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I am playing the guitar and now singing because it brings me joy. I am 62, I’ve raised two kids, at the age of retirement, become a caregiver for a wife that had a brain tumor removed right after she retired after 34 years in the government. During COVID when the world shut down, I rediscovered the guitar.
I have always had one. Always wanted to play it to a high level. But it seemed unimportant, just another wone of the things I didn’t. And I did a lot. I am a former federal police officer and firearms trainer. I took my love of teaching, to become an international figure called the black man with a gun from 1991 on. I worked with the NRA, and all the other gun org to include more diversity in the shooting sports and culture. I was successful. But it didn’t make me happy. I used to shoot very well. Very well. But the gun culture is funny. I spent too much time chasing influencers and paying my dues in hopes of being compensated. This was all before google, Facebook and YouTube by the way. By the time this took off, I was beat down, tired, angry and disgusted. I had been a part of a 90% of all landmark decisions involving gun control since 1991. I had also been the ego to guy after a mass shooting or law enforcement shooting incident involving a black person. As a calming voice, a reasonable response to the loss of life and defense of an institution. And then jealousy hit. With the rise of YouTube and Instagram stars in the gun world that did in a few months what had took years for me to do, I knew my time was done. The vehicle for most of my advocacy and post activism travel was podcasting.
I discovered it in 2007 with the creation of the Urban Shooter Podcast. It changed named as handful of time, eventually becoming the black man with a gun show. It carried the mail. The only thing I wanted to do more than play the guitar as a kid was be on the radio. I learned as an adult how difficult broadcasting was to sustain. I have family. I have responsibilities. I couldn’t rely on the fickleness of an audience to mess with those things. Podcasting was very good to me. I got my message out. I endorsed and interviewed folks I had met on my road trips around the country defending the right to keep and bear arms and even had a boat load of sponsors over the years. When the sponsorship river dried up, I knew it was time to pivot. To transition, to do something else.
The world changed. I changed. My kids graduated college; bills were due. And I wasn’t getting any younger.
Did I tell you I was also a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Oh yeah. This pistol packing preacher, accepted the call into ministry right before 9/11. I was constantly catching hell for it by older Christians. I ministered to men like me. Law enforcement, veterans, active-duty military, outdoorsman, motorcycle enthusiast and gun owners. It was a calling. I didn’t really enjoy any of it. I am afraid of God and not much else. I was called to pastor a tiny church in the Nations Capital, a bad neighbor with an equally bad congregation of aged elitist and accomplished seniors that really didn’t know what they wanted or needed. Church was an extension of their social platform. There I continued until I couldn’t take it anymore. I resigned after seven years with them. Like a blues song, hard luck and trouble followed.
One of the things that helped me was playing the guitar. We hired a organist/piano player that made more than I did each Sunday. The church believed to keep your pastor poor was to make him humble. Anyway, after a few great conversations, after worship, I found out that he played with many great R&B and soul stars when they came to town. I told him of my desire to play and he encouraged me to bring my guitar in after service next week. I had recently acquired an ameican Stratocaster from a trade of a Kimber 45 pistol I no longer wanted. The guitar inspired me. It motivated me. It woke a love the blues and a desire I didn’t realize I had. Brother Calvin played and helped me learn about accompanying. I didn’t know keys, notes or chords but my ear training started then. But when I quit being the pastor, so did my music dream.
I lost my job as a government contractor and was unemployed for two years. I was walking with a cane because of sciatica. When I finally found work it was as a security guard. It was a step backwards for a guy that had protected a president and high-ranking government officials, but it is what it was.
I made it through that season and got a job back in the government. I was looking forward to retirement. I had no idea what that was going to look like though as I turned 56. My wife is older than I so she was making moves. She had been rock solid in here job and was counting the days.
She was starting to be more disagreeable than usual and I was wondering if I even wanted to stick around after we retired. I could do bad by myself. I resigned to suck it up because I had did worse things during our 30 plus years and she had stayed with me. I wouldn’t have stayed with me in truth. But then COVID hit. The world didn’t know what to do. While at home I picked up a guitar. It just felt like the right thing. I practiced during those viritual meetings. I practiced whenever I was conscience. I had amassed a ton of reference how tos over years. I had everything from mel bays, floppy records, cassette tapes, instructional vcr videos, DVD and mp3s. My wife retired. We had one good weekend together before she started showing symptoms. Her headaches got worse. She didn’t feel well. I was dreaming of moving out of the Washington DC area, to somewhere with a beach. It didn’t happen.
She was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It wasn’t cancer but it might as well have been. Our lives have not been the same. That was 4 years ago. She has survived 3 more brain surgeries, and kidney stone removal.
I am grieving the loss of how things used to be and how they could be. I got a new job to pay for the health aide and all the crap that is needed for home care. I am officially a caregiver and it sucks. If you ever want to get your mind right, go and visit a nursing home. Go see how the elderly are warehoused and forgotten. Go hear the decay, the pain, the loneliness, and the smells of humanity. It doesn’t matter how much money you had, if you are all alone in a stinking hospital like room because that is where your family put you. They couldn’t handle it. So they left you with the non- caring, immigrant workers that work these places.
Depression hit.
