With that said, let’s continue.

So I just finished dancing in a pep rally in front of the entire school. The popularity level sky rocketed. I quickly became aware of how the captain of the football team felt. I almost felt invincible. Every time there was some sort of assembly at the school the faculty asked me to perform. Of course I did, but my performances came with a price. Not a verbal price but more like an unspoken agreement. When I got to Grover each afternoon I was able to roam the hallways and go in and out of almost any class that I wanted to. I went to both B and C lunch. I was in and out of whatever study hall I wanted. I was in Gym 2-3 periods at a time. It was like educational freedom. Everything was lovely.

In the spring of 1990 the advertised on the radio a talent contest at one of the local skating rinks. The name of this contest was called The Hershey Caremello Talent Contest. Jason and I were in this contest twice. First we created a dance routine with two female counterparts, Jakota and Sherida. We practiced for a few weeks working on a dance step. Then last minute Larry (the guy from the pep rally) entered and wanted us to dance for him. So of course we did.

I remember getting to the skating rink and it was packed wall to wall with people from every school in the city. There had to be at least 5 times the amount of people there than there was in the pep rally. So again I am nervous. We first danced with Jakota and Sherida. We did a really good job and had the crowd into it. Then it came time for us to dance with Larry again. We didn’t have a ledge to jump off of, so we had this move where I ran up to him and he threw me in the air and I would spin around in the air and when I landed we both would do a half split at the same time. This move wasn’t as difficult as the ledge jump but was highly effective to get a roar out of the crowd. By the way, I talked to Jason after I wrote part three and he asked me to inform you that he ripped his pants down the center doing the ledge jump. This means his underwear was exposed and as time goes, you’ll see Jason had no problem stripping down to his underwear in public. Back to our regularly scheduled programming… This move where he threw me in the air was a great move. This skating rink was a huge place with at least 40-50 foot ceilings. When he threw me in the air, he threw me so high that I swear I could touch ceiling. It felt as if I was up in the air for like 10 seconds. When I finally landed, I remember hearing the crowd roar. It was 10 times louder than in the pep rally. The crowd loved us.

Now we didn’t win the contest, but here is the best part. About 2 weeks later Jason and I were getting ready to go to that same skating rink for just a regular Saturday night. He called me a few hours prior to us leaving to go yelling, “TURN TO CHANNEL 23!” So I did and what did I see??? ME, being thrown in the air landing in a half split and the crowd going crazy. The Talent contest was recorded and the top 5 performances were being played on a public access station. I felt like a TV star. Even though it was only a Buffalo public access station, I felt my popularity level on the rise again. When Jason and I got to the skating rink that night, people were literally asking us for our autographs. Now you already know, my head was HUGE!!!! I had the feeling like “last name Ever, First name Greatest, like a sprained ankle boy I ain’t nothin’ to play with.” You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t on top of the world. 16 years old and feeling like I could do anything.

Let me give you another aspect of how popular I had become. It was a Wednesday and I was chillin’ with my crew in lunch. There was Rich, Monte, Jason, Ron, Rashaad, Joe, Tank, Frank and a few others sitting around the table. I said we should wear all black this coming Friday. So that Friday there were about 15 of us that were dressed in all black. No big deal right? Well, I decided I wanted us to wear black every Friday. So that next Friday more people wore all black. The next Friday about 70% of the people in BOTH schools wore all black. The principal of the school made an announcement over the P.A. system saying he was going to send everyone home in black if there was any trouble. I went to the principle and told him that there was nothing malicious about us wearing black. He thought it was some type of gang thing and asked me to stop everyone from wearing black. I don’t think you understand… The principle asked ME to resolve the situation. Does that mean he couldn’t handle it himself?

Now as I came back to Earth I realized I needed a specific girl in my life. If you remember from part 3 where the first day of school we were standing on the stairs picking out the girls we wanted to talk to, there was this one girl that I really wanted to talk to. I introduced myself to her and eventually we ended up a couple. We will call her Patrice. ***Sidebar… Michelle from part 3 did ask why I chose Michelle, the names I use have no meaning at all what so ever*** Patrice and I were like the premier couple. I was very proud of my relationship with Patrice. I was so proud that I tagged it all over the school. Walls, doors, desks, people, I would tag “DEV DEE –N- PATRICE” everywhere. It was young puppy love. It’s funny because I look back on it now and I think, how juvenile, then I think, I was 16… I was a juvenile. People were sick of seeing our names all over everything. I was a slave for attention so I just kept tagging it everywhere.

