LeBron James...Love Him or Love To Hate Him

The score was 93 to 92 favoring the San Antonio Spurs with 1:18 remaining in the game, LeBron James who scored (35) points and (10) rebounds for the game, turned the corner on Boris Diaw and had a wide open lane with only Tim Duncan from the San Antonio Spurs to remotely obstruct his pathway. It was a sure shot King James moment and it seemed as if Tim Duncan was about to receive a signature Bron-Bron facial that would have him looped on ESPN Sportscenter, and the top play of the week.  LeBron however, made a decisive pass to wide open Chris Bosh who banged a game winning corner three.  A unique segment of basketball’s fan populace would go to bed angry that night and wake up with dread the next day. They would have to go to work and get the business from the LeBron lovers.  Other people would look at their smart phone ominously and await the calls; they would have to eat yesterday’s words. “I told you didn’t I”, they would say.  “Man LeBron went off! did you see that?” 

If you love basketball then there are two things for certain: you either love LeBron James or you love to hate him.  He is one of the most polarizing players in the game, and his every word, deed, and action is scrutinized to the utmost degree, by basketball fans who simply do not like James.  He is arguably the best all- around player in the game and possibly the best team player of the top 10 league leading scorers.  He has taken his Miami Heat team to their fourth consecutive NBA Final and netted two consecutive championships and is currently on the cusp of a third, tied 1-1 and playing in Miami at 8 pm (C.S.T.) tonight. Stealing one from the San Antonio Spurs puts the Miami Heat in an optimal position with home court advantage in their run for their third straight championship title.

Even dead LeBron haters were turning over in their graves.  I conducted a sampling for preparation of this blog and out of 30 individuals who were basketball fans, 16 loved LeBron and 14 loved to hate him.  There was no middle ground; the fans were impassioned on either side, they either loved him like crazy or despised him altogether, which confirmed what I was already thinking.  I asked the fans who did not like him, what were the reasons why they did not like LeBron? The responses were:  that he is arrogant, prideful, selfish, boastful, and there was one one exceptional interviewee who simply said he was ugly when he made” faces” after great plays. 

I didn’t have the same feelings about LeBron after the sweet dish to Chris Bosh with 1:18 to go in the game.  He could have easily climbed the ladder on Duncan, the pass James made and the timing seemed pretty selfless to me.  Heat fans hearts were in their throats, because Bosh missed the same 3 pointer from the exact same spot to close out Game 5 of the Indiana Pacers series, but James believed in Bosh and is showing the basketball world with proof that he is for the total of his mental, physical, and spiritual abilities, “The” best player in the game today.  In the post-game speech a humble LeBron thanked in his words, “the man upstairs” for protecting him from injury and allowing him to just go out and play his game.  The accusations against just don’t seem to fit the information.

LeBron, is the larger image of a truth that we see present in our day to day lives, people who don’t like other people, because they are excelling, or the best in their field. They nit-pick and mull over trivial matters to formulate a reason to dislike someone without a legitimate cause. Hatred is contemporary with our current culture and rather than being congratulators, a broad spectrum of the population are now both open and closet haters.   They want to see the big man knocked down, they relish seeing the big business knocked down, they want whoevers at the top slot to stumble and fall. The condition that haters suffer from, “haterism” is what happens when a lifetime of failures and negative reinforcement reach a crescendo. These persons lives take on a cynical life point of view.   They are victims who have become victimizers.

Whenever I see a man do something amazing I know it is the spirit of God working through that man, that’s what is amazing.  I applaud man, and woman.   God honored man and woman, why shouldn’t I? Great accomplishments have spawned out of the hearts of man and woman.  According to church tradition, the Holy Bible, and the Holy Quran, God made man and instructed all of creation to bow down to him, Lucifer refused, because he felt that he was better than a man.  I presume that makes him an original hater/father of all the people who hate people, because they think they are better.

 Maybe these LeBron haters have legitimate gripes or maybe they have got into the custom of hating the man and continued in it because they are in the routine of it. I encourage all the haters to give the guy a second look; on the court the man is absolutely amazing!  Tonight at tip off the LeBron fans will be looking for another side of the truly astonishing, meanwhile at other locations the LeBron haters will be salting basketballs greatest talent from head to toe as if he were a snail.  The haters can say what they will about LeBron James but his team just keeps on winning.

