Fertalizzzzzzer

I am beginning a blog about my summer experience. I know that sounds pretty trite, like most college kids do that, blah, blah, blah, but before you close this window, realize that I am two weeks away from returning home, and the only reason I am going through the trobule of starting a blog this late in the game is because I am certain that I have sufficently important things to say. So, dial up www.mattontuck.blogspot.com everyday (except Sundays) until August 9 for what will hopefully be a not-too-horribly-bad daily reflection on what I have experienced this summer.

So what have I been up to this summer? I'm serving as a North -Carolina-Baptist-Campus-Ministries- funded-summer-missionary at Hyaets in Charlotte, NC. "What the hell?," you ask? I know! I often ask such questions of myself. To answer them would be beyond the scope of this short post. To be brief, Hyaets (Hebrew for "tree of life") is a faith-based 501(c)3 organization that takes the form of an intentional community aimed at caring for and about each other and our neighbors. Hyaets is located is located in Charlotte's Enderly Park neighborhood, which is defined by the city as a low-income, high-risk "challenged neighborhood". Hyaets has a decent website (hyaets.org) you can look at if you want to know more about its history, its people, how you can contribute financially, and so on and so forth, yada, yada, yada. My intention here is simply to pique your interest.

Anywho, I'm writing this blog about my Hyaets adventure and there are two more pearls of information that I need to cram down your throat so that you are not completely in the dark.

1) Tuckaseegee Road or Tuck is the main thoroughfare in our neighborhood. Hence the name of this blog (If you picked up on the reference to a literary work , congratulations! You are probably a learned white person!) Popular places on Tuck include the Quic N' Easy, the Milestone Club, and the Center. Sometimes our entire neighborhood is referred to as Tuckaseegee, since the well traveled #8 bus route that serves it is also known by that name.

2) My display name(s) are my three street names. This is kind of a joke, but it kind of isn't. Many people in the hood have street names, usually given to them by other hood dwellers. MattEasy was given to me by Gene, a neighbor that I got to know briefly. Jada, one of the kids that I hang out with, gave me the name Biscuit. I changed it to Biscot-T, (1) because biscotti is a more bourgois-sounding baked good than plain old biscuit, and (2) to affilliate myself with the rapper T-Pain (or is it T-Pane?).

So that's the story. Next post will be tomorrow by this time. I'd like to close with a serious note about sensitivity. Many of the subjects I write about will be serious, though I will try to be my usual self, casting these subjects in a sarcastic and perhaps humorous light. I realize that by maintaining this blog, I have little control over who reads what I have written. If you are offended by the content of this site, I apologize. Read at your own discretion.