He was a cowboy alright, but "Darling" was his nickname...true story
Yes, I know I promised to get to the conclusion of "The Page" before the weekend, and I will. I also will begin rolling out my two new fictional stories, "Crucifix" and "The Lesson", but I wanted to announce one additional important piece of information that up to now, was only available to my Twitter followers. Thanks to all of you who continue to follow my blog I have decided to secure a web domain for it. So in the future there will be a NY Eastside Entertainment website with even more entertaining things to read and/or simply watch. This will also hopefully open doors for family and friends who also love to write, make videos, share a life story to also be able to contribute their entertainment skills to share with the world. Who knows where we'll go from there? But I owe it all to you folks out there. Keep visiting me and feel free to share your thoughts and comments on this blog, Twitter or in an email.
Now onto my real life experience with a guy named Darling Yearwood...
I was born and raised in New York City. Both my parents came from the deep south, which I visited several times in my early developmental years. So even though I was a city boy, I always had an appreciation of rural and rustic life. However, my overwhelming formal and informal education came from the public schools of New York City as well as the streets of New York City. From Kindergarten to the 10th grade I was taught by a fairly solid education in NYC, Lower Eastside.
However, there was an opportunity to attend a preparatory school 400 miles away in New Hampshire, via an educational opportunity scholarship. I took the test, won the award and jump at the chance to leave Broadway for the Boondocks. The one criteria was that you had to attend summer school at a prep school to see "if you fit in" with such a "drastic change of culture, environment and upbringing".
For those who don't know, I am African American, Black American, or whatever designation that you wish to choose. Fortunately for me my local public schools, although predominantly were black and Hispanic, also had mixes of Irish, Italian, European decedent Jews, Chinese, Filipino and Indian. It seemed like every six blocks you could experience people from all over the world. And I ran up and down those streets of the entire Lower Eastside and interacted with everyone of them.
What "drastic change" could I possibly be going into? I was certain I could handle anyone and anything!
Okay...so...I go to this summer prep school...in New Hampshire. It was a 11 hour bus ride northwest, into the White Mountains of NH. When I stepped off the bus into this rural, mountainous, environment, I felt like a fly who had been dropped in a bathtub of milk. There was not one single person of color of any kind anywhere. There were no brown, tans or even olive skinned people anywhere. Everyone was clearly faired skinned Caucasian or White American. I immediately felt that my arrival in this town had probably quadrupled the African American population in the whole entire state.
I called the school from the bus stop. A teacher was already on the way. So I just stood there and waited. It was a bright sunny day, and everyone who walked by me said hello. In fact, they just kept waving and saying hello. I was now being forced to keep waving back and saying hello. The more hellos I said, the more that came back to me. It got to the point where I felt that everyone was just too friendly. I had hit my New York limit of ten "hi/hello" to complete strangers in just 4 minutes. Then I started wondering if everyone in this town had all sent out some kind of telepathic message to one another saying that "The only black kid in the entire state is here. Say hello to him before he calls Jesse Jackson!" (I would later find out that people in New Hampshire, by nature usually just say hello to you, even if they don't know you, just like folks do in parts of the rural South, or out West - it's a hospitality thing).
One another thing to note was that this town seemed to be a rustic throwback to the American frontier some 70 years earlier. Although most of the cars were fairly new, some of the cars and trucks within that town seemed like they had been original models made by Henry Ford himself.
I waited barely 10 minutes before that teacher from the school did arrive to pick me up at the bus stop. He was really a cool, down to earth dude who graduated from Dartmouth, University. Very intelligent. Made jokes about the shocked look on my face and about me being the only black person within hours of this town. Got me all relaxed by letting me know that no matter what happened while I was up there, he had my back. So I tossed my luggage into his car and off to the school we went. Up hill, down hill, round the mountain, over a rocky road, through a creak, and then back onto paved road again.
Before I got there, the people back in New York told me this would be "different". No, no...this wasn't "different" this was another planet to me. It was time travel...mixed in with another civilization. And I was scheduled to stay there for five weeks, on a mission (scholarship) where failure was not an option.
