Interesting!!

I have enjoyed my three-day weekend, even though I did not do much.

I spent all day Saturday at a CPR/AED/First Aid course I am required to take in order to continue with the Central OK REACT team. We are required to keep our certifications up-to-date and, since I was available to take the course, I went ahead and took it. The certification is good for two years. One of our REACT team members is a certified instructor, so several of us just attended a class he had scheduled for workers at a day-care center. That evening, Karla and Gayla went to a Thunder basketball game, so I had an open evening. I just relaxed and watched football.

I spent most of my Sunday at church. I did spend two hours at home after church, but I had to be back to church for a meeting at 3 pm....and instead of driving all the way back home after the meeting, I just stayed at the church. I also had a Sunday School teacher's meeting after the evening service, so I did not get away from the church until 7:30 pm.

Since Monday was going to be a holiday and I was going to be off work, I decided to go ahead and ride with one of my REACT team members after church and do some courtesy patrolling. It's something new our REACT team is doing. We spend 3-4 hours on certain nights, travelling the interstates, looking for motorists sitting on the side of the interstate with their emergency flashers on. We always travel in pairs for safety. We went out Sunday evening for around 4 hours, but only stopped 4 or 5 times. I made it home by 11:30 pm.

Today was Martin Luther King Jr's. birthday. For the first time ever, I went downtown and watched the parade. I was highly disappointed. If anyone ever wondered if there were still racial issues in today's society, all they had to do was attend this parade and they would have their answers. While I assumed the parade would be all about Martin Luther King Jr and all he had done for civil rights, it was more of a parade for those to publicize their political beliefs.

There were Obama supporters in several vehicles chanting, "four more years...four more years," the NAACP had several floats, the democratic party had several floats, the gay and Lesbian pride group had two floats, a church promoting gay Christians had a float and the ACLU had two floats. This wasn't a parade promoting unity, it was a parade discriminating against Christians and promoting liberal politics. I don't think MLK would have been proud of what was done today. In his name, hate, politics and racial tension were spewed throughout the parade.

I really enjoyed the bands and all the children that participated in the bands and flag corps. There were many aspects of the parade I liked, but I was highly disappointed in the racial connotations that were displayed in the parade. I did feel somewhat out of place, since there were very few whites attending the parade. Most of the people I came in contact with were nice, but several just snubbed their noses at me. So yes, the racial tensions are still very high, but the fault does not lie with the Caucasian people. That was proven today.

www.centralokreact.org