Gary was my friend in fourth grade. He had big brown eyes, dark brown, bowl cut hair, and a little turned up nose, sprinkled with freckles. Oh, and he had a wide happy smile and dimples. Gary was one of the first friends I made at Calverton Elementary. In the search for educational parity, I was bussed from the local school, which served the projects where I lived, to an almost all white school, Calverton, 35 minutes away.

I was a tomboy. My only nod to being a little girl was my …