The word bitch should be used solely in conjunction with the word grief. I promise you, if I ever hear another man call a woman a bitch, I don't care who he is, I'm going to hurt him. If I ever hear another woman call a man a bitch, I'll release a few choice words that will touch her core, but she'll be able to continue. Neither a man nor a woman can make you feel as sickening as grief can. I don't care what they do to you - cheat, lie, steal or slam you to the ground and run. Grief is the only bitch I know.
Grief intruded into my life June 4th 2008 at 4:20pm. That's when I received a call from my father's wife informing me that my daddy, Bobby James Hudson, was gone. She said it as calmly as she could. "Niecy, we lost Bobby today." That's when my procession of one began.
I proceeded to cry. I proceeded to yield to the shit feeling that was ravaging my body, because I couldn't fight back. I proceeded to collapse and let myself be gutted by grief. Grief cuts your insides and churns them at the same time, runs them over, burns them, and leaves them there expecting you to function as if oh well should be the next words you say.
The first steps of my procession were to see my daddy lying in his coffin. Simply visiting my daddy became viewing his body. I was at a wake that would never allow for sleep. This wake wanted tears and I obliged...boy did I oblige.
My procession kept going strong with then next day being more forceful than the first. The funeral told me to say goodbye. I only did so after God told me to hold onto His hand. He said that I will see my daddy later.
Next, the cemetery. Grief began to slither around my throat. It's hold grew tighter and tighter but I still saw the coffin which held my daddy - even with my shades on and my eyes closed.
I know we all go through this but it doesn't diminish the fact that my daddy broke my heart. I know he didn't mean to. I know he loved his babygirl. When I was younger my father told me that he wouldn't always be here. His words - "Babygirl, ya daddy ain't always gone be here." My words - "Well, where are you going to be?" Together we'd laugh. Lawd, I miss my daddy.
A father's love for his daughter is priceless. Fellas, you all can step up your game and you still won't measure up. My daddy made me feel SO special. His encouraging words to keep on babygirl, stick with it, success doesn't come overnight. Man, this hurts.
I wanted my father to see me make it. To him, I already did. He saw something different in me. He saw that I stepped out on faith and did what my passion told me to. I know that he was proud of me.
Bobby James Hudson was the first black man to work in an office position at the TAM Plant in Niagara Falls NY. 1968 didn't have a civil rights march for him - he was just being a provider for his family. Tuskegee Institute taught my daddy a few things. He took that knowledge and eventually opened his own store, Hudson Tile and Carpet in Ocala Florida. But that was after he showed others how it should be done at the Color Tile store in Niagara Falls NY.
My daddy and his ideas! I smile just thinking about them. Shaklee, Amway, Omaha Steaks and BARD (Bobby, Alice, Ronny, Denise) Security. His favorite food - fried chicken. Once my daddy told me that he could eat fried chicken every day! Why? "'Cause I was raised on it babygirl." Oh... I miss my daddy.
He taught my brother to keep a handkerchief in his pocket. My brother now has taught that to his sons. Something so simple. but something to be proud of still. He taught me to be me, and ain't nuthin' wrong with that :-)
Golf, golf, golf. Why did I say that golf was a dumb game...that all you do is walk around hitting a ball. Lawd, did I get a LECTURE on golf! I was a teenager. I'm 42 now and I have NEVER said a bad word about the game of golf since!
I'll hurt, I'll cry and still talk too much about my daddy. My procession will continue with me working it out and being the woman that Bobby James Hudson knew I could be.
I love you daddy.
Wanda D. Hudson
Wait for Love: A Black Girl's Story
LuvMe
http://www.wandadhudson.com
How I Killed O.J…If I Did
A retired prosecutor looking through a scope and down the barrel of a Remington M40 with intended prey in sight. That was me just a few weeks ago. If you had asked me, even one year before, if it were possible, I would have laughed out loud. Twenty years in law enforcement had left me a hard core law and order guy. But there I was, in Miami, Florida, preparing to kill a person, quickly and coldly, at a distance and with no warning whatsoever. I adjusted the cheek piece on the rifle stock and, through the scope, I intentionally focused on his throat instead of his chest. The situation was, in part, the result of my medical diagnosis six short months earlier.
Dr. Ernie King, my oncologist, didn’t mince words with me. He knew that I tolerated no deviation when it came to dealing with my illness. “Just tell it like it is” was the agreed-upon motto and Ernie respected that. “Jim, you have six months to live and maybe just a little longer. You won’t make it through to the New Year”, he intoned. My thinning legs dangled over the end of the examining table as his words banged around hard in my head. I answered slowly but straightforwardly in the way that friends do. The good doctor and I had that kind of relationship. “’Sounds strange at a time like this to say ‘thanks’, Ernie but I mean it sincerely. I can’t begin to tell you how much unfinished business needs doing before I’m through with this life.” He fiddled with his hanging stethoscope as I went on. “I will live each remaining moment with a certain satisfaction, thanks to your honest advice.” I meant every word of it.
