Sunday, August 11, 2013

NIGGA REHAB

NIGGA REHAB
 
I don't want no Nigga Woman
'Cause I sure ain't no Nigga Man.
So, I don't need no Nigga Woman
Tryin' to do me worse as she can.
 
If you go to the Ghetto,
The Niggaz are on display.
You can tell they are Niggaz
'Cause they call each other "Nigga" everyday.
 
Well, you know, I, myself, was in NIGGA REHAB;
I used to call all my friends that.
But, I done since stopped cussin',
And I got my good credit back!


Tuesday, January 29, 2013


Let’s Save 100,000 Black Babies’ Lives This Year


By Sheikh Donald Bakeer

Let’s save 100,000 Black Babies from abortion this year, 2013. Let’s pay the price; let’s sacrifice illicit sex and give our young people good advice.

We’re killing too many kids, 20,000,000 in 40 years?

400-500,000/yr. When babies die that could live, it’s counterproductive. Don’t you know some of the ones who slipped through  know you wish you had aborted them, too? We’ve got to be strong to turnaround on this road we’re on.  We must dig deep to defeat these demons; we’re sacrificing our children.  Forget about the blame; let us admit our shame and commit to change the whole game.

If you are living foul, don’t be bragging about it.

It’s bad enough to do wrong, but, now, you gon’ represent for it?  Our babies deserve to be born into

The purest wombs, too.  We’ve got to nurture them and secure, then, cultivate them.  They are our gems; let us protect them and expect them to be even more valuable as they age, our accumulated wealth, our treasure.

Instead of dooming them from the moment the two fluids form the bastard clot to be always in need of what daddies give: confidence, spiritual guidance, security/money, a productive role model.

Let us put more into our “love making”. Let us commit to clean up the environment around it, first. No impurities, no vice, no social disease. 

We’re no longer good at “doing it”. In fact, we’re weak because after we plant the seeds, we don’t care if they grow up to be weeds or if the womb robbers do their dirty deed. We’re doing all this masterful “love making” and don’t have anything to show for it. What can you produce to prove you really know how to groove?  The real “lovers” are the fathers and mothers who know how to make the two fluids come together. You can’t even begin to think about touching that creation spot until you secure her and she feels safe enough to drop all of her defenses and relinquish her essence… to you and only you. African Americans are no longer great lovers;

We’ve forgotten the rituals and perverted the art.

 

Check your Brother and/or Sister when you see them bragging about fornicating,  around children.  There’s no winning in that game; even the victories are just temporary.  At the end of the day, you know the winners are the ones that married and stayed together.  We are never going to accumulate adequate wealth with all of these broken homes. 

We need to bring back VIRGINS, again.  Chaste girls and boys should be recognized and praised!  We need to clean up and nourish our orchard if we want to produce the best fruit.  Some of our fruit is so rotten we just throw it away. Born rotten from a womb bathed in malignant fornication.

The scripture says,”It’s the clean for the clean and the dirty for the dirty.” So, what will you qualify for when you get ready to marry? How much better are you, morally, now, than when you were conditioned to endure, and, sometimes, even brag about being raped in slavery.

Our poverty is our Spirituality and Morality. We will succeed, en masse, when we begin to exhibit some class.

Let’s change the game.  We don’t need to keep making our youth have to continually face this cruel dilemma:

‘Are you going to be a Mother, or, are you going to be a murderer?’ Because The Whisperer says,

“You know you have to have premarital sex to be normal. The secret is the dirtier you are, the better you will feel and be as a human being. Eat from the filthy tree!"

We must stop being and breeding weak people. If you are weak, at least, have some shame. Hide it from your kids while you work on being strong. 

African Americans are going to make their comeback on the backs of strong relationships that commit to raising and inspiring strong productive children. 

Let Us Save 100,000 Black Babies Lives This Year”  

AAAA

(African Americans Against Abortions)

Saturday, January 12, 2013


What If Abortion Is Murder?

By Sheikh Donald Bakeer

            Los Angeles, CA    When I was being processed and brainwashed just before going to the front lines in Vietnam (1967), I persuaded a small group of my fellow Black soldiers to follow me to the Chaplain’s office to ask some Biblical questions.

I had been raised a Christian, so I read the New Testament (The Injeel) on the arduous plane ride over, and I could no longer rationalize killing Vietnamese given my new understanding of Jesus’ philosophy.

            The Chaplain dispatched us quickly, assuring me and my band that God  made exception to the Old Testament’s Ten Commandment’s for Communists – who were atheists.  I forget his exact words, but the gist of it was we should kill as many of them as possible.