I took Patrice to my Junior prom. It was Jason, his date Yolanda, Patrice and I. Jason and I were wearing the fly hot tuxedos. Many people were waiting for us to break out into a dance step at the prom, but we kept it cool. After the prom we got into the Limo and went to Niagara Falls. I really cared a lot about Patrice, but I also had an image to uphold. So not too long after the prom Patrice and I broke up. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but as teenagers people want to be all in your business. Putting my relationship business on the front page of DaVinci/Grover News didn’t make our relationship go any smoother.

So I ended my junior year in high school on top of the world, but single. Being single at that time wasn’t a big deal because I knew there would be more girls to choose from the following year. I know that sounds bad. Just typing that sounds crazy right now, but that was my mind set back then. My senior year is next in part 5. I hope you are enjoying.

Thanks for reading

DJR

DJR and Kia

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The summer of 89 was when it started. I added another element to my repertoire of girl catching tactics. I was a great dancer. Every day during that summer me, Greg, Julian, Larry, Tifa, and Yolanda would be out until all hours of the night with our radio practicing our dance steps to go skating on the weekend and have crowds of people around us while we did our dance routine. Plus I am the type of person that once I start something I don’t stop until I become the best at it. So I would dance all the time. I recorded videos and studied their steps and polished my skills. I was into sports but I couldn’t play any sports good enough to make a team so I had to find something and dancing was that thing.

I also got my first real job that summer. I was a counselor at a summer program at my church. I mentioned this job because it created 2 important areas of my life at this time. The first was that all the money I made from this job went to enhance my apparel and I got involved in my first “real” relationship. For now we will call her Michelle (She’ll probably ask me why I chose Michelle). I worked the summer program with Michelle’s mom at the summer program. She introduced me to her daughter the last day of the program. We dated for the next few months, but when it was time for school to start there was a whole new breed of girls to choose from so Michelle and I faded away for a while, but she will come back into the picture later.

I remember the first day of my junior year as if it were yesterday. My boys and I got to school extra early so we could be out there waiting to see the new girls. I had my walkman blasting my Guy tape dancing on the stairs making sure I brought attention to myself. I had my black baggy pants on with my rayon shirt stylin’. As the freshmen made their way up the stairs I remember making a mental note of the girls I wanted to kick it with. I was making a mental note of all the ones I had interest in.

As the school year went on I felt my popularity grow. I got along with everyone, I had a ton of people that I considered real friends and I was popular with the girls. What more could I want? I know this all sounds very egotistical but I am telling it like was and there is a reason behind this entire story. As my life goes on and I get older it will make more sense. But as for now at 15 I am living the life. Being popular, and having a after school job made me feel like I was the man.

One of the most memorable events in my junior year was the first time I danced on stage at school. Let me paint the picture for you. Grover had one of the best high school football teams in the city during my 4 years there. We would have the best pep rallies to get the team fired up to play. I remember before the first pep rally of the year the organizers were running out of skits to perform. So the day of the pep rally the band director (who also helped organize the pep rallies) was informed that I knew how to dance really well. I had a partner ( Jason) who would go skating with us on Saturdays and dance too. We were asked if we would mind performing a dance routine at the pep rally. “Heck yeah”… We found Larry who could rap really well. This is before it was called hip hop. It was know as rap. He had a tape with the instrumental to Heavy D’s “We Got Our Own Thang” that he agreed to rap to while we danced. Jason and I spent the entire morning trying to come up with a dance routine for the pep rally while Larry wrote and memorized his rap. We created an entire routine, but we wanted something in the dance that would blow the roof off. So as we are practicing we were playing around in the auditorium on the stage and there is a ledge that was along the back wall of the stage that was about 3 inches wide and about 3 feet from the floor. I remember running up onto the ledge trying to balance myself. Nadia, who was in the auditorium practicing with the band said it would be hot if you could do a move that incorporated that ledge. Those of you who are reading this that were of age in the late 80’s probably remember that the dances out then involved splits and the kid and play leg jump and running man. Well Jason and I decided that we were going to run and jump onto the ledge, grab one foot while up there, jump off the ledge over the foot we were holding (like kid n play) and land in a split. Sound complicated? Let’s just say we practiced it for hours and did not get it down not even once. So we decided to take that move out of the routine.

