My mother constantly asked, when I will come to visit it her in Gary, and I finally have collected money for the trip. I have been rewarded for this trip on the bus, on bumpy, narrow, filled with hollows, highways because I have seen so much interesting on road. I will never forget how I have seen Indians for the first time, when the bus has stopped on small refuelling in the middle of desert, near to the Grand Canyon.

   Gary was not the way I expected. The city was dirty and small, and I thought, that it will be something grandiose because William Marshall, actor James Edwards and pair of known boxers came from here. I'd better get back on the bus and drive back home. Then I nevertheless was delighted, when I have seen, that my aunt and mum came to meet me to the station.

   " I am so glad to see you, Joe! ", mum has cried and strongly hugged me. She and aunt almost strangled me with the kisses, and I tried not to show my embarrassment. Though I understood, that she is very glad and cannot constrain her feelings, when she has gone to catch a taxi, I have sighed with relief.

   While we drove to the city, I again thought, of how ugly it was and though I was glad to see mum, I wanted be in again in Oakland again.

   At last we have arrived to settlement, where my mum lived in the big house at the family of the brother. Hardly had we come, as all have run up to me. Girls that obviously immediately have liked me, with giggling have surrounded me while guys kept more likely with restraint and cautiously examined me.

   Mum has prepared a small celebratory supper in my honour. Now it is named Soul food and then it was simple a barbecue, with peas, vegetables, hot corn bread, my favourite pie and sweet potatoes. I so have gorged on, that hardly could move. All with a smile looked at me when I have hardly risen from the table. Then we have put music on and danced in honour of today's holiday.

   there passed some time before the guys started to trust me, but once everybody had to understand that there won't be any problems with me. I simply wanted to spend good time here. When I told them about schools where I studied, or about my work on a farm in Bakerfield, they listened to me with curiosity because many from them knew only work on a foundry. My life in California has fascinated them.

   With time I have got used to Indiana and began to wonder, how could the school be here in autumn. Till mum has not found her own house, we lived with the uncle, the aunt and their children. Then mum, I and the stepfather have moved 10 miles from here, closer to factories of East Chicago.

   Now on a school break I always went to visit Pops by the bus. I travelled all the time here and there between mother and father and tried to make them both happy. I seemed to myself a Ping-Pong ball.

   I really wanted to achieve something in a life. Now work in sphere of entertainments doesn't seem something special for the young black man and then recently has passed the time of silent movies and there were not much of black actors. But I constantly went to cinema, watched all new movies and dreamed to play in them. Someday I too will be on top, I have promised to myself.

   A little later I have returned to Oakland again. Now Pops, every Wednesday evening drove me to box trainings. I liked to look on this, all seemed so real.

   I have decided to learn to box and started to attend one popular Box hall in our city. For hours I beat the pair and trained with a skipping rope to become faster. Or my trainer ordered to me to lie on a back and threw a stuffed ball on my stomach so it becomes stronger. Also he taught me to evade from impacts so it was impossible to knock me out.

   My trainer watched me closely. Once I trained with a pear, he has approached me and said: " Joe, you are good enough now. Now you will go to the ring, and we will watch, what you going to do there".

   I considered, that everything is all right, at least before the fight ,when I for the first time saw the contender. " This guy too healthy ", I have complained.

   " You will be on a ring for only 2 roundest, besides there will be a helmet on you", he has calmed me.

   Well all right, I have thought, I'll try. I was much smaller than him, but faster. So I climbed through the ropes and went to the corner. My knees were shaken. This dude was similar to the wolf ready to attack me at any moment .

   When the gong has sounded, I "have danced" a pair of circles on the ring. The opponent tried to kick me, and I've evaded. He has again tried to hook at the left. I "have dived" and have thought to myself: " Well, it is not too bad".

   I have jumped up high and have struck him with left hand directly in area of heart. He has tried to reach me with right hand, but I have deviated and have put 4 impacts successively directly above the line of the belt. He has moaned.

   While I processed his face, he has managed to cut me on an ear. I have reeled, deafened, but the gong has rescued me. Yes, it was a mean opponent. If you beat with such force, the head almost flies away. To me my health was expensive to allow scoffing like myself like.

   " I will not go on the next round ", I have told the trainer, and he stood below and looked from there at me.

   " Joe, you cannot leave now. Come on, finish him!", he has ordered me.

   The signal of the beginning of the following round has sounded. I boxed as if I struggled with the whole gang and so strongly struck my contender in a chin that he shivered in all his body. And when I have added to him on the right, he has fallen as knocked down.

