SHOW NOTES

There are some people you’ll never forget. In this week’s sketchbook episode, I talk about a school bus driver who made an incredible impression on me, and taught me an important lesson that I still use even today.

TRANSCRIPT

There are some people you’ll never forget as long as you live.

This week, we’re going back to 1999. I was in seventh grade, and my primary mode of transportation was a school bus. I can remember many, many frosty mornings standing on a corner in my apartment complex waiting for bus number 546 to lumber up to the curb.

The door would creak open, and every day it was the same bus driver, an elderly black man with gray stubble, a denim Oxford, and trucker cap. In my entire two years, I don’t think he ever missed a day.

I consider him an early mentor, and he taught me a lot about humility, and how to deal with trolls. He’s the subject of my sketchbook today.

***

Hello, and welcome to episode 23.

Let me just start this week’s sketchbook out by saying that I was bullied pretty bad. While I look back on my middle school days fondly, I can’t look at them without feeling some pain, either. And when I think about those days, the things that got me through the constant bullying and teasing and fights, it was the guidance of teachers and adults that ultimately believed in me and helped because they wanted to see kids succeed.

I went to school with a lot of kids who thought they were invincible and disrespected adults something awful. And when I say disrespect, I mean cursing, punching, and all kinds of other verbal and physical harm. It was tough to be a teacher in my middle school. There were many days where teachers ended up with black eyes for trying busting up fights. My principal got assaulted in the parking lot one night after school.

Not even the school buses were safe. Fights broke out there, too, more times than I liked to count.

Which brings me to my bus driver, a man just doing his job in a hostile environment.

***

No one ever knew the man’s name, so everyone just called him bus driver. He only had one facial-expression, and that was stone-faced, staring straight ahead. He looked like a man who’d had a life of quiet disappointment, probably because he was driving a school bus of rowdy kids who disrespected him every day.

He wore the same thing every day: a denim oxford and a trucker cap. He had a potbelly, and a voice that reminded me of Bill Cosby. In fact, that’s why the kids made fun of him. Not a single day went by where someone in the back of the bus didn’t bust out a Bill Cosby impersonation just to mock him.

The kids mocked him for what he wore. They mocked him for being quiet, taunting him and trying to get him to talk, and he would ignore them. He’d focus on driving the bus methodically through his serpentine route.

He took a lot of crap, and he took it gracefully.

***

Two incidents forever made me a fan of this man.

He was, at that point in my life, the only person I had ever seen who was bullied more than me. Those kids terrorized him like you wouldn’t believe, and as much as I hated to see it, seeing someone else be terrorized instead of me for a change was a welcome breather, time for me to reflect on those long bus rides home.

As is any nerdy kid’s custom, I usually sat in the front of the bus, directly behind him. I’d stare wistfully out the window.

One day, he spoke to me. I don’t know how or why.

But he must have believed I was only kid on that bus that was worth talking to, because he never spoke to anyone else.

He was incredibly friendly to me. I thought he hated his life based on his facial expression, but when he spoke, he was actually very warm.

“You’re not like the other knuckleheads in the back of the bus,” he told me. He’d ask me about my classes and how they were going. He’d ask about my family. And we’d have pleasant conversation. Hell, we talked about philosophy and about the ways of people.

***

Near the end of my eighth grade year, he said something I’ll never forget.

He said, “You look like you’re destined to go somewhere in life, wise beyond your years. The other kids here, they just talk and don’t know what they’re talking about. You look like the kind of kid that gets all the facts and makes up your mind for yourself. That’s gonna take you a long way.”

I don’t really remember the details of all our conversations, but I’ll never forget that.

Here was a man I only spoke to for maybe twenty minutes a day, but I learned a lot from him. I connected with him in a way that I didn’t with other adults. I viewed him as an elder, like my grandparents and great grandparents.

He believed in civility. He treated people with respect even if they disrespected you. He believed in jazz and its power to transform a person’s life. He believed in doing a good job because that was the minimum of what was expected of you. He believed that as a black man, it was his responsibility to be a role model to other black people, especially the young pups, and he told me many times that I needed to pass that on.

***

The second incident, I saw him break.

Those kids broke him.

I suppose one can only take so much before he snaps.

It was just before summer vacation at the end of the day, and a kid got on the bus with a CD player. I didn’t think anything of it as he passed. But soon, the assistant principal ran onto the bus and called the boy’s name.

Turns out the kid’s teacher had confiscated his CD player because he was listening to it in class, and he stole it out of his teacher’s desk before he left.

The confrontation immediately turned into a shouting match, and the kid called the assistant principal all kinds of bad names. The bus driver sat silently as the encounter unfolded, eyeing the boy in the rearview mirror.

