Anthony

Randy Leonard

When I was growing up, most of the adults who knew me –including my teachers- thought I was headed for trouble. They mistook my independence and truancy for a lack of interest in life. What they nor anyone else understood about me was that I was trying to survive…my way.

I didn't think school was relevant to my life. Thinking of only survival, I knew I had to move out of my home as soon as I could.

I had not thought about those memories for quite a while. They came back like a flood last Friday night at the GED graduation ceremony sponsored by South East Works. I was invited to give the commencement address to 10 students who had experienced many different challenges in their lives preventing them from getting a high school diploma.

South East Works, located on SE 69th and Foster, is an organization that works with troubled young people ages 14 to 21. I have done volunteer speaking at South East Works for a number of years because of the kind of kids they work with. They remind me of me when I was their age. Angry, but not quite sure why. Curious, but reluctant to show an interest for fear of being rejected. Intelligent, but never having had an environment to allow their natural talents to blossom.

Kenny Sparks, the long time youth program manager at South East Works, called and asked me to give the key note address to the graduating students…an offer Kenny knows from experience he needs only make to me once.

I gave my standard talk to the students and parents about the life I led while growing up on NE 8th and Siskiyou…one house from Irving Park. I talked about my quitting high school, joining the Marine Corps in 1969 and within 24 hours after leaving Portland on that warm September day 35 years ago, realizing I had made the worst mistake of my life…possibly a fatal mistake. However, my guardian angel (who I have kept very busy over the years) intervened and I was injured in boot camp…hurt badly enough to be discharged and sent back home….still 17…still enough time to reenroll at Grant High School, catch up on my missed assignments and graduate.

It was an experience that not only changed my life, it quite literally saved my life.

I explained how that experience taught me that it was me who would decide my future…and no one else but me....that far from not being relevant to my life, getting a good education would be my salvation. Learning that, I went to college and graduated and have led, given the predictions of my dismal future when I was growing up, a good life.

As many times as I have given that talk to kids who are searching for themselves, there is usually only one or maybe two in the audience that I connect with. You have to be ready to hear the message I give. As I speak, I search for the kids who are concentrating on my message. I laser lock on the kids who are concentrating on my story. I am aware that I am talking just to them. No one else quite understands. There is a look of familiarity, if not hope, in their eyes.

Last Friday night it was Anthony who locked eyes with me.

After the class received their diplomas the students were asked if anyone wanted to say anything. There was one of those long, silent pauses. Finally, Anthony, a 21 year old African-American man, stood up and said “I want to say something.”

“I am here alone”, Anthony began. “None of my family is here. That’s OK. I am here.”

The parents, teachers and students were stone silent. All of our eyes were on this tall, handsome young man who clearly had so much to say.

“I had to make a choice,” Anthony continued, “either I was going to sell and use drugs like my family, or I was going to try and make something of myself. I decided I was going to make something of myself.”

He sat down. Nobody spoke until a parent I had talked with earlier stood up, looked at Anthony and said “Son, we are all your family, and we are here.” We all nodded in agreement. In kind of an unspoken pact, all of us adopted Anthony last Friday night at the Brentwood-Darlington Community Center. Without talking to each other, we knew Anthony had begun to prove himself as a man and now we had to pick up the slack that is the void caused by a family who just isn't there.

No problem.

By Randy Leonard July 24, 2004