfect stop. So how can you be so overconfident behind the wheel not knowing that there are hundreds of contingencies out there awaiting an inexperienced driver filled with overconfidence.

 

 

Chasing The Rabbit




There is one fundamental principle of driving that ninety percent of the Drivers on the road don’t grasp. We all can’t drive at eighty, we all can’t drive at sixty, we all can’t drive at forty five. The people who posted the Speed limit signs did not explain that we all can’t drive at the same speed without devastating consequences and catastrophic statistics that we see each and every year. These statistics will not get any better, even though each year the cars comes with new Technologies in safety, remember the cars are only as safe as the Drivers. My car has sensors all around the vehicle including front end crash sensor, they still don’t protect me from other drivers who don’t understand the principles of staggering, which does not only means spacing front and back, but also side by side. Spacing front and back prevents rear end, side by side prevents drifting and side-swipes.







Staggering the traffic flow prevents being cut off abruptly by someone looking for an address, in the age of Texting and cell phone use, good driving skills becomes necessity. It absolutely behooves me that since we abandoned the Horse and Carriage, Generations after generation continue to drive with the same skill level as the first one thousand cars on the road, bumper to bumper and side by side. None have become any wiser that the more vehicles on the road, the greater the need for staggering and spacing. I can’t put it any simpler terms  to understand, if the cars in front of me is doing forty five, I can’t be doing forty four or forty three and the cars following me can’t be doing forty one, in a mishap consequences are costly.

 

At higher speeds they can be catastrophic. Pile-ups are the result of likeminded pack mule driving. That old macho crap about you got this, is just that. If you took a written test to get your learner’s permit, I believe it said one car lengths for each ten mph. Yet not a day goes by that I am out there and I don’t have someone drafting my rear Bumper ridiculously close, old people lacking coordination, young Girls acting macho and lacking skills and experience.   If one driver tries to break away from the crowd everyone picks up the chase, someone who has been driving in a lull finally realize that he is on a highway and now all of a sudden he is a driver. Someone is doing sixty five in a fifty five mph zone and out of the blue there they are, side by side
drafting your Bumper, that is Jackass Driving. The next time you are out there driving take a look around you and prove me wrong.





I have been doing this driving business for over forty five years with three accidents, one of them my fault, on a snow covered roadway where speed was the only factor. After many years of driving commercial, I never sent anyone to the Hospital and I have saved many lives of people who drove mindlessly. At eighteen years old I drove Taxi in Manhattan a place where great Drivers are crafted. I quickly learned that pack driving caused ninety percent of the accidents. When I moved to Florida four years ago I developed a style of driving that I call Greyhound driving . At the light three abreast,  once it turns green I move out decisively and purposefully in order to set up the traffic flow. Once I have reached the Speed limit, I then maintain that speed, if I picked up tag along pack drivers, I exceed the speed limit by as much as ten mph. If the show off tag along wants to ride side by side, I back off and become the Greyhound chasing the Rabbit. Once I have distanced myself from the pack, I can relax, knowing that all I have to deal with is a couple of fools who don’t know that the Greyhound never catches the Rabbit.

 

Drugs-The Final Chapter

 

I will forever be beating the Drum about Drugs no one should entertain the notion, but for many it is the beginning of a steady decline from reality. A lot of this Blog post have been said before, well here it is again with a twist.




In the opening page of the Book called you, you are given life, you grow, you flourish, you learn. All well and good in your life so far. Then one day someone pass you a joint , a pill , a straw or a stem, a needle.  This is the beginning of the end. some of us can sample anything and don’t become compulsive obsessive.  Most of us are C.O. with Food , sex  , speeding, spending  and just about everything,  so why not drugs. The best way to deal with a compulsive disorder is to first do a self analysis. If there’s anything in your life that you do in excess,  or something that you do that is bad for your health, but you still do it, you are in the ranks of the compulsive obsessive. knowing this, you should be the last person to try any Drugs. I have known people who tried highly addictive drugs such as crack and didn’t become a Crack Head by sampling and occasional use. People like that are rare . The average person who tried crack usually pick up a habit within a couple of hits on the Stem, for some it only takes one hit depending on the quality. My motto in life have always been to learn from others mistakes.






When I was fourteen we moved in an apartment in the multi family home of the Alexander’s, the oldest boy sold Drugs, the sister that followed him had a Coke habit that killed her at thirty six, the sister that followed her was the Mule, being an Airline Stewardess she had access, availability and transportation the World over. Some people are just opportunist, they see a Dollar attached to a string and they still grab at it. When I was twelve and thirteen I used to hang out at jam sessions of budding Artists like Bob Marley, that’s when I started smoking weed, picking up the Roaches of Spliffs, them Boys rolled the Ganja like Cigars, one Roach lasted days. Living with the Alexander’s was my fork in the Road, having huge abundance and didn’t have to pay for it, in HS everybody who smoke weed knew me and wanted to hang with me, I had personality and access to the finest Weed grown around the world. I could have been a big Dealer, I chose not to,





Mother always told us if you walk in shit you will stink, if you sleep with Fleas you will itch. I was overexposed at fourteen. Once I went to a party, passed by a Room where six people were on their hands and knees vacuuming the carpet with their noses trying to recover the spilled Coke. I knew right then and there that Coke was not for me. Within a short time thereafter two of my favorite people died of drug overdose. Jimmy Hendricks and  Janis Joplin they were two of my all-time favorites, I took their deaths hard and thanked them for showing me how not to live my life.
Growing up in seventies the most proliferating drug use period in the world, only to be overshadowed by eighteenth century China. People were dropping dead like flies all over from bad Heroine. Yet many of my classmates dropped out of H.S and life because of their Habits, it’s as if what was going on around them did not register, neighborhood kids and famous Rock Stars dying with their arms still strapped and the needle still embedded in their arms. In H.S the slogan users are losers surfaced. At seventeen I held a coworker in my arms,  after stumbling out of the Bathroom spitting out Blood and dying before the Ambulance got there.





With all that I witnessed before eighteen do you think it’s any wonder that I am writing about living through a nightmare Era that I endured and overcome while many who walked the same streets that I did never lived to be twenty. using Drugs is like writing the final chapter in your life no good ever come of it, even people with great control like my friend the Photographer eventually succumbs, either by losing their craft or their lives. Now here it is forty seven years later and there is a resurgence of bodies in the streets in Massachusetts and elsewhere from People using a strong opioid, Fentanyl is given to cancer patients as a pain killer . Back in the days people who got stoned with anything they could get their hands on were known as Stone Heads, they don’t get stoned for the same reason that recreational users get stoned, but instead to be obliterated and stupefied.
Using Drugs as an escape is as cowardly as suicide, coping with life defines who we are, ask any Cancer Survivor.

 

Chapter8>

 

Mannered




If a child is led to be disrespectful of what you ask and say, believing that they are indisputable and irreproachable.  Through whatever means that they hold your trust, it’s  unbecoming of a rounded out individual. They have rough edges, that should be professionally addressed. By you looking away in helpless disbelief, only feed strength to a person with no fear. They will test you to your limits. And , when they are done with you, they turn to Society.