***

Eventually, the assistant principal confiscated the CD player, and I don’t remember why, but they let the kid ride the bus home. The whole way home, he was making passive aggressive remarks about the principal, the school, and life in general, in colorful words I won’t repeat.

Anyway, the bus is driving down a busy street when the kid says something to the tune of, “Everybody in this school would be much better off without teachers treating school like slave day.” Imagine that, but with more curse words.

The bus screeched to a stop. Seriously, I didn’t know a school bus could stop that fast.

The bus driver put the bus in park and stood up.

“What did you say, boy?” he asked calmly.

“It’s a motherfuckin’ slave day!” the kid shouted.

“Slave day?” the bus driver asked. “You don’t know the meaning of slave day.”

And then the bus driver exploded. He lectured the entire bus on how insolent we were and as black people that was a damn shame. He said a lot of slaves died so we could be more than just three-fifths of a person and actually live in this society as free people.

And, predictably, the kid cursed him out.

And the bus driver shut him up and got even madder. He pointed a finger at the kid and said a lot of people stood up and spoke out just so we could ride a bus in the first place. And here this kid was with his first world problems mad, at the principal because the principal was enforcing the rules.

He opened the bus door, which led into the middle of traffic, told the boy to get the hell off his bus.

Then he drove off, leaving the boy standing on the curb.

I’ve never heard that bus so quiet. And if that wasn’t enough, the bus driver then glanced at us with a harsh warning.

“Any of you wanna talk like that, I’ll put you off my bus!”

And then he didn’t say another word.

***

Hoped you liked that one. That bus driver was unforgettable. And he got in a lot of trouble for that incident. After all, he lost his composure and endangered a child.

After everything transpired, he told me that he almost lost his job over it. But he didn’t seem to mind. A job’s a job, and he could drive a bus in any school district, probably better ones than mine.

Many years later, when I was working in corporate America and took a stand for what I believed in and almost lost my own job as a result, I thought of him, and his quiet confidence.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.” Hal Borland

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SHOW NOTES

Quick overview of this week's show:

• What happened at Fair St. Louis in 2005 and why it was the most memorable 4th of July for me
• Random people-watching session that inspired a short story

TRANSCRIPT

In the United States, the 4th of July, or Independence Day is a major holiday.

People love to barbecue, spend time with family, and of course, take to the streets and shoot off fireworks.

For days and days before (and after) the holiday, you can hear people shooting them off, even if it’s against the law.

In my hometown of St. Louis, nothing spells 4th of July like Fair St. Louis, which is basically our version of a state fair. Thousands gather downtown for concerts and entertainment, food, fireworks, and alcohol.

In this week’s episode I’m going to talk about a people-watching session I had all the way back in 2005. This one’s an oldie but a goodie.

***

Hello, and welcome to episode 19 of the podcast.

In this week’s sketchbook episode, which may be the oldest dated sketchbook entry yet, I wanted to talk about one of the most memorable 4th of July holidays I have ever had.

The year was 2005.

I had a crew of friends and we did just about everything together. We played in jazz band together, volunteered with the American Red Cross for community service, and just generally hung out all the time on weekends.

One of my friends found out that the Black-Eyed Peas were playing at the fair, so we decided to go see them.

That year, the fair was downtown on the riverfront of the Mississippi River under the Gateway Arch.

So if you’ve ever seen St. Louis in pictures or been there yourself, you can imagine how cool it would have been to be among thousands of people, sitting on the grass under the arch, watching the river flow by and the Black-Eyed Peas singing their greatest hits.

***

We drive into downtown St. Louis, and buildings rise all around us as we fight traffic and rivers of pedestrians in order to find a parking garage.

I’m the lucky one driving, and my knuckles are practically white as I park the car on the top floor of a parking garage.

Being teenage boys, we take the stairs, joking and laughing several blocks, all the way down to the St. Louis Gateway Arch.

There are people everywhere, drinking beer, smoking, and chatting.

Underneath the Arch is a giant stage, yet we can hardly see it because we’re so far back.

The sun is bright in the sky, spinning sequins off the brown water of the Mississippi. The sky is endlessly blue, and it’s so bright that I wish I brought sunglasses.

I want to eat something but I don’t have any more money so I can’t. I’d used my paycheck from my job to pay for gas to and from the fair.

My stomach rumbles.

***

We’re sitting on a concrete wall, and it’s hot. Sweltering hot and humid, only in the way that St. Louis weather can be. Not even the breeze coming off the river can cool us down.

There’s this game we like to play. It’s a people watching game. Each of us pick out the most interesting person in sight. We talk about the person’s story and find a good laugh about it.

Various acts take the stage, play entire sets.