   The referee held a bottle under his nose, and only in some seconds the guy could move his head, and then a hand. When he has bent a foot in a knee, we have understood, that he is all alright. I have left the ring and while I went to the locker room, all public shouted " Joe, you will become a great boxer! "

   Since this moment it was indifferent to me, how strong my opponent is. I trained daily to become better, and watched, that they won't break me a jaw or nose. I willingly distributed impacts, but did not like, when they beat me (Known boxers, like George Forman, Mohammed Ali and Mike Tyler are the same). I participated in many competitions of box fans and have won all of them, the majority with a knockout and few times with a kick in the eyes. All went to that I will become a professional.

   But then there was a fight which I will never forget. After 4 rounds my both eyes have swelled, under one there was a laceration, the nose has been broken, and from a mouth there was a blood. My contender was much more skilled than me. Certainly, I am skilful to stand for myself, but I was not going to be reconciled with such wounds. I went to the trainer and shyly informed him, that boxing is not exactly what I needed.

   Probably, I would become a champion. But some of my friends have died on the ring, others had serious problems with health and mentality. I never accepted participations in fights anymore.

   After about 2 years I have returned to East Chicago again. I was warmly met, but not with the same joy as at the first time. Sometimes I wrote to the father, after a while he visited. He has stayed with us for a little and then left for Arizona. I hated, that my parents live separately, but could not do anything about it.

   When I have left school, I first of all have found work - it was necessary to earn for a life. I still dreamed of show business, but at first I had to think, how am I gonna achieve it. Despite of my youth and that I was very thin, I have got a job on the railway. When shift railway cross ties, it needs 20 strong men with heavy iron ticks. We worked all the day under the scorching sun, pulled out old cross ties and put new, accompanied with rhythmical knock of hammers of two men hammering into cross ties in nails.

   We shifted about mile of cross ties a day. I weighed 140 pounds also could not gain weight in any way because I sweated too much. I was all skin and bones. Sometimes my hammer was broken from the handle and fell to somebody on a head. I was lucky I didn't hurt myself.

   Now this work is done by machines.

   Eventually the stepfather has helped me to get a job on a factory, and I have learned to operate the crane. I have worked a little on the crane, and then I was offered a job in foundry to shop. There I all over again had the worst work: I should work as a pneumatic hammer in a blast furnace. Our chief has told me, that I should take a wooden stool and go to a furnace. They have pulled out steel and cooled the furnace the whole day before few teams, of 4 men had to go inside.

   We had to put on boots on a thick sole to move on massive wooden floors. It was impossible to stand on the floor in the furnace, it was heated 'till white. Our task was to clean the dirt and slag from steel with the pneumatic hammer which has stuck on stone walls, and scratch off the rests from the floor so it was possible to replace the broken stones.

   It was hot as in a hell. Nobody could hold on there longer 10 minutes even if was very hardy. Weaker men should leave at once. I have gone inside and have put the stool which at once was ignited on a floor, and have risen on it. Then I have lifted the hammer on a level of a belt and started to clean walls.

   When I have left from there, I was all in black fat soot. My eyes were hurt as they were burnt when I have removed the protective glasses and the mask. They gave us to drink and some have fainted.

   Then have raised me, and I had to work in a flue, but it was not much easier. I had to get into a hole which conducted in the underground tunnel, it reached a floor of a blast furnace. The tunnel was only 3 foots in diameter, exactly so wide so it would be possible to get in there. Already in some meters I have been covered with a thick layer of a dust. Besides I had to move very slowly cautiously in this awful heat, not to lean against the walls, or I would receive heavy burns.

   I had a bucket and a cord with myself and since the dust which I collected in a bucket, was poisonous, all this time I held my breath. Only when others pulled me out by the cord, I again could breathe again. In our team there were 10 people. The chief watched, that everyone left with a full bucket. From this work people felt without feelings too. I have never fainted, but from heat I received awful headaches.

   My experience on a foundry has clearly let me know, that I have to do something else. When at the end of the working day I stood under the shower, I even more often thought of career in show business. But I could not quite so simply because I did not have other way to earn money for a life. Besides I wanted to marry. There was one young lady with whom I have been in love. At least I so thought. Josephine and I gave each other a word, and we were together 3 years. Unfortunately, she was not loyal to me, and we constantly had arguments because of that. In 3 years we broke up and each one of us when his way. Several years ago I have found out that she has died.