Being mannered is a reverent and humbling  feeling, that if you were able to save the world, there is still something, someone or some greater force , to say the least, listen to you, and believing that laws are just  that. When I was fourteen my Mother found my ounce of Marijuana while washing my clothes. This was the first time I was mannered. That woman flushed my ounce of Marijuana and dares  me to tell her what I was looking for. I was humbled to see someone who was well within their rights of exploding like a stick of Dynamite, choose to be the Bigger Man. She had not once in our lifetime ever asked me what a fourteen year old was doing with having and smoking marijuana. what she did was, she counseled me about the way that I was living my life, of the dangers, the  health effects and the consequences. She spoke to me like a Priest and a Drug Counselor. The civilized treatment made me absolutely crazy asking myself why don’t she explode. That is super parenting, for a single mother raising two teenage boys in NYC, let’s call that Dr Mom.



When I was sixteen, going to a party she told me what time to be back in the house, being who I was, my inner demons spoke to me they said she is not talking to you. Stumbling home at pre-dawn, just about morning, shit faced and all, she ambushed me behind the door with a Broomstick, dropped me to my knees, but guess what I did not jumped up and punch her , even though  someone I know could kill, I would have been stupid to disrespect someone who could kill you with kindness. That is mannered. If you can’t manner a child by either fear or logically reasoning , that person will not be afraid of laws. When I was ten I witnessed a man getting knocked down, got up told his assailant to wait right here, returned with a Machete tucked away, asked him try and hit him again, the fool swung. From that day on he was known as Lefty, that’s street mannering, street justice, What it feels like to sing the Blues.





When I met Mark Harshberger, while working for him as a contractor. Early in our relationship he told me his life insurance was six figures. A state wrestling champion, with 100 Guns. He was afraid of no one, I hope at least GOD. During a small altercation at work for getting too close to his new truck, he offered me six from a forty-five. Hello. Somewhat of an agnostic nature I would say. He was abusive to the workforce, there is no doubt in my mind that He took some of that bodaciousness home. Once we were doing interior demolition on a College Dorm to remove the hazardous building materials, he had abused us so badly for the duration of the project, on the last day of finalizing the project. The Crew of twelve, Mutinied, twenty five Dollars per hour and no one showed up for work. He was fearless and un-reproachable. He could shoot as well as his wife Marybeth, who have hit Bullseye at 2000 feet, and beyond.  One fateful day Mark and Marybeth were in Canada hunting with some of their finest Telescopic  equipped Rifles. At this point in his Life he was covered close to three quarters of a million . Sharp-Shooter Marybeth Shot and killed  Mark stating that she taught she shot a Bear in the twilight dusk. While back Home she was setting up House with Mark’s Brother. Murder by Death or death by Murder, you call it. Regardless! Mark was Mannered by Marybeth.





PS. we should not wait for someone else to have to manner up our kids.



WikipediaMary Beth Harshbarger

Mary Beth Harshbarger (born February 19, 1965) is an American woman who rose to media attention when she accidentally shot her husband, Mark Harshbarger, during a hunting trip in Newfoundland, Canada, thinking he was a bear. She was charged with “criminal negligence causing death” and found not guilty.

MARY BETH HARSHBARGER
Shooting incident Edit
On September 14, 2006, Mary Beth, her husband Mark and their two young children, and Mark’s brother Barry Harshbarger, were on a hunting trip outside of Buchans Junction, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The facts of the case state that Mary Beth was sitting in the back of a Chevy pickup truck with her children, armed with a rifle, on a logging road late in the day.[1] She waited with her children while Mark and a local hunting guide walked through the nearby spruce woods in the hopes of flushing out a black bear.[1] Barry was at a hunting blind elsewhere in the woods.[1]

 

Mark began to walk back toward the truck with the guide, the guide stopping to urinate in the woods.[1] At this point Mark walked towards the van, ahead of the guide, in dark clothing without an orange hunting hat or vest to improve his visibility.[1] At 7:55 pm (NT) as he emerged from the woods, Mary Beth told police that she saw a dark shape that she believed was a black bear, and fired using her rifle.[1] What she shot was not a black bear however, but was instead her husband Mark.[1]When he was shot, Mark Harshbarger was approximately 200 feet from the truck in which his wife Mary Beth and two children were seated.[2] In recounting the incident to Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers at the lodge where they were staying immediately after the shooting, Mary Beth said she had looked through the scope twice to make sure what she was seeing really was a bear.[3] She insisted that she had not seen the blue of Mark Harshbarger’s pants, but instead seen the black of a bear.[3]

 

According to Dr. Nash Denic, the St. John’s, Newfoundland pathologist who autopsied him, Mark Harshberger died of one gunshot wound to the abdomen.[3] Dr. Denic revealed during Mary Beth Harshberger’s trial that Mark would most likely have been leaning over when he was shot .

PS. working for Mark, I found him to be a Tyrant and a Slave driver, very ill-mannered with the Workforce. Regardless no one deserved to be taken out like that, by a Sharp-Shooter who could hit a Bullseye at 2000 feet, my question is, why would you shoot at something 50 yards away not sure what it was being a professional Hunter. If every Hunter in the woods fired at everything that moved, there would be Bodies stacked in a mountain.

PPS. Did I mention that there are too many Guns in the hands of fools

 

Dying In the Name Of Fun

At Save Driving we are always advocating safe driving and teaching good values to your kids. We can’t think of any stronger way of driving this message home, than with the real thing.
Sunday afternoon, on my way to work I drove through the crash scene of the carnage that took place hours earlier, Where three Kids lost their lives in a high speed joy ride at over 100 mph. These kids were playing Russian roulette with their lives and the general public, who uses the roadways. There are many more out there whose Destiny is forged in an inferno of mangled steel. I know that we all have to die at some point, but that way is not my way, suffering excruciatingly in mangled steel. There are many adults who test the hand of faith daily  on our roadways.

 

 

The ones I look out for mostly, are the ones that are two miles away from their exits and they Punch the engine, reaching speeds of up to 100 showing off. When I lived in Pa I used to call them Jersey Drivers. They are everywhere, mindless Drones, so why am I not surprised that a sixteen year old would find that type of behavior fascinating. I once observed a Mother transporting her four children in a mini van, the kids were moving around while she played the Kamikaze Mom,weaving traffic at 65mph in a forty five mph zone. I travel not only  by sight, but by Faith also and I lead by example. what this mother was doing unconsciously, was telling her Children that it was cool to go driving through city streets like a maniac.
Kids can’t wait to drive, when my nephew was eight years old, someone left the keys in the ignition, guess what, he started the car, took off and crashed it.

 

We try to teach them all they need to know to survive in life, why not teach them good driving skills by the way you operate your vehicle. Auto Manufacturers and NASCAR have already planted the seed in their heads that Cars aren’t for Transportation, but for racing, the damage is done. When I lived in Pa and NASCAR came to Pocono Raceway, it was like a national holiday, people took off from work, school and life to be at the Track watching cars traveled way past 170 mph. After leaving the Track they would take what they have learned from NASCAR to the streets. Why then would you be surprised, when young bored Urban children take to stealing cars and racing them through City Streets. Kids from affluent families borrow their families BMW, smitten by the Speed Bug and never made their way back home, bottom line, Speed kills.
Ps.  Values, limitations, boundaries and consequences can keep them alive.
Three boys dead after fiery crash in stolen SUV, Pinellas sheriff says

eyon Kaigler said in December that he was done stealing cars. His friends were still posting videos of high-speed joyrides to Facebook, wearing key fobs on lanyards around their necks. But Deyon, 16, had decided it was too dangerous.
“I value my life,” he said. “I’m not trying to be dead.”

Just eight months later, on Sunday morning, three boys died and Deyon was led away in handcuffs after a fiery, high-speed crash sent a stolen Ford Explorer pinwheeling through the air down Tampa Road in Palm Harbor, bursting into flames.

