When Bunny lost Birdie

I was 12 when I my father lost his father. I say it that way because I never really got to know him as a grandfather. Our first time “meeting” was at his funeral. I remember examining him as he lay in the casket on a hot summer day in Manning, South Carolina,1995. I imagine I was looking to see what of me I could see in him. He was slender, didn’t appear to have been very tall. Grayish hair. His face reminded me of my father’s, but not so much of mine at the time. I remember thinking, “Wow, that’s really him”, “my granddad”. James Silas Smith or “Birdie” as he was more affectionately known. I was sad; not because I felt it, but more so because I knew I was supposed to feel it.
All I knew of my grandfather was from the stories my dad told me. They had had a rocky relationship as my dad grew up. When he was younger, my dad once told me, he and Birdie had gotten into a fight, a fist fight at that, Birdie kicked him out of the house, told him to never come back. Things cooled of course and he moved back in. Birdie and my grandmother divorced when my dad was in his teens and my dad stayed with his mother and his sister. But he’d often visit Birdie, who was known to be a bit of a ladies man and his “wife of the moment”. My father grew especially fond of one of Birdies wives, “Nell” whom we would visit on the rare occasions we made it down to South Carolina. I called her grandma too because my dad still called her Mama. But not only was Birdie a ladies man, according to my dad, apparently he was bionic as well. You see, he had been in several car accident, one in which the car flipped over several (hundred according to my dad) times and he walked away without a scratch! Man, Birdie was something else.
So while I didn’t know Birdie personally, I carried around a mental picture of him in my wallet: Some suave Billy D Williams –meets- Superman type character, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and make ladies swoon with the wink of an eye. It didn’t really match up when I saw him in the casket, but I still imagined it to be true.
I remember my father taking it extremely hard when he got the news that Birdie had passed. He pulled me aside right before I left for school and told me my grandfather had died. I cried, in part because I felt like I was supposed to, but also because I was sad I had never gotten to meet Superman. My dad was a mess. He coped like he did for most things in his life; by drinking. I remember when I came home he was sitting in the relaxer chair in the den, staring off at the wall, singing, drinking, babbling about his dad, pretty incoherent. He was that way for most of the weekend. Usually my dad was an angry drunk, yelling, cursing, fighting, but not that weekend. He was drinking away the pain, of what I now know, was a man who simply missed his father…
…The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life thus far, was to tell my sons that their grandfather had passed. I had been crying all day, making arrangements with my mother, grieving with my wife. When I walked in, Noah almost immediately asked me what was wrong. I guess he could see it on my face. I pulled them both close, tears welling on my face, my wife moved in to support me and I told them that Bunny had gotten real sick and he had to go to the hospital and that he passed away while he was there. Kaleb’s head dropped into his lap, Noah started crying. I pulled them both in closer and told them that their grandfather loved them both very much and that we were all going to miss him. Even as I retell this story to myself, I can feel the emotion of the room. Bunny was their Birdie. I can remember how excited Noah was, telling me one afternoon that Bunny had taken him for a ride in his car to McDonald’s. And how excited they would get when Bunny and Me-Ma would take them to see the wrestling or to the state fair. They loved Bunny and Bunny certainly loved them.
After I told the boys about Bunny passing, I stumbled up the stairs into my bed and wept. A lifetime of memories, a heart full of sadness. The door opened and in came Noah. He didn’t speak. His shoulders bounced up and down as he stood in the door way. I couldn’t see his face in the darkness but I could hear his sniffles. He crawled into bed, laid his head on my chest and we cried ourselves to sleep. He too had lost his superman.
Nearly six months after my father passed away, I continue on the roller coaster of emotion. Some days I remember him fondly and smile, I give a “thumbs up” to the sky to let him know I’m okay. Other days I struggle to sleep, still remembering him fondly but missing him all the same. As I enter my season of manhood and maturity, I thank God for allowing me 27 years with a father for I know many who never had a day with one. And I am most thankful that unlike I, who never got to know mine, although their time together was short, my boys will forever have memories of their grandfather, Silas Levern “Bunny” Smith, my father, their superman.

