Crossroads: My Story and Survival Guide: a Memoir of a Jamaican’S Journey Throughout America

By Mikea Osei

Along lifes journey, everyone will encounter many crossroads and forks in the road which will require a decision. The decision may not always be the right one. It is important to recognize that the decisions that have been made or the path chosen to take has also its share of equivalent consequences. In Crossroads, author Mikea Osei writes a heartwarming story that chronicles his life as a Jamaican immigrant living in the United States. Along his journey, from the tiny island nation of Jamaica, he has encountered individuals who served as his mentors and role models.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469174815

Mikea Osei

Mikea Osei has spent the past twenty years working in the pharmaceutical industry. Along his journey from the tiny island nation of Jamaica, he has encountered individuals who served as his mentors and role models. They have helped him to become the man he is today. Mikea graduated with a BA from Manhattanville College and an MBA from the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut. He lives with his wife and two sons in Virginia.

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Copyright © 2012 by Mikea Osei.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012903666

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-7480-8

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4691-7479-2

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-7481-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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CONTENTS

Crossroads 1  The Early Years

Crossroads 2  Coming to America

Crossroads 3  Mt. Vernon, NY

Crossroads 4  Rye Playland

Crossroads 5  Dr. Hosea Zollicoffer

Crossroads 6  The College Years

Crossroads 7  Sophomore Year

Crossroads 8  Spring Break in Jamaica

Crossroads 9  Junior Year

Crossroads 10  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

Crossroads 11  Senior Year

Crossroads 12  Charles Wade

Crossroads 13  John O’Conner

Crossroads 14  The Law

Crossroads 15  Decent Proposal

Crossroads 16  Mr. Boombastic

Crossroads 17  What’s My Name?

Crossroads 18  The Professor

Crossroads 19  Italy

Crossroads 20  Dear Son

Crossroads 21  Cell Phone

Crossroads 22  Inflexible

Crossroads 23  Excuse Me

Crossroads 24  Survival Guide

Crossroads 25  Ten Situations to Avoid

Crossroads 26  Ten Positive Behaviors

Crossroads 27  Conclusion

This book is dedicated to my two sons, Amare and Damani Osei. As my boys get older, approach their teenage years, they too will face crossroads, challenges, and will have to navigate the streets of life. Both boys will be held responsible for positive and negative decisions made. It is my desire that they make visionary decisions so they will avoid senseless acts of violence.

I am blessed, I am blessed,

Every day of my life I am blessed,

When I wake up in the morning,

And I lay my head to rest,

Every day of my life I am blessed.

Mr. Vegas

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Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to thank all those individuals who left an indelible impression on my life. They are too numerous to list.

To my parents, Robert and Violet Edwards. Without you, I wouldn’t exist. Thank you for your never ending spirit and for always encouraging your children to reach for the stars.

To my wife, April, you are my rock and the rock of our family. Thank you for believing in me and for your undying support.

To our sons, Amare and Damani, you are my inspiration.

To all my siblings, Herb, Joe, Cal, Phil, Roy and Marlene, I continue to take bits and pieces from each of you, the best you have to offer and apply them to my life.

To my mentors: You have helped to shape my life. I would like to thank Dr. Zollicoffer for his guidance, Charles Wade for his leadership, and John O’Conner, for giving me an opportunity.

To the many teachers in Jamaica and America, coaches, pastors, and family friends, I salute you. The African proverb says it best, It takes a village to raise a child.

Thanks to Beryl Walters-Riley, Honorary Consul for Jamaica in the Commonwealth of Virginia, for her critique of the manuscript. You work tirelessly to improve the image of Jamaicans in Virginia.

Thank you to the parents of Chelsea Edwards, Brice Long, Quentin Simoneaux, Yugo Suzuki, Fahim Rahman, Marquis Lewis, Jennifer Prioleau, Brandon and Elliana Choi, Lenworth Roper, Jr., Dana and Luke Paponette, Christopher and Katie Woodley, and Malik and Alyssa Green. Your children are beautiful inside and out. You all should be proud.

Thanks to Diathe Garnes for her encouragement. I decided to take your advice and put my thoughts on paper.

I would like to give a special thank you to Aukse Wirz and Suzanne Velasco for taking all those pictures. You did a fantastic job.

To the team at Xlibris, you are simply magnificent. Thanks for your guidance and patience through the entire process.

