Transcript
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Hey, welcome back to another episode of let's Just Talk About it podcast.
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I'm your host, chuck, and if you're here for the first time, this platform was created to give genuine people just like you an opportunity to share a portion of your life's journey.
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So, with that being said, today on this episode, I have Mr Eric Sims, from Washington DC, where he shares his journey of how it was growing up in the northeast section of a place called Deanwood, and also who made him into the man he is today.
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So, hey, you don't want to miss this amazing conversation.
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As a matter of fact, do me a favor Go and grab your husband, your wife, your children, or even call a friend and gather around to listen to my conversation with Mr Sims on let's Just Talk About it podcast.
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Hey, let's jump right in.
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Thank you so much for tuning in to let's Just Talk About it podcast today.
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I have Mr Eric Sims on with me today.
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How's it going, mr Sims?
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I'm fine.
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Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.
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Yeah, thank you for coming on.
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Yes sir, yes sir, Mr Sims, I love to jump right into my interviews to have those genuine conversations with genuine people just like yourself, and I really believe that everybody has their own unique journey of how they grew up, situations they've been through that.
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I believe somebody's out there who's going through the same thing that you have been through that needs to hear your story.
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So the first question I'd love to jump in with and ask where are you from?
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Where did you grow?
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up.
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I grew up in Washington DC in Northeast, in a section called Deanwood.
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Deanwood Wow, yes, sir.
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How was that?
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Well, we spent our time our early childhood in a place called Lincoln Heights.
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It was a housing project and I have to say it wasn't so nice Violence, predators and people being preyed on and all of the all of that gangs.
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It's just not a very pleasant place to grow up.
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Wow, you said Deanwood.
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Deanwood it was a section of Northeast and the project's called Lincoln Heights.
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Got you, wow.
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So you grew up there.
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So you're growing up in Lincoln Heights.
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I mean not in Lincoln Heights, but you grew up in Deanwood.
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So was it a two-parent household?
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How was that?
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No, sir, my father left my mother with five kids and he just took off.
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He woke up one day, one evening I guess.
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He got up and said I'm going to go out and go buy some cigarettes and he never came back.
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Never came back.
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Wow, Never came back.
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And so she raised us the best she could.
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We lived in a series of basement apartments and eventually we got a place on a housing project, an apartment and a housing project, and I stayed there doing from elementary through but through junior high and um about first part of high school.
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But just before high school, yeah, we got a house and we moved out just outside the project.
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So in fact there's a few blocks from the projects, but it was our own house.
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But it was tough and my work two or three jobs to to keep things going.
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And, and I was the eldest of five children we had, um, four boys and one girl.
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My sister was the baby and um again, it was my responsibility to take care of them and look after them and make sure that they were okay.
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And in the projects it was rough.
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We had, you know, always been the new people in the neighborhood that people want to try you and see what you made of them, right, right, right.
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So I had to deal with all of that and I think I was successful, because after a few weeks people got the message that you don't mess around.
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Yeah, you don't play, you don't play.
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Yeah, wow.
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It took a little bit, but after a while it got to the point where they just plain left us alone.
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Wow, and it was always cool.
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You had to fight just about every day.
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Go to lunch my brother gave us lunch money and you had to fight just about every day.
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You know, go to lunch, go to.
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My brother gave us lunch money and you had to fight to keep your lunch money because I'm the kind of person that you know you're not going to take anything from me.
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So if I have to fight every day, I have to fight every day.
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But you know, eventually it got to the point where they left us alone and we were okay, but it was a very nice environment and I taught a lot of the wrong lessons, you know.
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But we survived and my mom got a house, went back to school, became a nurse.
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I started at Freedman's Hospital and then Freedman's became Howard.
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It's on the same campus as Howard University.
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So Freedman's became Howard University Hospital and that's where she ultimately retired and that's when she ultimately retired.
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And about my freshman year of high school, she met and married the groundskeeper there, Cecil Pearson, and they married and he became my stepfather.
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Wow, and he's just about the best man I'd ever known.
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Wow, he's just a good guy.
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So he raised you.
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Well, by that time I was in high school.
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So I guess he had a hand in kind of finishing me off.
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Yeah, most of my childhood was behind me by then.
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You know, I got my first car in, let's see, junior year of high school Between junior and senior year, I got my first car.
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So you know, by then my childhood was behind me, but I still respected him and listened to him and I learned a lot from him.
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Wow, Wow.
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You talk about trauma today.
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Did that really, you know, like your father not being there.
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Did that affect you mentally?
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That's probably the most profound thing that happened in my life.