Mr. Fix It

Men are often defined by certain characteristics: strong, athletic, proud, protective, aggressive. I’ve always felt like I carry most of those characteristics. But there’s one, that ever since I was a little boy I seemed to lack: being handy.
I can’t fix sh*t! Never could. Couldn’t fix a flat tire on my bike as a kid. Couldn’t figure out how to put the arms back on my GI Joes. Takes me 45 minutes to an hour to change a car tire. Assemble Ikea furniture?? Forget it, I’d be better off buying it online and having it shipped in fully assembled from the warehouse in Sweden. My wife once had to assemble our son’s bed because I was convinced it was defected and missing pieces.
My dad, on the other hand, seemed to have been born with a tool belt. A roofer by trade, he’d climb 10-20 story buildings on a daily basis, patching holes, lining gutters, placing shingles. And he wasn’t limited to just the outside of the house. He’d lay carpet, unclog the kitchen sink, change the oil on the car. A real man’s man. I’d often think to myself, could we be any more different. I mean, aren’t some traits inherited?? Did those genes just skip me??
Our differences weren’t limited to our kinesthetic skills (or in my case, lack thereof). No sir, it seemed sometimes that the only thing my father and I shared in common was our last name. I was a nerd, a book worm, read all the time even made up my own stories as a kid; He could barely read. I once tested for near perfect vision, 20/15; My father almost went blind as a child, he could hardly see his hand in front of his face. I was quiet, shy, a housecat; He was the life of the party, always outside, making noise, having fun. My hair long and locked; his short or bald. Even our skin complexions didn’t match. Mom are you sure he’s my father??
Yet as I grow older, I am realizing what I’m sure he already knew, that so much of him is engrained in me. The differences now seem so miniscule. As I stood in my mother’s backyard today, weedwacker in hand, trimming her grass, as my father had so many times before, I couldn’t help but think about that little boy, who couldn’t fix anything. I cut the grass, trimmed the edges as she stood in the door way and looked on. I imagine, we both saw my father out there really, he in me, I in him. A couple weeks ago, her refrigerator died and she called me over to help her set up the new one. I had to take the hinges off of the door to get it to fit through the door way, shave a bit of the door to the kitchen that had swollen, then reattach the door to the hinges. I had never done any of it before but yet somehow, all of a sudden, I just knew how to. Which made me think: Maybe I wasn’t handy before because I didn’t have to be? In the back of my mind I guess I always knew, whether it be a hole in the roof, or a hole in my tire, that dad would be there to fix it. It’s funny how much we absorb from our family without ever knowing it.
Kaleb broke the leg to one of Noah’s action figures a few weeks ago. As I walked up stairs to see about the ensuing melee, I overheard Noah say to his brother, “Its okay Kaleb, I can give it to dad, He can fix anything.” He’s 6 and in his dad-hero worship phase, so right now I’m Mr. Fix it. I don’t mind, because for all of my life my dad was Mr. Fix it too. Now I guess it’s my turn. I imagine one day Noah will realize that we share more in common than those minuscule surface differences. More than simply a last name. He is part me, as I am part my father. So one day too he’ll be Mr. Fix it. Just do me a favor and don’t tell him about that tube of crazy glue hidden in my bedroom drawer!

