Going with the flow

I'm no Earl Woods.

If I were of his caliber that I think I wish I was, the II would have gone to bed tonight with a Medicus gripped in his tiny, tired hands.

He'd be dreaming under a scaled-down painting of the 18th hole at Augusta; with the lights of his Titlelist Pro-V1 chandelier dimmed to a faint shine.

Instead, he's upstairs with an ice-pack on his head and a sweet vanilla soy milk pouch planted in his mouth because rolled off of the Lightning McQueen duvet on his new "big boy" bed. I suspect, that he might have been attempting an ankle-coiling cross-over dribble in his sleep, and took a highlight reel tumble off the side.

I've got the putting green in the back yard. He's got a near-complete set of Tiger's overpriced Nike sticks for kids; plus an off-brand junior set and plenty of second-hand clubs ready to be cut down to custom lengths for him.

But my boy wants to hoop, not chip and putt, right now.

Our evening routine centers around basketball. He'll rush me out of my work clothes into some version of the shorts/t-shirt/sneakers combo he's wearing. On easy nights we go out and clang on the 6-foot portable on our driveway. More often, he pleads to go out to the nearby public playground, or to its dank, adjacent inside gym if it happens to be unlocked and/or atteneded.

Tonight, at mommy's behest, we switched things up and went to the fancy new black YMCA, where the baskets crank mercifully down to 8 feet, and where foul-mouthed, n-word infused, malt liquor-fueled, saggy-pants play ain't allowed.

He had a blast. The winter-league coordinator took notice of his four-year-old dribbling skills - which are about as good as mine were when I was a JV scrub in middle school - and people shooting around on the other courts didn't seem to mind at all as he handle the ball all around them.

Stupid me: I started feeling like it was a wasted trip if he wasn't able to shoot high enough to score on the lowest rims in the cleanest environment I could find. So I kept prodding him to shoot from the one spot _ with bended knees and thrust and follow through - that gave him the best chance at a bucket.

After three tries he would have none of it.

"Daddy," he groaned, with a frown, "this is not practice. We're just playing."

I'd missed the point. All he'd wanted to do was taunt, "Come get me," and then dribble off. He just wanted another game pitting him (the Hawks) against me (the Short Barneys).

I get it now. Almost. T-ball season starts in four days, and he can't be bothered to practice fielding grounders. The footwork and toughness he showed during the soccer season that just ended makes me wonder if he should be exposd to that a lot more.

And, looking on the bright side, he said something very profound and encouraging as I helped with his post-hoops, apres-dinner poopie tonight.

"Daddy, read me a golf magazine."

Suge Knight should forgive and forget (turn the other cheek) so to speak

There, I've said it: the "S" word.

On the sports talk radio show that I used to thoroughly enjoy, the mere utterance of Marion "Suge" Knight's name in the wrong context (read: any context) was likened to a request for a beat down. 

Mr. Knight, an ex-convict and former rap impresario who helped usher the term "gangsta" into the popular vernacular, had, until recently been leading a shadowy, not newsworthy existence out in Cali. Free to walk the streets as long as he met the obligations of his probation.  He needn't have ever made news again until the publishing of his obituary if he'd played his cards right.

But no. Suge had to make an invasion back into public spaces (mainly the internet) by allegedly catching a sucker-punch beat down outside of a night club. Reports and photos of the unfathomable incident have spread so widely, you'd think the David vs. Goliath fable had truly been realized.

There's talk on the web of a potential throw-down between Suge and the steel-fisted assailant in some sort of cage match on pay-per-view.

What good would that do any of us? How far do we set our kids back if we fixate at all on an infamous thug caught in  a brawl, with more supposedly to follow?

Shouldn't we all just ignore what's up with Suge, so that the concept of getting even by violent means is the least of our concerned, no matter who's involved?

No matter what, let's shie;d our sons from the aftermath of this truly meaningless conflict .

 

The Morehouse Valedictorian:What's wrong with this picture?

I didn't attend Morehouse College.

Neither, I've determined, will my No. 1 son.

Reason 1: His going there, in relative distance terms, would be the same as if I had (socred a few SAT points higher) and matriculated at Notre Dame. Being within walking or bike-riding distance from home would have done me no good. Getting out on my own at 18 was crucial to my matutration.

Reason 2: Some things I've observed make me wary of all-male schools of higher learning.

No disrespect to the HBCUs out there. The No. 1 son's mommy attended one; and earns about twice as much as daddy.

And I'm not even tripping on the fact that a Caucasian's graduating at the head of the class at Morehouse this year. More power to him.

I'm more focused on the reverse angle.

