Eduardo Hope Jr:  

Until I was 10 years of age, I lived in Panama, Central America, arguing about politics (normal in Central America for kids to do), listening to Ruben Blades and El Gran Combo, going to Cub Scout meetings and dodging 'diablitos' and rotten eggs during Carnaval, and playing stickball in the street. In 1982 my family and I immigrated to the USA. In Ft Stewart (near Savannah, GA), life was made easier by my 5th grade teacher, Ms. Shipman, and by a girl who offered her seat in class. At the time I did not know enough English to say 'thank you', though I had learned to read and write a bit in school in Panama. By the end of my first summer in the US, I had joined a local Boy Scout troop and read enough books at the public library to win a prize in a book-reading contest. My favorite people in the new school year were Ms. Libby and Mr. Golden (a Kenny Rogers look-alike), two of my teachers. In Scouts, Kenneth Cunningham, an Army officer, was my Scoutmaster-- the best one I ever had. His eldest son taught me to swim, and his youngest was my friend in 6th grade. My family moved away in Fall '82, first to Grovetown, then on base to Ft Gordon (GA), near Augusta, where after a handful of pickup games in the neighborhood I thought I was going to be the next Herschel Walker (he had won the Heisman Trophy that year), but after getting flattened by a big kid, I decided playing baseball was more my speed. We moved to Schofield Barracks, Hawai'i in Sept 1983. At Wahiawa Intermediate I got a bit into breakdancing and played trumpet in the school band, and in Leilehua High School I played in the wind ensemble, where I was fortunate to have Keith Fukumoto as a teacher. Though I also joined the school soccer team, I think I only played 5 minutes of a game towards the end of the season. The best player on that team was Kanani Kitashima, who I remember scoring four goals by himself in only the first half of a match. Also while living in Hawai'i, I went on cool high-adventure camping trip one summer, backpacking along the Kalalau Trail (the Napali shore of Kaua'i) with my Boy Scout troop 76 from Wheeler Air Force Base. That was a great bunch of guys, and a high-powered group of Scoutmasters (military jet pilots and ex-special ops warriors). After moving to Alabama in Summer '87, I spent the next 7 summers in Scout summer camp, 6 of them in staff, the last two as Program Director. Another Scouting highlight was participating as a Third Assistant Scoutmaster in charge of special programs for one of the two Alabama-Florida Council troops that attended the 1993 National Boy Scout Jamboree. In the meantime, I did my last 2 years of high school in Ozark (Carroll High), where I played club soccer with a great bunch of guys. My favorite teachers at Carroll were Ms. Knight in History ("An essay is like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to be interesting"), the cool and collecte...Expand for more