VIGIL: Friends, family gather in Clearwater to remember teens who died in SUV crash

Eight teenage car thieves from Pinellas have now died in the past two years, and dozens of innocent people have been injured, amid a juvenile auto theft epidemic so pervasive that even kids who vow to stop are then climbing back into stolen cars.

“When you have 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds that are dying because of their actions, it needs to stop,” said Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. “This is a deadly game.”

The boys who died in the Ford Explorer were driving more than 100 mph, playing a “cat and mouse” game with another stolen car at 4:am before they likely ran a red light and hit the Toyota Camry of a 29-year-old man on his way to work, the sheriff said.

Both the Ford Explorer and the Chrysler Sebring it was speeding with were stolen Thursday from a car dealership in Clearwater. Deputies spotted the vehicles early Sunday morning turning into a subdivision in Oldsmar, where there had been a recent rash of burglaries.

HOT WHEELS: How kids are driving Pinellas County’s car-theft epidemic

The cars were then spotted on Tampa Road. They split up, and the Explorer hit the Camry before smashing into a billboard pole and several parked cars, spinning and rolling down Tampa Road in flames. Two of the dead boys were found in the wreckage; the third had been thrown onto the street.

The boys who died were identified as Jimmie Goshey, 14; Dejarae Thomas, 16; and Keontae Brown, 16. Keontae’s brother, 14-year-old Keondrae Brown, was also in the SUV but survived. He was taken to Bayfront Health St. Petersburg and was in stable condition Sunday.

THE KIDS Six teens involved in stolen car crash have troubled histories

Deputies found the Chrysler Sebring at Sunset Point and Keene roads in Clearwater. Kamal Campbell, 18, and Deyon were taken into custody and face charges of grand theft auto and resisting arrest without violence.

The driver of the Camry, Ricky Melendez Jr., suffered a fractured ankle and tibia, as well as a broken collarbone, according to his father.

“My heart just dropped,” Ricky Melendez Sr. said. “After looking at the crash, I don’t know how he survived.”




The Ford Explorer struck another vehicle and spiraled into the air at around 4:30 a.m., Pinellas sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.

A continuing epidemic

Local officials said the deaths were a tragic but inevitable consequence of the ongoing auto theft problem.

“This scenario plays out daily throughout Pinellas County,” Gualtieri said. “The only difference between what didn’t happen yesterday and the day before that and the day before that is they didn’t roll, hit a car and get killed.”



In March 2016, three teenage girls from St. Petersburg died when they crashed a stolen car into a cemetery pond while trying to flee from deputies.

The epidemic was recently the subject of “Hot Wheels,” a Tampa Bay Times series that found that Pinellas kids driving stolen cars crash at least every four days. Teenagers here have made a sport of “car-hopping,” walking neighborhood streets looking for unlocked cars with keys left inside to steal. In 2015, police in Pinellas arrested juveniles 499 times for grand theft auto, more than in any other Florida county.

Reporters spoke with judges, police, lawyers, victims and the young car thieves themselves, who said that auto theft has become popular because kids don’t see many consequences after they’re caught.

Each of the teens involved in Sunday’s crash had “extremely extensive criminal histories”; several had committed car thefts like those chronicled in the Times series, the sheriff said. Many young car thieves wear gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints while they car-hop; one of the boys died still wearing his.

Clearwater police Chief Dan Slaughter called the deaths “senseless.”

“Many have worked so hard to avoid this inevitable tragedy,” Slaughter said. “The juvenile justice system needs to do a better job with conducting juvenile risk assessments so chronic offenders who are endangering the public, and themselves, can be reasonably detained.”

Keontae’s grandfather, Sylvester Brown, said the boy was released from custody just days earlier.

Brown said he wishes the juvenile system had been tougher on his grandson. “Why did they let him go like that?” he asked. “They should be more hard on them.”

Keontae’s father, Adontai, said his son “was doing something he shouldn’t have.”

“I admit that — I’m not going to sit around here and sugarcoat and say he’s the best kid in the world,” the dad said. “He had his problems, he did stuff that he wasn’t supposed to do, (but) he’s still a kid. He’s still a child.”

He added that it’s difficult to parent a child who has no respect for the courts.

“If they keep getting away with it, you think they’re going to respect the parent? No.”

Jimmie’s cousin Aja Jenkins said the boy played football growing up.

“He was loving. He was kind,” said Jenkins, 23. “He had a good heart. … (Jimmie) fell into the wrong crowd.”

Another ‘wake-up call’

Public officials who have been meeting to brainstorm solutions to the car theft problem said they were “heartbroken” and “at a loss.”

“These kids slipped through the cracks again,” said State Rep. Kathleen Peters, R-Treasure Island. “Somehow, whatever it is we’re doing did not protect them.”

“We need to intervene before it becomes another tragedy in our community, and we’ve seen far too much of this,” said Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch. “If anyone felt sheltered, this should, I think, be a wake-up call that we’re all invested in this. We’re all invested in trying to reach these young people.”

Welch described the problem as “a combination of a lack of consequence in the legal system, a lack of intervention by the community, parents, everyone, to get to these kids early.

“It’s only a miracle that more innocent folks haven’t died so far,” he said. “But I think it’s still a ticking time bomb.”

VIDEO: Chasing 13-year-old car thief Tyron ‘T-Man’ McKinnon

Pat Gerard, another county commissioner and former Largo mayor, said she was frustrated that Pinellas “wasn’t getting a handle” on the epidemic. “Hopefully this is a warning to the other kids that are doing this that, gee, they’re taking their lives in their hands,” she said. “We have a small group of kids who are making a big game out of this. And the game’s turning deadly. And it’s just not funny anymore. It never was funny.”

U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, D-St. Petersburg, has pledged federal funding for activities that would engage Pinellas youth who are turning to crime. He said he is “praying” for the families of the boys and for the community, as well as planning an Aug. 24 roundtable with local teenagers to talk about why they steal cars and what would make them stop.

‘I cannot bury my child’

Deyon’s mother, Demetria Coley, said her son was doing well for a while. She had helped him get a job at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Dunedin. She moved houses, hoping to get him away from a bad crowd.

He started getting in trouble once more in early July, running with the wrong kids again, she said. “I keep telling him don’t go with them, they are not your friends.”

Deyon, who spoke to the Times in December for the Hot Wheels series, was arrested for grand theft auto again last month, and was later sent home with an ankle monitor. It was removed about five days before the crash, his mom said.

On Saturday night, Deyon ordered a pizza for dinner and ate it in his room. She thinks he must have slipped out after she went to sleep.

A single mother, Coley said she has begged judges and the juvenile system to do more to help her and to make her child see the consequences of his crimes.

“That’s why these children are dying. Because they keep slapping them on the hand,” she said. “I buried my mama, my grandma, my daddy. I’m the only child. And I’m all Deyon’s got. And this is what he’s taking me through.

“I cannot bury my child. They need to help me to help save his life.”

Times staff writer Melissa Gomez contributed to this report. Contact Lisa Gartner at lgartner@tampabay.com. Follow @lisagartner. Contact Laura C. Morel at lmorel@tampabay.com. Follow @lauracmorel. Contact Zachary T. Sampson at zsampson@tampaabay.com. Follow @zacksampson.

