Good morning from New York City. Today I have birthdays on my mind a little bit because the month of May has always been a celebratory month in my family. My brother Randall’s birthday is May 12th. My cousin Carla is May19th. My father Ronald May 20th, and I’m May 21st.

I’d like to talk about my father today but every time I go to do so I get teary eyed, but I want to try not to cry because I really want to honor him and tell you a little bit about him. This podcast is very much an ode to my mother and father, but in particular to my father. My father was a very special cat. He was extremely loving and joyful a lot of the time. I am who I am basically because of my father. He taught me so much – a little bit I think because he was a wise man, but also because I was the youngest child . Having had four children at a young age, he had to hustle. By the time I was growing up, he had more or less made it. I think it’s fair to say he was pretty high strung. He had undiagnosed ADD or ADHD. I don’t even know if we knew what that was back in the day. All this to say, I got the very best of my father because everybody moved away and he was a little more settled. He was more in his skin and had sort of come into his own.

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