The Three Mentors: Warrior Theodore of the Spartans - The Battle for the Soul

By Theodore Harris

This is the true story of the amazing works of faith by one of the altruistic and patriotic men in the history of America. Delve into a world of angels, warriors, and wise men. It follows from childhood to adulthood, through devastating tragedies and awe-inspiring triumphs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 11, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467099073

Theodore Harris

At the age of eleven, he crossed over into the world of warriors in the spirit of his three mentors, Ronald Wilson Reagan, Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Wayne. Given the right of passage by the national president of the Hells’ Angels, he was named Warrior Theodore of the Spartans in 1965. At the age of 23, he was given the honor of a private tour of SAM 26000, the airplane known as Air Force One. He was given this honor for significant contributions to the armed forces of the USA during a time of war and peace. Currently the author is known as The Flag Man and visits VA Hospitals all across the country distributing made in the USA flags to veterans. He currently resides in Liberty County, Ga., which was the home of two signers of the Declaration of Independence. A patriotic odyssey full of the rugged individualism that represents America, The Three Mentors explores the power of forgiveness, civic responsibility, honor, duty, and sacrifice.

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THE THREE MENTORS

WARRIOR THEODORE OF THE SPARTANS -

THE BATTLE FOR THE SOUL

THEODORE HARRIS

AuthorHouse™

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

© 2009 Theodore Harris. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/31/2023

ISBN: 978-1-4259-8088-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4259-8621-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-9907-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008911930

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter One: Angel at the Crossroads

Chapter Two: Northland and Fillmore

Chapter Three: The Thunder of the Guardians

Chapter Four: PS #56 and Mrs. Ruth Williams

Chapter Five: Freshman Year, Burgard Vocational High School

Chapter Six: Mr. Michael Klimchuk

Part Two

Chapter Seven: The Good Hand of God

Chapter Eight: The Good Boy Scouts of PS #84

Chapter Nine: The Little One’s Bear

Chapter Ten: The Bulldogs Ways

Chapter Eleven: Nixon’s watching

Chapter Twelve: The Old Man

Chapter Thirteen: The Sheppard’s Peace

Chapter Fourteen: The U.S. Air Force Blues

Chapter Fifthteen: Honor in the Twilight Zone

Chapter Sixteen: MacDill AFB the Phoenix Rising

Chapter Seventeen: The Alaskan Air Command

Chapter Eighteen: Venus

Chapter Nineteen: The Best of the Best

Chapter Twenty: Air Force One

Chapter Twenty-one: The Seven

Chapter Twenty Two: My Father and the CBC

Chapter Twenty Three: The Trail of Woe

Chapter Twenty Four: The Battle for My Soul

Chapter Twenty-Five: A man of no importance

CHAPTER ONE: ANGEL AT THE CROSSROADS

I was born in a unique place called the Crossroads Community in Liberty County, GA. As a baby I was passed around from household to household. When I was a little over two years old my mother got married to a man named George Harris and I lived with them.

I had a baby sister named Lynn, and before her second birthday her father, George Harris, was stabbed at my grandfather’s little shop (bar) at the crossroads. When he died I became the community’s precious little son again. Brother Italy and Sister Wilhemena Lecounte were like my surrogate parents and their son, Willie, took me everywhere. I even spent time in Brunswick, Georgia, with Uncle Jessie and Annie Mae, and Papa Robert Walker was my great grandpapa.

I left Georgia when I was five years old to move to Buffalo, NY, with my mother and little sister, Lynn. We stayed with my Uncle William Walker and his wife on Mansten Street. The back wall to the stadium where the Buffalo Bison’s played baseball was in our backyard. We used to look through the holes in the wall and watch the baseball games with all the cheering people. Sometimes we would even sneak in.

Uncle William moved out and my mother’s sister Eartha Lee moved in. That is the way families helped each other migrate from Georgia to Buffalo. Across the street was the Blue Moon. It was a corner bar that would have entertainers come through from time to time. That is where my mother met Jackie. He was a nice man and loved kids. The first time I ever saw a TV set was when Jackie brought it to our house and there was a Ronald Reagan movie on and news from all across this city and nation. That was the first time I heard of Dr. Martin Luther King and saw the toughest hero in the movies was John Wayne.

Mama and Jackie married and had two babies back to back, my sisters Jacqueline and Sandra. When my mother brought Sandra home, Lynn and I had a fit because Sandra was white. We told our mother, You brought home a white baby. You got the wrong baby. We thought that the hospital had messed up, but as time went by Sandra became darker and darker. Because of the two babies I had to learn how dress myself and cook my own breakfast. I usually ate cream of wheat before I went off to School Number 8.