MORE ON TEEN CAR THEFTS

THE CHASE: Cops, teen car thieves and a dangerous game

EDITORIAL: Coming together to reduce car thefts

5 WAYS: Officials are trying to stop Pinellas teen car thieves

Previous
Next
This car was damaged when a stolen Ford Explorer crashed into it early Sunday morning in Palm Harbor, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said. [JIM DAMASKE | STAFF]
Pinellas County Medical Examiners move the body of one of the crash victims into a van at the scene of a fatal vehicle crash Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017 in Palm Harbor. Three boys died in the high-speed crash which occurred along Tampa Road in Palm Harbor. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the boys had “extremely extensive criminal histories,” including serial car thefts like those chronicled in a series of stories recently by the Tampa Bay Times.
Three boys were killed when a stolen Ford Explorer they were in crashed in Palm Harbor early Sunday morning, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said. [CHRIS URSO | STAFF]
Three boys died when the stolen SUV they were in crashed early Sunday morning on Tampa Road, the Pinellas sheriff said. [LAURA C. MOREL | TIMES STAFF]
A sheriff’s deputy stands near the scene of an SUV crash that killed three boys in Palm Harbor, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. [Times staff]
A phone sits on the street near the spot where a stolen SUV crashed early Sunday morning in Palm Harbor, killing three, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said. [CHRIS URSO | STAFF]
Drivers make their way along US Highway 19 near the scene of a fatal vehicle crash Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017 in Palm Harbor. Three boys died in the high-speed crash which occurred along Tampa Road in Palm Harbor. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the boys had “extremely extensive criminal histories,” including serial car thefts like those chronicled in a series of stories recently by the Tampa Bay Times.
An unidentified woman wipes her face after speaking with a Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputy at the scene of a fatal vehicle crash Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017 in Palm Harbor. Three boys died in the high-speed crash which occurred along Tampa Road in Palm Harbor. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the boys had “extremely extensive criminal histories,” including serial car thefts like those chronicled in a series of stories recently by the Tampa Bay Times.
Pinellas County Medical Examiners move the body of one of the crash victims into a van at the scene of a fatal vehicle crash Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017 in Palm Harbor. Three boys died in the high-speed crash which occurred along Tampa Road in Palm Harbor. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the boys had “extremely extensive criminal histories,” including serial car thefts like those chronicled in a series of stories recently by the Tampa Bay Times.
Part of a wrecked SUV is seen as emergency personnel work to clear the scene of fatal vehicle crash Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017 in Palm Harbor. Three boys died in the high-speed crash which occurred along Tampa Road in Palm Harbor. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the boys had “extremely extensive criminal histories,” including serial car thefts like those chronicled in a series of stories recently by the Tampa Bay Times.
A wrecked SUV is seen as emergency personnel work to clear the scene of fatal vehicle crash Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017 in Palm Harbor. Three boys died in the high-speed crash which occurred along Tampa Road in Palm Harbor. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the boys had “extremely extensive criminal histories,” including serial car thefts like those chronicled in a series of stories recently by the Tampa Bay Times.
Emergency personnel work to clear the scene of fatal vehicle crash Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017 in Palm Harbor. Three boys died in the high-speed crash which occurred along Tampa Road in Palm Harbor. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the boys had “extremely extensive criminal histories,” including serial car thefts like those chronicled in a series of stories recently by the Tampa Bay Times.
A wrecked SUV is seen as emergency personnel work to clear the scene of fatal vehicle crash Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017 in Palm Harbor. Three boys died in the high-speed crash which occurred along Tampa Road in Palm Harbor. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the boys had “extremely extensive criminal histories,” including serial car thefts like those chronicled in a series of stories recently by the Tampa Bay Times.
A wrecked SUV is seen as emergency personnel work to clear the scene of fatal vehicle crash Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017 in Palm Harbor. Three boys died in the high-speed crash which occurred
As It’s Bent

 

There is no way, no how you can lead me to the contrary,  that as a twig is bent so shall it grow. There is always the possibility of aberration.If you have never said no to your kids, more times in your favor than theirs, the battle is lost. you have failed them by not teaching them that there are boundaries, limitations and consequences to the role they play in Society. A child who encircle himself in self-centeredness cannot grow into a world class citizen, being irreverent of others right’s, feelings and the limits to which you can trespass. Dealing with early tantrums and fits of rage can save you and Society a lot of future grief and headaches. Case in point. A child shows signs of maladjustment, yet you ignore and do nothing to correct, years later now a teenager his fallacies have only grown, he is now showing signs of an introvert. yet that doesn’t mean anything to you, making Guns accessible, adding salt to the wound, you take him to the Target Range and teach him precision. One fateful day he shoots you dead and move on to Kindergarten School and kills twenty three Babies. To some parents recognizing the signs, are like trying to convince a drunk that he is a drunk. Some of us slip through the cracks early in life, it is for us as parents to teach kids the facts of life early on. There will never be another Baby Jesus, yet he was rounded out beyond anyone of us could aspire, so why would we allow our kids to grow up thinking that they’re above our laws, society’s laws and the laws of God.

 

Laws are the Fabric that keeps Society from unraveling. we have to lay out limits and boundaries early in life. I have known parents who allowed their kids to ride rough over them since two years old, after many years of never saying no, the consequences were devastating. You see it every day in the News, your neighbors, people you know and famous people like Aaron Hernandez and many others committing Murder. All because no one took the time to tell them that there are boundaries, limitations and consequences. It takes me one hour each way every day to commute, semi-rural is where I chose to live. Today I woke to the news that one of my neighbors two and a half miles away, committed murder for the third time. not only did his parents failed but so did society. The lessons of limitations , boundaries and consequences were never taught.
I don’t care what the Phd’s say this is a classic case study of depraved Human indifference, and the Parole board and his parents should be in prison for unleashing this monster on society. Continue reading the supporting story and judge for yourself.



‘I just have a hard time being rejected,’ says two-time killer accused in third death

Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco held a news conference Wednesday morning, August 2, 2017, outside of 3536 Trask Drive in Holiday after Denise Cook, 42, was fatally stabbed by her roommate Warren Birkbeck, 71. Birkbeck has previous manslaughter and second-degree murder convictions in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Nocco said. [Pasco County Sheriff’s Office | video screengrab]
Denise Cook, 42, was fatally stabbed by her roommate Warren Birkbeck, 71, after deputies say he was angry that Cook “rejected him.” Birkbeck has previous manslaughter and second-degree murder convictions in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco said. [Pasco County Sheriff’s Office]
Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco held a news conference Wednesday morning, August 2, 2017, outside of 3536 Trask Drive in Holiday after Denise Cook, 42, was fatally stabbed by her roommate Warren Birkbeck, 71. Birkbeck has previous manslaughter and second-degree murder convictions in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Nocco said. [Pasco County Sheriff’s Office | video screengrab]

Denise Cook, 42, was fatally stabbed by her roommate Warren Birkbeck, 71, after deputies say he was angry that Cook “rejected him.” Birkbeck has previous manslaughter and second-degree murder convictions in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco said. [Pasco Cty Sheriff’s Office]
Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco held a news conference Wednesday morning, August 2, 2017, outside of 3536 Trask Drive in Holiday after Denise Cook, 42, was fatally stabbed by her roommate Warren Birkbeck, 71. Birkbeck has previous manslaughter and second-degree murder convictions in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Nocco said. [Pasco County Sheriff’s Office | video screengrab]

HOLIDAY — Warren Birkbeck went to prison in 2000 for slashing his estranged wife’s throat in a New Hampshire condo. Decades earlier, authorities say, he was convicted of manslaughter in Massachusetts.

Now, two years after his release from prison, the 71-year-old man is accused of killing a third person, this time in Pasco County.

Birkbeck was booked on a charge of premeditated murder Wednesday after telling deputies that he stabbed a female roommate three to four times in the chest. He explained that he was in love with the victim, 42-year-old Denise Cook, but that she didn’t feel the same way.

