The "Old Block" Tells All.

  He always had good intentions. He wanted to be a good man, father, and husband more than anything in the world. However, the world would not let him be. In college, the girls came on to him like flies on stink! They were so sweet, “Me gustas, hombre,” some sweet-talking Latina would say. “Gusto kita, lalaki”, he would hear from a foreign exchange student. The unsolicited daily female attention he received, went straight to his big and little heads, twisting his self-made reality from the good guy path he pursued to the passively active playboy path. Parked cars and empty office buildings became his shameless playgrounds, where he spent many hours accepting the wanton favors of loveless ladies who easily turned his head with up-skirt glances, stolen touches, and secret smooches that attested to his furtive, manly magnetism. After a time, he did not care how or why he was given this surreptitious man-power over luscious ladies, he merely embraced his gift and shared the “love” with

  She was not the “Lady of the house”, nor the landlord, nor a rent collector, but her unsoiled grace, beautiful spirit, and genuine love for me and mine made her far more than any title one could bestow upon her. She was and still is Lady K, the heart and soul of the Newsome Clan! (I love my BFAM “D”, but Kim was in a whole new class!) I hated when she brought that dog into our room and perched him on top of our refrigerator, flicking tufts of hair off her hands and blouse, after loving and smooching with “Patches”. Lady K would visit us often and seemed to always bring that little hairy creature with her as an unwelcome companion. Lady K would give my wife and me ample hugs and kisses that would last all day: even after she departed. We never talked about anything important to the household or the outside world, but her presence always lifted the weight of homelessness and despair from our heavy hearts. She was love incarnate! A special soul that God in his infinite wisdom saw fit

Look what came in my mailbox today! It must be a Christmas card from heaven! On the far left is the late L. O. Bruster-Smith, my mother, and on the far right, as you all know, is the late E. L. Bruster-Terrell, my grandmother! These are the most influential elder women in my short, but wonderful life! These two women instilled a diligent, steadfast, hard-working ethic in me since birth. (I fell out of the womb with a cotton sack on my back!) “If you want to eat, you got to work”, my grandmother would say. Mom broke it down a little gentler, but the message was clear, I was to become a human mule until my intellect matched or exceeded my physical strength, (that just happened yesterday, so I have been a mule for several decades). L.O. Bruster-Smith taught me to be a gentleman, “Never raise your hand to a woman, son. No matter what!” she would say. “Don’t cuss, don’t lie, and don’t steal!” she would add. “If you want something, work hard and you will get it someday.” I bought my firs

  I am “Fudima”, a mother and a powerful woman, infused with the innate gifts of The Almighty to bear children and rear them in the way I see fit. If you see me in a shopping mall chastising my offspring, look away. Unless you are seeking knowledge in child-rearing, mind your own business. Step back, “Mama Bear don’t play that sh*t! And Mama Bear don’t take no mess from her young ones!” I teach my children how to live long enough to teach their own children how to live long enough to teach their own. “Don't break the law!” I tell them, as I spank their little butts. Mama would rather issue 1,000 spankings a year, rather than see the police issue one fatal spanking to one of hers. “I can’t breathe!” I do not knock before entering my children’s rooms. I pay the rent. I buy the food. I put the clothes on my children’s backs. They knock on my door, and wait for my permission to enter! They do not give me “back-talk”, when I am correcting their inappropriate behavior or lack of manners.