Today HISD was off to Honor the Jewish Holiday Yon Kimmpur. It was a great day of just taking advantage of a Monday without work. I started the day by taking my dog ‘The great gatsby” to the groomer. Then swung through the drive through at Starbucks and got my iced soy mocha with no whip creame and a iced latte for my good friend Charles and 2 marble pound cakes. Charles also works for HISD at a Middle School as an Orchestra director. He is very involved in fine arts at a district, regional, and state level. He works at a middle school that is mostly all Upper Middle Class students and I work at a middle school that is all kids living in poverty. One of the greatest bonds we share is that our hearts are with our students regardless of their status.

We then drove out I-10 west which is like driving into the largest interstate mess in Houston do to it being under construction. We found our first stop after a few u turns and constant search of business fronts that are amidst the construction. Then we went to the Marque center and had lunch at Cafe Adobe (Mexican food usually not my first choice) then we went to the Edward’s theater to see the movie The Gridiron Gang.

This movie was amazing. My favorite movies always has football and kids that need direction. The movie was based on a true story of a Excollege football star that works in a Juvenile Detention Center and was fed up with the bureaucratic systems that often do not help students get back on the right path. He released a student from the detention center and learned that he was killed on the streets. I can relate with this because sometimes I am afraid the students I work with may fall as victims of gang violence. He focused extra attention on one the kids and remained determined to make him a successful man of character and rescue him for the life of the streets.

One amazing scene was when he and the student were sitting in an isolated jail cell discussing the pain of not forgiving their fathers for the pain they carry daily. It was amazing and moving. I do not want to share to many details and want to encourage you to see the movie. It reminded me that kids in Juvenile Detection are kids with great hearts and souls. It just takes someone with a great heart to tap into their intimate self to allow them to express their inner strength’s. This is the reason that I am a Social Worker. I am grateful to work with kids that are less privilidged.

One of the key lines from the movie I will paraphrase “some kids make bad choices or may show up to their prom drunk and they will be grounded or have their keys taken away from them….other kids make the wrong choice and someone gets killed in the parking lot and they end up in juvenile detention…”

Another way to look at life is like that freeway under contruction. We sometime make a wrong turn and have to find our way back to the freeway. Our lives have periods of time when it is under construction. We are always a work in progress. As we complete new task make a few u turns and build on our mistakes we become a greater person. Much like I-10 when the construction is completed it will be on of the largest freeways in the united states. Always embrace a persons challenges and help guide them back to the freeway or right direction. This can be a friend or family member that has fallen astray or a kid from the ghetto.