Writin' Forty

It occurred to me that I haven’t written about my trip to San Antonio, TX a few weeks back. Not sure how or why I forgot because at least two significant things happened to me, singularly, in that time: One, I put on a military uniform for the first time in almost 4 years and two, I had to shave  off my beard in order to put on that military uniform. I knew this day was coming and have known it for years. About 3 years ago I reacquainted myself with my buddy Sean and he told me then, authoritatively so, that he wanted me to preside over his retirement ceremony. Let’s pause here: The reason of Sean choosing me is important because there simply aren’t many people who make it from any branch of service to an official retirement, which is (normally) a period of over 20 years: when you get to that point you get to “call your shot” as to when you retire and who does it. People who perform these ceremonies usually are people of a high position or rank that the retiree respects. I r...

I joined a military support group at work. I figured it was a good way to meet people who have something in common with me in such a huge organization such as the one I work for.  The premise under which I joined this group was that I would join this course and also be connected with a mentor who is military or military friendly and talk to you during the duration of this course. Turns out I had a good rapport with my guy, Aaron, so after the course ended we have continued to have discussions. I’m glad for this. It’s nice to see someone outside of my regular day to day work people. Aaron challenged me to take better care of my spiritual growth. He firmly believes that you need to have work life, spirit, home life, and physical health taken care of. Aaron wasn’t even necessarily referring to going into a church every Sunday. To be frank, I’m kind of glad about that. I grew up in the church, Southern Baptist. My favorite lady on the planet, my mom, had trouble as a teen; going...

I’ve gone out of my way on this blog to not talk about politics. Trust me, I have friends and I have heard people very proudly proclaim how they don’t talk about politics. I’m not one of those people for a few reasons: there isn’t anything wrong with being aware of events in the world. As a minority, I think it’s even more important to state exactly where I am in my place in the world for so many reasons. So many. But I’ve gone out of my way to not talk about politics in this blog because I want this blog to be a place for me and for anyone reading to be free of, I  dunno . The world’s problems? That’s too heavy. How about this: in general I don’t give a good got damn about politics. I do care about common sense and I do care about people and so what I do is take politics and apply them to how I feel it would affect people in everyday life. I’m not saying that’s unique or  avant garde  or whatever. It’s just what I do.  All of this preface is leading up to me ta...