The course of our lives is sometimes determined by a seemingly insignificant event. Turn right instead of left; go out or stay home, watch a video or read a book that changes your life, say hello to someone you don't know, it can be almost anything that might completely change your destiny. For me, life began in Los Angeles. But where my family eventually lived and many died, who my siblings and I married, the lives of my parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, the direction of my education and my academic career, the direction of all of our lives were all determined by the most insignificant event. I was starting high school and didn't know anyone. But over the summer a friend had turned me on to smoking weed. I noticed a guy sitting next to me in my Geometry class who seemed pretty cool. So I asked if he wanted to get stoned after class. I just wanted to get to know someone. He said sure! He had a buddy who joined us. And we all became best friends. His buddy, who became one of my best friends in life, eventually moved to Northern California. This caused my parents to look at what was happening to our neighborhood. It was going downhill and getting dangerous. So on a whim my parents said they wanted to see where my buddy had moved. We went up to visit and on an even greater whim, we bought a house. The rest of the family followed and the course of our lives had been changed forever. All because I said, "Hey, wanna get high after class?"
No, we had black people before we had gangs. We had Mexicans before there were gangs, And we had Central Americans before we had gangs. The Bloods were black. The Crips were Mexican. And MS 13 was Central American. MS 13 wasn't even MS 13 yet but that is who they became. When I say gangs, I mean very dangerous young men with weapons who will kill you. Don't put words in my mouth. Why is it I lived it, it was my life that was in jeopardy every day, but you make it a racist thing? It is just in your imagination. For me it was real.
One time a buddy and I were backpacking at one of our favorite spots. We were sitting way out on the bolder just to the right of the top of the falls. He went too far and started to slide. I stuck my leg out for him to grab, but then we both started to slide. And the farther down you went, the steeper it got. We were past the point of no return and on our way to certain death. I reached back behind me blindly grasping for anything. I had no hope because we were on solid granite. But, as it turned out, there was a crack in the granite. And in that crack a Manzanita bush had grown and died. About two inches of the stump was left and I just happened to grab it at the last possible moment. Years later he introduced me his family as the man who saved his life. But in fact we owed our lives to a long dead bush. How's that for luck? Feather Falls, CA