We had to move out of the house on Mansten because the city was going to build a new junior high school called Woodlawn. I went to several different elementary schools before we finally moved to Northland Ave. They were digging up Humboldt Park to build an expressway. It was a green space area that ran the length of the city. I would walk across it and pass the boys club on the way to School 74 with Chip and Jerry McDonald. When Jerry and I were going into the third grade we were transferred to School 93 to integrate that school. Sadly we were in our third grade class when we found out that our president, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated. It was a sad day but the saddest day was when they called all us kids into the gymnasium and gave us notes to take home to announce that School 93 would be closing because of the new expressway. We could hear the construction workers driving pylons for the walls of the expressway.

That summer, my family took the Greyhound bus to Georgia with my Aunt Dorothy and cousin David Jones. We got to Pittsburgh and the bus was overcrowded and David and I had to stay there by ourselves to wait for the next bus. Jim Crow laws were still in effect in the South. It made more sense at that time for David and I, ages ten and eight, to get off the bus and allow my mother and aunt to travel with my three sisters.

David and I could tell time and all we had to do was make sure that the bus did not leave us behind as we headed South. We had money for food and something to drink. As we passed through one Southern city, we saw Roy Rogers and Dale Evans performing in a park. We finally arrived in Savannah and were picked up by our grandfather, Theodore Gordon, but the people gave him the nickname Stone. He owned a community grocery store. He sold everything from laundry detergent to fresh vegetables to cold cut meats but our personal favorites were the soda pop, candy, and ice cream.

Granddaddy liked to chew tobacco and we started chewing too to show him how much we had grown. Jane and Margie stayed next door and they were teenage girls who we would visit sometimes. We were at their house when their grandmother passed away. People would get up when the rooster crowed around 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. Even though we were just kids we learned the value of work. Granddaddy had an old horse name Maude that he used to plow the fields or pull the grinder to crush sugarcane to make syrup that he sold in the store.

He would hook Maude to the wagon and we would ride down the red clay road to get firewood to use for the wood burning stove in the house and the barbecue pit on the side of the store where all the old men would gather to chew tobacco and drink gin. One day all the men were walking down toward the crossroads. My grandfather had hooked Maude up to the wagon and filled it with timber and we went to work on First Zion Baptist Church at the crossroads. There were so many men there that the only thing for David and I to do was to stay out of the way.

One day we walked down to Annie Dump’s house to see our cousin Isaiah was always working and it was a Sunday afternoon and he had the day off to play with us. We walked down to the crossroads and looked at the old liberty schoolhouse, which was a two-room wooden building behind the church everyone was working to repair. We walked across the street to the First African Baptist Church, which was built after the Civil War and First Zion Baptist. The two historic churches were across the street from each other.

We were talking about our heroes. I had liked Ronald Reagan, Isaiah had liked Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and David had liked John Wayne. We talked and talked about why our heroes were the best and when someone made a really good point about their hero we would say that was our hero too. It was really hot and we were cooling off under the shade trees by a little concrete pool that the churches used for baptisms.

Isaiah and David started talking about how they were baptized and I told them that I was never baptized in the church. They were both shocked and said, Teddy, you never been baptized? I told them that we had been moving so much that my mother never got around to it. Isaiah was twelve years old and he said he knew a lot about preaching and suggested that he and David would baptize me. David agreed and said that would give us a chance to go swimming in the baptism pool. It had been a long time since the pool had been cleaned, but the water felt nice and cool.

As we walked in the water we could see that it was full of algae and muck. As I walked down the steps, I slipped backwards and hit my head on the step. In my panic, I inhaled a bunch of the nasty, stale water and felt myself floating to the bottom of the pool as the narrow hole of light seemed to close with the murky water. I felt a warm glow and at peace at the crossroads where all the people had shown me so much love. I was such a lucky little child because I was the community’s precious little boy.

I woke up to Isaiah and David yelling, Its an angel! Its an angel! Teddy, look at the angel! They were standing over me, and as my eyes came into focus there appeared to be a glowing light headed into where the oak trees formed an arch, and the light just exploded in between the two oak trees. Isaiah and David’s excitement was unreal as they tried to explain how I had drowned in the baptism pool. They had pulled me out and did not know what to do for me, Isaiah said. David went on to explain that they were crying to God to come help them. They felt like it was their fault for playing with God’s power and trying to baptize me.

The angel came down from the oak trees, they said, and touched you on the forehead like this, and then you just started breathing again.

I said, Ah man, you guys are just pulling my leg because I did not see no angel, all I saw was a light disappear in between those two trees.

That was the angel. That was the angel, they kept saying. You did see it. You did see it. You were dead and that angel brought you back to life. That angel touched you on the forehead like this, Teddy, and then you started moving around again.

Are you sure, it was an angel? I asked.

So they answered my question with a question. Do you remember bumping your head in the pool and drowning? I told them yes. Well if you answer this question, you will know what we are telling you is true. If an angel did not touch you on the head, how come our clothes are still wet and your clothes are dry?

