This past year has been a turning point in my life.......with the help of a few friends.....I've made some serious changes, and have pulled together parts of myself that I had either misplaced, forgotten, or given up on........

Pretty soon I'll be easing into a career in which I have dabbled once or twice and that is the health and fitness field. As I get older, I realize that it is so important to keep that wonderful balance between body, mind, and spirit. Just try to ignore any of the three and see where you land. My goal is to help others find a balance in their "trinity". In turn, it will help me keep focused on my own. I have a few people to thank and what better place than here.

First of all, my new found friend of the past couple of years.....Jackie, you know her as Aunt Jackie. She is quite a bit younger than me and her own quest for health and fitness has inspired me to keep at it. Her fresh and optimistic point of view always give me new insight.

Secondly, its you Bubbie, affectionately known as Uncle Moon Pie, your eternal youth and vigor always makes me smile. You are my brother, my hero, my guide to the smorgasbord of life.......

Then there's Yo, my new co-worker, my new friend, you spotted yourself in me and my struggles and you have lent a hand and have been such an encouragement to me and have helped me see a side of myself I thought time had forgotten......

Hey Pam, your next......we've known each other since the late 70's.......and you have been and still are instrumental in my soul searching and spiritual path.........you make the journey special.

Mr. Ed.....all the collaboration and writing we do keeps me moving and has helped me connect my past with the present.

Bill, you've been the "complete package" since the day we met and have made my life more meaningful than I could have ever dreamed. Every beat of your heart says "I love you" and for this I'm eternally grateful.


Just wanted to thank the folks who help me be myself.

Well, Memphis gets a manatee.........suppose that is some sort of sign?.......like the Sioux and Lakota Indians getting the white buffalo........

There's talk of moving him soon.... before someone puts him on a payroll, or signs him up to vote, or even tries to "Pimp" him in another illegal brothel.........you suppose he came with Hurricane Katrina? or perhaps was some sort of stowaway in the bowels of some barge..........

Are we sure its a manatee?.......not some creature from Frayser, the wolf bottoms, or an old Humko oil plant mutation, perhaps a no child left behind science project gone terribly wrong.......noticed on another blog that he looks oddly like something that perhaps didn't quite clear the North Memphis Water Treatment plant......

I'm all for animal rights.......I think.......but how the heck do we know that he is lost?.....perhaps he wanted to come up the lazy river......maybe he's tired of the gulf waters hell, who cares.....he's here isn't he.......and people are downtown aren't they and its not even May.....biggest freebie we have ever gotten in this ten cent town and they want to ship him back.......wonder if Fed Ex will be called in on this?

Couldn't we just well adopt his "BIG ASS" for god sakes.........surely there's enough hot air from politicians and government officials alike to warm the water for him.....

some have named him Manny.......sounds simple enough......Manny the Mud Island Mud Puppy......couldn't we keep him .....huh......please, please, pretty please........how much trouble could he be?................


of course not..........well, after he is "rescued" maybe he will make a trip back.........if nothing else

a few of the jumbo hamburger establishments could immortalize him with the Manny

burger.........

take care Manny, be kind when you speak of Memphis.........

Have been thinking a lot of about change lately.....about what to let go of and what to keep......an emotional housecleaning.......this has been something going on inside for over a year now.....letting go of old relationships.....old clothes....old beliefs......not so much about aquiring new things as it is cleaning out the debre and paying attention to parts of me that i've put in the
closet of my life....... certain things we feel we must keep such as family, jobs, homes........and its easy when we let the clutter pile up, to let those things which make us unique sort of sit on the shelf and gather dust..............losing focus ...........then suddenly when our inner self is feeling so left behind, so out of touch with the outer world and we find our inner selves silently screaming and demanding to be heard, appreciated, loved....... if this sounds strange to you or more like the rantings of a mad woman.....then count yourself fortunate......perhaps you have never left yourself behind......and catered to the demands of a life lived for others, husband, children, extended family, unfulfilling jobs, ........perhaps you have been able to hold on to what makes you ........you.......