            So, we killed 2 million, and they killed 47 thousand of us; but every time I go to the VA Hospital or drive thru L.A.’s Skid Row I see my fellow Vietnam vets who were a little more spiritually blind and just did what they were told when murder was admired. Fortunately, Allah (SWA) blessed me to make the right decision, so I was spared a life of nightmares.

           

“Even so, in the eyes of most of the Pagans, their “partners” made alluring the slaughter of their children, in order to lead them to their own destruction, and cause confusion in their religion.  If Allah  had willed, they would not have done so: but leave alone them and their inventions.” Qur’an 6:137

            This is the 40th year since Roe vs Wade  in 1973 when the government said killing babies was no longer a bad thing.  In fact, it was kind of patriotic if you were Black. African Americans have had 400-500,000 abortions in every year since, a total of somewhere between 16 and 20,000,000 black children.

What if we have been  brainwashed, again, and “Thou Shalt Not Kill”  does apply to abortions, too? Despite what Planned Parenthood, the President, the Democratic Party, Oprah, and all the OB-GYN doctors, et al,  have decided, what if the truth is voluntary abortion is actually killing a human being?

 So, rather than making a cosmetic, insignificant decision, you are making a momentous determination of whether on Yaum Al Kiyama (Judgment Day) you will be standing in the glorious ranks with the Mothers or the Disgraced ranks of the Murderers and their accomplices.

 

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Is it worth the risk for a Spiritual person? This is not a fair predicament for young women, who are being persuaded every day in every way to think it’s their right to do the wrong thing.

 “Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you. Verily the killing of them is a great sin.” Our’an  17:31

“Nor come nigh to adultery: for it is a shameful (deed) and an evil, opening the road (to other evils).” Qur’an 17:32

 No! A woman does not have the right to choose murder and her mate does not have the right, either, nor her friends, relatives, or whomever, to convince her to choose to kill without having their souls scathed w/blood that does not wash off.

            Is this, coincidentally, part of the reason for our 40 year malaise of mediocrity and immorality. This is a great challenge that could, however,  be a great opportunity to reinvigorate the whole race and, ultimately, impact for  good on the whole world.

I don’t believe most African Americans are aware that we are having 40% of the abortions, although, we are only 12 or 13% of America’s population, or that we have had millions   of abortions since 1973.

            On the contrary, most of us, probably, figured we would always have more than enough kids.  That was something White people were concerned about, not us.  We were virile, potent, soulful…

But, in that 40 years we took the shame off of fornication (we, now, call it, “making  love”, and it’s championed continuously in most of our media). It is no longer disgraceful to be in illicit relationships, and having  sex is expected at earlier and earlier ages.

            The topic of abortion is not popular among preachers, imams, or their congregations, but this is a call for all African American clergy to preach against fornication and adultery and chasten their flocks against abortions from their bully pulpits, vociferously.   Let us fight this silentl  holocaust with our Spiritual strength and change this despicable tradition.

100,000 less African American abortions in 2013!

 

 

Saturday, January 5, 2013


The Solutions to Gang Murders

                                                                Sheikh Donald Bakeer

                                                                                Los Angeles, CA

The Solutions to gang murders are simple but not easy to apply.  The cure for gang banging is mass dosages of 2 vitamins, Vitamin A, and Vitamin L – ATTENTION and LOVE.  Mass doses of these vitamins reduce the tendency for youth to choose violent solutions to problems because adults are able intercede in those critical fat seconds with better decisions, lifesaving alternatives .  Of course, a condition that has festered since Slavery and Beyond will not be easily eradicated.  First, you must make a lifetime commitment, (the sick tradition has been going on for decades, maybe even to pre-slavery tribal roots). Secondly,  it must be properly analyzed, neutralized, then eliminated in stages.

I have been working with gangs since 1979 as an English teacher, a Muslim father, author, and filmmaker in South Central L.A. and Inglewood, my neighborhood. I am pleased to say gang murders (which surpassed 1000 per year in the bloody gang/drug wars of  the 1980’s and ‘90’s) have subsided to pre-CRIP and BLOOD levels. The L.A. Black gang wars are, predominantly, over.

In Los Angeles our Black gangs (CRIPS and BLOODS) were greatly influenced by the local militant Black organizations in the 1960’s – US Organization, L.A. Black Panther Party, and the Nation of Islam. The anti-establishment, anti-White, unabashed belief in violence as a primary solution philosophy appealed to pubescent wannabe heroes attending Junior and Senior High Schools in the early 1970’s, now, Black, Bold, and Proud. 

