"You need to find Greg Orme," instructed Obama's old basketball coach, Chris McLachin. Obama never became terribly close with the children of the new school--this time a predominantly Muslim one--where he was enrolled. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man," Obama wrote in "Dreams." There was his mother, Ann, a brilliant but impulsive woman; his grandmother Madelyn, a deeply private and stoically pragmatic Midwesterner; his grandfather Stanley, a loving soul inclined toward tall tales and unrealistic dreams. ', In his memoir, 'Dreams From My Father,' Obama recalled a high school career that was, for the most part, ordinary 'marginal report cards and calls to the principal's office; part-time jobs at the burger chain; acne and driving tests and turbulent desire. But it was on the court in the off-season that Obama seemed to be even happier. One of his incredible legacies will be how he modeled being a family man. A close friend and track teammate of Kakugawa, John Hagar, also said he was surprised by Obama's description of the character representing Kakugawa as an angry young black man. Others are more skeptical that the boy known as Barry felt the angst described by Barack. In 2011, he pleaded no contest to soliciting a prostitute, but Obama has stayed fiercely loyal to his childhood friend. In one photo he hugs his beaming sister. But I was pretty wrapped up in my own world back then.. If only I had saved that Nerf hoop we used to dunk on. He was probably studying them and learning from them. His spelling wasnt too good either, he said, referring to the note Obama wrote in his high school year book. "It is a shame we have to worry so much about [grade point], but you know what the college entrance competition is these days," she wrote. I remember when we were seniors in high school, somebody said Barry would be on the Supreme Court, he said. He'd pick them up if they fell down,'' Darmawan recalled. The fourth person in the picture is Obama's date,Megan Hughes. With his friends, he would drive the Choomwagon, a Volkswagen microbus, to Mount Tantalus, biographer David Maraniss wrote. "Luckily he could swim. Obama was also known on campus for his basketball skills, and was sometimes called 'Barry O'bomber' for his jump shot. Yet many say they have trouble reconciling their nearly 30-year-old memories with Obamas more recent descriptions of himself as a brooding and sometimes angry adolescent, grappling with his mixed race and the void left by a father who gave him his black skin but little else. 'We had great vibes between us.'. He also was one of the only neighborhood children whose parents enrolled him in a new Catholic school in an area populated almost entirely by Betawis, the old tribal landowning Jakarta natives who were very traditional Muslims. The Latest: Obamas, friends tour Hawaii Islamic arts center The experience of being part of a winning team was important to Barry, to all of us.. In April 2011, Mr. Titcomb was arrested on a charge of soliciting prostitution in a Honolulu sting operation, but the reunions with the president never stopped. In the book, Obama discusses race and racism at his high school with one other Punahou student, "Ray,'' the young black man described in detail in "Dreams" as perpetually angry at the white world around him. "His friends called him `Negro,' " Darmawan said. kscharnberg@tribune.com kbarker@tribune.com, Column: For the Chicago Blackhawks remodel to work, their new house had better be built on a strong foundation, Merrillville food and beverage tax edging closer to reality, Remains found in Rockdale more than 25 years ago identified as Aurora woman, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. 21:01 GMT 31 Dec 2014. "Did you know that in Thomas Jefferson's day, and right up through the 1930s, anybody who had the price of tuition could go to Harvard? Im incredibly proud of my friend. Id put that up on e-Bay., Alan Lum, another teammate from the championship squad, who now teaches second grade at Punahou, has done enough interviews that his fellow teachers have started to rib him about his newfound fame. Obama, however, was not a part of that group, according to Anthony and Smith. Among his supporters, his likability and credibility have only been boosted by his stories of being an outsider trying to fight his way in. (D-Hawaii), a close friend of Obama . John F. Kennedy had his band of brothers from wartime. He describes making friends easily, becoming fluent in Indonesian in just six months and melding quite easily into the very foreign fabric of Jakarta. Bailey, who owes his nickname to his quickness on a court, said he's been "impressed by the way Obama handled himself as president." Of course, Obama embraced the image of the athlete, dribbling a ball to school and between classes. But Kakugawa, in the interview Saturday, said Obama's recollection of that conversation was mistaken. And he frequently made peace--even allies--with the very people who angered him most. Last year, a book delved into his teenage years and claimed that Obama and his friends formed The Choom Gang - slang for smoking marijuana - in which he invented inhaling techniques and rode a car called the Choomwagon. The three men - Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. When asked about the discrepancy, Obama said in a recent interview, "It might have been an Ebony or it might have been who knows what it was?" Back then, Punahou was a completely open campus, with several basketball courts where 20-something men from Honolulu would come in the late afternoon for what often turned into flashy, highly competitive pickup sessions. If young Obama had struggled to find a place at Punahou, it was well hidden on this day as well. With rain drizzling over Oahu, Obama's motorcade whisked Obama across the island to Titcomb's beachside home in Waialua, about an hour outside of Honolulu on the North Shore. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. And he clearly didn't appreciate that," Orme said. Ramos is most often referred to in stories about his relations with the president as a businessman. I hope we can keep in touch this summer, even though Greg will be gone.'. Because of his biracial heritage, he said, he was "like everyone in Hawaii, a mix of a lot of things." Once parked, they 'turned up their stereos playing Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult and Stevie Wonder, lit up some sweet-sticky Hawaiian buds and washed it down with green bottled beer (the Choom Gang preferred Heineken, Becks, and St. Pauli Girl).'. 'We were all cracking up, and everyone was smiling.'. Obama, who has talked and written so much about struggling to find a sense of belonging due to his mixed race, brushes over this time of his life in "Dreams." I think hes done great with all the stuff he inherited, like the recession and the two wars. 'It was a really fun, happy time,' she said. Or Japanese. ---------- Kirsten Scharnberg reported from Honolulu and Kim Barker from Jakarta, Indonesia; Tribune staff reporter Ray Gibson contributed to this report. IE 11 is not supported. Life without a father It was a complicated time. After high school graduation Obama went to Columbia University and then Harvard Law School, where he met his future wife, Michelle. When a friend gave him shrimp paste instead of chocolate, he yelled, "Curang, curang!" Those are qualities a president should have. But one word Obama learned quickly in his new home was curang, which means "cheater." The real Ray, Keith Kakugawa, is half black and half Japanese. "I went to those parties up at Schofield but never saw him at any of them." Alan Lum, who later would coach the basketball team at Punahou as well as teach elementary school there, recalled Obama as always being the first to confront coaches when he felt they were not fairly allotting playing time. Darin Maurer and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. Maurer, who mostly played guard, said he and Obama were no slouches but they were on teams with some really strong jocks. Barry spent his days at the Punahou School in Hawaii studying, shooting hoops and goofing off with his friends. Obama played basketball at Punahou with Orme, who the alumni magazine says is now a building contractor. "In the absence of his father, there was not a kinder, more understanding man than Stanley Dunham. We played a lot of playground ball.. Both of them seemed surprised to hear that in "Dreams"--which neither of them had read--Obama writes about routinely going to parties at Schofield Barracks and other military bases in order to hang out with "Ray," who like Anthony and Smith was two years ahead of him in school. Instead, the chemicals had peeled off much of his skin, leaving him sad and scarred, Obama recalled. Another story put forth in "Dreams" as one of Obama's pivotal moments of racial awakening checks out essentially as he wrote it. Speaking up for yourself., I gave them more playing time, McLachlin chuckled. 'He and I really clicked,' she told TIME. I would go out there and be the only white person. The Hawaii holidays became more and more appealing, he said in an interview just after he began his run for president. But it has revealed the vagaries of memory, as well as the ambivalent emotions stirred among old acquaintances when someone they once knew becomes famous. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Incredible footage of Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russians in Bakhmut, Fleet-footed cop chases an offender riding a scooter, Two Russian tanks annihilated with bombs by Ukrainian armed forces, Isabel Oakeshott clashes with Nick Robinson over Hancock texts, Dozens stuck in car park as staff refuses to open gate for woman, Insane moment river of rocks falls onto Malibu Canyon in CA. Journalistic excavations of a presidential candidates past often turn ugly. Her date was Greg Orme, Obama's best friend. (Photo by Joaquin Siopack-Pool/Getty Images) Orme recalled that years later, at Obama's wedding reception in Chicago, Obama brought the crowd to tears when he spoke of his recently deceased maternal grandfather and how he made a little boy with an absent father feel as though he was never alone. The photos and interviews are in the new issue of TIME, which is out on Friday. The attention on Obamas time at Punahou -- a country club campus with nine tennis courts, an Olympic-size pool and an endowment of $180 million -- represents the next important challenge for a celebrity politician who leapt onto the national stage with a few swift strides. They only did it to Barry." Some of that crew has stayed in Hawaii, but others have moved off island. The race to track them down and coax them to open up likely will include reporters as well as opposition research experts for political rivals. "He would protect the smaller