Monday, July 27, 2015

Unwrapping The Color Of Love

Gifts, I love to give them and I love to receive them, who doesn't?! When someone gives you a gift, do you look at the wrapping paper and say to yourself, "What kind of paper is that? No thanks, you can take your gift back." I don't think so.

We should look at love the same way. When I was growing up, in my most formative years I attended a predominately white Christian school. From fourth grade through my senior year, the majority of the guys that I was around where white. There were very few African Americans in our school, so the dating pool was REALLY small. The few of us that were there hung out and were really cool, but we really didn't date each other. Interracial dating was probably the single most unspoken taboo. It ranked right up there with premarital sex, and the devil's music (rock and roll). Let me be clear, I don't want to make it seem that it was only at school where I learned who I could and could not date. My father was and is a very old school black man. He is intelligent, strong, and a hard worker. He let it be known in no uncertain terms that in the event that I should even THINK about bringing ANYONE else home other than a black guy, that hell would open up and swallow me whole! But in my mind, that didn't mean that I couldn't look.

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Thank You For The Music


I don't know about you, but I'm one of those people who truly do attach the emotion of a memory, time, or a place to music. I actually think it's fairly common, who doesn't remember the song that was playing when they danced their first slow dance at their first party?

As I listen to a song each note played is a step back to a specific time and place. "Let Me Be Your Angel" by Stacy Lattisaw was the song of my first innocent love, my puppy love if you will. I used to sit in my room and listen to that song over and over. Which was a bit more complicated back then, since we didn't have MP3 players. We had 45s and LPs, yes, good old records.