greg orme obama's friend

greg orme obama's friendamtrak san jose to sacramento schedule

greg orme obama's friend

'When you're president, everybody wants something from you and only these types of friends are able to simply want your well-being. Their photos are more likely to be stored on Facebook than in a shoe box. Since arriving more than a week ago, Obama has been out in public with one of his daughters only once, briefly, during a hike. 'But the rest of it has sharp edges, 'Tho he speaks sweet words and can be open and trusting, there is also that coolness - and I begin to have an inkling of some things about him that could get to me.'. But the foursome rarely goes more than a few months without reconvening in one arrangement or another. Both of them seemed surprised to hear that in "Dreams"--which neither of them had read--Obama writes about routinely going to parties at Schofield Barracks and other military bases in order to hang out with "Ray," who like Anthony and Smith was two years ahead of him in school. First Lady and her two daughters 'planning EXTENDED summer vacation at exclusive retreat', High school senior rejected by Kate Upton for prom asks Sports Illustrated model Nina Agdal instead - and she says YES, Report: Michelle Obama once dated inspector general at the center of IRS investigation into anti-tea party political favoritism, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S WOMEN: BARACK OBAMA'S FORMER FLAMES, Ukraine soldiers shoot down enemy drones with drones of their own, Mark Gordon arrives at Crawley Police Station after remains found, Pavement where disabled woman gestured at cyclist before fatal crash, Pro-Ukrainian drone lands on Russian spy planes exposing location, 'Buster is next!' . The other kids would scrap with him sometimes, but because Obama was bigger and better-fed than many of them, he was hard to defeat. You are extremely sweet and foxy, he wrote. 18:47 GMT 23 May 2013. On the lower half of the seventh-grade page is the same group, under a heading of Useless Races in America. The joke, it seems, is on intolerance. The Secret Service stopped a man who briefly flew a drone near the president's motorcade Monday as the president and his friends were returning from golf at the Mid-Pacific Country Club. The 1979 photo was snapped inside the home of former classmate, Kelli Allman, who was the prom date of the pr, Fashion alert! The three men - Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme - are among the few people still in Obama's life who knew him long before he was famous. Get-togethers in the decades after high school were rare as the men built careers and families, although Mr. Ramos, Mr. Titcomb and Mr. Orme attended the Obamas Chicago wedding in 1992. But I was pretty wrapped up in my own world back then.. ", Ive known Barry since the fifth grade, he said. "I never knew, until reading the book later, how much that night had upset him." Hopefully now that hes done well get to see each other more, he said. , updated Kakugawa explained that he had meant they were playing in the world of the elite people who populated and ran Punahou--famous Hawaiian families like the Doles, owners of the pineapple fortune, or the original developers of Waikiki, the tourist mecca. She also shared a complimentary note that Obama had written in her high school yearbook. "You need to find Greg Orme," instructed Obama's old basketball coach, Chris McLachin. We have had presidents who have not modeled that super well., We had a long basketball career together, Orme recalled in a telephone interview from his home in Eugene, Oregon. I know that was hard for him.". Still, Bendix said, his old pal should have been a starter at Punahou and insisted he was not just being loyal to an old friend. Here is how some of Obamas former teammates and coaches remember those years: To understand President Obama, you have to understand his Hawaiian roots, Maurer said. Yet no such Life issue exists, according to historians at the magazine. Still, the story of his early years highlights how politics and autobiography are similar creatures: Each is shaped to serve a purpose. We all come from so many backgrounds, we have to get along., Obamas teammates for the most part are careful not to judge an old friend, even if his memories of racial attitudes at Punahou differ from their own. I hadnt seen him for 30 years.. When she told him she loved him, he responded with 'thank you', according to Maraniss, and they broke up in May 1985. As he had at the old school, Obama sat in a back corner. Elite Dutch colonists once lived there; the Japanese moved in during their occupation of Indonesia in World War II. Most of his teachers and friends express sorrow that they did not know of Obamas racial anguish or inner demons. Obama devotes many words in his book to exploring his outsider status at Punahou. She said a woman from People came to visit with her and then walked away with the Punahou reunion list and all its phone numbers. President-elect Barack Obama and friend Greg Orme wait to warm up on the driving range to play golf with friends December 29, 2008 in Kailua, Hawaii.. President-elect Barack Obama hugs friend Greg Orme before a round of golf December 29, 2008 at the Mid Pacific Country Club in Kailua, Hawaii. