Down a little, and I played good poker

Well my bankroll is down $40 for the night, but not due to playing poorly.

A member of pokerfox/pocketfives setup a charity tournament on UB tonight with 100% of rake going to a good cause. The tourney was $10+$10, and went to the charity [url="www.thetourchfoundation.org"]The Torch Foundation[/url] that benefits under privileged (read = poor, limited family structure) inner city youths. I grew up in this environment (I may have posted a little before) and can really appreciate the situations and force at work on these kids.

Every kid needs some sort of guidance and rolemodel, and if their parents aren't going to provide it the community should try to assist. Ultimately the lack of a role model will have an adverse affect on the community, and the presence of one will pay itself forward. At least that's my excuse for making a donation. I know without the community rolemodels that I had my life would have turned out tragic. (note: My mother was a great rolemodel but sometimes we ignore the things that are right before our faces and don't notice until we grow wiser)

Anyhow, I decided to contribute another small donation of 5% of my bankroll. It wasn't much but in the end its all the small donations that add up and help. I did play a short session and made a couple of $'s, so that offset my donation a little. I had committed to donating 50% of any winnings from the tournament to the charity also, but it wasn't meant to be. I busted out 36th of 49.

Anyway I encourage you to check out this charity and make a donation if you are able. Or look for a similar charity in you community. Ultimately it will make a difference. If you affect one child's life in a positive way, it might be enough to help them over come their environment, and in turn the may help influence other children when they can.

I remember all the strangers who helped my family when I was growing up. The social workers, church members, strangers, all of them and appreciate every bit of it. Try to make a difference when you can.

I could write a book about my experiences growing up, and I am sure some would find it difficult to believe. I will save you from that, since this is my poker bloc but I will include one small story.

I grew up in a house with 4 brothers, I was the oldest child. My youngest brother is 8 years younger than me. My father turned out to be irresponsible and abandoned my family. My two youngest brothers had a "father" who was only a couple years removed from Vietnam, and became a sever drug addict/alcoholic. My mother was alcohol an drug free (even today she doesn't drink). My new stepfather would often go into drug induced rages destroying the house, threatening my mother and telling us how he could kill us all and get away with it. He would often pass out and I would hide his drugs or drink, hoping that he would stop.

My family never had a car until I was 15 years old. We relied strictly on the public transportation system, or walking. Often my mother would have to weigh walking against paying bus fairs for me and my 4 brothers. We lived in an inner city neighborhood, and walking was always a scary experience. We were threatened several times while walking because we were "honkies" in the wrong neighborhood (prejudice goes multiple ways).

Being poor and on welfare (because of the loser men in my moms life, and lack of child support, babysitting assistance, and transportation) we barely had enough $ every month to pay bills and survive on. A typical meal was either beans, or bologna, the occasional fish caught in the contaminated river by my drunk stepfather while he was fishing (or more likely huffing toluol), and more times than I remember we went to bed hungry.

At that time we had a children's museum in town that had free admission. We actually went to the park and the children's museum a lot with my mom. I have no memories of ever going anyplace with my father or stepfather. The children's museum was about 4 miles from our home.

Anyway, on one occasion my stepfather was of on a tirade. My mother thought it best that we leave the house and get away. The problem was it was raining, and one of the places my mom normally took us was the park to get away. My mom opted to take us to the museum where we could at least be dry once we got inside. Mind you I am the oldest child I was probably about 10 years old at the time, putting my youngest brother at 2 with 3 brothers spread between us.

I will never forget what happened that day as we walked in the rain to the museum. A middle aged man pulled over and stopped my mother (who was just about 29 at the time), my mom was always leary of people stopping. Most probably had perverse ideas. This man was however dress very nice, wearing slacks and a tie with a long sleeve shirt. (looking back I think he was probably an attorney or some other type of professional, since we were walking along one of the main thoroughfares in town) He introduced himself, and asked if he could give us a ride. My mom declined surely b/c she didn't want to get into a situation. The man had asked where we were going, and I chimed in the children's museum, which was now only about 2 blocks away.

The man asked my mom if he could give her a little money to spend on "the kids" and she reluctantly accepted, and he handed her a folded up dollar bill. He told us to have fun at the museum and turned around and got back in his car. When he drove off my mom told me that he had given her a $100 bill. Mind you that my mom only received $420 per month from welfare and our rent was $280 per month. I was well aware of our financial situation at this point in my life.

$100 was huge, unbelievable. In fact it was the first time in my life that I had ever seen a $100 bill. My mom could have taken that money and applied it to whatever bill, bus fare, grocery that she needed. She ended up taking us to the children's museum and letting us buy like $5 worth of junk from the gift shop. When we left the museum we walked to McDonald's which was probably only the 6th time in my life that I had been there and bought us dinner.

I'm sure she used the remainder of the cash toward groceries or some other necessity. At that point it didn't matter. That man, a stranger, stepped into our lives and made it just a little brighter that day. I will never forget that experience or countless others of similar significance. The only reason I am sharing this story is to let you know that sometimes when you help someone less fortunate than yourself it might impact them more than is obvious. I am sure that guy knew that the money he gave my mom would help us, but in the end it helped brighten that terrible and rainy day and help some child to forget about the situation they were trying to escape.

That mans goodwill has been paid forward on several occasions. I have been fortunate enough to been able to be able to provide a small amount of cash to women I have seen alone taking care of their children and otherwise might look overwhelmed or down on their fortune.

If $50 means the difference from riding a bus for 2-3 hours to get across town and taking a cab and arriving in 30 mins, I'm glad I could help. If it means being able to take their kids to McDonald's, I'm glad I could help. There are so many little things that you can do to help, why not give a little. I'm not advocating going out and passing $ out to strangers, I've only done it a couple of times. Giving to a worthy charity can make the same impact.

A little fast forward. My mom ended up going to college when I was old enough to watch my younger brothers (I was about 13). She busted her ass taking care of us working a fulltime 3rd shift job and graduated with a 4.0 GPA. We packed up and left my stepfather with no fowarding address. My mom worked her way up through the ranks of the IT industry and now works for herself. Once I got older and pulled my head out of my ass, I followed her lead and graduated with a 3.93 GPA despite a lot of obstacles. In the end we were fortunate to receive the assistance that we did from our community. Give back to yours!

I didn't mean to run through so many tangents, but I hope I was able to get my point made. If you are fortunate enough to have the means to help others please do, in the end it will make a difference and pay dividends for many generations.