The fine red bone that you see standing next to me,is one of my closest childhood homies from the Southside. We literally grew up together since the age when you can start riding your bike over to different streets other than the one you lived on. You know how like when you’re just getting started learning how to ride your bike, and your mama won’t let you go past your yard? Or maybe you can go just as far out on the street so that your parents can look out the door or come out to the bottom of the driveway and see where you are at all times?? So ever since I was old enough to venture past this direct line and go out riding on other streets in the hood, me and Dr. Chicken Head have been kicking it. Don’t laugh and don’t start tripping, I mean, you CAN laugh cuz Dr. Chicken Head does sound like a funny name, I know a lot of Southside folks are holding their mouth right now and saying,
“Awww that n’ga D. just capped on Twin!!!”
Those who know just how close Man and Twin (both of them) are, know that it’s not like that at all, and those who can see how tight she looks can see that she’s a long way away from being a ‘real’ chicken head. We can pick up on the Southside definition of a chicken head later, but right now we’re talking about Dr. Chicken Head!
Dr. Chicken Head is something I call her with the fondest of endearements. You see, the problem with a lot of folks, is that they can’t believe that two attractive non-related people of the opposite sex can be around each other for too long before SOMEthing starts happening. Ya know..sum’n-sum’n?? Well, for those people who are so shortsighted and narrow minded as to think that people can’t have purely platonic relationships with members of their attracting sex, I feel sorry for you. Because you’re really missing out on one of the most beautiful things in life…agape. I’m sure this is a hard thing for a lot of beautiful people to handle, especially if all their life every person of the opposite sex they’ve ever known has tried to ‘get some’. Sometimes even their kinfolk. Life has a lot of diverse and painful twists like that, we’re all dealing with something. I just know that we are all glazed with the pains of the realities we’ve lived. Some people chalk it up to being part of God’s purpose and move on, others hold on to it like a vigilante and let the pain slowly eats them up from the inside. But I digress....
I call her Dr. Chicken Head with a proud tone because first and foremost, she IS a doctor..not the M.D. medical kind, I’m talking about the PhD kind. Those of us in the hood look at her with great pride and admiration because she’s one of our own that’s striving for excellence in this great big world we live in. I told everybody about a lot of our ‘jailhouse’ homies from the hood, but I didn’t mean to imply that all my homies from the Southside were ‘throwed’. Just like we grew up with n’gas who went to the pen for murder, armed assault, rape and other felonies as such, there is also a large menagerie of homies who are very positive and inspiring role models in the hood. Police officers, city workers, Sportscasters, Engineers, Teachers, Truck Drivers..it’s a lot of us who came out the hood grinding hard in ‘mainstream’ America getting down at what we do. No matter what circle you’re in, the task of professionalism calls for putting in that work diligently, but you gotta honor that Sabbath if you want to be REAL mane..that’s one of the Original Big 10. Those living under that Big 10 are living under the Original Law that Jesus fulfilled. But everybody ain’t ready to hear all that right now, so let’s get back to talking about Dr. Chicken Head cuz I KNOW she stay ready.
One of the things that I admire the most about the D.O.C., is that even before and after she earned her PhD, she re-invested her mind and time back into our kids here in the hood. Being a public school elementary teacher is an extremely important assignment, especially here in the poor/working class black community. Everyody don’t have the skills to gain poor black kids attention and respect. Sometimes the black and ‘think they’re’ rich kids are even worse. She was a teacher in the same school in the hood that she once attended all the way through elementary school, so she knows what it do. She gave me a call one day..
Hey D… I need you to do me a favor if you can.
Sure Doc..wazzup?
I was talking with our counselor here at the school and we were wondering if you could come in and talk to some of our 4th and 5th grade boys.
What do you want me to say to them?
Anything..these boys just need a male’s perspective and insight on life..most of them have never seen it up close and face to face. We don’t have any male full time teachers at the school and most of them live with just their mama or their grandma.
I feel ya..I’ll see what I can do.
I proceeded to contact the counselor, as well as having a screening interview with the school’s principal. We decided to have weekly one hour sessions every Tuesday morning. I had a group of 12 boys, all in the 4th or 5th grades. They all looked at me quizzically at first, trying to figure out what MY deal was about. After the counselor introduced me to the group, I thanked her for the gracious introduction and I politely asked her if she could please leave the room until we were done. She was a bit taken aback at first, I guess because my request caught her off guard..
Umm..are you sure you’ll be able to handle this by yourself?
I have full authority to maintain discipline in this room for the next 45 minutes don’t I?
Yes Mr. Washington..you have the full authority to handle up as you see fit.
Okay..that’s all I need then..I got it. I’ll see you after we’re done here.
After she closed the door, I turned back to these bad az little monsters. I shouldn’t say that huh? You know, all that ‘if you tell a child he’s bad all the time, he’s going to start believing it’ and all that Dr. Spock junk right? Well listen here..I believe ALL people are good at the core, it’s just that some have so much bullsh’t and nonsense, hate and prejudice, bitterness and envy, cruelness and lies rapped around them so tightly, that you can rarely see the light inside anymore. Same thing with kids. Some kids have such a deficiency of basic home training, manners, obedience, discipline and respect, that when they get out into the world, they’re complete terrors (i.e. bad az kids). Most of them are just caught up in their own selfish world of doing and saying whatever it is they want to without threat of repercussion. But all their parents have to do is deliver a coupla slaps to the mouth whenever these kids start talking crazy…
Boy..gone in there and bring them groceries in the house.
