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On Regrets and Forgiveness
Emily Flake’s “You only regret the things you don’t do, Johnston,” February 28, 2011. (http://newyorker.com) One of the things I’ve read and heard from others so far about Boy @ The Window since April...
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Suicide, or, My Last Day as a Hebrew-Israelite
A stone bridge over the Hutchinson River Parkway, near Pelham, NY (about a mile from the bridge I stood on), May 3, 2007. (Anthony22 via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via Creative Commons....
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Killing Joe Trotter
Yeah, I did it. I killed the man who kinged himself mentor over me. I took some piano wire, tightened it around my hands while listening to him yammer on an on about “running interference” to protect...
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Poverty, Violence and PTSD – But What About Racism?
Chicago Police fatally shot a 16-year-old boy in the city’s Gresham neighborhood Saturday night and distraught family members are questioning the incident, July 6, 2014. (http://nbcchicago.com). Over...
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Why My Mom Stayed
My Mom at 48 years old, Yonkers, NY, December 23, 1995. (Donald Earl Collins). I planned to write something about my Mom on her birthday again this October, focusing on her multiple roles as mother,...
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Ass Whuppins and NFL Fanatics
Collage of Houston PD pics of cut/contusion marks on Adrian Peterson’s four-year-old son, September 12, 2014. (http://atlantablackstar.com). I’ve been irritated by what I’ve seen in the media and in...
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Can Family and Friends Ever Understand The Why Behind a Memoir?
Front cover, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Charles M. Blow, September 23, 2014. (http://goodreads.com). I started reading New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow’s memoir Fire Shut Up In My Bones two...
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Last Gasps, Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love,” and My ’86 Mets
The Mookie Wilson-Bill Buckner connection, Game 6, 1986 World Series, Bottom 10th, Shea Stadium, Queens, NY, October 25, 1986. (http://halloffamememorabilia.net). Sunday, October 26, 1986 was part of a...
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The Comedy of a Tragic Upbringing
John Leguizamo playing ‘Abuelo’ in Tales from a Ghetto Klown, PBS Arts Festival, July 2012. (http://www.pbs.org). Over New Year’s weekend, I watched John Leguizamo’s HBO comedy special Ghetto Klown...
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On Kicking My Damsel-in-Distress Syndrome
Chivalry with a suit blazer, March 7, 2015. (http://genius.com)/ This week marked thirty-three years since the fight that led to a crush that led to me falling in love for the first time, via a...
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Finding A Memory, Knowing the Whole Truth
From Cam Jansen Mysteries, a series of children’s books about a girl with a photographic memory who would solve mysteries and take pictures in her mind of the clues, August 9, 2012....
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Leaving Mount Vernon
I left for Pittsburgh and for the University of Pittsburgh on this day/date twenty-eight years ago, my first trip on my own. It was my first trip out-of-state since my Mom took me and my brother...
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Afrocentrists, Evangelicals, Hebrew-Israelites and the False Revolution
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Believer’s Voice of Victory television broadcast, November 23, 2011. (Carpetsmoker via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via CC-SA-3.0. For nearly all of my life folks...
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Fights and Friendships
My friendship with my one-time best friend Starling ended on this week thirty-five years ago. It was a friendship that “began with a fight and ended with a fight,” as I wrote in Boy @ The Window. The...
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How I Met My Son
Noah’s birthday cake, Cheesecake Factory Original Cheesecake, adorned with candles, July 30, 2016. (Donald Earl Collins). My son turned thirteen yesterday. That sentence by itself speaks volumes. That...
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Fun Times With Stepfather Maurice
Male lion eating carcass (the equivalent of fun times with Maurice), August 3, 2016. (Aljameen Alston via http://pinterest.com). Today would be my idiot ex-stepfather’s Maurice Eugene Washington’s...
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My Mom’s Migration Story, 50 Years Later
I would be a pretty terrible son and historian to not discuss the fact that this July and August marks fifty years since my mother moved to New York from little ol’ Bradley, Arkansas. For those who...
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Forty Years of 616
Screen shot of 616 East Lincoln Avenue, Mount Vernon, NY, June 2016. (http://maps.google.com) This past weekend marked four decades since my Mom and my late one-time stepfather (though not quite in...
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The End of Peanuts Land
Six Flags New Orleans, abandoned post-Katrina, 2017. (http://www.destinationamerica.com/). I’ve told the story of how my imaginative version of Peanuts Land began, in the wake of my six weeks of...
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Where Am I Now?
Mom with my son Noah at 616, August 4, 2014. (Donald Earl Collins). This has been a month of months, teaching three classes at two different universities with two very different models for their...
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