Train of Thought

Some people are incorrigible. As a matter of fact, I'm a firm believer that millions of our tax dollars are blown out the window on hopelessness. I've been termed a Conservative by my Liberal friends for espousing this view unapologetically even though my entire adult life has been spent in Human Services-type jobs. We have an inability, or unwillingness, as a society to look at certain dire situations and treat them accordingly.

In the time that I have my players I try to impart many life lessons on them, mainly directives I received from my parents years ago. For instance, as I'm writing this blog, I can almost hear my mother's voice imploring me to "plan ahead because responsibile adults are required to do so." She would always tell me that people will only take me as seriously as I demand them to. In other words, if I behave irresponsibly, it shouldn't come as a surprise when people treat me like an idiot.

Thuglife has been with me for two seasons. Unlike many of my players, he receives a great deal of support from his extended family. His father passed away when he was just 4 years old, and his mother has struggled with a drug habit for many years. In response, his aunts and uncles have gone above and beyond to support him throughout his life thus far. Through high school, for example, he lived with his aunt in a beautiful home located in a suburban town.

While Thuglife's extended family has attempted to show him differently, he continues to find his way back to his mother who lives in the projects. Instead of asking his sister for money, or the countless other aunts and uncles who routinely offer help, he feels far more comfortable asking his mother for her food stamps. Similarly, even though I continue to tell him to ask me for help with his writing assignments, he'd rather broker "deals" with his Professors so he could avoid assignments altogether.

Yesterday, he was supposed to play in his last regular season game here. Unfortunately that did not occur because he missed the team bus. Today, I saw him and asked what happened.

Me: Where were you yesterday? You do know we were supposed to leave at 4:45, right?
Thuglife: I know. I tried to get here, but couldn't.
Me: What happened?
Thuglife: You know how I was in Boston, right. I took the 3 p.m. train from there and it was supposed to get here at 4:10, but it got in at 4:30. When I got there, I took a cab to the school.
Me: The train station is five minutes away from here. You had fifteen minutes to get here.
Thuglife: Since I didn't have enough money I had to get out the cab halfway and try to get on a bus.
Me: And you expected to do all that and get back to campus on time?
Thuglife: What else was I supposed to do???
Me: So the 3 p.m. train was the only one coming out of Boston?

This is the same character who fell into an apartment the day before classes started because I put up a post on facebook (even though he has an account as well) asking for leads on places in the area as a last ditch effort since he couldn't find an apartment on his own.