History Around Me

I’m from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but at age 15 I settled in a suburb just outside Washington D.C. Reason being, my mother’s employer, Ma Bell, transferred her position to the D.C. area after the government forced the Mega Corporation to brake-up its monopoly. My reaction to the migration was one of emotional resistance and uneasiness which lasted two years. A teenager who is about to start varsity football in his upcoming junior year and hoping to get an athletic scholarship to Penn State does not want to move. But the ‘Chocolate City’ characterized by Go-Go music, college hoops (let’s go Hoyas), Mayor for life (Marion Barry) and host to Michael Jordan and Mike Tyson became my home for 23 years before moving to Malaysia.

But this post isn’t about what I lost or teenage trial and tribulations; rather it is about what I learned. By virtue of location historical events unfolded right before my eyes. I didn’t have to read a small blip from a newspaper to find out why African American Men from all parts of the United States gathered on Washington’s Capitol Mall on October 16, 1995, because I attended the ‘Million Man March’.












I saw firsthand the bruised Pentagon Building after 911. I can direct you to the exact location where the attempted assassination of Ronald Regan took place, because at one time I worked 100 ft. away from the hotel where it happened. I can even recite to you mundane facts like generally what the former Speaker of The White House, George Stephanopoulos likes to do when he works out. I also recall him having an annoyed look on his face like ‘do you know who I am’ whenever he was asked to present his gym membership card at the front desk.

In retrospect I appreciate this knowledge now; I didn’t when I lived there. You tend to take everyday occurrences for granted, even those occurrences that are of historical and international proportion.

Today I wished I was back in Washington D.C. to bear witness to the Inauguration of the 44th President of United States of America, Barack Obama. It would have been nice to have that memory to share with my future grand children.


P.S.

I eventually received an athletic scholarship from Howard University for Taekwondo.