Thanks to good drugs and doctoring, it had been a tolerable six months. All the things that needed doing were done. The things that needed saying had been said. My pain had been minimal until now but a new threshold was being met daily. Nevertheless, as I attempted lounging in leather in front of the TV one evening, any pain was quickly forgotten as I listened intently to the Dish Network news out of New York. Bill , the newscaster whose last name always escaped me, told millions of viewers, “O.J. Simpson has written a book titled ‘If I Did It.’, described by his publisher, Judith Regan, as a ‘tell all’ version of the murder of his wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Simpson will be interviewed about the book on Fox News this Thursday night, according to sources at Fox.” The news announcer’s twisted face and raised brow said it all. When he finished with the bizarre piece, he just shook his head from side to side. His sidekicks, the weather guy and the sports announcer, followed suit. Bill quickly signed off for the evening.
I began a rant. “That no good son of a bitch,” I shouted. “The butcher takes the life of his childrens’ mother and her friend, is acquitted by an excuse for a jury with the vision of Mr. Magoo and now wants to write a ‘confession’!” All of the dreaded damage to victims and their families that I had shared in my many years as a prosecutor seemed to hit me at once. Over the ten plus years since the O.J. verdict, I had seethed whenever the subject of the trial was broached. “That bastard has done more than any other single person to damage the criminal justice system in the U.S.A.”, I would respond. “And that lying fool-of-a-cop, Mark Furman, has left good juries wondering now whether they should believe decent cops’ testimony. It had always been the other way around before. Cops had nearly always been presumed to be telling the truth” , I would go on…and on. But in my chair, following the news that night, I became quiet and pensive. After a review of all of the gory evidence in my mind and finishing the last taste of Gentlemen Jack on the rocks, I made my most difficult decision ever. I would kill the heartless, shameless butcher myself. At this stage in my ebbing life, how much difference would it make? Instead of my legacy being that of a single plodding prosecutor, I would be remembered as the one person who brought “real justice” to bear in the case; not the joke of a dream team and certainly not Judge Lance Ito! Those who had watched the killer’s antics over the past ten years, mugging for cameras, golfing with the rich and famous, and not paying a dime of the $33,000,000 judgment in favor of Ron Goldman’s parents would laud my contribution. In the words of Goldman’s father, Fred, that I had only recently read somewhere, “I can’t stand to see Simpson around….he makes my skin crawl.” Well, worry no longer, Fred, I mused. I’m gonna take care of business. Postgraduate work for the prosecutor.
The next day I began planning my hunt. The internet was full of helpful morsels. By the end of the day I knew where he lived, most of his daily schedule and even the brand of vodka that he had been chugging down straight morning and night. As might be expected, the golf course was the key. He lived right next to the course whose members had banned him several years before for “undignified behavior.” However, it was reported that he would chip balls toward the course from the confines of his own back yard. My scheming went something like this: Instead of O.J. being out on the course and targeted there in the open, I would be on the course and target him on his own property! And why in hell did he own a multi-million dollar property anyway while still owing one his victim’s family thirty three million dollars on the judgment? My anticipation was growing.
Thanks to my late father, I had inherited an M40 Remington rifle with scope. The way he explained it, it was the least the Marine Corps could do for him after two miserable years in Korea. He had somehow smuggled it back home and it sat, untouched, for the next fifty years in his dusty garage attic. My sister had no interest in it when we emptied his home so I inherited by default. I had heard stories from Dad that the rifle was accurate at 800 yards but that was about all he ever said about it. I would find out for myself. Unlocking my bodega, I pulled the rifle off its wall rack by the sling and threw it in the car. Over the next three days I honed my skills in the Sierra Madre and discovered that Dad may have even been a little conservative in his assessment of the rifle’s accuracy. But how would I ever get it to Miami? Certainly not on a commercial flight!