But, these powerful organizations, all of whom were avid readers and many who were intellectuals, left their bastard children a legacy of hatred for and resistance to society, but did not pass on their own positive tradition of literacy, i.e., the Black literature in the evolving Black Revolutionary canon:  How to Eat to Live (parts 1 & 2); and, Message to the Black Man by the sagacious Elijah Muhammad; the, Wretched of the Earth by Fanon; the Red Book (for some); the

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African writers, Diop, Soyinke, Achebe and, his prescient, Things Fall Apart; the Black poets - the militant Langston Hughes, the genius and General in the Art and Culture War, Amiri Baraka, Don L. Lee (Haki Madhubuti), and his strident,  Don’t Cry, SCREAM…, Gwen Brook’s, “We Real Cool”; Eldridge Cleaver’s prison diatribe, Soul on Ice;, and, The Spook that Sat by the Door, by Charles Greenlee, were just a few of the must-attempt-to-reads in those days.  

All of the Revolutionary organizations in the 1960’s were refining philosophies through their study and writing.  Ironically,  CRIPS and BLOODS  admired Malcolm, Huey, Bunche, Geronimo, et al, and, often dressed like them, at first, and the CRIP Constitution (1973) was written by U.C.L.A.’s BSU in the revolutionary jargon i.e., Community Revolution In Progress –CRIP- of the Black Panther Party).

But, the makeshift new tradition of the  emerging gangs eschewed reading and writing.  The tradition of voluntary illiteracy was so rooted in their culture that not one CRIP or BLOOD graduated from college until the late 1990’s because it was considered “slippin’” to attend.  

The average gangbanger  in L.A. is functionally illiterate, very sophisticated at hiding it, but reads at the 5th or 6th grade level. I know because I taught them in high school English classes for over 30 years in South Central L.A.  I know from experience that there is a direct correlation between illiteracy and violence.  The less literate children are,  the more likely they will be to perpetrate extreme violence. “Smart gangbanger” is an oxymoron.  If they become smart, they stop gangbanging.   By the Grace and Mercy of Allah (SWA) we were able to bust a hole in that ignorant tradition, and a critical mass of them are escaping into literacy since we created a new literature that speaks to their specific needs.

In 1986 when  I published my first novel, South Central L.A. CRIPS (The Story of an L.A. Street Gang -1971 to 1986), it was the first book written to the CRIPS. In fact, even though “crippin” was at least 16 years old, it was the first book to even use the word CRIPS. I gave away dozens of hardbacks, fortunately, it sold like hotcakes, too,  and  they stole it out of every library in South

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Central. And, I could never recoup a full set whenever we read it in class.  But, these were 10th and 11th grade gangsters who read at the 5th and 6th grade levels and were slipping backward for lack of practice. The “anti-literates” who did not have the will to refine their reading skills, the ones who proudly called themselves “N*gg*s”, in class, not knowing it signaled their failure to graduate and likely doomed them to jail or death.

I was overjoyed. I had accomplished my goal of writing a contemporary Huckleberry Finn for Black youth, a doorway into reading, and gangsters went from getting caught slippin’ and laughed at for reading a book to everybody reading/wanting to read/or, claiming to have read the book South Central L.A. CRIPS... It was the late 1980’s and the ubiquitous, ignorant tradition of illiteracy began to die. It was not the “skill” but the “will” that was keeping them illiterate.

Gangsters were not so much illiterate as anti-literate. As we wrote more books that compelled them, gang aesthetics changed, subtly. I discovered that literacy    is critical for changing gang culture while I used my classroom as a laboratory.                                                                                                 

My techniques hit the front pages of the L.A. Weekly, I became the gang expert for then emerging CNN, and CRIPS and BLOODS began to get Hollywood’s attention, prompting the Ripoff blockbuster, “COLORS”; then,  John Singleton (whom I mentored when he was at USC) wrote and directed the profound homegrown and carefully crafted classic, “Boyz ‘N the Hood”(1991); followed by my own collaboration with Oliver Stone  and Warner Bros. to produce the subliminal dawah movie, “SOUTH CENTRAL”(1992), adapted from  my novel, South Central L.A. CRIPS…(1986), and true to the Malcolm X paradigm that prescribed reading in prison to rescue and revive the human mind and spirit.

