greg orme obama's friend

Obama spent the weekend in California after meeting Friday at a resort with Jordan's king. They only did it to Barry." As he listened, McLachlin never dreamed that one day this determined young man, who had spent most of that season warming the bench while the Punahou High School varsity basketball team was marching on to win the Hawaii state championship, would grow up to be Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States. Right around then, we really started getting into basketball., Obama was all business when it came to "the game. Maybe we could have helped him. When his mother, a woman said to have been born with a keen sense of wanderlust, announced she was returning to Indonesia, Obama, then a teenager, asked to stay in Hawaii, according to Soetoro-Ng, 36, who still lives in Honolulu. Teachers, former playmates and friends recall a boy who never fully grasped their language and who was very quiet as a result. The White House said Obama's foursome included childhood friends Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme and Michael Ramos. kscharnberg@tribune.com kbarker@tribune.com, Column: For the Chicago Blackhawks remodel to work, their new house had better be built on a strong foundation, Merrillville food and beverage tax edging closer to reality, Remains found in Rockdale more than 25 years ago identified as Aurora woman, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. Maurer, who mostly played guard, said he and Obama were no slouches but they were on teams with some really strong jocks. So neither of us ever started and that was hard, he said. But Kakugawa, a convicted drug felon, said Saturday that he had never been the "prototypical angry black guy" that Obama portrays. "We'd all do things together, but Obama was never there," Smith said, adding that they often brought along the few other black underclassmen. 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. Likewise for Mr. Obama, it seems. Some of these discrepancies are typical of childhood memories -- fuzzy in specifics, warped by age, shaped by writerly license. But spokesman Bill Burton said Obama "stands by his recollections of these events as related in his book." Still, all of his teachers at the Catholic school recognized leadership qualities in him. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. I dont know why people have slammed him like that, said Maurer. The handful of black students who attended Punahou School in Hawaii, for instance, say they struggled mightily with issues of race and racism there. I don't see that we are producing many Thomas Jeffersons nowadays. Maurer, who played ball with Obama from the seventh grade through their senior year, said Julius Erving, better known as Dr. J, was their basketball hero. IE 11 is not supported. Half the homes were old bamboo huts; half, including the Soetoro house, were nicer, with brick or concrete and red-tiled roofs. And they have cheered Obama on even when they disagreed with him. 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. Obama is. She became estranged from her husband, Barack Obama Sr., after his departure for Harvard and rarely saw the group of friends that they had made at the University of Hawaii. 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.. But one word Obama learned quickly in his new home was curang, which means "cheater." It can be very racially hostile, especially if youre white or black. I brood, Mr. Obamas friend Mr. Ramos said a few years ago. Hawaii had become a state only two years before Obama's birth, and there were plenty of native Hawaiians still deeply unhappy about it. Obama is spending the weekend golfing with Punahou School friends Greg Orme, Bobby Titcomb and Mike Ramos ahead of a summit of Southeast Asian leaders at the Sunnylands estate in Rancho. Barack Obama, #23, during his senior year at Punahou School, Honolulu. Through the haze of the 70s, they recall only the rat baller who was always up for a game. 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. 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. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, TIME Exclusive: President Obamas 1979 Prom Photos. 'We had great vibes between us.'. But any struggles he was experiencing were obscured by the fact that he had a racially diverse group of friends--many of whom often would crowd into his grandparents' apartment, near Punahou, after school let out. A close friend of Obama's from their teenage years, Greg Orme, spent so much time with Dunham that he, too, called him "Gramps." The photos and interviews are in the new issue of TIME, which is out on Friday. One day while visiting his mother, who was working at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Obama passed time by looking through several issues of Life magazine. Franklin D. Roosevelt made frequent trips back to Hyde Park, N.Y., throwing picnics or barbecues for former neighbors and friends, and George H.W. While Obama's prom photographs have never been seen before, details have previously emerged about his high school years. TIME Exclusive: President Obamas 1979 Prom Photos. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. The White House says Obama teed off Saturday at the nine-hole course at the Sunnylands retreat in Rancho Mirage with childhood friends Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme and Michael Ramos. He learned to adapt to unfamiliar territory. I would go out there and be the only white person. Ramos is most often referred to in stories about his relations with the president as a businessman. Barack Obama as a baby. He was probably studying them and learning from them. Electricity had arrived only a couple of years earlier. I guarantee he would have won a third term if he could have run again. 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. One of the neatest things is that he has promoted family, he said. "I don't imagine the decision to let him stay behind was an easy one for anyone," Soetoro-Ng said. John F. Kennedy had his band of brothers from wartime. Some seem to make Obama look better in the retelling, others appear to exaggerate his outward struggles over issues of race, or simply skim over some of the most painful, private moments of his life. Or Hawaiian. I get one, maybe.. 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. Oblivious to all of this was a perpetually smiling toddler the entire family called Barry. He was tenacious.. 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. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital When asked about the discrepancy, Obama said in a recent interview, "It might have been an Ebony or it might have been who knows what it was?" 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. Daily Mail Reporter, Images show Obama ahead of his prom night in Honolulu in 1979, The Obamas to return to Martha's Vineyard? But the reality of Obama's narrative is not that simple. ___ 10:40 a.m. 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. The U.S. military was expanding on the island of Oahu, home to the new capital of Honolulu. 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 wearing a white dinner jacket as he poses with friends on the night of their senior prom in Hawaii. 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. The Obamas attended a luau on Oahu's North Shore at the home of the president's childhood friend Bobby Titcomb, spending more than six hours at the gathering. One of his incredible legacies will be how he modeled being a family man. One of those friends, Neil Abercrombie, then a graduate student in the sociology department, frequently would see young Obama around town with his grandfather Stanley, whom Obama called "Gramps." 'You are extremely sweet and foxy, I don't know why Greg would want to spend any time with me at all!' He is undergoing what some have called the Profile Primary -- which is testing his ability to keep control of his public image, as journalists sketch portraits of the candidate as a young man and comb for contradictions and potential embarrassments in his past. That thoughtful poet is not remembered by any of his basketball buddies, coaches or friends. Mr Obama has remained close to Mr Orme over the years. 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. It was pretty typical from there out as far as what happens at prom: the dinner and the dancing and the photos.. News. On prom night, the pair double-dated. "He would be very helpful with friends. But it was on the court in the off-season that Obama seemed to be even happier. If you look at our teams, that year I was the only white guy on the starting five. ", We would be like, Hey lets go to the beach, Bendix recalled. The White House says President Obama has been updated on progress made by Iraqi force against the Islamic State group in Ramadi. Arkansas is filled with people still burned from their interactions with the national news media, which descended on the state during Bill Clintons 1992 campaign and stayed for his presidency, continuing to poke and prod at his business and personal dealings. He didnt have to see me, but he was a man of his word, he said. On his senior yearbook page, he left behind these words: We go play hoop.. He said he does recall long, soulful talks with the young Obama and that his friend confided his longing and loneliness. Obama and his Punahou School classmates Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme enjoyed a sunny and breezy day on the links. I hope we can keep in touch this summer, even though Greg will be gone.'. I know that was hard for him.". "He challenged the coaches.. Coaches have recalled how he never went anywhere without a ball. He showed leadership and caring for his teammates, McLachlin said. Obama, the son of a black father and white mother, stood out. Genevieve Cook, an elementary school teacher, and Obama met at a Christmas party in the East Village in 1983. . He would carry his books in one hand and his ball in the other," he said. Our second string should be playing more.'" The havoc time wreaks on fashion spares no one, not even the president of the United States. And once you started playing well, contributing on the court, pretty much the racial aspect goes away.. Outside of their regular vacation activities, the First Couple (along with Vice