When I was a child, I truly dreaded becoming middle-aged........that seemed the saddest part of life to me......all middle aged people always seemed so dull, robotic, mundane, sadly silent, envious of youth, despising of the elderly, with dull pasty looking expressions..........

I can remember asking God to just let me skip middle age and wake up in my 80's and be bent over and white haired, and loving children, and being accepting and kind.....that is how I saw the elderly.....an awakening from the death of middle age........

now that i am middle age, i understand the silence, the envy, the despising, and feel that i'm doing everything in my power to fight the enemy......and the enemy isn't time, or age, or circumstance........its giving up on who you were as a child, who you wanted to be but thought that you would be some sort of societal failure if you didn't follow the frequently traveled path.......its taking on a mind set that you have to be in control, follow some sort of scheduled planned out scheme to be on top of things, or else you will be a failure, an outcast......the enemy is giving up choice to accept change and embrace it and work with it........remember how when you were young all you wanted to do was be older........so that you could see more, go more, understand more........somewhere along the way, we have mistaken wrinkles, extra body fat, graying hair, as having arrived and now declining, when what really makes us has never changed.......we just thought it was suppose to be put aside and forgotten..........

I'll end with a line from one of my favorite songwriters of all time.......Bob Dylan.......

"I was so much older then........I'm younger than that now."

okay......its Monday.......and in a few hours, I'll go and see my Da......will he know me today?

like I have said, it can be a good thing if he doesn't.......wonder what he sees behind those eyes of

his.....he is on the psychiatric ward of a local hospital at the present and being kept quite

sedated......the catch is if he gains much memory back when they change his meds.....he will no

doubt balk about where he is and why he must be there.......if he doesn't regain.......then its

straight into his retirement communities Alzheimers unit.......guess its all up to the meds and

what healthy brain cells he has left........healthy brain cells........makes me wonder just how.......

many of us boomers will have them at 77.......he never did drugs, rarely drank, smoked the

occasional cigar.........and yet over the past 8 years or so he has slowly lost his memory........

i won't bore you with details or any long drawn out sad tale about him..........but i won't

promise not to mention him on this blog from time to time........i will say this.........its strange......

how we do get what we ask for at times........most of my life.....i wanted him to be different......

to show more kindness, be gentler, and compassionate, less judgemental and accepting........its

so strange that the more of his old self that he loses, his humor, his fiery passion, his

cantakerous ways .......the more he possesses these other traits.......strange.........at what

price.......and everyone pays........everyone.

well, i'm just cranking out work to be off tomorrow, bill will have saturdays off from now until he retires unless he decides to work overtime. He has had Wednesdays for years and now we will have full weekends together for the first time ever.....I joke and tell him its better that he had the weekend off now, because if he had had it early on, we'd probably would have had 6 or more kids and we'd never be able to retire.......going to see my Dad tonight if he is still in hospital, haven't seen him since he went in because I learned the "routine" when Mrs. Jackson was in, they take them off all their meds, which makes them crazy and then they sedate them, and begin trying to figure out which meds made them ill to begin with....it ain't pretty and there's no since hanging around for the first few days, its a sit and wait game....so i'll go and see him tonight.....hey, here's another of my famous " have to laugh to keep from cryin" bits....
Dad as i may have mentioned has alzheimers and in some ways its been a blessing, cause he was difficult to handle when he remembered "who he thought he was" and that was pretty much God of the universe.....now that he pretty much doesn't remember a damn thing, its play it by ear and like he is introducing himself to everyone every day....and life can be grand when you don't have bad memories or remember which kid you want to give grief to.....so anyway now he on a daily basis pretty much picks up pieces of things from television or perhaps a bad dream or some obscure thought he had and runs with it...For example, last month I spent a day with him and learned things like the fact that my brother was/is the Admiral of the Navy, also that my dad has had several black men that he has pistol whipped (why? I asked) " Well, hell I don't know why, they just keep coming back and asking for it and I have to beat the crap out of em ever day" ....looks toward the window at this point and says..."What time is it?" I reply with time and he says " Humph, those sonsabitches are running late".......so as you see life with dad is really something different.... THis latest episode he had over the past weekend was traumatizing for his wife.....she woke up to him crawling around the house and trying to peep out the windows on his hands and knees....she asked him what he was doing and he begins to tell her to "get down damn it, get down"......then he lays down and starts begging her to not turn him in......Turn him in? for what.....
"I'm the one that set Downtown on fire....I had to and now they are out there and they want to kill me.

