The Life of Rexford Smith

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This is my Family:

This is me between my two cousins. I am a Blue Collar non suit wearing roofer. John the one to the right recently died of natural causes; surprisingly. John was like a brother to me and I miss him. Jimmy, the one on the left, was, until he retired, a big time corporate attorney. {I love commas}

This is my Sister; Sandy. The picture does not do her justice: She is very beautiful. She is my younger Sister (exactly two years, two days and two minutes younger). She voted for President Trump.

This is my Great Nephew; Andy. He was born in 1997 so I’m sure he will like the picture. He will probably vote for President Trump.

I am not in the following picture of the Robertson Clan Christmas Party of 1957. All but the two women in the center are dead (neither are Robertson).

The Dog in the picture is the famous Bitsy Buddy. He could do lots of tricks and was loved by all. Uncle Jim Robertson is not in the photo because he took the picture with his new Polaroid camera. I restored the picture a little until my health started to fail. The bad thing about polaroid pictures is that they fade.

This is Bob Bepler (better known as Cricket) he drown in the early 1970’s depriving the world of a the most insightful New Age profit. Cricket and his wife Goldie were my two best friends in the late 1960’s. After Crick’s death, Goldie and I married. The marriage did not last long. In the picture below, Goldie is showing her Granddaughter, Amber, our pet rhinoceros which Goldie had stuffed after its death. She loves all animals, even the big dangerous ones.

Views From the Roofs Around Pittsburgh:

I took 23,000 pictures of roofs here are but a few:

A submarine attack on the Steeler’s Stadium. Those Browns will stop at nothing.

This is my good friend Jim Kieth he was not only a roofer but also one of Santa’s Helpers. He would often measure the chimneys Santa had to slide down.

This is a picture of Roger Glendenning. We were like brothers until is death in 2016. Rest in peace my Brother.

The Mews in Monroeville, PA.

The Johnstown, PA Giant Eagle grocery store

A roof core

The Giant Eagle had steel roof deck and two roofs.

This is the Wilkinsburg, PA Post Office sub-station in the town of Wilkinsburg. It is not the original Post Office which was moved out of the town to Robinson Boulevard. I grew up in Wilkinsburg; it was a great place in the 50’s and 60’s.

A view from a very high roof on Stanwix Street in downtown Pittsburgh, PA.

This is the Post Office Roof in Point Marion PA.

This is the Holiday Inn in Indiana, PA.

This is The Export PA Post Office roof.

A roof at prestigious Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh PA..

This was the Paramount Athletic Club in Monroeville Pa. The business is long gone.

This is the Johnstown Post Office. We tried to destroy this building on two different occasions but it still stands, (I think).

Somerset Hospital

Can Black Lives Matter

We had Slavery in this country long before we had a country. Slavery, like most things, was all about the money. Europe needed raw material and slaves were the currency. Slavery in the Americas was one of the most brutal forms of human oppression ever conceived. The mostly white Christian slave owners believed (mostly to ease the obvious contradiction with their religion) that black people were little more than apes. Therefore the slaves brought over from Africa were seen as less than human. Slave owners could sell slaves like any property. The imagined inferiority was drummed into the slaves as fact. And Christianity (the religion of most slave owners) was was forced upon the slaves. Bringing native people to Christ justified everything in the minds of the slave owners.

Fortunately, some (such as the Quakers) did not see slaves as less than human and were vehemently opposed to slavery. We fought a War to settle the matter. The Slave States (the Confederacy) lost the war ending slavery in the United States. Unfortunately, the idea that Black Folks are inferior persisted. Numerous racists laws were enacted (particularly in the South) separating the two races. However, racism, even if it was not supported by Law, was wide spread throughout the entire U.S.. Although Racial inferiority has long been proven to be wrong; being wrong does not stop the ignorant from believing in it. Unfortunately, we cannot legislate away racism. Racism is of the heart and mind and will not be easily defeated. And please remember that ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER: A thousand times more black lives will be stuffed out by black criminals than by the white police.

And those lives both criminals and victims also MATTER.

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