Celebrating GSAM Day

Logged into facebook this morning. Newsfeed read as follows:
- “Fathers day is a joke. So fu*k Fathers Day. Dudes become fathers by accident or in 30 seconds. It takes a real man to be a daddy. You gotta earn that one. So happy Daddies Day to all those Dads out there. Especially those who have taken the place of those 30 second Fathers”
- “Happy Father's Day to all the fathers/dads, sperm donors not included!!!”,
- “Really don’t care too much for this day”,
- “Happy "Fathers Day" to all you dead beat dads”,
- “I hate all men, especially black men!, I hope they all die in a fiery pit in hell!”
…Ok, I made that last one up, but the rest of these are actual “status updates” for… What else? Father’s Day! Bitter much??
The unfortunate truth is that too many young people today (and some older ones as well) have a right to be bitter. Too often do I meet students being raised by single mothers, grandparents, aunts, cousins, friend’s parents or the social welfare system. I’m not breaking any news when I say there are too many missing fathers in the lives of our children today. Too many fleeting fathers, who leave the children behind, while they are in the process of leaving the mother behind. Too many guys with too many excuses about why they don’t have too much time to be in their children’s lives.
My point is not to bash absent fathers. There are plenty of days for that. The question that needs to be raised is, Are YOU sir doing enough to pick up the slack? You, yes you! (No seriously, go look in a mirror right now, then come back and finish reading this blog, I’m really talking about you!). “It takes a village to raise a child” or so the saying goes, right? I don’t know if we have a whole village left, but all movements start with one person. We get upset, when we hear a little boy cursing like a construction worker in the mall, or when we see a little girl half-dressed prancing down the street attracting the wrong kind of attention. But each of us are to be held responsible for this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you to go out and snatch that little boy by the ear (he WILL CUT YOU! I am not kidding!). But what I am saying, is set the example for those kids to see. Being present and involved in your children’s lives will impact the children around them. As original as kids claim to be, they really aren’t. Kids are copy cats. If your child has manners, his manners may rub off on that little Marlow Stansfield in his class (Wire reference, sorry I’m addicted). If you daughter is dressed in cute, age appropriate clothes, her little girlfriends are going to ask her where she shops. Peer pressure goes both ways. But all of that starts with US. Not with just allowing the kids to dress however or do whatever, because dad isn’t around.
Yes fathers are important. But for most successful people, there was no one singular person who made them into the person they are today. We don’t live in a vacuum. Yes, my father was involved, I realize my blessing but there were other men: a math teacher , a soccer coach, a friend’s dad, who helped shape my world and my vision of what a good man is. A good man is responsible, hard working, steadfast in his values, but a good man is not PERFECT. And because we are all flawed, it is all of our responsibility to pick up that slack when some MAN falls short.
Let us each be fathers to the kids in the community, even if that just means being a good parent to your own child so that they can be an example to the children around them. I’m not telling you not to be bitter. Hurt is real. But let us not get caught up in those choosing to be absent today, and rather let us focus on those who chose to be present for today. Yeah it’s called “Fathers Day”, but to me, its Good, Strong Active Men in our community today. We all know them, lets each become them. And then maybe next year, my Facebook newsfeed wont be so, d**n bitter!

The Reality of Marriage

There was a couple that my parents and I knew when I was growing up, that seemed to have everything. They both had successful careers, were college educated, lived in a big beautiful house, with their 5 kids. They seemed the antithesis of my parents: neither of which graduated from college, my father barely able to read, moving from house to house in west Baltimore whenever the rent became unreasonable. As far as I can remember, at least in front of us, the “Perfect” couple never fought, almost never even had a disagreement. My family and theirs would get together about once a week, eat, laugh, in general have a good time. But I can remember after they’d leave, I’d sometime feel depressed. Despite enjoying their company, I’d often compare their family to mine and more often than not, I’d end up feeling like something was wrong in my house. Unlike our friends, my parents seemed to argue and fight constantly; Over bills, blown paychecks, my father’s poor choice in friends, for one reason or another, somebody was yelling, some plate was being slammed, someone threatening to leave for good. As a kid, I’d think to myself, “What’s wrong with my parents”? Why can’t I have *** and *** as parents? Their marriage seemed perfect.
But things aren’t always as they seem. As I’ve gotten older and today celebrate 7 years of marriage with my wife, I’ve realized many things about marriage, maybe the most important being: Marriage is difficult. Yeah, my parents fought like cats and dogs, but they loved like them too. My mother stood beside my father through his struggles with addiction, through his job losses because of those addictions. Through it all. When my mother needed surgery last year, my father stayed with her in the hospital, heading home to cook for my brother, heading to work, and then heading back to the hospital to be by her side. With marriage, I now know, there are ebbs and flows, as I child I didn’t understand this. I could only see the ebbs of my parents’ marriage and the flow of the marriage of their friends.
At dinner the other night, my wife asked me , “Why do you think so many marriages don’t work today? (You know, those questions that guys just looooovvvee to answer!) This time I actually thought about it and said, “Because they give up too easily”. An argument is not a justification for a divorce. The reality is that the people who love each other the most, often fight the hardest. Each being so passionate and convinced that what they are doing is for the betterment of the relationship, that they have to convince the other person that they are correct. If a couple doesn’t fight, it doesn’t necessarily mean that things are going well, it might just mean that they have nothing left to say to each other.
These last 7 years of marriage haven’t always been easy for us. We yell, we fuss, we curse, a plate or two may have been thrown in 7 years, but here we stand 7 years later, and the only “itch” I have is to have my wife by my side forever. I pray that my sons will find wives willing to stand by them through the ups and downs as my mother did for my father, as my wife had for me, and that they’ll stand strong in their union, unwilling to run when things get rough, much like their parents and much like mine.
My parents spent 27 years together before tragedy stole my father away. Those fights along the way only served to solidify their bond. Today we celebrate 7. But we also celebrate the reality of marriage, the fighting, the cursing, the yelling, the crying, the throwing, and most importantly the loving.
….. And what happened to my family’s friends, you ask?? The “Perfect” couple with the “perfect” kids?? ….
Well Sandra married Elvin and had twins, Denise married a Navy admiral, Theo graduated from college, and the Cosby show got cancelled in 1992.

