Everett Jenkins Birthday Blog

I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Thich Nhat Hanh over this past weekend. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/21/world/asia/thich-nhat-hanh-dead.html I was deeply saddened, and surprised, because I had planned on visiting his Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California, while I was on my recent MLK celebration/vacation in the San Diego area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_Park_Monastery However, I learned that to visit the monastery you have to schedule the visit in advance and you must commit to spending five hours to begin to learn how to properly meditate ... and how to properly walk.  I had not learned of these requirements in time to schedule a weekend "retreat" so I opted for an alternative spiritual journey to the Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Garden in Encinitas instead.  But that is another story. In any event, I had wanted to visit the monastery just so I could better understand the spiritual forces that shaped the man.  Each year, I p...

  It was with deep sadness that I heard and read about the passing of Sidney Poitier https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/movies/sidney-poitier-dead.html For me, as an African American coming of age in the 1960s and 1970s, the two great role models were Martin Luther King and Sidney Poitier.  Their racial integrationist philosophies were the ones that I adopted as my own, and are the philosophies which continue to guide me to this day. Over the next few days, I am sure that I will remember many of Mr. Poitier's roles.  However, the one that I am most attached to is his portrayal of a teacher in  To Sir with Love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Sir,_with_Love Later in life, I learned that this portrayal is based on the real life story of E. R. Braithwaite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._R._Braithwaite However, Poitier's portrayal of a black man who becomes the father figure for a class of predominantly white students was a remarkable statement in 1967, Yesterday, whil...

It is Christmas Eve and I am about to begin my Christmas tradition of watching Franco Zeffirelli's  Jesus of Nazareth .  However, before doing so, I wanted to note that there is much trouble in the world and one of the more troublesome places is Ethiopia.  Those familiar with what is going on there cry out for the horror to stop  ... but it does not.  There is not much I can do to change what is.  However, I will note that the Bay Area has a large Ethiopian community and sometimes, because of my height and skin coloration, even Ethiopians ask me if I am from Ethiopia.  Well, I am not, but during my life I have had cultural connections to Ethiopia.  One of the more recent cultural connections is through the Ethiopian born Meklit Hadero. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meklit_Hadero You can learn more about her through this NPR interview https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125120472 and you can glimpse her talent through her channeli...

A little over a week ago, there was the notice of the passing of "El Rey", Vicente Fernandez https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/12/arts/music/vicente-fernandez-dead.html I probably would have not paid much attention to this obituary, except that this notice reminded me of Felix Diaz, Tio Feco (see the email below).  I actually attended the memorial service for Felix Diaz.  I intended to speak but before I could get up to tell my high jump story, one of my Bell View Heights neighbors got up and told a story that dwarfed my own.  My Bell View Heights neighbor happened to be one of the best basketball players in the history of Victor Valley Senior High School.  However, his older brother was arguably the best.  To the best of my knowledge, Victorville has produced only one professional basketball player, and that was his brother. The two brothers starred at VVHS during the mid-1960s and everyone in the neighborhood idolized them. My Bell View Heights neighbor said tha...

  Over the weekend, the 2021 World Chess Championship reached a stunning conclusion with the World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway winning his fifth world title by demolishing the Russian challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi  7.5 games to 3.5.  The victory cements Carlsen's reputation as being the best chess player of all time.  He is certainly the highest rated (2882) of all time. You can read about the match at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2021 and you can read about the career of Carlsen at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen For me, what made this match particularly intriguing was that the sometimes three to four hour games were condensed into 30 minute replays with commentary by Maurice Ashley, the first "official" chess grandmaster.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ashley Ashley, whose siblings are professional fighters, made the chess games sound like boxing matches with Carlsen seeming to be a young Mike Tyson st...

According to NPR's The World, the best selling poet in the United States for the last twenty years is the Afghanistan born Sufi mystic, Rumi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi Rumi's poetry is filled with love and passion and it is spiritual. It is difficult to convey the feelings that it conveys, however, a recent musical offering from Shujaat Khan's This Pale begins to convey what is so important about the work of Rumi.  If you are wishing for a brief respite from this world, please listen to these selections and pause to meditate in the world of Rumi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oER4L2heyc0&list=RD29b_QKhqamo&index=3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkOH0dacov4&list=RD29b_QKhqamo&index=2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29b_QKhqamo&list=RD29b_QKhqamo&index=2 Peace, Everett "Skip" Jenkins Fairfield, California December 10, 2021

On yesterday's BBC World News, the remarkable artistry of Willard Wigan was profiled https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-30824816 Willard's artistry is more remarkable because it stems from his coping with certain learning "impairments"  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Wigan Seeing Willard's story brought to mind a similar story from a decade ago about another remarkable black savant, Stephen Wiltshire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Wiltshire and the extraordinary talent that his learning "impairment" brought him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlQIHEciRZI In this season of light, I thought it would be good to shed some light on these two individuals and the miracles that their lives have expressed. Peace, Everett "Skip" Jenkins Fairfield, California December 9, 2021