                               



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The Solution to Gang Murders

PART II

In the 1990’s the rapper and former CRIP, Ice T, (whom I met and mentored when he headlined a concert my BSU gave) wrote the Ice Opinion for gangsters, then, Sanyinka Shakur (aka Monster Cody) (whom I was corresponding with when he was at Pelican Bay Prison) wrote the rights of passage bestseller of all in the genre, Monster, from his jail cell. Tookie Williams (who with Raymond Washington were the O.G.’s of Crippin’) wrote a series of children’s books and the rights of passage memoir, Blue Rage, Black Redemption from his cell on Death Row.    

Before he was executed Tookie was considered and rejected twice for the Nobel Peace prize; they had no idea how many lives he had contributed to saving by recanting illiteracy with words and actions.  I did a celebrity read-a-thon at Morningside H.S. in Inglewood one Saturday, back in the day, with  Tu Pac who recited, “I’ve Known Rivers”, by Langston Hughes. He told me he loved my book and movie; I was aghast. But,Tu Pac was well known as a reader, and, later on, wrote his own book, The Rose that Grew Thru Concrete, that inspired many a gangster poet and galvanized the poetry/rap explosion among lower and middleclass Black youth that began in the 1990’s and continues, today.   

There’s a whole lot more to it, like establishing public school uniforms in elementary and middle schools to negate the whole colors and gang insignia mania   (I got that from teaching boys in Muhammad’s University, 1972-74), and getting the whole village/city to buy-in to giving Attention  to our “Oops babies” (“Oops, I forgot to take my pill”, or,  “Oops, I waited too late to have an abortion”) - fornication’s  children doomed at birth by low expectations.

Many of the most afflicted cannot be saved, so the first focus is on the “wannabe’s” in elementary and middle schools, beginning with uniforms to take the burden of how to dress  off them and to Neutralize gang attire.               The singers, the rappers, the writers with street cred, and all of the artists have to create and show them Love by making “Peace Art” to validate nonviolence and subliminally change the culture of their neglected anti-literate fans.

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It takes a movie or two, also, because movies are wannabes’ novels; their values and behaviors are shaped by Hollywood and the latest rap gurus. Chicago screenwriters have to write specific stories about specific gangs, functional movies that  hook them on literacy with the Malcolm X and SOUTH CENTRAL paradigm. Save them from illiteracy and perpetual slavery.  

Los Angeles, also,  invested 10’s of millions of dollars to create an anti-gang bureaucracy that utilized reformed gangsters and neighborhood leaders to intercede in deadly conflicts, show both sides Love, counsel, inform and refer them to people who could help them.   

But, to succeed wannabe gangsters still must read, copiously, and most of that specific literature must be written by those who know well their dialect and culture (as well as Standard English). In Chicago, the Commons and Kanyes, the R. Kellys and that ilk have to pen “We’re All in the Same Game” type anthems and convert some of the great rappers from the gangs and the ‘hoods to do the same. Only they can easily inspire and uplift these unique bastard-victims of our 1960’s  Black militant philosophy, and fatherly neglect.

Allah (SWA) has given us a great challenge, but these are historic times, and out of great challenges come opportunities for great victories, the crucible for developing great people. And, I can guarantee you that when the wannabe’s minds are expanded, very few really want to be gangsters when they know they can be successful in life, legitimately. Remember, “with difficulty comes ease“. The Panacea is Work. Work Works!

(Donald Bakeer’s latest book is a memoir titled, I, Too, Can Create Light (From Negro to N*GG* to Muslim). The e-book is available, on most e-readers.  He, also, authored the critically acclaimed novel, …CRIPS…, and adapted it into the Warner Bros. classic film, “SOUTH CENTRAL”.  His books, DVD’s, and CD’s can be purchased at DonaldBakeer.com   He can be reached at DBakeer107@att.net)

   

Friday, January 4, 2013


You Need Reparations…

Many African Americans are suffering  from Post Slavery Traumatic Stress Disorder and believe that until the American government takes responsibility for repairing the damage done to them through their ancestors during slavery they themselves and their progeny will be handicapped in this competitive society.  I agree and I believe those of us who are still adversely affected by the egregious treatment of slave masters should be given special therapy,  free college education, interest free mortgages, and/or monetary remuneration.

I do not believe all African Americans are still victims of “PSTSD”, however, and I offer the following criteria to analyze those who are.

If the average immigrant (Mexican, Salvadoran, Cuban, African, South American, German, Russian, etc.) knows more Standard English than you do, You Need Reparations.

If you do more cursing than you do praying, You Need Reparations.

If you expect to live your whole life and die in debt,  You Need Reparations.

