Back to Square One...

Reality Bytes: Back to Square One... and a very special daily dose of TMI

She will be loved... she already is.

26 years ago this week, a coordinated effort between the united states government, the Philadelphia police department and counterintelligence [interesting concept] conspired to carry out what could become one of the greatest massacres in us history.

The crime that won't go down.

West Philadelphia. Osage avenue. 11 people. 5 children. One survivor.

People can not understand my deep connection to the people who died that day or the families that stayed behind hoping that the people if this nation would rebuild their homes after using extraordinary to means to silence the voice of a man who believed in the right to be free.

Vincent Leaphart was a voice to be reckoned with.

A voice that sounded just a little like my own. a little bit radical and a
whole lot misunderstood. He was a voice that needed to be heard because he
was ordered to be silenced.

The Powers That Beat.

When the United States failed to convict him in 1978, "the people" did not rest their case.

They just changed the rules of the game, and I know them all too well. I am, in every sense of the word a Co Intel PRO.

I was 12 years old at the time.

Something was brewing.

I was living in an upper middle class suburban neighborhood outside of Philadelphia. Bucks County, PA.

My father, a well spoken, well educated, well respected member of the international community took me into the dressing room between the the closet to show me where to get the guns.

Extra bullets (and guns) were in a bucket in the basement. Just under the stairs in where there was limited light from the small basement windows. Not enough space for an adult, but I was young and flexible and had just enough space to move about freely.

He stood behind me with his arms on tops of my own and held my hands together. The whole time correcting my posture and my stance using the force of his arms and his grip around my arms and my body as i held the gun with both hands.

It was probably one of the few times i remember him being so close to me physically. his rested on top of mine adding additional pressure demanding a calm, steady and calculated response.

I was trained. to stay calm, and stay in control as the helicopters began to take position over the city of brotherly love.

I learned how to stay calm in and around a fucking god damned massacre.

Marksman first class.

you don't just aim, fire, and hope for the best. you shoot to kill.

he had his arms around me to exert his position and to steady the gun should i falter, should i flinch. so he could stand behind me and watch me take aim. suburban KID and i already knew how to shoot a gun, how many twelve year-olds can say that?

so next time, boys, i won't be calling you. besides, from what i can tell you keep me pretty close under the radar.

so when see the car parked outside my window for four hours at a time, i may stutter, i may fall, but like father like daughter, i WILL come around.

"There are people who love me. They may not have met me yet, or they may have forgotten me by now, but they love me."