Corey Johnson - Courageous

Chapter 1
1959 - Nicknames

For many years Avon Johnson and his brothers grew up in a decent home with a mother, but no father. Avon was the second oldest of four boys. He was always a loud animated kid. No matter where he was, Avon always stood out amongst other kids; if not for his size, then for his attitude and his loud mouth. At an early age, Avon decided to hang out in the streets because he was attracted to the independence, the fast life, and most of all the money. His friends called him Flubber. There are two stories as to why they called him Flubber.

One story is that Avon had big lips when he was a kid. So his childhood friends called him Flubber-lips. Later they shortened the name to Flubber. At first Avon hated the name. But then they called him F lub for short. He eventually got used to that name. It did not matter much anyway, because his close childhood friends were going to call him Flub whether he liked the name or not. Another story is that Avon got his nick-name Flubber from a movie that came on television when he was young. In this movie a mad scientist mixed together several chemicals and created a rubbery substance that could not be destroyed. The scientist called the indestructible product, Flubber. As a youth, Avon played football. He was pretty tough and a little big for his age. The story is that the other boys would bounce off of him whenever he carried the football because he was so hard to tackle. Avon would also get into many fights when he was young. No matter what you tried to do to him; he would always come back fighting even harder. So the guys called him Flubber . Avon had created this reputation that he could not be destroyed and that he was the toughest kid around. Whichever story is the truth, the nickname Flubber eventually became a term of endearment.

Although he was very young, Avon was very smart. Even his teachers told his mother that the lessons in school were too easy for Avon. He breezed through every class and every subject with no problem. That may have been the worst thing that could happen to Avon because eventually he became disinterested in school. To occupy his time, Avon would walk the school hallways going from class to class looking for his friends from the neighborhood. One school semester Avon found out that one of his friends had an empty seat next to him in a math class. Avon did not belong in this particular math class, but he would walk right in the door and take his seat just as class started. Avon attended this class every day. The teacher thought that Avon was one of her students. She marked Avon present each day, but she did not realize he did not belong in her class. Avon would show up and he would do the work all while pretending to be this other student. He only attended the class to be with his friend Bobby, who he knew from around the neighborhood. By the end of the semester, the student Avon was pretending to be had passed the math class; yet he had not been in class one day during the whole semester. Avon had gotten the passing grade for him.

Avon soon became even more bored with school and began cutting class full time. He and his friends would stay inside of the school building finding places to hide until the end of the school day. The school that Avon attended was Harlem Park Middle School. Avon and most of his friends attended Harlem Park during the time when schools were first being integrated. Because it was still new for black kids to be attending schools with white kids, Avon and his friends got into fights with the white kids on a regular basis. The white kids would mostly start fights with black kids when they were walking alone. Avon and his friends decided to stay together in groups. Soon, they were beating up the white kids who they caught walking alone. In the beginning, most of his friends would not cut class all day like Avon did. So Avon began hanging out with the older kids who were not afraid to cut class. Avon had twin cousins named Seamore and Shorty. They called one of the twins Shorty because he was so short. Avon began hanging out with the twins regularly. Although they were older than Avon, they would let him hang around them because he was big for his age and he seemed to be more mature than the other kids his age. At an early age Avon also hung out in pool halls with older guys. The older guys took a liking to young Flubber. The pool halls were intriguing to him. He would run errands for the older guys to earn the opportunity to hang around them. They even would let him get on the pool table and shoot with them from time to time. Thats how he perfected his pool game. While inside the pool halls he would overhear their conversations about the streets. Avon learned a lot more than just shooting pool hanging around the older cats. He learned a lot of game and street smarts.

Avons mother Lill found out from his homeroom teacher that Avon was not attending school. His mother was very upset. She would go out looking for him around the neighborhood. She hated the nick-name Flubber. Most of the time, she could not find him because she was asking if anyone had seen Avon, not Flubber. Lill was extremely upset one day because she knew Avon was not in school, but she could not find him anywhere. One of Avons brothers told Lill that she had to ask for Flubber if she wanted to find Avon because that is what his friends called him. Not many of his friends even knew his name was Avon because everyone called him Flubber. Eventually Lill would find him by asking if anyone had seen Flubber. When she did find him outside of school; she would make him go back. This happened over and over. Avon figured out that his mother was getting a phone call everyday from school about him hooking school because he was not reporting to homeroom class. Being the intelligent guy that he was, Avon decided to go to school every morning, but only to homeroom class. Then he would cut out of school right after homeroom. Avon was a smart kid. His plan worked for a while. But his mother was even smarter. She started coming by the school on random days of the week so Avon never knew when she was going to show up. Lill was no dummy.

Chapter 2:
Sly As A Fox

Avons mother Lillian Johnson was a strong sassy young mother of four boys while still in her twenties. Lillian had been in and out of several relationships that had all gone bad, leaving her with four boys by three different men. Lillian had one sister and two brothers. They all were raised in a three-story row house in Southwest Baltimore by their mother and father, Robert Johnson and his wife Mary Polly Dear (Smith). Robert and Mary had moved their family from South Carolina to Maryland for a better life. Robert Johnson grew up on a farm where he picked cotton when he was young, and he also did odd jobs as a carpenter. Robert Johnson swore to his wife Mary that he was going to take her up north to the big city of Baltimore to raise their first born children. Mary was pregnant and expecting twins at the time. Robert was good with his hands and could build just about anything. So before Mary gave birth to the twins, Robert went to Baltimore with his older cousin to find work doing construction. After working odd jobs here and there as a bouncer at a downtown club and a dish washer at a restaurant, Robert finally found a good paying job doing construction work. Roberts first big contract took him to Florida for several months. Robert saved most of his earnings while working in Florida. After the contract was completed, he went back to South Carolina just in time to witness the birth of his twins, Rebecca and Isaac. Soon after the delivery, Robert moved his family to Baltimore. Robert and Mary later had two more children, Lillian and Johnny.

Robert invested his money from working construction into a home in Southwest Baltimore for his family. Some minor work needed to be done to the house. Robert decided to do all of the repair work himself. Robert would take in other relatives who followed him and Mary to Baltimore from South Carolina. Many of Robert and Marys family members believed in the same dream they had. They all wanted to have a better life for themselves living in the big city up north. Robert and Mary would provide a place to stay and food to eat for all of their family members. Some of their relatives could not find work in Baltimore, so Robert decided to open up a diner and hire his family to work for him. Robert eventually opened up two diners. Although he owned the two diners, he continued to work construction during the day.