A Letter To Baby Caeli

As you kind of figured out, I am your daddy and I love you, just as your mommy does and always will. There will be a lot of new things to see and people you’ll meet when you get here like grandmas and grandpas, cousins, aunts and uncles, so I’ll try to keep it short.

I want you to know how special you are and what a blessing you are to us from God. Just like you, we were babies once upon a time and I’m sure Gigi and Grandma will show you the pictures of Mommy and Daddy when we were babies like you. More than just our baby, you are God’s baby and it is up to us to teach you all of the right ways to be more like baby Jesus and less like us. You are our first child, so I want to get this right for you.

I want you to know along the road trip called life, we have your back. If you’d rather play lacrosse than the trumpet, I’m fine with that; same thing if volleyball suits your fancy.

I want you to dream on like Aerosmith and achieve all of your goals beyond your wildest dreams.

My hope for you, dear child of privilege, is to afford for you the best of our offerings. I don’t mean only material things, but you’ll be able to connect in ways to make this place better because of your presence.

My desire is that by the time you’re a grown-up, you don’t have to kick down doors to prove you belong.

You can be anything your heart desires – a doctor, a lawyer, a pastor, a basketball player, a programmer, a teacher, the governor, the President of the United States – and I’ll be as proud of you as I am this day.

You’ve given us one of the greatest honors we can ever have: to be your father and mother. As I’ve said before, your daddy and mommy love you in words unspoken and want only the best for you. One day when you’re older, you’ll see this letter and hopefully grasp how ecstatic we are to be your parents.

With all our love, Mommy and Daddy

The Third Monday in January

Nationwide, the third Monday in January marks the observation of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday as a national holiday. In my home state of Arkansas, it also honors Confederate General Robert E. Lee. How either man is observed is subject to whom you talk to and your view of the larger world:  one is a hero, and the other a traitor. You know where I stand on this one. One man gets a federal holiday signed into law by a very reluctant Ronald Reagan; the other has monuments all over the South and as far north as Winsted, CT (how do I know? I used to live there – mine was also the only black face for roughly thirty miles or so) and a treasonous spirit, yearning for the South to rise again while people whistle Dixie and don the Stars and Bars.

The third Monday in January is why we need to learn our history.

Instead, some students who should be in school are at home or roaming malls aimlessly with ill regard for why they are released from their studies. Their parents – whom you would think would know better – treat the third Monday in January as a shopping holiday. Yeah, I’ve gotta run to JC Penney today for the sheet sale today. I hope they have five hundred count pima cotton, if not better. In those locales that prefer Lee, Civil War reenactments seem to be the default thing. Obviously, those homogeneous centers of bad behavior wish to retain that small mentality; it seems anti-intellectualism rules the day. Even when it reaches the upper levels of state government, that brand of tomfoolery is shrugged to the side as if it had been rote and routine for the past two hundred years. See Secretary of State Mark Martin. Why has no one in Arkansas called for neither his resignation nor a public apology is beyond me. Maybe this is a byproduct of the Republican Party takeover from November. But, this is my home state – the place where segregation has never really died instead taking on newer, more covert forms. Don’t believe me? Look at where you work. Look at where you shop. Spend a day at your kids’ school.

Stay classy, Arkansas. pic.twitter.com/5LmagUDfvp
— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) January 18, 2015

The third Monday in January is a day of legacy.

In elementary school, we learned to recite the “I Have A Dream” speech, what happened to Rosa Parks when she refused to yield her seat, the Little Rock Nine, and how King sacrificed the final fifteen years of his life to ensure black America would have equal rights and the opportunity to vote through his advocacy of nonviolence. Even in the 1980s – and I adore all of my K-5 teachers – I certainly picked up more at home because my parents put in the time for my brother and me to become conscious, schools were not really doing much because of the MAT-6 standardized testing was upcoming and maybe the material was not as readily available as a double click on the tablet today. From middle school onward, the questions concerning race and a greater in-depth study became landmines to be avoided. While we were living through the Million Man March, the release of modern classics such as Malcolm X, Boyz N Da Hood and 2Pac’s All Eyez On Me, and the Rodney King and OJ Simpson trials, the schools trotted out King as a historical relic instead of correlating current events with the Civil Rights Movement. Honestly, I probably would not have received the same insight, as I was the only black student in many classes from the eighth grade to senior year of high school thanks to my advanced course schedule. But it would have been nice to catch real-time discussion beyond the book.