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. According to the book, the characters representing Orme and the other friend asked to leave the party after just an hour, saying they felt out of place. KAILUA, HI - DECEMBER 29: (AFP OUT) U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and friend Greg Orme (R) wait to warm up on the driving range to play golf with friends December 29, 2008 in Kailua, Hawaii. "If this story is eight paragraphs, seven of them go to Greg. Now they mainly just golf more than 30 hours in six outings this vacation and trash-talk, just like in the old days. Obama recounts taking two white friends, including Orme, to a party attended almost entirely by African-Americans. "I went to those parties up at Schofield but never saw him at any of them." If Obama did show flashes of anger or hurt, according to friends and teammates, it sprang from his lack of minutes on the basketball court more than his angst as a young black man in a multiracial society. We had to prove ourselves, focus on playing good ball. The term wasn't considered a slur at the time in Indonesia. He describes making friends easily, becoming fluent in Indonesian in just six months and melding quite easily into the very foreign fabric of Jakarta. Darin Maurer and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. Every time out hed come over and chat with me about my stroke, my health, he said. "One of us said that being the different guys in the room had awakened a little bit of empathy to what he must feel all the time at school. He also liked to take outside shots and sometimes he got really hot.. But it has revealed the vagaries of memory, as well as the ambivalent emotions stirred among old acquaintances when someone they once knew becomes famous. Hawaii friends Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme, Punahou Academy classmates, were also on hand. I always knew he would do something, of course we never expected hed be in the White House, teammate and lifelong friend Greg Orme said. Titcomb has worked as a commercial fisherman and an airline employee, according to the school's alumni magazine. FILE - In this Dec. 29, 2014 file photo, President Barack Obama, center, walks during a round of golf with Greg Orme, left, and Mike Ramos, on the 18th hole of the Mid Pacific Country Club in . On prom night, the pair double-dated. All say he was teased more than any other kid in the neighborhood--primarily because he was bigger and had black features. Young Barack Obama in a 7th grade photo in 1974 at Punahou School, Honolulu, Hawaii. ', 'I'd made my share of friends at school, gone on the occasional awkward date,' Obama wrote, 'And if I sometimes puzzled over the mysterious realignments of status that took place among my classmates, as some rose and others fell depending on the whims of their bodies or the make of their cars, I took comfort in the knowledge that my own position had steadily improved.'. But such solitude has become less and less attainable for presidents in modern times. So neither of us ever started and that was hard, he said. In an interview with the Tribune on Saturday, Kakugawa said he always considered himself mixed race, like so many of his friends in Hawaii, and was not an angry young black man. Bendix said he and Obama learned most of their basketball moves on the playground. Of course, Obama embraced the image of the athlete, dribbling a ball to school and between classes. Mr. Obamas concern, Mr. Axelrod said, was for Mr. Titcomb, whose arrest was international news because he happened to be Barack Obamas friend.. You can see how he was much more sensitive than the other guys, even back then.. Obama, his mother and new baby sister, Maya, moved into a small apartment near the school's sprawling, lush campus. He was the only foreign child in the neighborhood. Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb, and Greg Orme-friends from Obama's high school daze in Hawaii-joined the president for a round on the links at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Saturday morning. Obamas family is already insulating itself. 