Several people I respect have been messing with my head. They have been talking about hands on and local. One of them is my brother Deet. He lucked into a meeting with the mayor of Pasadena about a month ago, and the Mayor said, "What would you like to do?". I tried not to drool as Deet told me the tale of how he bumped into the mayor at an Obama reception. They talked and the mayor was impressed with Deet, because he's a Bowen and we have that effect on people. So he got another meeting.
This meeting was at some snazzy restaurant with notables noting that Deet was hanging with hizzoner. The answer to the question was that he wants to work with kids. Meaning at-risk, somewhat troubled, street kids. And in particular, he was interested in The Boys & Girls Club. Not long after that Deet got the executive director's tour of the Boys & Girls Clubs. Now he's thinking very seriously about working with the kids as a volunteer. See that's the thing about Deet, he's not interested in it for the money, and I think it is a thing that stuns us more worldly types a bit. He just wants to help.
The second piece of this inspiration came from a colleague out in Fort Worth. I'm a little mad at myself for not writing this earlier because I've now forgotten some of the details. But we stood for about 15 minutes talking about her summer vacation which she spent as a camp counselor at Camp El Tesoro which is run by Campfire USA. But her's was a special session of the camp which dedicates a week each year to kids who have suffered some traumatic loss. This year she had boys who had lost their fathers. Not as in dad walked out to get a pack of cigs and hasn't come back, as in dad is dead from leukemia and I watched him go from my hero to this wrinkled sliver of a man. It was a touching moment as she gave the matter of fact details of how on one day, one moment can make a difference of lasting significance for a kid whose life has been shattered.
The third piece was a brief discussion I had with Deet & The R at an IHOP the week after the family reunion. We talked about what it would take to put together a Drop Squad. I've always been a fan of the Drop Squad concept, and there have been many an occasion when I have watched from the bus stop as black men in brand new Mercedes Benzes cruised by on their way to places unknown. I always wondered what they knew and how they came to know it. My idea of a Drop Squad was essentially a summer pledge program for a single young man in which we would bounce him from house to house and douse him with an experience that would mark him for life. The R related a story about such a program in which several boys from the ghetto were sent to a high school in East Africa where they would see true poverty as well as other boys their age working on the same materials and yet doing it from conditions of extreme poverty. The program ran out of funds halfway through, the boys came back to the projects, which they now saw as not so bad after all. That program was a complete disaster, and it reminded me of someone else who had a similar experience. So while I'm on the subject let me relate that story.
A friend of mine's ex-girlfriend was one of those highly motivated individuals who wanted to give back to the community. She got her degree in one of the social sciences and then completed her masters, I forget which, but decided against going to law school. She was a straight A college student, very bright and very committed. She decided to go directly to the the projects and manage at-risk kids. She got Liberal Fever. She didn't want just the bad kids, she wanted the worst kids. She was sure that what she had learned in her years of schooling and her presence as a role model would make a big difference. After a while she became consumed and we often heard stories about how she would use anger management techniques to stop kids from literally shooting each other. At some point she decided that she wanted to go even further and went to Sharpeville in South Africa. Something snapped in her. I never got the full story, but basically when she realized how little people had, as compared to her life of privilege she lost all of her ambition. She came home to the states and could not leave her room. She wouldn't work, she wouldn't eat. She was traumatized.
This past weekend, I went to church to give special thanks for the blessings I have received. On my way back I passed the old Alpha House near the USC campus. Friends (and frat) of mine had purchased that house back in the day, and after some time they lost it. The neighborhoods around USC were very much like those around the University of Chicago, except that in Chicago they have been fully gentrified. There are still burglar bars and browned out lawns covered with junk in many of the blocks north of USC, but grand old houses still stand waiting to be renovated and given life.
So I wondered what it would take to establish a network of houses for my Drop Squad. How could we get the properties to house a private hands-on group to touch some fraction of the young men like Eric Morris is an interesting proposition to me. Naturally, I think that if I were a zillionaire, I'd certainly establish that network of properties where kids could get exposed to the Drop. Not just abstract counseling, but real talk in an Old School Network.
The problem for me is that right now, many of my peers are on toddler lockdown. So it has been difficult for me to even establish any face to face networks for any purpose, not that I've been trying 100%. Still, my experience is that it's very difficult to do. Men are networking for their own purposes, Masons, Rotarians...etc. I've come to the preliminary conclusion that this is something for me to do in retirement or after I make my zillion. Consequently I am looking to some of my peers own fathers, and those who have inherited a pile of pelf. So far I've only got one vacation home in the Bahamas, but it's a start.
The Brother's Cup is what I've always called this idea, after an old RHCP song that somehow stuck in my head back in 85. There are variations, like The Regulars which is a bit less ambitious - that's all about just a monthly dinner get-together. And blogging is a light version of the personal relationship thing.
Deet, Doc and I have always been inveterate backpackers although I'm in horrible shape, relatively speaking. I expect that if and when I get the idea off the ground, it will start with hikes in California. As a side note, I remember being similarly inspired upon meeting some members of the Southern California branch of the Buffalo Soldiers. However they landed into some controversy and I had to pass.
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