Friday night I was at home chillin', and ended up chatting up a storm with one of my old friends from Jack and Jill. Darryl was in the Indianapolis chapter and went to Howard, where of course there were hundreds of J&J'ers too. Darryl was our (Mid-Western), teen regional Treasurer and VP. I also served as the regional Treasurer a year after he graduated.
It always feels good to catch up and reminisce. Being a regional officer in J&J was like being a celebrity, regardless of your position...even better if you were elected and not appointed. Everyone knew who you were. If you were cute, every dude/girl was tryin' to holla. The perks? Out of this world! One of which was being able to get away with practically anything. We stayed out our rooms past curfew doing God knows what. Seldom did anyone question anything we did. As long as you didn't get caught, you were straight. And if you did? Who cared?
The perception that some people have of the kids in J&J was that we were all a bunch of spoiled, rich brats. That everyone was a hoe. Everybody lived in the 'burbs. All of which isn't completely true. Every chapter had the same list of characters: the nerd, the male and female hoe, the stupid rich girl, the athlete, the popular girl/guy, and the person that acted "ghetto". The St. Louis chapter had one hood-dude in particular, Brandon.
In the Mid-Western region, every yr at conference we had skit, t-shirt, and a host of other competitions. The skits were the most fun. You had to come up with a theme that was aligned with the regional one, and everyone in your chapter acted it out. But this Brandon kid. I promise to God, no matter what the theme was every yr, this nigga had the recurring role of a rapper. By the time he graduated, Brandon had the reputation of "that rappin' ass dude from St. Louis with the S-curl" (oh, the S-curl? he swore up and down it was his "natural" hair....but we knew it wasn't nothin' but ultra-perm). The year Nelly hit with "Country Grammar", Brandon was at conference that summer claiming he beat Nelly in an on-air rap battle back in St. Louis.
So Darryl and I are on the phone, cracking up recounting the numerous Brandon stories we had. The burning question both of us, and anyone else who remembered him was "what happened to Brandon?". He definitely didn't go to a school where anyone could keep up with him. After we graduated, J&J'ers either went to HBCU's or well-known PWI's. B didn't go to either, so no one, not even people in his own chapter knew what he was up to. In my conference booklet, I remember reading he was gonna go to school for "music", but I didn't think he was serious. As Darryl and I are chatting away he tells me to go here. I'm looking like, ok, first of all, homeboy finished high school a yr before me, I was on the 4 1/2-5 yr plan in college, and he's still in school? And rapping? Okay.
What's so funny about all of is that he looks like the non-typical J&J'er. Let's be honest here. Our moms put us in J&J to make friends, date, eventually settle down with one another and have little J&J babies. Brandon is the dude that no J&J mother wants her daughter to bring home. He's like the "wannabe" (a complete and total outsider, probably in Top Teens or some other bootleg group) that would go to J&J parties solely for the purpose of pulling a "Jiller" and bragging to his boys about it. The only difference is, Brandon actually was a legitimate member.
Which brings me to this point. Everyone in Jack & Jill is different in some way or another, not just genetic makeup. I guess it takes someone who was in it, or knew enough people in it to know that. I remember as a regional officer, we did a radio show to let folks know our conference was in town. We were just teens, but the station was flooded with calls of people expressing their disdain for us. That we were all light skinned, our parents made "x" amount of dollars, so on and so forth. When, in actuality, Jack & Jill of America, Incorporated was so much more than that, it was for me at least. No one was the same, everyone was unique, we all came from so many different backgrounds. Even Brandon. I didn't have any siblings coming up (just half ones that were way younger and lived elsewhere), so the people I was in J&J with were extended members of my family. Everyone else's Mom was my Mom too. My chapter-mates, are like long-lost brothers and sisters.
I remember the last night of teen conference '01 at the senior banquet. Everyone was snapping pictures, trying to savor and document the moments and memories before they said their final goodbye (seriously, graduating seniors cried!). In the four yrs I'd been going to conference, I never once had so much even spoke to Brandon. But that night, Brandon walks up to me and says "hey, let's take a pic!". We took a pic for both our cameras, embracing in the frame as though we'd known each other for years. And even though I didn't speak to him before then, or after, it's those moments and other silly ones I have of B that kinda leave a warm feeling in my heart.
I laugh at his rapping skills on his myspace page, but lowkey...deep down I'm glad to see he's doing well and doing what he always loved.
I realize that no one knows what I look like, lol. So this is a very throwback pic of me and some fellow Jack & Jillers in 2000 doing our community service project. I'm second from the right :-) Don't judge me for looking "through", I was getting my volunteer on!
