Episode 4 Preconditioned To Fail: Howard C. and Me Photo: me, my mother and Howard C.

Howard C. my stepfather became the first father figure I had in my life. This is a synopsis of our story, a story I hope you can relate to in some way. Howard C. A tribute poem He stood ‘bout five foot nine with a head of black and gray when he wasn’t bent over and tired ‘cause of the bricks he laid to earn his pay. Friday night to Sunday morn’in he chased his demons away with White Liquor and six packs of Miller. Welded to the motion picture screen of his brain was the image of a man he’d killed in a Jersey bar for a reason long forgotten like an innocent child of war. Weeknights when he wasn’t drinking, we’d sit and talk, we would sit and talk in front of the Black and White TV as Dan Rather spewed off the evening news. I’d tell him about my newly found faith and it’s promise of paradise and he would remind me about how life is like a pair of dice, sometimes you roll a seven, other times snake eyes, sometimes the only the prize the winner got was a card deck of lies and when your deck is stacked against ‘cha, he’d say, “You betta know how to shuck and jive.”Bluff your way through before you’re forced to do things you never thought you’d do. Being young and book smart dumbI I challenged his every word, debated him down, this man with a Street University degree This man who unselfishly made himself a father to me His blood does not run through my veins biologically...His blood runs through my spirit Energizing me mentally when my body is tired and all hope seems to be gone I remember what he taught me He taught me that it doesn’t matter how strong a man is, what matters is how well a man holds on. He loved me like a son and I loved him like a dad. To this day his voice echoes in my ears and my heart for him, longtime dead, still sheds a river of tears. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lifesaboutmorethanliving/message