Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.

Don’t judge what you don’t know

Sometimes people make such an impression on you be it negative or positive and you just can’t get them off yo mind.

I grew up in what is now called South Central Los Angeles; to us it was just the Eastside. Homeowners lived in most homes and pride was taken in the community. This was a time when you knew your neighbors. The time 1961.

I was going to a Seven Day Adventist school at the time and was picked up by the school bus each morning on the corner of Wall St and San Pedro. In the hood we had a guy who was just a lil bit of center he was called Shorty Blue. Shorty Blue was the one who collected cans and other items no longer wanted or needed by its owners. We called him the ragman. Mr. Blue was in love with that bottle of wine and he was drunk most of the time. He never seemed to like the kids in the hood and would shoot at us with his sling shoot. He was pretty good at hitting his target more often than not. One morning as I waited for the bus and he swayed in the alley I became his object of attention and a rock came sailing into my space. He pointed his finger at me while trying to maintain his balance. He did a lil jig and for some reason he reminded me of Mr. Bojangles. I always felt a lil sorry for him.

As time moved on I learned the object of his pain. He had a identical twin brother and both served in World War Two together. War would have them both serving in the same unit dodging bullets in the same foxhole. Mr. Blue watched his brother’s body blow up in his face and some how he was never quite the same again. Every one in the hood talked about the horror he must have witness and some would even leave a lil something out for him from time to time to add to his basket of rags.

We moved from 51st St and San Pedro over to 49th and Main St and I was visiting Saint Paul Episcopal Church one Sunday morning. A member of the community was giving quite a bit of money to the church scholarship fund and the church was recognizing him. Well you could hear a mouse piss on cotton when we all finally recognized the finely dressed man that walked up to the front of the church, Mr. Shorty Blue! Come to find out Mr. Blue owned several pieces of property in the hood and had made some very profitable investments, not to mention the check he got from Uncle Sam each and every month.

The hood always thought of him as a bum, a derelict. This would be one of my first lessons on judging a book by its cover. The death of his brother in front of his eyes causes him moments of insanity. How many of us have suffered moments of insanity for far less reason?