First Memory

The first childhood memory I can recall took place when I was four. The event was the building of my new house. I remember going out to this lot of just grass two times a week. I never understand why my mom and I would go to this spot so often. I guess I never paid attention to the for sale sign in the front of my old house either. One day I woke up to find a couple of men taking the furniture out of my house. I thought that maybe we were just getting new furniture. Peice by peice, they took all of the furniture out except for the kitchen stuff and my mom's bedroom furniture. As the days went by I came to the same empty house after headstart, and my mom and I went to the same spot which now had a foundation. About two months later my mommy told me that we were going to live with my grandmother for a little while. I remember thinking, "are we poor now?" But gettin a brand new house never came to mind. I remember sleeping at my grandmother's every night in a significantly smaller bed. I was accustomed to lying in my full sized bed, but now I had to sleep in a twin bed.
The air outside had gotten cold, so my mom and I went to a big shed that had all of our furniture and clothes. We returned to my grandma's, and I thought nothing else of it. By now it was the beginning of December. I remember my mom receiving the big JC Penny Christmas catalog and her telling me to pick out some things that I wanted. Of course, I picked out at least a million things knowing i wouldn't get all of it. As the days passed by my mom was there less and less. I didn't understand why, so one day I asked my grandma about it. She replied, "she gettin a big surprise for you ready."
When Christmas Eve came, my mom picked me up, and once again we went to the same place. This time there was actually a big completed house there. She opened the garage, we get out of the car and went inside. She replied, "this your new house baby." It was much bigger than the other one. I felt like I had just walked into a candy store and was able to get all the candy i wanted. I happily exclaimed, "where my room at mama?" She took me to it, and I felt right at home.
That night, I put out some milk and cookies for Santa Clause and went to my new room. It was so hard for me to sleep. My mother kept coming in my room telling me to go to sleep or Santa Clause would skip our house. The next morning, I woke up and ran to the den and just stopped. There were presents all around the fireplace and the couch. That was the first time we ever had a chimney for Santa to come down. I ran into my mother's room and yelled, "Mama, Santa been here, he been here!" What a great first memory to have!! hahaha

Family Rituals

Every family has at least one family ritual. My family has a couple of rituals which are always practice. The one that is most important and emphasized is the fourth of July. My late grandfather was born on the fourth of July. Every year we meet on this day at my uncle’s house to remember him as well as celebrate the fourth. Every year, the same thing is done in the exact same way.
First of all, it is always scheduled for 2:30, but black people are always on “C P” (colored people) time. Everyone always arrive around 4, moping around like they are on time. As soon as most of the guys get there, we always get a 3-on-3 or a 4-on-4 basketball game going while the women either go inside, to the back, or watch us play. The game always ends at the sound of my uncle saying, “Come on boys, it’s time to pray and eat.”
After the prayer, my great-grandma, my grandfather’s wife, eats first followed by the million children. The kids always waste food and drink and get yelled at by the adults. There’s also always restless adults asking, ”Why da kids gotta go first?” The children get their food and go to the “children’s table.” I remember when I was a kid (a rather big one if I might add) and had to sit and the table with twenty other nagging children. The adults pile their plates up a mile high and go their respective tables also. The adults either sit at the dining room table, in the den, or outside to get away from the “Bebe Kids.”
When the children finish eating, they always raid the pool table while the adults yell at them. The men always eat fast as hell so they can get back to the basketball game. Halfway through the game, my uncle ALWAYS comes outside with some little shorts, tight Nike air max, and a Witt shirt saying, “I got down.” Then he exclaims, “Yall gon havta take it eazae on dis ole tima! Yall know my knees aint like dey use ta be.”
During the course of everything that is taking place, there is always one aunt or cousin that has too much to drink! There is nothing worse than a drunk person stuttering and stumbling over you. The long day closes with everybody coming outside to watch others pop fire crackers. By this time, I am always exhausted and ready to go but can’t because of my mother. But what can I say? After all, this is MY FAMILY!

Childhood Memory

My childhood consisted of many memories, some better than others. Although most of them are totally inappropriate to talk about, there is one that I have been consistently reminded of. This memory took place during my “terrible twos” period. As a child, I was very protective of my mommy. I could not stand for anyone to even touch her, especially men. My mother had a boyfriend named Calvin Williams. He would always irritate me by putting me on the floor and putting his arms around my mother. One day I was finally fed up with his nonsense! (LOL) Once again he sat me on the floor and put his arms around my mom. I yelled, “Get away from my mama!” He did not obey me, so I had to retaliate. So I looked around to find something to throw at him. (Can you imagine a two year old working on his master plan to destroy his opponent?) I could not find anything at all to throw at him. Then right beside the television was one of my mom’s high heels. I crawled over to the t v, picked up my weapon of mass destruction, aimed, and fired! *Poooooowwwwwwwwwwww,* the shoe nailed him right in the face! Bullseye!!!! He quickly felt for the spot in which I had bruised him in and got up from the couch. I let out a quick giggle as the lump rose on his forehead. As he was walking towards me, my mother quickly jumped up and grabbed me yelling, “You bet not hit my baby!” I was saved! Well at least for the moment…

My feelings on our looooonnnnnnngggggg writing procedure!!