“I just have a hard time being rejected,” he said, according to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.

The attack happened just after 3 a.m. Wednesday in a home on Trask Drive in Holiday that was shared by three unrelated adults.

Cook died at the scene. Birkbeck was held without bail at the Pasco County Jail. He was still on probation from the New Hampshire killing, which, after a plea agreement, produced his second manslaughter conviction.

“There’s no other way to say this: He’s a killer,” Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said at a news conference, where he listed Birkbeck’s past convictions. “He has a history of killing people.”

An Associated Press report from 2000 details the New Hampshire stabbing. The circumstances of the Massachusetts conviction were not immediately available.

Birkbeck moved to Florida two years ago after his release from prison to live with his sister, also on Trask Drive.

After his sister died, neighbor Lillian Meyer, 85, took him in, the sheriff said. The church organist, known for her willingness to help others, also took in Cook. A friend said the two women attended church together.

Birkbeck has been under the supervision of the Florida Department of Corrections since Oct. 14, 2015, state records show. He has checked into his local probation office monthly since then, according to agency press secretary Ashley Cook, who called the event “tragic.”

She said he last met with a DOC officer on July 12, and that an officer had previously visited the residence unannounced.

Holiday neighbor April Sullivan, 42, said this is the first she’s learning about Birkbeck’s past.

“I’ve never seen a parole officer pull up in front of that house,” she said. “Who’s watching him?”

The neighbor said she felt uncomfortable around Birkbeck. Something felt off the few times he would stop to chat or try to give her bags of old clothes.

Now she wants to know why others who knew Birkbeck’s past didn’t seem more concerned.

“This is a system failure issue,” she said.

Neil LaRose, a longtime friend of the victim, said he knew about Birkbeck’s New Hampshire manslaughter conviction but not the one in Massachusetts.

He visited the home in Holiday often and said in recent weeks Birkbeck showed signs of mental health issues that should have been addressed.

“I truly don’t believe they kept tabs on him enough,” LaRose.

Under terms of his release, Birkbeck had been ordered to participate in a substance abuse program, avoid alcohol and obtain mental health counseling, among other restrictions. He was also barred from unsupervised contact with children.

Aside from a criminal registration in February of this year, he had no recent criminal history in Florida, state records show.

Deputies said Wednesday’s incident began after Birkbeck overheard Cook talking to a man on the phone. He entered her bedroom to confront her. She screamed at him to get out.

Birkbeck left the room, went to the kitchen, grabbed a knife and returned, the Sheriff’s Office reported.

Afterward, he entered the older woman’s room and told her he had just stabbed Cook and that he believed she was dead.

They called 911 together — the 85-year-old organist and the man now accused of murder.

Birkbeck got on the phone and described his actions, the Sheriff’s Office said. He said in an interview with deputies that he “just flipped out.”

Cook was a mother of three, though her children did not live with her.

Her friend LaRose said meeting Meyer was a turning point in Cook’s life, after a rough stretch.

“She’s been down on her luck,” LaRose said.

The women had known each other for at least a year. With Meyer’s help, Cook rediscovered her faith in God, LaRose said.

“Denise and I used to call her [Meyer] our angel,” LaRose said.

LaRose recalled years long ago when Cooke was “super mom” of her Clearwater neighborhood. Cook would host pool parties and deck out her house in thousands of Christmas lights, reflecting a personality that was always cheerful, smiling and bubbly.

Her kinship with the church organist planted sparks that reminded LaRose of that old self.

The older woman pushed Cook to get her life back on track, he said. Cook was about to start a job as a medical assistant.

None of them considered Birkbeck’s interest in Cook any more dangerous than a crush, LaRose said.

But now he is mourning the loss of a friend who not long ago was sharing optimistic plans for the future.

“It’s just a shock and a major tragedy,” he said.





   
inspiring- to strive for more from Legislators
   
Sad- to see a life gone wild left unyielded
   
Angry- at lawmakers ineptitude

 

 

Chapter9>

 

The Consultant Parent

 

Helicopters can’t hover forever, and eventually drill sergeants go hoarse. Allow us to introduce an alternative, employed by love and Logic parents, which works well throughout Life. While especially effective with teenagers,  it’s also the attitude parents should have from the time their children are toddlers. We call it the consultant parenting style. As children grow they move from being concrete thinkers to being abstract thinkers when they are teens. Children need thoughtful guidance and firm, enforceable limits. We set those limits based on the safety of the child and how the child’s behavior affects others. Then we must maintain those limits to help children understand that they are responsible for their actions and will suffer reasonable consequences for actions that are inappropriate. However,  while the parents are drawing and holding these limits, it is important for them to continue encouraging their children to think about their behavior and help them feel in control of their actions by giving choices within those limits.





This is where the consultant parent comes in. As our children grow into Adolescents, this parenting style becomes even more important. Teens often resent guidelines and rebel at firm limits because they’ve grown to think differently than when they were younger. Because of this important change in cognition, parents must adjust the way they parent to meet the needs of the new thought process taking place in their adolescents. They step back from being the enforcer of limits and let reasonable, real-world consequences do the teaching. They become advisors and counselors more than police officers, allowing their adolescents to make decisions for themselves, and then guide them to successfully navigate the consequences of their decisions. Love and Logic parents avoid the Helicopter and Drill Sergeant mentalities by using consultant style of parenting as early as possible in the child’s life. They ask their children questions and offer choices. Instead of telling their children what to do, they put the burden of decisions making on their Kids shoulders. They establish options within limits. Thus, by the time the children become teens, they are used to making good decisions.

Excerpts -from Parenting with Love and Logic

 

 

Speed Kills

It’s takes me where I want to go. That’s all a Car is supposed to be Transportation,  not a Toy, it’s too dangerous to be operated in a frivolous and callous manner. Keeping your Vehicle in road worthy conditions could mean life or death in an accident situation. When I started driving , Heaps were all I could afford. I went out and bought the Chilton Books on every Heap I drove. I bruised knuckles and more learning how to keep them running, I got good at it, to the point where if my Car broke down, I could get myself back on the Road. So it’s no wonder that today I Drive year to date cars and still think of a thirty thousand dollars vehicle as a heap. Because that is what they become within five years of poor Maintenance. Three months ago my free Maintenance expired, at that point my service manager presented me with a list of things to do, at the tune of eight hundred dollars, plus two hundred for oil change. Once your contract expire, they are waiting for you, and your lack of knowledge.







I thought to myself, with all my years of working  on Heaps, to work on a Car two years old, with twenty five thousand miles, is an avid do it yourselfers Dream. I went out and bought new automotive tools to do my first oil change, outside of the Maintenance Contact. Jacked up and secured with Jack-stands, I crawled  under. Now I am on my Back, inspecting what  thirty thousand got me. To my surprise, an Engine and a Transmission built from Aluminum, harnessing a Beast that does 175. One thing I know about Aluminum is that they don’t handle heat as well as Steel, also they shatter with impact. Changing the Oil on New Cars is not meant for novices, it’s the way the Factory make sure you take them back to the Dealership for everything. Half an hour later I have saved myself two hundred plus, and learned a lot about the vehicle, and as the result of their inexpensive manufacturing, one should use the utmost of care operating them. The Way they are Built traveling at high speed and making impact could be devastating. As I have said, Transportation and not a fun Toy. Toys and games are for Kids, you silly Wabbit. After the  Oil change it ran better than the day I drove off the Lot. Still not broken in , it does 175, I would be more than Mad to take it up and beyond 100.





