Happy Heavenly Father's Day Dad

DaRoosevelt Williams
October 9, 1936 - May 2, 2002

I thought of you with love today, but that is nothing new.
I thought about you yesterday, and days before that too.
I think of you in silence, I often speak your name.
All I have are memories, and your picture in a frame.

In life I loved you dearly, in death I love you still.
In my heart you hold a place, that no one could ever fill.
It broke my heart to lose you, but you didn't go alone.
For part of me went with you, the day God took you home.

No farewell words were spoken, no time to say goodbye.
You were gone before we knew it, and only God knows why.
A million times I needed you, a million times I cried.
If love alone could have saved you, you never would have died.

Gone yet not forgotten, although we are apart,
your spirit lives within me, forever in my heart.
Nothing can ever take away, the love a heart holds dear.
Fond memories linger every day, remembrance keeps you near.

A gift for such a little while, your loss just seems so wrong.
You should not have left before us, it’s with loved ones you belong.
Your memory is my keepsake, with which I’ll never part.
God has you in His keeping, I have you in my heart.

If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane,
I’d walk right up to heaven, and bring you home again.
Our family chain is broken, and nothing seems the same.
But as God calls us one by one, the chain will link again.

😇 Stepfathers Are A Blessing From God

"Color Him Father" Performed By The Winstons

There's a man at my house, he's so big and strong.

He goes to work each day, stays all day long.
He comes home each night, looking tired and beat.
He sits down at the dinner table, and has a bite to eat.

Never a frown, always a smile,
when he says to me, how's my child.
I've been studying hard, all day in school.
tryin' to understand the golden rule.

I think I'll color this man father.
I think I'll color him love.
I'm gonna color him father.
I think I'll color the man love, yes I will.

He says, education is the thing if you wanna compete,
because without it son, life ain't very sweet.
I love this man and I don't know why,
except I'll need his strength, till the day that I die.

My mother loves him and I can tell,
by the way she looks at him, when he holds my little sister Nell.
I heard her say just the other day,
that if it hadn't been for him, she wouldn't have found her way.

My real old man, he got killed in the war,
and she knows she and seven kids, couldn't of gotten very far.
She said she thought that she could never love again,
And then there he stood, with that big wide grin.

He married my mother and he took us in,
and now we belong to the man with that big wide grin.

I think I'll color this man father.
I think I'll color him love.
I'm gonna color him father.
I'm gonna color him love.

Footnote: In 1969, this song ranked #2 on the R&B charts and #7 on Billboard's Hot 100; the composer, Richard L. Spencer, won a Grammy Award for Best R&B song in 1970. Click on the record label for a link to YouTube and listen to this classic gem, the only one of its kind, which pays tribute to all of the stepfathers holdin' it down out there. And, always remember, as my pastor so eloquently pointed out in a sermon once... Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was actually raised by a man who played the role of a stepfather and his name was Joseph. So, never underestimate the importance of the part you play in God's divine plan. You are loved and appreciated much more than you know. May God continue to bless all of you!

Father's Day Is Coming...

Me and my dad in Fairmont Park in 1960... I was 2 years old!

"Dark Girls"... A Must-See Documentary!

"Dark Girls" Official Website

Release Date:  Fall/Winter 2011
Genre:  Documentary
Description:  Directed by Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry
Produced: Bill Duke for Duke Media and D. Channsin Berry for Urban Winter Entertainment
Co-Produced: Bradinn French
Line Produced: Cheryl L. Bedford
Edited: Bradinn French
New Media Managed: Tatiana El-Khouri
Publicist: Margaret R. Jamison

Plot Outline: A bracing new documentary, "Dark Girls" delves beneath the skins of women darker than most and the separate lives they lead.

Film Premier: International Black Film Festival in Nashville in October

May 20, 2011 – Los Angeles: Has anything really changed since the days of American slavery when dark-skinned Blacks were made to suffer even greater indignities than their lighter skinned counterparts? Ask today’s dark Black woman.

Dual documentary Directors/Producers D. Channsin Berry (Urban Winter Entertainment) and Bill Duke (Duke Media) took their cameras into everyday America in search of pointed, unfiltered, and penetrating interviews with Black women of the darkest hues for their emotional expose’, "Dark Girls". Two years in the making and slated to premier down south at the International Black Film Festival in October in Nashville, "Dark Girls" pulls back our country’s curtain to reveal that the deep seated biases and hatreds of racism, within and outside of the Black American culture, remain bitterly entrenched.

