Smart, Humble & Hungry

Nothing happens by chance, someone sets it into motion,

All I can tell you is my childhood was trash and the worst part is the people I was suppose to trust to save me turned a blind eye. Besides being tricked out in the local community I also had older cousins who thought it would be nice to tie me up and rape me. I told their mothers and they replied they are just playing, boys and will explore, you know they love you. Crazy response right and still today I refuse to look at, talk to, acknowledge their existence, nothing. I was heavy into learning to fight after a few years of being a hole for random men. I didn’t care how big they were. I fought them and messed up my grandmother’s money. She started giving me some special drink that made me less aware of what she was doing.

Now my grandmother seemed like an amazing woman to the church, cops and community. However she was just as evil as she needed to be to get what she wanted, when she wanted it and how. She had an amazing garden that she would feed anyone who was in need from it and even been in the local newspapers and magazines. She was great. She grew up in a rough time born in 1930 and only had a 4th grade education by the time she was married. She had 10 children. Now my grandpa I know less about him than her. He was born to a caucasion father and African American mother and he was number 16 or 16 children. He had a temper and when he had a beer and gun in hand everybody ran. My Grandma’s house had shotgun holes in the walls from his episodes. They were different in many ways. He was quiet when not drunk and more of a servant to her and she was how everything ran in that house. He passed away in 1988. I was not even 1 and she made sure the family still ran until 2004 when she passed in my arms.

Back to the story I was a very smart student when it came to academics, always at the top 5% of my class no matter what school I was at. In elementary school once I got over not knowing how to read or write and my friend M helped me a ton. I shot up academically and I definitely have to thank the Madison Square Librarians and my friend M. They helped me learn and I drove the bus to some amazing adventures. Just being smart wasn’t enough for me though I had to be a fighter as well and when I say a fighter I mean it. Almost everyday at school I got into a fight up until halfway through 4th grade. It’s crazy I would hear you have so much potential, why are you so angry, how can we help and so on and so forth. They couldn’t help me. They showered my grandmother with praises of saints when they saw her. Like she actually helped me do anything to make myself better nope only to break me down and do her deeds. Back to 4th grade we as a class ran our teacher out into retirement and we ended up getting this tall, handsome, caucasion man who was fresh out of College. He changed the minds of every child in that class with just two words: I Care. When we heard that and he showed it we were locked in and never wanted a new teacher. He wasn’t certified for 6th grade and a big uproar happened when we found out we’d have a new teacher. Aug 1999 we all walked in that 6th grade class hoping we’d have a good teacher and behold it was him. This man spent his summer getting everything he needed to teach us. We were his first class and he wanted to finish what he started. Have you ever seen 28 students stay in for recess to make a paper better? That was us. I think we wanted to repay him for his kindness by being the best we could. No fights happened, I was safe in that space. Long story short our class had the best MEAP test scores 2 years in a row. That was a big deal in those days, it’s how schools receive extra funding. 

He made me feel I could be anything and I was stuck on being a teacher at this point…..