Alla and Larry
As countrymen, we were always kidding and playing around with each other in our tiny one bedroom house. Life was harsh sometimes, but we always pulled through together.
My parents had always worked hard putting all of us, seven kids, through school. I am the youngest of seven children. We all went to a catholic church on Sundays. Since I was raised in a catholic community, I went to a catholic school. I always had to wear khakis, black shoes, and a bowtie. It was the experience I will never forget. We had close relationships with nuns, and they were good teachers. When I was in my eighth year of the catholic school, my mom died. I got into a public school system, but I did not want to learn anymore after my mom died. Both my parents are deceased now, but they raised a good kid who grew up to be a good hardworking man. My parents always taught me to work hard for what I wanted and not to take anything from anybody. They said that if you don’t have enough money, you should ask people for it and not take anything from anyone. When life knocks you down, you have to get up and keep on going. That was what my parents instilled in me. As a child, I always had chores to do. My brothers always kept me doing something. In Louisiana we did several things to keep ourselves occupied: we made gardens, did homework, and attended school activities.
The other thing my parents did, that I appreciate a lot today, was tough discipline. I had gotten some beatings as a child and I don’t advise today’s parents to beat their kids. A good conversation with a kid is much more useful. When you are young, sometimes you don’t listen, and you can make some wrong choices in life. Tough discipline helped me learn from them and has paid off for me and helped me make better choices in life as a grown man. I am a drug free person. I have never done drugs in my life. I like fishing and I love the outdoors. I love sports, like outdoor baseball and football.
I would like to say something to today’s youth. Some of the children today are not organized. They need someone to follow. They also need to be educated more. If a drug pusher approaches you and says, “I have something for you,” all you need to do is just keep walking and say, “No. I don’t need it today.” As long as you don’t need it in your life, you can just keep on walking.
The mind is a terrible thing to waste
Young men of all ages of all races:
Don’t waste your mind,
And put the guns down,
And put the drugs down too,
And go on to lead a good productive life.
Guns and drugs are not going to lead us anywhere,
But education will.
Educate people more.
In conclusion, I would like to thank Project Read for giving me this opportunity to present some of my life history in this newsletter, and to tell a little story, and for supplying me with this fantastic tutor Ms. Alla. I thank Project Read for helping me read better, for my tutor miss Alla, who is being patient and who is planning to stick with me. Since I have been coming to Project Read, Project Read helped me a lot by giving me the nice tutor, so that I can continue to read better, spell better, and do my job better. I appreciate that a great deal. If, like me, you have not been all the way through school, and you want to educate yourself more, Project Read is the place to be.
[Larry wishes to thank his hardworking and supportive tutor, Alla Baran, for editing this piece.]
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