!Youth_Story (&19860219)

!Youth_Story:

Greetings Friend,

On &19860219, I was born on the outskirts of Compton at Charter hospital in #Paramount, #California to my beautiful mother @Iraida Goenaga.¹1 One day I will trace her Fraga family line as I had the Goenaga to see where it ends up. I love my parents. My mother is everything a mother ought to be. It was a tough delivery because I was so excited to make my entrance that I snared my umbilical cord around my neck and choked on it! After I was born, the nurses had to take me away and seemingly resuscitate me for several minutes.²2 I always wonder if this episode is in part to blame for some of my neuro-atypical-curiosities. A couple years after my birth, my mother and father moved out of California to start a new life on the other side of the states with my older sister @Nadia and younger brother @Ricky.

I had a wonderful childhood growing up as a Cuban-American in #Miami, #Florida. The beautiful weather. The diversity and culture. The Hispanic traditions such as Noche Buena and life in #Westchester. Above all, the safety and room for play my parents provided through their love and labor. It was certainly not perfect, but it was good.³3 We were not rich. As an immigrant family we worked our way from the bottom. My father was an alcoholic until he was 30, and a bit of a mafioso[I was “baptized” in Don Pergnon by my Madrino/Godfather, a serious gangster who gave the best Christmas presents.] However, my parents worked hard, and raised us right.

My years in elementary are most marked by memories before and after gifted. Before gifted my memories are brief. Paula, my 3rd grade olive-skinned crush at #Emerson_Elementary, pointing at me during water day and saying “Look everybody, Leonard’s white as milk.” Not being able to pronounce the Spanish “rr” sound in a class full of hispanics and being mocked. Super Nintendo, Game Boy, and video games such as Legends of Gaia and Breath of the Wild 2. Reading. Playing. And chess. Chess was one thing I was very good at.⁴4 One of my core memories is the day I won the Miami-Dade championship, and my dad hoisted me victoriously on his shoulders while everyone applauded. The trophy and event is depicted by younger Leonard below. Check out this article from Sun Sentinel for more. I remember training in classes offered at a #Hardees and the #Westchester_Public_Library by a goofy fat thick-rimmed nerd who ate a lot of calzones. I ended up winning 1st in Miami-Dade’s primary division (k-4) at a championships in the high school I would later attend. I had a fever at the time, and swore my mom’s chicken soup gave me the energy to win. I ended up second in state, and ranked 32nd at nationals.⁵5 I have one particular memory I cherish from a tournament in Orlando, where at some point my father and I got to fly my stunt kite in the parking lot. My parents made sacrifices to take me to games. I honestly consider chess to be the most important thing they ever taught me in my youth. My mind has been shaped by the if/then tactical and strategic plan-ahead mentality of chess. I used to go to tournaments where I even played against older adults as this little skinny 3rd grader. However—being rather sensitive—I quit after I accidentally tipped over my king over with a jacket I wore to hide the warts on the back of my right hand. My opponent called over the judge and noted I knocked over my king, which symbolizes forfeiting and led to me being given a loss. I was so angry I walked out to my dad, threw the chessbag down on the ground, and quit that day.

Once in an elementary class, a teacher revealed a little mini choo-choo electric train set around the Christmas tree. She asked the kids what they liked about it. They would say the wheels, the colors, how fast it went, etc. I demanded to know how it worked, and her answers did not suffice my curiosity. I wanted to know the physics and mechanics of the thing. From that experience, the teacher believed that I was gifted, and recommended to my parents that I be put into a special program. In addition to chess, the other signal of my intellect was my writing. A survey of my 3rd grade essays, which I still hold on to, make that apparent.⁶6 I keep these treasured short stories wrapped in leather on the #USS_Imagination_Station bookshelf. I’ll include some photos here when I get a chance. And so, I recall having to take a special test one day in 3rd or 4th grade that asked me things about shapes and patterns. Afterwards, I got accepted into a 5th grade gifted program at #South_Miami_Elementary_School. I also had to take a separate creative test, and on the free draw question I drew this funny giant caterpillar. As a result I got accepted into the fine arts magnet program as well.

I have been—and still am—a funny and hyperactive kid. A poster for ADHD at a time when treatment was not as common as it is today. It got me into trouble often. My art magnet teacher decided to sit me in the art closet because I was being too distracting (and I was). I often had teachers place me in similar scenarios right next to them. One that was different was my 5th grade gifted teacher @Mr_Connell. He had a short beard, and funny long teeth. Hilarious expressions. And eccentric! He taught us history, logic and geometry puzzles, The Odyssey and classic Greek mythologies, and made plenty of room for us to play and explore.⁷7 I distinctly remember him teaching us the adventures of Odysseus. I also remember these colored plastic shapes that we would have to arrange into patterns. He did a lot with games. He had an Egyptian persona called @Popquizizaca which would come up when we had a quiz. He also allowed for a lot of free play, and filled the room with books and toys to explore. Pictured below is me in the portable eating bubbles. I was very fond of the history books in the back that showed cutouts of ships and castles. I remember them visibly. I also liked to hide in little spaces. For laughs I would fold my body up into shoe cubbies. I often did funny things for laughter. There was also this unconnected sink drawer, which we pretended to be a hideout. @Joel and I would pass little tiny messages to each other through the sink, until @Gonzalo thought it was fun to drop a sharp pencil that almost caught Joel in the eye (he was looking through it at the time). Anyways, a lot of room to play. Mr. Connell was kind to me. Our class met in a portable behind the school. He taught us how to think creatively. Once a year we would build a giant tetrahedron out of pvc pipes out in the field. It was fun and memorable. My best friend at the time was @Joel.⁸8 I became his best friend after school counseling determined he needed friends, and invited hyperactive me to play board games with him one hour twice a week. It was an excuse to get out of class and play, but what it really led to was a lifelong friendship that continues to this day.