CHAPTER TWO: NORTHLAND AND FILLMORE

G rowing up at 537 Northland Ave, in Buffalo, New York, I was the oldest of five children and had four little sisters named Lynn, Jacqueline, Sandra, and Cynthia. It was a nice integrated neighborhood and there was a neighborhood bar on the corner next to the house. There were five more houses down the street and Arnold’s Plating Shop. This old couple had made their front porch into a display case for all types of trains, H O trains, which they would decorate and run at Christmas time.

Bob Lanier of the NBA hall of fame lived down the street. We called Bob Lanier Tree Boy because he was so tall, six foot two inches in the six grade. At School 74 one boy was safety patrol when I was in second grade. The teachers were fearful every time Bob would run. He could not even play at the Northland boys clubs.

The neighbors downstairs were the McDowell family, and they had five brothers: Chip, Jerry, Darnell, Rocky, and Tony was the baby. Jerry was my best friend and we were the same age and in the same classes at School 74, then 93, and back to 74 again.

Spring had come and it was the Easter holiday of 1965. I was in the backyard, hammering away, flattening some old skates, and nailed them to a piece of wood to make a homemade skate board, with Jerry McDowell. Like all young boys we made our share of go-carts and homemade wagons. I was test riding the skateboard and it was tracking fast and true. As I turned the corner on Fillmore Ave. and saw a little stone on the sidewalk, there were two hippies walking down Fillmore Ave minding their own business. The wheel on my skateboard hit the stone and I went flying. Look out, I yelled at the two men as I went flying onto their backs and knocked them both to the ground.

I had hit them so hard that they took the shock of my fall, a full force hit, and I was still standing up over them. I asked them if they were okay, and I told them I was sorry I crashed into them, as I helped the one man up. The other one was still bent over, saying to me, I think you broke my rib. It took him a moment or two to catch his breath and when they both stood up, they started cursing at me, saying they were just walking down the street. We were minding our own business, they said.

They hit me and knocked me to the ground and started kicking me in the stomach and in the back and all over and on top of my head.

I moved my arms to cover the top of my head as I tried to get up and run away, but they pushed me back down. The last thing I remembered was the silver point that covered his cowboy boots as it struck me right between the eyes. I was out cold, and yet I was awake in front of a strange warm light; it was like the sun but it didn’t hurt my eyes. I felt so comfortable and at peace.

Jerry had ran and pulled down the fire alarm, and got his mother, Margaret McDowell, to come and see about me. A fireman woke me up and told Margaret that someone needed to take me to the hospital. The fireman and trucks left me and went back to the firehouse. Margaret had to walk to the pay phone and call my stepfather Jackie to come and pick me up. He had his own cab and worked for the Jefferson Street Taxi Company.

I was upstairs trying to wash the blood out of my clothes with Pet Milk before the stain set in. Jerry came running upstairs hollering, Teddy, Teddy, they found the men that beat you up. They are at the bad boys’ house. So I put on a clean T-shirt and ran downstairs and down Fillmore Ave. There was a small group of young black men yelling at the hippies, about coming into our neighborhood and beating up kids. The bad boys were sitting on their porch, but they weren’t bad boys, they were just white kids, around the same age as I was.

The hippies were standing in the doorway and the boys’ mother was trying to push them out of the foyer and onto the street as the crowd outside steadily grew. The four brothers just sat there on their porch, transfixed by the blood flowing from underneath my bandage and running down from in front of my face. The black men in the crowd continued to call them racists, as I looked now at my blood soaked T-shirt, and thought to myself, Boy oh boy, if Mama could only see me now. I looked at the little white kids sitting on their porch, immune to all the hostile yelling. Their eyes were just transfixed on me standing there, a bloody mess.

Jerry said, Look, Ted, the Lark Street boys are coming, and they had their T-shirts full of rocks from the train tracks on Northland and Fillmore. The crowd let out a big yell as they saw a group of about a dozen kids coming. Then we looked to the left and saw the Rickets Street boys coming, with baseball bats and sticks.

They were just community kids, eight to twelve years old, and a few teenagers that would play baseball in the parking lot of a small factory on Northland. I was the little fat boy that they never would pick to play. Jerry told me it was because everybody had to pick their little brothers.

The crowd had grown to fifty people in the street, and that increased the agitation around the house. The mother was begging the two strange white men to leave her house. One of the white boys was in Jerry and my third grade class at School 93, before it was shut down. The white boys knew us and had no reason to fear. Their poor momma was going to make everything all right

I looked at the kids sitting on the porch and one little boy with a big water head was rocking back and forth in a rocking chair with his eyes on me. I thought about the kids sitting there who never did anything to me, except say hi when I walked in front of their house. They didn’t deserve to be hurt, just like I didn’t deserve to be hurt.

The bitter, sweet, salty taste of my own blood filled my mouth.