When we arrived at my dormitory, it was little more than an old, small, white wooden house (yes even the dorm buildings were white) that seemed to creak in every stiff wind. The room furniture was an old desk, bed and dresser that I think were originally used by Thomas Edison and perhaps George Washington. There was nine other students there for this summer school program. Three girls, seven guys myself included. They were from various parts of the Northeast east including New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maine. All of them looked like sourpussed, teens whose families had a little money to put them in "summer school jail" for either disciplinary or academic reasons. I was the only one there to test drive the prep school environment. Actually, at that point I was more concerned if the house had running water. Thankfully it did.
One of the kids who stood out...just via his name alone...was Darling Yearwood. His first name was a nickname, his real name has long since been forgotten. I forgot why Darling was there, but I do remember that he was the youngest of our group. All of the other kids were from suburban backgrounds, with exception to me and Darling Yearwood. Make no mistake, Darling was from Western Massachussetts - aka cowboy country. Western, MA is the apparent tough guy bastion of all of the United States. "I'm not one of those funny talking Eastern Massholes." He was referring to that sometimes ear piercing Bostonian accent that dominates the language of many people who live in the greater Boston, MA area. They speak something like this "Pahk, the Cahr, by the the Bahr in the Dahrk." I've seen some folks from that area shatter wine glasses with their accents.
We had afternoon, early evening meetings and met all the faculty members and their families. They were all nice, definitely educated and very well spoken. They had planned for us to accomplish several things. First, we had to complete all the summer academic requirements. Second, we were going to hike five of the eight presidential mountains. Third, we were going to go on two camping trips out in the deep woods. (Which was like just outside my dormitory window? How much deeper woods could we get?)
I used my socialization skills to develop and maintain great relationships with the faculty, grounds and kitchen staff. Even developed a more than friendly relationship with a teenage girl from the kitchen staff who lived in the neighboring town. Within days, I became adored by everyone attached with the school. However, my campus peers were a different story. They were all whiny, sneaky, snobby and lazy kids who didn't want to be there. One of my peers declared the first night in the dorms that he wasn't going to last the five weeks. With his undisciplined behavior and numerous infractions, he was gone after just ten days.
The school work was constant and took up a lot of time. The weekend hiking trips to the presidential range was great for me since I was already an athlete who ran track, played basketball, used weights and did hundreds of push ups, sit ups and squats as part of my personal workout since the 7th grade. So for me, hiking into a higher altitude and fresh air was great!
Most of the guys didn't wine about the long hikes, but the girls always did. I always loved it when we reached the summit for the mountain because as everyone would sit down and whip out their food, I would whip out my sketch books and color stencils. I drew pictures of the beautiful scenic landscape that was 5,000 plus feet above sea level. The teachers there told me beforehand that it would be a better and higher view than the Empire State Building...and they were right. When you reach the top of Mount Washington, some 6,288 feet above sea level (by comparison the Empire State Building is only 1,454 feet) you feel like you can touch the Heavens. You really do feel on top of the world. It is a beautiful view.
Then there was a place called Upper Falls where you could slide down a natural waterfall some 10 feet over smooth rocks and then drop about 30 feet into a pool of natural mountain water. Sorry Great Adventure and Disney, but Upper Falls was definitely more fun!
Then there was the bugs. The bugs that bite. Every native New Hampshirian knows that in the White Mountains...just about everything that flies...bites. Birds and Butterflies might be the only exceptions. In my five weeks we had black fly season, house fly season, horse fly season (huge and green) and white fly season. Mosquito season was all night long, all five weeks. Toss in some spiders who might also choose to bite you in the night on your camping trips. I tell you...God as my witness...all of these biting insects loved dark meat. At night I could HEAR the mosquitoes flying over me, waiting for me to to drift into a good, deep sleep and come from under the covers. They sounded like Japanese Zero airplanes diving after you.
Everyday I would wake up with several new bites, while the other kids looked at me like I was crazy, because they had no bites. Back in NYC the only thing that had ever bit me at that point was a mosquito and a dog. Here in NH everything was biting me, except the dogs and the people. Finally, I complained to the staff that they had to help me, especially with the deep wood camping trips coming up...one of them was to be at Hampton Beach, NH. What does that mean? Hmm...think...large body of water (the beach)...wooded camping ground....a crappy tent that seemed to allow every insect inside...and even larger mosquitoes.
