Mrs Hattie Lee McKaskle-Hankins Celebrates 100 Years of Life 5 26 2018

Going to Church

It is no secret that I love going to church, whenever I have the strength enough to make it there on Sunday Morning.
Church for me became a place of refuge for me when I was around the age of 16. It was to the point that I would willingly walk across town to an upstart church, at that time, from the church that I had known about my whole life. I did so because I had to reach God on my own level.
My parents were cool with my decision to do so. They believed, as I do now, that it doesn't matter what building it is in which you choose to worship God.
What matters the most is the relationship that you are developing a relationship with Him.
It still amazes me how we as Christians still turn up our noses at others just because they don't see God from our perspective.
In reality. God sees us all the same way. We are his children.
When we learn to come together to help out our fellow man like has instructed us to do, the better off we will begin to be as a nation.
My prayer is that as I age that I will become stronger and wiser in the knowledge of his word.

How Does It Feel ?

A while back I had a random conversation about life in general with some young brothers in the barbershop. During the conversation, I let it slip that I had went to college and obtained a college degree.
One guy stopped me in the middle of speaking and he said, " Yo, man how does that feel to have one?'
And I replied, " It feels kinda good!"
He told me that he wanted to shake my hand so that some of that luck might rub off on him because he was in school and his financial aid was about to run out.
In that moment it really humbled me because I too remembered that hunger and the struggle that I went through to get it.
The moral of story is this: Never take your accomplishments for granted. Always remember that someone just like you is still fighting to get to where you are in life.
Never forget the bridges that have allowed you to cross over to the promised land.
Special thanks to all of those people that helped me to study/ cram for those exams in college. Most importantly I want to thank my friend that proofread my work and introduced me to those brilliant words and anecdotes that allowed me to fill up those long papers in college as well.
Without you I shudder to think if I would have ever made it out of college. The writing lab really paid off tremendously

Momma Knows Best

When I was 5 years old, my mother remarried. For a long time during my childhood, I thought that she was being unfair to me because she let her husband say cruel things to us as children. When I would complain to her she always would say," It's his house and whatever he says goes!" I didn't understand what those words meant until I became a man. I now know how hard her struggle was to keep the peace in our home. Playing the peacemaker role is never an easy job for someone to play in a household. I am now thankful for her struggle. It is amazing what lessons in life you will come to understand as you age. Thank you mom for your fight to raise me to the man that I am today!

Knowing is Half The Battle

When I was young I saw so many things that happened around my house that I just did not understand until I had the nerve to speak up and ask about them.
When I was around the age of 13, I noticed that my step-father J.C. used to receive 2 subscriptions from Publisher's Clearing House. He just knew that one day, that these people were going to show up at his doorstep with that big old check in their hand.
He used to read Popular Mechanics and Cosmopolitan. I could understand why he would like to read Popular Mechanics because he was a huge fan of the latest in technology.
However, his interest in the Cosmopolitan magazine struck me as being a bit odd because I knew that it was a magazine that was geared towards the interest of women.
One day, I asked him about it. I said, "Dad, why do you read a magazine for women?"
He looked at me with a devilish grin and he replied, " Son, sometimes it is just good to know what the other side is thinking from time to time."
At the time, I was too immature to understand what he had said to me. Years later, it quickly came back to me and I laughed really hard about it.
Sadly, in April of 2010, we lost him to a battle with lung cancer. Up until the time that he died he still read the Cosmopolitan Magazine.
From time to time, I find myself reading that magazine as well just to keep that family tradition going.

Never Let Her Toothbrush Hit The Bathroom Counter

Years ago, when I got my first car, I traveled to see my uncle Mickey Wayne, my father's brother.
My father's brother was an old man that seemed to always keep a new woman around him. 
I even noticed this at the age of 4. Anyways, after years of not seeing him I decided to pay him a visit when I was 21.
On this visit he shared with me some information that would prove to be very valuable in due time. 
He said, "Rickey, I know that right about now, you are really starting to discover your sexual prowess as a young man. You've got our genes. So I already know what you are out there doing.
Keep this in mind. While you are out there spending late nights with a woman are your home, remember that they need to be gone before the sun rises. Never let her toothbrush hit the bathroom counter. If you do, you will start to see other items show up, and before you know it, she will have moved in with you without paying rent !"
I laughed at it when I initially heard him say it. However, I never forgot this lesson. He also told me to invest into a twin mattress, because no woman in her right mind will want to share a bed like that with you for very long and she will have no choice but to retreat back home to her own bed to sleep comfortably. My uncle Mickey Wayne was a wild man in his prime. 
Years later, he would suffer from 2 strokes that would eventually have him end up in a nursing home that would be far away from his family and friends. It is sad for me to think about how he would spend his latter years. 
However, I will always remember the fun times and wild information that he once shared with me.

My Aunt FeFe

Everyone has that family member that is their personal cheerleader. My aunt Sophia Elaine Rogers Polk is mine. For as long as I can remember, she has always been on my team.
She was the one that took me to see my first movie. It was the movie Annie back in 1982.
She confessed to me years later that the real reason that she came to get me is because she really wanted to see it herself and she needed a kid to go with her so she would not feel out of place.
I forgave her, because I did that same thing to another family member when I wanted to see The Lion King back in 1994.
One of the real reasons why I love her so much is because she really stepped up to the plate for me when I entered my freshman year of college at the University of Central Arkansas.
During the first week of college, I called her up to see if she had any extra bed linen because I needed some for the twin mattress in my door room. She got so excited that she went out and bought me a brand new set. She told me years later that the reason that she had done so is because out of all of the grandchildren in our family, she had suspected that I would be the one to go off to college.
She said that if you really pay close attention to children when they are younger, you can pretty much tell how they are going to turn out to be. She told me that when I was younger, while the other kids went outside to play that I would spend hours at a time looking through the books that my grandmother had on her bookcase. I vaguely remember doing that.  I am glad that she remembered those special moments.
The last reason that I love her so much is because she gave the task of helping her name her only child. Ikina Shanea Kanu is her name. 
I was also present in the delivery room when her child was born in 1998.
She told the doctors that she wanted me to be there because might not ever have kids.
That was nearly 20 years ago. To this day, I still tell her that she may have cursed me by saying that.
Overall, I could not ask for a better supporter/ family ally. I will always be grateful to her for her love and support throughout the years of my young adult life.