Black | tega227

I will write, again, about being retired and all the fun that is out there to be taken advantage. But, there are others, in my retirement community, that want to just sit and complain about this and that and rarely, if not ever, take advantage of the magnitude of opportunities. I promised to give a little more of my travels and/or taking advantage of the opportunities, not only here at Imperial Plaza but outside the gates of the community. But, first I must say, there are numerous things to do and most are free and what is not free is very cheap.

Everyone here know my wife and I love the casinos and the last one was a stay at the Sands Hotel and Casino/Mall in Bethlehem, Pa. (Sunshine Bus Tours). To say the casino was huge is not a dream but the truth. Of all the casinos we have visited, that was the largest. The hotel room was very large and cleaned daily whether we wanted cleaning or not. There was a cards tournament going on and the number of people playing (must have been in the hundreds) would not fit in Imperial Plaza’s auditorium. It was a nice trip…

The Activities Department, here at Imperial Plaza, have been doing a great job. Among the many trips (I’ll name two) was the fishing trip at the mouth of the Chesterpeak Bay and the Atlantic Ocean and the latest trip was on (The Alliance) a schooner on the York River. We sailed out of Yorktown and, after sailing in the triple mast (sails) schooner, had lunch at Outback in Williamsburg, Va. This Wednesday is to the Maryland Live Casino/Mall, can’t miss that, and, two months from now, a trip to the casino in West Virginia (Charlestown).

I just found out that a Richmond Mayoral Debate will be held here and I am wondering how many residents will attend. People here have so much apathy toward so much yet they can sit around in the lobby area and gripe about everything. I didn’t care about Richmond politics until I started living here. Now that Richmond is my city of residence and where I vote (we have a voting precinct in house), I am very interested and there is a need to know before I vote. Since there is a voting precinct here, I wonder how many residents vote, especially the Black vote. I have found the Black people here show more indifference than most and participation is seldom, with the exception of very few.

A few days ago I was talking with a couple of people about cities and, out of the blue, I was asked “what makes a city a city?” and I had to stop and think a second. It came to me about a conversation I had with a ranking postal official in North Dakota. I had wondered what made such small towns in North Dakota designated as cities. Some of the cities in North Dakota are smaller than our large trailer parks here in Richmond. This man told me that all the place needed was an operating post office and it could then become a city on it’s own. Well, Imperial Plaza don’t have a post office per se, but it does have package pickup, stamps, mail delivery and mail pickup. To top that off, Imperial Plaza have a bank, store, restaurant, doctor’s office, pharmacy, etc. All the places some cities in the USA don’t have and that includes having police, buses, barber shop, beauty parlor, etc. The resident don’t have to leave the premises for anything that is needed. We are a city within a city but without our own zip code. Now I don’t want to hear anyone saying I didn’t name this or that because I purposely didn’t mention everything. There is so much here to mention that I don’t want to attempt naming everything because I know I will miss something.

So, until the next time, I want everyone to be careful out there because any bad thing can happen at any time. Just be vigilant and careful but don’t go off the deep end and take matters into your own hands. Let the proper people do that and respect them for doing a great job in spite of the miniscule few that put a taint on their name. Peace Out

(I’m hoisting the foresail by myself but the teenager, in the blue cap, was suppose to help me)

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Listening to Martin Luther King’s speeches, for his birthday celebration, made me really think of those days compared to today. What mostly comes to mind is the sliding backwards of the People of color and the Black on Black crimes growing dreadfully fast. There are many reasons for this up tick in these crimes coupled with the flagrant disregard to the mighty works of MLK and others, starting from the first slave bought to these shores until now.

There were always the occasional crime within the Black community. That’s in all communities. However, it was never as frequent as it is now. It usually came from an argument stemming from a night of drinking and partying, as now. It was never the random fracas that happens now. The Peace Marches were all orderly and ALL provocations came from law enforcement or the representation there of. We, as kids to adults, conducted classes on how to registrar to vote, how to vote, etc. We taught, as kids to adults, how to protect yourself against fire department’s water hoses, the police dogs and battery upon the body. I say “we” because I was involved also. This is first hand knowledge.

The one thing that is different today is education. It was instilled in all of us, during those days, to study and study hard. To never give up studying and then more. And, this was happening although we knew that getting to the top rung of the ladder was impossible, that a Black person could only go a little ways up. Today it is not so. A Black person can go as far as possible, even as President of the United States.

Then there is the reason why a Black person can’t go far, other than education. It’s having a criminal record. Not many Blacks, especially men, are without some sort of record. There are not many jobs that does not require background checks and/or security clearances. People are hollering that there are too few Black policemen. How many, that want to be a policeman, can pass a background check? Not many. And, most that can pass a background check prefer some other job. It’s a vicious circle but education is still the center. Martin Luther King talked about that many times and it’s still talked about today. However, kids, today, don’t take education seriously. They study just enough to graduate and no more. They only want to know what is needed, not anything and everything like it was done in days not too long ago. Education was talked about since the sixteen hundreds, when the first Black came to America. That is why it was illegal for a slave to read or have any other type of education. Why do we still have to push this fact? Have Blacks forgotten our history or, even, been taught our history? Why fight/kill each other and hold our people back?

Martin Luther King had a dream as well as all of us. We have gotten far but there is still a long way to go. There should never be an area, in the Black community, I am hesitant to travel. There should never be a time that I look at another Black man and wonder if he is dangerous or not. After all these years, I should never have to listen to a Black person and hear ignorance, an uneducated person. I am perplexed over all of this. After all those peace marches, it was mostly for naught. My scars were gotten for nothing. Why?

I’ve been fighting inequity all my life. This was during childhood, in the military and after the military until today. Don’t believe it is so? Look at the Academy Awards. Again, why? Will this ever get right? World history say…NO. The best we can do is keep it as low keyed as possible and, as I say, “keep on keeping on”. There are inequities all over the world, in every culture and it’s been this way since the beginning of time.

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tega227

Retirement

Tag Archives: Black

Taking Advantage of Retirement

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Thinking of MLK

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