Kuya Blog

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2010-04-30T23:22:00.002-04:00

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Adventure and Mischief

2009-05-03T23:36:00.011-04:00

When I grew up, my dad just was not around most of the time. He was at work or sleeping or who knows where. As a result, we learned very early that we could get away with all kinds of mischievous behavior. I spent most of my time hanging out with my brother Ricky. We would climb the pear tree in our yard as well as the one in the neighbor’s yard. Or we would climb on our roof or the roof of Ginny’s Restaurant next door. Ginny’s roof was our favorite place. It was a flat roof where the walls kind of extended upward about two-and-a-half feet higher than the actual roof, so we could duck or even lie down and hide behind the wall and no one would ever find us.

We had several ways to get on Ginny’s roof. We could climb out the upstairs window of our house onto the porch roof, then onto the main roof, which was higher than Ginny’s. Our gutter’s were about even with the top of Ginny’s wall, so we could just scale down until we were just close enough to jump from one roof to the other. Of course, our pear tree was close enough to Ginny’s that we could climb up and step right over to her roof from the tree. And, our house just happened to be close enough to the restaurant that we could put our feet on one wall, back against the other wall and just sort of scale all the way up.

Sometimes we would actually eat the pears from the trees, but mostly we would throw them at a variety of targets. On many occasions, those targets would include trucks that would run to and fro making deliveries and pickups at the Chrysler factory down the street. Of course, in the winter months, we had snowballs as our preferred ammunition.

There was a time when Ricky decided that he didn’t like taxicabs very much, so they became our most-sought-after target. After nailing one of them with a few pears, the driver screeched to a halt, back up and started shining his spotlight around to find the culprits. While we were hiding on the roof, he backed up to the house next to ours and started accusing the neighbors. We didn’t get caught. On another occasion, we had to run, jump off the roof and hide in the field of tall grass across the alley behind our house and Ginny’s. The cab driver searched for us diligently, so we had to escape by sneaking through the grass, around the block, and across Mt Elliott. We ran so fast and so far that we came back 180 degrees from the place where we started. Luckily, when we returned, the cab driver had given up his search.

I remember one winter, we built a huge snowman. We started by making a base for the snowman to stand on. We rolled huge snowballs that were so heavy we could not even lift them. We had to build a ramp to get the bottom snowball up on the base. The middle snowball was very heavy as well, but together we managed to get it on top of the bottom ball. The head wasn’t as heavy, but it was still a bit of a struggle to get it up there. Once our three snowballs were all stacked up, we started molding the snow to make a more life-like appearance. We molded and arm around the side and front of our magical snowman and inserted a broom handle under the arm. I don’t remember what we used to make his face. I think we may have used a carrot for the nose, but I’m not sure. In the end our snowman stood about 12 feet tall. He was the best snowman we ever made (as I used say in a “Leave it to Beaver” kind of voice).

I remember a few summers where we had taken a grocery cart and removed the basket. The remaining frame of the cart was our go-cart. We would sit on it and push each other around. The best thing was to push it backward as fast as possible, and after letting go, the cart would whip around 180 degrees and go zipping down the street.

Lots of kids are accused of being monkeys, but Ricky and I could hardly deny the accusation. We climbed trees, buildings, walls, telephone poles… anything we could. Sometimes we would have competitions just to entertain ourselves. One day Ricky decided to race me and said “I bet I can beat you to the front yard.” It would be a challenging race because he was planning to climb out the window, up our roof, over to Ginny’s, and down the tree in the front yard, or so I thought. Meanwhile, my task was to run from our room (upstairs, in the front of the house) all the way to the back of the house, down the stairs, and back through the house, out the front door and into the front yard.

I was to start the race on the count of three. “One, two, three, go!!” I ran as fast as I could, dodging furniture, through doors, down stairs. I felt like I had made it in record time, only to find Ricky already there. He didn’t make it there the way he had planned. He decided to take a shortcut by jumping from the porch roof over to the tree, grabbing a branch and climbing down. Instead, when he grabbed the branch, his hands slipped and I found him in the front yard flat on his back. His finger pointing up to the tree, all he could say was “I missed.”

Third Grade Crush

2009-04-29T11:59:00.019-04:00

Before we moved to our new house, I vaguely remember sitting on the floor in a big circle in kindergarten at Thomas Elementary School. My memories of first and second grade are almost non-existent. If I had to pick my favorite, third grade would have to be it. I enjoyed it so much, I decided to do it twice. I remember singing along with Michael Jackson on the radio as he sang "ABC, it's easy as 123". (Of course, Michael was a little more innocent back then.) I could sing along with the radio for hours. I used to go upstairs and turn on our old radio and just keep turning through the dial until I found a song I liked and just sing along until I heard someone coming up the steps. Then I would stop singing because I was a little too shy to do it in front of other people, but boy did I love to sing.

Third grade was my favorite for several reasons. One reason was that I did pretty well, the second time around anyway. I remember one day the teacher announced that she had a surprise for the most well-behaved student in her class. As soon as she said it, I knew I had a good chance at getting the prize. After all, I was a pretty quiet kid. I never got into trouble at all and I always followed instructions as well as I knew how.

Anyway, she started walking around the classroom, teasing as she held the prize in front of us. She walked from one table to the next. At each table she acted as though she would put the prize down, but she would pull it back. Slowly, she came toward my table. Several students sat around each of the round tables in our room. She slowly walked around our table as if she was playing some slow, twisted, agonizing game of duck, duck, goose. I sat as tall as I could in my chair, she came around beside me. I thought for sure she would place it in front of me, but she continued around behind me.

