The decision to become a good father is one of the most important decisions a man can make. My father, Reverend Gordon C. O’Neal, Jr., is well known as a pastor and community leader. He has accomplished many great things and has helped many people, but his greatest accomplishment is, without a doubt, his choice to become a great husband and father.

My dad’s father divorced his mother when he was a toddler, and died when he was a boy, so he never had the love and compassion from a father that every child craves. He could have easily chosen the road of anger and bitterness that many men, especially African American men who grew up in the 1940s and 1950s, chose. However, having been raised with a solid foundation in a Christian home, he chose to do "better" instead of be "bitter," and my life and the lives of countless others are blessed as a result of his choice.

Reverend Wayne A. Gadie, President of the United Baptist Convention of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, visited the Point of View headquarters on Springfield’s Boston Road to provide us with information on the Convention’s 86th annual conference. And the Reverend, who has served as Pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Malden, Massachusetts since 1988, has joined with a distinguished religious team from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire to develop what will surely prove to be an impressive 86th convention.