Why Doesn't He Want Me!?!?

The reason for this blog is an episode of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" Its the one where Will Smith's tv dad played by Ben Vereen, comes back into Will's life. They cool out and have fun for a while but when it came down to it, his dad stil wasnt ready for Will to be a MAJOR part in his life. In one of my ALL TIME favorite tv scenes, Will becomes teary eyed and asks Uncle Phil why his dad didn't want him. Such a good episode and a POWERFUL scene. It always hits me a bit, and that's because of my history with my own father.

Those of you who know me know the history with my father, to some extent.

Basically when I was in 5th grade, my older half sister was in 6th grade, my younger sister was in 4rd grade, and my brother was still a toddler...he left us. He abandoned us for another woman, left my mom with his three children, and a daughter from another marriage. I resented him. I abhored him. I HATED HIM. However, he was still my dad and in some way I STILL wanted his acceptance, his direction, his love. Even before he left us. He was never the father who knew best; he was never the one to say "I love you, son"; and he was never the one who wanted to do any father and son bonding activities. But he was still my dad. I still looked up to him. I still respected him. I still did not completely understand what was going on. I was 11, I was confused, and I was HURT.

There were a lot of instances where I felt that he ahd chances to make it up to him and prove that despite not wanting to be with my mother anymore, he at least still wanted me. I wanted to be a good son while they were fighting because I was under the impression that I i did better then perhaps they would get back together. So I behaved well. I got all A's in school. I did chores. Took care of my siblings. And did not cause any trouble for them. Yet he still left. What's a boy to do?

Once it was clear to me that he wasn't going to return I finally realized that it was not because of me that he left. It was because he was selfish and was not reay to be a father, despite at the time having 4 kids and being 40+. Sometimes age IS just a number. But despite the hatred I had for him I never once let it affect my siblings views on him. Perhaps it was just me I would think. Maybe he would be more involved in THEIR lives. Hmm, I was wrong.

From the age of 5-8... my brother constantly waited for my father to pick him up and hang out. There were numerous occasions, but the 4 main times were on my brothers birthdays. The weekend of his birthday in each of those years, my father would promise to take my brother out. To six flags, to the carnival, to the movies, shopping, etc. However, each occasion, he would be a no show-no call. And I would have to make up an excuse, and take my brother out for his bday. I made up excuses because I was under the impression that he was toooo young to understand why his father kept standing him up and/or did not want him. Then the next day he would call my brother, without fail, with some fantastic story or excuse and promise him that next time would be different. After a while, my brother caught on and realzied what was going on.

The zenith with my father, came the summer of freshman year of high school. I just got accepted into probably the most prestigious school in Jersey City, if not one of the BEST prep schools in New Jersey. I even earned a scholarship due to my grades, my participation in the Higher Achievement Program that the school sponsors, and upon the recommendation of my grammar school principal, who thought highly of me, my academic ability, and my leadership potential. I always thought it was funny that my father never saw that in me, but EVERYONE else did. But despite my scholarship, I still had to buy school books. My mom didnt have it so she told me to ask my father. Although I did not want to I eventually did for two reasons: 1) i REALLY needed the money and 2) i wanted his acceptance still and what better way to get it than to show him i was doing well in school.

That phone conversation will always be embedded in my mind. I asked how he was... he asked how I was... I told him I needed money... He said he didnt have any... I said it wasnt that much.. He said then ask your mom.. I said she doesnt have it cuz she is has lot of other responsibilties and he says, "I never told your mom to send you to soem expensive school. I could care less if you receive an education or not. I do not have the money, and I wont have the money. If it were up to me, I could care less if you were dead. You would probably be less of a bother." Silence on my end, then I hung up. Told my mom the story, and she called him back and promptly cursed him the fuck out.

Needless to say. The relationship has not been the same since. Since then I have had 11 birthdays. I graduated from high school ranked in the top 20% of my class. Earned a scholarship to Rutgers. Graduated with a major in history and a double minor in PoliSci and Africana Studies. I will be going back to grad school in the fall to get a degree in Public Admin. My sister is a semester away from finishing her undergraduate career at William Paterson. My brother now has a job a QuikSilver (his first) and will be a freshman next yr at some prestigious university. And he is going to be taking my mom to court, because he is a dead beat dad who doesnt want to pay $129 for child support.

