I’ve admitted it before.. “Hi I’m Earl and I’m a junk food addict” In particular my product of choice is usually a Hostess Brand product! I probably need an intervention soon. I’ve written about my addiction with Hostess before. I’ve complained about their comeback and how they made the product smaller again. Also how they just didn’t get the same recipe as they were using before. A connoisseur such as my self can tell the subtle differences to the palate with their new recipe. 

I swore that I wouldn’t go back to the Ho Ho’s but, my addiction was too strong. I swear the FDA should look into what they are putting into them. I have no control.

I usually get my fix in the morning on my way to work in the car. Now having your morning fix in the car is a juggling act. Your always in danger of having a spill and you don’t want it to happen on your clean shirt! So the other morning I went and got my Ho Ho and this is what I saw when I opened it…

A dried out Ho Ho is the worst. Chocolate everywhere! Being an addict you want to be able to hide your addiction but with this it gets everywhere in your car seats, on your pants under your pants leg. It also gets in your shirt pocket and later when your handing out a business card a piece of chocolate goes with it to expose your true self. Oh the embarrassment!

Being an addict you want to make sure your supplier is a reputable source. I don’t go to those discount stores where they are selling it on the last day of expiration or even past it. I pay full price at my local “BP” gas station. This Ho Ho was dry as hell and crumbs did go everywhere. I’ve been licking chocolate crumbs for days. Being an addict your not proud you suck it up and don’t complain you just eat it. God forgive me but now I’m thinking I should go to Little Debbies. I’ll pay have the price but at least their product seems consistent. Oh I feel so dirty!

A co-worker asked me this morning what I thought was going to happen on “judgment day.” I thought for a few seconds, as I did not want to get into a religious conversation with a Jehovah’s Witness. So I said “I think the line is going to be really long! It will be worse than Disney land rides.”  You also can’t get an express pass to go around everyone. Even if there were an express line, that line will be so long as I’m sure there are millions of “good” people that will qualify for that express pass.

From what I have gathered so far, “God” will be judging us right? He is the only person that can do that right? Yes I know we all judge people. But up there… In Heaven he is the judge and jury right? So there will be one line, one long winding line. I hate lines. I try to avoid them at all costs. Imagine spending days in a line if not years! But let’s just say days for now. Emotions are going to get high, and someone is going to get mad. Chances are it is me and I’ll be mad about all the idiots that are in line. By the time I get to the front of the line he could judge me just on my time in the line, which would be enough to send me elsewhere!

What if we get up there and God had multiple “helpers” like him to help with the processing. You know darn well we all are going to be wondering if we got in the wrong line. Maybe we should be in that line, that guy smiles more often. Then you’ve got to wonder about who your standing behind. What if they are all bad and you get to the head of the line and a bunch of people are all bad and you don’t want to be bunched in with them. You know guilt by association. After all, you just spent years with these people in line to get there.

Can’t I just stay here in my Lazy Boy chair and enjoy the show.

For a major part of my life I have worked in a predominantly African American community and have been quite involved in those communities. I also felt very vested in the economic development of those areas. Never did I ever consider myself as being racist.

For those of you that don’t know, I am Caucasian. Though I consider myself a “person” rather than a “color.” I also look at people as people too. Some people are just more “tan” than others and that’s ok with me.  I don’t feel that I treat anyone differently and I surely wasn’t raised that way.

With “racism” being more in the forefront over the last few years I had written a piece about a friend of mine who is African American. Floyd, and I had lunch together for years and years almost every day. If we didn’t have lunch, at some point in our day we touched base via phone. Floyd had a small business in Gary and with both of us being marketing geniuses we discussed business, marketing and Northwest Indiana every day.

Because of the racism issue, I wanted to write a piece about our relationship and I guess show how much of a good person I was. I titled the piece “My Black Friend.” I didn’t think anything of it at the time. When I wrote it we hadn’t spoken in a while but I still considered him my friend. No one really commented about it after I wrote it. But life went on and more and more the issue of race kept coming up in the news. During that time Floyd seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. He didn’t call, I left a few messages with his wife and on his answering machine but no response. Well one day I guess my light bulb finally went off and I realized that I shouldn’t have titled the piece the way that I did. Because Floyd had always been “My Friend” without any other labels.