I had to do something so I jumped out in front of the growing mob, and one of the men urged them to be quiet because I had something to say. I told them that this whole mess wasn’t a racist attack on me; it was just an accident, that’s all. I was skateboarding and slammed into them from behind and broke that man’s rib. I pointed to the doorway where the man was still holding his rib cage, and the other one was standing there with a butcher knife, and the kids’ mother was still trying to push them out of the doorway.

But a few people in the crowd were still hollering vengeance, so I told the crowd again that the white kids sitting on this porch were my friends, and I pointed my finger to the white men in the doorway and yelled out, Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I yelled it out again, Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. When I am old I will deal with the men in the doorway. I will come for you and we will settle this personal business between us before the eyes of God. The mob was shocked and silent as I told everybody to go home and I led the kids away to the parking lot to start the daily baseball game.

When Jackie arrived to take me to the hospital, he asked what had happened. I told him the story, and that it was just had an accident, that’s all. The doctors at Meyer Memorial Hospital stitched up the numerous scars on my head. I told the doctors and nurses how Martin Luther King had a dream of little white boys and girls playing with little black boys and girls. They were surprised that I didn’t have a concussion, but that scar on the center of his forehead was going to leave me with the mark of the third eye, the doctor told my stepfather.

Jackie was proud of me and told the doctor, My son has always been different. He builds model cars and airplanes and played chess since he was six years old. He is going to be special too. And they both chuckled a little bit, knowing that I had no idea what they were talking about.

Arnold said he wanted me to come see him and his plating shop. He had heard what had happened and wanted to see my scar. Arnold started playing chess with me to check out my skills. He taught me about coins and their value. One day I found a 1918D dime and we looked it up in his book and saw it was worth $1.50, which he gladly paid me.

He taught me that math was all around, from the way he mixed his chrome plating chemicals to the size of a door or window, table or chair. Everything involves math. He even showed me card tricks and I was a willing student.

He had hired a young man named Pizzaa who had a funny car. It was a ’57 Chevy with big tires in back and little tires in the front. He had his car fixed up really, really nice. He was so cool and young, and he still runs Frontier Plating Co. to this day.

CHAPTER THREE: THE THUNDER OF THE GUARDIANS

I t was the summer of 1965 when I heard the sound of thunder in the driveway. I was building a model airplane. My sisters ran to my room. Bubba, Bubba, come look at the motorcycles in the driveway. We were all looking out of the window and listening to the thundering sound of four Harley Davidson motorcycles in our driveway, and strange looking men, with their Hells Angels jackets. We all wondered what they were doing here. They had moved into the house next door. It wasn’t a clubhouse, but a flophouse where they would come and sleep.

For almost a month we were locked in the house and not allowed to go outside and play. We could play in the attic and the back hallway or the basement. I occupied my time by building model cars, airplanes, ships, and reading comic books. My momma had bought a set of 1965 encyclopedias that I would use to research some of the ancient gods that I would find in Thor comic books, and Hercules and Viking movies. I was tempted on many occasions to open the back door, and one day I finally did.

The Hells Angels were in the backyard of the house next door washing, polishing, and working on their Harleys and choppers. I slowly walked down the line of beautiful machines. I would say hi to each one of them. When I got to the last biker I noticed a man had VP on his jacket and I approached him and said, Hello, my name is Theodore.

He said, Hello, Theodore. I’ve never seen you around here before. I told him we had been locked in the house ever since they moved in.

I saw the VP on his jacket, so I asked, Does that mean you are the vice president? and he said, Indeed I am.Vice president of the Buffalo chapter of the Hells Angels. The VP had a canary yellow motorcycle with Tweety Bird on the side of its gas tank. He admired Tweety Bird because he was clever and always outwitted Sylvester the cat. I’m the VP based on my ability to be smarter than most of the other guys in the group.

By then all the kids had come out of the house and were walking around with the sunshine on their faces, admiring all of the Harleys and choppers. I told them to go back on our side of the backyard. I continued to tell the vice president of how they took over our driveway. I told him that Mr. Ernest always parked his car in the driveway and he moved. Now my daddy had the driveway, but he has to park on the street. I live upstairs with my four sisters, and Ms. Rosa Lee lives downstairs with her five kids. We’ve been lock inside the house and none of us kids could come out to play anymore.

Then I started talking to him about how pretty all the choppers were, and suddenly we looked up and all the kids had come back over there to look at the choppers. One Hells Angels member started complaining about all the pica ninnies around there. He said he wished that they would just go away. So I yelled and told everybody to go back in the house. I said to Fred, the VP, that I had a title too. My name is Theodore, and that’s a Greek name. So I began to tell them a little about the Roman and Greek gods.

We had talked twenty minutes or so and he shook my hand, slapped me five, and five on the backhand side. I was about to leave and I said,