Audio File
Transcript
My name is Pernell Blackburn, Jr. I’m 12 years old.
My name is Demond Briston. I’m 14 years old.
My name is Sheridan McHenry. I’m 17 years old.
We interviewed Gary Harrison on August 13th, 2014.
When I was about 10 years old, we got our first color TV and I wanted to see how it works. So I took it apart, which I couldn’t put back together. So…I wanted to be able to fix that TV, so we had, it was electric shop, so I thought that was TV repair. So I took that class and I liked it. It was wiring houses. So that’s how I ended up exposed to being an electrician.
I didn’t really like grade school all like that. I didn’t strive till I got to 9th grade and I knew I was coming to the end. I was going to be in the real world, so from that point on, I think I made the honor roll from 9th all the way to 12th. And that’s when I first took electric shop. And that- that was my backup plan.
Well, I thought Iwas gonna be a superstar football player and that didn’t work out. But I had a back up plan. I said “I’ll go to trade school if I don’t make it in that” cause I was a track star in high school, but I had drive to succeed whatever I was doing. I wanted to see that. I wanna be the best at it.
I’m an electrician so I’m known around the neighborhood because I do electrical work, so I get a lot of calls from people who own homes and businesses. I’m gonna get licensed in the city and insurance so I get bigger jobs than what I’m doing right now. My mother always told me, “Yeah, learn to do something.” I like to work with my hands. So it was a trade. And then electrical was like, the top of the construction trade. And it paid well. So I kind of fell into that. Learn to do something to the best of your ability, something positive.
As I became like 20-21, I wanted to experience the world and girls and going to the bars and it’s about the same time that crack hit the hoods in the 80’s. So that’s when I got caught up in that and I had a couple dollars too. So I was a dreaming wireman by that time. So I had a little bit of money, because I was hood rich.
The time I had a problem to the time I stopped was 22 years, my brother always said I was on a teeter totter. I had one foot in and one foot out. I didn’t, you know, trying to get all way in it, but then eventually the drugs take over and that’s all you was able to do was get one more. And then as I got older, I’m like “Oh, this has gotta stop.” And basically I prayed. I went to NA meetings. I listened, and I found what my mother taught me was right. Just don’t do drugs. Just don’t take the 1st one.
I started off good coming out, but you know, living in the hood and then you get the temptations of the world. It’s everywhere and it gets you off track. And I was getting old, so it was true. I’m. I’m getting old. I can’t be out doing that. It’s just, you know, you said raise a child and when you have him go and when he’s old, he went far, far from it. So I kind of went back to where my roots started at. To me I’m not successful. I’m still working at it. I guess I’ll figure I’ll become successful when it’s all over. I don’t know where that’s gonna be, but I’m still in the school called life. I’m always learning.
Don’t let peer pressure take you down that dark path of drug use, cause that’s the biggest thing going on in our neighborhood right now is they’re fighting over crumbs out there. Learn a skill. It’ll feed you for the rest of your life.