Today is Mom’s birthday. Wow, what a void. BUT I am handling it well, much better than in the past. I am so glad that she got to see some of my work before she passed.

I think she raised me well and I hope I can do as much for the children I plan to have one day. I often think back and wonder what kind of child my parents thought I was. Well, I think it’s obvious what my father thought of me – not much, but that’s another story for another time. I think my mom thought I was a little odd; at least quite different than what she was used to growing up in the projects just outside Philadelphia.

I was a curious kid and I mean curious about everything. I am still that way even today. I was always interested in how things worked. It’s funny, because looking back I probably seemed a bit like a “mommas boy”. Nah, that wasn’t the case though. It’s just that I wasn’t afraid of what people thought of me. I mean, I remember @ 7 or 8 years old my mother teaching me to fry an egg or years later learning to make a box cake. My mother, being a seamstress, could always count on me to help her hem her dresses and pants. I took a foods class in high school; that was a convenient way for my extremely nerdy-ass to get next to some girls. I had limited success at that.

I think the reason nobody really tested my “manhood” or I guess “boyhood” is that I had MAD SKILLS on my BMX bike, could ride the heck out of a motorcycle and I could fix things. Oh yeah, I had skills on the neighborhood football field too.

I say all of this because even though most of what I did as a kid was foreign to my parents, they never really stopped me from doing the things I wanted. I mean we used to catch snakes and frogs at the golf course and bring them home as pets. I remember building a ramp and jumping over my VW bug in front of the house. So I’m thankful that they never stopped us because those little things can prevent us from being free to pursue our lives. I feel free to pursue mine and I thank my mom for that. Happy Birthday Louise L. Fuller!!