If you  think God/Allah (SWT) is a man, You Need Reparations.

If you think civil law will take precedent over Allah/God’s law vis a vis abortion (premeditated murder), You Need Reparations.

If you cannot remember the last book you read or one of the last books you read, You Need Reparations.

If you teach your children to dance (by your example) but not to read, You Need Reparations.

If you believe fornicating is “making love”, You Need Reparations.

If you brag around your kids or grandkids about being a fool in school, You Need Reparations.

If you think you have no responsibility to the poor/homeless, family members, etc., You Need Reparations.

If you think you can call yourself a N*GG* and not be negatively affected in any way, You Need Reparations.

If you think fornication is okay because you are homosexual, You Need Reparations.

If you think fornication is okay, and you are heterosexual, You Need Reparations.

Until you see divorce is an egregious curse on everyone involved, You Need Reparations.

If you love God/Allah’s (SWT) prophets more than The Creator Himself, You Need Reparations.

If you feel superior to others because of your color, You Need Reparations.

If you do not know or care about your genealogy, You Need Reparations.

If you think money is the root of all evil, consciously or subconsciously, You Need Reparations.

If you think you are a slave (not free), consciously or subconsciously, You Need Reparations.

If you don’t  vote because you don’t feel like a full fledged American, You Need Reparations.

If you don’t monitor and sometimes censor Hip Hop, Your Kids Are Going to Need Reparations.

If your kids school is rife with profanity, Your Kids Are Going to Need Reparations.

If you think you don’t need God/Allah (SWT), You Need Reparations.

If you think it is okay for our country to commit mass murder under the guise of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc., You Need Reparations.

If you are not committed to giving charity, You Need Reparations.

If you do not know African American history or Literature and don’t care, You Need Reparations.

If you are proud to be a N*GG* and/or a felon, You Need Reparations.

If you don’t have children and don’t like them, You Need Reparations.

If your kids are in foster care, their grandparents’ care, or homeless, You Need Reparations.

If you can’t commit to Love until death do you part and beyond, You Need Reparations.

If you can’t quit putting curses on your kids, You Need Reparations.

If you still trying to control your spouse or children with brutality, You Need Reparations.

If you stopped studying when you stop school, You Need Reparations.

If you think Oprah, Tyra, Ellen, Steve Harvey, Shirley strawberry, or any other unmarried or divorced person is a relationship expert,You Need Reparations.

If you are incarcerated or going to be incarcerated, again, eventually, You Need Reparations.

If you feel compelled to show you’re a**, You Need Reparations.

If you think b*tch, and/or N*GG* is a term of endearment, You Need Reparations.

If your Social Security card is broke, You Need Reparations.

If you call your mama  by her first name or street name, You Need Reparations.

If you have tattoos of men/women that you hate, You Need Reparations.

If you are broke and unemployed with no prospects, You Need Reparations.

If you think you can get over in sports or on women or rapping/singing/dancing, You Need Reparations and a real job.

If you are still gangbanging or slanging,  You Need Reparations.

If you are still conning God, and lying to yourself, You Need Reparations.

If you don’t believe in saving for a rainy day or a house, car, college, etc., You Need Reparations.

If you don’t believe you reap what you sow, You Need Reparations.

If you smoke around your kids, You Need Reparations.

If you give your kids alcohol, You and your Kids Need Reparations.

If you hate one or both of your parents, You Need Reparations.

If fornicators and adulterers are your role models, You Need Reparations.

If you don’t think you can work your way to your dreams, You Need Reparations.

If you think God is white consciously or subconsciously, You Need Reparations.

If you fear white authority, even when you did nothing wrong, You Need Reparations.

If you think what is good to you is good for you, You Need Reparations.

If you love Christmas, but don’t love Christ enough to love your neighbor, treat people like you want to be treated, or keep the peace You Need Reparations.

If you think you are supposed to be the dumbest, and/or the most treacherous, and/or the most  dishonest , You Need Reparations.

If you are a b*tch who loves dogs or vice versa, You Need Reparations.

If you can only see illicit sex in your future, You Need Reparations.

If you think Asians are naturally smarter than you or whites or any other race,  You Need Reparations.

If you are grown and still blaming your parents or the system or whites, You Need Reparations.

If you have given up trying to be a better person, You Need Reparations.

If you have had an abortion, or two, or 20, You Need Reparations.

If you think your body is an ATM, You Need Reparations.

If you can walk past the homeless/helpless without giving or feeling,  You Need Reparations.

