NFL
Life doesn’t run away from nobody…Life runs at people! ~ Joe Frazier
By: Julio Olmo
Growing Up Philly is an emotional look back at our past.
No worries, we are all still here.
We had to risk the criticism of others to stand in places nobody thought we could possibly reach.
Word to the wise, people want to see you do well, but never better than them.
Power is not given…it has to be taken!
“Our heroes weren’t on any stamps!”
Band of Brother:
First time I saw O, he was sitting in a chair by himself inside the school’s cafeteria.
It was impossible not to notice him, he was the Big Kid always sitting by himself at the corner table.
The cool and popular kids would walk by him and snicker or leave fruit on his table, and say:
“This is for later. you know you gonna get hungry again!”
O will eventually get up after he was finished and give all the extra food to one of the lunch ladies:
“Ms. Mary! I’m gonna leave all this up here for tomorrow…Ok?” O would say.
“Ok, sweetheart! You’ve a bless day O”, Ms. Mary would say.
“You too Ms. Mary” O would reply.
After seeing this go on for a few weeks, I made up my mind to be part of this, whatever you called, situation.
“Sup Bruh?” I said to the Big Guy as I sat down with my tray.
“I don’t think you want to sit with me Bruh. this is not exactly the Kool Table, you know?
“That’s ok, I’ve issues doing what’s popular. Hell! Sometimes I intentionally do what’s not popular out of spite!” I replied as the Big Guy laughed.
And that’s how I met O.
Over the years, we added a couple of other guys and created a gang of misfits, but O and I were the founding fathers of our Band of Brothers.
Due to his enormous size folks were always telling O that he needed to play football, but he only liked playing basketball and stickball…and that was only because of us. Otherwise, he was perfectly content drawing and reading comic books. To be honest, he lacked athleticism, but you cannot teach being big.
One summer we joined this basketball league and we end up on a team being coached by guy named Vic.
Vic smoked and curse like a sailor because…he was a former sailor who served during World War I. He’d spent a great deal of time at sea with different people and experienced many adventures.
Vic’s views were very different from what other grownups were telling us at the time. The cigar smoking and salty language was not well received by the parents, so eventually only four of us remained on the team.
We were growing up in a crowded city neighborhood with gangs everywhere, but the parents felt that an old Irish man, who smoke and used colorful language was too much of bad influence, go figure!
Anyway, we ended up only having four players. The other two players being Boy Genius and Wonderboy.
Boy Genius was a walking encyclopedia. He knew everything. He was only playing basketball because his parents were tired of him always being locked in his room and wanted him to get some fresh air. Boy Genius couldn’t dribble, would not pass the ball and on defense he was nothing more than a hump, but left unguarded he almost never missed a jump shot.
It was the freakiest thing.
Personally, I always felt that Boy Genius belonged in a school for the specially gifted. Socially he was very awkward and besides us Boy Genius had no friends, but his parents were from the old country and simply did not know how to handle him.
His mom would always flash a big smile whenever she opened the door for us and tell us that, what else, Boy Genius was upstairs in his room.
“Time to play Bruh,” I would tell him. “I’m almost finish reading this book called The Lords of Discipline ” replied Boy Genius.
“Why don’t you ever read the Bible?” O would say.
“It’s not scientifically proven.” Boy Genius would reply.
“It’s all about faith, people have gone to war over their faith…you study history, that’s a fact!” O would say.
“Gentlemen, can we please concentrate on current events!” I would always interrupt. “Mom! I’m leaving!” Boy Genius hollered.
Then she would run out the kitchen to say goodbye. I loved going to his house. His parents treated us like royalty. His father would turn off the television and get up from his favorite chair just to talk to us.
I cannot remember anyone else ever doing that. Boy Genius could have easily been Magna Cum Lade at any school if he wanted to, but I know for a fact he purposely dummied down because too much attention made him feel uncomfortable.
Frankly, he was a smartass little prick, but…he was our smartass little prick.