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I wrote a story one time for a college class called my Father and Me, and it felt like I was chasing a ghost because my father's people uncle and aunt, my godparents were actually.
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Well, his brother was my godfather and his wife was my godmother.
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And every time I go around and they say you look just W that was my father's name, jw and you look just like him, you talk like him, you walk like him, but I'd never seen him.
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I'd only seen him from an old black and white picture, right, and I would go around my mother's brothers and they would tell me the same thing how much I looked like him, never had anything to do with him, and I resented the fact that he left us like that because my head is tough and she worked two or three jobs just to keep things, keep a roof over our head and keep food in our belly.
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And when we got to the project, she first thing she never said it, verbalized it, but everything she did implied that we were just passing through.
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She didn't want us to get comfortable in that environment.
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She would take us on back.
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Then they had streetcars and then buses and she would take us down to the museums downtown and places like that to expose us to the fact that our world was a lot bigger than those projects.
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Wow, I like that man.
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And then she eventually got a car and would take us to Ocean City and Coral Beach and even as far as Coney Island in New York, put us all in the car.
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And then my grandparents my mother was born in Spartanburg, south Carolina, and our grandparents still live there and she would take us down there and leave us in the summertime or put us on the bus or train and send us down and we just we were exposed to a lot of things that I'm not like, yeah, the other kids in my neighborhood didn't.
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They, you know, they were very limited in the outlook and it got to the point where I graduated from.
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Just before I graduated from high school, the federal government, the Department of Commerce, came to recruit people because they built a new complex called the Bureau of National Bureau of Standards out in Gaithersburg, Maryland, about 35 miles outside of DC.
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And they came to recruit people from the from high school to work in their technician program.
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They wanted what they call inner city people to come out.
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And I told people you know, I got a college education basically just for being black.
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So there was like 2,000 people on the campus and there wasn't a lot of us out there.
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I'll put it like that when we saw each other, we wore up to each other and hugged and kissed each other on both cheeks so few black people out there, but it helped me.
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Wow, and going back to formative years, when I think about it, there's a passage in Mark and Matthew.
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It says how shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and yet lose his soul?
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Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
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And because I grew up in the projects and grew up poor, I had the attitude that I wanted everything everybody else had.
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Everybody I saw on TV with houses and cars.
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I wanted it and that drove my whole life and it motivated me to want more, to want more, to want more.
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So when I left high school I got a job at the Bureau of Standards.
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Then I left the Bureau of Standards, joined the Air Force, came back from the Air Force to the Bureau of Standards and eventually went into private industry.
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But what got me in trouble was getting involved with a guy that was.
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He worked for the second largest private security company in Maryland and he was black.
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And he approached my wife and me and asked us if we would help him create a minority company, get set aside from the government.
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And we wrote the paperwork, business plan, all that stuff, and then we were going to be set, basically because I'm in the mindset that I want more, and that got me involved in that deal Because a good friend of mine introduced me to him, so I figured, the guy must be all right, because my friend introduced us and it turns out the guy was a crook.
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So what he was doing, we created our company and what he did was take uniforms, money checks and all that and writing checks to people who were working for us and giving them uniforms and things.
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We had our own patches, but he would put our patches on their uniform and they were working for us at our sites, but he was paying them out of his company to get our company started.
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And when I found out he was doing all this stuff, I told him no thanks, you know you.
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You know you go your way, I'll go mine.
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But he, um he, that wasn't good enough for him.
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So he started harassing us and causing a whole bunch of stuff.
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And my wife kept telling me you know, just just be patient, you know, have your day in court.
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They didn't have, um uh, laws against harassment and things like that, because he didn't actually do anything to us?
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yeah, he was just calling us and driving around the house and acting crazy, but but, um, he threatened my son one night, uh, and I and he, um, my son was 15 at the time and he threatened my son and one day my son didn't come home from school.
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So the kind of mindset that I was in after all this stress dealing with this guy, I thought he had my son.
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So I got some guys together and I got rented two cars and they went in one car and I was in another car and we went back and forth from the job, the office we had in Gatorsburg, to his house in Fairfax, back and forth, and we were talking by cell phone trying to figure out where he was, because wherever he was we were going to get him.
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Wow, because I just snapped and said this is it, I'm not living like this anymore.
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Right, I just snapped and said this is it, I'm not living like this anymore.
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So my wife kept saying leave it alone, let the law handle it.
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But I wasn't cut out.
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I got to you by that time.
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You're from Dean Town.
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Go ahead.
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One of the scenes in my life with Lamar Thomas was Neighborhood Bullying.
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Standing up to Lamar Thomas was a big deal and I was that way.
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You're not going to push me around, you might beat me, you might kill me, whatever.