'Many people call Obama aloof, and he hasn't made a lot of friends in Washington,' Brinkley said. Journalistic excavations of a presidential candidates past often turn ugly. A close friend and track teammate of Kakugawa, John Hagar, also said he was surprised by Obama's description of the character representing Kakugawa as an angry young black man. (AFP OUT) U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and friend Greg Orme (R) wait to warm up on the driving range to play golf with friends December 29, 2008 in Kailua, Hawaii. Then his young mother, now divorced, met and married an Indonesian student studying at the University of Hawaii. Greg Orme, a fellow varsity basketball player, was Obama's constant companion. The reality was less tidy. For much of their childhoods, Orme and Obama were more like brothers than buddies, constant companions both on and off the basketball court who even double-dated on senior prom night. Now that life story is being edited by others. (D-Hawaii), a close friend of Obama . Barack Obama, #23, during his senior year at Punahou School, Honolulu. For much of their childhoods, Orme and Obama were more like brothers than buddies, constant companions both on and off the basketball court who even double-dated on senior prom night. He was tenacious.. While Obama got saddled with the nickname Barry OBomber, Maurer said he also "got teased a lot for taking hard to make shots.". But Furushima, too, is learning to be on guard around the press. He is 9 years old, living in Indonesia, where he and his mother moved with her new husband, Lolo Soetoro, a few years earlier. Marty Nesbitt, one of Obama's friends from . 'You are extremely sweet and foxy, I don't know why Greg would want to spend any time with me at all!' Among his supporters, his likability and credibility have only been boosted by his stories of being an outsider trying to fight his way in. With Obama just days away from turning over the reins to Donald Trump, Coach Mac and some of the guys young Barry played ball with at their Honolulu prep school reflected on his presidency and their playing years with pride. Obamas presidential prospects have been fueled in large part by an arresting life story: The son of a Kenyan goatherder, he wrestled with his dual identities to become the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and a member of the U.S. Senate. "The brothers," as Lewis Anthony Jr., an African-American in the class of 1977 put it, hung out together, often talking about issues involving race and civil rights. "Junkie. His partners matched Monday's team of Greg Orme, Darrell Harrington and Bobby Titcomb, and the foursome spent more than five hours on the course. That first year, Mr. Ramos said, I remember coming home from a golf outing and literally starting to cry, so emotional was the contrast he felt between their friendships and the transactional ones he said he had since formed as a businessman. He struggled greatly with the foreign language, she said, and with his studies as a result. Obama and his date Megan Hughes, a student at the Hawaii School for Girls at La Pietra, joined Orme at Allmans house, where the two couples sipped champagne before going to the dance and then an after-party. But those talks, Kakugawa said, were not about race. Known as Ann throughout her adult life, she kept to herself. "There's no doubt that Keith's story is tragic and sad," Burton added. They marked the 10th year of their rendezvous by looking through old photos, Mr. Ramos said, of when the kids were young and the dads had dark hair. And of course, he said, they all the president included reflected on the past year. All three live mostly private lives when they're not being photographed with the commander in chief. He added: "I can't say that I've avoided all, or any, of these hazards successfully." They only did it to Barry." For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Back in 1979 he was known as Barry and he had a beef with his basketball coach. "Like being black was a funny costume in and of itself," recalled Smith, now a doctor who specializes in geriatrics in California. So we'd get three kids together to fight him," recalled Yunaldi Askiar, 45, a former neighborhood friend. His character, the way he conducts himself, thats always been his footprint. In snapshots, the boy is a portrait of childhood bliss. If you look at our teams, that year I was the only white guy on the starting five. In a striking snapshot with his grandparents, Stanley smiles proudly while Madelyn hugs him fiercely, as though she doesn't want to let him go forth into a world far from the remote island that for so long had been his home. The fourth person in the picture is Obama's date,Megan Hughes. While Obama rocketed to political prominence, his friend headed down the troubled road Obama had feared he was following. But twice that year the group gathered in Hawaii in August before the Democratic National Convention and in December after Mr. Obamas election. Ramos is most often referred to in stories about his relations with the president as a businessman. He said Obama may have come across as easy going, but he was no pushover. He would carry his books in one hand and his ball in the other," he said. For most of their high school years, Orme and Obama lived and loved basketball, even if their hours of practice never translated into