As I sit here with my left leg propped up on several pillows, all I can do is wish I had not decided to go for that steal Saturday.

There was really no way I could’ve gotten the ball, but the first rule of transition defense is to stop the ball and that is what I was trying to do.

So for all of you that think I chickened out of the Queen of Hearts Pageant on Saturday at the Gallery Theatre in Ahoskie, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have a bad wheel and I have been in excruciating pain all weekend.

This ends up being a good sedge way to this week’s column; what were you thinking?

First up; Curly Morris what were you thinking?

Now Curly, you know that you are getting too old to try to run up and down basketball courts with people half your age.

Still, in trying to continue your policy of showing up everywhere that you are asked to be, you try to be everywhere, all of the time.

Take last Thursday night for example; you were supposed to be in Raleigh to receive a North Carolina Press Association award at the same time that you were supposed to be at an NAACP meeting and, by the way, your home team, the Gates County girls basketball team, was playing a second-round state playoff game.

As if that wasn’t an impossible enough schedule to keep, you had a friend from New York in town to see you as well, in Durham no less.

So where did you go? To pick up your award of course.

Maybe that bout of selfishness was the catalyst for your blown up knee on Saturday.

You missed two events on Saturday, Curly Morris, and in-between pain killers, think of the people you let down.

Second on my list; Tim Hardaway what were you thinking?

Okay maybe there are many Americans who have as much of a dislike for homosexuals as you do.

Maybe there is a Yahoo group for people who hate homosexuals that you could’ve joined and expressed your viewpoints anonymously, or with a fake internet profile something like 4H_Club_2007 (hardwood’s homosexual hating Hardaway_Club_2007).

But to think that on a radio interview that was sure to be broadcast nationwide you decided to not only tell the world that you hate homosexuals, but that they had no place in America at all.

I don’t who is braver, John Amechi for ‘coming out’ with his book, or you for ‘coming out’ with your venomous diatribe.

Actually I do know who’s braver and unfortunately much more stupid.

Personally, I am sick and tired of the gay community trying to capitalize on their sexuality.

John Amechi was not brave for ‘coming out’ in a book years after he was useful as a player. In fact, his own book accounts instances of his teammates having some inclination of Amechi’s sexuality when he was playing.

Nobody cared then and nobody cares now so give the whole ‘coming out’ thing a rest.

As for Hardaway, I know in this country we are supposed to have freedom of speech, but you still better watch what you say.

Third on the list, Jim Black what were you thinking?

By now we are all familiar with the troubles of former House Speaker, Jim Black.

Black has pled guilty to bribery, accepting bribes, legislative impropriety and, of course, killing Jimmy Hoffa. Okay, I jest in the Jimmy Hoffa thing, but you get my point.

Until the details of Black’s clandestine money transfers in the bathrooms of restaurants became public knowledge, I thought that former D.C. mayor Marion Barry had the stupid encounters market cornered with his ‘smoke crack in a hotel with a prostitute’ scandal.

Is it the drunkenness of power that would make a veteran legislator with the world as his oyster commit several felonies or just the true nature of the man, any man, coming to the forefront?

You don’t achieve the kind of power base that Black had being the only crook in the room, so stay tuned for more candidates for this type of column in the near future.

Lastly, Teresa Smallwood what were you thinking?

I wouldn’t normally have much to say about a member of the legal community for fear of reprisals, but we are now speaking about a former member of the legal community.

Also, every week we are forced to plaster someone from the African American community on our front page, for committing such offenses as possessing $50 dollars worth of cocaine, or maybe $300 dollars worth of weed, you know, small time stuff compared to what politicians and cops do.

So now we have one of the people who was entrusted to both uphold and defend the law committing crimes much more severe than any of the last seven drug offenders we’ve run combined.

Think about this, Smallwood even ran for District Attorney in this region once.

What if she had won?

Again I find it hard to believe that Smallwood turned crooked overnight.

Nah, that couldn’t be the case. Especially since every time I go in front of a judge I have to be reminded how criminal behavior is a perpetual disease that only manifests itself in the minds and actions of flawed members of society.

That’s what the entire concept of mandatory sentencing is all about, putting away bad people for long periods of time, without there being any grey area for extenuating circumstances.

In the past year, we have seen politicians run amok, a local police chief be arrested for a rape charge and now Smallwood, considered to be one of the more powerful attorneys in the region, caught with her hand someone else’s cookie jar.

So let’s take all of the money that Jim Black and Teresa Smallwood either stole or bribed from other individuals and weigh those dollar amounts against the money confiscated from every drug dealer arrested in Bertie and Hertford counties last year and tell me if our judicial system is spending your tax dollars going after the right people.

Oh my bad, I wasn’t supposed to talk about do-gooders in my column?

What was I thinking?