The promo posters to buy the No. 1 son's class pictures at twelve bucks a (5x7) whop just went up at his school. Luckily, he sat up front in the photo (the better to be seen with his (Caucasian) parner in petty-crime. Otherwise, the out-of-focus and poorly-lit shot of Pre-School 2 would have obscured the questions of diversity we deal with.

Do we feel like our kids are gaining an educational advantage when they're they're in the distinct minority in their classrooms? Should our kids be pushed to be best-in-class when they have less in common than the majority of their classmates, and that lesson plans are geared toward what the majority of parents expect?

We twist and turn endlessly about what's gonna be best for the No. 1 when Pre-K's over and we have to choose whether to go the uniformed, gender-exclusive charter school route, the "urban model" public school route or the snooty-patooty private path some of his current classmates will like be launched down once this Pre-K period ends.

The white valedictorian at Morehous, who I salute, makes just makes me wonder what's best for my son.

Mommy went to schools that were predominatly black. Daddy's education _ K through college _ was just the opposite.

Is any end of the extreme best, where the future's concerned? Or ca we achieve a happy medium where the No. 1 son still gets an above-average education?

Blind faith

I'm sitting here listening to some of the best of Ray Charles courtesy of WABE-FM and "your program host of Jazz Classics", H. Johnson.

I'm fixating on the fact that this national treasure couldn't see but had unparalleled powers of description.

My reverence for Ray Charles puts me at odds with a puriant taste of mine.  Ludacris songs are a guilty pleasure that I fear I'll pass on to the II.

Every day, he pleads to watch  Anderson Varejao's hoop highlight clips on Youtube. And his favorite glimpse at the Cavs' wild center, unfortunately, happens to be the one accompanied  by the profanity-laced Luda lyrics to "Too Fast, Too Furious". 

I keep having to make sure that the volume's down low enough that mommy doesn't hear. Oh, the grief I'd catch.

One great  power of description is gone, and another is going to waste. That's the way I see it, at least.

Hallelujah, I just love her so

This one just  out of  conceit.

Don't you just love you wife?

Man, that woman can give you grief sometimes. But, in the grand scheme of things... what's better?

Smoke and Mirrors

A young groom-to-be dies in a hail of police gunfire in New York.

A 92-year-old grandma dies in a hail of gunfire in Atlanta.

Coincidence.

No. Just unfortunate, isolated incidents.

Sadly, they're tragedies that will reoccur. Much like the stray bullet that, on the daily it seems like, hits one of our most innocent souls with fatal consequences.

And then, today, we see constant footage of three brotha catching a serious beat-down from 15 uniformed Philly cops.

Is there no end?

No. Not if we don't make some corrections.

Not if we don't repute, right now. the soundtrack to an unsalvageable generation or two of lyrical direction toward our collective downfall.

Yes, I'm talking about rap. All the tracks that delude boys into thinking that what they have is what they are.

That kind or rap distracts us from thinking about how much responsibility comes with impregnating a woman. Those tracks often make us forget that we're needed at home.

Old forgotten ladies huddle alone in the dark. Hopeful black women cling to picket-fenced dreams.

What's the best to teach boys how to switch on those lights, swing open those gates?

Our future prospects can't be so dim and slim, can they?

Never learned to swim...

Can't catch the rhythm of the stroke, as Parliament/Funkadelic so sagely put it.

It's been a sore subject almost all my life.

Being unable to so much as dog paddle nearly got me killed years ago on a trip with the fellas to South Beach. Like most black folk denying themselves one of life's simple pleasures, I generally just avoid the water.

It's a sore subject. And I notice the stigmatic scap whenever the child, wife and I vacation someplace where there's a pool or lake or beach. I know better than to venture too far out. But I don't want to instill similar fears in him.

Not when it can be avoided. That's why an AP report I saw today on how few black kids can swim _ and how they drown in staggeringly larger numbers than white kids _ tugged at me.

Nearly 60 percent of our kids (ages 6 to 16) can't swim according to a survey compiled by USA Swimming, and our kids are three times more likely to drown.

So urge someone you know to check into USA Simming's "Make a Splash" program. If it's not offered at the Y or public pool nearest you, ask why not.

Part of the reason our kids can't swim is that we can't swim either. In other words, they lack role models in the exercise that could save their lives.

So make them aware of Cullen Jones, a "Make a Splash" alumnus according to AP, who is expected to compete for the 50-meter gold medal at the Beijing Olympics this summer and holds a world record as part of the U.S. 400-meter freestyle relay team.

Put up a poster of him (if you can find one) alongside Carmello's, whydon'tcha?