October is a special month. A month I anticipate all year. I was hired on October 10, 1978, at Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale. It is a date that lives in the highlights of the Brooks Family Book. A day that changed our lives. We went from outside looking in the window to having a chair by the fireplace. It was warm and cozy by the fireside of opportunity. We went from having two junker cars to buying an LTD Coupe. A brand new car that was listed for 7K but was reduced to 6K. The car payments were $170 per month, and MJ cried for fear we would not be able to make the payment. We did. Soon we bought a little house. It was a sense of place. It felt good to be a homeowner. The little house had a concrete driveway and a humongous picture window. Three and a half years later, Aaron made his appearance. A six-foot Christmas Tree was strategically placed in front of the herculean picture window. We had arrived. MJ hosted Thanksgiving in our four-room house. One Thanksgiving, we had 24 members of our family. When one person moved, we all shifted. Earl brought smoked meat, and Neva J enjoyed shots of rum that MJ gave her. We were as proud as if we lived in a mansion. To this day, the Thanksgivings in the little house are lodged in my heart.

Aaron’s first Christmas came. We wanted something special. We purchased a handmade Nativity for $100 and thought we spent $1000.00. No one would outdo the Brooks. We had moved into the block and were there to stay. Not everyone had a concrete driveway. We came from poor folks. People who enjoyed going to the Dairy Queen on Friday night. We watched the cars pass by while we ate our nickel ice cream cones. Pride was shunned among the hardscrabble people of Eldorado. We were proud that we knew Jesus and that we earned an honest dollar.

Berl told me after I was hired in Building Services at SIUC that he would like to see me get a good job at the University. He thought I could do better and told me so regularly. Earl asked me why I did not take the Security Police Civil Service Exam. He knew that the Security Police would be much greater than a Building Service Worker I. Years later, Earl became a Building Service Worker I and enjoyed it. Although he did ask me if her was too old for a Security Officer.

I was born on October 24, 1957. For years, it was hard for me to remember if my birth year was 1957 or 1958. We came from Chicago on a Harley-Davidson. We were cool cats. Dad wore a motorcycle cap and carried a gun. Mom wore a red scarf and was so beautiful in the sunlight. I sat in the middle and wondered what it all meant. Eldorado was like another planet. I knew no one, and they did not know me. I had gone from having plenty to having nothing. Neva J could not afford the 20 cents a day for school lunch, so I was the only kid in the first-grade class to carry my lunch in a brown paper bag. Some of my classmates asked me if I did not have only 20 cents, and I thought 20 cents was a lot when you do not have it. President Kennedy was assassinated in November. School let out early. Neva J cried. I had several friends on the block in Chicago. Now I had none, not even 20 cents to buy lunch.