Berry states of the film's origin, "When Bill called me with the idea of a documentary about dark-skinned women, I was in right away. Being a dark-skinned Black man, like Bill, I have gone through similar traumas. Being separated and discriminated against by our own people. It stifles your self-esteem. Bill and I shared our similar experiences and immediately understood that we knew the best way to approach this."

Duke adds, "In the late 1960s a famous psychological study was done in which a young Black girl was presented with a set of dolls. Every time she was asked to point to the one that wasn’t pretty, not smart, etc., she pointed to the Black doll that looked just like her. In her mind, she was already indoctrinated. To watch her do that was heartbreaking and infuriating. CNN did the test again recently, decades later, with little progress. As the filmmakers behind 'Dark Girls,' our goal is to take that little girl's finger off that doll."

Dark-skinned Black American women from all walks of life will be covered with a key focus trained tightly upon women struggling for upward mobility in the workplace of Corporate America. "The sickness is so crazy," Berry continues. "These ladies broke it down to the degree that dark-skinned 'sistas' with 'good' hair vs. dark-skinned women with ‘kinky’ hair were given edges when it came time for coveted promotions." Additional interviewees for "Dark Girls" include White men in loving intimate relationships with Black women that were passed over by “their own men," as well as dark-skinned women of Latin and Panamanian background to bring a world perspective to the issue of dark vs. light.

"Dark Girls," which will screen in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York following its Nashville premier, promises to be a proactive view. Berry concludes, "The skin issue is a discussion we all need to have once and for all, so we can eradicate it."

Click the play button to see the powerful, riveting preview...

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22 Years Ago Today...

Two hearts became one!

The "Nutter Butter" Solution: More Taxes?

But, what's being done with the tax dollars we're already paying?

Are your streets being cleaned on a regular basis? Are potholes, sewer covers, and other neighborhood (not highway) street repairs being fixed in a "timely" manner, i.e. before someone gets hurt or their car is ruined? Did you see any evidence that the schools were getting any portion of your tax dollars BEFORE this current crisis? I feel these are all questions we need to ask ourselves, and then ask Mayor Nutter before we turn over another dime for anything! I've been on rail about the school crisis for some time now and I'm still on a rail about it. Now, I’m on a rail about this too. Enough is enough! SOMEBODY needs to tell us what's being done with the taxes we're already paying! We’ve heard our local government officials say over and over again for years, “There’s no money.” Okay, but…

Where did it (our tax dollars) go?
Why is there no money (our tax dollars)?

City Council is in session right now and a flurry of proposed legislation is landing in an effort to close a budget gap for the Philadelphia School District. Some new taxes seem more likely to fly, based on conversations with Council members and staffers from Mayor Nutter's administration, while others look dead on arrival.

Ultimately, it seems likely that some composite of new revenue sources will be pushed to fund the district. The proposals are:

1. A 10% property tax increase that would raise $95 million, proposed by Mayor Nutter. Nutter's staff said he put this forward at the request of Council members while Council President Anna Verna said Nutter offered the idea at a meeting yesterday.

2. A smaller property tax increase for one year, proposed by Councilman Darrell Clarke, that would raise $37 million for the district. Verna said both property tax proposals are likely to fail.

3. A 2-cent per ounce tax on sugary drinks, which would raise about $60 million from October 1-June 30, 2012, if implemented by October. This proposal, similar to a failed Nutter effort last year, will face fierce lobbying from beverage makers and distributors. Nutter spokesman Mark McDonald called this the preference for the administration, rather than a property tax increase.

4. An increase in parking meter rates that will bring in $6 million.

Nutter's staff says this can be approved by regulation, with no need for legislation.

Some Council members will also push Nutter to spend some or all of the $50 million surplus in the current budget. And, there is some hope that the state will restore some education funding, especially if the city puts up a chunk of cash.

We should no longer accept answers to these questions like... "Where the money has gone or why we don't have it is beside the point. The point is, it's gone and what are we gonna do about it?" If we don't find out what mistakes have been made with our tax dollars in the past, this scenario will continue to repeat itself over and over again...

Grammy's Little Lady (Bug)!

The Latest Ladybug Fashion

I love my ladybug dress that Mommy got for me from
The Alphabet House... if you want one too, just click here!

Thank you Cousin Melanie!