Heroes

What do you want to be when you grow up? This is a question that was asked quite frequently naturally when I was growing up. The question morphed from, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" to "What do you want to be when you graduate college?" My answers morphed from police officer, to NFL player, to rich. My answer has changed again. I'm older, but I'm not grown just yet so I still have some aspirations. I want to be as powerful with the words and cast an intimidating shadow just like Malcolm X did. A man whose rhetoric was just as profound as it was powerful. I want to be powerful with images as Gordon Parks and use visual imagery to show problems in the world while also using the same vessel to show the world's beauty. I want to be as powerful as Jimi Hendrix was with a guitar and microphone. This man's music transformed and transfixed a generation. He added a beautiful sound to the world while elsewhere there was so much being taken away. I want to be as powerful as Lenard Smith, Sr. and Joanne Smith, two individuals whose words of wisdom and encouragement and images of a time just as present today as it was 50 years ago have shaped my life. I can have people that will be heroes and I may eclipse them as far as fame, notoriety, finances, etc. go but I will never be as great as my parents. To endure the struggles of all three of the above mentioned individuals all without the support of the Nation of Islam, Time magazine, and the rest of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. They endured and have shown me a few things about life and its lessons. Lessons which I will without a doubt pass onto my children and my children's children. With Malcolm, Gordon, and Jimi it seemingly took their passing to prove how important they were--I won't make the same mistake. I appreciate my parents more now than ever, it's a shame that it took over 20 years for me to do so. While I can't make up for lost time I can make as powerful an impact on my parents as they have made on me.