When it Matters Most.

As a child it seemed as if my mother never got sick. On the few occasions in which she did allow a cold or the flu to keep her bed ridden, I often worried that things would fall apart in the house. My mother cooked dinner every night. She did laundry for everyone in the house. She helped with homework. Heck, she even made my bed! I was reminded of this, this past weekend, when my wife, who much like my mother seemingly never gets sick, did just that. With my national board application looming, and two 16 month olds nearing bed time, my wife called to me from the couch on which she was laying and said she was “heading upstairs”. It was 6:30. on a Saturday. Crap! The boys wouldn’t be a problem. For all intents and purposes at this point, ages 10 and 5, they can entertain themselves for one night. But those girls! My loving, affectionate, devilish, tornadoes wrapped in the flesh, twin girls, they were another issue altogether. Don’t get me wrong I’ve put them down for bed before, but sometimes they like to pretend that they’re allergic to sleep, especially when mommy’s not around. So there I was, looking at my self, through my own 10 year old eyes, much like I looked at my dad and wondering “How’s this going to turn out?”
But what I remembered was that my dad always seemed to step up in those moments. We’d have fried chicken or gumbo or something else he could make reasonably fast (I’d forgotten that my dad was a pretty good cook, because he so seldom did it). He’d run to Rite Aid to get mom some Theraflu-Alka-Seltzer-Hot Tea with Lemon and Honey and tell her to drink tons of Orange Juice. (BTW, it works, I swear by this whenever I’m sick). He’d clean the house, usually with the radio blaring (and of course by clean, I mean neatly stack things into piles, that my mother would go back and actually organize once she felt better). Then we’d usually watch tv until we fell asleep. So what happened to me on Saturday?? Well first I fried some chicken and made mac-n-cheese and fed the kids. Then I sent Kaleb and Noah to their rooms to clean up (which can occupy them for 6-12 days at a time, its a disaster area in there). The girls and I watched Dora and Yo Gabba Gabba, while I washed dishes, straigtened the living room and swept the floors. Then I made milk cups, turned out the lights and laid the girls down for bed. As if they knew I needed there help, they fell asleep almost immediately, and I was able to work until 2 am on my National Board entry.
It's funny how much of our childhood experiences we absorb into our own beings as adults. Noah had asked me earlier in the day, “Dad, what was Bunny’s (his grandfather/my father) favorite color?” I responded, “I don’t know Noah, I think it was Blue”, to which Noah replied, “Nope, I think it was Red”. Maybe it was Red. That’ll be part of his mind’s memory of my dad. My memory will be that when it mattered most, my dad always came through. And this weekend, I think he would have been proud to see what I learned from him.

A Jar of Questions

As a parent, you are expected to have answers for your children’s questions. Often times we make it up as we go along. And if we don’t know, we simply make it up and then explain why we were wrong at a later date. But what happens when you, as the parent, have more questions than your kids? We expect that as we get older, things will begin to get more clear. “With age, comes wisdom” a saying goes. BS! What I am beginning to realize, as I drift perilously closer to 30, is that very few things in life, go as expected. Instead of gaining more clarity, as we grow older, life becomes much more complex and the picture, a bit murkier.
I say all of this in the context of having lost a parent a month ago and as a person very much struggling to make sense of it all. On most days I’m fine. But on others, I’m overwhelmed with questions that are unanswerable. Why only 53 years? Why while I was away? Why leave my mother lonely? Why the burden on me? Why wont he be there to see my kids get older? Somehow we’ve been convinced that questions are a bad thing. The church tells you not to question GOD. Everything happens according to his plan. Our entire educational system teaches children to never question their teachers. That questioning a teacher’s facts or methods somehow represents disrespect. BS! The questions we have are what fuel our journey through life. GOD may have his plan, but that doesn’t make it any easier for us to cope on this side of the journey. I encourage my students to ask why. Why should they believe me? Because I have a piece of paper that makes me a certified teacher? Any teacher who thinks they have all the answers, is no teacher at all. I learn from my students everyday (many things I never wanted to know) but again, its all a part of the journey.
The permanence of death is what leaves me the most puzzled. I sometimes think to myself, “Oh I haven’t seen my dad in a few days”, and then I remember suddenly the circumstances in which I now live. I know eventually, it’ll sink in. I’m just not sure when. My wife keeps asking me, if I’m okay. I ask myself the same question. I just know that I miss my dad and I wish that he was here. A son is supposed to learn from his father. Ask him questions about life as they both grow older. Stupid questions like how to shave a door or how to change car oil; complex questions about love and faith and the struggles of manhood. I’m not sure where I’ll get those answers from. I just pray that when my sons start asking those questions, I’ll be able to answer them truthfully and with the confidence of knowing that my answers are the right ones.

