Black History kick-off..

February is here and it brings with it the so-called “Black History” celebration time, which is definitely important and a beautiful thing. Me being black, I like to think I celebrate it every day, every month but since this is the official time of the year, I want to kick things off with my own celebration and tribute. I’m hoping one of these years I’ll be able to celebrate with the relase of my much delayed epic novel, Until Again which should’ve been out this month but nevertheless, its on the way.. *smile* Be that as it may and without further delay, I want to honor someone who to me is worthy of a black history tribute/celebration trophy for his accomplishments and for representing himself as a multi-faceted black man. Perhaps he’s not famous to the average Joe and Jenny on the street but he’s known by friends and family. He’s known by teachers, scholars, and students. He’s known in the hood, the country, and the classrooms. He’s blessed by his two beautiful children, which he plays an extremely active role in raising them. No doubt his son and daugther will be amazing individuals when they grow up. I’ve admired this dude since the day we met on his home turf in Memphis, Tennessee so I write this little tribute with a smile on my face. His name is Torrance Stephens.

You ever meet someone in life that instantly reminds you of family? You ever meet someone who you just want to sit and listen to because you instantly respect that person? You ever meet someone who no matter their age, you feel like this is someone to look up to like an older sibling? You ever meet someone who is so cool and down to earth, you wish them nothing but happiness and success no matter how much time passes before you see them again? Thanks to the internet, I can check on what’s going on in the prolific mind of this brotha because he’s probably got the best blog (http://rawdawgb.blogspot.com/) in the internet hemisphere… You’re always sure to learn something, be inspired, forced to think, and entertained all at the same time. I always imagined that if you peel open this man’s mind and stretched out every thought and piece of knowledge inside, it would probably wrap around planet earth several times. He’s got the street intelligence, the country boy work ethic and the intellectual scholar ingredients that would make anyone envious but he’d never have you feeling that way because he’s cool like that. My admiration is endless. I mean, my man Torrance has traveled to other countries to speak to folks on behavioral sciences and health education, written countless articles and chapters on some very serious issues like AIDS/HIV and other infectious diseases but he's still a country boy and a father which means you'll find him coaching his son in life and athletics all the while finding time to eat some stew that's got ingredients like pork, possum, rabbit and squirrel in the mix. *smile* Besides all that, he's also an author of some very deep stories like "Fast And Gamin," "Butter Brown," "For U Who Left Me While I Slept," "Matter Of Attention," and "Rockstar, Stud, Gigolo." What? A scholar writing books with titles like that? Yeah, 'cause he's cool like that so dig beneath the titles and see what he's talking about. You can check those out at www.BBOTW.com Here's a quote that shines a little light on the man as an author....

"In the tradition of Iceberg Slim, his work carries the immediacy of corner stoop storytelling but is that rare creation--African American oral tradition in a literary form." LISA RICHARDSON- LOS ANGELES TIMES

Anyway, I wanna send a sincere shout-out to Torrance Stephens PhD, rawdawg buffalo as I kick-off Black History month on Super Bowl Sunday to salute this good dude... Peace and continued blessings...