The third Monday in January means there is still work to do. Excuse my improper grammar, but we ain’t done.

While we have advanced past a lot of the blatant racism out there – Mena residents notwithstanding, as evidenced during Friday night’s high school basketball games in Arkadelphia – there is still work to do. True, we are better as a society and have come a long way as our children are living proof, but many improvements are inconclusive at best. We may witness a parade, an Alpha Phi Alpha – sponsored step show, live in an integrated neighborhood, drive a nice car, get love at Whole Foods, etc. but the events in Sanford, Cleveland, Ferguson, New York, Colorado Springs, and numerous cities speak to the contrary. I’m pretty sure the greatest thing the Civil Rights Movement gave us was not the opportunity to have sex with white women and live to tell about it.

Well, what how about the bought-and-paid for politicians of both parties, with the help of some law enforcement officers and Fox News criminalize and magnify any misdeed a black person makes as genetic attribution? (For those who have never heard the saying, it means blaming the sum of a group for the actions of one person. You’ll see this again during Black History Month via Facebook and within AD&AD.)No matter how much education is obtained, what titles are added to our names, how assimiliated we feel we have become, there are still people who view us as the help or worse, the N-word. We still face challenges out there (ex. education inequality, medical discrimination, an ever widening economic chasm) that remind us that we ain’t done.

The third Monday in January is one to reflect, yet strive toward achieving King’s dream.

Twenty years ago, the Million Man was a resounding success in part of how much of an impact the black dollar has on the American economy. Civil rights is not a finished issue – ask any gay person – but America treats it as such, claiming the movement as the solution to three hundred years of second-class citizenship and crass racism. Today, I’m sure you will find the real King marching toward justice for Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and Trayvon Martin. The mass-marketed King – the one that gets pushed upon us by the media – is a feel-good fairy tale designed to lessen the man’s impact and make certain Americans feel solace in their treatment and insincere forgiveness. For all of his flaws, which the Lee crowd will gladly promote his serial affairs (hey, if your life is threatened daily, why not try some things? I’m not condoning adultery, but I do understand in that case), the real King took his lumps and publicly suffered for 22 million people to have a better quality of life.

What is the third Monday in January to you? 

A Band Geek's Uprising

Some of you saw us marching band members in the same light as Jim Rome does – and probably still do. If you weren’t out there in the summer heat practicing fully laden – instruments, flags, auxiliaries, etc. – or sloshing around on muddy high school and college fields every Friday night or Saturday, then you may need to read this. Even our athletes who played on Friday nights picked up their sticks and horns to fall into cadence! Keep in mind this upbraiding does not include the hours, I mean YEARS of practice time to perfect our craft in front of 7-10,000 people who largely cheered our labor. Those of you who loved us, supported us even in those dark hours (or in my case, sophomore year in high school – I wasn’t part of the Showband of Arkansas at Henderson), or shared in the bandsman’s struggles to practice or play with our victories in competition, this is for you.

Today's #SitYoAssDown award winner is @jimrome for this offensive nugget. I was a band geek once upon a time! pic.twitter.com/Cb2UT8UL6B

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) January 3, 2015

Why does the band dork insult still live in this day and age?

