Most who read this blog have never met me, have no idea who I am or where I come from. I guess growing up, I didn't really think much about it until maybe after high school. In high school, most of the families were lower middle class, wearing the same clothes, sneakers worn out, maybe something nice once in a while. Public schools, state funded lunches, punch cards, bad facilities, good, but tired teachers, many of the families in my town were at or around the state poverty line. Five to ten miles radius, people were living in half a million dollar homes,, going to private and catholic schools...unaware of what happened on the other side of the tracks. I took my lumps....countless times being harassed, a 45-lb plate dropped on my chest in sophomore year of football, threatened to be shot junior year by my fellow secondary teammate, loading guns and driving around.....I guess it would still be referred to as "the hood" back then....and I can definitely say it was. Row homes for days, broken down cars, SEPTA buses coming through like jet engines, dumpster diving for expired Tastykakes, Mom always scrounging....even a few quarters so I could run up to 7-11 for a Snickers bar. One great thing was the ties we did form as friends there. Many lived and died for their friends. Some still do. We had a big community pool. Looking back, the best days of my mom and my sister's lives probably. Their "piece of the world"...I cherish it to this day.
With that being said, we are coming to that time when we're having to clean my old house out. 988 Grant Rd. Folcroft, PA 19032. You can Google it. It wasn't much, but it was home until I first moved out. We are starting to remove any memory that my family lived there as no one really does any more. We are starting to erase a lifetime of what happened between those walls. We are starting to close the door on the past; some good, some bad, some all over the map. I guess that is also part of the hood a lot of people just don't talk about. Parents becoming parents too young, unsure, broke, addicted, hard-headed, stubborn, wanting to still be young, but wanting to try the parent thing. I closed the door on even discussing a lot of it for decades. I don't feel the need to tie it in here cause this is supposed to be a positive story.
So as I am packing stuff up and going back and forth to my truck, I notice a bunch of young kids playing. Football in the alley. Soccer in the alley. Taking a leak in my yard (you will see). Jabbing at your buddies. These 6-7 kids all see me. So I was cleaning out cabinets and there was a box of our favorite crackers growing up, Lance Toastachee. A true hood treat. ha. I gave them all a pack. Some didn't like them, but the ones that did really enjoyed them and said thank you. So most of the group goes up half to the alley. Then one kid, a larger kid of the group, he is sitting on a bike and he's not going far, if at all. If you look at this kid and me, we couldn't be more different. Me, 47 yr old white guy, fairly chill, tees and shorts, backwards trucker cap, broad, unfiltered. Him, about 5ft, 130lbs, head to toe in gray sweats, medium fro, very dark skinned black boy. He quietly approaches me and looks me in the eye and says, "Hey, do you think you could teach me to ride a bike?" I still get chills typing it. This child, of all the people he could've asked, well, he asked me. My heart both broke with pain for him and it also felt good that he had the comfort to ask. I say comfort, not confidence. I also think of, "not one man in this boy's life til now could've stopped and taught him??" And then I got angry. Angry that he had a man help him even do this in life. So I said to him, "I have 5 mins until I have to leave.....let's do it." I grabbed the back of his sweatshirt, echoed many times to pedal, pedal, pedal...he kept saying I'm gonna fall. I said you're not, I got you. This 40 something white goofball and this 10 or so black kid.....bonding over learning how to ride a bike. In the alleys....where I rode my bike 40 years ago...where I hung with my friends...where my dad or mom helped me....We went up and down the alley several times before his other friends started to ask. I said I would be back some time, but that is just a maybe.
I drove up the alley way, saying bye, thankful for a moment that helped me get through the pain of what I am going through and what is happening to our past life at 988...he was about halfway up on my ride up the alley. So I stopped. I said, "you did great, you just keep pedaling and gravity will take hold...you're really getting it..." Instead of a "thanks" or short quick comment. He looked at me and said, "Thank you very much..." held out a fist for a "fist pump" as we call it in the states and we parted ways.
I always say, there are good people all over. There are people who want to have someone to look to. It is as much present in adults as it is in heaven. My one good buddy said, "you need to stop being so nice....and just keep going on your way". I think the day I would ever stop to help a child who asks for help, I am letting myself down as much as them. Granted, my buddy isn't wrong. Given the wrong view of the "white guy" holding on to the "black boy" from eyes who didn't have context; something easily could've happened that day. I take that into consideration.....but most days, at my mid 40's, all I want to do is just pedal my bike.....and let the wind take me to better places.
"Teach the children, so it will not be necessary to teach the adults." Abraham Lincoln
A picture of my "new 988 crew". Folcroft4Life.
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