Of course, they keep the Black-Eyed Peas until the end, so after the fifth or sixth act, the sun is lower in the sky, and the first hint of night appears in the clouds, the skyscrapers start to blink on.

The Black-Eyed Peas take the stage, and everyone erupts into applause as they sing their hits.

They put on a pretty good concert. Not memorable, but definitely not bad.

Still, I’m hungry.

***

The concert ends, and fireworks erupt over the river. Brilliant bursts of red, blue, and purple, they fill the sky and everyone applauds as music plays.

At this point it’s around nine or ten o’clock, and we’re tired. We’ve got curfew to make.

We navigate through crowds of people making their way out of the park.

We make it back to my car and as I pull out of the parking garage, we run into trouble.

Big trouble.

Traffic is backed up for miles.

Now, traffic in St. Louis is a normal thing. It usually takes at least 30 minutes to 45 minutes one-way to get anywhere in GOOD traffic.

But this traffic jam is the worst I’ve ever seen.

All over, cars are spilling out of parking garages. People are honking aggressively at each other.

My stomach rumbles again, and my eyes fall down to my dashboard.

I’ve only got half a tank of gas at best.

***

We sit in traffic for four hours, listening to all the angry people shouting out of their cars.

There’s no accident, no hold up. Just the natural result of thousands of people crowding into a small area on a Saturday night holiday.

I have to call my grandmother to tell her I’ll be late.

I don’t know my way around downtown very well, and smartphones hadn’t been invented yet, so imagine me with a printout from MapQuest with step by step directions, consulting it to find out where to turn next.

My friends and I are tired. Exhausted.

But there are so many people walking on the street that we start to play our game again.

We’re sitting at a corner and a bunch of pedestrians pass by on the sidewalk. Among them is a middle aged black man in a bright yellow suit and a pimp hat. Seriously, the suit is as yellow as a banana. He’s wearing sunglasses and has an immaculate brown Bible under his arm. He’s also wearing shiny brown shoes with wingtips. He struts down the street.

Randomly, he shouts something about everyone needing to find Jesus and then disappears around a corner.

My friends and I all look at each other. And then we start cracking up.

***

Hope you liked that one. I didn’t get home that night until around 2AM.

Oh, and the gentleman I saw in the yellow suit inspired a short story that eventually ended up in my book, Reconciled People. It’s called “The Book of Cutty” and it’s about a black man who sets up camp on the Las Vegas Strip trying to convert as many people to Jesus as he can, and then the devil shows up to stop him.

Because I kept a description of him, I was able to use that nearly seven years later in 2012 when I sat down to write “The Book of Cutty.” That’s how valuable my sketchbook has been to me all these years.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“A day without sunshine is, like, you know, night.” Steve Martin

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

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SHOW NOTES

Quick overview of this week's show:

• My encounter with a seemingly innocuous “company” disguisted as a pyramid
• A crazy account of what happened behind closed doors
• The story of two people trapped
• (Thank goodness I escaped!!)

TRANSCRIPT

Have you ever been in a situation where things seemed perfectly normal, and then something happens that makes you realize that it’s actually not very normal at all?

In this week’s episode I’m going to talk about a run-in I had with a pyramid scheme company. This memory stands out as one of the strangest and most bizarre things I’ve ever experienced, and something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Stay tuned.

***

Hello, and welcome to episode 15 of the podcast.

Today I’m telling my pyramid scheme story. I’ve told this to friends, but never the writing community, so here goes.

The year was 2006. I was a freshman in high school. I was going to a small private college in Iowa, and as one of the only black people, I was trying to make the best of it.

If you’ve never met me in person, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that I’m fairly outgoing and friendly, even though I’m socially awkward and an introvert at heart.

I remember introducing myself to a lot of different people my freshman year, just trying to find people that I could relate to.

That’s where this story begins.

The Beginning of Bizarre

It’s my freshman year of college, and I’m standing in line at the college grill, waiting to buy a hamburger. There’s a guy standing in line front of me, and I smile and nod to him.

Slightly balding strawberry blonde hair, which was unusual for someone his age. Short, wearing a blue baseball cap, gray athletic shirt, and basketball shorts.

We start chatting and actually ended up eating dinner together.

He tells me about how he is majoring in business and how he is actually an entrepreneur, selling products in his spare time.

He strikes me as a geeky kind of guy, but not the entrepreneurial type.

I, not knowing what entrepreneurs are at the time, am impressed. I want to know more.

He invites me to a weekly conference that he attends and says that he’d love to have me learn more about his company.

Being a young college student with no money, I agree to join him.

Mistake #1.

The Middle of Bizarre, Part 1

A few days later, we arrive at a local hotel. My acquaintance is dressed up, wearing a black suit and tie, which is a complete wardrobe reversal for him.