I would also like to thank Dr. Joice Jeffries for reviewing my manuscript and serving as a consultant during the writing and publishing stages.

A special thanks to Dr. Mark Fleming for his generosity and support. You make a difference and are a champion for men with prostate cancer.

Crossroads 1

The Early Years

Even though I was born in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica—a tiny nation of two and a half million people—I have very little recollection of living in this busy city or even living with my mother in Kingston. My mother immigrated to the United States of America while I was a toddler. Therefore, my brothers and I were raised by our father. I like to think of him as Stalin, because he ruled with an iron fist. Firmness and direct, my father believed, was essential in raising six boys. My fondest childhood memories occurred outside of Kingston in the parish of St. Catherine.

In the early 1970s, my parents purchased their first home away from the hustle and bustle of Kingston in a residential community, New Braeton, Portmore. They were looking for a new start and a place to raise a large family. We moved into what would be classified today as a middle-class community. Our days of renting an apartment in Kingston were over.

Growing up in Braeton from six years of age to age fifteen was a lot of fun and a great learning experience. I did all the things that kids did in the neighborhood such as played football (soccer) and table tennis, listened to music, and played games with my friends in the parking lot in front of our house. On the radio, there was more foreign music played than Reggae. Motown, Rhythm and blues, and Country music were very popular, featuring artists such as Marvin Gaye, Dolly Parton, and Kenny Rogers.

Being mischievous, I got into trouble at times and lost money gambling playing dominoes and card games. I was told to take a hike by the older boys after losing a bet. They refused to return my money. I quickly recognized that this gambling thing was not for me. One could get seriously hurt fighting to get money back from a lost bet.

I lived two miles from Hellshire Beach. During the summer months, my brothers and I waited until Dad left for work, then gathered all our friends and walked all the way there for a swim. The walk seemed to take forever with our little legs. Today, it is simply a five-minute car ride. Some of us were very good swimmers, but I must admit, I was afraid of the deep area. At Hellshire Beach, you can literally take one step and go from three feet to ten feet of water. To me, that was very scary, and maybe it explains why I never became a good swimmer. Today, I like to swim in water no deeper than six feet, and yes preferably in a pool.

There were serious lessons learned during my pre-teen years about politics in Jamaica, economics, and the importance of living an honest, safe life. I learned at an early age that politics was a contact sport in Jamaica. It can be a matter of life and death. Every four years, an election was held to determine the next leader of the country.

The two rival political parties are Jamaica Labor Party, (JLP), and the People’s National Party, (PNP). Both parties are represented by different colors, and some neighborhoods vote exclusively for one party. During an election, one can risk their life wearing the wrong colors while traveling through a rival community. I remember covering up a white soccer jersey with red and black diagonal stripes as I rode on a bus through various communities in Kingston to visit a friend.

Jamaicans have been killed by gangs when asked about their political affiliation. You have to think quickly and have the right answer. This is similar to gangs in America, the Crips and Bloods. Youth in California are dying for the same reason, simply for wearing the wrong color.

On another day in Braeton, I peeked through our window and observed trucks going down the street filled with young boys carrying guns. Some businesses were destroyed if the owner was affiliated with a rival political party. Another travesty happened when a chicken farm in the hills was burned to the ground. Getting home before dark and locking up the house was the rule of the land. Parents were worried if their children weren’t home in time. You learned to survive. The election periods were some of the worst times for me in Jamaica.

Stealing was a life threatening activity. Since my parents had moved to a new residential community, all the people there had recently bought their houses as well. They looked out for each other; otherwise, they could be next. One early morning before heading out to school, I overheard someone shouting the word thief. (In Patois, we say tief. Jamaicans have a hard time pronouncing the letter h. Ask your Jamaican friend to say happy, hate, had, Harry, or any word that starts with h, and you will get a good laugh. Happy is pronounced appy.)

Anyway, the guy tried to break into a house, but he did not make it out of the community alive. While walking to get my bus to school, I noticed a large crowd gathered about one hundred yards from my house. I got close enough to the bystanders to take a look and noticed that a man was lying in the middle of the circle. The thief was apparently beaten and stoned to death before the police arrived.

I’ve done some dumb stuff too, like any other youngster coming of age in the 1980’s. I wanted to hang out with the older guys so one day they decided to play a trick on me. They invited me over to one of their houses, tied me to a chair, and poured molasses down my throat. My brothers weren’t around to help. Their actions weren’t malicious but more in jest. They were having some fun at my expense. They knew I had an army of brothers and my dad was also at home.