much playing time on game day. Bailey, who owes his nickname to his quickness on a court, said he's been "impressed by the way Obama handled himself as president." Barack Obama as a sophomore with the junior varsity basketball team at Punahou School, Honolulu, in 1977. "I don't imagine the decision to let him stay behind was an easy one for anyone," Soetoro-Ng said. But absent from those discussions, they say, was another student then known as Barry Obama. While the foursome gets together in Hawaii over the holidays each year, Titcomb, Orme and Ramos. Coaches have recalled how he never went anywhere without a ball. I am in poor health.. "He would protect the smaller ones." We get together for golf, he said. The havoc time wreaks on fashion spares no one, not even the president of the United States.In a newly unearthed photo published Thursday in TIME magazine, a 17-year-old Barack Obama is seen. In the book, Obama discusses race and racism at his high school with one other Punahou student, "Ray,'' the young black man described in detail in "Dreams" as perpetually angry at the white world around him. After years during which the friends grew apart, Mr. Obama reconnected with Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme a decade ago. They were. 00:53 GMT 31 Dec 2014 Hawaii is a remarkable place, he said. Barry was a very confident player who liked to drive to the basket. Through the haze of the 70s, they recall only the rat baller who was always up for a game. Instead we are producing Richard Nixons." We didnt aim high enough., Every time I see him on television its surreal, said Topolinski. Some, like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, counted later acquaintances among political donors as friends. Pothead. In another passage from the book, Ray complains that white Punahou girls don't want to date black guys and that he and Obama don't get enough playing time as athletes, speculating that they'd be "treated different if we was white. "Punahou was an amazing school," Smith said. ", We would be like, Hey lets go to the beach, Bendix recalled. Those are qualities a president should have. Throughout his youth, as depicted in his first book, he always found ways to meld into even the most uninviting of communities. Some of these discrepancies are typical of childhood memories -- fuzzy in specifics, warped by age, shaped by writerly license. As it made its way over the mountain pass, he took in views of the lush, green and misty Koolau mountains. In one photo he hugs his beaming sister. He took out (Osama) Bin Laden. Barry would be the only black person. It is the same one that a young Obama wrote in the yearbook of a petite black-haired beauty named Kelli Furushima -- the object of his high school crush. Its good for me, pre-Alzheimers, to try and remember this stuff, he said, struggling to recall something other than Obamas love for basketball and his improbable hook shot. In the second term, presidents have often sought refuge from the pressure by disappearing into nature to fish or hunt, said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. Adept at nailing long jump shots, Obama was called "Barry O'Bomber" by teammates. Then there's the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. We were all cracking up, and everyone was smiling, says Allman. Tucked away in someone elses shoe box of adolescent artifacts, there might be a picture of you in garish clothes and with an outdated do, your arm around a high school squeeze. I am not giving any interviews, Obamas grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, curtly interjected when a reporter phoned. On page 271 of the 1979 Oahuan, Obama's entry reflects the crossroads he found himself at as he prepared for life beyond Hawaii. As a result, the handful of black students at Punahou informally banded together. And from the first day of 5th grade right up until his graduation in 1979, the young man was one of only a small number of black students at a school heavily populated by the children of Hawaii's wealthy, most of them white and Asian. He even scored a basket," he said. I dont know why people have slammed him like that, said Maurer. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. WASHINGTON President Obama has called Hawaii his refuge, and so it has been throughout his political life. Since January, more than a dozen news organizations from around the globe, from the BBC to TV Asahi to People magazine, have dispatched reporters to Oahu. "I did say we were playing in their world," he explained, "but that had nothing to do with race. He had friends there, he was comfortable there, and to a kid his age, that's all that mattered." For the president to be able to be with a group where he can be absolutely relaxed a group that knows him from his youth on, and who he knows are friends with him not because of what he became, but because of who he is is a really comforting and