BLACK HISTORY

Born October 4, 1954, the third child of six, into a two-parent family, within a silnge-parent neighborhood. The first school that I attended was Shannon Elementry, where I first met the current mayor of memphis, W.W. Herenton. (He was a fifth grade teacher at that time). Although he is mayor that is not how Shannon Street received public notoriety. By the time I left Shannon, I enrolled in Hollywood School for my seventh grade year. It was my first intergrated school. You see, intergration was not a part of my neighborhood at the time.
I lived through the assassination of both President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and that of Dr. Martin Luther King. I was nine but I remember being in class when they announced that the president had been shot. What I remember the most was that it rained in Memphis like I have never seen it rain since. By the time Dr. King was assassinated I was thirteen, going on fourteen, (in other words almost a full grown teenager).
I attended Cypress Jr. High in the eightth and ninth grades. The following summer trouble came and my parents shipped me to Oakland California to live with my older brother for a while. There I attended Fresno High school. I met some interesting people. It wasn't long before trouble brought me back to Memphis. I enrolled into what was then known as Memphis Technical High School.
The late sixties and the early seventies were formative years for me. They were the best of times, they were the worst of times. I graduated from high school May 25, 1972, (through the strenous efforts of my parents).
I then enrolled in the school of hard knocks, where I spent the next thirty-five years of my life. I was one of those young men who had the answer to everything. The problem : I didn't know what the question was. Right answer, wrong question You figure it out. Eventually I graduated there troo.
The first thing that I learned was that there is a right way to be wrong and a wrong way to be right. It took forever for them to teach me that the only thing worse than a fool is two fools. For the last nineteen years I have been a friend of Bill Wilson, from Akron Ohio, (for those of you who know or may later met Bill.
For lack of a better word I'll say that I am disabled (dis meaning not). I am injured, I have what is known as the Fisher King 's wound. Look it up. I am male a single parent with a special needs child. Her name is Lucinda, but we call her Lucy. Not only is Lucy's needs special but so is Lucy. I've learned so much from her.
Lucy breathes through a tube in her neck and eats through a tube in her stomach. She is totally dependent, but she complains less than most of the independent people that I know. She was born November 9, 1996, two pounds/5 ounces. April 17, 1997, Lucy got sick, the doctors said that she would not make it through the night. They gave up. I cried and prayed. Eleven years later she's still here. She has had three major surgeries, and not once became disgruntled. Lucy has been my strength. Through her I have gained an inner peace that surpasses all understanding. She taught me to become teachable. I've learned medical procedures like putting in trach's, suctioning, chest percussions and putting in gastrointestinal tubing. Through it all I've learned that I can learn.
Everyone compliments me on how well I take care of Lucy but I tell them that they have gotten thing backwards. It's not how well I take care of Lucy but how well she takes care of me. Before Lucy my life was like a wagon with no brakes going down hill. Lucy has been the brakes to my wagon. Because of her I am able to slow down, sometimes even stop, look and listen. She is most truly an angel.
I always said that when things got situated for Lucy that I would go back to school. Last year was the first year that the school did not call me every other day. So here I am.