A very personal Black History Hobbservation!

Get the Point!

On February 11, 1988, 36 years ago today, the FAMU High School Marching Band was preparing to travel to New Orleans to participate in two Mardi Gras parades, the Hermes and Endymion parades, if my memory serves me well.

During my last year in band before playing varsity football, young Hobbs (left) was a drum major for the FAMU High School “Orange and Green Marching Machine”

I was one of two drum majors that year and two of my closest friends, Christopher D. Henry and Terrance Calloway, were the percussion and tuba section leaders, respectively. Our charter buses were scheduled to leave Tallahassee at midnight but earlier that day, during school hours, Chris and I jumped into Calloway's car around 11 a.m. to go to Roger Nelson's Music Store to pick up some much needed supplies. We then stopped by the Foster-Tanner Building on FAMU's campus to pick up two new drum major uniforms that legendary Marching 100 Band Director Emeritus Dr. Julian White was providing for our use.

Shortly afterwards, as the three of us were also desperately in need of fresh "fades" (what the mainstream media are foolishly calling the “Travis Kelce” cut in honor of the Kansas City Chiefs star who now wears what we Brothers were wearing way back when), we went down to Trends barbershop behind FAMU's Bragg Stadium and spent about an hour and a half getting tightened up.

As we made our way back to campus close to the 3:00 p.m. hour, the first people we saw were our classmate, Shlita Hill, and her best friends Lauren Carter and Aeshah McQueen Jefferson. Shlita immediately commented quite loudly: "ooooh Chuckie and Chris, Mr. Holt's been looking for y'all ALL DAY!" At that very moment, the butterflies hit my stomach hard because the late Harry K. Holt was our VERY stern Assistant Principal who swung a very MEAN paddle for misbehavior!

How did we misbehave? Well, essentially, um, you see, we had skipped school to run those errands 😂! Yep, we didn't tell the administrators or anything, we just hopped in Calloway's Monte Carlo and peeled out! Looking back now as an adult, had we been in a car accident that day, the school may have been in deep trouble with nobody on campus knowing our whereabouts. Come to think of it, I actually understood that back then but being 15-years-old and hard headed, I pushed the responsibility issue to the side and took off.

Blurry video capture of Young Hobbs exiting the charter bus in New Orleans

As we made the trek to Mr. Holt's office, as I expressed my fears, Chris was his typically unfazed self, saying "Bullethead (Mr. Holt's nickname that we never said to his face) ain't fixing to do nothing to us, just relax."

My childhood friend, the late Chris Henry (foreground), playing snare drum during FAMU’s 1987 Homecoming parade…

So, we get to the office and Mr. Holt immediately launches into one of his legendary lengthy speeches about our deportment—speeches that could be so long that often you would wish he would just get the paddle and be done with it 😆. As Holt's son, Doug, was also our classmate and a member of the saxophone section, his father remarked, "well, Doug got his hair cut yesterday afternoon, why did you all wait to the last minute to get yours—and skip school at that???"

Continuing, Mr. Holt then hit us with the whammy—"I don't think any of you should go to New Orleans—I am about to call your parents and tell them that you should not be allowed to travel!"

All I could muster in my mind was, “Negro what????”

To add insult to injury, Mr. Holt added "and since y’all like skipping class so much, I just may even suspend you so that you can run all the errands that you want on your own time..."

I instantly thought, “Damn…Suspension?!?” At that age, the "S" word was equivalent to the death penalty because while I was already a solid 6'1 and about 185 lbs., my dad was a 6'0 280 lbs. Vietnam Veteran, so I wasn't quite ready to challenge for the Hobbs House Heavyweight title. Yep, suffice it to say that the butterflies had turned into straight up pterodactyls in my belly at that point!

Mr. Holt first tried to call my boy Calloway's mom, Ms. Cathy, at her job, but he could not get through to her. So next up was Chris's mom, the soft spoken Mrs. Martha Adeyemo, and upon reaching her at work, Holt started making his case against us! At some point, he got unusually quiet and was limited to a series of "uh huh's" and "I see's" before finally conceding, “no, I can't tell you what to about your son Mrs. Adeyemo, but I can suspend him from this school!” Whatever else Mrs. A said on the phone only angered Mr. Holt more and, sensing that anger—and being the last man up—I grew even more nervous.

After hanging up with Mrs. A, Mr. Holt then turned to me and demanded "Chuck, what's Colonel Hobbs's office number on campus?" Now, of course I knew my dad's office number—heck, I still do (599-3992), but I played like a dummy and sheepishly said "Sir, um, I don't know it by heart!" Mr. Holt replied, "no matter, I'll call University information and get him."

But alas, what Holt didn't know was that my dad had traveled to a conference in Atlanta earlier that day and, since this was way before cell phones and text messaging with instant access, while I knew that his secretary would know how to reach him at the hotel, the likelihood that my Dad was just sitting by the hotel phone at that precise moment was slim to none!

Nevertheless, Holt was put through and to her credit, Dad's secretary, Mrs. Mamie Jones, simply said "the Colonel is unavailable"—and added no more info! At that point my bubble guts started to slowly settle as Holt then asked for my momma's number on campus; I like to imagine that my poker face concealed the relief I was feeling as I told him that momma only taught morning classes and was probably already at home; I gave up the home number, 576-5638, with the quickness!

Welp, sure enough, when my momma picked up the house phone, once again, Mr. Holt started making his case, but my momma has a very loud voice and I could hear every single syllable that she uttered, which included "I told MY son to make sure he got his haircut today and to pick up his new uniform from Dr. White on campus, so he had MY permission to do EVERYTHING that he did! Now, can I help you with anything else, or is this all that you wanted to talk about???"

Ah, the advocacy of mommas...

Frustrated, Holt hung up the phone, looked at the three of us in disgust and said "if y'all were my sons, I would be tearing your little behinds up—just GO, get on out of my office RIGHT NOW!" As you can imagine, we rushed out of there quickly, and as we hurried back to the band room for our final practice, Chris, with that famous grin of his, looked over at me and said "See, I told you that Bullethead wasn't going to do nothing."

Indeed...

The brilliant and supremely confident Chris Henry, circa ‘91 on FAMU’s campus, flashing the same smile he wore even when in the midst of trouble during our school days. Rest in peace, old friend! 🧡 💚

36 years later, I remain grateful for the Band Parents and chaperones, many of whom have transitioned to the realm of the ancestors since that trip. And I always extend thanks to our old band director and my mentor, Dr. Arnett Moore, for all that he did back in the day to provide rich cultural experiences for young students—even when we were wayward and at times, quite undeserving!