‘Love Notes’ a road map for life’s challenges

Bashon Mann came home for Thanksgiving — home to the Wappinger residence where he was raised with his brother by their parents, George and Linda Melton Mann. He didn’t bring his Navy dress uniform — he’s a Lt. Cmdr. based in Washington, D.C. — but he brought a few copies of his new book.

“Daddy’s Love Notes,” self- published and available from Amazon, is a compilation of letters written to his daughters, ages 7 and 8, each letter holding a series of life lessons he endured from adolescence to adulthood.

“The morals attached to each letter are meant to provide my girls with a road map, or guide, used to navigate life as they grow older or, as I put it, ‘A bit of light for the end of your torch.’”

I met with Bashon in the book store at the Boardman Road Branch of the Poughkeepsie Public Library. He’s assigned to the Pentagon, where he’s deputy public affairs officer for the chief of Naval Operations.

Bashon hit a few bumps in the road after graduation from John Jay High School. His first college was the University of Virginia.

“After four years and one academic suspension, I realized my head wasn’t in the game for college,” he said. “I was surprised that I was even able to last that long. So, when I realized I wasn’t going to graduate, I joined the Navy.”

He wasn’t expecting a career. He was initially running from his parents, retired educators, because he was scared that, “I had just wasted four years of their hard work and money. I figured I at least had to try and save face, to show that I was going to do something that had some value, had some worth. The military seemed like a way to do that, and sort of get my head back screwed on straight.”

He knew “it” worked when at age 25 he decided to go back to school. Bashon graduated from the University of Memphis.

“Daddy’s Love Notes” is not a children’s book. “It’s my experiences, some of my mistakes. The book is written so they can learn a little bit from those mistakes. They’re going to have their own life, so they’re going to have their own journey and their own walk.

“If they can take from this book a little bit like, ‘Well, you know maybe I need not go in this direction because this is where daddy wrote that he had made a mistake, and maybe I should go in a different direction.’”

There are 60 different stories in the book he has written out of love for his young daughters

“If I can steer them clear on one, then the book was worth it.”

Visit his web site at http://www.daddyslovenotes.com/thebook.

Larry Hughes’ column appears every other Friday. Write to him at the Poughkeepsie Journal, P.O. Box 1231, Poughkeepsie, NY 12602, or emaillife@poughkeepsiejournal.com