THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART

i can't believe i've been remiss to go half the day without writing this post.

my friends and coworkers have often accused me of being able to turn any conversation or situation into a political one. now i've been very conscious to keep this blog strictly about the journey to Ironman, but if you're interested in the journey, you gotta know a little about what makes me, well, me. nothing incenses me more than the apathy that my generation has been stamped with. those same friends ask me, "why do you have to turn EVERYTHING into a political battle? why do you care so much whether i vote or not?" i bet they're delighted that all i have to talk about now is my Ironman training and am too tired to put up a fight about much of anything else these days. and so my answer to them is this...

my grandparents, George and Lucy Morant

just 3 years shy of my birth, my very own grandparents, whom i never had the privilege to know, COULD NOT LEGALLY VOTE. my grandfather, who could neither read nor write, knew that he wanted, THAT HE NEEDED THAT VOTE if he was to live with any sort of true purpose and dignity. my grandmother, who had 3 different cancers before she finally passed because no black hospitals in the south had the resources to care for her, knew that for the sake of her children and grandchildren, SHE NEEDED THAT VOTE. so to those who ask, i say it would be dishonoring their memory to sit back and be complacent, to not take part in my government. i remind them that we're talking about less than 50 years ago that i would not have had the right to vote in the very same country in which i was born.











i have fond memories of sitting in my aunt's living room as a young child as she played her special edition Life Magazine vinyl recording of Reverend Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. it gave me chills, and no matter where i am or how many times i hear that speech, i will always get chills. The Reverend King had a way about him, a gentle and peaceful way when necessary, a stern way at other times, a delivery and a presence like no other. that voice and the way words rolled off his tongue can do nothing but inspire. there's a line in the speech "from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire," that peaked my curiosity for some reason. i'd never heard the word "prodigious" before, so my aunt got her big heavy dictionary off the shelf, and we looked it up. "remarkably or impressively great in extent, size, or degree. he means, there are abundant hills or large, impressive hills in the State of New Hampshire," my aunt explained.


from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire
in 2006, i finally made it to New Hampshire to compete in my first half ironman at Timberman on my 35th birthday. you gotta love a race who's motto is "live free and tri." i recall being overwhelmed at the expanse of green everywhere, the trees that blanketed every square inch of land, nothing like the desert terrain or even the Sierra Mountain range i'm accustomed to seeing here in California. after the race i took the opportunity to drive just about the entire state from the the coast in Portsmouth all the way to the White Mountains, and i hadn't forgotten that line. there i was amongst those prodigious hilltops that the Reverend King spoke so fervently of on that day in Washington DC. it gave me chills....

so thank you Reverend King, thank you for having a dream, and not just for black folks, but for all mankind. i wonder what you'd think, what my grandparents would think of us now as we face the very strong likelihood that our next president may very well be a Black Man or a Woman. would you say that we have surpassed your dream or would you say we still have further to go??