My mother sent me a can of Off. The teachers gave me a spare can of DEET. Both were effective insect repellents for me. However, the other students didn't really care for the smell of them. So...with the male student population reduced down to an even six, I was no longer going to get a tent all to myself. I had to share a tent with Darling Yearwood. In another life, Darling fancied himself to be a young John Wayne. All he needed was the ten gallon hat, the spurs and a horse. The other boys couldn't stand him, and the feeling was mutual. Growing up around my neck of the woods in NYC...Darling would have gotten a blanket party to knock that false bravado off his face. Darling was just a soft kid, trying to talk and act tough, but couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag.
Needless to say because none of the other guys wanted to tent with me either (why? umm...yeah...you guessed it...my color) and no one wanted to tent with Darling for obvious reasons, we ended up tenting together. Darling started out watching me pack my bag for the camping trip. He pounded his chest and forswore about how if I ever used any of that stuff, he was going to kick some ass. He didn't like the smell of it, it affected his allergies. I just nodded and packed away.
Then the evening came and we set up our tent and once again he reiterated that if I used any of that stuff there was going to be some trouble in our tent that night. I just nodded and set up my sleeping bag. Then bedtime came and I stood outside our tent and sprayed myself down and crawled into the tent and into my bag. No sooner that I laid my head down, good old Darling started coughing and chiming away about what a sissy I was using the bug spray and how "a real man" would have just went to sleep and not be afraid of the bugs. When he said that, I reached for the can and sprayed a little bit more on myself inside my sleeping bag - just to be on the safe side of course? After I did that, Darling swore that if I sprayed just once more, he would sleep outside and away from "the sissy inside the tent." I reached for my can and sprayed just a little more. I had apparently missed a spot.
With that, Darling grabbed his sleeping bag, and out the tent door he went to sleep outside just as he had promised. I turned over and slept like a baby.
When I woke up on that next morning, on that fresh mountain dew day, it was planned that we would have breakfast on the beach front, about a ten minute walk away. We had a long day, the day before and I was actually one of the last ones from our group to wake up. As I walked towards the beach to join the others...I kept getting looks from the other kids. The teachers had smirks on their faces, and I just couldn't understand where all this was coming from. I was starting to get a little worried. Perhaps my confrontation with Darling last night had caused for there to be a problem and I was going to get in some kind of trouble? Nope.
It wasn't until the teacher, who had picked me up the first day from the bus stop, said to me,
"Heard you had disagreement with your tent mate last night?"
"Yes, I did. He didn't want me to use the repellent, but I told him that I was going to. I can't take anymore bites."
"Well, have you seen him, yet?"
"No I haven't."
"There he is out there in the water."
Out in the water I saw Darling's tubby figure bouncing and soaking down in the salt water of the waves. When he came out of the water...he looked like...one...big...huge...bug bite. The insects had feasted on his silly ass and he was using the salt water to sooth his dozens and dozens of bites.
"Am I going to get in trouble for his condition?"
"Nope. Enjoy your breakfast and please don't let him see you laughing."
I went back to our campground and laughed for about 15 minutes along with some of the other teachers.
There were a lot more ins and outs to my five weeks in the White Mountains. However, the bottom line were that I had passed all tests with flying colors. I was absolutely beloved by all of the staff at the school. They said that they could not believe that I was a big city boy, that I had given them zero problems and that OF ALL the kids in the group - I was the only unnamious vote by the staff, to attend the school in September. However, an older friend from NYC, who had been in the same scholarship program as me, stopped by for a visit the last two weeks. He had attended a prep school in Maine. When he walked in and saw how rural/rustic my situation was, he swore that he would get me out of this school and into a better situation.
And he did.
I ended up getting an interview with another prep school that was over an hour south of this school. This second prep school is set on a more modern campus, and was a more conducive situation to the lifestyle that I came from. It is a place where I eventually made lifelong friends, had numerous surrogate parents, aunts and uncles, as well as extended sisters and brothers in my life. A place that has always been and will always be my second hometown.
