FORREST VALLEY

About the Book

This is the story of the dramatic life, the one thing after another life, and the long list of dramatic events that took place in this now older man’s youthful years. His youthful years consisted of a lot of give and take, and rising hell through the 1950’s and early 1960’s. This is a story of a young boy on the very bottom of the social latter and his sudden awakening to the feeling of RESPECT. I put that word in caps because that word and REPUTATION are two of the most important words in a Black man’s life. This fight for respect gave rise to his subsequent struggles, determination, and persistence to climb to the very top of his peer group and his role as he reign at the top as a teenage celebrity gangster. This story tells of the race problems incurred by this child and a Colored boy that did not believe that he was in any way inferior to other people and his refusal to accept a second-class role. This boy made his own rules and paid his dues for it. He somehow managed to handle his ups and downs and heartbreaking hurts and overcame the pit falls, so that he could take and hold a respectable place at the top of teenage society. These were glory seeking days with young men fighting with their fist, investing long grueling hours to reach the top of the teenage mountain, where some only ruled for a short time over the teenage world. Once at the top of this mountain some young people found that the way that society has structured theirs lives many of them met large hurdles so early in life that they couldn’t jump over them mentally and become completely emotionally drained. This story tells how and why they fell from the top of the teenage world landing in the bottomless pit of the wine bottle where they lived the rest of their lives and died. You will read about teenage genius; organization, planning, unity, love, trust, loyalty, friendship, and the sophisticated inter workings and smoothness of teenage gangster politics and law. The beginning of the trash talking and rhyming and the role it played in the lives of teenagers and of the different hats worn by teenagers and the many different roles that they played on a daily basis is portrayed here. The gangs or “clubs”, if you will, began at this time and you will learn why they were formed, the purposes they served and what they accomplished. This book contains not only the funny but also the very serious emotions experienced by the young tender hearts of the youth of this particular age, the 1950’s and 1960’s. People are born into a certain environment and that environment is the only world they know so it is how they perceive the world to be. So they deal with their world the best that they know how. This environment consisted of hot rodding in cars dancing to rock and roll music and being wild and crazy. It was and still is a socially engineered environment. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty.

About the Author

While in High School I won the New Jersey State Golden Gloves Championship and the New Jersey Amateur Athletic Union Championship. I joined the United Stated Air Force and was stationed in Tachikawa, Japan where I won the Pacific Air Force Championship in 1965 and 1966. I was discharged honorably from the Air Force in 1968. I had a few professional fights and retired from boxing and became a fight trainer in Trenton, New Jersey. I spent most of my adult life as a Life Insurance Agent but then worked as a correction officer and then as a computer operator. I also served four years in the Army Reserve. I have no police record as a juvenile or adult, although I’ve been arrested numerous times. I ran for city council in 2002. I am now retired.