The Empty Nest

My daughter decided she wanted to move to Chicago and find her fame and fortune.

It's a good thing she told me on a Saturday that on the following Tuesday she would be flying to Chicago to live otherwise I'm sure I would have talked her out of it and so did she probably. She was leaving not to chase a man, but a dream. For that I was happy.

This is a big leap of faith for her. I'm so proud of her for following her ambitions. She said to me, "Mommie, I have to go or else I'll never know what may happen and will always wonder what if."

She has had this desire to go to Chicago since she was in the 10th grade. Now at 24 she's making her own life choices and following through on them.

You go Joi! Everything is gonna be alright. I'm praying for you as always.

Love you much,
Mommie

The Candle in the Dark

A Candle in the Dark GALA 2006 : 139th Founder's Day Observance - Morehouse College
February 16-19 2006

This is the time the stars come out to shine! Every year Morehouse College celebrates the founding of the college in grand style. At the end of the celebration is a gala of splendor honoring the recipients of the "Bennie" and "Candle" Awards. This year's recipients were as follow:

Bennie Achievement : Michael L. Lomax '68
President and Ceo
United Negro College Fund

Bennie Service: Albert J. Price '50
President
Southeast Texas Community
Development Corporation, Inc.

Bennie Trailblazer: Thomas G. Simpson '68
Co-founder and Senior Partner
Thomas, Kennedy, Sampson & Patterson

Candle in Business: Alphonsoe Fletcher Jr.
Chairman and CEO
Fletcher Asset Management, Inc

Candle in Business &
Sport Management: Butch Lewis
Famed Boxing Promoter
& Businessman

Candle in Medicine: Augustus White III
Professor of Medical Education
& Orthopedic Surgery
Harvard Medical School

Candle in Lifetime Achievement For
Arts and Entertainment: Gordon Parks
Writer, Photographer and Filmmaker

Due to Mr. Parks health a the time he was not able to come to the gala, but his son David came and accepted the award on his behalf. Mr. Parks later passed away on March 7, 2006. I'm so glad that the award was presented when he was alive. Give people their roses while they live is my motto.


Candle in Lifetime Achievement
For Arts & Entertainment: Geoffrey Holder
Renowned Choregrapher, Painter, Director and Actor

Congratulations Award Recipients!!!

Dianne Reeves

I attended a concert last night and the featured artist was Dianne Reeves. The jazz entertainer and her trio band gave it their all and all. It was electrifying. Her scatting and their playing was a match made in heaven. Her audience was right there with her, feeling every note and emotion.

It was a night of love and for lovers.

Gone Ms. Reeves with your bad self. I know you Grand MaMa is proud of you!!

What's really going on?

Thought I'd just throw that out there for comments.

Got any?

Gossip

I learned a vaulable lesson about gossiping...don't do it.

I was gossiping with someone about someone and the someone number 1 went and told the someone number 2 what I said. And what is more disturbing is that someone number 1 felt it was their Christian obligation to do so!!

Never mind that someone number 1 has also gossiped in the past about someone number 2, but I never exercised my Chrisitan duty and told what was said.

I have no one to blame but myself. I am glad that I picked up on the feelings of someone number 2 that something was wrong. I immediately apologized for talking about something that wasn't my business and vowed not to do that again.

I was forgiven and felt a whole lot better for making amends. Someone number 2 even assisted me with a project I needed help with.

Don't gossip, in the long run you are the one who gets hurt, trust me on that one.

Happy V Day!!!

Happy V Day!! Love the one you're with, take care of the one you love and love with all your heart everyday, not just one day.

Love you!!! Smooches!!

XXX's and OOO's!

The Processional

Six hours later, thousands of people poured from New Birth to go their separate ways. We all had witnessed a historical moment in time that we will be talking about for years to come.

Mrs. King's daughter, Elder Bernice King gave the going home message for the service. She spritually connected her mother's cause of death, complications from ovarian cancer, to what is happening in the world today. Ovarian cancer effects the reproduction organs. Elder King spoke how the world is becoming a cancer whose reproductive functions to reproduce love, kindness, forgiveness, more Christian-like-behavior is dying. Her anointed sermon admonished us to do something now before we miss the opportunity to turn things around. It was powerful.

I admire her strength to speak in honor of her Mother, Mrs. Coretta Scott King.

The authorities had closed down I-20, a major highway in the metro area, when the funeral procession was leaving the church. Men and women, boys and girls, got out of their parked vehicles along the stretch of highway from the church to the memorial site Mrs. King would be laid temporarily, to wave, salute and pay their respects to this wonderful human being whose life mission was to make it better for others.

Her family let doves out to fly away into higher heights at her resting place. That's who she was, a lovely dove who dared to fly. Rest in Peace Mrs. King. After years of being apart, you and Dr. King are back together again.

Thank you for being our mother too.

The Service

Thr funeral program was 28 pages but it was beautiful.

I saw on Ebay that a copy of the program was going for $400. I wonder how much of the $400 would go to the King Center? I have my own copy from the church and it will be a collector's item for me.

The service was classy and royal, just like the lady Mrs. King was. I believe only she could demand the audience of 4 presidents, numerous civil right leaders, members of Congress and the House of Senate, T.V. personalities, prominent Ministers of the gospel, Foreign Leaders, Business leaders from all levels, well-known entertainers and just plain common folk.

It was a beautiful going home service. Bernice, Yolanda, Dexter, and Martin III, you did a good thing for your Mother. You sent her away mighty proper...mighty proper.

The Bus Ride

As we began to get on the bus I looked behind me and the line of people was just unbelievable!! It reminded me of the lines at Disney world during peak season, but longer!! It was truly an amazing site. The media was there to capture it all.

