If I Should Die Tonight

There have been many times when in the middle of reflective conversations with my friends that I have said, “If I should die tonight I would have no regrets. I’ve had a really great life”. There are no places that I wanted to go that I haven’t been to. I have been able to have a positive impact on many others and consequently, the world. I have had the pleasure of knowing very smart and interesting people, including many fascinating and beautiful women. I have experienced the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. I have reconciled myself with the awesome vastness of the universe and the enigma of how it came to be. I have loved and been loved for no other reason than because it was so.

One of the most difficult things that I have ever had to deal with was the inevitability of death. During my twenties this was my most difficult challenge. Ironically, this coincided with my college years, and a philosophy professor that I will never forget. Learning how to think forced me to question everything that I had been trained to accept without question as a African American child growing up poor in apartheid Alabama during the 1950’s and 1960’s. I would often wake up in the middle of the night, thinking of being in a casket, unable to breathe, terrified. I often wondered about heaven and hell, how could it be so simple when the earth and the universe was so incredibly complex? I wondered how Christ could be the answer when so many people had lived before him and so many others lived and died with no knowledge of him.

My heroes have been few, but they have had an enormous effect on me and the life I have led. My maternal grandmother taught me to go beyond complaining about what’s wrong and to do something about it. Martin Luther King Jr. taught me about courage, and the power of rhetoric to move people, shape opinion and effect change. My high school football coach taught me that white people in Alabama and anywhere else could believe in equality and fairness and the potential of minority children. 

I thank God that I was born in The United States of America, in the Great State of Alabama, the “Heart of Dixie”. I am glad that I was there with George Wallace, Bull Conner, and the White Citizen’s Council. Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, Ralph Abernathy, and so many others were there too, and me. All of those tragic and historic events in my state made America a better nation, and made me a better man.

I want to talk about my life. I want to talk about being poor in Alabama, integrating my high school and Auburn University. I want to talk about playing football and basketball and my love for the Auburn Tigers.

I need to talk about being in the Marine Corps, integrating IBM in Mobile, Alabama, owning my own business, being in love, being a teacher and a high school Principal. I want to talk about the emotion a Principal feels when seeing students graduate and go to college that would not have made it without his input and interventions. 

Many years ago I learned that writing was therapeutic. It is also cheaper than a psychologist. And so, I have decided to write. I will write about all of these things and the many other issues both real and imagined by our relentless information industry.

To Tell The Truth… this life that I have lived is the reason why, if I should die tonight, I would have no regrets.