warm thing, said David Axelrod, Mr. Obamas longtime strategist. All Rights Reserved. He posed in lifeguard stands. Back then, Punahou was a completely open campus, with several basketball courts where 20-something men from Honolulu would come in the late afternoon for what often turned into flashy, highly competitive pickup sessions. In the six weeks since Obama announced his intention to run for the White House, he routinely has suggested that his diverse background--raised for a time in the Third World, schooled at elite institutions and active in urban politics--makes him the best-suited candidate to speak to rich and poor, black and white, mainstream voters and those utterly disenchanted with the political system. It wasnt until 2008, when Obama was making his first run for president, that they saw each other again at a fundraiser. I would go out there and be the only white person. In a May 21, 2008 Sports Illustrated interview, Obama spoke of the importance of basketball in his life. Though Orme spent most afternoons with Obama and considered him one of his closest friends, he said Obama never brought up issues of race, never talked about feeling out of place at Punahou. On this visit alone, Obama has spent more than 22 hours with the group on the lush golf courses that dot the island of Oahu. Obama, however, was not a part of that group, according to Anthony and Smith. Others almost certainly illustrate how carefully the young man guarded the secret of his loneliness from even those who knew him best. The perfect tummy control bodysuit, a popcorn gadget, more bestsellers starting at $8. (Photo by Joaquin Siopack-Pool/Getty Images) The sailboat the Manu Kai (bird of the sea, in English) is about to set sail behind him. Isnt that sweet? she asked. But we didnt really become good friends until the seventh grade. He then wrote down his number, encouraging Allman to give him a call, and signed off 'Barry Obama'. Their new neighborhood was only 3 miles to the west, but a world away. The handful of black students who attended Punahou School in Hawaii, for instance, say they struggled mightily with issues of race and racism there. The comments below have not been moderated, By The article included photos of a black man who had destroyed his skin with powerful chemical lighteners that promised to make him white. Rik Smith, a black Punahou student two years older than Obama, remembers a Halloween when white students would dress as slaves, coming to school in tattered clothes with their faces painted black with shoe polish. These have been the stories told about the first two character-shaping decades of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's life, a story line largely shaped by his own best-selling memoir, political speeches and interviews. She also sent advice about his future. Our coaches were much more conservative, he said. They divorced after seven years of marriage and have a daughter. Or f------ Eskimo." And the accounts bear out much of Obama's self-portrait as someone deeply affected by his father's abandonment yet able to thrive in greatly disparate worlds. The man is staggering and numb but eventually pulls out forgotten dignity from under his flaking coat,/And walks a straight line along the crooked world.. He learned to adapt to unfamiliar territory. Obama admits in "Dreams" that during high school he frequently smoked marijuana, drank alcohol, even used cocaine occasionally. I would never say, ah, that didnt happen, said Hale. (At the request of the Tribune, archivists at Ebony searched their catalogue of past articles, none of which matched what Obama recalled.) To them, the characteristics Obama displayed on the hardwood as one of the Sons of Oahu were evident in the way he handled the daunting responsibilities as leader of the free world. Right: Obama wrote the above note in Allmans yearbook at the end of his senior year in 1979. Barry spent his days at the Punahou School in Hawaii studying, shooting hoops and goofing off with his friends. In his day, he was a better basketball player than a golfer. For a reputed loner, Mr. Obama has remained remarkably close to a trio he met as a teenager at Honolulus prestigious Punahou School boys of Hawaiis year-round summer with whom he played basketball, bodysurfed, drank beer and, like so many other young islanders in the 1970s, smoked pot, the choom of that long-ago nickname. For Orme, the Obama he saw on the court was a lot like the Obama who occupied the White House a team player who liked to win. In fact, it is surprising, based on interviews with more than two dozen people who knew Obama during his nearly four years in Indonesia, that it would take a photograph in a magazine to make him conscious of the fact that some people might treat him differently in part because of the color of his skin. "He was built like a bull. He is unyielding in the things he believes in., I think hes done an