simon the slopman <--link

When my brother was about ten years old he worked with a man called Simon .Simons job was to collect discarded food from behind schools and restaurants in large barrels to feed to the pigs out in the country that were owned by some white man. this was in the late sixties my brother only did it after school to earn a little money simon was also an alcoholic and one day he began to tell my brother a story. He say, yeah the Germans said they were beating us so bad that we were turning black as it turned out Simon served with a tank battalion in www2 the man that everyone scorned for being a drunk, the man that the kids teased my brother about working for "I hear you work for Simon the slopman" was a veteran my brother said he wondered how a person that did so much ended up with so little its probaly because no one stopped to really talk to him.a few years ago my oldest son sat down to talk with my cousin a vietnam vet they talked for long time my son said. after their conversation my cousin thanked him because he want to talk about his experience for a long time and he was the first person to really listen. We may not agree with wars or their reasons but we must agree that our sons and daughters are our own and we should give them our ears when they need them

Hey,hey,Hey

My last post sucked i,ll admit it but i only did it to kill time while thinking about bill cosby,s latest tirade at the black community. bill says that every thing thats bad in the hood is the fault of the people who lives in the hood, on the other hand there are people who are saying that bill has become an uncle tom. Airing dirty laundry doesn't make the problem go away and denying that there,s a problem doesn't help either. throwing cold water on a person is one way to wake him up but not the only way. But still making general statements about poor black people without acknowledging the ones who do try to raise their children to succeed is wrong. The ghetto kids who do graduate from high school and go on to college or join the military or just enter the work force are always ignored by the media while the thugs the pregnant teens and the addicts always seemed get front page news. So yes there are some problems in the hood but there are also some good people trying to make a difference

my little town

the town i live in is basically a tourist town there's lots of old buildings that have been renovated for the tourists to look at old cemeteries to visit and a water front to walk along and see where the cotton was shipped off to Europe and where the slaves were bought in to sell.stores that sell souvenirs and bars to get drunk in on St Patrick day but all towns have their seamy side the parts the tourist don't see or don't care to see after all if they wanted to see poor people slums and drug deals they could stay home see that .No this is a vacation trip a time to forget what is bad in life and enjoy the good things. pralines and southern cooking a picture of themselves standing next to the statute of the waving girl. Its okay I've been a tourist before i took in the sights took some pictures and ate some of the local cuisine then went home .Tourists travel in packs some walk some keep to the tour buses looking at the buildings and not seeing the people i guess the bad thing about tourists is that the jobs created by them are low paying and they don't tip too well but still they provide jobs for the people from the poor side of town

i know you wrote with your right

i started this blog with the idea that i could express myself in a manner that the whole world would see but as i look back i have found that i have been censoring myself i am trying not to offend to many people so i have left some topics alone and only slightly hinted at others mostly politics and religion i really have a lot to say about these two things. i think i, ll be braver in the future. these two things seem to go hand in hand. no ideology has disrupted more lives and caused more wars than these two. i am not an atheist but religion in the hands of man is a dangerous thing. of course theres been lots of works of charity and schools have been built and hospitals. all to advance the cause, to convert, to change the culture of the unbeliever, they say your ancestors were wrong this is the true way. or they say your way of governing is wrong this is the right way i will write more about these things in the future .and racism you know white people dont have a monopoly on rascism there are others .at the last moment i thought i could make a buck or two by publishing this blog but it seems no one is clicking on the ads. but i like doing this anyway and i,ll try to make an installment everyday

step right up

i have been told that a long time ago circus and county fairs always had a side attraction called a geek show there you could see the man who bites the head off live chickens or the man who drove nails up his nose or maybe someone who swallows live mice . it seems commercial tv has reached back into the pass to bring us a new updated versions of the geek show. shows like fear factor ,eating worms have more to do with disgust than fear,csi watching someone perform an autopsy is entertainment? Keep the line moving people and over here we have a male prostitute dressed like a woman a rather ugly one at that ( cops) and here's a man getting hit in the groin with a football that's always good for a laugh.watching people humiliate, lie to, and cheat each other isn't entertainment and besides once every four years is enough and thats not counting local elections guess ill just turn off the tv for while; well after i see rob and amber get married

family values

my son the marine called home last night he is stationed in okinawa he is so bright i always thought that he would have been an engineer or an architect but he decided to become a marine anything he says to get out of this towntheres is something about this town that makes our best and brightest leave they go to atlanta or even farther away vowing never to come back maybe being a tourist town has something to do with it there's a lot of sevice jobs some manufacturing jobs but the outside world offers more our small science museum was torn down years ago a clinic offering cosmetic surgery was built were it used to stand .i am still proud of him a lot kids he grew up with aren't doing so good at 19 he already know of kids that he played with when young who aready have a prison record or are trying be dealers or are just standing on the corners sadly my oldest son can say the same thing so many lives wasted i know its hard being a single parent but being a single parent isnt a new thing that just happened in the 20 century i think the difference is that families worked together to help raise a child uncles and aunts and grandparents were involved now nobody cares. Now it i got mine you get yours. how can someone not care if a close relative is in need of help. how can someone not see . i am glad my brothers step in when my ex stopped caring and kept ecouraging my boys to never give up and to keep trying to succeed we need more men like them in our families

lack of communication

its so hard to say goodbye to yesterday people are comfortable with the familiar, the things they are used to seeing and experiencing so when something different happens they become afraid and uneasy so when some one new shows up in the neighborhood and they are different from the majority. the people become uneasy they try not to show it but there is always one who is scarier than the others and he uses his fears to scare the others. he has seem the news and he knows how those new people are. never mind that the new people have moved there to get away from the same things he has heard about on the news .some the neighbors become like the sheep in animal farm (four legs good two legs bad) others think about moving a few want to welcome the new people but are afraid of becoming a part of the outside group.and anything the new people do will be suspect a house party be will be a meeting of drug dealers or a terrorist planners meeting or a satanic cult meeting.finally someone sells their house cheap it gets rented out real cheap to someone who just dont care about the neighborhood and they neglect the upkeep of their house. its the rent mans job to cut the grass they say. seeing this more people move out and more dontcare people move into the nieghborhood. coming home from work one evening the new neighbor looks around and turns to his wife and says, this nieghborhood has gotten bad we need to move