The Memory Of the Righteous Will be Blessed

A 15 year old young man arrived home from basketball practice, sat down in his favorite chair and satiated his hunger with a bowl of peaches and cottage cheese.  No one really knows what really happened, but his mother arrived home to find him slumped over.  She immediately summoned the medical professionals who worked furiously upon him, but Bobby Joe Bumpous Jr. was gone, deceased at age 15, only 2 months and 11 days from his 16^th birthday. The culprit was a defective, irregular heart valve.

The mother, family, and friends, of “Joey” as he was affectionately known by all, were devastated.  A bright light that had dwelled in their midst had unexplainably been extinguished.  In the face of such a tremendous loss, a phoenix did rise out of the ashes, and that was the revelation of the person Joey Bumpous really was. The young man had made himself a life devoted almost entirely to being the best that he could be, and to being in the service of helping others.  As a peer counselor he guided his mates, as a ball player he set the tone by giving his best every play, whether it was in practice, or in the game.  He disliked seeing people sorrowful, sad, under duress, or suffering, and anyone who was a victim of these maladies was a friend of Joey’s.  In wisdom that should seemingly have been well beyond his years he would share his views on life which were always optimistic, and show a person the bright side of a bad situation.  Each time somewhere in the process, he’d warm you up with his trademark smile.

At Joey’s funeral which was held at the Fulton County High School, the gymnasium was filled to standing room only capacity, and the halls were filled that led to the gym.  At the door the line meandered outside.  He was so young, yet he had positively affected so many lives.  Everyone had their personal Joey story, he had become all things, to be of help to all people.  For his peers his role had been as an encourager, for the senior citizens in his community it had been as a courier and runner, for the hoodlums in his community it was the role of a preacher with an unyielding conviction to do no thing except for the right thing.  There were few things Joey hated; the exceptions were drugs and alcohol.   Even in this area, Joey loved the people while hating the things that they did.

Fulton County Judge/Executive David Gallagher (Former the Fulton County High School Football Coach), says about Joey Bumpous, “He was an excellent student and a great ambassador for Fulton County High School.   His hard work ethic inspired within his teammates, the desire to succeed.”  Judge Gallagher, says that Joey routinely performed double or triple the amount of work asked of him as a player in order to encourage his teammates to give the same effort.  He remembers him as being tall, tough, robust, and physically formidable, while synonymously being a” big ole’ teddy bear”.

At 15 years of age Joey was 6 ft 3, weighed over 200 pounds and sported a whopping size 16 shoe, and he was sure to do more growing. As an athlete his ability was 1 in a million. As a student, he maintained a straight A average, he was a member of the Academic Team, Editor of the newspaper, a member of the Honor Club and Beta Club, and he had also journeyed to the Capitol in Washington, D.C. where he met the Governor of Kentucky and received the Governors Award.  His future was as bright as any light could possibly shine and unfortunately for this amazing young man it was not to be so.
 

Posthumously he received some remarkable honors: Kentucky Highway 94 was re-named, “Joey Bumpous Memorial Drive”.  Also the Fulton County High School founded the “Joey Bumpous Memorial Scholarship,” which has lasted 21 years and was only terminated May, 15^th, 2014, for lack of funding.  With all of Joey’s old teachers gone and his immediate family no longer living in the area, the ending of the scholarship could have gone unnoticed, but an unseen hand was moving.  While performing simple household tasks, Joey’s older sister, (Mechelle Bumpous) heard God whisper two distinct words into her ear, “Joey’s scholarship.”  She immediately called Fulton County High Schools secretary, Mrs. Atwill who related to her that the announcement for the cessation of the scholarship had gone out just one day before.  Mechelle’s next call went out to Fulton County Judge David Gallagher, Joey’s old football coach and mentor.  She asked, did he know that Joey’s scholarship had ended?  He hadn’t heard as such, and was astounded at the news.  “No, it won’t end,” he promised her personally. 

Interestingly, those are the exact sentiments of the family and friends of Joey Bumpous.  223 people have mobilized a Facebook campaign, “The Joey Bumpous Memorial Scholarship Fund” Facebook page.  They are resolute about keeping the memory of their comrade alive.  The Hickman Courier who ran the original story now chipped in again by doing another piece about Joey to raise the public awareness for funding.  In all respects the memory of this righteous young man has been blessed and the unseen hand just keeps on moving to keep his legacy alive.