That Monday morning and I was off for Miami. I bought a cheap Shasta RV from a friend in Chapala but I was confident, with only 44,000 miles on the odometer, that it would make it to Florida. There were no plans to bring it back. I shoved the Remington and the box of 7.62x51mm NATO rounds under the bed at the back of the RV and headed out of Jalisco. Fortunately, the waving immigration guys in Laredo never even peeked inside. I had been willing to take that chance. Arriving in Miami, I spent the weekend at the Mission Inn, about two miles from Simpson’s house. It would all go down on Monday, the quietest time on the golf course. I spent the weekend just driving around the neighborhood and setting up my itinerary for Monday morning. The plan was to go out to the putting range with only my putter and a full bag of Remington, covered with a golf sock, and just wander off from there into the woods across from the tenth green, about two hundred yards from Simpson’s back yard. And so, on a damp, humid Monday morning, my wet golf cleats digging into the pine needles that adjoined the rough, I arrived there, as planned.
I spent about an hour putzing around, trying to look busy for the benefit of the occasional foursomes passing by, before he appeared. True to reported form, he ambled out into his yard with a chipping iron and ball in hand. He was dressed in white shorts and sneakers and wore no shirt. He was still a muscled, light-skinned monster of a figure. I unsocked the Remington and pulled it out of my golf bag like a big three wood. My right eye met the scope as I carefully took in the periphery to limit risk of witnesses to the fury of justice at its purest. It was “The Juice” alright and I was anxious, to the point of shaking, to spill him. His throat was as clear through my scope as those Budweiser cans had been during my practice rounds in the Mexican mountains. Wasting no time at all, I rapidly squeezed off one round. That’s all it took. As the sound of the report rang in my ears, I saw Simpson grab at his throat and, flailing, fly backwards off his feet. Finally..Justice! No jury foreperson’s “guilty” had ever pushed the adrenaline through my veins like that. As I hastily dragged my golf cart away, I was euphoric. Oh, the killer would never play golf again with his celebrity buddies under the sunny skies of Jamaica. And he wouldn’t give Fred Goldman the creeps again either. My mouth was filled with a strange sweetness; the taste of the successful kill? My disease had been in apparent remission for days and not a thought of pain had entered my consciousness. I had been centered on a supreme vengeance. My old RV was on sale on consignment in Miami, Dad’s Winchester would go to the nearest swamp today and my plane ticket to Guadalajara was on the night table at the Mission Inn. There was no police chase. I slowly drove the rental car out in the boonies to dump the rifle and then drove on to my hotel without incident.
No, I didn’t awake in my leather chair in front of the TV. It wasn’t a dream; an expected conclusion to this kind of tale. Instead, I stood in Ajijic’s warm morning sun, just outside my bedroom door, and wondered aloud, Did I really do it? Is it possible that my giant step in the law really occurred just yesterday in the throes of my “retirement”? There was no trace of an airline ticket stub that I usually left in the kitchen and my luggage wasn’t still out in the living room. Everything was in its usual state except for the droning voice coming from the TV room. The only words that I could hear clearly over the neighbor’s weed wacker were “O.J. Simpson.” I hurried into the room to learn more………..
Ernie listened carefully to my story and considered referring me to a shrink, Dr. Goudet. The above version is the one that I related to Ernie during my visit. I ended it by telling him, “Doc, That’s how I killed O.J. Simpson, If I Did.” Ernie’s face broke the trace of a smile. He knew better than anyone that my death was imminent. “Jim,” he said quietly. “You just have to be hallucinating. There’s no other logical explanation.” Now it was a smirk. “This is what friends are for.” He handed me a script for Haldol and sent the Old Warrior for Justice on his way.
How I Killed O.J…If I Did
A retired prosecutor looking through a scope and down the barrel of a Remington M40 with intended prey in sight. That was me just a few weeks ago. If you had asked me, even one year before, if it were possible, I would have laughed out loud. Twenty years in law enforcement had left me a hard core law and order guy. But there I was, in Miami, Florida, preparing to kill a person, quickly and coldly, at a distance and with no warning whatsoever. I adjusted the cheek piece on the rifle stock and, through the scope, I intentionally focused on his throat instead of his chest. The situation was, in part, the result of my medical diagnosis six short months earlier.
Dr. Ernie King, my oncologist, didn’t mince words with me. He knew that I tolerated no deviation when it came to dealing with my illness. “Just tell it like it is” was the agreed-upon motto and Ernie respected that. “Jim, you have six months to live and maybe just a little longer. You won’t make it through to the New Year”, he intoned. My thinning legs dangled over the end of the examining table as his words banged around hard in my head. I answered slowly but straightforwardly in the way that friends do. The good doctor and I had that kind of relationship. “’Sounds strange at a time like this to say ‘thanks’, Ernie but I mean it sincerely. I can’t begin to tell you how much unfinished business needs doing before I’m through with this life.” He fiddled with his hanging stethoscope as I went on. “I will live each remaining moment with a certain satisfaction, thanks to your honest advice.” I meant every word of it.
