tractor-trailer had pulled up to the stop light diagonally across the street from me. The driver stuck his head out the window and shouted “NIGGER, GO HOME!!!” at the top of his lungs. My head turned in his direction to see him staring at me, and I quickly looked away, frozen with fear. I sat there not knowing what to say or do. I waited what seemed like an eternity until his light turned green and he was driving away, to turn around and watch the truck as it disappeared around a corner. I looked around, but no one else around seemed to have heard him say this to me. No one to rush to my defense or to console me or say it was okay and just to ignore him. My eyes started to well up, as I thought about how unfair the whole situation was. He had seen me, a young black kid in the middle of a nice, predominantly white neighborhood and had judged that I hadn’t belonged there. He had no idea about how hard I was working in the oppressive heat and that I was just minding my own business. He didn’t care how many papers I’d wrapped or how heavy the bag was that I was lugging around under the summer sun. He didn’t care that I was studying hard in school and that I had dreams of flying jet airliners around the world one day. No, to him I was just a “Nigger” in the wrong neighborhood. As I thought about all this, tears started to flow down my cheeks. IT’S JUST NOT FAIR for him to say that! I thought, with anger welling up inside me. When I saw the pick-up van arriving, I quickly dried my tears, not wanting the driver or the other boys to arrive and catch me crying. I finished my deliveries that day in a somber mood and went to bed that night thinking about what had happened.
It was the first time I had ever heard that word directed at me... and it hurt. Having been studying American history in school in the years leading up to that event and having learned how that word came about and about what it meant, my anger at that man stirred inside me. However, it had another effect: in the days after the tears dried, my resolve to fly was steeled even further. Looking back as an adult on that event, I think of the folly of hatred and the ugliness it brings out in the few who act in such ways. What would that man say to me now if he saw me flying the plane on which he was a passenger? I wonder.
My life and travels have taught me that most people in the world really are good at heart and that we need not pay too much attention to the few who seek to hurt us with their words. I also learned another very valuable lesson from that experience: Just because someone says something intended to hurt you, it doesn't mean you need to feel hurt. Just because someone says hateful things to you, it doesn't mean you need to feel hated. What they say and do is up to them, how you react is your choice. No matter what other people do or say to you or about you, you can always choose forgiveness, happiness, and to love yourself... it’s always your choice.
Uncle Jolex
While in junior high, I first remember meeting my Uncle Jolex, one of my mom’s younger brothers. He had been in Haiti when I was born and knew me, but this was my first chance to get to know him. He had left Haiti in his teens to move to the US, and soon after arriving in the States, he joined the Army. The Army had given him the chance to travel around the country and the world, and when Mom told me that he was coming to visit, I couldn't wait, because he was the only member of the family whom I knew to be a world traveler, as I hoped to be. I had seen photos of him in uniform and on a motorcycle on top of a mountain in Washington State, and he seemed like such a cool guy to me.
He arrived at our apartment in his army camouflage uniform, carrying his army duffel bag, one of the biggest bags I had ever seen, and I couldn’t see how he could lift it. He was wearing his “G.I. Joe” boots and had a regulation army haircut, which meant not much hair at all. I was immediately awestruck with this man, who was a soldier and a traveler. It was so cool that he was actually in my family. Mom hadn’t seen him in a few years, and she was just as excited as I was about his visit. Dad was also impressed with his being a soldier, and liked to hear his stories about life in the army.
For Betty, our younger siblings, and me, we liked having this camouflage-clad mysterious visitor in our midst. To a child, it is often the smallest things that leave the biggest impression. Uncle Jolex had taken a few things out of his bag, having brought some gifts for the family, and as the three adults talked, I looked through some of the items he had lying out, and was struck by his little toiletry kit. I looked through it and noticed his shaving kit, miniature toothpaste, mini deodorant, and various other toiletries. Although just a small thing, the toiletry kit made me think of a future when I too would need a kit like that for my world travels.
Uncle Jolex was also very much into electronics and helped us to set up our new VCR, which had been flashing 12:00 since we had first gotten it, a few days before his arrival. The VCR was soon put to good use recording everything imaginable from my mom’s soap operas to cartoons to news stories, including three major events that all happened in 1986: the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, the overthrow of the Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, and the first nationwide observance of Martin Luther King Jr. day. All of these events would leave their mark on me in very different but very significant ways. Before he left, I told my uncle how much I admired and wanted to be like him. Like any good uncle, he stressed to me the importance of doing well in school, staying out of trouble, and listening to my parents, if I wanted to achieve my dreams. I promised I would. Soon afterwards, Uncle Jolex left for a deployment in Germany but our paths would cross many times in the years to come, leading to some of my most significant discoveries about life, the world around me, and myself.
As I had promised Uncle Jolex, I studied hard in junior high. I did well in my classes and on the New York State standardized tests in my last year of junior high in spring 1987. This led to me having my pick of high schools to attend. Knowing that attending a good high school would be the key to me getting into a good college, I didn’t take the decision lightly. I was zoned for Susan Wagner High School, which would take thirty minutes to reach by city bus every day. With my good test scores, I also had the option of attending specialized high schools, such as Aviation High School in Queens or Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, just steps away from the Twin Towers. When I first heard about Aviation High, I was very excited as I thought I could get a jumpstart on learning to fly before college, but my initial excitement waned when I learned that they specialized in aircraft maintenance, not in flying. I considered Stuyvesant because it was one of the more prestigious high schools in the city, and graduating from it virtually guaranteed any student their choice of college. However, the prospect of getting up extra early in the morning to take the bus to the Staten Island Ferry terminal, taking the ferry across New York Harbor, and then walking from the ferry terminal to the school and doing the same thing in reverse after school, every day for the next four years did not particularly excite me. Susan Wagner High or simply Wagner as we called it, had a program called the Scholar’s Academy, which was just a fancy name for their honors program, run by a Miss Kirsch. The brochures described the Scholar’s Academy as a kind of school within a school and promised a rigorous program in which if I did well, I would virtually have my pick of colleges. This was the same thing that Stuyvesant promised, minus the epic trek to school and back every day, and so after much deliberation, I chose Wagner.
High school
I met her on the first day of high school. She was the prettiest, sweetest girl I’d ever seen. She had long brown wavy hair, the most beautiful smile, and the cutest laugh. Her name was Jennifer, and I was elated to learn that she would be in most of the same Scholar’s Academy classes with me, which meant I would get to see and talk to her throughout the day. As the weeks went by and I got to know her better, I liked her even more, but couldn’t find the nerve to tell her. I was afraid she wouldn’t feel the same. I had never been much of a “ladies’ man” and got nervous and tongue-tied around any girl I liked, so I settled for being the friend, while hiding my true feelings out of fear of rejection. Starting with my first big crush on Erica from Mr. Kuck’s fifth grade class, continuing through I.S. 27, and now high school, I had been trying to overcome a feeling of inadequacy around girls. I felt that I was not desirable enough, tall enough, or handsome enough to attract the attention of the girls I liked, a feeling I still struggle with sometimes. I envied the guys who could just walk up to any girl and start talking to them, but I wasn’t one of them. I wished I could’ve be like “The Fonz” from one of my favorite television shows, Happy Days who, at the snap of his fingers, would have the girls all come running