At the age of seventeen, the young man, while still working part-time at Sickser’s, began his first semester at City College of New York. He fit in just fine with his, for the most part Jewish, classmates—hardly surprising, considering that he already knew their ways and their language. But the heavy studying in the engineering and later geology courses he chose proved quite challenging. Colin would later recall that Sickser’s offered the one stable point in his life in those days.
In 1993, in his position as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—two years after he guided the American victory over Iraq in the Gulf War—Colin Powell visited the Holy Land. Upon meeting Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in Jerusalem, he greeted the Israeli with the words “Men kent reden Yiddish” (We can speak Yiddish). As Shamir, stunned, tried to pull himself together, the current Secretary of State continued chatting in his second-favorite language. He had never forgotten his early days in the Bronx.
Zev Roth
A Few Kind Words
No one rises to low expectations.
Les Brown
What would it take to reach him? His name was Gary. He was sixteen years old. He had already had several brushes with the law and had done time in several juvenile correctional facilities. Now, he sat in my classroom bored and defiant. What would it take?
He had linked up with another young man in the class who had a background that was strikingly similar to his background. His name was Lee. Lee, like Gary, had committed some offenses and done some time. Both of them had brilliant minds. They both had little respect for authority. Gary and Lee would do whatever they felt they were grown enough to do. Sometimes they would just sit in the back of the room and play around on Lee’s laptop, composing beats and making up raps. At other times, they would hold conversations and freely use profane language. Some days, they would get up and walk out of class without permission, and then there were those days when the two of them would not bother to come to class at all. I am ashamed to say that I was grateful for those days. Sometimes, the battlefield called the inner-city classroom can be such a draining place that you are thankful to receive a moment of peace, no matter how it comes to you. I knew I had a job to do, but I wondered what it would take.
When the time came to distribute the first progress report of the year, I did so with a little trepidation. I knew that there would be a confrontation because of what I had written on Gary’s report in the teacher’s comment section. I started off by saying that Gary was very bright. I then went on to say that he could be rude and disrespectful. I even commented on his open use of profanity in the classroom. I approached him, handed him his report and went on to distribute the rest of the reports to his classmates. I watched out of the corner of my eye as he read his report. I noticed no significant change in his facial expression, so I relaxed just a little bit. As I headed for my desk, Gary called to me. I went toward him determined to stand my ground.
“Did you write this?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What do you mean, I’m disrespectful?”
“I mean what I say.”
“I don’t disrespect you.”
“You disrespect me every day. You talk over me while I’m trying to teach class. You . . .”
“I don’t disrespect you.”
“Okay, Gary. But I believe you do.”
I walked to the front of the room and attempted to begin to teach class. As I spoke, Gary made sure he was speaking. He matched me word for word, sentence for sentence. It got so bad that I had to stop what I was doing to address him. I asked him to leave, and he refused. The situation escalated to the point where the principal had to come and intervene. I went home from school that day with the question looming larger than it ever had before. What would it take?
As I rode to school the next day, I hoped that I would not have to see Gary at all. I was at a loss. I did not know what to do. I felt as though I would never reach him. Though I had pondered the question over and over again, I still did not know what it would take. When I pulled up in front of the school, the very first person that I saw was Gary. I lifted my eyes toward heaven, sighed and asked, “What now?”
A still, small voice responded, “Apologize.”
My reaction was, “Apologize? I didn’t do anything to him!”
Once again, the still, small voice responded, gently urging me to apologize. I was determined not to apologize but the still, small voice began to give me some much-needed instruction.
“Apologize. He has no one in his life speaking positive things to him. He only gets to hear the negative. He needs someone to speak life to him. Apologize, and speak life.”
It was quite a humbling moment, a moment of epiphany, the moment when I finally knew what it would take. It was so simple, yet so profound. All it would take was a kind word.
At first, I didn’t know what I had to apologize for, but as I thought about it, it became clear: disrespect. I was to apologize for disrespecting him. Though I had started his progress report off with the comments concerning how bright he was, that point never came up in our conversation. Only the negative came up, not the positive. I swallowed my pride and approached the bench where he was sitting munching on a snack cake and drinking a juice.
“Gary?”
“Yeah,” he said as he looked up.
“I just wanted to apologize. If you feel I disrespected you, that was never my intention. It’s just that you have so much going for you. You are so bright and talented, I would be remiss if I allowed you to sit around and not reach your full potential. Disrespect was never my intent. I am sorry.”
He looked at me, and I saw something in his eyes I had never seen before: hope. I walked away from him sensing I had said and done the right thing.
When it came time for me to teach his class, I walked in the classroom and was met by a brand-new Gary. The transformation in him was almost startling. He was attentive. He participated in the class. He asked questions. He answered questions. From that day on, he continued to learn, grow and develop. Our relationship developed to the point where we were able to talk about a lot of things. He came to me often for guidance and direction.
