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Transcript
My name is Adam Keene. I’m 23 years old. On June 28, 2012, I interviewed Chris Dotson, Sr.
My birthday is August 5th, 1970. I’m born and raised in Pittsburgh. I have two older brothers and two older sisters. Uh, graduated from Westinghouse High School in 1988. I know I don’t look 41. You know, I try to, you know, keep myself together. And then after I graduated, I went to a small black university on outside of Philadelphia called Cheney University. Let me tell you, I can actually say Cheney University saved my life, and I say that because when I graduated the summer of ‘88, crack hit hard. Crack was just really hitting Pittsburgh cause all through my senior year of high school, crack wasn’t really a major factor then. It was coming. It was hitting other places like New York, Philly, stuff like that. But it didn’t get to Pittsburgh quite yet. When I graduated from high school that summer, crack was heavy and that happened. And I was only home that summer from June, July, August. I left like middle August to start school and me leaving, I think that really saved my life because every time I would come home, either one of my friends was killed, they didn’t get along with each other, or they was in jail. So I know I would have been out there in that.
There’s a man named Booker Reeves who actually helped me get into school. One day, I’m running late for school. I lived like three blocks from Westinghouse. So I was late every day. So when I come in and they was like, “Oh, we had college recruiters there.” So they was like, “either go to detention or you can go sit with the college recruiter.” So we said we’re going, you know, go to college. So we sitting there and the guy named Booker Reeves, older guy, he was, you know, telling us about Cheney. So we, you know, we’re looking. It’s a black university, you know, and I thought about college, but I-I know I ain’t had no money. My mom ain’t had no money for college. So I didn’t want to putting a burden on her because she’s doing what she has to do. I’m 18 now. You know, I-I need to start making my own way. So when we get in there, so he’s telling us about the school and showing slides and everything and you know, and I’m sitting there like, “what the heck? I think I could do this,” you know? And he-he talked to us like we can do it, you know, he gave us no- he’s like community college is fine. The triangle texts and computer tech and all. That’s fine, but you can go to a four year university. You can go and while I was sitting there, I mean, the more I sat there like, wow, I can go to college, I can go away, live in the dorm, experience real college life. I didn’t think I would be able to experience that here because I’d be too close to home, and I would still have the same acquaintances. I didn’t need that. You know, I needed to get a fresh start. So once I was sitting in there and I started learning more about Cheney, I was like, “wow, I can make it.” So I signed up and the more and more it got closer, I was like “wow,” you know, they accepted me, had some money ready to go. I was like, “wow, I can make it. I can go to college” because before really ’88, people went, but not as many as going now. It was still pretty new of kids getting it and going to a four year university. If you didn’t play football or have a scholarship, you wasn’t going. That’s just how it was. Unless your family had money or you had a scholarship somehow, you wasn’t going. So you know that was when kids were able to really start to go to four year universities. You know, sometimes I think like when would that be if I didn’t go, would I even be in Pittsburgh? Would I be alive? Would I have kids? Would I be married because I wasn’t really, you know, ready for marriage. And I wasn’t having no kids unless I knew I had the right girl. I had too many friends that had kids with females that they couldn’t stand. That was my life lesson. I learned from them. I’m not going through that. I met my wife there. It was funny about meeting her is when I met her, I wanted my close friends that I pretty much grew up with and graduated from Westinghouse with was up there. He was trying to talk to my wife before I really knew her. So that’s how I met my wife. And then the bond just formed over years. Then we found out she was pregnant and Chris was on the way. You know, I come a long way, you know, I’m the youngest of five. I’m the only one that had a son. All my sisters and brothers, they got two daughters apiece. Their daughters got daughters. There’s no boys, ‘sides Chris. He’s the only boy. And my mom always would say “you’re gonna be the only one to have a boy.” My sisters would say that. “You’re gonna be the only one. Watch. The first one is going to be a boy” and they said that and they said that and it was true. When he was first born, he was like. It was a little dude. From the crease in my elbow to the beginning of my wrist, on my hand, in between that area, he could fit right between there and that would hold him right there. And I was like, wow, somebody I never met in my life could change my life in such a way that it could make me a better person. I don’t know this dude. I knew my family for my whole life. But this little dude right here changed me. He made me look that I’m not in it myself no more. I have people depending on me, he don’t know, even when he would look up at me. I’m like I gotta do something. I’m a dad now. I have people that I have to shape and mold into a human being. That was heavy for me because I was ready. 20-21, I wasn’t ready. 24-25, I wasn’t ready. 29, I wasn’t ready. I felt like there was still stuff out there that I had to do, but once that happened, I know God was like “this is it right here.” I kept you out of jail. I kept you alive. I sent you to college. Here you go. You need something to start your second-half of your life. And that was it. And he changed me. That was a big thing, like, I have to prove, not to other people, but to myself I could be a good dad.