I’m sorry if I offended you Floyd it wasn’t intentional. Also, your standing reservation still stands if your hungry!

I was about ten years old when it happened. My best friend had invited me to come with him to his family’s trip to the Michigan Dunes. Chris and I were close and we played “army” and blew up army men and tanks with his dad’s gun powder he had in the garage. We always played in the sand pile on the side of the house. We would dig tunnels for our soldiers and act out our fantasies. This new adventure promised to be exciting and I would see things I had never seen.

My mother would not let me go for some reason. I was bummed out all weekend long. I was mad at my mother. I think the call came on Sunday afternoon. Chris had taken another friend or a cousin with him instead of me. Chris had done what came natural to him and I and that was to dig. We would have dug tunnels in the large sand dunes and we would be the soldiers and get in the tunnels like our little plastic soldiers. We were only ten, we didn’t know about construction. We were just young boys wanting to explore and acting out.

Chris never came home, the tunnels that he and the other boy built collapsed on them and I’m sure suffocated them in minutes. I would have been right there with Chris and probably making the tunnels deeper and bigger. I think about all the things in my life that I would have missed, or the fact that my own children, or grandchildren wouldn’t be here today.

If my mom had just said yes to make her son happy, life would be so different for so many people. That one little decision that many people have to make about what their children do everyday, can have rippling effects in years to come. Today, on the Birthday of my Mother I say “Thank you Mom for making those tough decisions.”

Because of you, I have all that I have and it doesn’t go unnoticed by me. Let this be a lesson to all the mothers out there, every decision you make with your kids that will have lasting affects even fifty years later.

After 32 years of marriage you can easily notice a few things about us. When you get married they say the “two shall become one”. It’s true, but it takes years to get there. I’m convinced that we now share one brain. I’m not sure where the other brain went, I keep looking for it behind one of the bookshelves or under the pile of dog toys that have accumulated, but no success.

Usually, we discover that we seem to take turns using the brain. One of us maybe in a brain fog with their thinking process and the other person is spot on. After many years there is a comfort level with each other. Since we share that same brain we tend to think alike. In fact, sometimes we don’t even have to say anything aloud. It’s like the “Vulcan Mind Meld.” We just look at each other and we know. Maybe we were abducted by aliens and they probed us or something like that so we can communicate telepathically.

I’m lucky in that she seems to let me use the brain more often. But then she calls me quite often with many questions throughout the day and I have to use the brain to help her.  I really think that when I walk through the door at night it automatically wants to jump out of my skull and go to her. So I’m left with being in the “fog.” That’s why she probably yells at me for forgetting so many things, like take the garbage out, or why don’t you remember to “close the door” or “lock it”! It goes on and on like that.

But then there are the differences between us. She will put everyone she knows before herself. She may be in pain or sick, but she will go out of her way to make sure they, or I, or the kids have what they need before she would even consider taking care of herself. If she needed to go the doctor but funds were tight she wouldn’t go. She would lend whatever we had to one of the kids for their needs first. I’m not quite as giving as she is. Of course I’d help if someone really needed it, but I wouldn’t notice them like she would. My stomach steers me quite a bit. If there is food, I’m going for it and I’m going to beat everyone to the punch.

She really is my guiding light. She shows me the way. She shows me how a good person would take care of their fellow man. When she gets to the pearly gates she’s going right in. When I arrive I’ll be off to the side yelling through the bars, “Hey Marisia can you get me in?” Most of our time over these 32 years I have watched her open her heart and give to so many people. She  showed me what love is. She showed me that it was more than us. On this valentines day I can say that I already gave her my heart a long time ago. I already share my brain, and I’m worried if I give it to her more often, what would happen. So I had to figure out what she needed more. Luckily, it’s been my time to use the brain so I could figure this one out. So I promise to give her more of my time, she needs it more than I do. Its what people do for each other when they are in love. Happy Valentines Day Honey!