Termite TV - Life Stories

Hi, my name is Mike M.. I’d like to tell you a little bit- give you a bioscratch of my life story. I grew up in Philadelphia. I was born in Philadelphia in 1962. I’d like to consider myself a product of the Temple experience. I grew up in North Philadelphia, around the corner from Temple University on 15th and Cecil B. Moore. My father worked at Temple as a recreation athletic director and my mother was uh… she was a family woman. She had siblings, so she cared for family, kids. And I went to daycare around the corner at Temple daycare. I was born a Temple University Hospital. I attended Ben Franklin High. I’m now attending Temple University. I was raised by my grandparents in Germantown because my mother had drug related problems. My experience growing up with her in her drug life and um, do my grandparents had to raise me in Germantown, and it was 6 of us living on Green St. And those experiences were kind of rough for me as a young male because I had to learn the hard life of the streets, hanging with gangs staying out late at night, giving my grandmother a rough time. She had to resort to put me in a facility. I was cared for by men at Northern Home for Children. Northern Home for Children was very instrumental in my life because it changed my life in a way because I had a structured environment. When I say structured environment, I was raised by a male figure, which I didn’t have in my life because my father had died when I was 13 years old. So, Northern Home for Children taught me a lot of things about life. So, here I am today. I’m 39 and I’m here to say that I’m here healthy with a brand new look on life. I have 2 beautiful children that are doing excellent in school; one boy, one girl. One name is Kye the girl and my son is Darell. Today is his birthday by the way and I’m kind of happy about that. I’m here at the free library of Philadelphia, getting ready to do some studying. I have an exam on Monday, I’m here with my friend Monique. She told me about this experience of being on camera and giving a biological sketch of my life. Um, at 39 I’m kind of like looking at life a little more extreme and I’m kind of like in that 30’s thing trying to get a rush on life because education was- is very important to me now. Although, I don’t think I will be doing anything in my field of study, my mother always wanted me to have a college education. So, here I am and I hope to attain my degree this summer. So, that’s all I have to say and it’s nice talking to you people.