Salvation

Langston Hughes’ “Salvation”

   Langston Hughes has just experienced peer- pressure of the worst kind (family). Hughes has lied, in order to satisfy is aunt; with this lie Hughes has also hurt his salvation, he may never believe in Jesus for the rest of his life.

Understanding where he is coming from is very easy for me. I once was in his shoes (belief in Jesus).As a young boy my dad died, I was fourteen, and man-oh-man was it hard for me. My dad was my best friend, how many kids could say they skipped school once and awhile and went fishing with their dad, but the death of my dad made me rebel against Jesus and God, my thought was” why did you take my dad from me!” I was under the impression that Jesus didn’t care about me or my life, didn’t the all-mighty know! I need my dad to guide me through these teenage years, so I rebelled to the point of almost dropping out of school and throwing a way a chance to play pro baseball to hang in the streets, one night at car cruising spot in Hollywood, Ca. it all changed.

It was about 7:30pm, I saw this brown Mazda 323 go by, in this car were two young ladies, and there were nice real nice, I waved to try to get them to stop, they kept on going down the street and around the corner, and then out of no-where the little brown Mazda pulled up. Her friend jumps out of the car and ran toward me and wanted to talk to me, (I directed her to my friend pointing at him) I ran right by her and jumped in the passenger seat of the car, started talking to her friend, which is my wife now. We talked for hours (until 4:00am). Years had gone by, she got married and so did I, but we kept in touch through those years. My first marriage didn’t workout to well and I had gotten a divorce (didn’t make it playing baseball), a few years later she too had gotten a divorce, throughout these years I was still a little pain in the butt; you could tell me a thing, but every time I went to see her; her mother would say “boy you need Jesus” I’d look at her mother like she was crazy. I’d say to myself “that women’s crazy and I don’t need Jesus I got Don and that’s all I need to get by”. A few years go by and I got a good job in Stockton, Ca. I moved from Los Angeles to Sacramento.

Cynthia’s (my wife) mother saw me and said “Don, why don’t you go to church with me?” I replied “I’ll think about it” let me tell ya, I shouldn’t have said that, she rode me until Sunday morning, so Sunday morning has come, we went to church, it’s  great! I said to myself “I could get into this” as service was coming to end, they always ask as the church sings. “would you come, turn your life over to Jesus?” as I’m clapping I fell a tug on my elbow, I looked at my mother-n-law like; don’t pull me or rush me in to something; now as I’m clapping and singing another tug, but this time it was different, I saw her hands, she was clapping. Now I have this puzzled look on my face, the next tug put me in the aisle and down to the front I went crying and felling liter as I’m getting closer to the front to receive prayer and Jesus. I didn’t see him, but I felt him. Six years later I saw him.

God and his son work in mysterious ways, God has a plan for your life, just remember it’s not when we think we are ready, it’s when he says we are ready!

"The Cellphone"

The Cellphone Issue

   Today’s cellphones are almost a necessity. Our society depends on them. From checking email to watching T.V, this little device has us hook-line-and-sinker. In this day and age it has made us a slave to all the things it can do, but… the one thing it has made us is rude in public while using this wireless gadget.

  One thing we have forgotten is manners when using the cellphone in public. We have lost all common respect for others while using a cellphone. It makes us rude to the people in our surrounding area; I’d like to tell you about an incident in a restaurant that my wife and I were eating at. We hear this loud ring tone (some kind of hard core Rapp) the girl answers the phone, and was a bit loud; so she begins to argue and it gets loud, real loud and before you know it she gets up and starts to walk around and tell this guy off. “I don’t need to tell you that I learned this guy’s personal business in the first 5 minutes of the call” by now my wife has that I’d like to ring her neck look on her face. People in the restaurant have that "OMG" look on their face. Now this girl has just ruined are dinner, and the guy she was with at dinner, just got up walked out.

  While we see good things with the cellphones users, we also see the bad. People have no manners when talking on the phone in public, I really don’t want to hear your conversations. There’s a designated smoking areas in public (because it bothers non-smokers) right, well I think it’s time to have the designated cellphone use area in public.

See you guy's next week.

"Darkness at Noon"

“Darkness at Noon”

 Harold Krents reason for writing “Darkness at Noon” is to bring awareness to just one of the worlds’ many disabilities, people who are blind are not always deaf and speechless. Krents is also saying people who are disabled would like the same respect of everyone else. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

 Agreement with Krents comes easy for me: I’m a strong believer of giving everyone a chance, no matter whom or what they are.

 There is another reason that I’m in agreement with Krents, and this may come as a shocker. I’m disabled; trust me it wasn’t easy for me to accept.

The date June 19, 2005 the day I had complete heart failure and died. Thanks to god, my wife and doctors I’m back! After a few weeks in the hospital, (feeling like a pin cushion) the doctors walked in and told me that I have a heart disease and circulatory disease. Because of this, it’s possible for me to pass out and my heart stop at times. I was force to retire at the ripe old age of thirty nine. My job at the time wouldn’t let me come back because of the risk of something happening on the job site.

All I wanted was a chance to proof myself again, but my supervisor and the company wouldn’t even think twice about, it was just no. Sometimes what you read about an illness is true, but there are some rare cases, I say just give someone with a disability a chance to proof themselves, then based on the performance go from there. I just wanted to be treated equal and not pampered.

If you see someone disabled, don’t assume, ask what their limitations are; don’t assume you know, let them tell you what they can, or can’t do. Just give us a chance!

Lisa's So-So

 Lisa is So-So

Basically, Lisa is saying what’s wrong with trying different things. No one said we had to be great at everything we decide to pick up as a hobby, when we go to a buffet we try a little of this and that, but we tried it, only then do we decide if we like it or not.

I agree with Lisa, we should try different things. There is nothing wrong with it. If we stayed in the same box every day we would only know the four sides of that box, we wouldn’t get out of that box to explore what the world or life has to offer, this would  stunt our ability to learn and adapt to different life situations. People should take note and understand that: each individual comes along in their own time.

Myself… well I’m a jack of all trades and a master at a few. My hobbies include model building, music mixing (dj), golf, cooking, photography, home audio, car audio and electronic repair. (Which I’m very good at), on the other hand some of my hobbies and interest I’m just terrible at: as in auto repair, website design and graphic art, but if one gives effort, one will become better.

In today’s times you have to be versatile to save a buck here and there, besides no one is perfect. Our parents,teachers and coaches always told us practice makes perfect. Just think if we took one hobby or one interest and worked at it and practiced all day every day, we’d be the best of the best in whatever it is.

Always enjoy your interest and hobbies no matter the outcome and what others may say,you only have to please yourself.