Episode 013: Hashtag Dad

This week’s episode covers the following stories on 8bitdad.com for the week leading up to January 16th, 2012: A Toddler Learning To Walk, Goodfellas Style; Father & …
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Coming up on the Opening Ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics on July 27, I’m reminded of a story I didn’t quite pay attention to until I became a father.

Derek Redmond is a retired British athlete who held the British record for the 400 meters sprint, and won gold medals in the 4×400 meters relay at the World Championships, European Championships and Commonwealth Games.

He’s most notably remembered for his performance at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona where he tore his hamstring in the 400 meters semi-final but fought through the pain and, with assistance from his father, managed to complete a full lap of the track as the crowd gave him a standing ovation.

Twenty years later, Derek’s father is being honored in a very special way.

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We all love a good Occupy Wall Street story. Usually, they’ve got to do with a bunch of well-meaning young folk championing some common-man economic problem and exposing an evil empire’s exploitations. And sometimes it ends up being poorly-deployed news. If you’re into the latter and not the former, mother-hivemind Cafemom and the New York Post both have a story about Wise Ahadzi, a single father of two daughters whose house was just occupied in the name of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

Ahadzi had bought the house in Brooklyn, New York, in 2007 for over $400,000, and made his normal payments for about two years. Then, in 2009, he lost his job, just as the housing crisis slammed the value of the house down by more than half of the original cost. Ahadazi has been in foreclosure proceedings with Bank of America since then. The single father even moved down the road to a smaller and more affordable apartment during the court battle.

Ahadzi still, according to everyone involved, still owns the house – even through the lengthy foreclosure proceedings.

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