THROW YOUR HAT OUT THE CAR…

It was  1963  and I was a blur of energy because so much had happened to me in the last school year at Howard University: Kennedy and Krushchev had played nuclear stare down and everybody in D.C. had been locating their nearest bomb shelters one very long night back in the Fall right after I first arrived.   My first time alone out of town, and I had been all set to die (I was determined to die last, but, resigned to death, nevertheless). Fortunately, I had survived.

Less than a month later, I had stupidly stumbled on a Freedom ride bus following  Stokely Carmichael and my road dog, Tony Brown from Tulsa.  Almost got beat up/down, spit on, stomped, kicked and bloodied up chasing after white girls on that bus to Cambridge, MD.   I was scared to death to even tell My Daddy about that one.

Then, Drew Hall, my dorm, had gotten totally trashed one night, a crime I had nothing to do with but my friends did and the dorm director called me to his office and had me scared to death.  Threatened to take away my scholarship (which didn’t happen, then, but did by the end of the year when me and most of my friends had  gotten victimized by  wine and beer).  The classrooms seemed so boring when the whole world was roaring in the streets. I was gonna try, but I knew it was going to be hard to explain to My Daddy that  I had to save up enough money to go back to Howard, again.

Fortunately, I had, recently, used my political sense and confidence and walked in on Rep. Richard Bolling, boldly,  at the House of Representatives Office Building  without an appointment , then, asked him for a summer job.  He had acted, immediately, calling the Kansas City, MO main post office to secure me a cushy  job as a postman.

I had been working  for a few weeks before I was accused of stealing a letter filled w/cash and embarrassing the whole race by causing a huge racial brouhaha that was about to hit the papers. It would have shamed My Pops who worked for the local Negro Newspaper, “The Kansas City Call”. 

Being only 18,  I never quite understood what they were talking about but knew you couldn’t  talk back to white people, so, naively, I was preparing to merely get another government  job (I had tested at the top of all the lists) when the letter turned up, and all these white people were suddenly kissing my behind. Then, they gave me this  fabulous job  driving around all day with my friend Carlucci putting the first Mr. Zip Code stickers on mailboxes and laughing at white construction workers, stripped to the waist in the 100 degree heat, bathed in sweat, earning less than half of our $3.35 per hour wage.

“You’ve got the best hand”, we’d jibe them.

 “If I had your hand, see these 2 fingers here, I wouldn’t need ‘em; I’d cut ‘em off.”

“Yeh, you got the best hand;  you got it made in the shade. Oh, there is no shade… Guess you don’t have it made, then, huh.” And, we would laugh until we were gasping for air.

Ironically, they would smile at us, happy to engage us in repartee because we were obviously college boys just having fun, world at our fingertips.

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That near debacle had turned out well, but I don’t know how I coulda faced My Daddy if the story about the stolen letter had come out in the Kansas City Star – setting  the  race back at least 10 years, proving that we weren’t  ready, yet. I probably would have died of shame if I’d  had to tell him that.

You would think that would have slowed me down, but it didn’t.
So, here I was laying up in a hospital bed stitched up in various places from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.  Trying to remember what happened after I climbed in the back seat of that beautiful Oldsmobile  convertible Crazy David Thompson had come by in.

‘Take a ride? Why not? I’d be less than a friend. .. Stop!  Let me out!’, I remember crying out just before we veered into the tree… ‘What the Hell will I tell My Daddy?’ Then, everything went bleary.

“Donnie, can you hear me. You seem like you can hear me.” I suddenly awoke from my coma and My Daddy was looking down, smiling at me. Tears rushed to my eyes; I was just glad to be alive, but I mumbled apologetically, “I tried to get him to let me out, Daddy.”

I had never seen My Daddy cry; he just wasn’t that kinda dude.  But, he took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes, then, quickly recovered and said,

“Take it easy, Donnie. You been in a coma for a month. Slow down, now.”

But, being who he was, Jack Baker, My Daddy, he could never miss a teaching moment,

“Next time throw your hat out the car, Donnie, and say, ‘Stop, Man!  Let me go get my hat. It just blew out the car!’     Even a fool will let you out to get a good hat.  Then run.”

The profundity of those words never escaped me and saved me many times over the years when I would be confronted with “impossible situations”.  I had learned to think fast because there is always a solution.

Nevertheless, since the car was stolen I had succeeded in setting the race back several years, anyway, when the picture of me bleeding in the street (having been thrown from my precarious perch on the back seat, over a tree) appeared on the front page of the Kansas City Star, proving without a doubt that

“we were not, yet, ready”.