President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden) released their holiday playlists. Ramadi fell to IS in May, marking a major setback for Iraq and the U.S. Aging photos show Obama and Orme decked out in 1970s fashion with their dates before attending a high school prom. It remains a refuge for me when I travel there during the winter, my family and I, and see friends from high school.. The experience of being part of a winning team was important to Barry, to all of us.. Adept at nailing long jump shots, Obama was called "Barry O'Bomber" by teammates. Bailey, who coached Obama during his junior year and now runs an ambulance service, said young Barry was a "gym rat. Id put that up on e-Bay., Alan Lum, another teammate from the championship squad, who now teaches second grade at Punahou, has done enough interviews that his fellow teachers have started to rib him about his newfound fame. While the foursome gets together in Hawaii over the holidays each year, Titcomb, Orme and Ramos. While Obama got saddled with the nickname Barry OBomber, Maurer said he also "got teased a lot for taking hard to make shots.". 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. But Kakugawa, in the interview Saturday, said Obama's recollection of that conversation was mistaken. In a new introduction to the reissued edition of "Dreams," he noted that the dangers of writing an autobiography included "the temptation to color events in ways favorable to the writer [and] selective lapses of memory." 'The sexual warmth is definitely there,' Cook wrote in her journal. Israella Pareira Darmawan, Obama's 1st-grade teacher, said she attempted to help him learn the Indonesian language by going over pronunciation and vowel sounds. "Did you know that in Thomas Jefferson's day, and right up through the 1930s, anybody who had the price of tuition could go to Harvard? All four were classmates at Punahou School in Honolulu, which Obama has described as 'a prestigious prep school, an incubator for island elites. The 1979 photo was snapped inside the home of former classmate, Kelli Allman, who was the prom date of the president's close high schoolfriend, Greg Orme. For me its the unconditional love, its the nontransactional nature of the relationship that enduring quality that is something that I really value, he said. So far, it has been a narrative spun almost entirely on Obamas terms and in his own words -- most prominently in his bestselling memoir, Dreams From My Father.. "I went to those parties up at Schofield but never saw him at any of them." Obama is playing golf with three of his friends, Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme. When youre on a school team, theres more discipline involved, he said. Mr. Titcomb was golfing with the president within hours of the Obamas Dec. 21 arrival on Oahu. Titcomb has worked as a commercial fisherman and an airline employee, according to the school's alumni magazine. In its reissue after he gave the keynote address at the Democratic convention in 2004, "Dreams from My Father" joined a long tradition of political memoirs that candidates have used to introduce themselves to the American people. They got back in touch when she visited New York in 1982, before continuing a long-distance relationship that eventually fizzled out, according to his biographer David Maraniss. Obama, however, was not a part of that group, according to Anthony and Smith. We played a lot of playground ball.. Another story put forth in "Dreams" as one of Obama's pivotal moments of racial awakening checks out essentially as he wrote it. Speaking up for yourself., I gave them more playing time, McLachlin chuckled. A youth living in a distant land searches and finds new friends, a new language and a heartbreaking lesson about his identity in the pages of an American magazine. In his poem, An Old Man, there are glimpses of a tortured adolescent as well as a budding orator. The tenacity and determination Obama showed to make his high school basketball team was an early indicator of the greatness to come. Titcomb, who golfed another two days with Obama this month before the others got into town, was a year behind Obama at Punahou. But he wanted to make everybody happy." But such solitude has become less and less attainable for presidents in modern times. "It's their world, all right," Ray supposedly shouts at Obama. President Obama may have had a tough couple of weeks, but newly-released images will remind him of his more carefree days. Her date was Greg Orme, Obama's best friend. 