As she went around me, I thought "well, at least I gave it my best shot." But then, to my amazement, the prize seemed to magically float over my head and settle down softly on the table in front of me. I was elated! I wanted to shout for joy and run around like a mad man (or child), but I kept my composure. The prize I so anxiously awaited was in my hands. It was a model race car. I don't know what make it was, but it kinda looked like a modified Model T Ford without the front fenders. It was a drag racer. Wow! Awesome!

It was around this time that I started to like going to school. I was a pretty smart kid in third grade, or at least I thought so anyway. I learned to be a good speller and could spell better than any of my siblings. We had these Disney records that you could listen to the stories while reading along. There was Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, Robin Hood, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Bambi, It's a Small World, and a few more that I don't remember. Mary Poppins was one of my favorites because, as I would read along with the story, I learned how to spell supercalifragilisticexpealidoucious. Technically, I don't think it's an actual word, but it was an amazing feat for a nine-year-old boy to learn how to spell it. I was so proud of myself. None of my brothers could beat me at spelling - Ha!

Third grade was also when I had my first crush. When I think back on it, it's hard to amagine a boy that age being such a romantic sentimentalist. But there I was floating away on clouds dreaming about a third-grade girl. I don't remember much about her now, but back then, I could describe every detail. She was so cute! She had brown eyes and brown hair. Her face was perfectly symmetrical with the cutest chubby little cheeks. I used to think of her when I sang along with romantic songs on the radio. Specifically, I would think of her when I heard or sang "Wild Flower". "Let her cry, for she's a lady. Let her dream, for she's a child. Let the rain fall down upon her. She's a free and gentle flower growing wild." As time went on, another song brought her to mind... "My eyes adored you. Though I never laid a hand on you, my eyes adored you. Like a million miles away from me, you couldn't see how I adored you. So close. So close and yet so far." I never spoke a word to her and she probably has no idea who I am to this day. But I remember her; her name was Shelia Tucker.

As my crush on Shelia waned, another little cutie unexpectedly came into my life. Her name was Kimberly. She was a little younger than me. She had long brown hair in pony tails, a round chubby-cheek face, and big brown baby doll eyes. Her dad, Garnet Tunnell, was a friend of my dad. They came over to visit one day and decided to stay for a while.

It was around 9 pm when Kimberly asked me to read her one of our children's story books. She sat beside me on the sofa and leaned her head over on my shoulder. I couldn't hold the book properly with her head on my arm, so I had to put my arm around her neck. I started reading the story and almost made it to the end. I looked over at her only to find that she was fast asleep. What a sweet little girl. I was smitten - struck by lightening! Once again, I was floating away on my little clouds. After that encounter, my thoughts were directed toward Kimberly whenever I would sing those silly romantic songs.

(Photo: Kimberly Tunnell with her Dad)

From Chicago to Detroit

2009-03-26T11:32:00.025-04:00

Isn't it funny how some memories are so vivid and clear, while others seem like shadows or hazy dreams? I have some vague memories of living in an upper apartment in Chicago as a wee lad. Dusty, musty, wooden stairs and hallways would creak as we walked. Outside, diesel fumes billowed up from Chicago Transit Authority buses. To this day, I still reminisce about Chicago whenever a city bus goes by. I just love the smell of diesel in the morning (ha ha, just kidding).

I don't remember it, really, but I think my parents attended the store-front Free Pentecostal Church in the photo. My mom tells me I interrupted a church service in a desperate attempt to escape her womb. I wonder if this was the church.

My parents moved back to Detroit when I was still too young to remember much. But I do remember sitting on the floor in kindergarten at Thomas Elementary School. One of my brothers (Daniel, I think) would duck and hide behind trees on the way to meet me as I walked home from school. We lived on Concord Street and I think it was our Grandpa's house.

In August, 1969, we moved to a new house. Everyone was so happy! Moving to a new house was such a big deal! I don't know why, but even today, some 40 years later, I still remember the address and phone number - 8307 Mt. Elliott, Detroit, MI 48211, (313) 923-6976. My mom always said "Walnut 3-6976", which one would understand to mean "WA3-6976", where the "W" and the "A" were acronyms for the digits 9 and 2. I guess that was a convenient way to memorize phone numbers back then.

Because my mom was a huge shutter bug, one of her favorite things to do was to line us all up and shoot! She would line us up on a piano bench, in a galvanized bath tub, and on stairs. So one of the first things she did at the new house was to take our picture on the back stairs.

[Daniel holding Wayne, Benny, Ricky, Timmy, and Naomi]

Once we got our pictures taken and settled down in the new house, it was time to start getting ready for our new school.

The Day

2009-03-24T01:25:00.023-04:00

It was the year Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at a civil rights rally of 200,000 blacks and whites. Betty Friedan launched a middle-class feminist movement by publishing The Feminine Mystique.

The Thresher, an atomic submarine, sank in the North Atlantic, killing 129 people. John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in his motorcade through downtown Dallas, Texas.

Sports champions included the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Bears, Boston Celtics, and the Toronto Maple Leafs. In Greece, Giorgos Seferis won the Nobel Prize in literature.

Best selling fiction was The Shoes of the Fisherman by Morris L. West and Happiness is a Warm Puppy by Charles M. Schultz was the best seller in non-fiction.

It was the day football player, Jim Brown (1936) turned 27 and basketball player Michael Jordan (1963) was born.

On that day, at Cook County General Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, Darrell Dane Gean and Mary Agnes Masters Gean became the proud parents of their fourth baby boy, yours truly, James. It was February 17, 1963, my birthday.