Another time, a man in a pickup truck stopped to ask a group of us boys for directions. We helped him out; he thanked us, and was on his way. Several of us, myself included, decided we wanted to ride in the back of the truck for a little while, without the driver’s permission. My friends held on to the back of the truck and, as the driver sped away, they let go but kept running to prevent falling.

Well, I had made the mistake of sitting in the bed of the truck. (You can see where I’m going with this.) The truck was probably going about 30 mph by now. I didn’t know how to bail off the truck, so I decided to jump. What a mistake! I landed in the street, ripped up my thick jeans, banged my head repeatedly on the asphalt, received lots of scrapes and bruises, then went home embarrassed. It’s a wonder I have any brain cells left after that blunder.

I also learned to become street savvy and how to stay alive. One guy in my peer group was slightly older and had started to get involved with one of the gangs in Jamaica. These gangs are well known today, but back then, they were fairly new. One was known as the Shower Posse and the other, Spangler’s Posse. This was the first time I saw a gun that did not belong to a policeman. My friend kept his gun in a shoebox. I knew this was bad news and my Dad was not going to have it. From that moment, I kept my distance from the guy, because I knew that a life of crime was short lived in Jamaica.

Our house in Braeton was located relatively close to the base of Hellshire Hills. One late Saturday night, a large group of Rastafarians gathered in the hills for what I called a Rasta convention. Well, it was more of a spiritual meeting. I had never seen so many Rastafarians, with their long dreads, gathered in a single location. It felt like a dream or maybe I was dreaming? There was ganja smoke everywhere. They played the bongo drums and had a peaceful celebration. No one bothered them. There were no policemen to stop the spiritual convention.

Rastafarian religion emerged from the Christian culture in Jamaica in the 1930s. The name is a combination of Ras, which means prince or head, and Tafari, the name of Haile Selassie I, before he became Emperor of Ethiopia. Rastas believe that Haile Selassie is god or Jah, the second coming of Jesus Christ on earth, and they worship him in the same manner that Christians worship Jesus. Rastafarians use Biblical stories within their doctrine. For example, they do not believe in cutting their hair. As a result, their hair becomes very long and is referred to as dreadlocks. The idea is based on the Biblical story of Samson, the strongest man on earth, who lost his power after cutting his hair.

Rastas believe in using marijuana or ganja for spiritual purposes, and they reject Western society, which they refer to as Babylon. Most people around the world have become familiar with Rastafarians through Reggae music and its most famous artist ever, Bob Marley. Can a bald person become a Rasta?

Another famous Rastafarian Reggae band, Morgan Heritage, answers this question in a song which goes, You don’t have to be dread to be a Rasta. Rastas live off the land. They eat fish and never add salt to their diet known as Ital.

Rastas believe that Africa or Zion is their ancestral home, and they are the main group in Jamaica reminding Black Jamaicans of their African heritage. The great Jamaican poet and Rastafarian, Mutabaruka, coined the phrase, As long as you are a black man, you are an African. He went on to talk about the loss of our culture, religion, and names as a result of the African slave trade. In one of his poems, he writes, Listen to the sound, the sound that is not my name. Mr. Brown, Mr. White, that’s not right. I did not know what this meant as a young boy, but it reverberated in my brain through adulthood. This saying, coupled with an African American history class in college about Malcolm X, led to another major change in my life.

No matter what we did all day while Dad was at work, he got an update from the neighbors before entering the house. He also noticed every knickknack that was out of place, any broken furniture from his sons wrestling in the house, or anything moved from its original place earlier that morning. Of course, we tried to put the house back together before Dad got home, but he always seemed to know that we had done something we weren’t supposed to do. We were simply being kids. If our actions were egregious, we were disciplined.

During my early childhood, the neighbors kept an eye on us while our parents were away. My Dad was affectionately called Eddie or Mr. Eddie by the neighbors or his friends. This is short for Edwards, our family name. Dad was a Kingstonian, a city slicker. He knew his way around the big city, and he had several close friends with whom he played dominoes and card games at home on the weekends. He never received a formal education past high school but he was a brilliant man with numbers, and he stressed to our family the importance of an education. He was capable of using deductive reasoning to ascertain the cards in your hand or the dominoes you had left based on the cards or dominoes you had played. It was unfair playing these games with him because he won most of the time. My poor Mom plays with him constantly nowadays because they are