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But I don't run Because in the projects, my attitude in the projects, if you run once you'll be, running for the rest of your life.
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So I don't run, I don't back down.
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He was a bully and again, the face I put on was Lamar Thomas and we're not having this Right.
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So basically, long story short, we had a confrontation in Fairfax Parkway, out in Fairfax, and because I don't want to sound like I'm boasting now, this is all God's grace I got you.
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But because I'm a better shot and I'm ambidextrous, I'm even-handed.
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You're both hands Right, we're both hands and I'm even-handed, I can shoot right with both hands and I'm firing this guy from both sides of the car and basically I hit him.
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I thought I killed him.
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I actually honestly thought I killed him and he slumped over and he went off the road and I went on back home, bought some Chinese and went home and ate dinner like nothing happened.
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And that's just how callous and indifferent I was about life, about anything.
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He was a threat to my existence, he was a threat to my way of life and I wasn't having it Right.
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So basically, he lied and told the police that I was the one that shot him.
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There's no way he could have seen me.
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It was dark and I wasn't driving my own.
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All my cars have been distinctive.
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You can spot a car that I drove a mile away.
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So I couldn't use my own car, so I rented a car.
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And so the thing is, he lied to the police and said that I was the one.
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But they came and got me and arrested me and the Bureau of Alcohol, tobacco and Firearms took me from Gaithersburg, Maryland, where we were living, over to Baltimore and put me in an underground dungeon and there was no light.
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I mean there was lights, no clock, no windows, the cell, that when we get to the place there's a desk sergeant there and the two ATF agents had me handcuffed and standing in front of this desk and the desk sergeant said why are you bringing this man here?
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And he said well, we want to bring him here because we want him close to the court.
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And the man said well, there's a whole lot of places you could have taken them that are closer to court than this.
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Why are you bringing them here?
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So now my antenna is going up.
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You know if the man is running to jail, he's asking why they bring me here.
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I'm kind of wondering what's going on.
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So they take me in the cell and the cell had metal walls between the cell but there were bars in the front.
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So, they put me in the cell had metal walls between the cells but there were bars in the front.
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So they put me in the cell and I'm in this bare cell.
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There's a bare metal shelf that's supposed to be a bed, but there's no mattress on it, no bed linen, no clothes, no sheets to spread anything, no hygiene goods, no washcloth, anything.
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Just a sink commode combination and a bare shelf.
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And it was cold.
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So I had a choice I could keep my little tracksuit jacket on to keep warm or I could roll it up and make a pillow out of it to sleep on this bare shelf.
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So I'm doing this for a while.
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The first two days there was a guy next to me and we were talking across the bars to each other.
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He was from Baltimore.
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We were talking back and forth and I was keeping it together like that because the only time you knew what time it was, when the guy brought the food around, you'd ask him what time it was and that was it.
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Otherwise the lights on all the time.
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You can't tell day from night.
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You don't know what time you're just there.
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So they're all the way over there.
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They emphasize we can keep you for three, and if we can't.
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If we're not satisfied, we can go before a judge and get you to stay in that cell.
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Stay here for longer than three days, but you're going to be here at least three days.
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So it kept emphasizing three days, right?
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So the first two days I'm okay, because the guys next to me, at least I got some company to talk to.
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But then on the end of the second day they took him out.
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So I'm there by myself, so'm in this cell and and I keep having these visions satan is telling me to commit suicide, kill yourself, because, because the man got your son and you kill him and you're never going to get out of this situation, the only way you can get out of here is to kill yourself.
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So I'm in this cell by myself and the devil and I'm convinced it was the devil and and then he started focusing my attention on a piece of glass in the corner of the cell.
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Wow, and this maximum security cell where they take everything from you, including the little string that ties around your waist for the tracksuit.
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They even took the string in my shoestrings out of my sneakers, right, right.
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So this is a maximum security place, but yet there was about a two-inch Coke bottle, a piece of a Coke bottle or Pepsi, I couldn't tell which one, but it was a two-inch piece of glass in the cell.
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And he kept fixating my attention on that cell, on that glass in that cell, and he kept saying kill yourself, kill yourself.
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And I started having these visions from above, myself in the cell and looking down on my dead body with a pool of blood all around me.
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Wow, he kept bombarding me with that image over and over and over again.
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So after a while I got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore.
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I turned to the back of the cell, raised my hands, crying out to the Lord, tears streaming down my face, and I just asked the Lord, please help me, save me, because only you can deliver me from this.
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So I'm crying and I'm all worked up and I had my hands in the air and then suddenly this giant hand grabbed my right hand.
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Wow, and I didn't.
