Memories...

Being out of town for so long has kept me out of the loop on a lot of Detroit news and events. One of the bigger changes to the landscape and the history of the Detroit  is the tearing down of the original Lewis Cass Technical High School building, my alma mater. After six years of being vacant and adjacent to the new Cass Tech building, the time for demolition occurred. In tearing down the 100 year old school building and pickle factory, a piece of Detroit history was taken as well.

I relate so many good (and bad) memories to Cass and I met so many good people whom I ultimately built long term friendships with in those classrooms and in the hallways of the eight floored school.

January 27, 2003 was one of the most important days in my life and it ultimately changed the trajectory of who I am and what I wanted for my life. It was the first day I enrolled at Cass Technical High School in Detroit.




A few years earlier I was a student at Dorothy Fisher Magnet Middle School were Detroit area students were offered the opportunity to take a standardized test for admittance into three of the magnet high schools of the area: Renaissance High School, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr High School and Cass Technical High School. At that point in my life, I was in a bit of a downward spiral and was rebellious in who I thought the world wanted me to be and who I thought I was. I didn't want to be the golden boy that my friends and teachers made me out to be. I wanted to be with my friends from the neighborhood but I didn't want to "fit it": I wanted to be me and forge my own path. So I didn't take the admissions test, which really disappointed my mother and father.

Instead, for ninth grade I enrolled at Denby Technical & Preparatory High School - which is right down the street from my middle school - with all of my neighborhood friends, a few of my cousins and everyone I knew growing up. Many of my friends from my magnet middle school went over to the Cass & King but I didn't want to be like any of them: I wanted to hang with my neighbors. I was tired of being Smart Branden and being the kid on the block who "talked white".  But I hated even more going to my "prestigious" middle school and being seen as "too ghetto". I knew I was different, but I thought being around my neighbors and people I grew up with would be better. But when I started at Denby, I had two realizations:1) most of my really good friends family from the neighborhood wouldn't go to Denby because they wanted to get the best opportunity for themselves & 2) alot of my neighborhood friends didn't care about education or going to school because they were thugging or selling drugs.

Even with all of that, I figured that I'd just go there, keep out of trouble and graduate. But I didn't get the warm fuzzies from Denby. When I finally got interested in going to college, I didn't get information about Summer programs, AP courses and practice test. The teachers and staff weren't as concerned as I'd hope for about the things that interested me. But my friends Willie and my neighbor J. Allen who had gone to Cass talked daily about the fun, the girls, and the books they had to read at school. My mind was made up and I decided that I would transfer for my sophomore year.


So... on January 27, 2003 I submitted a presentation package (that paralleled my college admission package) detailing my grades, my interest, letters of recommendation, and my desire to go to a great college with the resources I'd get from Cass Tech. I got in and started classes that day and it was the best decision I've ever made.

Being at Cass Tech not only put me on the path that I am today where I appreciate the duality of being a Black male who is an intellectual, but I also developed a social network that extends far beyond my Eastside Detroit beginnings.While college and post grad life definitely have a put me on the road to who I am becoming, January 27, 2003 is what set these ideas and actions into motion.

Whether it was developing a writing style and refining my appreciation for literature in AP English with Ms. Willis and Mr. Steigerwall or having a freestyle cypher outside of Cass with friends (one of whom would later become rapper & Cass Tech alumni Big Sean's hype man SayItAin't Tone) or going to high school football and basketball games (where Conference USA's 2008 player of the year Chris Douglass Roberts attended and used to clown with me in French) to the women that I met, dated, etc, the times that I had would end up being some of the best memories.