Please Excuse My Hands

Everyday I bike through Daytona Beach purposefully. I run home, to school, to the church, to a friend’s place, to the grocery store, where ever I need to go. I hop on my bike and go. As I bike I hear males call out to me. I may be wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt but I never fail to hear “aye red.” I had long since dismissed it and decided that black men in Daytona were dead beats who didn’t go anywhere, just looked around to see who they may victimize. But the other day I was biking home from the movie theater and I was speaking as I usually did but I noticed each person was answering and not rudely. They simply nodded or said hello. It was a route of polite and good mannered people. I was impressed. I wondered why not all of Daytona was this way. Then I realized usually the other areas I bike through are younger than the people I biked by this day. I wondered why they did not teach younger Daytona the lessons of respect they so clearly demonstrated. I wished so very badly that they would have fulfilled their duty in that way. But this is a “Please Excuse my Hands” generation. No R-E-S-P-E-C-T.