I attended the school nextdoor, #South_Miami_Middle_School, and managed to get into their excellent magnet photography program. That program forms the main memories of my life at the time.⁹9 Some other vivid memories I had of the time was when I was a practicing Wiccan who hid his spellbook from his parents, and the competitive games we invented and played outside during lunch. As a photographer, I got free-range to wander the school taking photos with the manual &Nikon_FM2 camera I inherited from my father. For several hours a day I got to attend @Mr_Fawnsworth’s fantastic photography class.¹⁰10 Here is a photo of Mr. Farnsworth. He always wore that black vest. I suspect he was a hippy photographer in his younger years. He was kind to me too: We had access to an incredible setup: development closets where you worked in pitch darkness to open cans of film and spool them to the reels; the sink next door to develop the film; the many drying racks, frame cutting table, photo drawers and desks; the double-door entrance room to prevent light leakage into the dark room; and finally, a large darkroom with a dozen enlargers and a central multi-chemical segmented sink that smelled like vinegar and chemistry.¹¹11 The central massive sink had trays for the developer, stopper, and fixer chemicals (which all smelt different). There was then this running water tray. It was very fun and relaxing to develop paper photos. Often I also played Pokemon TCG with peers, and read fiction heavily from the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms series. Once I got in big trouble for filling sink with soap, which caused the entire darkroom to produce knee-high foam. Mr. Farnsworth was a very kind man, especially given my nature. The film development was fun as well. We used to listen to Adam Sandler audio cds in the film development closet. While looking up the program, I’m happy to say it hasn’t changed. The tools, the timers, the tables, and the tasks are all the same: Watch a video of the relatively unchanged space here.  We even had a closet with a computer and one of those fancy new expensive digital cameras that were just coming out. My personal highlight was his 2D and 3D stop-motion animation course, which we did one quarter of the year. I made a clay animation film about going to the moon and meeting aliens, inspired by !Le_Voyage_dans_la_Lune.¹²12

High school was very different from middle school. Unfortunately I did not get into any of the magnet programs at #South_Miami_High_School. I also didn’t get through puberty until I was 17-18. However, I did manage to be the photo editor for yearbook and newspaper courses, which gave me continued free photographic range to wander the campus freely for hours a day.¹³13 I cherished my freedom. If I was ever questioned by staff or security, all I had to do was produce my press badge and camera to enable free range of the entire campus. I most certainly took liberties of this. I had my first girlfriend in my senior year, and spent a lot of it hanging out with her and the drama magnet students who created a special hangout hidden behind the stage. Generally, I was a popular nerd with hyperactive attention deficit disorder heightened by teenage hormones. I loved making people laugh. I enjoyed drinking Mountain Dew Code Red during recess by the stairs next to the gymnasium, while playing Magic the Gathering with my nerdy peers. I continued to read and LOVE fantasy. I also had a group of close friends that attended DASH and South Miami called the Beans,¹⁴15 My nickname was Kean Bean, or in airsoft Radar Bean. who I played many video games such as Halo and Counter Strike. We also physically fought alongside one another for years in airsoft engagements. As for extra curricular activities, I was able to play on the varsity soccer team as a freshman, and later also wrestled at the 119lb weight division with my brother on our excellent wrestling team.¹⁵14 I was exceptionally fast and aggressive. My coach played me as the starting stopper in soccer, and my job was primarily to aggressively shut down the attackers. I have always been a defense-minded and prioritizing person. Often my coach would encourage 119lb me to slide tackle and demolish forwards. I had a record in Miami-Dade for most yellow cards in one season. This is also around the time that I became politically aware, as evidenced in a presidential debate I participated in as the only true conservative. I was in numerous gifted classes, but barely graduated with a 2.1 GPA. One of my core memories is when I asked my academic counselor about future options and they stated I could only make it to our community college. I felt like a failure, and promised to academically work harder from then on.

The most important event of my youth came around age 18. I was dating my second girlfriend at the time, who had taken me to church. I attended several services, and started reading the Bible. In it I discovered a number of answers to the great existential and epistemological questions I was asking at the time. Soon after, she dumped me. Her reasoning? While her heart was 95% mine, I could not claim the last 5% unless I gave her my virginity. My plan was to preserve myself for my wife. And so, she dumped me. In the middle of that night, I visibly remember walking about my childhood neighborhood. I was in tears and angry that I had been such a knight-in-shining-armor, but had gotten dumped. I focused my ire up to this phenomenon of a lunar halo of light that appeared around the moon.¹⁶16 I never thought about what the lunar ring was until later in life when my interest in light became abundant. The atmospheric optical phenomenon is called a 22-degree lunar halo, and is basically a rainbow formed by the refraction of moonlight across millions of hexagonal ice crystals aloft in the atmosphere.

It was a rainbow at night.

@Leonard: “I was so good to her! How could she do this to me! What am I supposed to do?”

Soon after projecting this thought, words came together like a voice unspoken to my mind and my heart: “Forgive her! Just as you have committed adultery against me, I forgave you.”

At that moment, I understood the Gospel. I recognized my sin and my need for the Great Savior and True Teacher. I gave my life over to the LORD, Jesus, and experienced a spiritual rebirth.

I have followed the LORD ever since, and Jesus has been the one constant through every age of my life.

God’s blessings,