ones." After years during which the friends grew apart, Mr. Obama reconnected with Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme a decade ago. Zulfan Adi was one of the neighborhood kids who teased Obama most mercilessly. Thats when we see each other. As Obama's senior year drew to a close, his mother sent him letters from afar, about life in Indonesia and her work there with non-profit groups doing economic development. Tucked away in someone elses shoe box of adolescent artifacts, there might be a picture of you in garish clothes and with an outdated do, your arm around a high school squeeze. The first family has attended Titcomb's annual luaus in the past. Mr. Ramos was a year ahead of Mr. Obamas Punahou class of 79, but played with him on the basketball team. Hes exhibited class and dignity all the way through it. The reality was less tidy. We have so many tones of brown here. Obama, his mother and new baby sister, Maya, moved into a small apartment near the school's sprawling, lush campus. We get together for golf, he said. So far, this process has not yielded anything especially damaging to Obamas candidacy. Then his young mother, now divorced, met and married an Indonesian student studying at the University of Hawaii. I would never say, ah, that didnt happen, said Hale. Greg? It wasnt until 2008, when Obama was making his first run for president, that they saw each other again at a fundraiser. When Obama was in 4th grade, the Soetoro family moved. Barry spent his days at the Punahou School in Hawaii studying, shooting hoops and goofing off with his friends. WASHINGTON President Obama has called Hawaii his refuge, and so it has been throughout his political life. The White House says Obama teed off Saturday at the nine-hole course at the Sunnylands retreat in Rancho Mirage with childhood friends Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme and Michael Ramos. They were. In another passage from the book, Ray complains that white Punahou girls don't want to date black guys and that he and Obama don't get enough playing time as athletes, speculating that they'd be "treated different if we was white. He was a younger black man looking for guidance." Barack in the Student Life section of Punahou Schools yearbook. "Like being black was a funny costume in and of itself," recalled Smith, now a doctor who specializes in geriatrics in California. He learned to adapt to unfamiliar territory. You really deserve better than clowns like us; you even laugh at my jokes!. His biggest struggles were his feelings of abandonment. According to the book, the characters representing Orme and the other friend asked to leave the party after just an hour, saying they felt out of place. I always knew he would do something, of course we never expected hed be in the White House, teammate and lifelong friend Greg Orme said. "He lived across the street from school and before classes hed shoot baskets on the outside courts, then at lunch hed shoot more baskets, then Id have him for three hours, then hed go home, eat supper, and then be outside again shooting baskets.. Most classmates and teachers recall an easygoing, slightly chunky young man, with the same infectious smile he sports today. There are, however, chapters in Obamas high school narrative that are not subject to dispute. The tenacity and determination Obama showed to make his high school basketball team was an early indicator of the greatness to come. The president was returning to the White House on Monday. Bailey, who coached Obama during his junior year and now runs an ambulance service, said young Barry was a "gym rat. He was loving and generous." 'When you're president, everybody wants something from you and only these types of friends are able to simply want your well-being. Not as well known is the fact that the many people who raised him were nearly as diverse as the places where he grew up. "He was just one of those perfect [ethnic] mixes of everything you see in Hawaii." After a recent lunch with a reporter, he winked at a table of faculty-lounge colleagues and joked, This one is with Playgirl.. Obama and his date Megan Hughes, a student at the Hawaii School for Girls at La Pietra, joined Orme at Allmans house, where the two couples sipped champagne before going to the dance and then an after-party. More than 40 interviews with former classmates, teachers, friends and neighbors in his childhood homes of Hawaii and Indonesia, as well as a review of public records, show the arc of Obama's personal journey took him to places and situations far removed from the experience of most Americans. For Orme, the Obama he saw on the court was a lot like the Obama who occupied the White House a team player who liked to win. We had to prove ourselves, focus on playing good ball. Most of his teachers and friends express sorrow that they did not know of Obamas racial anguish or inner demons. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, TIME Exclusive: President Obamas 1979 Prom Photos. Memories of a racial awakening? ", We would be like, Hey lets go to the beach, Bendix recalled. In its reissue after he gave the keynote address at the Democratic convention in 2004, "Dreams from My Father" joined a long tradition of political memoirs that candidates have used to introduce themselves to the American people. In a new introduction to the reissued edition of "Dreams," he noted that the dangers of writing an autobiography included "the temptation to color events in ways favorable to the writer [and] selective lapses of memory." The term wasn't considered a slur at the time in Indonesia. As the president's motorcade left the golf course at 3:58 p.m . These have been the stories told about the first two character-shaping decades of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's life, a story line largely shaped by his own best-selling memoir, political speeches and interviews. On this visit alone, Obama has spent more than 22 hours with the group on the lush golf courses that dot the island of Oahu. Barry did a good job but I think we needed a change," he said. McLachlin said he survived a severe stroke shortly before Obama was elected president in 2008. On the lower half of the seventh-grade page is the same group, under a heading of Useless Races in America. The joke, it seems, is on intolerance. Some of the Betawi children threw rocks at the open Catholic classrooms, remembered Cecilia Sugini Hananto, who taught Obama in 2nd grade. Bush remained pals with men he served with in World War II. Arkansas is filled with people still burned from their interactions with the national news media, which descended on the state during Bill Clintons 1992 campaign and stayed for his presidency, continuing to poke and prod at his business and personal dealings. I wish I would have known that those things were bothering him, or if they did bother him, said Eric Kusunoki, Obamas homeroom teacher from grades nine through 12. Hawaii had become a state only two years before Obama's birth, and there were plenty of native Hawaiians still deeply unhappy about it. Since returning to his childhood home this month on vacation, President Barack Obama has spent a good part of most days cloistered with three people whose company puts him at ease. Obama Hits Russia, the Gym and the Beach Thursday, Dec. 29 She wistfully showed a reporter the love note Obama wrote in June 1979. Now that life story is being edited by others. ___ 10:40 a.m. ", Every day after practice hed stay to play pickup games against the coaching staff," he said. He said that of the three, only Mr. Orme, another Punahou hoops player, was in the gang that Mr. Obama described. I brood, Mr. Obamas friend Mr. Ramos said a few years ago. "He's not like that." Mr. Ramos was a year ahead of Mr. Obama's Punahou class of '79, but played with him on the basketball. Still, all of his teachers at the Catholic school recognized leadership qualities in him. Furushima said that many of her classmates have expressed dismay at Obamas rendering of the past. "I brood," Mr. Obama's friend Mr. Ramos said a few years ago. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. The motorcade arrived in Kapolei around 11:30 a.m. ___ Some of these discrepancies are typical of childhood memories -- fuzzy in specifics, warped by age, shaped by writerly license. Because hes a pastor, Maurer said he prefers not to weigh-in on politics. But Kakugawa, a convicted drug felon, said Saturday that he had never been the "prototypical angry black guy" that Obama portrays. Obama and his family have been in his native Hawaii since December 20 for the Christmas holiday. His middle school yearbook captures the multiracial mood that many Hawaiians say has always defined the Aloha spirit. In front of a chalkboard with Mixed Races of America written in a students hand, Obama waved the peace sign for the camera. Some seem to make Obama look better in the retelling, others appear to exaggerate his outward struggles over issues of race, or simply skim over some of the most painful, private moments of his life. Furushima paused, then sighed, pointing out how the potential president was prone to drawing a little Afro atop the B and the O on his signature. He said they adored his slam-dunking style and no-look passing, but their coaches were not fans. , updated But the reality of Obama's narrative is not that simple. ', 'I'd made my share of friends at school, gone on the occasional awkward date,' Obama wrote, 'And if I sometimes puzzled over the mysterious realignments of status that took place among my classmates, as some rose and others fell depending on the whims of their bodies or the make of their cars, I took comfort in the knowledge that my own position had steadily improved.'. "Barry's biggest struggles then were missing his parents. Basketball was a refuge, a place where I made a lot of my closest friends, and picked up a lot of my sense of competition and fair play, he said. His love for Michelle and Sasha and Malia is outstanding. He attended a college basketball game with the first family the next day, and this week he and his wife hosted their annual barbecue for the other families, including those of the Obamas Chicago friends Eric Whitaker and Marty Nesbitt. Daily Mail Reporter, Images show Obama ahead of his prom night in Honolulu in 1979, The Obamas to return to Martha's Vineyard? "I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar moments of revelation," Obama wrote of the magazine photos in "Dreams." Ramos, who graduated from Punahou in 1978, bonded with Obama over their mutual affinity for jazz. All say he was teased more than any other kid in the neighborhood--primarily because he was bigger and had black features. I saw an old forgotten man/On an old, forgotten road, begins the 12-line poem.
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