Harlem and the Bronx ( the making of Charlie Tee) #8

In this post I'm going to tell you a story about punctuation and why its important...

When I was in the seventh grade and in junior high school, like many youngsters I wanted to be with the "in crowd," the hip and cool guys, you know what I mean. Anyway, hanging with my buddies we would be notoriusly late for school almost routinely.
All of that came to a screeching halt when unbeknownst to me I got a letter at home telling my Mother that I was being very tardy and could be suspended.
What did my Mom do? She told my Dad. Now let me explain something that will help you to see the point of all this. Although my Mom and Dad were divorced when I was 7 years old, they remained best friends until my Dad passed away at 77 in the 1991. I mean the best of friends, they hung out together, we did family functions of all kinds, my Dad even gave my sister away at her wedding, so you get the picture.
Getting back to the letter from school, so Daddy gets this notice and decides to see just what young Charlie is up to.
My Dad was a New York city fire fighter, and that status allowed him to have shield ( a shield is a badge that city workers of that nature, such as policeman  wear, which allows access to places such as the subway etc.).
At the time, Mom and I lived in the south Bronx, and  through her connections at the District Attorney's office she fanagled a way for me to go to school out of my district, and go to the school near where we used to live (in the north Bronx...), so I had to take the subway to school each day. The distance in fact was roughly 10 miles, and a trip that should have taken me all of 20 minutes turned into and hour or so (you see where I'm going with this ?).What I didn't know as I boarded the train one day was that Dad had followed me down the stairs to be sure I was actually on the train. He then would drive to the stop where I exited, and would surveil my activity. This went on for about a week every day. Then he made his move, as I got off the train this particular day with my friends, all of us yelling and being completely stupid, we go to a diner to get food although most of us had already eaten breakfast, mostly junk. I come out and I hear HONK HONK HONK !!! Imagine my total surprise...It's my Pop, and he don't look none to happy. I get in the car and he says "so how long have been being late for school? " PANIC***I say oh Dad, this just happened today, I was running late...SWEATING*** He says, I've  been following you for a week!!! Surely I knew at that point death was imminent. Dad says "if you're late one more time, I'm going to come to school, come to your classroom, put you in front of the class, pull down your pants and whip you good. " I'VE NEVER BEEN LATE AGAIN TO THIS DAY.
You can ask anyone my wife, my bandmates, my boss, anyone. I learned a valuable lesson that day  about being punctual.
Nowadays when I'm going to play music somewhere, or I'm going to work, I make it my business to be on time, Why go to this trouble, because I've found that people will take you much more seriously when you don't waste their time. Even if you fail at something, it's more likely that you'll be given a second chance, because you made the effort.
I've seen many musicians and bands who make that mistake thinking that it's no big deal,only to find that the people that hire them start to take an indifferent attitude about dealing with them, thereby at times costing them gigs.
Now that's the shorter version of that story...
So my fellow travelers, take heed of the words here, it's not just the early bird who gets the worm, it's the bird who is the hungriest, and most timely, who makes the 20 minute trip in 20 minutes.

Be on time...Support Live music today tomorrow and always.