We Beat the Street: How A Friendship Pact Led to Success

“Sampson and Andre and his friends liked to pretend to be tough but not all of it was pretending. Kids learned early in the area around the Dayton Street Projects that walking with an air of being in control was often necessary for survival.”

Though it leads to him making some poor decisions and sustaining injury, Sampson emulates his older brother, Andre, and Andre’s friends as they walk the streets around their apartment complex. Poise and bravado are essential to learn, and Sampson starts to try and perfect these elements as young as age six, when he follows the older boys to the park and ends up breaking his foot.

“The doctor, seemingly impressed by the boy’s observation, pointed out the bones of the foot and even named them for him. Sampson could have looked at the film for hours.”

Though it is a painful and unfortunate occurrence, there is a clear silver lining in Sampson breaking his foot at age six. Being treated in the emergency room affords Sampson an opportunity to speak to a patient and attentive physician and to get a first look at an X-ray. Sampson later credits this formative experience as the moment he decided to specialize in emergency medicine.

“He sighed and wished once more that his mother had not transferred him from public school to this Catholic school where the rules were strict and the academic work was easy.”

At Catholic school, Rameck’s educational needs are not met. They are not even visible to the staff, it would seem, because they focus only on his behavior in class. Rather than investigating why he is bored and acts out, they attempt to move him into special ed, where he would undoubtedly get into more trouble and squander his intellectual talents.