(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Ode to the OG [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-11-11 The OG is squatting on his heels, collecting rocks. There is nothing special about these rocks, they are the crushed slate that they use up here for driveways. He loses his balance and falls on his ass, skinning an elbow. My older sister and I are bullshitting, watching him. I want to go and help him up, but I can tell my sister doesn’t want me to. She’s on her own with him a lot of the time, and she’s got a bum hip. So she needs to know, strictly from a clinical point of view, if he can still get up on his own. Because if he can’t, her world and his are going to change yet again. The biggest difficulty is that he doesn’t want to turn loose of that handful of gravel. Trying to push himself up off his knuckles. He finally makes it back up and she suggests that we go inside and get something to drink and eat. The OG is always down for something to eat, one of the frightening things about him is how good his appetite is, and how robust his health is. If he pulls a runner when we aren’t looking, it isn’t short distance. The first I heard of the OG was my sister telling me about this super new boyfriend that she had. Then she told me he was married. I told her that guy would always go back to his wife, and that she was just a plaything, no matter what was coming out of his mouth. All this without meeting him. My sister engineered some time for us together, her and I, so I could find out about the OG. Took me to his high school woodshop class one night when nobody else was there. The walls were papered with 20”X16” blow-ups of kids, standing and beaming with special projects that they’d built. “Wow,” I said. “Hall of fame, huh?” “No,” she replied. “Those are this year’s. Every year his kids do special projects. He tells them that if they want to make something special they can, and he’ll help them figure out how. Design to completion. They don’t have to, he has standard class projects they can make, like birdhouses. But a lot of them come up and say, hey, could I make a bookcase? Or a chessboard, or a stereo cabinet, you name it. You see it up on the wall. And away they go. He takes the pictures with his camera and blows them up in his darkroom at home and brings them back here.” The OG worked the two high schools (not at the same time) during his career that were in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in the major metropolitan area he lived in. The kind of school districts that teachers start at, and then transfer out of. Did his whole career at those two schools. The kids would point at each other with pointer and index finger turned sideways, wrist turned inward, sighting down their arms. The message is unmistakable. Pop you with my nine. The OG would see that and break stride just for a moment. “Do you know”, he would ask them, “that the police don’t do it like that? No, they do it like this”, (showing them textbook cup and saucer handgun grip) “and, they spend a LOT of time out at the range practicing. They shoot targets. It’s part of their job. Do you know what a lot of those targets look like? The look like somebody going like this,” showing them the gesture that they just made, “and they don’t wait to see if somebody is just pointing with their fingers or not. They are trained to not stop firing until somebody is on the ground. So, if they start shooting at you, you want to fall down right away.” By now, the kids are rolling their eyes so he continues “I know. I know. What can you do about it? You didn’t ask to be here. None of us did. What you can do, if you want, is you can pay attention to what I have to teach you. You do that, and I guarantee you that when this school year is over, you will have the skills required to walk out of here and get a job that starts at $18 an hour. I’m not talking about a diploma, either. Forget the rest of this school and what they want. You learn what I teach, and the diploma you get is experience. Enough that you can get a good job.” Every year, without fail, he would find some local business that was willing to let his class build a shed on their property, for the cost of materials. He did that on his own hook, cold calling any local business that looked like it might have a storage problem. Those were weekend projects, the kids had to put in their own time to do them. He would organize ride pools to make sure any that wanted to be there could. They got schooled in construction, from a shed plan (blueprint reading, and materials estimation) to rough framing to siding and roofing, hanging doors and installing windows (usually not, given the neighborhoods). This was before cell phones, so his kids got his home number. A lot of them knew where he lived. They would come by occasionally, in a company truck, or their own truck, or to show off the new toolbelt or custom framing hammer. They would come and talk shop with the OG. Wood shop. I asked him about that once. “What is OG? Why do they call you that?” “I think it stands for ‘old guy’” he said. My sister clued me in later. “He will NEVER admit it”, she said, “but OG stands for ‘original gangster’. It is a term of respect in the world they live in.” Every year, the school would hold a two on two basketball tournament. The only teachers that ever participated were the OG and the auto shop teacher. I asked him how they did once, the OG is actually pretty tall, although the auto shop teacher Jim was more of a fire plug. “Ah. We do okay. We’ve made the quarter finals a couple of times. They never get us out as fast as they think they should. We’re not fast like the kids, but we’re kind of crafty. Jim sets a really good pick, and has a pretty sweet outside jumper. So once I move past the pick and drive to the basket, they double me up and I can pitch it back out to Jim. Jim’s money from about 15 feet in. They don’t double me, I can usually score on whoever is singling me. We’d probably go farther but the recovery rate just isn’t there anymore. Jim and I get tired and then we lose.” This is also part of how you wind up getting called OG. The PE teachers weren’t even signing up for that. He divorced his wife, and my sister finally agreed to marry him after he asked her the second time. They’ve been together a long time now. Maybe not much longer. She’s got a live in caregiver that helps with him. Days off she got exposed to somebody that had the Rona. Brought it home with her. They brought it up here to me, for that matter. They made it home and the OG fell in the bathtub. Amy couldn’t get him out so she called EMS. Because he is so non-communicative, they took him in for a check up. That was when they found out he had the Rona, and she called me. I knew I had something by that time. It’s been a week, and the OG won’t get out of bed. The last conversation she had with him, he asked if she was happy, and if you’ve been married to somebody for a long time you know what the question is. She told him his story. (because most days, he doesn’t know who he is) You singlehandedly pulled a LOT of kids out of hell. You’ve made a big difference in this world. I’m not only happy to be with you, I’m proud to know you. And if you’re tired now, and you want to go, it’s okay. Hospice has been called, but they’re slammed. Doesn’t matter, we’ve been through this with both of our folks. Amy did Ma and I did Pa. Little harder for me, Pa had a broken hip but I got it done anyway. She’s keeping him comfortable and waiting. The caregiver is back on line so she’s not having to keep him clean by herself. Do you know, one of his students waited until she was 18 and then asked the OG if she could legally adopt him as her father? She runs a matchmaking service for Edge Lords out of Sausalito now and makes a pretty penny. He never had kids of his own, just that class each year. Those were his kids. His f*cking funeral is going to be huge. Going to be a lot of pickups there. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/11/2205256/-Ode-to-the-OG?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/