unbelievable job as president, he said. Associated Press Im incredibly proud of my friend. And while they did enjoy marijuana, Mr. Ramos acknowledged, we played a lot more basketball than we smoked pot.. Alan Lum, who later would coach the basketball team at Punahou as well as teach elementary school there, recalled Obama as always being the first to confront coaches when he felt they were not fairly allotting playing time. He knew that." Obama, he said, was especially adept at knowing how to build relationships. He said it puzzles him that, as president, Obama was often accused of failing to reach out to political opponents. The images from 1979 show a grinning 17-year-old Obama in a white suit with his arm around his date, Megan Hughes, before they headed to the party at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii. And he frequently made peace--even allies--with the very people who angered him most. I don't see that we are producing many Thomas Jeffersons nowadays. Instead, the chemicals had peeled off much of his skin, leaving him sad and scarred, Obama recalled. In his best-selling autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," Obama describes having heated conversations about racism with another black student, "Ray." Barack Obama as a baby. When it rained, Obama and his pals went bowling, instead. "I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar moments of revelation," Obama wrote of the magazine photos in "Dreams." Wed drive around in my van listening to Earth, Wind & Fire and looking for places to play, he said. Mr. Ramos was a year ahead of Mr. Obamas Punahou class of 79, but played with him on the basketball team. In August, Obama kicked off his 53rd birthday weekend golfing with the three friends in suburban Maryland before heading to Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains. But he took the high road and showed a lot of integrity. Daily Mail Reporter Former playmates remember Obama as "Barry Soetoro," or simply "Barry," a chubby little boy very different from the gangly Obama people know today. 'The sexual warmth is definitely there,' Cook wrote in her journal. Half the homes were old bamboo huts; half, including the Soetoro house, were nicer, with brick or concrete and red-tiled roofs. She wistfully showed a reporter the love note Obama wrote in June 1979. "They held his hands and feet and said, `One, two, three,' and threw him in the swamp," recalled Adi, who still lives in the same house where he grew up. A spokeswoman for People said the reporter, West Coast correspondent Maureen Harrington, did not take the list. Increasingly, the reunions have become the focal point of Obama's family vacation in his second term as his teenage daughters spend less and less time at their father's side. When kids teased him, Obama yelled back, "Curang, curang!" Obama and his. "Barry's biggest struggles then were missing his parents. He and I really clicked. Hes been so gracious to him.. After Obama's prom date with Megan Hughes and before settling down with Michelle during his time studying at Harvard, President Obama seriously dated two women: Alex McNear was a 20-year-old literature lover he met at Occidental College in 1981 before he transferred to Columbia in his junior year. "And we were told he had already moved away." I loved his game," he said. Dan Hale, the 6-foot-7-inch star center of the 1979 Punahou basketball team, said Obamas depiction of Hawaii as a place where race really mattered hardly resonates with him. But spokesman Bill Burton said Obama "stands by his recollections of these events as related in his book." "He's not like that." Mr. Ramos was a year ahead of Mr. Obama's Punahou class of '79, but played with him on the basketball. But Orme is a hard man to find. You need to find Greg Orme, instructed Obamas old basketball coach, Chris McLachin. "Barry liked to draw heroes." When a friend gave him shrimp paste instead of chocolate, he yelled, "Curang, curang!" In the spring of 1979, Obama's mother and Maya, Barack's younger half sister by almost nine years, flew to Hawaii for his high school graduation. Zulfan Adi was one of the neighborhood kids who teased Obama most mercilessly. He said he does recall long, soulful talks with the young Obama and that his friend confided his longing and loneliness. "Luckily he could swim. She mixed encouragement to keep up his grades with laments about American politics. So did Maurer, who is now a pastor in Houston. HONOLULU -- Until recently, the players on Hawaiis 1979 state basketball championship team thought their glory days were behind them, consigned to yearbooks and faded newspaper clippings. HONOLULU (AP) The Latest on President Barack Obama family vacation in Hawaii (all times local): 10 p.m. President Barack Obama and his family dined with friends Wednesday night to cap off another day of their Hawaii getaway.

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