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ADMINISTRATIVE: This is just a repost of this 1/8/2012 article in a newly established, but same name, forum.
The trials of Omar, Obama’s uncle
Boston Globe
Sally Jacobs
1/8/2012
Excerpt:
"Stephen “Hummer’’ Holmes, the soccer coach at the former Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, was standing on a wind-whipped field in 1963 when he met the most talented soccer player he would ever work with. A new student at school, that young man had loped on to the field barefoot and without shin guards, ready to play just as he did back home in Kenya.
His name was Omar Okech Obama.
“He had been playing without shoes for so long that the bottoms of his feet were so deeply calloused they were like shoe leather. And his feet were so wide that he had to have special shoes constructed for him,’’ recalled Holmes. “But he never liked the shoes. He’d say, ‘Coach, I need to take the shoes off. Please, coach, I can’t feel the ball.’ ’’
That same Obama is now more famously known as the uncle of President Obama. He is an enigmatic presidential relative who rocketed into the news in August when he was arrested on charges of drunken driving in Framingham, and told the booking officer, “I think I will call the White House.’’ As immigration officials consider whether to deport him, Obama, 67, finds his life in the United States the subject of intense curiosity not just by government officials and the media but among some family members and his old Cambridge classmates as well.
That spotlight has found him in the twilight of a meager life, nearly 50 years after he joined his older half-brother, Barack Obama Sr., the president’s late father, in Cambridge to seek an education. Notwithstanding the now-famous surname, his life here has mirrored that of countless others who have immigrated legally, but then simply stayed on, barely making do at the margins of American life."
View the complete article at:
http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-0...-kenyan-family
The trials of Omar, Obama’s uncle
Boston Globe
Sally Jacobs
1/8/2012
Excerpt:
"Stephen “Hummer’’ Holmes, the soccer coach at the former Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, was standing on a wind-whipped field in 1963 when he met the most talented soccer player he would ever work with. A new student at school, that young man had loped on to the field barefoot and without shin guards, ready to play just as he did back home in Kenya.
His name was Omar Okech Obama.
“He had been playing without shoes for so long that the bottoms of his feet were so deeply calloused they were like shoe leather. And his feet were so wide that he had to have special shoes constructed for him,’’ recalled Holmes. “But he never liked the shoes. He’d say, ‘Coach, I need to take the shoes off. Please, coach, I can’t feel the ball.’ ’’
That same Obama is now more famously known as the uncle of President Obama. He is an enigmatic presidential relative who rocketed into the news in August when he was arrested on charges of drunken driving in Framingham, and told the booking officer, “I think I will call the White House.’’ As immigration officials consider whether to deport him, Obama, 67, finds his life in the United States the subject of intense curiosity not just by government officials and the media but among some family members and his old Cambridge classmates as well.
That spotlight has found him in the twilight of a meager life, nearly 50 years after he joined his older half-brother, Barack Obama Sr., the president’s late father, in Cambridge to seek an education. Notwithstanding the now-famous surname, his life here has mirrored that of countless others who have immigrated legally, but then simply stayed on, barely making do at the margins of American life."
View the complete article at:
http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-0...-kenyan-family