He enlisted with 10 of his friends from the Island, after graduating from high school in 1964. Thirty years later I ran into him again, and sure enough, he was a doctor and I was the principal of the West Tisbury School.”īob had received encouragement and support simply from being in proximity of high-achieving African Americans in Oak Bluffs, but he also got a big boost from serving in the Army in Korea. I told him I wanted to be a school principal. “I was sitting on the wall at the Inkwell one time,” Tankard said, “and I asked the kid sitting next to me what he wanted to do when he grew up, and he said he wanted to be a doctor. “I don’t think I’d be where I am today had it not been for the opportunities that opened up to me on the Island,” he said.įor one thing, Tankard was surrounded by lots of African Americans who were doctors, lawyers, businessmen and women, and in Newark that just wasn’t the case. I was being scouted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the high school didn’t even have a team.”Īt first Tankard thought it was the worst move his mother ever made - and then he realized it was the best move. At the time I wanted to be a professional baseball player. “After Labor Day, the streets were dark and empty. He was going into 10th grade at the time. So it was like, ‘Wow! Is this for real?’ But we adjusted.”īob Tankard, the eighth oldest sibling, spoke to me at his office at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services about his transition from Newark to Martha’s Vineyard. When we came here, you had maybe 7,000 year-round people on the whole Island. Where we came from there was literally a huge, huge square block with like 1,600 families.
“The Vineyard,” Sissy told Linsey Lee, “was a totally different lifestyle. Sissy Tankard, the ninth oldest sibling, directed me to an interview conducted with herself and Pat by Linsey Lee, the oral historian of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum.
I am not a professional singer but I sing With Feel, Passion And Emotion.Upon returning home, Audria noticed that Newark was taking a turn for the worse, and she launched a plan to scrimp, save, and do whatever they had to do to move to the Vineyard full-time. I can sing Blues, R&B, Smooth Jazz, Pop, Opera, Dance Pop, Rap(Hip Hop), Soft Rock, Rock, Hard Rock songs.
I can sing 10 languages (English, Chinese, Korean, French, Indian, Russian, Romanian, Japanese, Italian and Vietnamese) but I can speak only Vietnamese and English.
0 kommentar(er)