There are signs everywhere directing us to the conference center, a gigantic ballroom in the back of the hotel. Crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, a big stage in the front with blue and green lights shining in the center.

There are people everywhere, crowds and crowds of them, like your typical conference.

They’re all dressed up, too. I’m wearing a lavender button-down oxford and jeans, and I feel out of place.

As we’re pushing through the crowd, people are calling out my acquintance’s name.

As he shakes hands and waves at people, I think to myself, this is awfully elaborate for a weekly conference.

He introduces me to his district manager, a mousy guy who’s my age, which is saying something because I’m only 19.

The Middle of Bizarre, Part 2

We sit at a table and the manager tells me how he’s invested his life into the business.

He had a full ride to a prestigious school in the Midwest United States, but he dropped out of college to be a businessman, and he’s all-in.

I ask him what the company sells, and he tells me they sell… products. He hands me a brochure. There are energy drinks, shakes, exercise accessories. Things I would hardly call entrepreneurial.

It also doesn’t make sense that he keeps claiming he’s an entrepreneur, yet he’s employed by this company.

I pepper him with dozens of questions, and to this day I don’t think that he ever gave me a clear answer on exactly what the business was or how it made money.

Instead, he asks me point blank, “do you want a new future?”

I’m taken aback.

“You’re a smart guy,” he says. “And black. You could really make a name for yourself in this industry.”

I politely decline.

He asks again, I decline.

He asks me again, and I tell him “look, dude. I’m cool.”

Then he gets up and walks away, tells me that he’ll check in with me after the conference.

He’s not going to take no for an answer, and that’s when my gut tells me something’s not right here.

The Middle of Bizarre, Part 3

More people sit down and I find myself sitting next to an Asian woman about my age.

I ask her some questions and we start chatting. I’m sensing some flirting, and she is pretty attractive.

She’s dressed in a tan blouse and a long pencil skirt. There’s a pen tucked behind her ear and she has a portfolio on her lap filled with eloquently written notes about profit & loss, supply & demand, target markets and funnels. She strikes me as smart and assertive.

She tells me that she works for an aquarium manufacturer by day, but that she dreams of being her own boss. I ask her what she sells, and her answer makes zero sense.

Still, I like her personality and her energy.

The Middle of Bizarre, Part 4

The conference begins.

The lights dim, everyone claps, and a tall man in a double-breasted suit jogs on stage. He looks and sounds like a pastor.

What ensues is a sermon, but not about God. This sermon is about business.

The guy chastises everyone in the room for not activating their full potential, and then he praises them in the next sentence for being brave and taking their lives into their own hands.

He talks about how he just bought a brand new Cadillac because he was a good businessman. He calls two people up to the stage, hands them the keys to THEIR brand new Cadillacs because they are the sales people of the year. Everyone claps.

The whole time, the woman is taking notes, filling up page after page.

I’m confused.

The End of Bizarre

I’m chatting with the Asian woman the whole time, and we’re hitting it off. Despite the fact that I have no clue about the business she’s in, I’d like to get to know her better.

I’m pretty shy when it comes to these things, but I mustered up the courage to ask her out for…ice cream.

Her eyes light up when I ask the question, then she says to hold on, she needs to ask her manager if he would give her permission to go out with me for ice cream. [CUE NEEDLE SKIP]

She ventures through the crowd, asks the manager I confronted earlier. He gives me an evil look.

Then she wanders back over and says “I’d really like to go out with you, but he won’t allow it.”

My head is about to explode.

I tell her thanks, and good luck.

Then I turn.

And I run like hell.

True story.

So that’s my pyramid scheme story. I researched that “company” later that night and found out that it was, in fact, an alleged scheme. I read horror stories of people who invested tens of thousands of dollars into it, only to find themselves in a dangerous physical, financial, mental, and emotional danger, usually from manipulation.

I won’t share any more because I don’t want anyone to know what company I’m talking about. This is some scary stuff.

I can laugh about the event now, but I remember feeling really sorry for that woman.

She was definitely in over her head. Whatever kind of relationship she had with her “boss”, it couldn’t have been healthy. Not if she couldn’t think for herself.

I read stories of “managers” controlling every aspect of people’s lives, even telling them what to wear and say. I’m pretty sure some manipulation was at work here.

I think sometimes if maybe I should have done something. Called the police and reported the incident. But I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have ended well for her OR me. I hope she got out.

Or, maybe I was completely wrong and misread the situation. Or maybe she misunderstood what I was asking. I don’t think so, though. I was pretty clearly asking her out on a date.

I never saw her again.

As for the acquaintance that dragged me to the event, I don’t know what happened to him, either.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.” – Henry Rollins

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