How I ENDED IN UTAH: An Experience -- Part 1

It started as a casual rib between myself and a good friend. He’d just gotten into college and I was still undecided about what to do. I was faced with several decisions “should I do community college, local in state college, or the military.” I had no clue.

He, on the other hand, had a life script detailing his entire career. It was his gospel. It was his law. It was his NRA creed “It’s going to work, or death.” And me not having a plan, was perceived as being one step away from a lifetime of “would you like fries with that burger?”

“Yo. I just got into Morgan.”
“Morgan, huh. Great school. Happy for ya bra.”
“Yeah. My people are happy as well.”
“Cool.”
“I’m gonna be up in Morgan like that Spike Lee joint. Doin’ tha Butt with all the freak honeys.”


We both laughed to the point that someone broke wind. I won’t mention names but it wasn’t him.


“I know you’ll make it happen. Just do you up at Morgan.”


I was happy and excited for him. We both defied the young black male statistical odds. No criminal records, constantly employed, two parent household, educated families, etc. We both resembled the modern educated black family with a strong blue-collar work ethic. The conversation was on the up and up, until, he struck the first blow. A horrific hip-hop rendition of a song that was dreadfully off-key. It almost made me bark.

“Morgan State. Morgan State.
Is so great. Is so great.
And I’m so great.
‘Cause I’m going to Morgan State.”



Twelve minutes. That’s right, twelve minutes of a Luther Vandross broken record gone terribly wrong. The song sounded like garbage mixed with horrifying bad-breath. Till this day, I thank god that he wasn’t multilingual and the breeze wasn’t blowing my direction.

I just wanted him to SHUT-UP. Instead of thinking it, Tourettes of the mouth took over and a lot more came out than just SHUT-UP. The look on his face was priceless. A look that obviously revealed he was not a happy camper. The boiling water had runneth over and someone had to get burnt. The ball was in his court to strike, so guess who was getting burnt.

“It’s like that, huh.”
“Like a flapjack son.”
“Let me ask you this Mr. Get All Loud. Where you going to school? Burger U. To study the art of the flip. Under professor Mc.D.”

For such a simple question, I had no witty comeback. I went brain dead. He knew the weak spot and crippled my sarcastic defenses.

“You know. I’m aahhh, planning on, ahhh. Doing that, what’s it face. That place on the, ahhh. Over by the number 20 stop. Across from the Weave Hut.”

I was reaching. Not for a clever come back, but for anything that would give me some type of conversational hope. I was down for the eight count, and it was only the second round. It didn’t look good.


“If you don’t know, you don’t know. Hey, my man. Can I have some bbq sauce with my mcnuggets. You must practice mop technique DanielSon. Left. Right.”
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
“Left. Dominate hand is strength. Right.”
“You got jokes.”
“Weaker had is guide. Left. Right.”
“Okay.”
“Power come from back. Left. Right.”
“Alright. Enough already. Do me this favor?”
“Yeah, what?”
“Tell your hairy knuckle mom, not to use too much starch on my uniform. Ethel knows how I do.”

I was back in the fight. I temporarily stunned him with a verbal jab. Instead of hitting him in the chest and knocking him back a little. I went a little below the belt. Real low with the whole mom joke. It raised the DEFCON level to 3.85.

“So you got mom jokes, right?”
“My bad.”
“Nah. Nah. That’s cool. I know what you about.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. But she does cut her nails with a hedge trimmer.”
“Mr. Funny Man.”
“Yo, I’m just playin’.”

I took the wind right out of his sail. I had his left, right. According to the judges table, I was up 2 rounds to 1.

“Challenge.”
“Yo, I was just playin’.”
“Nah. Challenge.”