Rewind to the year 1988 in South Atlanta, Georgia. My mother, my sister and I had just moved to the mainland from Puerto Rico. Growing up on the island where our ancestors originated from many different regions of the world such as Spain, Europe, Africa and The Antilles we displayed complete diversity. We came from the whitest of white to the blackest of black and all colors in between. (Don’t worry this isn’t a History show. I sucked at History and always fell asleep in class) To us, we didn’t see any differences other than the content within ourselves. The area we moved to sadly was very racially divided.
The lunchroom divide.
Our High School cafeteria during lunch was strangely laid out by whites, blacks, and others. (French bread pizza was amazing and the hamburgers were like burnt cardboard)And yeah at that time period I actually had to put “Other” on applications. I was heavily into skateboarding so I was at the other, another table. (This also isn’t a show about the races, because, in my opinion, we are all wonderfully blended together)
Our daily life in High School wasn’t about what you would think. Classroom interactions weren’t a fascinating debate about problem-solving and theorizing. It was mainly disruptions and altercations between disenfranchised youth with unfounded beliefs in people. At any given point and time our school would erupt into a war zone. There were so many fights between races, gangs, and others that were dissatisfied with life in general that for someone like myself having learning problems made it an insane challenge.
“The Way To Get Started Is To Quit Talking And Begin Doing.” – Walt Disney
So with all this, I kind of tiptoed through High School with lower grades and in complete survival mode. I didn’t have the summers like most, I worked and went to summer school. Oddly, I usually got A’s and B’s throughout the summer classes. The distractions were less in summer school, and it was later realized that the reason it was more of a relaxed atmosphere is that the students that mainly caused the big issues either gave up by repeating the year over again or just quit school.
Figuring it out.
Shortly after High School, I decided to go to college at night to try to make my mother proud of me. Complications quickly surfaced based on the fact that I was working one job during the week, painted houses on the weekends and was thoroughly exhausted. After 6 months I threw in the towel and allowed my circumstances to dictate the outcome. Now, something very important that I haven’t said thus far is that I was in the car club scene beginning in High School. This meant that each of us in the scene had no long term goals other than dumping all of our time and money into our vehicles.
Having a lowered truck created an insane amount of challenges daily and I spent my time in reaction mode. All of my car club peers would hurry up and get through our daily jobs so we can meet at whichever large parking lot that wasn’t riddled with gunfire or overtaken by Police. Our main parking lot was Ken’s Billiards and yes I was a pool shark. Shooting pool and low riding was the way of life. We cleaned, customized, repaired, and flexed our rides with pride.
In the car scene.
Being in the car scene at such a young age in my area seemed to have a grip hold on our lives. We all understood that higher education was a healthy route for us to go-to for the purposes of being able to afford a better life, more performance parts or even better machines, but the thought of missing one night on the streets was completely out of the question. We had several different car clubs and gangs in the area and on a lot of nights they would intertwine with negative consequences. That being said the term “survival mode” meant many things.
Survive by not getting shot, survive by getting your truck unstuck off the train tracks (after the air suspension you installed gave way), survive by getting another hourly job after the previous one didn’t work out and so on. We allowed ourselves to be held down by a lack of drive. We weren’t in a high thriving area with inspiration all around us. Finally, later on, I created my own inspiration by getting the heck out of dodge!
dreams:
a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal.
Where are you at in your life? Do you feel that the place that you live in isn’t a healthy and sustainable one? Tell us your story.
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