Powell Colin L - My American Journey

To my family past, present, and future

Perhaps this is the beginning of my fascination with automobiles. We are on a summer Sunday outing to Uncle Joe and Aunt See's house in Jamaica, Queens, around 1942. The family dream was to move up from renting an apartment in the city to owning a house in the suburbs.

These are the earliest pictures I have of my parents, which I found after their deaths. These are their original British passport photos. Pops is from 1920, when he was twenty-two, and Moms is from 1924, when she was twenty-two. It was with these documents that they came to the United States, met each other, and began new lives.

THE LION KING
I was too young to protest the indignity of this photo. It was not even our trophy skin! In those pre-animal rights daysthis was 1937proud parents eager to show off their pride and joy asked for such photographic-studio props to suggest an affluence and level of importance the family did not yet enjoy.

A SUNDAY OUTING WITH MY FATHER

Luther Powell, a snappy dresser, with his well-togged, big-footed son, Colin, around 1943 on a Sunday morning on 167th Street, just down from Prospect Avenue. We were on the way home from paying our ritual after-church visit to my Aunt Beryl, Luthers sister.

MY ROOTS: IN JAMAICA AND THE BRONX

The cottage at Top Hill in St. Elizabeth parish, where my father was born, photographed when Alma and I visited in 1992. The cottage is referred to as the old house and is still being used. My grandparents are buried in the front yard just to the right of this homecoming scene.

Kelly Street, where I was brought up, is being readied for a block party to celebrate V-J day in 1945. Our apartment is at 952 Kelly Street, the first building in the row of lower housing on the right. The picture was taken at the corner of 163rd Street, looking toward Westchester Avenue, with the elevated section of the IRT subway in midpicture.

Hanging out with my sister, Marilyn, in front of our first apartment house in the Bronx, 980 Fox Street.

A YOUNG MAN IN THE BRONX

I am in my Sunday best near Hunts Point in the Bronx in 1953. The following year I entered the City College of New York to study engineering. I dropped engineering after one semester and switched to geology to stay in college.

My gang in the early 1950s, two blacks, two Lithuanians, and a Puerto Rican: typical of the ethnic mix of Banana Kelly then. From left to right: Victor Ramirez; Eddie Grant; me; Tony Grant, Eddies brother, on leave from the Navy; and Robley McIntosh.

Gene Norman, my best friend on Kelly Street, lived just across the street from us. He served in the Marine Corps and then went into architecture, rising to become Landmarks Commissioner for the City of New York.

I entered ROTC in the fall of 1954. Here I am in my first uniform. I had found something that I loved and that I did well.

THE PERSHING RIFLES, A TURNING POINT IN MY LIFE

The CCNY Pershing Rifles in 1957. I am seated in the front row. On my right is my friend and role model, Ronnie Brooks. Seated next to Ronnie is our faculty advisor, Major Jones, who kept us off probation. Directly behind me (second row, fourth from right) is Antonio Mavroudis, who saw me as his role model. Tony was killed in Vietnam. John Young, behind Tony (third row, third from right), was also killed in Vietnam, as was another Pershing Rifleman, Alan Pasco (not pictured). Ronnie died of a heart attack in 1989. The rest of us are still in touch as a group and have frequent reunions.

Left: The summer of my junior year in college was spent at ROTC summer camp at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Complete with .45 caliber pistol, safely without ammo, I am getting ready to start my tour as the Company D duty officer.

I BECOME A RANGER, AND GET MY FIRST FOREIGN POST

Inset: Coleman Barracks, Gelnhausen, Germany, in 1960. As a first lieutenant, at right, swagger stick in hand, I watch with some anxiety as Lieutenant Colonel Jim Carter, commander of the 2d Armored Rifle Battalion, 48th Infantry, makes a final inspection of the honor guard I have trained and am about to take to the 7th Army Noncommissioned Officers Academy at Bad Tlz.

Smiles of relief from young second lieutenants who have just finished the final field exercise at the Ranger school mountain training camp in Dahlonega, Georgia. Im in the back row just about under the helicopter mast.

MY LUCKIEST DAY

I met Alma Vivian Johnson on a blind date in the fall of 1961. She was twenty-four. This is her at age fourteen.

Alma and I were married on August 25, 1962, at the First Congregational Church in Birmingham, Alabama, where Alma grew up. My parents are to the left. Almas parents, Mildred and Robert R. C. Johnson, are to the right. R.C. has a resigned expression on his face: hes not quite sure what his daughter has gotten into. Hed only met me thirty-six hours before the wedding.