It’s now pep rally time. I had not performed in front of this many people in quite a long time. Especially these being my peers, I was so nervous. The auditorium was packed on both levels. I didn’t see an empty seat in the entire place. With us going on next I told Jason I wanted to put the ledge jump in the routine. He looked at me as if to say “are you crazy?” but he said ok, lets do it. It’s our turn, we are behind the curtain and we are waiting for the music to start playing so they could open the curtain. Only a select few people knew we were performing so we knew we would get a nice ovation once the curtains opened and the crowd saw us. As we stood behind the closed curtain, Larry began to pump up the crowd “G.C High are you ready to get down” Everyone screamed out “YEAH”…. The crowd was so loud and the louder they got the more nervous I became. We are still waiting for the music to start when someone comes running back stage to tell us the tape broke. Hearing this, my hopes were deflated. Larry looked at us and said the show must go on and he called for the curtains to be opened. When the curtains opened and the crowd saw the three of us on stage the started cheering really loud. The band was seated right in front of the stage. There was a boy by the name of Shane who was one of baddest drummers in the city (besides Scott) was sitting behind the drum set. Larry asked Shane to hit a beat for him. Shane played a beat and the crowd started rockin’. I felt my adrenaline start to pump. We started our dance routine and the crowd began to really get into it. Then it came time for us to do the forbidden jump off the ledge. Jason and I were standing at the front of the stage about 10 feet away, we turned and faced one another, we then looked at the back ledge and then back at each other again. It was like the movies when all of a sudden I heard nothing but my heart beating. I didn’t hear the music, I didn’t hear Larry rapping and I didn’t hear the crowd. It was like total silence with nothing but a heart beat. Jason and I ran toward the back wall ready to do the forbidden move. We jumped up on the ledge simultaneously and executed the forbidden move without a single flaw. The next thing I remember was everyone in the entire auditorium jumping to their feet cheering as loud as they possibly could. The cheerleaders ran up on the stage and started dancing with us. Everyone was cheering so loud that I couldn’t even hear the music anymore. Even the faculty members were cheering. I felt like I hit the game winning shot in game 7 of the NBA Finals with no time on the clock.

If I wasn’t already popular enough I just took it to a whole different level…

TO BE CONTINUED

Thanks for reading

DJR

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Let me explain.

Men and women are very different in many ways.  When it comes to love for some reason it is hard for many men to actually say the word.  The words “I Love You” is a like a forbidden phrase.  One of the biggest things I think men fail to understand about women is the need for reassurance.  Men look at this phrase as just words.  To us hearing these words is just like hearing the cat crossed the street, or the grass is green.  I know I may have exaggerated this a little, but it’s pretty close to how we feel.  Men are visual, so actions speak so much louder than words to us.  It’s better to show us you love us than tell us. 

For women it’s usually the opposite.  As stated earlier women want reassurance.  When a woman hears a man say he loves her, she feels comforted.  In some cases a man could treat the woman like trash, but as long as the words I Love You are spoken periodically she is reassured that no matter how he treats her, she feels he loves her so nothing else matters.  Most of us know women like this.  These words mean so much to so many women.  I am not saying they shouldn’t mean a lot.  But if the actions behind the words don’t match, then all they are is just words. 

I think I strayed a little off the topic.  So let me get back to the original topic of what goes through our minds when women tell us they love us.  Contrary to belief, the initial thought when a woman first tells a man she loves him, he doesn’t automatically think he’s got her where he wants her.  Even though it may seem that way down the line, that is not the initial thought.  The first thought is “how do I respond to that?”  A man most likely is not going to want to say it back.  We get afraid to do so because we don’t think relationship as being life long commitment.  We think of it as ‘this is working for the moment.’  Could it be life-long?  Yes, but we don’t like to think of it that way.  We know those words mean so much to you and we also know that you are looking for those words in return.  When you first say “I Love You”, we are now forced to make a decision.  We know what these words mean to you so we tread lightly.  It’s almost like a lose-lose situation in our minds.  If we say it back then you will remember these words forever.  The dreaded words that men hate to here in an argument are “but you said you loved me…”   But if we don’t say it, we run the risk ruining a good thing. 

