If I were to tell my father this memory, he would likely say “you were too young to remember that!” This is what he often says when I refer to or recall an event that had occurred early in my life, as did this one.

This memory took place during the unrest of the mid 1960’s when around the nation Americans were protesting the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam war, an issue that crossed racial lines. At the same time racial tension and the violent expressions of the dissatisfaction and unwillingness of Blacks to continue the “business as usual” ways of discrimination and double standards, that overtly was the benefit of White Americans. Protesting took on a seemingly insensible self destructive character whereas Black protester turned their destructive anger against their own people in their own communities.

Groups like the Black Panthers, the Black Nationalist and others, formed around the nation. As I recall, fear was their most visible trait. The use of weapons of terror and destruction, guns, knives and clubs, molotov cocktails and other primitive but effective weapons were employed to destroy businesses, homes and lives in communities around the nation. The black communities were especially targeted. The dynamics and the effectiveness of our people destroying our own communities in retaliation to the discriminatory policies seems misplaced and self destructive at best!

The fact that self destruction didn’t make sense to me or others didn’t seem to matter! These activist groups were bent on sending a message and they did so through theft and destruction and recruitment. During all of this, dad certainly understood that his priority was at home and that these thing that were happening in our neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio, were going to happen around us but not to us.

My memories of dad in this time, relevant to this was that he was not recruit-able and he was not to become a victim. Dad was big on teaching us to be individuals. He would be less angry if we did wrong than he would if we had done wrong following someone else. In fact throughout our youth we sibs heard dad repeatedly say that “he wasn’t raising any victims!” This can be interpreted as:

• “Nobody made you do anything!”
• “Who’s kid are you anyway”
• “If someone jumped of a bridge… “
• “What is your name”
• “People named Pickett do what people named Pickett do”
• “Don’t fight but if you do fight, don’t be the last one to pick up a brick”
• “Don’t stand on the corner, stand in middle block. Nothing happens in the middle of the block!”

Armed men would prowl the neighborhood, seeking whom and what they could devour. Burglary, theft and increasing their numbers were their apparent goals. I remember dad sitting armed with a shotgun on our porch. We’d be sitting with him and a group of angry self righteous people approached the house calling to the black man on the porch, attempting to appeal to his indignation and misplaced pride, selling to my father who wasn’t buying anything that meant walking away from his post of protecting what was his- us, our home and our way of life. (Use “Links” tab for more reading.

I was afraid as we stood by and watched and listened as they sold their rational and Dad declared his position. Pops told them that they had to do what they had to do and that he had to do what he had to do. He made everything a lesson. The lesson was for them as much as it was for us and we learned.

During this time our garage was a make-shift bicycle shop which later grew into the RoadRunner Bike Shop. On one of their burglar sprees, we fell victim and many of our personal bikes and bikes that belong to others were stolen.

When dad found out, he took the four of us boys hunting for the stolen bikes. At the time I was 7 or 8 years old, but a lesson is never too soon to be taught. I saw my father go into places that the police wouldn’t go. He took us to gang meeting places and we went boldly and innocently with our dad. If he had any fear it wasn’t detectable by me! Heck, with Dad’s bold ways and how he spoke and carried himself, we knew his expectations of us… he showed us that he walked the walk!

We recovered most of the bikes. Those people were as astonished as we were that this man came into their midst, kids in tow, out numbered and made them to see things his way. He was not raising any victims!

Until this day, all of Andy’s kids can boast that we may not always do the correct thing, but we are not followers. We certainly learned from Dad that we are responsible and accountable for what we do and what we associate ourselves with. He taught us that we were foolish to let someone else lead us into trouble. We learned guilt by association at home and the penalty for it at home and in the world.

Possibly without his notice, in his teachings he taught us what I’ve come to recognize as a Godly principle. Him holding us responsible for what we should have known, not letting us get away with anything, we learned that being ignorant was not a reprieve from accountability.

To us it was unreasonable, unfair and even impossible for us to know what may have happened. Forever holding us accountable he’d hold us responsibility for what we should have known (i.e. … I didn’t know that my friend was going to shoplift, we were just at the store together and…). Dad taught us a principle that I later life I realized, was a Faith based principle. A teaching, that we regarded as unreasonable and even impossible has come to fruition in my life and based on our track record, it has in the lives of my brothers and sister as well. Andy didn’t raise any victims!

In the words of the immortal Andy… “What do you think I’m raising here, anyhow!”

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