Gary is no longer at our school. He had to leave when his father’s military unit was transferred to another state. It happened suddenly—so suddenly that I didn’t get to say good-bye. I was hurt when I heard he had left us, but I know he didn’t leave us without having received what he needed.
What would it take to reach him? His name was Gary. He was sixteen years old. He had already had several brushes with the law and had done time in several juvenile correctional facilities. Now, he had sat in my classroom bored and defiant. What would it take? All that it took was a few kind words.
Nancy Gilliam
Angels All Around
Every hardship; every joy; every temptation is a challenge of the spirit; that the human soul may prove itself. The great chain of necessity wherewith we are bound has divine significance; and nothing happens which has not some service in working out the sublime destiny of the human soul.
Elias A. Ford
Dorothy Wright’s husband, Forrest, shook her hard, “Wake up, Dorothy! Get up! There’s smoke everywhere!”
Dorothy coughed, opened her eyes to a gray haze in their bedroom, bolted upright and screamed, “Get the kids!” She grabbed the phone to call 911 but before she could tell them where they lived the line went dead.
“Oh Lord, help us,” Dorothy prayed as she and Forrest ran in opposite directions to waken their children: Forrest Junior, sixteen; Danielle, fifteen; Leonard, thirteen; Dominique, twelve; Joe, eleven; Anthony, ten; Marcus, eight; Vinny, seven; Curtis, five; Nicholas, three; and Ja-Monney, three. (Ja-Monney is her nephew that they’ve raised since his birth.)
Scared and confused, the children rubbed their eyes and stumbled down the stairs and out the front door. Dorothy counted heads.
“Someone’s missing!” she screamed. “Who? Curtis! Forrest, Curtis is missing!”
Forrest ran back into the house and up the steps as smoke poured out the front door. Five-year-old Curtis, who’d been hiding under his bed, struggled into the smoky hallway when he heard his daddy’s voice. He couldn’t see Forrest in the thick smoke, but he ran right into his daddy’s arms. Forrest grabbed him and tore back down the stairs. Halfway down Forrest fell, sprained his ankle and stumbled outdoors.
Dorothy dashed to the neighbor’s house. The woman who lived there had been studying all night and had just gone to bed when Dorothy banged on the door. The neighbor finally saw the orange glow through the Wright family’s windows and called 911. Within minutes the fire trucks arrived. By now the flames had spread between the walls of the old wood frame house and moved to the second floor.
Neighbors took the children into their homes, but Dorothy couldn’t move. As firefighters slammed their axes into the roof, she stood there and watched her dream evaporate. Everything inside that house went up in flames. Furniture, clothing, housewares, linens, photo albums, cash, jewelry, the only picture she had of her mother who had died when Dorothy was a teenager. Everything was gone.
Our dream, Dorothy thought. How can it end like this? She and Forrest had wanted so much more for their eleven children than was offered in the inner city. They’d just moved to the suburb of New Milford, outside Hackensack, New Jersey, four years earlier. They didn’t want the kids growing up around drugs, alcohol abuse, fighting and gangs. They didn’t want the substandard education or the rundown neighborhoods.
What a blessing it was when they found the big frame house and met Diane, their landlord. They convinced her that they were hard workers and that their children were polite, good kids and that they’d take care of her home. The rent was reasonable and the Wright family moved in.
Now as Dorothy stood there four years later watching their dream evaporate into smoke, all she could think about was two things: Thank you, God, my family is safe! And then, Where will we ever find another house for our big family?
After visiting the hospital to make sure the kids were okay and to get a brace on Forrest’s sprained ankle, Dorothy went directly to Social Services in her blue pajamas and sneakers a neighbor had given her. As she stood in line people looked at her like What’s your problem, lady?
Dorothy didn’t care what she looked like. She was a woman on a mission. The only thing the emergency assistance program could do was to put them into a family shelter back in the inner city. Thirteen people crowded into four tiny rooms.
“It was awful,” Dorothy told a friend. “So much goes on in a shelter like that. People moving in and out every day. Drugs. Yelling. Women getting beat up by boyfriends. No play area. Nothing for the children to do.”
That’s when the guardian angels started to arrive. Dorothy’s friend Lisa, who owns Alfredo’s restaurant, brought dinner for the family every night for four months. Pizzas, spaghetti, garlic bread, fresh salads, lasagna, eggplant Parmesan . . . all the foods kids love. Their neighbors, Jerry and Cynthia, brought a TV to the shelter. Strangers brought brand-new clothes. The kids’ teachers brought school supplies, coloring books, crayons. Other teachers from the New Milford high school, middle school and grammar school had fundraisers for the family.
The whole town adopted the Wright family, and the gifts continued all summer. But Dorothy continued to worry about how they’d ever get out of the shelter and back into the wonderful neighborhood they’d worked so hard to get into four years earlier. How would they ever find another house big enough for their family that they could afford?
One day, one of Vinny’s classmates came to visit. When little Michael Kontomanolis and Vinny saw each other they just hugged and started crying. Michael said, “Mommy, can Vinny come live with us? We have to help him. He’s my friend.”
