Out of Pocket

I've been a little out of pocket recently - What does "out of pocket" mean anyway? - and there are several things to discuss.

First, last week I was deeply saddened to hear Mitch Mitchell died. I hadn't thought about him in a long time but those who know me know my utter devotion to Jimi Hendrix. Hearing that Mitch died meant that the last member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience has died. Why that means anything considering all of the music that is available I don't know but I do know that I mourned for Mitch. I owe a lot of my sensibilities, especially music sensibilities, to that band. I owe MY definition of being black, or at least part of my definition, to what Jimi did while he was here and Mitch was along for most of that. 

Second, because my father died of colon cancer I had to have a colonoscopy a couple of days ago. I will never look at Gatorade the same way again but I would love to have a sleep like the anesthesia offered once a week at least. I felt groggy as hell but refreshed. 

They don't tell but you might need to wear depends before bed the night before your colonoscopy.

Its interesting how many circumstances I find myself missing my father. Its hard to reconcile b/c I was such a mama's boy but maybe that's the reason I find myself missing him. The most recent example is our current photo exhibit of Christmas in Nashville and it has all of these photos from old Nashville. I can imagine my Dad with some stories from those days. He loved to talk about that kind of stuff and he was full of stories and, as I kid, I believed them all including the one about him being a pro football player. As I got older I understood fact vs fiction better or maybe, he stopped telling such fantastical stories. He was a child of the Depression, he was rural, southern, black and male. He was career Army and he was stationed in Germany, Guam and some other places I have the paperwork to backup. He was neat, organized, thoughtful, gregarious and he loved baseball. 

I wish he had lived to see so much more than he already had and now that I am about to embark on the fatherhood train I think about him probably more than usual. He was old school, he was a man's man, stuck with a wife who was a "modern woman" - full-time job, full-time homemaker, and Master's Degree holder. I know he would have lots to say about the world we live in. And I can't help but wonder what he would have to say to his son, a new father

I'm rambling a bit, aren't I?

Anway, those are a couple of things on my mind.