How did I get so goofy?

My daughter is learning about NATURE VS. NURTURE in school and it got me thinking...Why am I so goofy? Was I just born this way or can I blame my parents?

I think it must be half and half. I was certainly born with a "unique" personality, and I'm sure much of my "self" was formed by my environment and upbringing.

The photo on the left is the last photo I took with my grams. I do wish I hadn't been "actin da foo" but if you look at my life I guess it was appropriate for me. ; )

I think many times I deal with the stressors of life simply by making a funny face and laughing at myself. I guess that can be a two-edged sword. My parents never really tried to change me...other than sending me to the bathroom to compose myself during dinner. Each of my children have their own very unique personalities, but I can sure tell I've raised them by their mouths!

The Strength of a Woman

Rosa Parks - a seamstress living in the deep south decided she shouldn't have to give up her good seat on the bus for a white man. When the bus driver told her to move for the white man standing over her, she said, "NO." Imagine how much courage that must have taken. Imagine how fast her heart must have been beating. I can hardly imagine what she must have felt sitting in her seat as the bus driver became enraged at her rebellion.

On Montgomery buses, the first four rows were reserved for whites. The rear was for blacks, who made up more than 75 percent of the bus system's riders. Blacks could sit in the middle rows until those seats were needed by whites. Then the blacks had to move to seats in the rear, stand or, if there was no room, leave the bus. Even getting on the bus presented hurdles: If whites were already sitting in the front, blacks could board to pay the fare but then they had to disembark and re-enter through the rear door.

Let's go back to 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama.

"I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down." -Rosa Parks

• Aug 1955: Emmett Till, 14, from Chicago, is murdered and mutilated while on vacation in Mississippi - Two white men were acquitted of murder by an all-white jury.
• Nearly 5,000 black Americans were lynched in the US between 1880 and 1960
• In a landmark decision in 1954, Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and ordered the integration of southern institutions with "all deliberate speed," a directive that met with virulent hostility from many white southerners who occasionally turned to violence as a means of resisting the desegregation process. (Imagine the atmosphere after this decision was handed down)
• In many southern states, everything was segregated.
• Blacks were not permitted to vote.
  

Blacks had suffered at the hands of whites and I'm sure these stories were passed down from generation to generation. After 1890, mobs usually subjected their black victims to sadistic tortures that included burnings, dismemberment, being dragged to death behind carts, and horribly prolonged suffering. Tickets were sold to attend lynchings and white families brought their children to watch the torture and death of blacks by lynching.

By simply refusing to give up her seat, Rosa Parks single handedly began the civil rights movement. The events that began on that bus in the winter of 1955 captivated the nation and transformed a 26-year-old preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. into a major civil rights leader. The actions of this little lady who was a giant of strength eventually led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Montgomery Bus Boycott officially started on December 1, 1955 and was a day that all blacks all over Alabama decided that they would boycott all of the buses until they could sit anywhere they wanted. On November 13th 1956 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal court's ruling, declaring segregation unconstitutional.

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I began thinking about Rosa Parks the other day when I was pondering how strong women can be. God has created women with an uncanny ability to dig up an inner strength that is unimaginable to most.

I've watched my mother suffer with an illness that could've stripped her life from her. But she refused to give up her seat.

I tell my daughters that they can accomplish ANYTHING if they set their female will towards it. I strongly believe this to be true.