I knew Joey personally and I like all can attest that Joey had big feet, literally and metaphorically. His loss came with a devastating impact, and afterward there was an unmistakable hole.  He was a gentle giant a youth of excellent character, speech, and conduct. He ranks in my heart as one of the kindest and sweetest souls that I have ever known.  Lots of other people think so too, he was extra-ordinary,  so much so, that the donations that poured into his scholarship fund immediately after his death in 1993 alone, lasted 21 years at a rate of 250 dollars a year, for 20 years, and 500 for one year.  That is amazing!  That helped a lot of people who were striving to be successful, like Joey was striving for success.  In interviews for this blog Joeys sister relates  remembrances of Joey being worn out, tired, and resting resting from endeavors that kept him on the fly all the time.  She says, "There were times that he would come home from practice and he would be too tired to eat or take his pads off, and that he would sometimes fall asleep with them still on.  His coach says that he often gave double, or triple the work that was asked for.  It is an amazing picture of a young man who lived his life in such a way that he is still being of service in his death.  The memory of the righteous will be blessed.  The Joey Bumpous Memorial Scholarship Fund.

If you would like to give a donation to honor the legacy of service that Joey Bumpous left behind you can send them to:

“The Joey Bumpous Memorial Scholarship Fund”  (in care of)

 Fulton County High School,
2740 Moscow Avenue

Hickman KY 40250

Also visit: The Joey Bumpous Memorial Scholarship on Facebook

Nothing Beats A Failure But A Try

Love relationships are the spice of life.  There are few things that bring people as much joy as being in close consort with a suitable mate of their choosing.  There is, however; a duality that comes inherent with this truth.  It is that there are also few things that bring as much sorrow and pain as being stuck in a relationship with a mate that has been deemed unsuitable.

Life in its purest essence is plagued by unpredictability and being in an exclusive and intimate relationship only exacerbates that reality.  An individual is always responsible for at least ½ of the final relationship outcome, but often times they have less than 1/2 actual control to accomplish the desirable resolution.  The other person in the relationship represents a variable that cannot be made to be, do, or perform in any way except the way that they choose to, even if, what is being asked for is good for their life, your life, and both of you as a whole.  There is undeniably a massive component of powerless-ness; a person is entirely dependent upon another to perform in a certain manner for the satisfaction of their emotional needs.  Somebody who is waiting on anybody, for anything, is already out of “control.”

That’s what a relationship is, an organized exercise in being out of control, like skydiving and free-falling.  It feels divine to dwell among the clouds, to ride the wind like the sparrows, and it is without question supremely thrilling to be up so high, but what ascends according to the law of equilibrium must also descend, and now you are rapidly falling approaching the ground and your fascination has turned to fear.  It’s time to pull the parachute!  Where do you land? How about a field of mines, one unfortunate step and you could land on: the cheater, the selfish, the insecure, the liar, the violent, the jealous, the envious, the addict, the alcoholic, the thoughtless, the childish, the inconsiderate, the neurotic, the dramatic, the possessive, the pervert, the controlling, and the chief of them all, the general purpose hater.

 There is no possible way to escape the unpredictability of relationships because the revelation of who a person really is, is only discovered after the time when the information could have been useful. Have you ever heard the old blues song, “It’s too late Baby.” A person could be married by then or have children and ties in the relationship that aren’t so easily undone.  The love relationship gauntlet is a race to be run and a challenge to be survived, relationships have slain many a man and woman in the killing of their physical bodies, as well as the killing of their hopes and dreams.  Personal sacrifices are often made for the survival of the relationship,  and every day, that individual dies a little death, because they are not living out their dreams, or doing what they love. 

What are humorous to me are the day to day realities of people who are in relationships.  There are: smelly shoes, hanging panty hose, bags of garbage, dirty cloths, dirty dishes, and toilet seats up, that should have been left down. There’s stuff on the bed, there’s stuff on the floor, there’s stuff to be out, put away, cared for and seen to, and there are jobs with jobs to do.  I, personally wonder many times whose going to be the loser in the dispensation of duties, and get the donkeys load.  I hope I’m not too impudent in this scenario by suggesting literally that one of the two parties is going to be a jackass, I mean donkey that carries the load, of course.

