J. Minor Valuable Lessons
From as far as I can remember, it all started at my grandma's house on the West side of Chicago in K-Town on Kedvale and Division to be exact. I was the youngest of the family at the time being shy and quiet, but all of that would soon change.
I was my mom ' s only child at the time, and being the youngest I was introduced to and seen more than I should’ve. I wasn't a bad kid though, I was respectful, got good grades in school and was helpful wherever I went because I was raised that way.
As I got older the ways of me being shy and quiet slowly began to fade away, especially with me always being told “closed mouths don't get fed” and “speak up because people are not mind readers”. My cousins P and Brewler also played a part in my charismatic shift change. They were older than me but they still took me under their wing. They wasn’t just my older cousins, they were more like my brothers.
Whenever I got the chance to go with them anywhere, even if it was just to go in the house, I took it because it was never a dull moment with them, and plus I never liked going home anyway because I never had anyone to do anything with besides watching tv by myself. They were always good at a lot of things no matter what it was, and I used to watch and try to learn from them. They would always tell me that I wouldn't learn or do things they did if all I did was sit down and watch them, that “experience was always better”, and that’s with anything.
Besidesmyparents, mycousinsweremyrolemodels.
Ifeltliketheycoulddoanyand everything. Thattheywerealmostinvincible. Icouldn'trememberatimewhentheygot hurtorcouldn'tdosomething.
IrememberaskidsIusedtobelieveineverythingtheyusedtodoandwhattheyusedtotellme.
Morethantheyprobablydidthemselves.
One day at grandma's house I remember it was a nice summer day. The sun was out, a nice lil breeze was around, it wasn't too hot. It was perfect weather. I'll never forget like it was just yesterday. P and Brewer were outside in the backyard doing flips and I was just sitting there watching and amazed.
They both convinced me to stop watching and try to do one myself, but I was too scared. I had told them, naw I’m cool. But they kept going on and on talking about how I can do it just try, and that I'll never be able to do one if I didn't try. Now they were wayyyy more advanced than me, so when they did finally get me to try one, I wasn't finna try to do everything thing they'd been right there doing like standing still doing back flips with no hands, flipping off tables and garages and shit, I wasn't finna try all that I just kept it simple with a regular backflip with hands and it was crazy because I still bussed my shit. Fell right on my head.
I aint gon lie. Looking back that shit was funny, but at the time it wasnt. All they were doing was constantly laughing, it blew me, but they had told me it was cool, that they had done the same thing once before, so don't get discouraged, but to get back up and just keep trying. When they said that it reminded me of when my dad used to tell me “Get up, you good, walk it off” and when my mom and granny used to say “If you don't succeed the first time, try and try again”. So that's what I did. Got up, dusted myself off and tried again, this time I didn't fall but I definitely still bumped the top of my head. That time it made me say fuck this I’m not doing it no more.
But they convinced me to try it just one more time because that time was better and the third time would be a charm. When I thought about it I realized they were right because I actually didn't fall that time, just bumped my head a little and that was it. I admit I was still like naw I’m cool, im done, my head hurting, it's over with. But when my head stopped hurting I tried again when they weren't around so they couldn't laugh, and was happy as hell when I did the flip without falling or hitting my head again.
Grandma's house was like the kick it spot. Everything went down there. It was like everyone knew to always meet or come over there, It was always something going on, whether it was a cookout, card game, or just chilling, sitting around drinking, smoking and talking shit.
Particularly that day it was the block club party, it hadn’t started yet, but it was low key already bussing. I remember as soon as I did the flip, I ran to the front where everybody was and told them. But they aint believe me so you know I had to show them, and when I did they were all shocked.
P andBrewler were sitting there smiling, saying “See, we toldyou,”while everyone else was trying to figure out who taught me andwhere I hadgot it from. Before I knew it, they hadus putting on a show for them.
The block club party ended up starting and everyone was having a good time. Music was being played, you had a basketball game going, food being barbecued, a game of catch, and we were riding our bikes. Everything was cool, until the sound of shots stopped everything. All you heard was screaming, gunshots and bullets hitting gates, windows, houses and cars. Before I knew it everybody was running around scattering, trying to find cover because they were recklessly just shooting directly up the block.
Luckily none of the kids were hurt, especially me, by the grace of God because I was all in the air, on the stunt nuts on the bike trying to do tricks. No one died that day but unfortunately one of my family friends did get shot in the leg. It's crazy because he wasn't even around nobody, he was off by himself in the vacant lot next to grandma's house getting out of his car when he heard the shots coming from up front.
My Granny wanted us to get the chance to see and try new things other than just always being outside over grandma's house where stuff like that kinda always happened. So she put me, P and Brewler in this gymnastics class in the white people neighborhood in the far west suburb area. I won't lie, I wasn't feeling the class at first because I wasn't used to always being around new people and a new environment.