he refused to get up off the floor and she had to call 911 and have them come and take him to hospital...... you'd have to know my dad and what a pistol he thought he was to appreciate this whole thing.......and because i want her to earn all of my inheritance(as if there was one..)I find it easier in this instance to laugh to keep from .......well you know......

Its hard for me to put into words what i'm thinking and feeling this afternoon.

for the past two weeks, all that has been popping up and in my face is the raging crime in my neighborhood and those of my friends and co-workers who live in Memphis and Shelby County.

Last night I stood in my front yard as a police helicopter made at least 1 dozen aerial rounds over my house and in a circular pattern around my stomping ground. Other neighbors came out and all the recent developments and crime incidents were hashed and rehashed.

We made the promise (once again) to all look out for each other, but we all admitted that we were seeing the beginning of the end of peace as we have relatively known it in our hood.

It will be easy to predict the future now, one by one we'll all bite the bullet and put our homes up for sale, we'll promise to keep in touch, and we'll find out what we already know. First of all, if we move we are trading the illusion of safety for the realness of knowing who is sleeping in the bed just yards from your window and who you could run to or call in the night should evil or danger attack. This scenario has happened about every couple of years since we moved in
the area in 1984.....twenty two years is a long time to stay and stand your ground. We know the script, you stay on guard and are vigilant and with time things simmer down and a calmness
returns and you develop a level of trust and assuredness that you and your neighbors will weather all kind of storms together....even the nature made ones.....the ice storm of 91...... hurricane elvis......and several other assorted disasters.

But this storm is different.......its larger and looming and it has an oppressive air about it......we all know that our time is running out and no amount of preparedness on our part is going to save our way of life.

So when I heard of the fires in downtown this morning and alarm went off in my heart and I had to go and see for myself the level of destruction. I parked on Jefferson just outside of Neely's and sat in my car watching the plumes of water being being shot at the building in front of me. I watched the red, white, and blue flashing lights of the fire and police department vehicles blocking the street and some how it just hit me that these flames were merciful in that the damage is done and the fire is going to be put out.........but a slow, smoldering, flame of a society crumbling in a city torn apart by drugs, crime, and indifference is what we have been witnessing and we feel so helpless in any attempt to stop it and yet because its home we have to stand by and watch it hoping that something will save it.

"I put a spell on you"


coming out from under the cloud been under for about

three weeks now......have you ever tried to figure out where a

strange mood has come from or why it lingers? I have recently and

have found out that the more it was questioned the darker the mood

cloud seemed to be. maybe its the universe telling you to take a

look at your map, that you've gotten off on the wrong exit, and

there's no need to question why, just get back on the road and get

going.......times a wastin......even if the way isn't yet clear

just get it in gear all the road signs up ahead (the seeming

coincidences, getting a word from someone that validates a

feeling or answers a question you dared not ask aloud) will

confirm that you are back traveling in the right

direction. I've made a note in the margin of my map that

says......"hey kid, you're okay, dont panic, roll down the window

take a deep breath....get out...stretch..take a look around.....get

rid of anything you don't need......you've got a guide

and the universe wants you to make your destination.....you'll get

there....when you get there."

see ya on the road ......faith.