Yes, I know I promised to get to the conclusion of "The Page" before the weekend, and I will. I also will begin rolling out my two new fictional stories, "Crucifix" and "The Lesson", but I wanted to announce one additional important piece of information that up to now, was only available to my Twitter followers. Thanks to all of you who continue to follow my blog I have decided to secure a web domain for it. So in the future there will be a NY Eastside Entertainment website with even more entertaining things to read and/or simply watch. This will also hopefully open doors for family and friends who also love to write, make videos, share a life story to also be able to contribute their entertainment skills to share with the world. Who knows where we'll go from there? But I owe it all to you folks out there. Keep visiting me and feel free to share your thoughts and comments on this blog, Twitter or in an email.
Now onto my real life experience with a guy named Darling Yearwood...
I was born and raised in New York City. Both my parents came from the deep south, which I visited several times in my early developmental years. So even though I was a city boy, I always had an appreciation of rural and rustic life. However, my overwhelming formal and informal education came from the public schools of New York City as well as the streets of New York City. From Kindergarten to the 10th grade I was taught by a fairly solid education in NYC, Lower Eastside.
However, there was an opportunity to attend a preparatory school 400 miles away in New Hampshire, via an educational opportunity scholarship. I took the test, won the award and jump at the chance to leave Broadway for the Boondocks. The one criteria was that you had to attend summer school at a prep school to see "if you fit in" with such a "drastic change of culture, environment and upbringing".
For those who don't know, I am African American, Black American, or whatever designation that you wish to choose. Fortunately for me my local public schools, although predominantly were black and Hispanic, also had mixes of Irish, Italian, European decedent Jews, Chinese, Filipino and Indian. It seemed like every six blocks you could experience people from all over the world. And I ran up and down those streets of the entire Lower Eastside and interacted with everyone of them.
What "drastic change" could I possibly be going into? I was certain I could handle anyone and anything!
Okay...so...I go to this summer prep school...in New Hampshire. It was a 11 hour bus ride northwest, into the White Mountains of NH. When I stepped off the bus into this rural, mountainous, environment, I felt like a fly who had been dropped in a bathtub of milk. There was not one single person of color of any kind anywhere. There were no brown, tans or even olive skinned people anywhere. Everyone was clearly faired skinned Caucasian or White American. I immediately felt that my arrival in this town had probably quadrupled the African American population in the whole entire state.
I called the school from the bus stop. A teacher was already on the way. So I just stood there and waited. It was a bright sunny day, and everyone who walked by me said hello. In fact, they just kept waving and saying hello. I was now being forced to keep waving back and saying hello. The more hellos I said, the more that came back to me. It got to the point where I felt that everyone was just too friendly. I had hit my New York limit of ten "hi/hello" to complete strangers in just 4 minutes. Then I started wondering if everyone in this town had all sent out some kind of telepathic message to one another saying that "The only black kid in the entire state is here. Say hello to him before he calls Jesse Jackson!" (I would later find out that people in New Hampshire, by nature usually just say hello to you, even if they don't know you, just like folks do in parts of the rural South, or out West - it's a hospitality thing).
One another thing to note was that this town seemed to be a rustic throwback to the American frontier some 70 years earlier. Although most of the cars were fairly new, some of the cars and trucks within that town seemed like they had been original models made by Henry Ford himself.
I waited barely 10 minutes before that teacher from the school did arrive to pick me up at the bus stop. He was really a cool, down to earth dude who graduated from Dartmouth, University. Very intelligent. Made jokes about the shocked look on my face and about me being the only black person within hours of this town. Got me all relaxed by letting me know that no matter what happened while I was up there, he had my back. So I tossed my luggage into his car and off to the school we went. Up hill, down hill, round the mountain, over a rocky road, through a creak, and then back onto paved road again.
Before I got there, the people back in New York told me this would be "different". No, no...this wasn't "different" this was another planet to me. It was time travel...mixed in with another civilization. And I was scheduled to stay there for five weeks, on a mission (scholarship) where failure was not an option.