This is a tough topic to write about because so many people view love in different ways.  As for a man, he does not want to be forced to love anyone or even tell someone he loves them.  This does not mean we don’t love; it’s just a little more difficult for some men to come to terms with his true feelings.  A man needs to be warmed up to the idea of love.  It may take some time for him to figure it out.  He is going to have to figure it out on his own.

Men don’t love as hard as women in the beginning.  We form that love over time and even though we don’t necessarily say it, we feel it.  Sometimes ego gets in the way when it comes to showing it.  Don’t assume that he doesn’t love you if he doesn’t respond the way you want him to.  He just has a lot going through his mind.  Love is a scary thing for us.  I am not saying its right for us to think this way, but it’s not wrong either.  We just need time to think things through.

Now if you have been in a relationship with a man for some time and you tell him you love him, his reaction should be completely different.  Depending on how long the two of you have been involved, if you tell him you love him, it should be easy for him to reciprocate.  If he doesn’t, I wouldn’t say it was a problem but it could be.  Some men let their pride block those words from coming from their lips.  One thing I can say men don’t usually say it unless they mean it.  There are exceptions to the rule though.  Some men will say what you want to hear to get what they want from you.  You just have to be smart and not be naive to figure out what he really wants.  This is not hard to do if you can take your feelings out and look at things the way they are instead of the way you want them to be. 

I know this was a lot of information to take in.  I am just trying to give you some things to think about when it comes down to the famous “I Love You” phrase. 

Thanks for reading

DJR

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HIGH SCHOOL

Wednesday September 9^th, 1987.  First day of my freshmen year of high school.  I was so very nervous.  There were quite a few people that graduated grammar school with me that ended up at the same high school with me.  That was a little settling, but did not take away all the butterflies I had floating around in my stomach.  The name of the high school was Leonardo DaVinci High School in Buffalo, NY.  This was a brand new school.  We were actually the first students to roam the hallways of this school.  The school progressed with us, the first class.  Started off with just us 9^th graders.  The next year it was us 10^th graders and the incoming 9^th graders.  The next year was us 11^th graders, the 10^th graders and the new 9^th graders.  And then when we were seniors the high school had every grade. So basically we were the very first graduating class from this high school.

The way it worked was this way;  we would be at D’Youville College for half the day for our main classes which were science, history, math and English and went to Grover Cleveland High School for the 2^nd half of the day for lunch and elective classes like art, music, physical education, Spanish and French.  Attending two different high schools each day made things really interesting.

Now that I have gotten the technical stuff out of the way, let me tell you about my high school experience.  My freshmen year was pretty typical.  I had to adjust from being known by everyone in school to being a nobody.  If you remember from part 1 I was gaining a little status from my public speaking, but in high school, none of that mattered.  The summer prior to me going to high school I was in a summer program and my counselor (Barry) was going into his junior year at Grover Cleveland High School.  Barry and I were real cool so he told everyone I was his cousin.  Barry had clout at Grover so that helped me out in many ways.

My freshmen year was a huge transition.  I remember that is when I really started noticing girls.  It’s so funny because back in grammar school I noticed girls but by the time I stared to notice them, I was use to them all.  To me there was no variety in grammar school.  But high school changed the game.  The only problem was that the girls I was interested in were way out of my league.  They were juniors and seniors.  So instead of embarrassing myself, I sat back and played my position.  I learned a lot from Barry.  My freshmen year was my year to learn.  It was lot like writing blogs.  Anyone can write a blog, but to be effective you must do the research to know what people want to read about and then write it.

My sophomore year was my test year.  I needed to get the whole approaching a girl thing down to a science.  I dated a few girls here and there, none of them to really make mention of, but my test phase of high school really helped boost my status to a whole different level.  I learned that girls love attention.  I learned that girls have options. Lastly I learned that girls expected to be sweated or chased after.  So I put all those ingredients together and formulated my own way to approach women.  I figured out a way to show girls just enough attention to get the interested, I made sure they were able to keep what ever options they had and I decided I would not sweat or chase after anyone.  I worked that through my sophomore test year.  I ended the year by going to the prom with a junior.  I was excited to be attending the prom only being a sophomore.

Now that I have completed my freshmen learning year and my sophomore test year, I was ready to go into my junior year as a varsity ladies man.  The status that I reached in my junior year was far beyond what I could ever imagine.  I realized that the first two years of high school learning and testing really paid off.  Or was it just my charisma?  Hmmmm…

Stay tuned for part 3

Thanks for reading

DJR

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