My Dad came into my head again…

This time was a little different than the last… (He has
popped up more times that I have shared with you guys, but I will say he has
not been around since my last post) Anyway, I got to thinking about what jobs that my
father had held over his life time, other than the Army, and it occurred to me
that I could not really say.( I do not know if he even completed high
school!) When my parents were together, when I came along, I was too young to
ask or care.

By the time I may have wanted to know, he was rarely around.
I could ask my sister, I guess, but that had not occurred to me until now.

Still, I have been able to put together a some placements,
but few were standouts, I do know that he was Brook Benton’s valet for a while.( Look him up) Once, he stopped by
the house, driving a florist truck so that goes on the list. However, the job
that I do know of, was a job for a now defunct airline. He would had to have been
working out at DCA, Dulles International was still in the planning stages. How did I know
about this one job of his at such a young age? I remember this job, because
every morning, I and my siblings would come down the stairs to a red hard
plastic bowl that had A National
Airlines logo stamped on the bottom. That was always filled with oatmeal.

I saw a bowl just like it for sale, at the DCA open house a week before the new
terminals opened a few years back, I should have picked one up. The memories that rushed back on me when I held that bowl again!

So, my dad came into to my head again, with good reason,
today I was working at the one place we have in common, something that reaches
across the years… The same place he was for a time some 50+ years ago. The
same place doing the same time I do now… working for an airline at DCA.

Well itis time to update you guys,  however I have already taken a sleeping pill so I it will not happen tonight

Here are some of the highlights…. Let go from my Job, now working 2 jobs to get some dough. One house I own is going into closing. And Blood is the new Black!

I will get back to you…

FiveJ

My Father entered my head yesterday. As I get older, he is doing that more often. This time I remember him showing up around the time I just started to drive. that would put me around 17-18 years old. I’m driving down Monroe street, he is in the car with me. I’m not clear how that happened, I do not remember which car or even who’s car it was. I never knew where my father lived, so I could not be taking him home.

I think he wanted to see how his first born drove a car, the last time he stopped by, by the time he left the house, he had my asked to “borrow” my BS and T album with the promise that he would bring it back. This was BS and T’s second album so that would put that visit late 68, early 69 -I was in Junior High and would be about 15 years old then, so you have an idea of the time between visits. I never saw my albums again.

Anyway, we are in the car and I’m driving down Monroe street and I’m driving real close to the parked cars on the right side of the street,

“What are you doing Son?”

“Staying on my side of the street Dad”

“You are too close to the parked cars”

“I have to stay on my side”

“Stop the Car”

We change seats, Dad turns the car around, and just like that, we are headed back towards the house. My Father is racing up the street in the middle of the road while giving me the following advice..

“There is no side of the road until another car shows up, until that happens, take up all the space you want.  Also, if you ever have a choice between a car and a tree.. Go for the tree, Trees can’t sue”

Then, just as quick as he came into my head he left, Just like he did when he was alive.

I love Paul Simon. There I said it..

Or rather his gift to us, his songs, I really cannot think of another artist that has reached me more where I live than Simon. I can tell you the first line that touched me as a young teenager

“the words of the prophet are written on the subway walls and tenement halls”

That was of course, from the “Sound of Silence” Simon’s first big hit with his pardner Art Garfunkel.

I was a low to middle class Black Youth who was was surrounded by the music of the greats of soul music, If Motown Records was the head of the Church, (The Temptations, Four Tops, Stevie Wonder) Atlantic records were the Apostles. (Areatha Franklin, Sam and Dave, Otis Redding) You could go thru anyone’s 45RPM collection and most of what you saw and was the blue, of the Motown label or the yellow of it’s sister Talma label or the red of the Atlantic Records label. You dare not let any music other than that urban scripture blare out of your transistor radio or record box. less you be called a heretic and be shunned. “White Boy” music was forbidden by my peers, that included Elvis! Some exceptions that come to mind were the” Rascals” and of course, Dusty Springfield. and both recorded for Atlantic Records by the way

That was before I was lured away by lines from the serpent’s mouth.

.I am just a poor boy
Though my story’s seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest

That was from “The Boxer” or these lines from “American Tune

Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken, and many times confused
And I’ve often felt forsaken, and certainly misused.
But it’s all right, it’s all right, I’m just weary to my bones
Still, you don’t expect to be bright and Bon Vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

I could spent the rest of my post just pasting Simon’s words. To my teenage ears this stuff beat “Papa’s got a brand New Bag” any day of the week!

Please, Judge me not, I love Soul Music, I have reveled in it, made love while it was playing in the background or in my head. but I devour Simon’s music. it has taught me both the high and the lows of life, it has shown me flashes of imortality and at the same time it weeps at my mortality

So much coffee so little time Part 2

My little girl taken care of, I can now move to the next most important item on my list, COFFEE,COFFEE and COFFEE!

Did I mention coffee? While I know that there are those out in the world that thinks that we have far too many Starbuck Coffee bars around, I’m not one of them. If I could get them to put one in my bedroom, construction would start now. The problem I have is I do not have the time to stop by a Starbucks in the morning. I have to resort to either 7-11 coffee or McDonald’s coffee. 7-11 coffee is like sweetened water to me now, and McDonalds is one of the few coffees that can get my ticker out of whack, and whatever they do to keep their coffee hot, WOW! it should be weaponized and used in combat. It may burn off all of the skin of the enemy but they will no longer have those pesky caffeine headaches that can ruin your day.

For me today is Starbucks interrupted, so I have to settle for 7-11 coffee which means that I will have to prostrate before the Java god at least one more time today before the work day ends.

Tuesday, 8:30

This morning RT 495 was good to me, the daily auto crash that ties this road up for miles happened just as I reached my exit. I ease on to Colesville rd without mishap and reach my office well before my set start time. If I did not have the setback of taking my 16 year old to school, I would take public transportation into the office. I pay a monthly fee for that, so counting that along with the extra fuel of using my 6 cylinder high output car every day and the cost of unused bus fare. Well, I try not to think about that as I really cannot change it for now.