Somebody Gave Me Hope and Stuff

My name is Richard Temple. I introduce myself as Richard, but all my friends and brothers they’d call me Dicky because I was always Dicky. I'm 60 years old. I was born in Minneapolis. S-South Minneapolis. In the uh, (clears throat) thirty eight hundred block of fifth avenue...basically south Minneapolis.

The love unconditionally

Richard Temple, age 7. Circa 1958.

I grew up in the structure where my mother woke me up in the mornin' and had breakfast for me. Saw me off to school. She passed away at the age of ninety and she was uh- just an amazing, amazing person. Some of my traditional thinking process is based on my mother– just her strength and her dynamic, her ability to problem solve. Anything I've accomplished, anything I do is just kind of based on just her. We were loved unconditionally. I never really knew my father, but you know I got'um. I also have four brothers and one sister. I was very fortunate, very blessed that I had brothers that led me in the right direction. Basically I was the baby of the boys. That spot right there was kind of a good spot and a bad spot in a way. You kinda got some perks...and you get some uh quick shots in the arms sometime too, but ya know, it’s outta love so. I always got protected. I mean [when] somebody was bigger, they had to fight all my brothers, so it worked out good. Particularly, I point at my oldest brother. My oldest brother, he was...a person that went to the military. He was twenty years in the navy. Lieutenant commander. Uh. Two master degrees, you know, dealt with chemical engineering. He really was just somebody who kind of set the standard. He kind of showed me that it was possible. To go to college, to achieve anything. He was just kind of my role model and mentor as a big brother. He was a true big brother. But just to fill in again, you know the love unconditionally. That is, you know. So important. So important for the youth today that they [have] somebody that love and respect them and trust.

Dreams past high school

University of Minnesota Duluth.

I never thought that I'd be able to dream about going to college. I mean, I guess it really wasn't something that I thought about. I just thought about getting a job and just workin'. But then my oldest brother led the way and kinda showed that it was possible. [Like I said], I always was the baby of the boys, so my role was kinda just to observe and learn, and look. I say if they had success in somethin, I say "Ok, I’ll try that". My older brothers went to school, so I thought maybe I can try that. So as a senior [in high school], I got many many thoughts in my mind. I was in Minneapolis at the time, and of course the University of Minnesota was something I thought about. But then my counselor in high school took me up to Duluth– to UMD. One day he just took the time out to do that, and he said, "Just go out and look at it!" and I said, "Okay." I never been out of Minneapolis and I wasn't thinkin bout no Duluth. [But] I ended up going to UMD. The situation was: I couldn't come home everyday, so it gave me the challenge to kind of learn how to be independent and kind of breakin' away from the nest kind of say, but it was close enough to come home on the weekends. That was kind of the perfect scenario for me. UMD was just just perfect for me. 

I'll tell you as a freshman [in college], I had no idea what I wanted to do. At first I wanted to be a gym teacher and then soon those kinesiology classes came in, and I don't know if I gon be a gym teacher or not. So I kind of stumbled a little bit. I kind of stumbled. I had dreams of playin' (pauses) college basketball and that I wasn't able to, so I was gon' quit. I was gon' quit school because I didn't know a lil better. But, there was an young man, an older man out there that was gon talk to me 'bout some other stuff. I ended up staying. And then in my second year, UMD had a school of social development. It kind of talked 'bout the social work aspect and kind of workin' with families and kids. Kind of the social work background which I developed, and I was able to get into that school, and was able to graduate in social force. I mean, I’ve always been kind of  a person that's worked with family and youth, and I figured I had to give back so it kinda was natural for me.

I been doin it for like ten years

Right now for the last 10 years, I'm a Juvenile Corrections Officer with Hennepin County and I work on the detention side. I work with the youth that are detained. I give you an example– kid comes in for some charge, let's just say auto theft that was in a stolen car joyridin. So they set a court date for him, but this kid had some prior stuff. We gotta determine whether he staying. I mean, because they might not make it to court. Um, so anyways, I'm a Juvenile Correctional Officer on the detention side, and we work with the youth and in detain waiting for court. It's a process where there's a schedule– youth are there, they there 24 hours a day. They are locked in rooms– in individual rooms for periods of time, then we got different structural things we do. It's kind of a mini jail; it just ensures that some of these kids get to court. Then you got serious jobs to do. [So these] kids are at the lowest point: angry, mad– you gotta see through all that. I mean been doin it for like ten years, and I constantly just remind myself just try to make a difference every day. Even if the kid– whatever the kid did, I don't look at that. I really don't look at it. Lotta times I don't know why someone's in the building. I can find out just as easy, but I try to get through all them– all the facade and just be able to sit and talk about choices.

Family structures are different today

I think the youth today seem to have a lot of that dysfunctional type of growing up. A lot of time when you’re young, you smarter than you think and dumber than you know. You wanna do things for attention. You wanna do things to kinda be popular or peer pressure whatever it might be, so you go through that phase and luckily somebody is there to kinda guide you through that. Sometimes the mentors, the people out there that really can help, are not there. So you make poor decisions. Sometimes those poor decisions can cost you without somebody being there. And not to say kids can't make poor choices, but when you start going against society’s norms– you know uh, robbing somebody, threatening somebody– these are things that society and the community are going fight back against. So, I just say that the kids are making poor choices and they don't have the family structure as I did.

At a crossroad

I'm kind of at a crossroad myself because I'm seeing a lot of the youth that come in the building at 12 years old and I see them again at 17. That to me– that tells me a lot that they may place them in a program but they still dealing with their home environment. Nothing's changed and so that's the age old battle for me. The old family traditional ways are not...not so much there. Might have parents working, hitting, and missing– everybody is kind of hitting and missing going in every direction. Somebody was there for me to say “no that ain’t right” and did it with a firm enough hand and say "you know hey I'mma tell your mama, I'mma tell Ms. Dickson”. You know I didn’t wanna disappoint her, you know I didn’t wanna disappoint her. A lot of these youth don’t have those people out there that can kind of mentor them and kinda tell them right from wrong.

I get kind of emotional about it, but-

Richard, present day. Circa 2015.

I said this earlier today... somebody gave me an opportunity. Gave me the chance and gave me hope and stuff. I- I just want to give hope and to be there for people, to mentor people and give back. Somebody cared about me, [so] I'm gonna give back. It's not always about taking, it's about giving back sometimes. I just wanna be remembered as somebody who gave back and had, uh, some humility about themselves. I have been very blessed, I have been very lucky, and I wanna make that ninety mark, yeah. Yeah, I do.

Story Facilitators: Matthew Feldmann, Zandra Phouisangiem, Danou Williams