I once knew a Valet who got caught doing in excess of 100 in a 55 mph zone, there are many more like that out there, be wary. Again Transportation is all it’s supposed to be, even if it has a wet Bar and the kitchen sink. One O’clock in the Afternoon, I am traveling on the Parkway in Queens, I am doing 65 or better in a 55 mph zone. Two Cars racing blew my Doors off both doing better than 100, in thirty seconds they were almost a mile in front of me, simultaneously they both decided to enter my Lane, the middle Lane. They slammed together bouncing off the other, nothing left but littered Roadway, Plastic, Steel and Parts. I miraculously avoided the Carnage by driving on the Grassy shoulder. I didn’t stop, my Stomach wouldn’t let me. Speed Kills more times than not.





I always exceed the speed limit by ten miles P.H. to avoid Clutter Driving, everybody doing the same speed limit looking inside each other’s vehicle. Once I have distanced myself from the Clutter, I relax my speed. Whenever I am in a clutter situation, I know that I need to be ahead of it, or behind it. Never drive in the middle of clutter, S**t happens. In a clutter driving pattern, you have no out in mishap occurrences, when you are in the middle there is no place to go. A lot of people think that driving is a big Joke, my Childhood friends Gary and Owen  both with brand new Cars, they thought that driving was a joke.  Two seventeen years old and three twenty years old, bouncing from one party to another, having one or two mixed Drinks at each stop. On our way to the last stop, driving on the highway, inebriated and all, the drivers decided to race. I was a passenger in the front,  so my eyes never left the console, the needle went past 110,  when we entered the exit Ramp we were doing 90. We traveled the entire Ramp on two wheels. I was just about sitting in the driver’s lap trying my best not to do anything to distract him, averting him from  flipping the car killing us all.  The Lord do look out for stupid Babies playing with grown-up Toys. He saved my life so I can be here to tell other Fools, Don’t Do It! SPEED KILLS.




The Driver of this Maserati killed himself and his two  young sons.  Was speed a factor?

 

Values

 

Every day it seems there’s another story of the decline in values in our youth in the United States . Drugs are available in even remote Rural schools. Teenage sexually transmitted infections are skyrocketing. In many schools, teachers are more Police officers than they are instructors. A troubling materialism rears its ugly head even among elementary school students. In our Society, proper moral values seem to be taking a pretty good licking. As parents, this disturbing trend brings the cold sweat of responsibility to our Furrowed brows. “I want my Children to have responsible moral values ” we say “but how do I teach them those values?” Parents cannot make their Kids think like they do simply by telling them, “you’ll do it or else.” Demands and threats may yield short-term results, but they don’t mold our Kids minds. They don’t persuade them that we are right. In a real sense, parenting is the transmitting of our values to our Kids. We want our Kids to be honest; we want them to respect others; we want them to know the value of hard work; we want a moral and ethical lifestyle to be as important to them as it is to us.





However, there’s bad news and good news in this question of transmitting values. The bad news is that we can’t stroll down the wide and easy  road of lecturing our Kids on the topic. It might have worked for our parents, but the odds of success have radically tipped the other way. The good news, though, is that it is still possible to pass on our values to our Kids, but it’s going to take some taught and effort. Values are passed on to our children in two ways: by what our Kids see and what they experience in relating to us. When our Kids see us being honest, they learn about honesty. When we talk to our Kids with Love and respect, they learn to talk that way with others. We can accelerate our molding effectiveness by engaging in eavesdrop value setting. That means that Mom and Dad talk to each other about their values but within earshot of the Kids. If we want our Kids to learn about honesty, for example, we allow them to overhear us reporting on our genuine acts of honesty. “You know sweetie ” we might say to our spouse, “something interesting happened to me today. At the store, I gave the Clerk a five-dollar bill for a can of pop,and she gave me $14.50 in change. So I gave her back the ten. I could have said nothing and be ten dollars richer, but I feel so much better being honest and doing what’s right.”





If our Peers tell some off-color and demeaning stories at work, we may say to our spouse, when our Kids can overheard us.” The guys at the Office were telling dirty stories  today in the Lunchroom, but I excused myself and ate Lunch at my desk. It always bothers me to hear stories like that. I feel much better for thinking for myself and walking away.” Kids soak up what they hear when we speak to others. It’s great when what they soak up what  is good, but be advised:  They are sponges for the bad too. Our improper words and actions hit them with the same force. If we have nothing but ridicule for our Bosses and coworkers, our Kids learn that ridicule and sarcasm are an acceptable way to talk. If we cheat at board games or when we play sports with our young Children, then we shouldn’t wring our hands and cry,”why?” when they  get nailed for cheating at school. If our idea of a good time is a La-Z-Boy recliner, a six pack of beer, and an NFL doubleheader, our Kids will get the message that that’s the way grown-ups have fun. All of our wise words to the contrary won’t bluntly the point. The way we influence our Kids values is in the way we treat them. A corollary to the Golden Rule applies here: Kids will do to others as their Parents do to them. Treating our Kids with respect teaches them to go and do likewise. Being fair with our Kids makes them want to be fair to their friends and Teachers. Kids have minds of their own. They want to exert their independence and do their own thinking. They blow off the things that are forced on them and embrace the things they want to believe. If we want to pass our values down to them,  we must present those values in a way our Kids can accept: in our actions and words. Kids’ values comes from what they see and hear. They don’t accept what we try to drive into their heads through Lecturing.

From Parenting with Love and Logic:

 

Save Driving / Road Rage

 

 

There’s nothing like a long Trip Cross country, to teach you about Traffic Flow and speed control. If city Driving could emulate the above, accidents would drop to an astonishing level. your nerves would love you. Also your fellow Drivers would love you for not cutting them off within inches of calamity,  thus reducing Road Rage. On the  Highways  going Cross Country, most people use their signals, spaces themselves and don’t try to run you off the Road to get to their exit Ramp, further reducing Road Rage. you have been commuting this strip for  twenty years, yet you think you are Cute waiting for the last minute,  the last hundred feet to get in the proper Lane to make your exit, causing major Traffic Jams. Rightfully you should be in the proper Lane at least one Mile before you get to your Exit. The difference between a good Motorist and Piss Poor Driver is I position my Vehicle in the proper Lane two to three miles before my Exit, not worrying about squeezing anyone, putting a wet blanket on the Flames of Road Rage.





Driving in Texas was a refreshing Eye Opener for me. Rush hour Driving was a refreshing Breeze, no one in a hurry Driving like a Taxi Driver, or trying to make a Pizza Delivery while it’s still hot. It’s as if there were no Rush hour at five PM. The Traffic Flow and speed control was Fluid, the civility and courtesy was infinite.  In a place where everyone owns a six shooter, there better not be any Road Rage, there would be nothing but Dead Men behind the Wheel. The Civilized Driving I experienced in Texas should spread like a Virus across the country.  All the States that I have traveled in the N.E to the S.E. could take a lesson from Texas. In my neck of the woods, Tampa Florida, Road Rage is the norm. Everyone drive like a Taxi driver or an Ambulance Driver, break neck speeds for one Mile to address the next Stop Light. At the Stop sign no one stops Legally, they usually stop or pump their Brakes beyond the Sign, not before the Sign. Like a Drummer keeps Tempo, they can’t wait to take the Right of Way from you  at a Right on Red intersection. In Rush hour traffic no matter how well you weave Traffic, your E.T.A. is not going to be much better than mine following the Traffic Pattern.