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I never opened my eyes.
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I was afraid to open my eyes, really.
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But you could feel it.
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I could feel this.
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This big hand grabbed my hand and led me around to the bed and that metal shelf.
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Then I sat down and he sat down beside me and I leaned into his chest and perfect peace came over me, perfect peace.
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He never spoke, but he said.
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The feeling I got in my spirit was everything's gonna be okay, you're gonna be fine, and that's and that's when I've been here.
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This is like something.
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Uh, it's early september's, um, memorial day, no labor day, which's the end of the summer, memorial Day, the first, second or third day of September, and it was a weekend.
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So I don't know which day it was, but it was the last day of that holiday weekend.
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What year was that?
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This was 1991.
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Wow.
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And so the next morning I woke those off to sleep and the next morning I hear all these cells opening and all this clanging and stuff and the ATF agents.
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They was all dressed in black tactical gear and face shields and all this stuff when they arrested me.
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Now they all in their nice suits with cologne and all that smelling good and walk up to the boss.
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Mr Sims, how was your weekend?
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I said my weekend was fine.
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How was yours you?
00:18:04.807 --> 00:18:06.107
didn't expect them to go that way.
00:18:06.548 --> 00:18:11.230
No, they looked back at each other like you wouldn't expect this, you know.
00:18:11.230 --> 00:18:16.532
So they take me over to the magistrate and the magistrate told me charges against me and all that.
00:18:16.532 --> 00:18:17.073
It was bad.
00:18:17.073 --> 00:18:17.874
It was really bad.
00:18:17.874 --> 00:18:20.282
And told me charges against me.
00:18:20.282 --> 00:18:23.923
But at the end I said your Honor, may I speak?
00:18:23.923 --> 00:18:26.227
He said, yes, sir, go ahead.
00:18:26.227 --> 00:18:33.571
And I told him they took me to this place and I described it no bed linen, no mattress, no hygiene products.
00:18:33.571 --> 00:18:36.297
I didn't have a chance to even wash up or take a shower or anything.
00:18:36.297 --> 00:18:38.297
And they held me there for three days like that.
00:18:38.297 --> 00:18:42.544
And I said your Honor, if I have to go back to jail, please don't let him send me back to that place.
00:18:42.544 --> 00:18:43.949
And he just went off.
00:18:43.949 --> 00:18:47.669
He said you shouldn't have taken him there.
00:18:47.669 --> 00:18:52.798
I'm commanding you right now to take this man up to Montgomery County Detention Center and do not take him back to that place.
00:18:52.798 --> 00:18:59.200
I never had figured out where that place was, but I always felt like Nelson Mandela one day was trying to figure out where it was.
00:18:59.480 --> 00:19:00.415
Go back and take a look at it.
00:19:00.415 --> 00:19:00.916
But it was underground.
00:19:00.916 --> 00:19:01.338
Take a look at it.
00:19:01.358 --> 00:19:02.260
But it was on the ground.
00:19:02.701 --> 00:19:04.906
Right, they were driving so fast and they took me on the ground.
00:19:04.906 --> 00:19:12.740
But the last thing I did before I left that cell was take that piece of glass and scratch the 23rd Psalm in that wall for memory.
00:19:12.740 --> 00:19:28.039
I grew up in church and I remember that and I tell people that's like breadcrumbs, because when I got lost I knew how to find my way back because of all those things I learned in Sunday school and church and my mother and my grandmother taught me and that's how I found the Lord and I've been his ever since.
00:19:28.039 --> 00:19:28.803
Wow.
00:19:30.237 --> 00:19:38.582
So it's important to grow up around that, because if you find yourself in a position like you were in, you could find, like you said, your way back home.
00:19:38.582 --> 00:19:40.125
Find your way back home.
00:19:40.125 --> 00:19:40.866
There you go.
00:19:40.866 --> 00:19:41.409
I like that.
00:19:42.690 --> 00:19:47.332
You know, I can't call myself the prodigal son in a sense, because I was raised in the church.
00:19:47.332 --> 00:19:53.884
I got you and I even went forward and accepted Christ and got baptized and promptly left the church for 20-something years.
00:19:53.884 --> 00:19:56.542
But the Lord, he's always there.
00:19:56.542 --> 00:19:58.181
He's always been there for me.
00:19:58.181 --> 00:20:00.743
I did my 10 years in prison.
00:20:01.336 --> 00:20:08.578
It gave me 17 years, since I had to do 10 years of mandatory and that wasn't easy, but I got my associate's degree.
00:20:08.578 --> 00:20:12.861
While I was incarcerated, I met a lot of good brothers, including the one I'm talking to here.
