Little Boy Found

As Kiko gets ready to graduate, he has to ask Hutch for a favor.

Originally published in the zine, The Bay City Gazette, in 2014.

Students in caps and gowns at their graduation ceremony

Kiko Ramos, Graduate Assistant
University of Maryland
2123 Lee Building
c/o Computer Science Dept.
College Park, Maryland 20742

April 20, 1986

Dear Hutch:

Thanks for the early graduation gift. It’s great to have an electric typewriter at the apartment. Now I don’t have to go into the GA bullpen at 3 in the morning to bang out a paper. And thanks fo the check. I used some of it to order my cap and gown, like you said, but the rest went towards the new Commodore 64 motherboard. Some friends of mine in the department are working on code for what theyre calling a word processing program, but if you really want to write something fast, a typewriter is still the way to go. (I’m not used to the hair trigger on this ting, so just go with the typos, ok? I don’t have time to polish this up. I have 60 quizzes to grade before I go to bed)

I got some good news about that paid intership I was telling you about. Starting Monday July 7th I’m working in Washington DC at the International Monetary FUnd in the accounting division, but I won’t be counting beans. I’m going to part of their new computing division, which will be looking at wire fraud and starting a computer banking initiative. During the interview they told me thye liked my paper on the future of computer security, and the top guy in the division is building a team of programmers that are going to be looking at this issue. It sounds a little Mission Impossible, but if they like my work Ive got a shot at a full-time position in the spring. Let’s see how it goes. And thanks for the great reference letter. I know it had to help.

Sooooo, let me get to the real reason I’m writing. I’ve been selected to be the graduate student representative for commencement. That means I have to give a speech in front of everybosy. And I mean everybody… all the big wheels of the university, families, and thousands of students. It’s a big deal and I’m scared shitless. You know what it was like at my house when dad was still around, the drinking and fighting and the pendejos dad hung out with. It was a bad scene, and a pretty scary one sometimes (who am I kidding? A lot of the time). I ain’t never been so scared as I am now, thinking about all of those people listening to me.

I was wondering if you could look over my speech? I’ve been working on it for the the last month. I’ve shown it to the vice president of the college, and I feel like he means well, but sometimes I think he (and some others over the years)don’t know what to do with me, you know? Like every South of the Boarder kid from east Bay City is goin to roll a fatty in their ivory tower office and light up and they’re going to be busted in the raid. I want to tell him I have a 4.0 and I’m on the short-list to win the departmental programming prize. Ok. Unfair. I know the guy knows this stuff or I woul;dn;t have been asked to talk at graduation. Even after everything, it sometimes still feels weird to be here. A barrio boy. Half of the kids I hung out with when we met are dead. All but one of the other half are in jail. Sometimes I think about them and how that could have—should have—been me.

I’d don’t have time for a therapy session, Doc Hutchinson, (and how are you liking your counseling gig at the youth center? Man, I was never so happy to hear Starsky got promoted to captain, since it meant he was off the street and you could finally go into a job that, I think, will save more lives than you ever did with your bigass magnum, starting with mine.) If you have time, look over the enclosed speech, and let me know if I’m going to make a fool fo myself.

Kiko

P.S. Tell Starsky that I’ll never get back the time I lost watching Geraldo Rivera crap out in Al Capone’s vault that he made me watch. Geraldo gives me hives, especially every time one of these east coast pale males asks me if I know the guy. like we all know each other?

P.P.S. Ask Starsk if we’re watching the season finale of Cagney & Lacey (the only good TV he watches) on the phone together.

Commencement Speech by Kiko Ramos
Graduate Student Representative

Chancellor Slaughter, President Toll, members of the faculty, parents, guests, and to my fellow graduates; I am proud to stand before you all, representing Maryland’s graduate students on this most special day. You will forgive me, if I take a moment to wave to my mother, Milcha Ramos, and my sister, Molly Edwards Ramos, as both of them have left the West coast for the first time. They flew across the country to watch me accept my diploma, but also to hear this speech, one that I promise will be short.

It might not surprise you to learn that I found speech writing to be one of the most difficult tasks of my educational life, even more difficult—as any computer science major will tell you—than waiting in long lines to drop off my key punch cards for my programming assignments. (Wait for laugher.) Graduation is when we join as a community to celebrate the perseverance, the dedication, and the scholarship of the students who have labored to achieve educational goals and open the door to professional hopes and dreams. I say to you that a master’s degree is a prestigious accomplishment, one that I am proud to have achieved, and something I could not have imagined as a little boy.

I grew up in a poor home, a broken home, one located in a poor, broken neighborhood in Bay City, California. At age eleven I was well down the path of self-destruction—cutting school and hanging out with the tough kids on the street corner. Most of the local cops called described my little gang as “crime waiting to happen.” Notice that I said most cops, not all. There was one man, a police officer, who looked at me, and did not see a future criminal. He saw potential. Detective Kenneth Hutchinson—everyone calls him Hutch—became my Big Brother through the local youth center, and when it would have been easy, even understandable, to give up on me, he never did.

It wasn’t easy being Hutch’s Little Brother. Half the time I didn’t understand half of what he said. The first two words I ever looked up in the dictionary in the school library were “euphoric sentimentality.” Even after reading the definitions, I still wasn’t certain what the words meant, but Hutch’s partner, David Starsky, told me it meant, “Bah, humbug,” and sat me down to watch A Christmas Carol so I would get it. From the day I met Hutch, I can tell you that I never again went without shoes, or lunch money, or tutor. Even if Hutch’s work prevented him from coming himself, he paid a professional to fill his shoes. But even more importantly, Hutch fed my mind in ways I didn’t even know I hungered. He took me and my family camping, to concerts in the park, to the zoo. We would go to the beach, at least once a month, and construct some giant sand sculpture. People would stop to watch the three of us work—me, Starsky, and Hutch—and tourists would take pictures of what we’d created. One time we made a whale that was bigger than a Volkswagon Beetle that astonished everyone who saw it. That was one of the happiest days of my life.

With Hutch’s help, and the support of my mom and sister, I made it through high school. I entered City College with only the vaguest idea of what I was doing there. In retrospect, I think I was putting off adulthood, and a job at the bodega, for a little longer. I had no idea what it meant to major in something, and even less of a clue of how you went about figuring it out. I stumbled through my first semester, and no one was more surprised than me when I finished with a 3.0! In the spring I took a computer science class because a girl I thought I loved was taking the course. It wasn’t long before I fell out of love with the girl and ended up in love with computing. I had found my major—I just needed to break the news to Hutch, who, let me tell you, has no love of machinery. But when I told him my choice, all he did was smile and say, “You’ve grown beyond me, Kiko. What you’re doing is the future—and you’re going to be great at it.” I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor’s Degree in Science.

I stand here today, having overcome many obstacles, and I’m sure many of you experienced similar struggles and found a way to overcome them and thrive, as evidenced by your presence here today. I promised to be brief: On this joyous day of achievement, I urge you to add two items to your to-do list: First, thank the Ken Hutchinsons in your life. None of us got here without help, and surely there is enough happiness today to share the wealth. And second, please consider paying forward the earnings on the investments made in you. Please become a Big Brother or Big Sister. Help all the other kids with great potential and small resources to achieve their dreams. I know I will.

Happy Graduation!

Very large sand sculpture of a whale on a beach