The way many of you drive facilitates Road Rage, cutting people off in tight spaces, not signalling before you make your turn, driving with a B***h attitude like your Daddy built this Road specifically for you.  Still that doesn’t excuse Barbaric behavior behind the wheel, not all bad Drivers drive like a  Jackass intentionally,  some just can’t help themselves, they never took the time to learn, or no one ever took the time to teach them Road Suave. They say that the Lord watch over fools and Babies. But they also say that God bless those who try to help themselves. A Woman driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike found that out about ten years ago. She inadvertently cut off a Tractor trailer,  the big Moron followed her for miles to extract respect, not taking into consideration that his vehicle weighed twenty eight Tons more than the Sedan she was driving.  The Murderous Driver ran the poor Woman on her way home to her family off the Road into a Tree, killing her instantly.  These are the People you share the Roadways with daily, so the next time you decide to cut someone off in tight quarters ask yourself  do I know the Monster behind the wheel. several years ago High Noon in Greenwich village New York city, a minor Fender bender in Rush hour traffic. The Driver of the Maserati got out of his car, Gun drawn in an execution stance,  shot and killed his fellow Motorist over a five hundred Dollars touch up paint job. Getting behind the wheel is forever a Life and Death situation, so the next time you are about to abandon Civility, think about the two victims of Road Rage among the many others.



Related stories.

Man suspected of killing teen because he ‘didn’t want her to merge into traffic’ surrenders to police

By Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Lindsey Bever July 2
Play Video 1:13
Police arrest suspect in road rage killing
David Desper, 28, has been charged with first- degree murder.
Police have arrested a Pennsylvania man suspected of fatally shooting an 18-year-old driver in a fit of road rage because, a prosecutor said, he “didn’t want her to merge into a lane of traffic.”

David Desper, 28, is charged with first- and third-degree murder, possession of an instrument of crime and reckless endangerment, according to Philadelphia ABC affiliate WPVI. He surrendered to authorities around 2 a.m. Sunday, ending a three-state manhunt.

The shooting occurred during rush hour on Wednesday, as Bianca Nikol Roberson was returning home from a shopping trip for college clothes.

The teen and another driver started to merge into the same lane, “jostling for the position” on Route 100 in West Goshen Township, more than 30 miles from Philadelphia, said Michael Noone, first assistant district attorney for the Chester County District Attorney’s Office. Roberson’s vehicle veered from the roadway and crashed into a tree, police said in a statement.

Keep Reading

But the officers who responded to the crash soon determined that the teen had been shot in the head, police said. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The other driver was nowhere to be found.

None David Desper. (West Goshen Township Police Department)
“We’re doing everything we can to catch this suspect and bring him to justice,” No One told The Washington Post on Friday.

West Goshen Township is at the southeastern tip of Pennsylvania, near the border with Delaware and New Jersey, so authorities searched for the suspect — described in initial reports as a white man between 30 and 40 years old in a red pickup truck — in three states.

[Video captures apparent road rage chain reaction crash in California]

The truck was last seen exiting Route 202 onto Paoli Pike.

Roberson had graduated from Bayard Rustin High School in West Chester, Pa., and was set to attend Jacksonville University. She had hoped to someday work for the FBI, according to WPVI.

“She was a good girl, honor roll student, looking forward to going to college,” her father, Rodney Roberson, told the news station.

He pleaded with the other driver to help close his daughter’s case.

“If you don’t even think it was your fault, and have a conscience, come forward and give us some closure and explain in your own words what happened,” he said, according to the news station.

While speaking to reporters on Thursday, Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan also directly addressed the other driver.

“To that man who fired that shot, turn yourself in now,” Hogan said. “Every second you are out there, you are only making this worse for yourself and making this worse for the family.

 

Life As Perceived

 

If you were born with all ten Toes Fingers Limbs, and a fully functional Brain, you are blessed.  There are many who weren’t  fortunate to be Born on a level Playing field, Down Syndrome,  Cerebral palsy, Muscular dystrophy Cancer and a host of other disorders plagues many. This makes their Quest in Life and Epic Struggle, and  yours a walk through. If you live long enough to take your first step, you have experienced what many didn’t. Sudden Infant death syndrome is only one of the many Cradle Robbers. Then you have cases such as Baby Angelina, whose Brother of eight years,  and her just thirteen weeks old, lost her Life at his hand,  with a violent beating. He had special needs that weren’t addressed. God forbid you were Born to two Loving Parents, who weren’t having issues of their own, and had the inclination to be loving devoted Parents, to shield and protect you from the harshness of Life. Parents who feed and nourish you to your full potential, you are a winner, you have the Tools and Potential to survive and flourish.



Many Kids go to bed Hungry, because Mom spent the Food Money on Drugs and Booze, leaving empty Bellies, Bodies and Minds lacking nourishment. How are they to grow and survive, Handicapped with uncaring and Love-less Parents. Guess what, many do and excel in Life to Greatness, because they had the hardest Task-master whose name is Life. Some poses the Greatest of Resilience developed during time of Adversity. David had no choice but to Slay Goliath, there were no second chances. The average Winner takes Life for granted.  All ten and a Cranium to keep it intact, yet they blame their Parents, the Community, the Church, the Government, even GOD for their shortcomings ,Failures and inadequacies. Their Cup is always half empty, their Beds are always Burning, their Soul on Fire with Jealousy and Envy, their Loins itch with Infidelity.

Cane had no reason to Kill his Brother,  2000 years and more except Bad Blood which we all inherited, been Children of his. There is Evil in us all, if not Jesus would not have to Die. His Greatest Legacy is that we all have the ability and the power  to rise above Ourselves, and walk in the Path of Greatness. It’s good to be Human, to love, to give and have Understanding. As a result of self-centeredness we dull our senses of what is good. We wallow in self-pity, hate and in-gratitude. Always sorry for ourselves for what we don’t have, not grasping that there are others with less. We Hate others for whom GOD have made them. If he put a Rainbow of People on his Creation, that’s what he wanted, who are we to undermine him. Totally ungrateful of all Ten and a Brain to make Choices, always throwing Stones from your Glass Houses, when it comes Cascading in Shards, you ask why me. Now that the Inevitability of Winter approaches, you try to cling to your wasted youth, while asking for more time. I live my life in total Gratitude for what’s given and what I don’t have. At seventeen I was at Hell’s Gate, confronted with an opportunity that I passed on. My Cousin who always wanted more, took the offer, made a Fortune, caught five Bullets and did fifteen years. I am forever thankful to GOD for giving me the wisdom to pass on the offer that my Cousin could not refuse. ” now you get what you want do you want more ” B.M. Life is so short and filled with uncertainty why would you squander it. Be what you are and live the Life, you can’t reap what you don’t SOW.

 

Chapter10>

 

It’s A Challenge

To be a good Parent May be The Challenge of your Life. The Bible says go forth and multiply, some Half Wit Philosopher said your Life is not fulfilled until you have Children.  Not disputing the Bible, but I match with the latter.  Having and raising Children isn’t all that it’s cropped up to be. First of all,  once they come on the screen,  your Life is changed. You can’t go out Drinking and hanging with the Boys every Weekend coming Home in the Am looking through three Eyes, and leaving  the little Woman alone to deal with the miseries, they throw at her, if you could only see yourself through her eyes . No you have to be there to get your share of the loaded Diapers ,  the middle of the night wailing, then they grow to be little People with big attitudes. Woke up one day and find that your Life has changed, or should, you can’t use the vulgarity you are used to spitting. When you think that they are not listening, one day they hit you with something like, ” uncle Tony you’re F*c***g kidding me are you. Four years old with the mouth of yourself. It’s a life changing experience.