When we arrived at my dormitory, it was little more than an old, small, white wooden house (yes even the dorm buildings were white) that seemed to creak in every stiff wind. The room furniture was an old desk, bed and dresser that I think were originally used by Thomas Edison and perhaps George Washington. There was nine other students there for this summer school program. Three girls, seven guys myself included. They were from various parts of the Northeast east including New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maine. All of them looked like sourpussed, teens whose families had a little money to put them in "summer school jail" for either disciplinary or academic reasons. I was the only one there to test drive the prep school environment. Actually, at that point I was more concerned if the house had running water. Thankfully it did.
One of the kids who stood out...just via his name alone...was Darling Yearwood. His first name was a nickname, his real name has long since been forgotten. I forgot why Darling was there, but I do remember that he was the youngest of our group. All of the other kids were from suburban backgrounds, with exception to me and Darling Yearwood. Make no mistake, Darling was from Western Massachussetts - aka cowboy country. Western, MA is the apparent tough guy bastion of all of the United States. "I'm not one of those funny talking Eastern Massholes." He was referring to that sometimes ear piercing Bostonian accent that dominates the language of many people who live in the greater Boston, MA area. They speak something like this "Pahk, the Cahr, by the the Bahr in the Dahrk." I've seen some folks from that area shatter wine glasses with their accents.
We had afternoon, early evening meetings and met all the faculty members and their families. They were all nice, definitely educated and very well spoken. They had planned for us to accomplish several things. First, we had to complete all the summer academic requirements. Second, we were going to hike five of the eight presidential mountains. Third, we were going to go on two camping trips out in the deep woods. (Which was like just outside my dormitory window? How much deeper woods could we get?)
I used my socialization skills to develop and maintain great relationships with the faculty, grounds and kitchen staff. Even developed a more than friendly relationship with a teenage girl from the kitchen staff who lived in the neighboring town. Within days, I became adored by everyone attached with the school. However, my campus peers were a different story. They were all whiny, sneaky, snobby and lazy kids who didn't want to be there. One of my peers declared the first night in the dorms that he wasn't going to last the five weeks. With his undisciplined behavior and numerous infractions, he was gone after just ten days.
The school work was constant and took up a lot of time. The weekend hiking trips to the presidential range was great for me since I was already an athlete who ran track, played basketball, used weights and did hundreds of push ups, sit ups and squats as part of my personal workout since the 7th grade. So for me, hiking into a higher altitude and fresh air was great!
Most of the guys didn't wine about the long hikes, but the girls always did. I always loved it when we reached the summit for the mountain because as everyone would sit down and whip out their food, I would whip out my sketch books and color stencils. I drew pictures of the beautiful scenic landscape that was 5,000 plus feet above sea level. The teachers there told me beforehand that it would be a better and higher view than the Empire State Building...and they were right. When you reach the top of Mount Washington, some 6,288 feet above sea level (by comparison the Empire State Building is only 1,454 feet) you feel like you can touch the Heavens. You really do feel on top of the world. It is a beautiful view.
Then there was a place called Upper Falls where you could slide down a natural waterfall some 10 feet over smooth rocks and then drop about 30 feet into a pool of natural mountain water. Sorry Great Adventure and Disney, but Upper Falls was definitely more fun!
Then there was the bugs. The bugs that bite. Every native New Hampshirian knows that in the White Mountains...just about everything that flies...bites. Birds and Butterflies might be the only exceptions. In my five weeks we had black fly season, house fly season, horse fly season (huge and green) and white fly season. Mosquito season was all night long, all five weeks. Toss in some spiders who might also choose to bite you in the night on your camping trips. I tell you...God as my witness...all of these biting insects loved dark meat. At night I could HEAR the mosquitoes flying over me, waiting for me to to drift into a good, deep sleep and come from under the covers. They sounded like Japanese Zero airplanes diving after you.
Everyday I would wake up with several new bites, while the other kids looked at me like I was crazy, because they had no bites. Back in NYC the only thing that had ever bit me at that point was a mosquito and a dog. Here in NH everything was biting me, except the dogs and the people. Finally, I complained to the staff that they had to help me, especially with the deep wood camping trips coming up...one of them was to be at Hampton Beach, NH. What does that mean? Hmm...think...large body of water (the beach)...wooded camping ground....a crappy tent that seemed to allow every insect inside...and even larger mosquitoes.