So, we have a paper due tomorrow, and it seems as if we had to do 1,000 drafts! (lol) I put a lot of time into my first draft, but I knew it could use a little improvising! Little did I know that it would take A LOT of improvising. After i brought my paper to class, I was expecting for my fellow classmates to pure edit it, and they did. So I took my group's advise and fixed the things that they said I should. I went home and retyped what I thought would be my near perfect FINAL draft. Feeling good about my overall work, I walked to class (in the cold rain) expecting to hand my paper in and receive a good grade. I sat down, took out my paper, and waited for Mrs. Sumner Winter to say okay class bring your papers to me. But, those words never came. She told us to take out the copy that we were supposed to print out in landscape style. We were assigned to devour our own papers line by line. I had a couple problems with this, and I was happy to find out that I wasnt alone. Since so many people had troubles she said okay, I want everybody to give me your first sentence and we're going to break it down phrase by phrase. So the first person called out their first sentence to her. The class started tearing down the sentence word by word! I was thinking OH LAWD I HOPE MY SENTENCE GOES BETTER THAN THAT. I begin to count the people in front of me in my mind. One, Two...then me. We finished up on the first person, and as I reached down in my backpack....... "Mauricus read us your first sentence," came out of her mouth. My heart skipped a beat! I took a deep breath and read my sentence aloud silently trying to convince myself that it was a good one. So the long, dreadful devourING of my sentence begin! Not one time did it cross my mind that I would have to change so much in one sentence! Taking the constructive criticism, I wrote down my new sentence and put my essay away. This little event helped me a lot. Although I was tired of doing new drafts, I knew this would only make me a better writer. So tomorrow we finally turn in our real FINAL COPY! WISH ME LUCK!

My Father Drank

The image that sticks in my mind is the gas station. The gas station represents the transformation from dad to drunk. The children knew why their dad was going inside. They always begged to go in with their dad, but the answer was always NO! He would go in as a normal person, but would always come out as a red-eyed, red-faced beast. I think this also symbolizes his constant struggle with staying sober. He would go a long period of time without drinking, but would always resort back into becoming that beast once again. It also symbolizes the struggle between life and death. The ouside of the gas station was equal to life, but the children always knew was was awaiting on the inside of the dark, cold gas station! DEATH........

The Rake: A Few Scenes from My Childhood

When I first read the title of this story, I was thought "I have to read a story about doing yard work?" As I read the story I did not understand how the title related to the story. By the time I read the part about the incident with the rake, I realized that this title was brilliant! The rake incident pretty much summarized every symbol in this story. This scene was most important to me because I can relate to it.
When I was younger, I had a similar situation to this with my little brother. He kept bothering me by jumping up and down on my bed as well as me. I constantly asked him to stop, but he wouldn't. So i got so upset with him that I power bombed (wrestling move..ha) him on the bed, and I knocked his two front teeth back about an inch. He quickly ran into the kitchen with blood dripping everywhere to my dad who was sitting at the round kitchen table. My dad got very upset and angrily asked what happened. Soon after, he took my brother to the hospital to get the problem solved.
The rake scene in this story symbolizes hurt most of all. The sister was always hurt by her step-father whenever her brother was away. It also symbolizes pain. This is not just physically but mentally as well. The children were abused almost everyday of the their lives while living there. Their mother, who was abused by her father was no help to them at all. This probably hurt them more than the fact that they were abused by their stepfather.

Taylor Bradford

So, since we have to do a blog every week, I thought I would use this one for something more meaningful. As we all know, one of our own, Taylor Bradford was tragically gunned down a little over a week ago. Well I turned on the news today and was happy to see that they have found three of his alleged killers, and they are still looking for the fourth and final suspect. This was a great relief to me! This whole situation has made me think twice about a lot of things. We should never take life for grantage, because we never know when we're going to die. It has also encouraged me to have a closer bond with my loved ones. Even though this was a tragic event, I am glad to say that I pulled some good from it. I think everyone should try to do the same thing. I guess that's all I have to say. Peace Everyone!