YouSaid · the spoken record

John King Jr.

lines on the record
71
first
2018-07-09
most recent
2018-07-09
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “Yes, I think a few things. One is in Cambridge, so I got very involved in life in the city. I ended up spending probably as much time in class as I spend doing public service work in after-school programs, summer programs, in school teachers. And why did you do that?”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Yeah, yeah. So he was teaching and he went into school and the principal said, you have to go home. You can't teach with a cast on. And my father said, no, I'm fine. I'm just going to teach my class. It's not going to affect me. And principal said there are some rule about not being able to be in class. So my father went over, and you know, from being in New York City schools, there are those high counters in the office, and he went over to the counter and he smashed the cast on the counter and brushed the pieces into a trash can, put his hand in his coat pocket, and went and taught his class. And so, you know, I don't have that many memories of really good conversation with my father, but I do remember, even as a little kid, that whenever someone in the family would complain or say something was too hard, my father would sort of hold his wrist, you know, and he'd say, oh, I think it's going to rain. And it would serve to rain.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “It was hard initially, but in some ways I was craving that. I was craving structure and order and Support and they provided that and really helped me get my life back on track. I'm very grateful for that. And so actually getting kicked out turned out to be the best thing for me because it put me in a situation where I was with my mount and uncle and able to get myself organized.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “During World War II, and then Korea Air Force. And so I went to live with him and his wife, my aunt Jean, and they had a very structured household dinner at the same time every night, you know, career military. Yeah, of course, yeah.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Yeah, yeah, my uncle Hal, who was my father's youngest brother, he was a Tuskegee airman, you know, one of the first African-American pilots.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Though I assume academically, I still like class and was disrespectful to teachers. Didn't pay any attention to the rules about when you had to be in your dorm and all those kinds of things. And I kept getting in trouble to mention I got kicked out. And that turned out to be really important.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I turn that into being angry at adults, the way lots of kids who've experienced trauma do. Know I was mad at my parents, even though that's probably rational I was.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “And I did. I went to Phillips Andover, same school where. Presidents Bush's went. And I was incredibly out of place. Was not a lot of diversity at the time. You know, I felt very isolated as a student of color there. I felt very isolated as a kid from the city there. Academics were great. I learned a ton. I had really good academic experiences, but I was really out of place socially. And I'd been through a lot as a kid.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Exactly. It felt the same. I mean, I was managing the household with my brother, and I knew that wasn't right, and I knew that I needed something different than I needed more structure and support. And I happen to have a friend who went to PS276 in Brooklyn with me who had gotten into a private boarding school on a scholarship, and he told me about it. He gave me that conversation gave me the idea, oh, maybe if I go to a boarding school, I could get out of this situation with my brother.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Yeah, my mother's son, who's about 12 years older than me, and he, you know, he loved me and he wanted to make a good home, but he was 24, I was 12. He drank all the time. He partied a lot.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And you know, somewhat, I don't know that anyone understood the scope of it and my sort of extended family didn't really understand the scope of it. And it was just the two of us in the house. And then he just got more and more sick towards the end. I think folks started to have more of a sense that there were things wrong And then one night he fell. I had a cousin who happened to have been in town and was staying with us for the night, and we went to the hospital. And, you know, when you fall and hit your head, they give you a set of tests. And he couldn't pass the test, right? He couldn't answer his birthday and, you know, who the president was, those kinds of questions. And that led to the diagnosis, and he actually never came home from that. He went into the hospital and then passed. That was 12.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yeah, I think part of, you know, as I've read more about Alzheimer's, I think part of what happens is you have routines kind of stick longer. And so for years, I guess he'd been going to the bank and withdrawing money and then putting it in a drawer and not using it. So I was hungry. We didn't have any food in the house. And so I realized I needed to get some of that money and go get. Food and I felt like I was stealing, but I didn't know what else to do, and I was really hungry. And so know it just was this very difficult period and home was just really difficult and it made school take on this even greater role in my life because school was the place that was consistent and where I did have these positive relationships with adults”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Yeah, it was like 2 a.m. He woke me up. He says, time to go to school. And I remember being on the staircase of our house kind of clinging to the banister as he pulled me on the stairs and kept saying, we got to go to school. And I kept saying, no, daddy, it's not time to go to school. It's the middle of the night. And I didn't know why he was doing that. That was very, very hard to process. And as he got more and more sick, I ended up doing more and more things at the house, the laundry, the food, figuring out even how to write checks in his name to pay the bills, just trying to figure out how to keep 10-11.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Anxiety was just the two of us. I mean, I thought, I guess I thought he was crazy, or that was the only way I could describe it. It just was so unpredictable.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Yeah, yeah, 1908. So my parents were sort of 26 years apart. My father had Alzheimer's, but it wasn't diagnosed, so it got much worse over the time from when I was eight to when I was 12. And so I didn't know why, but he was incredibly unpredictable. And, you know, these huge mood shifts, you know, some nights he was angry, some nights he was sad, some nights he would engage with me, some nights he wouldn't.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, yeah. He was an amazing teacher. He looped with us in fourth, fifth, sixth grade, which is so unusual in New York City public schools of the time. But he really became like a surrogate parent for me. I mean, his class was amazing. You know, we did productions of Midsummer Night Stream in Alice in Wonderland. We went to them museum and the ballet. We learned the capital of every country in the world and the leader of every country in the world. He made school interesting and fun and safe.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “So She was in the hospital the night that she had the heart attack, and then Everybody said there were a bunch of adults in the house, and they all said it's going to be fine. I went to sleep and I woke up in the morning, my father said he had to talk to me, and he told me, and I just Screamed and cried and couldn't believe it. And then I insist on going to school Actually, my mom had been the guidance counselor at my elementary school at one point when I was in kindergarten first grade. And so being at school felt closer to her. Being at school felt... Safe. And so everyone was saying, Oh, you don't have to go to school, and I really wanted to go to school. You know, school was actually then the place that gave me a sense of order.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “It's so hard to process. I mean, it just Think for I couldn't really process it just was a sense of loss that's sort of indescribable. How did you find?”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Yeah, yeah, it was October of my fourth grade year as eight. And my mother actually was a guidance counselor, the junior high school across the street from my elementary school. And she had a heart attack one day at work and passed away that night. And she'd really been the center of my world. And then I live with my father. Oh, let's hold on for a second because what...”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “No, you know, because my father didn't speak Spanish, my mother spoke Spanish at home, but we didn't speak Spanish as a family. And then both my parents passed when I was a kid. So I learned Spanish more in school than at home.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Yes, both my parents were New York City public school teachers. My mother came from Puerto Rico where she was born as a kid to the Bronx classic sort of New Yorkan story. Learned English in New York City schools, went to CUNY for college and became a teacher and a counselor. My father, who was African-American, grew up in Brooklyn just after the turn of the 20th century. And there weren't a lot of paths for African Americans, frankly, and he decided he wanted to be a teacher and try to give back to the community where he grew up and spent his whole life working in New York City public schools.”

    2018-07-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 257 — John King Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source