 There are also universal dynamics at work also like the dynamic of familiarity breeding contempt.  A person in love relishes every opportunity to spend time with their love interest.  They spend so much time that they in fact begin to notice the little, quirks, neurosis, inadequacies, and idiosyncrasies about the other person.  The petty little annoyances gain momentum over time, like a snowball rolling downhill and persons find themselves asking their relationship mate who has an appointment, why haven’t they left yet? Perhaps its’ asking the mate who just arrived at home, “Why are you home so soon”?  A person grows tired and weary: of being around someone too serious, or who is not serious enough, a person whose never wrong, and a person who has every answer for every question, a person whose always negative, a person who is always telling them what they can’t do, and exactly how to do what they do.  With these conditions as the backdrop, there is no wonder that the wise maxim says that there is a thin line between love and hate.  Anyone, who has ever been invited to someone’s home only to be thrown out later, can testify to this fact.  In the popular contemporary John Legend song, “All of Me,” he says to his love, “your crazy and I’m out of my mind, but all of me, loves all of you.”   Many of us will make it in our relationships, because we embrace each others imperfections like the theme to the song does.  Many others of us will have to keep on trying and that’s ok, the good news is: Nothing beats a failure, but a try.

Look for more on relationships and what is sure to be an engaging series.  

THE DREAM IS STILL ALIVE...A TRIBUTE TO MAYA ANGELOU

The death of Maya Angelou is a tremendous loss for the African-American community, but an even greater loss for all of humanity.  It is as if a giant oak has been felled in the forest and looking upward there is a broad hole against the sky.  She has been a pillar in literary culture for over 44 years.  Her life speaks volumes on the virtues of love, human kindness, and the giving of self in order to facilitate the development of others.  She has been lauded as a poet, author, actor, dancer, playwright, civil rights activist as well as many other distinguished roles. For me, the most poignant factor she played was as an educator in Egypt and Ghana and eventually the world with her artistic pursuits.  She was trying to change the world, by elevating our consciousness: which to Maya meant mining treasure out of the minds of men and women.

Can you imagine Maya dropping out of high school at age 14, to become America’s first African American female cable car conductor?  Well, she did just that, before returning to high school.  At age 18, she also balanced being a single parent to her only son Guy, while she worked as a waitress and a cook. Eventually, she followed her passion and enrolled in theater school.  From such humble beginnings came an accomplished, poet, memoirist, novelist, civil rights activist, educator, dramatist, producer, and playwright.  She has received 50 honorary doctorates from universities all over the world, has 30 best selling titles to her credit, and received a Pulitzer Prize nomination.  Did I fail to mention she received the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, and the Lincoln Medal in 2008, along with three Grammy's?  Where life handed her the baton, she ran an excellent race forward to achieve great renown, acclaim, and accomplishment.

 There are some high school drop-outs who need to hear Maya’s story, as well as some single mothers who are actively in their struggle.  Many times when a person is in the middle of a situation it looks impossible, but Maya is a textbook example, that when life gives you lemons, you add sugar and make lemonade.  There are times that the situation will look impossible, but it is entirely possible, if a person will dare to dream.  We must know that the dream is still alive.

As a writer, poet, spoken word artist, and a songwriter, Maya Angelou has been a integral part of my reading diet, that I have drawn great inspiration from.  The yielding of her life’s energy and her being memorialized only serves this blogger with the tremendous opportunity to observe Maya’s life example and legacy; to illustrate to each reader that the rare and precious Lotus Blossom (flower) only blooms in the muddy swamps. Beautiful things often spawn from terrible circumstances.

Did you know that this year alone 1.8 million new millionaires were made around the globe.  Amazingly, 1.7 million of these new millionaires came from America.  That’s almost 12,000 more than the previous year, of 2012.  I know the reader is thinking, you were just talking about Maya Angelou what does this have to do with that?  The answer:  Maya was an educator at learning institutions in over 3 countries, she wanted to change the world and she personally educated thousands of men and women, but as an activist, writer, and leader who was successful in business, she impacted hundreds of millions of lives potentially and more in counting in the wake of her death.  She understood one principle thing: you can’t help anybody if you don’t have any money.  A physical world has physical subsistence needs. You feed the body and then you can minister to the mind. Being a new millionaire is not an end, but I assert that it is a means to an end

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Maya Angelou, ( Apr. 4, 1928 to May 28,2014), came from obscurity, yet gave to the world in plurality very choice parts of her heart and soul. She lived the American Dream and changed the world in the process.  Maya is gone now, but her legacy is left behind, it says: I did it, and so can you…The Dream is Still Alive.