I’m playing my video game right now!!
So! Put it on pause and go do what I say!
Not right now mama..I’m almost finished.
Boy..if you don’t get yo black az up and do what I say RIGHT NOW!!
(throwing the controller down and stomping off in disgust) Shoot! That’s why I don’t even like living here with you, I wish I could go live with my daddy!!!
See..that’s the kind of stuff there that would get a child popped in the mouf..quickly, in houses that don't 'spare the rod' on the child.. It was obvious to me that these boys were accustomed to pushing people to the limit. They could barely sit still (I suspected some might have that ‘crack’ gene twitch), only half of them could speak in full and distinct sentences..most everything else was slurred together like a DJ Screw tape. A lot of yeahhhs and naahhhhhs. It was obvious that their teachers where making efforts to break them out of this laziness of progressive communication, because whenever I corrected their yeaahhh’s and nawww’s they quickly snapped,
Oh..uh..yeah..I mean..yes…sir.
So you’re telling me that you think Allen Iverson is the richest man in the world???
Nooo..he stupid Mr. Washington…I was trying to tell that fool that Shaq got waaay more money than Iverson.
Don’t call him stupid..no one has even came close..
Kobe Bryant?
No.
Michael Jordan??
No.
Ooh! Ooh!!..I know..I know…I know!!
Go ahead Horseshack.
Hoeshack??? My name ain’t no Hoeshack..my name is D’aundre!!??
It’s not Hoeshack, it’s Horseshack, it was a Welcome Back Kotter reference
Welcome who?
Never mind..go ahead..who do YOU think is the richest man in the world since you ‘know’?
Jay-Z!!
(At this point the entire classroom started laughing and jumping up and down in their seats clownin. Some were slapping hi-five in agreement, others were laughing at him calling him stupid..it was all beginning to remind me of a Sidney Poitier movie..)
All ya’ll sit down and be quiet!!! (I had to say this at least every 5 minutes, or else the room came to the same crescendo as a zoo right before feeding time.)
Well who is it? Yeah! Who IS the richest man in the world??
Bill Gates.
Who? Who is that??? Yeah..what’d he do to get paid like that???
He was one of the co-creators and chief pusher of a brand of software that is found on most of the computers around the world.
What does that mean? Yeah..what’s software??
You see this computer right here?
Yeah..
The things you can actually touch and feel, that’s the hardware. Here’s the monitor, there’s the keyboard, the mouse, here’s the tower which has the mother board and the main processor, which is like the brain for the computer. All that is hardware. But when you turn the computer on, you have to be able to ‘talk’ to all those hardware components and make them do what you want them to do. The interface that allows you to do this is called the software.
I don’t get it.
Take your microwave that you have at your house..when you want to warm up a muffin, you put it on 5 or 10 seconds.
Muffin?? What’s a muffin?
Okay..cornbread.
Oh! Ah!! Yeah! Okay!
Well..the software tells that light and microwave to stay on for however many seconds you put it on. After the time is up, it tells the microwave and light to turn off. There’s a computer in there that does that from whatever you put in the keypad..the interface between the software and hardware is called the firmware..but that’s another level of the game that ya’ll don’t need to know right now. Just remember that Bill Gates and none of the rest of the top 100 of the richest people in the world got their fortune from playing basketball or football. But ALL of that top 100 have used their brains to hit a lick. So you GOTTA be about that work when you’re at school and not all that playing all the time. Because the more you miss out right here? The more you’re going to be behind the pack when it’s time to try and DO some things in life. All this play-play stuff and laughing and giggling all the time, acting all cool? You’ll ending working like a slave your whole life.
The whole experience gave me a more real to add to my game and for that I thank my homie Dr. Chicken Head. But more than just that, I treasure the fellowship we have together when it comes to dealing with life as well as getting deep into that Bible striving for understanding. The Christian path is always a lot easier when you can look around and see those you know and love heeding that call along with you. Congratulations to my homie out in Cali..K. Brown, PhD..aka..oh, my bad. ‘AKA’, Doc Chikn’Head!!! She’s been down for D. ever since I used to ride that red and white bike. She’s been one of my biggest supporters for Servinemup, my writing as well as all of my life endeavors. We holla at each other from time to time for fellowship or just to say what’s up. I’m so glad that it was within God’s will for her and her family to be a part of my life. The wildest thing about it, is that she has an identical twin sister who I’m JUST as crazy about.....and I’ve never even seen either one of them naked!!!
Okay..that last joke may be pushing it a bit..but ya’ll gone and lighten up and laugh anyhow..these Servinemup Awards are FUN like that!!! If you forward this email to some more people, make sure you tell them to check out the site (http://www.servinemup.com/ [URL: http://www.servinemup.com/] ) more awards to come…the next one might be you.
