Be the Man...Just 'Cause

This guy I know actually showed me a picture of a purse he got his wife...like, right out the blue.  Without prompt, not even having a conversation about our wives or women's handbags, and no request from me, he tapped me on the shoulder and said "I had to jump out the window on Valentines Day".  Our relationship is casual at best, and most of our conversations revolve around sports.  But that day, that pic must've been burning a hole in his smart phone.  Thankfully for me, I've grown to be mature enough to honor his willingness to show pride for his wife; but probably, it was an attempt to let me know he was the man.

Days, Hours, Minutes...

It's not the silence that's deafening, it's the loud voices inside the head that gives silence that power.  And to say those voices are just loud is an understatement...they're relentless.  They scream, they yell, they even feel like they kick on the side of the skull...protesting to be heard...tired of being restrained.  They know that the body agrees with their position; but you, the one that controls the body refuses to give in.  You believe you're determined.  They tell you you're stubborn.  You remain focused on the goal.  They tell you to just settle for a consolidation prize.  But you know better; even if what you claimed to have in your possession is a million miles away.

Era of Innocence

I don't think it was even a year ago when I was in a barber shop, - participating in a football conversation - when the comment "before you know it, they'll have nothing but pansies in the League".  Now this statement was made in response to rule changes to protect offensive players in the NFL, but what was roughly being said was because of the rules against the violence of the game it's only a matter of time before gay [soft, feminine, and homosexual] people are the only ones playing professional football.  Well folks, without assuming that Micheal Sam is soft, that time is here.

Libertad

What tends to get lost in the crime-drama-turned-hood-classic Scarface is the political unrest in Cuba that fueled the entire plot.  In 1979, a desperate Fidel Castro made lemonade out of lemons by packaging some of his nations' criminal and mentally ill citizens with the other thousands of Cuban defectors headed for Miami.  I imagine that whether free or imprisoned, these Cubans desired to be relieved of Castro's dictatorship-style policies and were just as eager to leave as Fidel was to get them out.  The film portrays this well - as when Tony Montana, Manny Ray, Angel, and Chi-Chi are creating the atmosphere to assassinate a political confidant of Castro - they and the rest of the refugee camp chant "libertad".  In their eyes, any remnant that represented the oppression of Fidel Castro had to be eliminated.                                              

It's Not About the Weather

My sister-in-law, a St. Croix native wrapping up her last semester at Life University in Atlanta, earned her winter stripes last Tuesday night.  Jammed in with thousands of other motorists in the Metro Atlanta area - and all over Dixie - she was forced to into survival.  She explained to my wife and I that a trip to the closest gas station, that would've taken 10 minutes, ended up taking 3 hours.  And although she was able to get more than enough gas to make it home, it was a hill covered with freezing snow - that did her in.  With no possibility of a car making it up the untreated surface, she had to foot the remaining 2 miles.  Usually home at around 1 p.m., the exhausted college senior trudged in her apartment a little after 10 p.m. feeling blessed.  Many, many others in that same storm didn't make it home that evening...and were still in their cars or in a school when when we heard her account of the issue.