My mother sent me a can of Off. The teachers gave me a spare can of DEET. Both were effective insect repellents for me. However, the other students didn't really care for the smell of them. So...with the male student population reduced down to an even six, I was no longer going to get a tent all to myself. I had to share a tent with Darling Yearwood. In another life, Darling fancied himself to be a young John Wayne. All he needed was the ten gallon hat, the spurs and a horse. The other boys couldn't stand him, and the feeling was mutual. Growing up around my neck of the woods in NYC...Darling would have gotten a blanket party to knock that false bravado off his face. Darling was just a soft kid, trying to talk and act tough, but couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag.
Needless to say because none of the other guys wanted to tent with me either (why? umm...yeah...you guessed it...my color) and no one wanted to tent with Darling for obvious reasons, we ended up tenting together. Darling started out watching me pack my bag for the camping trip. He pounded his chest and forswore about how if I ever used any of that stuff, he was going to kick some ass. He didn't like the smell of it, it affected his allergies. I just nodded and packed away.
Then the evening came and we set up our tent and once again he reiterated that if I used any of that stuff there was going to be some trouble in our tent that night. I just nodded and set up my sleeping bag. Then bedtime came and I stood outside our tent and sprayed myself down and crawled into the tent and into my bag. No sooner that I laid my head down, good old Darling started coughing and chiming away about what a sissy I was using the bug spray and how "a real man" would have just went to sleep and not be afraid of the bugs. When he said that, I reached for the can and sprayed a little bit more on myself inside my sleeping bag - just to be on the safe side of course? After I did that, Darling swore that if I sprayed just once more, he would sleep outside and away from "the sissy inside the tent." I reached for my can and sprayed just a little more. I had apparently missed a spot.
With that, Darling grabbed his sleeping bag, and out the tent door he went to sleep outside just as he had promised. I turned over and slept like a baby.
When I woke up on that next morning, on that fresh mountain dew day, it was planned that we would have breakfast on the beach front, about a ten minute walk away. We had a long day, the day before and I was actually one of the last ones from our group to wake up. As I walked towards the beach to join the others...I kept getting looks from the other kids. The teachers had smirks on their faces, and I just couldn't understand where all this was coming from. I was starting to get a little worried. Perhaps my confrontation with Darling last night had caused for there to be a problem and I was going to get in some kind of trouble? Nope.
It wasn't until the teacher, who had picked me up the first day from the bus stop, said to me,
"Heard you had disagreement with your tent mate last night?"
"Yes, I did. He didn't want me to use the repellent, but I told him that I was going to. I can't take anymore bites."
"Well, have you seen him, yet?"
"No I haven't."
"There he is out there in the water."
Out in the water I saw Darling's tubby figure bouncing and soaking down in the salt water of the waves. When he came out of the water...he looked like...one...big...huge...bug bite. The insects had feasted on his silly ass and he was using the salt water to sooth his dozens and dozens of bites.
"Am I going to get in trouble for his condition?"
"Nope. Enjoy your breakfast and please don't let him see you laughing."
I went back to our campground and laughed for about 15 minutes along with some of the other teachers.
There were a lot more ins and outs to my five weeks in the White Mountains. However, the bottom line were that I had passed all tests with flying colors. I was absolutely beloved by all of the staff at the school. They said that they could not believe that I was a big city boy, that I had given them zero problems and that OF ALL the kids in the group - I was the only unnamious vote by the staff, to attend the school in September. However, an older friend from NYC, who had been in the same scholarship program as me, stopped by for a visit the last two weeks. He had attended a prep school in Maine. When he walked in and saw how rural/rustic my situation was, he swore that he would get me out of this school and into a better situation.
And he did.
I ended up getting an interview with another prep school that was over an hour south of this school. This second prep school is set on a more modern campus, and was a more conducive situation to the lifestyle that I came from. It is a place where I eventually made lifelong friends, had numerous surrogate parents, aunts and uncles, as well as extended sisters and brothers in my life. A place that has always been and will always be my second hometown.
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