Since leaving us, he has since had two wives, who have both left him, and bore another son who he is now ALSO not paying child support for. He didnt pay child support for a long time, and I still have never received any kind of child support from him. But I do not care. my life has gotten along well, and I have always vowed that whenever I hav children, hey will never be for want: be it emotionally, spiritually, physically. My children will know that my life will be laid down for them becuase I LOVE THEM THAT MUCH.

I had three father figures growing up. Three uncles who have told me time and time again that they would have been proud to call me their own.And one of them even does. He has told people I am his oldest son. Its strange. each uncle altho being there for me have always served specific purposes with me. One I went to with school and finance issues; another was more of the "manly" issues; and the third was the youngest and was the one I went to with girl issues and to cool out with. However, despite these three men who I call my fathers and all the other people who have helped my (other relatives, principals, counselors, and teachers/professors) there was and is always that void.

Its a simple question that really has no answer: "Why Doesn't He Want Me?"

Ladies and gentlemen. I do not know, but in the long run, it really doesnt matter. I am and have always been surrounded with people who DO want me and that's all you really need when it's all said and done... no?

USELESS INFORMATION!!!

I am a trivia nut. NOT only does it make for good conversation pieces, I also like to always KNOW things....
-The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper.
-US Dollar bills are made out of cotton and linen, not paper.
-Giraffes and rats can last longer without water than camels.
-In ancient Rome, when a man testified in court he would swear on his testicles.
-The ZIP in "ZIP code" means Zoning Improvement Plan.
-315 entries in Webster's 1996 dictionary were misspelled.
-Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin both married their first cousins (Elsa Löwenthal and Emma Wedgewood respectively).
-On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents every day.
-John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son.
-If you sneeze too hard & you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out. (DON'T TRY IT) -About 200 million M&Ms are eaten each day in the United States.
-Falling coconuts kill about 150 people each year. That's more than are killed by sharks.
-Half of all bank robberies take place on a Friday.
-The first bomb the Allies dropped on Berlin in WWII killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
-If you put a drop of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
-The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white, due to low budget.
-In America, someone is diagnosed with AIDS every 10 minutes.
-Every day, 7% of the US eats at McDonald's.
-It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
-28% of Africa is classified as wilderness. In North America, its 38%.
-Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.
-Sherlock Holmes NEVER said "Elementary, my dear Watson", Humphrey Bogart NEVER said "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca, James Cagney never said "You dirty rat" and Captain Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty" on Star Trek.
-The sound you here when you put a seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but blood flowing through your head.
-Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
-Every US president has worn glasses (just not always in public).
-The names of every continent ends with the same letter that it starts with (not counting the words "North" and "South).
-About 20% of bird species have become extinct in the past 200 years, almost all of them because of human activity.
-About 14% of injecting drug users are HIV positive.
-China has more English speakers than the United States.
-Our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears never stop growing.
-Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants.
-The Pentagon in Arlington Virginia has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
-There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat, though it may feel uncomfortable.
-The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II gets only six inches per gallon of fuel that it burns.
-More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
-An American urologist bought Napoleon's penis for $40,000.
-No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
-Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters "MT".
-There are only four words in the English language that end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
-Half of all crimes are committed by people under the age of 18. 80% of burglaries are committed by people aged 13-21.
-There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
-The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs melted into it.
-A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair.
-A polar bears skin is black. Its fur is actually clear, but like snow it appears white.
-There are a million ants for every person on Earth.
-Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do.
-If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
-Rape is reported every six minutes in the U.S.
-Truck driving is the most dangerous occupation by accidental deaths (799 in 2001).
-Ostriches never bury their heads in the sand.
-Judy Scheindlin ("Judge Judy") has a $25,000,000 salary, while Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has a $190,100 salary.
