When I got home from school that day, we got together and the boy who had stolen the pizza admitted that he took it. Well I just couldn't allow that the be left right there, and we had our little fight. He never stole from us again. He wasn't the only guy who decided to rob me that year. Once, while coming home from the store, I noticed a guy in the apartments who didn't live around there. Looking back on it, I realize that he was doing something like trying to break into one of the apartments. I scared him when I came around the corner and into the apartments on my bike. I thought nothing of it at the time. Anyway, he sold me some story about how he was there at his auntie's. To make a long story short, I ended up letting him use my bike, which wasn't that much of a bike in the first place, to go to the store. He didn't come right back, so I borrowed a bike and went looking for him. I had no idea what I was going to do when I found him. I honestly thought that there was a simple reason as to why he hadn't come back yet…Be some stroke of bad luck, I ended up finding him in a very good section of Third Ward. Well I ended up with my bike back, he beat me up and was threatening to hit me with some vice grips if I didn't let go of the other bike (which was much better than mine). Being poor, I knew that there was nothing that I could do, nor nothing that I could ask my mom to do to replace the bike, so I simply dropped my bike off in place of the other one and told them that they could have that one because of the better bike being stolen…

A few weeks later, two of the older teenagers around our apartments came home with the better bike. Just so happens they ran into the guy who had the bike, noticed it, and took it from him. They never told us if they simply took it back or beat the guy up for it. I think in my young mind I had hoped that they had beat him up like he had beat me up.

I don't want to make it seem like I was some good guy back then. I was a boy, and of course I got into some trouble of my own. The apartments that we lived in were close to some train tracks and the overpass of a freeway. We spent hours and days up there throwing rocks, those big white rocks, at the cars that passed on the freeway. I know that we hit a few, and as I look back I realize that it was some of the most dangerous stuff we could have ever done. Lucky our aim wasn't too great because we could have caused some major wrecks. I even wonder now if they have done something to stop that threat. For kids living in those apartments, there really wasn't much else to do. That's why I'm sure that we spent so much time up there…

While we lived in those apartments, I met Robert Reed of the Houston Rockets, and Hakeem Olajuwon. It wasn't like I knew who either of them was. When I met Robert Reed, he had to tell me who he was. I was at the gas station working on my bike when he drove up in this gray Jeep. After he got his gas and all, he asked me if I needed any help. I guess he felt I didn't realize who I was talking to so he asked me if I knew. When I told him no, he told me that he was Robert Reed of the Houston Rockets. Being a poor kid, I had no idea who in the world that was. Plus I wasn't a big sports fan at the time. I mean I played, but watching the games…It just wasn't me. He jumped back into his Jeep and took off towards Herman Park. With Hakeem Olajuwon it was much different. Not like I really knew who he was, but I had started going to this church in Third Ward, and it just so happens he was a member of the church, Good Hope Baptist. And being the star that he was, it was almost like he was the pride of the church. Which is how I found out that he was a member. It seemed that all the kids talked about him. So I made sure that I got a chance to see him for myself…