Childhood

Funny feelings

Emergency appendectomy

Started kindergarten at 4

Behavioral problems

Burton elementary school

Mr. Walton, Mrs. Morgan, Mrs. Davis

Riding school bus

Acting – King of the Junk song

Walnut Hills High School

Mrs. Ihlendorf

Bookbag

Mt Auburn

Peeing in class

Romeo and Juliet

Dad left when I was about 14

Arguments between parents

Dad hit mommy in the nose when he was drunk

On Thanksgiving Day, 1962,  a forty-six year old woman in an orthopedic brace gave birth.  With the odds against my being born, I turned sideways only for dramatic purposes. My father, at the age of fifty-six, was aware that the odds were against my being born.

While living in the state of Florida a doctor suggested that my mother abort her birth. Age played a secondary challenge in surviving a full-birth. Mama’s blood cells carried the Rh Negative Factor. My father carried Rh Positve blood. During pregancy, this put her life and my life in danger. If all of my siblings lived, my magic number would be fifteen; it was five. Determined to fulfill the last opportunity to give birth, she fired the doctor and found another one.

Most of her pregnancies resulted in miscarriages or sitll births. During my childhood there were pictures of two of my deceased sisters. They lived for a few years but passed away because they were identified as “blue babies.” Blue babies are easy to identify because the pigment in their skin or lips have a blue tint to them. The medical diagnosis is cyanosis which means there was a lack of oxygen in their blood.

From a personal experience it is devastating. My youngest son was born as a blue baby. 

my mother showed us pictures of  two of my deceased sisters. 

Science has greatly improved since then. Like my mother, the woman who gave birth to my two sons also carried the Rh Negative Factor, but the physician was able to administer a shot called RhoGAM to prevent further complications. However, 

His fifty six year old father has little to no knowledge that his wife is facing all of this pain. Meanwhile, his brother and three sisters are waiting to be served Thanksgiving dinner.

After my first curtain call, I reminded my brother and sisters know that our parents had fulfilled their duty and quota for the family. Privileges were at the top of my list as the youngest child. I got all the attention I wanted and more. It also came with a handful of glaring looks and threats from my older siblings. To this day, they have the audacity to say I was spoiled. What do they know? They were my first teachers, my first leaders and my first headaches.

When I was nine months old, I was walking and talking. My thirst for knowledge was greater than my thirst for the baby bottle. I needed to know everything.  Anything that I didn’t know, I added to history. “Why” became my favorite and most important word for which I took credit.

My questioning was most important when my parents allowed my only brother and two older sisters in charge of me when we rode a bus from Florida to Ohio. Although I was only two years old, I marched to the front of the bus to inform the driver that he was travelling in the wrong direction.

Twelve, ten, eight and two year old Black children left the south with no regard that the civil rights movement was in full swing. My parents

Throughout my childhood, I always felt like the odd kid. Yes, my father was fifty-six when I was born; my mother forty-six. I wore orthopedic braces because I was so pigeon-toed. Unlike many children, I never outgrew my bowlegs. The moment I was born, I was already an uncle.

 Yet, none of those oddities compared to a “funny feeling” that I would get every once in a while. At three years old my family moved from Florida to Ohio.  Shortly thereafter, I had an emergency appendectomy.

Epilepsy, a nervous system disorder, is often misunderstood and vastly undiagnosed. Anyone, including animals with nervous systems, may be subject to a seizure. Think of the nervous system as

 At the time of this writing, scientists have not been able to effectively transplant the human brain. During aIt affects the most complex system in the human body—the brain. Often described as short bursts of energy, an epileptic seizure may be as an innocent as a flicker of light or as destructive as gusting winds at fifty eight miles per hour.

 Time is the common denominator for anyone who lives with epilepsy and those who care for us. The cleanup stage depends upon the severity of the energy burst.  For some, no cleanup is required; others may require a lifetime.

My greatest wish is to get back all the time that I lost while having an epileptic seizure. It would close the gaps of my constitutional rights as a citizen of the United States of America that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

I capitalized on my title. At the age of three, I had an emergency appendectomy. However, I nearly died because the medical team left gauze inside of the incision. Anytime one of my siblings inflicted any pain on me, I gave a dramatic performance as if my appendix were about to burst again.

My brother and sisters threatened me because I was such a snitch. If my brother, ten years older than I, hit me upside my head, the pain shot right to my lower right side. That was my story. If my one of my sisters pinched my arm, I needed another emergency surgery.

The dramatic entrances and exits nearly backfired on me. When I told my family about that “funny feeling”, they often ignored it. There were no outward signs and no name attached to it. When I experienced that “funny feeling” at the dinner table, I left the table without being excused. My family attributed it to my awkwardness.

Secrecy and isolation became a way of life. My imagination was fueled by my love for reading. My dad, sixty years old at the time, told me that anything I wanted to know was in a book. Like so many other Blacks, he was denied the right to formal education simply because of the color of his skin. So he emphasized to my brother, sisters and me

Imagine sitting in a classroom full of gifted children. A teacher calls you by the name you are able to recognize since an infant. The answer is ingrained in the deepest part of your subconscious.  Your brain resets, but the teacher has concluded that you are not paying attention. No one seems to understand—not even your parents.

An epileptic seizure may be as small as the blowing of a person’s breath to a windstorm that exceeds 34 miles per hour. A windstorm is a result of short bursts of high-speed winds or increase in sustained winds. When the nervous system experiences short bursts it may result in a seizure.

Time is the common denominator for anyone who lives with epilepsy and those who care for us. The cleanup stage depends upon the severity of the storm.  For some, no cleanup is required, for others cleanup may take a lifetime or lead to death.

My greatest wish is to get back all the time that I lost while having an epileptic seizure. It would close the gaps of my constitutional rights as a citizen of the United States of America that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Throughout my childhood, I always felt like the odd kid. Yes, my father was fifty-six when I was born; my mother forty-six. I wore orthopedic braces because I was so pigeon-toed. The moment I was born, I was already an uncle. None of those oddities compared to a “funny feeling” that I would get every once in a while.

As the youngest, I capitalized on my title. At the age of three, I had an emergency appendectomy. However, I nearly died because the medical team left gauze inside of the incision. Anytime one of my siblings inflicted any pain on me, I gave a dramatic performance as if my appendix were about to burst again.

My brother and sisters threatened me because I was such a snitch. If my brother, ten years older than I, hit me upside my head, the pain shot right to my lower right side. That was my story. If my one of my sisters pinched my arm, I needed another emergency surgery.

The dramatic entrances and exits nearly backfired on me. When I told my family about that “funny feeling”, they often ignored it. There were no outward signs and no name attached to it. When I experienced that “funny feeling” at the dinner table, I left the table without being excused. My family attributed it to my awkwardness.

Secrecy and isolation became a way of life. My imagination was fueled by my love for reading. My dad, sixty years old at the time, told me that anything I wanted to know was in a book. Like so many other Blacks, he was denied the right to formal education simply because of the color of his skin. So he emphasized to my brother, sisters and me.

Imagine sitting in a classroom full of gifted children. A teacher calls you by the name you are able to recognize since an infant. The answer is ingrained in the deepest part of your subconscious.  Your brain resets, but the teacher has concluded that you are not paying attention. No one seems to understand—not even your parents.