-In "Silence of the Lambs", Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) never blinks.
-Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital.
-Most household dust is made of dead skin cells.
-The drummer for ZZ Top (the only one without a beard) is named Frank Beard.
-Hummingbirds can't walk.
-William Shatner is credited for being the first person on TV to say "hell" as well as to have the first inter-racial kiss (with Nichelle Nichols), both in episodes of Star Trek.
-Pac-Man, Namco's 1979 arcade game, was originally called "Puck Man". The name was changed when they realized that vandals could easily scratch out part of the letter "P" and form an obscenity.
-The youngest mother on record was a Peruvian girl named Lina Medina. She gave birth to a boy by caesarean section on May 14, 1939 (which happened to be Mother's Day), at the age of five years, seven months and 21 days.
-Illinois has the most personalized license plates of any state.
-The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.
-Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
-In 2002, women earned 742,000 bachelor's degrees. Men earned only 550,000 during the same year. The difference is growing so large that many colleges now practice (quietly) affirmative action for male applicants.
-John Kerry's hometown newspaper, the Lowell Sun, endorsed George W. Bush for president in 2004. Bush's hometown newspaper, the Lone Star Iconoclast, endorsed John Kerry for president in 2004.
-George W. Bush, who presents himself as a man of faith, practically never goes to church. Yet he received votes from nearly two out of three voters who attend church at least once a week.
-If the recent U.S. election was held in Canada, John Kerry would have beaten George Bush in a landslide - 64% to 19%.
-Al Gore's roommate in college (Harvard, class of 1969) was rocker Tommy Lee Jones.
-Almost 25% of the billions of dollars American taxpayers are spending to rebuild Iraq are lost to theft, kickbacks and corruption.
-Married men change their underwear twice as often as single men.
-Marilyn Monroe had six toes on one foot.
-If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.
-Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.All major league baseball umpires must wear black underwear while on the job (in case their pants split).
-Abraham Lincoln's dog, Fido, was assassinated too.
-Fewer than half of the 16,200 major league baseball players have ever hit a home run.
-Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike each year than all the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
-There's a company that will for $14,000 take your ashes, compress them into a synthetic diamond to be set in jewelry for a loved one.
-The biggest dog on record was an Old English Mastiff that weighed 343 pounds. He was 8 feet, 3 inches from nose to tail.
-About 20% of gift cards never are redeemed.
-Oprah Winfrey and Elvis Presley are distant cousins.
-In September 2004, a Minnesota state trooper issued a speeding ticket to a motorcyclist who was clocked at 205 mph.
-An employee of the Alabama Department of Transportation installed spyware on his boss's computer and proved that the boss spent 10% of his time working (20% of time checking stocks and 70% of the time playing solitaire). The employee was fired, the boss kept his job.
-The leading cause of on-the-job deaths in workplaces in America is homicide.
-George W. Bush and John Kerry are 16th cousins, three times removed.
-A deployed air bag adds as much as $2,000 to the cost of repairing a vehicle. That's enough for insurance companies to often declare the car "totaled".
-Jimmy Carter once reported a UFO in Georgia.
-Amusement park attendance goes up after a fatal accident. It seems many people want to ride upon the same ride that killed someone.
-People with initials that spell out GOD or ACE are likely to live longer than people whose initials spell out words like APE, PIG, or RAT.
-Toto was paid $125 per week while filming the "Wizard of Oz".
-Pope John Paul II was the world's Scrabble champion in the over-70 category.
-Ted Turner owns 5% of New Mexico.111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
-In 1998, more fast-food employees were murdered on the job than police officers.
-The lead singer of The Knack, famous for "My Sharona," and Jack Kevorkian's lead defense attorney are brothers, Doug & Jeffrey Feiger.
-According to Genesis 1:20-22 the chicken came before the egg.
-"60 Minutes" on CBS is the only TV show to not have a theme song or music.
-23% of employees say they have had sex in the office.
-Bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers were all invented by women.
-Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
-40% of all people who come to a party in your home snoop in your medicine cabinet.
-One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.
-During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food. That's the weight of about 6 elephants.
-A ten year old mattress weighs double what it did when it was new, because of the debris which is absorbed through the years. That debris includes dust mites (their droppings and their decaying bodies), mold, millions of dead skin cells, dandruff, animal and human hair, secretions, excretions, lint, pollen, dust, soil, sand and a lot of perspiration, of which the average person loses a quart per day. Good night!

My First Time

This is my first time working on a blog. A few people I know keep blogs and I figured why not try this out. I'm not married to it so I can quit it whenever... yes... I am now a BLOGGER