Michael’s parents, Pauline and Nikkolas, were so touched by the boys’ deep friendship that often that summer they took the Wright children back to their home in their old neighborhood on the weekends.
Dorothy was relieved that her kids could get out of the shelter for awhile, but she said to Pauline and Nick, “You only have two kids. How can you stand so many at once?” Nick would laugh and say, “We love it! It’s like a big party when they come over.”
Then the biggest surprise of all. One day Pauline said, “Dorothy, Nick and I have decided to buy a house in our neighborhood and rent it to you for four years. Then you can buy it from us. We want you to have your own home. We want you to come back to the neighborhood where you belong.”
Dorothy and Forrest couldn’t believe it. Why would this couple who hardly knew them before the fire do such a thing for them? Pauline just smiled and said, “We connect through our hearts, Dorothy.”
Together Dorothy and Pauline found a two-story Cape Cod with six bedrooms, a huge living room, big dining room and a finished basement.
The thirteen members of the Wright family moved in in October, just five months after the fire. On moving day the family opened the doors to discover huge “WELCOME HOME!” banners taped everywhere. The neighbors had supplied the house with everything from toothpaste and toilet paper to laundry soap and paper towels, even makeup for the girls.
One couple, Agnes and Ralph, bought twin beds and pillows for all the children. Others brought quilts, sheets and bedspreads for everyone.
Since then, “Aunt Pauline and Uncle Nikkolas,” as the children call them, have become like brother and sister to Dorothy and Forrest. They cook out together, share things and spend time together. If you couldn’t see color, you’d never know they weren’t related.
Every day as Dorothy watches her children come home from volleyball or basketball practice or a yearbook meeting, she thanks God that they have their dream back. Danielle wants to speak eight languages and go to Harvard to be a lawyer. One of the boys wants to be a fighter pilot. Three of them want to be doctors. Dominique wants to be a nurse. Leonard wants to be a technician for NASA.
Dorothy Wright says it best, “With as many guardian angels as this family has, and with the love we have for each other, the dreams of the entire Wright family will continue for generations.”
Patricia Lorenz
Otis
Just don’t give up what you’re trying to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.
Ella Fitzgerald
His phone call had come during a busy Friday afternoon the first week of June in 2000. I had other plans and told him so. “But I’ll see if I can change them. I’d like to be there.”
“It’s just—well, I just wanted to let you know that I’m graduating Sunday. You’ve always encouraged me to stay in school. You’re one of the biggest reasons I’m graduating. I wouldn’t have stuck it out if you hadn’t encouraged me.”
Nearly two years had passed since I’d heard from Otis. When he first started his studies at West Chester University, he contacted me regularly. As in most situations with kids going off to college, as time went by he called less frequently.
“I didn’t want to walk down that aisle on graduation day,” he said, “without having a chance to thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
I barely remember my response because I kept thinking of Otis graduating.
During my early days of reactivating the chess team at Vaux Middle School, I had seen the possibilities in that kid. He was one of the older ones who already knew how to play and was better than most adults. Otis was shy and quite studious.
One thing, though: all through high school he called or came back to Vaux to let us know how school was going.
I wanted to be at his graduation, but I wasn’t sure I could make it, so I couldn’t promise. I did tell him how excited I was that he was going to graduate.
“You’re the first of my kids to make it through college,” I said. “That makes your graduation special, you know.”
After I hung up the phone, I paused and thought again about Otis Bullock. I felt warm inside after that call. It was finally happening
! All those years of urging kids to stay in school and to keep on. Yes, I felt proud of him—the first of my kids to graduate from college. Others would graduate in the years ahead, but Otis would be the first.
I had seen as much promise in a number of kids who had dropped out of school after they left Vaux. Some had been murdered; a few had gotten into drugs and disappeared. Others moved away, and I lost track of them.
These inner-city kids face obstacles that middle-class Americans can’t understand. It’s more than a lack of money. Some get little support from their families and even less from their peers. Many of those kids have never known a father, and few of them have been inside a two-parent home.
Every day of their lives those kids live in the projects or near one. They know about drugs, violence and prostitution, and they can tell you where to buy a handgun. Most of them either had had someone murdered in their family or could name half a dozen kids in their neighborhood who never lived long enough to reach college age.
“Oh, God, it’s so hard for these kids,” I heard myself praying as I sat at my desk. “So many pressures from their peers and the pull of their community.”
Then I thought again of Otis. He had done it. He had paved the road that others could follow.
Throughout the rest of the day, my thoughts kept returning to Otis’s telephone call. In my mind, I could see him lined up with gown and tassel, waiting to receive his degree.
“I have to go to his graduation,” I said aloud. I wanted to see Otis graduate—to walk alongside those other graduates and receive his diploma. But even more important, I needed to be there—for me. I had to see hope fulfilled through Otis.
On the drive up, I kept thinking about inner-city kids. As long as they’re alive they have a chance to turn their lives around. As long as there are teachers and leaders out there giving of ourselves, we can make changes.