New Horizons For Fifty - A Different View of Things

Ten favorite things about Blackout. This past Saturday, I was privileged to attend Blackout, the bi-annual run hosted by Onyx, in this case the Southwest chapter. The host hotel was the Hilton in Glendale, a looooooong way from Long Beach—3.5 by Metro and a short Lyft ride, but I knew it would be worth the wait once I actually got there. This was also my first time attending an official Onyx event, so I knew I’d be seeing lots of new faces, but there were also plenty of familiar faces there that it helped me be less introverted. This will only be from my perspective, so I’m sure there will be things you will want to add, and I’ve learned that these event listicles include things that are not part of the planned festivities—happy accidents, if you will. This will also just be me relating my experience without pictures. I'll post those on my personal wall. Here are my ten favorite moments from Blackout.  1) Without going into details, the Lyft ride was a…challenge. No sooner

by Eric F. Crow It was a Friday like any other morning. I got up to cook breakfast for my first partner, Chuck. We lived in Portland, OR, at a place owned by a lady friend of Chuck’s father—we’d been there about six months after having a falling out with his father for not accepting me, oddly enough (stay tuned).  I was turning the potatoes when he came down. He saw me using “the wrong spatula” and quickly took it out of my hands, hitting me on the back of the head with it. The pan fell on the floor and potatoes went everywhere. As I got down to clean up the mess, I started to cry. He started making fun of me. “What are you gonna do, cry. Poor Eric?”  Something came over me. I got up, tears falling down my face, which I could feel was scrunched in anger, looked him right in the eye, and said, “No, not poor me. FUCK YOU!”  He smacked me in the face. That was it. Five years was long enough. I’d threatened to leave at least four times before, but then he found me and convince