 

I would rather own a Racehorse, sometimes they do win and pay for their upkeep.  You can invest a Bushel in a child’s upkeep, upbringing and Education, and they turn out to be Bums, use Drugs and hanging with the Underbellies of Society. So where did you go wrong,  you didn’t, they did, it’s a Crap Shoot. Sometimes you raise Thoroughbreds and other times strangers. I have met Educated adults who refused to put it to good use, move out and make their own way. Before they  get to that point they make your Life absolutely miserable,  by acting like they are the Parents.  Sometimes they are just Adolescents with big attitudes. By the time they turn  Teenagers, they are ready to give you a good ass whipping.

You try to pass on to them the benefits of all you have learned about Life, and they think that you are Stupid, for trying to save them from the disaster of themselves . I am not just talking off the top of my Head. When I was fourteen I was a big Pot Head who drank colt 45. Thank God I kept my intemperance for the Weekend,  and not School hours,  also thank God for a strong willed person I called Mom. As I said before the Challenge is Great. So the next time you think about making Babies,  ask yourself,  am I up to the aftermath.

 

 

Save The Land

 

Looking across the Bay, I see Bridges Built on the Ocean’s Floor, to endure most Natural Disasters. Distance Past I see the Remnants of the Bridge before. I see all its Throwaways and abandonment . The idea of reusing  50% of what we throw away gives years to the Planet. We are killing the Planet with our Waste, eventually we will have no place to put it, and we will have to dig holes in the backyard or Burn it and further pollute the air. When I Lived in Pennsylvania one of the things that irked me was that we took in waste from other States. In a nature preserve in the Pocono mountains lies a quaint Village known as Huggy Bear. We were Homeowners looking to trade up, we came upon the most beautiful Home in our price range, sitting on three Acres, this was my dream Retreat nestled in luscious nature. Only to find out that as a result of a Landowner with a Crater on his Land decided to make some Money, by accepting Waste. Turned out that old Batteries were Dumped,  leaked contaminated  Water for miles in the underground waterways . If you watered the Grass you would kill it. One Hundred and fourteen chemicals were found in the Water.



It was at that point I realized that what the Environmentalists were saying was right all along. Protect the Earth through Conservation. In Huggy Bear it was evident that we were killing the Land. Very little is known or said about Huggy Bear, we know about Love Canal and Three Mile island. When I Lived in Wilkes Barre Pa, I used to see this ominous Cloud that hovered over the Nuclear Power plant. There were nothing Natural about this Cloud that would not dissipate and go away. Who am I to say what goes up must come down. What do I know, they don’t tell you anything anyway, except what you need to know. The oil spill in Louisiana will leave it’s Toll for Centuries on the Wildlife. So what are we doing about doing our part, as Consumers we refuse to recycle in any way shape or form. We dispose of our Garbage out the Car Window and just about anywhere we can find, including the Waterways.

 

Big Industries that we buy their products from, dump their waste water in Waterways that runs hundreds of Miles. We are looking good as an Industrialized World, but very poorly as Conservationists on a mission to save the Land. We need to teach the Kids to save the Land for their Kids. Since we started recycling Billions of dollars have been made and Longevity given to the Environment. All I am saying is, we are smart enough to Colonize the Moon, so we slowly kill Planet Earth, so we can move on to destroy the Moon. Hello!

Conservation and Environmental control will save us from our destruction !!!

 

I Would Rather Do it Myself

 

 

Oftentimes we impede our Kids growth. We put ourselves exactly where we shouldn’t be: in the middle of their problems. Parents who take on their Kid’s problems do them a great disservice. They rob their children of the chance to grow in responsibility, and they actually foster further irresponsible behavior. The greatest gift we can give our children is the knowledge that with God’s help, they can always look first to themselves for the answers to their problems. Kids who develop an attitude that says, I can probably find my own solutions, become survivors. They have an edge in Learning, relating to others, and making their way in the World. That’s because the best solution to any problem lies within the person who owns the problem. When we solve problems for our Kids-the ones they could handle on their own-they’re never quite satisfied. Our solution is never quite good enough.

 

When we tell our Kids what to do, deep down they say,I can think for myself, so oftentimes they do the exact opposite of what we want them to do. Our anger doesn’t help either. Certainly, it galls us to no end when our kids mess up something in their own Lives. When they lose school-books or bring home failing grades, it’s only natural for us to explode in a living, breathing Fourth of July display. But anytime we explode at Children for what they do to themselves, we only make the problem worse. We give Kids the the message that the actual, logical consequence of messing up is making adults mad. The children gets swept away in the power of their anger rather than learn a lesson from the consequences of their mistakes. When we intrude into our children’s Problems  with anger or rescue mission, we make their problems our problems. Children don’t worry about problems they know are the concern of their Parents. This can be explained partly by the “no sence in both of us worrying about it” syndrome. Kids who deal directly with their own problems are moved to solve them. They know that if they don’t, nobody will. Not their parents not their teachers- nobody. On a subconscious level, they feel much better about themselves when they handle their own problems.

P.s. momma may have Papa may have but God bless the Child that’s got it all together for himself.

Excerpt from-
Parenting with Love and Logic.

 

 

WHEN It RAINS

 

They say in each Life a little Rain must fall. Jenny was Born the second Child in a Working Class Family with above average Means, in the year nineteen eighty one. Ten years prior to the introduction of Law, providing accessibility to People of Special Needs, and the Right to have access to Public Buildings such as Schools. Jenny’s Life and Education have been a never ending Storm, fighting her own Battle ten years before the Law went into effect, during all that time she fought to be integrated into the School System. Jenny was Born with Cerebral palsy and a Quadriplegic. Imagine what it’s like, Born with a Brilliant Mind and Frail Body. Since the beginning, God is forever testing us, first Eve in the Garden. Daniel in the Lion’s Den. Moses and the Red Sea. Jenny with her Disabilities. She fought every step of the way to prove to the Biased Educational System that she was Trainable and succeeded with two Master’s degree, one in Social Work, and in Critical Disability Study. Twenty seven years after The Law, she is still Fighting, this time with the Workforce.

 

 

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. § 12101) is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964,[1] which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal. In addition, unlike the Civil Rights Act, the ADA also requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations.[2]

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Great Seal of the United States
Long title
An Act to establish a clear and comprehensive prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability.



Great Spirits with Great Wills have always torched my Soul. Jenny has Triumphed, despite the beliefs of many of her Peers, who probably thought she should have stayed Home, and Roll with the Punches life had delivered. That’s not Jenny’s Way.She is Vibrant and full of Life, and wants to live Life to it’s fullest, regardless of her Disabilities. Back in the old days people who had children with special needs, would lock them away in the Attic to hide their shame, they were considered to be Hideous Creatures. I call it the Quasimodo experience, many of them who were locked away possessed beautiful Personalities and radiant spirits, just like the HunchBack of Notre Dame. In today’s society we are too civilized to lock them away in the Attic. Nonetheless we put them in a Psychological Attic, the way we treat them, in Schools, on the Street, refusing to look them in the Eyes and acknowledge their presence. In the workplace the only way we hire them is to stay in accordance with the Law, and out of Pity, not out of Love and Caring. Jenny deserves more than Pity
For her Formidable efforts in securing two PhD, despite her Disabilities. Jenny my friend, I hope your Pioneering light never go dim, your conquering spirit never fade, and that society rises up to you.

 

MY HERO