Far more of us were impacted by choosing an instrument as preteens and joining the marching band than could possibly step out on the gridiron. Why would the coaches want a then-runt (I barely weighed 100 lbs. in the eighth grade, when athletics seemed to matter more) who strained to hoist a water cooler when I could easily join an organization that valued my talents, heart, and effort? For me, playing the trumpet was twofold:  I would blow like the great jazz icon Louis Armstrong; and the State Farm Battle of the Bands between Grambling State and Southern University held annually in New Orleans the day after Thanksgiving. It would be years later when sadly, I finally acknowledged that my feet would not cooperate with the rest of my body. Yeah, I have no rhythm. That year, I honestly wanted to quit – and I think everybody knew it. How could the remaining six periods of the day go so well for me when first period was such a hellish experience? Admittedly it did erode my confidence. I could play all of the notes to their corresponding tempos sitting still or in the stands, yet when it came to moving and playing at the same time, there was an inexplicable disconnect with my feet and my mind. Could it have been a result of growing so quickly (seven inches one summer) that I had no control of the body regarding its direction? Any count, I felt the searing glares of every angry eye and heard every snide comment about and toward me every time we stopped practice. Did it sting? Yeah, but I made it through the year. In addition to the twenty pounds of homework I was already working through on a nightly basis, I had to march at home for half an hour to get to a place of not being such an embarrassment to the organization. Like Cathy and Elmo back in 1994, Jim Rome’s snarky comment in one to belittle the contributions band members bring to the table. It nearly worked then, but not now.

Being a band dork (Rome’s words, not mine) afforded me a number of advantages that would have been unrealized otherwise.

·         Travel. Everyone circled the road trip dates because they were the ones we were released early from class. In the old days of AAAA-Central, we were assured of shows in El Dorado, Mountain Home, and Rogers along with that dastardly town called Russellville and the Little Rock schools; if the football team qualified for the playoffs, there was always the possibility of hitting the highway to another city.

·         Camaraderie. Even then, I always walked to a different beat – ask my Day One brothers Justin or Brandon. Although all 150+ of us came from different worlds and past experiences, there was always someone to share conversation, homework, valve oil, slide grease, music folders (no mouthpieces – keep your own germs to yourself) with as well as the fun times and relationships away. If no one else legitimately had the hook-up at the Taco Bell on 3^rd and Oak streets in the mid-90s, I will tell you the Wampus Cat band did.

·         Discipline. To make the formations and have a successful season, marching band members needed to be disciplined. I don’t mean getting chewed out daily, but you knew your role to keep the show moving without a hitch. In our arena, that meant paying attention to not only the directors and drum majors, but also the person next to you; not doing so would leave you in the wrong position. If we were stuck behind the horses during the Christmas parade and their fresh manure, we trekked through it albeit very carefully; those uniforms have to go to the cleaners sometime. Why else would we spend seven or more years of our lives practicing for that great moment? To fall flat? Band members understand that there is no NFL for us after college – and for me, high school was my high-water moment musically – yet keeping a steely-eyed focus on our best effort is what we aimed for. Sidebar: Over 90% of our band maintained a 3.0 GPA my senior year in some very difficult courses and circumstances. How would a shock jock claim such brilliance?

·         Serious effin’ life skills. While some people became high school band directors, professional musicians, etc., being a band geek has led the majority of us to become far more aware of the world and eventually productive adults. While not being an “official” section leader, my intangibles over the years went way beyond where my two left feet would take me. For example, one of the greatest concepts I understood is to live in the moment yet be prepared to enjoy the fruits of the labor. During contests, you watched – if you were able – and even hooted for the competing band because you wanted that treatment reciprocated. Upon the sweetness of victory (we were first division all three years in All-Region and won the UAM Invitational in ’94) to the bitterness of defeat (not getting to repeat at Monticello the following year, and finishing after Mountain Home twice); keeping it all in perspective was the greatest takeaway for me. Even not retaliating against the racist Cabot fans who threw cigarette butts at us marked a character-defining moment that we would not back down from anyone.

Being a band dork, Mr. Rome, has shaped me into a pretty well-rounded, balanced gentleman. While I was never able to bench press my own weight or make Sportscenter-worthy bone-jarring hits, I would like to think the world was perhaps made a little bit better by an scrawny black trumpet player with two left feet hidden somewhere around the 30 yard line overcoming stage fright and shrugging derision from the bell of my horn.