Only a person of great statue could have touched the masses of people that came out to say farewell.

Security officers had come around repeatedly reminding the crowd that cellphones, large bags and weapons were not allowed. As the buses were being boarded their trips seemed to come more frequently with the same reminders. If you got caught with any of those items you definitely could not say you didn't know.

Yellow school buses, white and blue Marta buses seemed to form an endless line. The Marta buses had Coretta Scott King flashing in front where the street names would normally be. It was a caravan of buses heading over to the church. Some people parked their cars at the mall and at other small shopping centers in the area and walked the 5 miles or so to the church. It was a beautiful sight seeing all those people walking, marching to the church to pay their respects. Riding along with them in the bus made me feel a part of the "movement" we had at that moment in time.

When we arrived at the church, one of the persons helping to direct the buses told our bus driver that the sanctuary was full and he needed to drop us off at the Living Learning Center to watch the service on big screen. Well, the lady I was sitting beside, she and I looked at each other with despair. We both felt we could have stayed home to look at it on T.V. basically.

She said to me, "Let's go see for ourselves". I nodded yes. As soon as the bus stopped and we were off it, we ran to the church. The Secret Service were still checking people with their security devices and my new friend and I made it in the church!!

We were so happy we didn't listen to that guy. When we got inside the church we were sitting about 25 rows from the podium and our seats were directly in line with the podium. To say the least we had an excellent view for what turned out to be a 6 hour service. It was suppose to have been a 3 hour service, but some how it turned into 6. No one complained and I saw very few people leave before it was over.

I believe Mrs. King smiled down on us that day.

FromThe Beginning...

On Monday night, February 6th, I decided I would go to the viewing of Mrs. King's body and then afterwards stay and go to the funeral. The viewing was from 6:30 am to 9:30 am on Tuesday, Feb. 7th and then the funeral was at 12:00 pm. Because there were 4 presidents coming (Bush, Bush Senior, Carter and Clinton) no one would be allowed to park at the church where the service was going to be held for security reasons, which was New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Parking was only permitted off site and then you would be shuttled from the off site place (which was StoneCrest Mall- about 5 minutes away) to the church.

I set the alarm clock for 4:50 am.

When I arose the next morning, I turned on the television to get the weather report so I would know how to dress. As I was watching the news the newscaster said that people would not be able to stay at the church after they viewed the body from 6:30 am to 9:30 am. If you wanted to do both, you would have to stand in line to catch the bus for the viewing, go to the church and view the body, catch the shuttle back to the mall parking lot and get in line for the funeral. Now this was the last day to view Mrs. King's body and already over 125,000 people had stood in long lines to pay their respects. I didn't know what to expect when I got there.

At 6:00 am the news said that already hundreds of people were in line to view the body. I got to the mall parking lot at 6:40 am. Made the decision to forfeit going to the viewing and went to find the line for the funeral. It wasn't because I didn't want to do both, but realistically, I would only be able to make one or the other because of the huge crowd. People who were going to the viewing had to line up at the lower parking lot of Sears and those who were going to the funeral had to line up at the lower parking area of Parisians. When I went down the hill to get to Parisians there were already about 2,000 people in line waiting to go to the funeral and it wasn't until noon!

I waited over 3 hours in the cold to attend the funeral. I thought about all the marches Mrs. King and others had done for me in the elements, in the face of intimidation, the threats, the threats that were carried out, the water hoses and the dogs. I thought to myself the least I could do was wait in line however long it took to pay my respects to our Queen.

The Homegoing Service

I attended Coretta Scott King's funeral at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga. yesterday. It was an awesome experience that started at 4:50 am yesterday morning and ended at 6:00 pm last night for me.

The experience was so overwhelming that I want to write it all down first and then blog about it from beginning to end.

It was amazing to be there and to be a part of history, it was simply amazing!

Somebody had to lose...

...and that somebody was the Seahawks. I know it had to be a disappointing defeat since this was the first time the Seahawks francise had ever made it to the Super Bowl.

It was a weird game, but the Steelers prevailed and took home the trophy.

It's not an easy task just to say better luck next time. There's hard work involved and very little luck of the draw getting to the Super Bowl in the first place.

Now football is over until the Fall and the process starts all over again as to who goes to the Super Bowl. I don't think they (football players) ever get tired as long as there's a chance they could win one of those famous Super Bowl rings.

So in the interim, let's watch some Basketball and get ready to "Play Ball" in the Spring with Baseball.

See 'ya at the game!!

Are You Ready For Some Football??!!

Yes I am!! I love sports and I especially love football! This weekend is the classic arena of football, the Superbowl. I hear it's going to snow in Detriot, but luckily the guys and the fans will be under a dome.

Since neither one of my teams will be playing, I don't care who wins. Just make it an interesting, exciting, fun, exhilirating smack talking game!! That's all. Keep my interest. The half time show seems like it's going to be a major concert production with The Rolling Stones as the headliner. Guess the network was playing it safe and didn't want to worry about any wardrobe malfunctions this year.

So good luck Seahawks and Steelers. May the best team win.

Let's play some football!!

The National Black Herstory Task Force, Inc

I'm in an organization that's celebrating our stories. We're in our 9th year of exsitence and we just get better and better!!

Check us out at www.blackherstory.org


Come celebrate with us in March at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga.!!

See you there.

The State of The Union Speech

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then there is blah, blah, blah, blah. Health Care? Blah, blah, blah, blah. National Security? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and blah blah blah. Education? BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!

The Economy and Energy?????????????????????????????????????????? What???






... that's all I have to say about that situation.

Heaven help us.