Haunted by Words

So I remember one of the things that I think hurt the most when I was a kid was always want to play baseball. And I remember wanting to try out. And I was told that I couldn’t. I was my father just suggested that it wasn’t a good idea. And that was something that I think hurt because I thought up to that point, that was probably the first time I was told that I couldn’t do anything.

Another challenge I think for me was he always came down on me he would say I was always on page 27 a Batman comic books so to speak. But reading was very important to me. The imagination and creativity definitely got me to where I am today. Making a living running my own company. I think that was something important.

So I came from a family of entrepreneurs. My grandfather opened up his funeral home 1947, which my father took over. My father had two funeral homes when he can fill Pennsylvania and one in your springs, Pennsylvania. My grandfather had a print shop and I think a hand and my uncle’s security company.

So I would think looking back, that my father should have had a better sense of how creativity fits into entrepreneurship than I think, just you know, accusing me of those type of things. I remember he always thought I was selfish to which is ironic considering the amount of time they’ve put into nonprofit work over the last 20 years or so.

You know, getting started in nonprofit work was something very simple. I was invited to the Bowery street mission to do a day of service. I remember my friend Don Shin went as well. At one point, I did date with him. I did day with Dr. Kraft my employer that got me started and then her just preparing meals for the homeless.

And then I went to Zambia, twice Kenya twice South Africa once working with orphans and started helping the homeless in Los Angeles. So I think, you know, and I’d spent three weeks a year there, prepping food and registering people that came in for services, that kind of thing. So keeping a log of that, so to kind of look back at being accused of being selfish and accused of having my head buried in a comic book that’s hard.

It’s not like a pity fast. It’s just looking back ultimately at those things that were said to me, because words do have power for life and death. Not all mentally who I turned out to be