October 23, 2005 (Post date) October 16, 2005 (Blog date)

Today my wake up call (about 6 in the morning) was an argument between my foster father and his forty-something year old son. What started the fight? My foster father asked his son to use the hallway door to go to the bathroom. Background?!!? The forty-something year old has been sleeping in the living room. The living room has two doors one leads to the kitchen, and the other leads to the hallway. My foster father told his son that if he has to go to the bathroom, he should use the hallway door, especially while there are people sitting at the table eating. This time both were in a very bad mood. It was almost as if they wanted to pick up right where the last fight left off. This time the son was in no mood for me to be peace maker. I believe he realized that his…. “logic” doesn’t work on anyone but his father. He quickly (and angrily) told me not to interfere when he is talking to his father. Neither one was talking, just shouting. The shouting continued until the threats started. Once I realized that a fight would most likely be imminent, I positioned myself between the two. The son seemed to feel that he was entitled to ask the question (over and over again). Does the door rule only apply to him? The son also changed the focus of the argument to not being allowed to wear pajamas in the kitchen.

Like father like son, when the argument isn’t going your way, change the argument.

When I tried talking to the son, the father would shout over me, and when tried talking to the father…oh, you know.

Basically, I was in the same situation I was in when I broke up fights in my elementary school classroom. I stood in the middle and tried to reason with the participates. Exactly what the teacher’s union recommends that the teacher not do.

Well anyway, the argument continued, and it escalated. It seemed like the son was determined to win the argument at any costs. And it seemed like the father felt like the son was “trying to take over the house”.

Here, I’ll leave out a few details.

As the father began looking for his metal pipe, I focused my reasoning skills (as poor as they are) on the son. The son went on and on about how he does not… will not be disrespected by anyone. He went on about how he has a right to speak and no one can and will tell he what he can and can’t do.

To make a long story short (leaving out a few more details), I managed to prevent history from repeating itself. Apparently, they had a very similar fight while I was in Japan. Sorry, since I was not involved with that fight, I am not going to go into details.

Anyway, I managed to stop the argument. The participates went to their corners. The father worked on his…uh…lottery numbers in his bedroom, and the son ate his oatmeal in the kitchen.

A few minutes later, the son asked to speak to me. He came into my room to lecture me about disrespect. He wasn’t so much angry as he was trying to persuade me to see things his way. He mentioned that I was being disrespectful for interrupting their “conversation”, and I was being disrespectful for not saying “excuse me” before interrupting. When he found that I would not see things his way, he said that he had a headache and didn’t want to hear what I had to say. He walked out of the room, I started to follow him into his room (living room), but he closed the door in my face. Rather than get into a fight (or another argument) I just continued talking through the door. He whined about how he had a headache and he needed to sleep.

A few minutes later, the father asked me to call the older son.

The older son said that he would be over in a few minutes. I expected another loud argument. I expected a continuation. But, what was the encounter like?

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The older son (he is in his mid 50s) arrived, he said “pack your shit, you are going back to your sister’s house” (yes, the one with the big house). That’s it! No argument. No fight. Nothing. The (former) tough-talking (disabled) ex-marine had nothing to say. It took him about 45 minutes to pack one duffle bag. Later (when he is about to leave), he was whistling like nothing happened.

After the 40-something year old son was driven up to his sister’s house, my foster father spent the rest of the day (actually a couple of days) saying, “we got rid of him”. That was very annoying! It wasn’t him, and it wasn’t me. Neither one of us was the one that reined in the wayward son. It was the older brother. After the 40-something was kicked out, I then had to listen to my foster father shouting at his grandson about how he also “better watch out”, or he (my foster father) would kick his grandson out the same way he kicked out his 40-something son.



I was angry and annoyed, so I did what I usually do. I went for a walk. From my home I walked to 125th street and Broadway. I walked down Broadway until 72nd street. There used to be a public toilet near the 72nd street subway station, but unfortunately, it was no longer there. Since I had to go to the bathroom, I decided to return home. I walked across 72nd street to 8th avenue. While walking down 8th avenue I walked past the New York Museum. The NY Museum had a special exhibition about slavery in New York. It is not a topic I am interested in, but it is educational. I told myself several times that I would go, but I kept procrastinating, so I decided to go, even though I was tired, and had to go to the bathroom.

I was amazed that the exhibition was so crowded; I was also surprised that there seemed to me to be more European-Americans than African-Americans there. I thought the exhibition was very interesting, I even forgot (a little) that I had to go to the bathroom). The only down side (if any) was that a lot of the crowd moved like snails, or would stand in front of exhibitions having personal conversation, even though there were lines to see almost all of the different displays. At the exhibition, there was a handwritten draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. After visiting the Slavery exhibition, I still had about 30 minutes before the museum closed, so I went to see some other exhibitions. I was able to take a few photos.

About the photos. Sorry for the delay with posting photos on my other web site. I have about 5 sets that need to be posted.

I will (try to) visit the internet café next weekend to upload the photos. I narrowed the photos to about 64 pictures in total. Although I do have a free internet connection, it is limited (only 20 hours per month at dial-up speed). Once I get my own apartment, I’ll get one of those high-speed DSL connections.

Well, I think that is about it… Until next time….