I was shy so it took me some time to get used to it and come out of my shell. By the time I got comfortable, I’ll say like the second or third week, it was one day my Granny was picking us up, the teacher was talking to her telling her that I was more advanced than the other kids that were in my age group and that I was doing things they hadn't even learned yet. Hearing that made her happy, I could tell and it made me more confident to try doing more things like my cousins.
Even though we stopped going to the class because nobody wanted to take us and my Granny had to work, All the time, the daring flips and tricks didn't stop. It was later that same week I was over my auntie Phil house (P and Brewlers mom), we were in the house bumping and making noise from flipping or rolling around the house like a human ball.
She told us “Stop bumping and making all that noise on top of these people head,” because her apartment was on the top floor so we went across the street to the park, and it was better anyway because it was more room and it had a soft-like ground so if we fell or bumped anything it wouldn't have hurted so bad.
Before we left out I remember my Auntie Phil saying ”And don't y ’all go anywhere else getting lost because we ’ re going over grandma house in a minute so y ’all better be ready when I come out.” We said ok and hurried up and ran out the door. When we got there it was some other kids there on the slides, monkey bars and swings. I instantly peeped the girls on the swings, they were lowkey decent so I decided to try to get their attention.
P had walked off to I don't know where but me and Brewler was still at the park trying to impress the girls. I had started flipping and before I knew it they all started watching us. We were doing lil small stuff and then Brewler just had to escalate it. He started flipping off the swings so I followed his lead and tried it too. When I was on the swing I won't lie, I was scared as hell but wasn't trying to let the girls see so I just did it. When I started swinging and got high enough I just leaned back and went through with it. I almost fell but caught myself and it was up from there. My confidence was through the roof, couldn't nobody tell me nun. I felt like I could do anything. I kept doing it over and over.
Next thing you know Brewler got to talking about “Ok ok watch this, I bet you can't do this, watch.” He walked over to the slide that twists around and climbed up and stood on the edge, jumped off and did a back flip. I was just standing there giving him a look like really nigga? But like I said before, my confidence was through the roof so I just went ahead and tried it.
I was up there procrastinating, steady looking back and nervous because I had a crowd of people watching. My cousin was like “What you waiting on ” and I heard somebody esle say “right what you finna do.” I knew it was all over. Now, I had to go ahead and show out and do it. I placed my feet together, balanced myself and jumped backwards in a backflip motion but didn’t push out far enough and hit my nose on the slide as I was coming down.
I landed on my feet but couldn't stay on them from the tear jerking hit I just took to the nose. I got up, looked around, and the girls was asking me if I was ok. I was like yeah I’m good, trying to play it off but the whole time in pain like a mf.
My cousin was snickering, trying not to laugh, but trying to see if I was good at the same time. Then my nose just started leaking blood. He told me to hold my head back while he run in the house to grab a cold wet towel so it could help stop the bleeding.
P came back out of nowhere when he saw me sitting on the porch nose all bloody. I knew he thought I was fighting by the way he was looking and approaching the house. He instantly asked me what happened and who did it. I told him nun, I just hit my nose on the slide flipping and it was like a big relief to him. I could tell he thought he was finna have to go do something to somebody and probably explain to my auntie Phil where he was at and how my nose got busted. Then Brewler came back out with the rag telling me to hold my head back with the rag up to my nose.
After my nose stopped bleeding we went back across the street to the park waiting to leave to go to grandma's house. In the midst of waiting, I tried my luck again and decided to give it another try, being relentless. The girls were trying to talk me out of it but my pride was too high. I just wanted to prove that I could do it too. So I climbed back up, positioned myself and this time I made sure I pushed off more than enough so I didn't do the same thing all over again. Sure enough I did it and landed on my feet. Everybody was shocked looking after I did it, because they thought I was going to mess up again, even my cousins.
After I did it I looked at the girls, smiled and said “I told y 'all I'm good, I got this” and before they could say anything back my auntie Phil came walking out telling us let's go. I walked off feeling like the man. Moral of the story, I learned a couple of valuable lessons. To never give up, always push yourself no matter what, anything is possible, experience is the best teacher, and if nobody believes in you, always believe in yourself.
J. Minor
I Am From
I am from the Westside and Eastside of Chicago
From Division and Kedvale and 87th and Kingston
I am from broken street lights the smell of gunpowder and sounds of shots and sirens
From hot chips with cheese and meat and snowballs and Mexican corn
I am from Grandma house both of them
Where we all grew up at and maybe a little too soon
I am from My mom and dad, Sharmayne and Jerry
And from my favorite cousins P and Brewler
From dead man pick up and hooping on crates
And from laughing, cracking jokes and being goofy
I'm from stop being scary and just do it
And from respect is earned not just given
And love those who love you
I'm from Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior
I'm from the Raq
From smoking and drinking to BBQ's and soul food
From where it's safe to say it's not safe for the kids to play
Cuz violence is on the way
I am from pain, suffering, laughter and joy