Thanks to good drugs and doctoring, it had been a tolerable six months. All the things that needed doing were done. The things that needed saying had been said. My pain had been minimal until now but a new threshold was being met daily. Nevertheless, as I attempted lounging in leather in front of the TV one evening, any pain was quickly forgotten as I listened intently to the Dish Network news out of New York. Bill , the newscaster whose last name always escaped me, told millions of viewers, “O.J. Simpson has written a book titled ‘If I Did It.’, described by his publisher, Judith Regan, as a ‘tell all’ version of the murder of his wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Simpson will be interviewed about the book on Fox News this Thursday night, according to sources at Fox.” The news announcer’s twisted face and raised brow said it all. When he finished with the bizarre piece, he just shook his head from side to side. His sidekicks, the weather guy and the sports announcer, followed suit. Bill quickly signed off for the evening.
I began a rant. “That no good son of a bitch,” I shouted. “The butcher takes the life of his childrens’ mother and her friend, is acquitted by an excuse for a jury with the vision of Mr. Magoo and now wants to write a ‘confession’!” All of the dreaded damage to victims and their families that I had shared in my many years as a prosecutor seemed to hit me at once. Over the ten plus years since the O.J. verdict, I had seethed whenever the subject of the trial was broached. “That bastard has done more than any other single person to damage the criminal justice system in the U.S.A.”, I would respond. “And that lying fool-of-a-cop, Mark Furman, has left good juries wondering now whether they should believe decent cops’ testimony. It had always been the other way around before. Cops had nearly always been presumed to be telling the truth” , I would go on…and on. But in my chair, following the news that night, I became quiet and pensive. After a review of all of the gory evidence in my mind and finishing the last taste of Gentlemen Jack on the rocks, I made my most difficult decision ever. I would kill the heartless, shameless butcher myself. At this stage in my ebbing life, how much difference would it make? Instead of my legacy being that of a single plodding prosecutor, I would be remembered as the one person who brought “real justice” to bear in the case; not the joke of a dream team and certainly not Judge Lance Ito! Those who had watched the killer’s antics over the past ten years, mugging for cameras, golfing with the rich and famous, and not paying a dime of the $33,000,000 judgment in favor of Ron Goldman’s parents would laud my contribution. In the words of Goldman’s father, Fred, that I had only recently read somewhere, “I can’t stand to see Simpson around….he makes my skin crawl.” Well, worry no longer, Fred, I mused. I’m gonna take care of business. Postgraduate work for the prosecutor.
The next day I began planning my hunt. The internet was full of helpful morsels. By the end of the day I knew where he lived, most of his daily schedule and even the brand of vodka that he had been chugging down straight morning and night. As might be expected, the golf course was the key. He lived right next to the course whose members had banned him several years before for “undignified behavior.” However, it was reported that he would chip balls toward the course from the confines of his own back yard. My scheming went something like this: Instead of O.J. being out on the course and targeted there in the open, I would be on the course and target him on his own property! And why in hell did he own a multi-million dollar property anyway while still owing one his victim’s family thirty three million dollars on the judgment? My anticipation was growing.
Thanks to my late father, I had inherited an M40 Remington rifle with scope. The way he explained it, it was the least the Marine Corps could do for him after two miserable years in Korea. He had somehow smuggled it back home and it sat, untouched, for the next fifty years in his dusty garage attic. My sister had no interest in it when we emptied his home so I inherited by default. I had heard stories from Dad that the rifle was accurate at 800 yards but that was about all he ever said about it. I would find out for myself. Unlocking my bodega, I pulled the rifle off its wall rack by the sling and threw it in the car. Over the next three days I honed my skills in the Sierra Madre and discovered that Dad may have even been a little conservative in his assessment of the rifle’s accuracy. But how would I ever get it to Miami? Certainly not on a commercial flight!
That Monday morning and I was off for Miami. I bought a cheap Shasta RV from a friend in Chapala but I was confident, with only 44,000 miles on the odometer, that it would make it to Florida. There were no plans to bring it back. I shoved the Remington and the box of 7.62x51mm NATO rounds under the bed at the back of the RV and headed out of Jalisco. Fortunately, the waving immigration guys in Laredo never even peeked inside. I had been willing to take that chance. Arriving in Miami, I spent the weekend at the Mission Inn, about two miles from Simpson’s house. It would all go down on Monday, the quietest time on the golf course. I spent the weekend just driving around the neighborhood and setting up my itinerary for Monday morning. The plan was to go out to the putting range with only my putter and a full bag of Remington, covered with a golf sock, and just wander off from there into the woods across from the tenth green, about two hundred yards from Simpson’s back yard. And so, on a damp, humid Monday morning, my wet golf cleats digging into the pine needles that adjoined the rough, I arrived there, as planned.
