Chuck Murphree YA author has added “podcast” to his list of achievements. A visit to Barnes and Nobel on Friday, October 8th was exciting for me to see my son’s book on the shelves. Barnes and Nobel will set up an individual table display when his second book comes out in the winter. A signing will take place.
Why Everything That Makes Us Feel? In this episode, I wanted to talk about why I launched my first episode, “My Mother’s Voice,” interviewing my mother an 41:58August 3, 2021My Mother’s Voice On my debut episode, I sit down with my mother. She is eighty two years old, endured an abusive marriage, and is currently battling cancer.
I have multiple myeloma! I do not have a time factor, and no one knows the date or time of one’s death; thank goodness; MM can be one to ten years; there are three stages I am already in the last stage. Bone pain is a trademark symptom of multiple myeloma, and it’s common to feel it in the spine. I just today finished three months in a “Turtle Brace” because I broke my back in a fall on July 4th. MM is bone cancer. I also have anemia which keeps me tired, difficulty in walking any length of time. The MM makes it difficult to walk without pain and tiredness, even in short strolls. As the disease weakens your spinal bones, they lose the structural strength necessary to support your neck or back as well as they did before. The primary symptom of multiple myeloma is bone pain. Pain associated with multiple myeloma commonly affects the spine (backbone), ribcage, or hips and worsens movement. Severe, persistent pain in one location may indicate a bone fracture. I am on two types of pain medication, a slow-release and every four hours; without them, it may not be easy to tolerate the pain. I have so many projects, and I fear little time to complete them. I want to write a book that I have been taking notes on for years, and I also have painting projects. Most of my days spent resting or napping, and with that, I cannot sleep at night? I do have pills for that; they rarely work. Do, there is the update on me for now. Tomorrow is “chemo” day; I will be unable to post for several days following. Bear with me, please, and hopefully, the creative juices will begin to flow in a few days; a new poem, a story, a more happy post will follow. Have a great week and weekend to all.
I ran across this article today and thought it worth giving attention too. My garden is still graced with a flag that say’s “Black Lives Matter”! Is this still true, I hear less and less daily? The individual creating the BSU discussed in this post is my son Chuck Murphree. Chuck has moved on to another school where his “talent” in special education is needed, yet he continues to support the BSU students. Chuck is a YA author on mental health his first book, “Everything That Makes Us Feel”, and he has a second book coming out this winter, and already working on the third. I am very proud of him and believe that his work with the BSU should be continued by the teachers at the school. You can find Chuck’s books at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com and in most book stores throughout the United States and Europe.
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This was an excellent article…
We don’t fight with weapons; we fight with our voices’: Students create first Black Student Union at Waunakee High School
By Channel 3000 – Jan 21, 2020, 0
By Jamie Perez for Channel3000.com
Black students at Waunakee High School are hoping to ignite change or at least start a conversation.
About 20 students have helped create the school’s first Black Student Union (BSU). It all started with the special education teacher Chuck Murphree’s leadership.
Chuck Murphree said he started asking black students how they would like to form a BSU on campus. In October, his idea came to fruition.
Murphree said at; first, the meetings mainly were “A lot of community building, and getting to know each other. It was the first time they were able to sit down with other black students in the school. So that was powerful.”
Murphree said he wanted to create a non-judgmental space where students could learn by relating to one another. But when people look at Murphree, some are surprised that he was the person to take the lead on creating the group.
“Being a white man, somebody who is very aware of his own privilege in society, being able to sit with these young black people. For them to trust me, to pull me into those conversations, to hear their ideas on how we can change the school. To bring the awareness on how this needs to happen,” he said. “The first thing I said to them is, ‘How do you feel about a white man advising the Black Student Union?’ The kids said to me, ‘Mr. Murphree, who else is going to do it?’ It was as simple as that. It was the right thing to do, and the kids needed it.”
Murphree sits in on all the meetings, saying that he has already learned so much. He said other teachers are now expressing interest in coming to the sessions too.
“The district curriculum director recently contacted me about coming in and talking to the students about our curriculum and changing that so students of color can start seeing themselves in the curriculum,” Murphree said.
BSU members said the group’s point is to educate others, and they welcome people to just come to listen. “I just want first and foremost to educate and show younger students the representation of black people in power, black people making changes,” said a BSU member.
It is rare for two black students to be in the same classes together at Waunakee High School. The school doesn’t have any culture-based courses, so there isn’t much opportunity to learn about different people.
Having a BSU gives them that opportunity and provides black students a space to all sit in a room together for the first time.
The struggles black students face are often not understood by many of the other students at school who don’t relate to those same thoughts or feelings, like Martin Luther King Jr., to motivate the group can make a positive change without resorting to anger and violence.
“The things that we do daily are things that they could never even dream of,” that progress has already been made. But taking it a step further to dream even farther, and I don’t think they would want us to meet the goal and stop there.”
Murphree said he lets the students lead the conversations at BSU meetings and is happy to provide them a safe space to talk about matters.
“I’m really proud of these kids for what they’re doing, and I’m thankful for the administration too because they’re allowing us to keep moving forward with this,” Murphree said.
The BSU has already made a significant change in the school district. Murphree said because of the students’ desire to educate and change the curriculum to be more inclusive of black culture and black history, this will be the first year Waunakee High School will teach students about Black History Month.
Once fearless, spirit broken; Innocence no longer understanding the meaning of love. She writes upon an invisible page, while her Keepers spew words of rage. They held all of the treasures, her love, they never cared for her or the pain they gave.
Sorrow lingers in the twilight, while the tears of the Angels fall upon the earth, into the sea; remembering the beauty that once was and no longer can be. Quiet falls upon a sparkling shore; dreadful hours gone like a stormy wind in the night, as the Innocence soul takes its flight.
There will be no flowers covered by morning dew, darkness has left her spirit is free and new. What follows this perpetual fate, no tears, pain or hate; love no longer tossed away, earthly needs melted away; the Keepers heart remained evil until they took their last breath; Innocence is free with her death.
I sometimes picture myself being born in another time; I may sit for long periods of time letting my mind wander. My situation does not change much, I may be holding the bridle of a mule plowing fresh ground during planting time; if I find a piece of paper floating in the warm southern breeze, I chase it down. Maybe I can use it to write on, a bit of poetry or a short story about my life as a sharecropper’s daughter.
There is always proof somewhere in the scene that lets me know that I come from poor folk. I wear it like a suit of armor, it does not fail me. Like a pencil falling from my hand, I am brought back to the present, I am much older, much wiser, and mostly happy with where I am in life. I know that I will not see sixteen again, nor even thirty!
In my whole life, I only loved one boy, yes, a boy. A high school boy! That was before my life was turned upside down, he moved on with his life and at sixteen, I stood still. Was it love? I like to think so, of course, girls, women seem to fall into certain unclear slots of not knowing what they want. From farm girl to city girl before I had an adjustment to either. In those days the parents made the decisions, today the teens make their own decisions in most situations.
The mental health issues have not changed, just the teens are growing up much too fast. The schools, nor the parents fail to recognize that they are too far out of their comfort zone. The parents are allowing them to make decisions that are still being pondered by a much older age group; they are children making adult decisions. As parents, we are allowing them to do so, thus comes problems later in life.
When one of the great masters was dying his last words were “Sorrow will last forever”. That could be anyone’s epitaph as the eternal has its own laws.
The Last Chapter 