Powell

Minorities I was born on April 5, 1937 and soon after my birth my family and I moved from Harlem to Hunt’s Point in the South Bronx. I spent most of my childhood living there. We lived among neighbors who were Jewish, Italian, Irish, and Greek. Puerto Ricans immigrants joined us during the 1940’s.We lived on third floor of an eight family, four-story building, now demolished. Each neighborhood had its own character. I played thirty-six kinds of street games like stickball, stoopball, punchball, and sluggo. My favorite childhood pastime was “making the walk” a counter-clockwise walk around the area. I passed Jewish bakeries and candy stores, a Puerto Rican grocery store, and many butcher shops. Everybody was a minority. You were either black, Jewish, Puerto Rican, or some type of European. My house was a center of hospitality. My father enjoyed inviting everyone to share food and drinks. I really enjoyed this point in my life time. Creation of a dream Growing up, school was not that important to me. I always played around in class and didn’t take my education too seriously. School was just not for me. It didn’t really grab my attention .I wasn’t the smartest kid in class, but I wasn’t doing a poor job either. Even with a “C” average, I still attended a technical college for mechanics because that’s what my mother wanted for me… she thought that it was the best thing for me. However, I did not like it one bit… It really wasn’t for me. So I decided to change my major to geology. That wasn’t any better. One morning on my way to college I saw some soldiers marching down a street. Their uniform and the way they carried themselves with pride was eye catching. I found out from one of the soldiers how to sign up to become one. He also gave me an idea of what it is like to be a soldier. I knew this was for me. This is how I got started into the military. It was the best decision I ever made. The Beautiful Alma Johnson I was in college when I had my first date. It was a blind date. Her named was Alma Johnson and she was from Birmingham, Alabama. She worked as an audiologist. An audiologist is a person trained in testing people for hearing problems. After the blind date, we continued dating. We dated regularly and we met at the officers club on base. We decided to get more serious and move to the next step. So on New Year’s Alma and I celebrated together with my family. There was dancing, music, good food and celebration. I was promoted to captain in June 1962.I had orders to go to Vietnam. We had a twelve month separation. After our long separation we eventually got married. Right after our marriage, we were to separate again. It was really problematic for me and my admirable wife, Alma. It’s because we were expecting a child. I did not find out right away. She had sent an acknowledgment, but I didn’t receive it when it first came in. some time had gone by and I still hadn’t received the letter. I went to go find it for myself. I found one that said baby letter and I just knew that had to be it. That’s how I found out about my baby.