I spent about an hour putzing around, trying to look busy for the benefit of the occasional foursomes passing by, before he appeared. True to reported form, he ambled out into his yard with a chipping iron and ball in hand. He was dressed in white shorts and sneakers and wore no shirt. He was still a muscled, light-skinned monster of a figure. I unsocked the Remington and pulled it out of my golf bag like a big three wood. My right eye met the scope as I carefully took in the periphery to limit risk of witnesses to the fury of justice at its purest. It was “The Juice” alright and I was anxious, to the point of shaking, to spill him. His throat was as clear through my scope as those Budweiser cans had been during my practice rounds in the Mexican mountains. Wasting no time at all, I rapidly squeezed off one round. That’s all it took. As the sound of the report rang in my ears, I saw Simpson grab at his throat and, flailing, fly backwards off his feet. Finally..Justice! No jury foreperson’s “guilty” had ever pushed the adrenaline through my veins like that. As I hastily dragged my golf cart away, I was euphoric. Oh, the killer would never play golf again with his celebrity buddies under the sunny skies of Jamaica. And he wouldn’t give Fred Goldman the creeps again either. My mouth was filled with a strange sweetness; the taste of the successful kill? My disease had been in apparent remission for days and not a thought of pain had entered my consciousness. I had been centered on a supreme vengeance. My old RV was on sale on consignment in Miami, Dad’s Winchester would go to the nearest swamp today and my plane ticket to Guadalajara was on the night table at the Mission Inn. There was no police chase. I slowly drove the rental car out in the boonies to dump the rifle and then drove on to my hotel without incident.
No, I didn’t awake in my leather chair in front of the TV. It wasn’t a dream; an expected conclusion to this kind of tale. Instead, I stood in Ajijic’s warm morning sun, just outside my bedroom door, and wondered aloud, Did I really do it? Is it possible that my giant step in the law really occurred just yesterday in the throes of my “retirement”? There was no trace of an airline ticket stub that I usually left in the kitchen and my luggage wasn’t still out in the living room. Everything was in its usual state except for the droning voice coming from the TV room. The only words that I could hear clearly over the neighbor’s weed wacker were “O.J. Simpson.” I hurried into the room to learn more………..
Ernie listened carefully to my story and considered referring me to a shrink, Dr. Goudet. The above version is the one that I related to Ernie during my visit. I ended it by telling him, “Doc, That’s how I killed O.J. Simpson, If I Did.” Ernie’s face broke the trace of a smile. He knew better than anyone that my death was imminent. “Jim,” he said quietly. “You just have to be hallucinating. There’s no other logical explanation.” Now it was a smirk. “This is what friends are for.” He handed me a script for Haldol and sent the Old Warrior for Justice on his way.
v
Michelle Rafter
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
From left: Doreen Dvorin, Alan Eggleston, Bill Hinchberger (photo credit David Willard), David Howard, and Walter Glenn
Not shown: Joanne Mason and Kent Oswald
This show came about in an unconventional way. Journalist Michelle V. Rafter had posted an open question on business network LinkedIn: "For freelancers, reporters and other non-fiction types: how do you write short?"
The answers she got were so impressive that we thought, "This would make a great show!" And it does. Michelle's commentary and her responders' tips comprise this brief but pithy podcast full of great techniques for "writing short."
Michelle Vranizan Rafter is a Portland, Oregon, freelance writer covering technology, workplace issues, and business. Her current clients include Inc. magazine's tech Web site, IncTechnology.com; Workforce Management ; and Oregon Business . She's written for The Los Angeles Times , The Chicago Tribune , The Industry Standard , Internet World , and Reuters, and was previously a staff writer at The Orange County Register . Rafter started a blog called WordCount in September 2007 to dish about freelance writing in the 21st century.
The other participants are:
Interviewee : Michelle
Rafter
Host : Paula
B.
Date : June 1,
2008
Running time: 34:22
File
size: 17 megabytes
Rating : G
Michelle Rafter's Web
site : Word
Count
Doreen Dvorin's Web site : CreativeHotlist.com/DDvorin
Alan Eggleston's Web
site : E-Messenger-Consulting.com
Walter Glenn's Web
site : WalterGlenn.com
Bill Hinchberger's Web site : BrazilMax.com
David Howard's Web site : Consultiq
Joanne Mason's Web site : JoanneMason.com
Kent Oswald's Web site : WhinyDad.com
