Why Osiris Organization?

Friday, June 4^th, 2010, “Searching Outside Of The Family For Similar Values” Part VI, Crane High School, Coach Brown, Aunt Betty, my conflicts continue!

Junior year, I made the varsity team. Ernest was getting lots of playing time off the bench.  This was Coach Brown’s first year as varsity coach and I never played during that year.  Coach expressed his disappointed in my lack of confidence, many times in a very demeaning way but I stayed on and supported my teammates. Coach Brown and I never developed a relationship during my junior year. I was “off the radar” junior year and would not be making a contribution to the team. James Jackson and Andre “Champ” Wakefield were the stars on the team that year.

I mainly spent a lot of time talking to Aunt Betty and helping out my grandfather around the house. My grandfather was the kind of man that would never ask for help.  He would exhaust himself before he would consider asking for any type of assistance.

It was a very tough year for me due to lots of reflection about the many contradictions. I realized that my grandparents were human just everyone else.  One day I answered the phone and it was a bill collector. She asked for my grandfather. He just happened to be walking past me on his way towards the back of our house.

“May I speak to Mr. Roddy please”?

“Daddy, some lady on the phone wants to talk to you.”

“Who is it?”

“May I ask who is calling please?” She said she was so and so from X company.

“Hey Daddy, it’s so and so from X company.” I’m hollering out to my grandfather with the lady on the other end of the line.

“Tell her I’m not here.”

“I’m so sorry Ms so and so but my father is not here.”

“Tell your father that he needs to take care of his outstanding bill with us,” she said ever so politely.

“Daddy, she said it was some kind of bill you owed them.”

My grandfather did not say a word but his piercing look taught me much that evening!

My grandparents never talked to us about money or finances.  Their generation did not share this type of information with their kids. I would often wonder how much money we had.  I would accompany my grandfather to the bank and he would talk to me about paying bills but never shared which ones. Most of the time is was to get money orders to pay bills and I do remember seeing him put some money into a saving account. I never wanted for anything, never lacked clothing or food. But we never talked about the money that provided these things.  Why was it a taboo subject?

Aunt Betty would ask me to take a more active role in mentoring her sons Juan, Lovell (Fat), Lekeif, (Ke Ke), Lenard (Na Na). Juan was her oldest son and he loved to watch me play baseball at our local playground after school.  I did the best I could to always be positive and support them.

High school started to feel like a burden. My classes were not that challenging and I had a study hall on my schedule.  The study halls were “temporary holding pens” as far as I was concerned.  Nobody studied in them so I felt I did need to attend them.  I started to skip study hall. About two weeks later my grandmother met me in the living room and started screaming at me about a letter she got Crane saying I was cutting classes. The letter did not indicate it was a study hall and that I was getting A’s and B’s in all of my other classes.  It just said that I was cutting classes. I had to listen to her rant and rave at me for about 10 minutes before she cooled down.  She had contacted Aunt Ida and Aunt Ida had arrived in the living to room to see what all of the commotion was about.  Imagine my thoughts and feelings as Aunt Ida, aka Klingon Warrior approached me.

“Aunt Ida, please let me explain the letter to you and mamma.  I am not cutting any of my major classes. This is just a study hall the students go to. Nobody does any studying and it’s boring. Why should I have to go to them?”

“You need to go to them because they are on your schedule,” Aunt Ida said. “Mamma and Daddy don’t know the difference because the letter did not say what classes you were skipping. Don’t miss any more study halls and I don’t ever what to see this type of letter coming here again or I will make sure Daddy finds out.”

That’s all she had to say!  I never missed another one.

I had violated an important component of our family values, education, and was quickly brought back in line by loved ones.  There was no negotiation, I was “guilty” for skipping classes and the jury had made their decision. Obey the family values or there will be hell to pay, case closed!

June 8^th, 2010, “Searching Outside Of The Family For Similar Values” Part VII, My Senior year at Crane High School, Coach Vaughn, Coach White and my conflicts resolved!