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The Victoria GAZETTE |
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July 2010 |
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“My dad was in the U.S. Navy and he met my mother in Spain. She was from Portugal,” said Brian, comfortable at the desk in his new office at Lake Auburn. “They divorced when I was six years old and I lived with my dad. After the Navy, Dad worked for the Department of Defense and had a job in Maryland.” Brian said that his father, who was raised a Lutheran, still lives out east and is not well. Father and son remain connected and in touch. Neither of Brian’s parents were big church goers. Brian’s mother’s parents were Catholic. “After my parents divorced, they each remarried somebody else. I got a brother out of the deal!” said Brian. “Then my parents remarried each other and divorced again. It was not an easy home situation but I thought everyone’s parents yelled at each other so I just accepted it as normal.” Brian attended J. Frank Dent Elementary School, also in Prince George’s County. “It was predominantly a minority county,” he said. What did the little boy want to be when he grew up? “A zoologist,” he replied. “The natural world was for me as close as I could get to something bigger than anything.” He spent 7th and 8th grades at Roger B. Taney Middle School, which was later named Thurgood Marshall Middle School. Brian pointed out how ironic, and fitting, that the name went from a white Supreme Court Justice who ruled in favor of the Dred Scott Decision to the first African American Supreme Court Justice.” Brian confirmed that in the Dred Scott Decision, African American slaves could not be considered citizens of the United States and certainly not be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Brian graduated from Frederick Douglas High School in 1990. “If you do the math,” he said, “you know I married an older woman.” His favorite subject? “English, bar none!” His least favorite subject? “Chemistry.” “I wasn’t a good student,” admitted Brian. “I was a very good soccer player and didn’t have the grades to make the team. Then in tenth grade I had an epiphany and started improving, probably so I could be on the team. I thought maybe I could be a professional soccer player. In my junior and senior years I was on the traveling soccer team and also on the swim team.” After high school Brian enrolled at the University of Maryland at College Park. “My dad helped a lot in putting me through college,” he said. “He helped significantly. I also waited tables and worked at a gas station where I’d write my papers late at night then sleep through class the next day. I wrote good papers but grades were also based on class participation, which I didn’t do much because I was sleeping.” Brian graduated in 1994 with his Bachelor of Arts degree in English. “We didn’t have what you call a ‘minor’ at College Park, but I used every elective credit I had on Portuguese -- the language, culture, history -- in order to understand my grandmother.” When Brian visited Lisbon in 2004 he had the language and background to communicate with his Grandma Maria do Ceu Franco. ***
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Preaching to the Choir Continued |
