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I usually pass on stories to my children that I heard from Dad. The fights on the corners and the gang activity on the street which he endured and participated in. This morning, my Ethan looked like such a little Walker man that I could hardly see any of myself in him. This is what seems to happen to Walker boys at 9 years old.
I shared with him the fight of my life, which my father participated in.
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It was the fight against ignorance and mental sloth. I said you, Walker men remind me of the Roman army, which I would know nothing about, unless my father would have provoked me, by threat of death; to use all of the tools at that special school to the best of my ability. I didn't, but I did try!
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Reading the Latin books and learning grammar and math and science and how to behave and how to sit still and how to take a test were just as difficult a foe as the gangs on the street. This time we were fighting against ourselves. Dad and I fighting against Dad and I.
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He would have been me and I would have been him. We fought to get these thoughts injected into this mind of mine. Everytime I reminisce about Sr. Amadeus and the lessons of life that she taught us in her 90's, I see Dad rolling around on the streets of South Jamaica. That is my mind rolling around on the streets of South Jamaica. These are his fists are rolling around in my mind trying to get its fingers around the conjugations and declensions of my sluggish mind and seeing the Roman army marching along the Appian Way!
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