Proverbs 4: 1-9 speaks of a father’s wisdom;
1 Hear, my children, the instruction of a father, And give attention to know understanding; 2 For I give you good doctrine: Do not forsake my law.
3 When I was my father’s son, Tender and the only one in the sight of my mother,
4 He also taught me, and said to me: “Let your heart retain my words; Keep my commands, and live.
5 Get wisdom! Get understanding! Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth.
6 Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you; Love her, and she will keep you.
7 Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.
8 Exalt her, and she will promote you; She will bring you honor, when you embrace her.
9 She will place on your head an ornament of grace; A crown of glory she will deliver to you.”


I pray that God will grant me the wisdom to understand this journey of ours, that I may that wisdom on to my sons, until then I’ll just press forward each day, some better than others, collecting questions, in my jar of life, and hoping that one day I’ll be able to cash them in for some answers.

Finding peace amidst the noise

Silence had never bothered me. Typically I value it. In a house of 6 (my wife and I included) with twin 14 month old girls, a kindergartner, and a child who is deaf in one ear and therefore can be very loud, silence comes few times and far between. In my house someone’s usually fighting, or crying, or wrestling or singing, or crying after fighting or screaming at somebody else to stop singing. I’ve grown use to it.
Even growing up, my house was rarely silent. My father, insane about music, was usually singing, blasting his radio, woofing like a dog, or making noise of some sort. My mother, yelling at him to stop singing, turn down the radio, stop barking, added to the noise. Add in the Friday/Saturday, I just got paid, so I need to drink, alcoholism of my father and the noise often lasted well into the mornings.
And yet when silence befell me, I wasn’t prepared for it. Who could be? My father’s death, in many ways has left me, with only myself and silence. All the what ifs, maybes, should haves, didn’t get a chance tos, swimming in the silence. Silence was what I had always wanted, until I got it. Yeah, there’s been tons of phone calls, well wishes, prayers, hugs, cards, and food to help us cope…help me cope. But those sentiments fade away into the silence of his death. Sometimes all I can hear is my wife’s voice, somber, surreal, “Sedrick, baby, it’s your father…”. That same silence that I wanted so desperately as a kid, became the last thing I wanted as an adult.
What I wanted most was normalcy. And normalcy for me is noise. As a teacher, I deal with it for 7.33 hours per day. Someone’s arguing about a grade, some crisis in their life, something. When the school bell rings, its off to the grunts and screaming of soccer or lacrosse practice. Yelling at the refs. Yelling at the players. Yelling about something. Then home to hear about who sat next to who at lunch, whose talking behind whose back at Hopkins and some indistinguishable baby language other than the occasional “Mama”, “Da-dee” and the all new “Uh-Oh”. Noise to me meant that everything was okay. When my dad was barking, at least I knew he was there. When the silence came, I knew something was wrong.
My father liked noise. He seemed to live for it. In my mind, I had thought that someday I want to retire someplace quiet, just me and my wife and listen to the nothingness of life. Maybe I’ll get back to the place. But for right now, what’s helping me the most, is the noise. Silence may be golden, but noise represents life. Peace and Blessings.

Finding the words

I decided to post as a blog, the letter I wrote in rememberance of my father, which I spoke at his funeral. While much of it is personal to me and our relationship, I hope someone can draw from it the idea that we are all complicated people and that maybe we can take a second and reflect on ourselves rather than taking the time to critique others. Peace and Blessings...


