by Larry Alexander
February 18, 2025
It’s funny how memories long forgotten suddenly jump back into your conscious mind.
For example, one of my early recollections was growing up on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s and playing Superman in the back yard with my brother, Jack.
As I like to tell the story, I was about 7 or 8-years old, and my brother was about 6-years-old. Jack said, “Take this rope…climb up the tree… and fly!” So I took the rope, climbed up the tree, tied the rope around my neck and a branch, slipped, and started to hang!
I was hanging from the tree and blowing like a leaf in the wind… and blacked out.
Later, I learned that my mom was on the second floor of our home, had a premonition, looked out the window, saw me hanging from the tree, and somehow was able to grab a knife and rush downstairs in time to save my life. All I remember when I became conscious was eating ice cream and being happy.
Another memory recently remembered: At Englewood High School, I was probably a sophomore, and we were in swim class. I recall the instructor removing the divider separating the shallow from the deep water, and a number of the boys yelled their approval and started to swim towards the deep water. I was stroking toward the deep water…when I realized that I couldn’t swim!
I panicked and sank. I came up and went down at least three times before someone was able to grab my struggling butt and drag me to the side of the pool. I learned from that experience not to always follow the crowd to try to fit in. It could have cost me my life!
The last two experiences that have resurfaced in my mind occurred when I was 21-years-old in July of 1970.
I was pledging Theta Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and had to walk from 4432 South Martin Luther King Drive to 47th street to purchase some items. As I was returning to the fraternity house, near 46th and King Drive, about five or six young men surrounded me and someone shouted, “Give us the money!”
Without thinking, my self-preservation instinct took over and I yelled, “I have a wife…I have a baby!”
Someone said, “Shoot that m###@@@f…shoot that m###@@@f!” I opened my hand with the money, and they took it and ran off.
I dusted myself off, and a woman raised her second floor window and said, “Are you okay, baby?” I replied that I was, composed myself, and returned to the Alpha House.
The first words out of my mouth to everyone were, “You are not going to believe this, but I was just robbed!”
Perhaps it was the calm tone of my voice and my composure, but some people expressed skepticism: “Okay, Perfecto, where’s the change?”
And in a recent group chat with Brothers, I told this story and one Brother said, “Okay, Perfecto, where’s the change?”
Exactly one week later, I was returning to my apartment on 59th and Union from a party late at night. Out of the alley, a man approached me, aimed a gun at my head and said, “D’s run it!”
I looked at the gun barrel and said, “I know Goon!” (I had seen the name Goon spray painted on a wall near 63rd and Union one day, and I assumed that Goon was a Gangster Disciple.)
He said, “You know Goon?”
“I know Goon!”
“Lie down on the ground!” My short life flashed in front of me, and I waited for the gunshot.
Then…he walked away. After a few moments, I got up and counted my blessing!!
And fifty plus years later, I am still counting my blessings! Funny the things you thought you had forgotten are still there waiting to be remembered.
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