My father was a man. Not a good man, not a bad man, rather a man. A young man. A Black man, a man. My memories of my father vary because his life was complicated. It would be easy to stand before you and tell you fantastic stories of a great man, who worked hard and accomplished his dreams, and provided for his family etc, etc etc. Some of those things are true of my father. But some of them are not. He wasn’t an amazing man, but he was a man.
One of my fondest memories of my father was when I was about 9 maybe 10. He and my mother took me to Carol Park to play tennis. I had no idea how to play, and neither did he. For a few minutes, he’d hit a ball across the net to me, with the tennis rackets hed bought from the thrift store. I’d slam it back across, way over his head into the fence behind him. My mother looked on. After a few frustrating minutes, he said angrily that that was enough. We were done with tennis. But I wasn’t mad. I too had realized tennis probably wasn’t for me. The reason that memory sticks out to me is because it symbolized my father’s love for me. He was always willing to let me try things out, figure out what worked and what didn’t. We did it with baseball, we did it with basketball, rollerskating, tennis. Some worked out, some didn’t. But he was always there to let me try and to try it with me.
A part of me always felt, that Baltimore was my father’s hell. He was a country boy through and through. I could see it whenever we visited South Carolina. He’d get this boyish grin on his face, become excited. The stories would just roll out. “Mama, you remember the club that used to be over there?” My mother had no clue what he was talking about. “Awww man, I remember such and such used to live down there”, “Oh yeah, such and such always had the best barbeque”, “We used to cut down that path to get to such and such’s house”. He’d be looking at some random field. Where the path actually was, only God really knows. But he was home. I sometimes wonder how different his life may have been if he had never left there.
But the reality is, he did move to Baltimore. He had a good life with a wife and sons and grandkids. But sometimes I felt the city was just a bit too fast for him. Too many hustlers, too much drugs, too much alcohol. He got caught in it. The reality is, that was part of my father too. He couldn’t figure out how to get out of it. I always felt like he wanted to, but it was like he was caught in a hurricane, and trying to hold on to a palm tree. For much of his life, it was a losing battle.
But it was a battle he never quit fighting. You see that was part of who my father was too. He was a fighter. He fought his addictions. He fought to live, up until his dying breath. He fought for the people he loved the most. He was 5’7 with shoes on, but in my mind he was a giant. I was never afraid of anyone, any neighborhood when I was with him. He taught me to never be afraid of anything. I only fear God.
Sometimes we get caught up in who we think people are supposed to be. We look at other people’s lives, we look at tv and we compare our lives to there. The truth is that we are living the lives we are meant to live until we aren’t meant to live it anymore. My father was only meant to have 53 years on this earth. I cried to my wife when he died, that “he wasn’t ready”. But it doesn’t matter if he, was ready, God was.
And so I’ll cry because I miss him, and I’ll cry when I want to hear his voice again and I can’t. But I wont cry about him not being ready. God was ready for him and who am I to question. Instead, I’ll see him everyday. When my son, hears music and starts dancing: I’ll see my father. When my brother smiles and sits by quietly: I’ll see my father. When my daughters laugh, I’ll see my father. When my mother says I loveyou, I’ll hear my father. And when I look in the mirror: I’ll see my father. Because Silas Levern Smith lives on. His body failed him, but his spirit will never die. I’ll talk to him everyday. And I’ll tell him I love him just like he told me everytime he saw me. That’s the man I’ll remember. Not a good man, not a bad man, because I’m in no position to judge him. Only heaven can do that. I’ll remember a man who loved and who fought and who taught me how to do both.

Another Blog?

I decided to write this blog for a variety of reasons. In the wake of my father's passing, I sense that it will serve as some sort of coping mechanism, a public journal of sorts, for me to get "stuff" off of my chest. The title, "Son to Father, Father to Son" is a signal to its second purpose. I hope to write pieces, thoughts, questions, quieries about fatherhood, from a young black male perspective. Some entries will be questions to my father, questions, that because of his untimely death, i was never able to ask him myself. Some entries, I hope can serve as advice to my sons (I have two) about how to be a good man, a God-fearing man, the man I hope to be. Eventually I hope to engage in some sort of civic discussion, with the people that read this, about our purpose for being here, how we can strive to improve our world and build a community of men (and for that purpose women) that people can count on. I am a teacher by trade, but first and foremost I am somebody's son and somebody else's father. Peace and blessings to you all!