'Many people call Obama aloof, and he hasn't made a lot of friends in Washington,' Brinkley said. This article originally appeared in the May 23, 2013 edition of TIME magazine underneath the title, Obamas Grand Old Party. To subscribe to TIME, click here. Instead we are producing Richard Nixons." Left: Kelli Allmans OAHUAN 1979 Yearbook. The reality was less tidy. On prom night, the pair double-dated. The motorcade arrived in Kapolei around 11:30 a.m. ___ This is my man! a delighted Obama said, Maurer recalled. The article included photos of a black man who had destroyed his skin with powerful chemical lighteners that promised to make him white. Daily Mail Reporter Memories of a racial awakening? The president turns 53 on Monday. His biggest struggles were his feelings of abandonment. It wasnt until 2008, when Obama was making his first run for president, that they saw each other again at a fundraiser. Allman said the two couples sipped Champagne before going to the dance, and then an after-party. Orme recalled that years later, at Obama's wedding reception in Chicago, Obama brought the crowd to tears when he spoke of his recently deceased maternal grandfather and how he made a little boy with an absent father feel as though he was never alone. Obama, who has talked and written so much about struggling to find a sense of belonging due to his mixed race, brushes over this time of his life in "Dreams." As you know, he made getting better health care for Americans one of his missions.. Barry spent his days at the Punahou School in Hawaii studying, shooting hoops and goofing off with his friends. Bendix said he and Obama stayed in touch and he was at his 2008 inauguration. 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. Far less is known about Obama's buddies, of course, than about the president himself. Third-grade teacher Fermina Katarina Sinaga, now 67, has perhaps the most telling story. Obama's motorcade left his Kailua vacation rental home at 10:48 a.m. under partly cloudy skies. The night, Obama later wrote, made him furious as he realized that whites held a "fundamental power" over blacks. "He was just one of those perfect [ethnic] mixes of everything you see in Hawaii." He had friends there, he was comfortable there, and to a kid his age, that's all that mattered." McLachlin said he survived a severe stroke shortly before Obama was elected president in 2008. More than 40 interviews with former classmates, teachers, friends and neighbors in his childhood homes of Hawaii and Indonesia, as well as a review of public records, show the arc of Obama's personal journey took him to places and situations far removed from the experience of most Americans. 00:53 GMT 31 Dec 2014 Topolinski, who now lives in Washington state, said he lost touch with Obama after high school and they moved into different political camps. "He was a very provocative thinker. 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. The teacher, who still lives in Obama's old neighborhood, remembers that he always sat in the back corner of her classroom. McCormack - now Kelli Allman - told TIME that the group sipped champagne before enjoying an evening of photos, dinner and dancing. Hawaii is a remarkable place, he said. Although their paths have long since diverged, they've made it a point to gather for frequent reunions, in one of Obama's most visible links to the days when his life was much simpler and his problems more mundane. But its fun to imagine that in one of those pictures, theres a girl in a pastel dress or a lanky guy in a white sport coat who will end up becoming the leader of the free world. We get together for golf, he said. The president was returning to the White House on Monday. She wistfully showed a reporter the love note Obama wrote in June 1979. Wed drive around in my van listening to Earth, Wind & Fire and looking for places to play, he said. "He'd go right up to the coach during a game and say, `Coach, we're killing this team. 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. Of course, Obama embraced the image of the athlete, dribbling a ball to school and between classes. Life without a father It was a complicated time. "His friends called him `Negro,' " Darmawan said. In 2011, he pleaded no contest to soliciting a prostitute, but Obama has stayed fiercely loyal to his childhood friend. "Junkie. "Barry liked to draw heroes." Not many presidents retained friendships from as far back as high school, although George W. Bush had close friends from his prep school days at Andover. He knew the really small apartment that Mr. Obama lived in with his grandparents and what a talker Gramps was. When kids teased him, Obama yelled back, "Curang, curang!" So did Maurer, who is now a pastor in Houston. We had to prove ourselves, focus on playing good ball. We are just such a mixed-up bag of races. It was very important to me all the way through my teenage years.. They agreed to rendezvous in Hawaii every year for the holidays, and their reunions became regular even as Mr. Obama was busy climbing to senator and president, a path none of them imagined nearly four decades ago and 5,000 miles from Washington. And he clearly didn't appreciate that," Orme said. "Punahou was an amazing school," Smith said. 'When you're president, everybody wants something from you and only these types of friends are able to simply want your well-being. 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. Once again, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, who had been as much parents as grandparents throughout the young man's life, said he could live with them. Magazines, Digital After their relationship, she went on to marry a Serbian Boxer named Bob Bozic who once tried to rob $60,000 from a bank. In a newly unearthed photo published Thursday in TIME magazine, a 17-year-old Barack Obama is seen wearing a white dinner jacket as he poses with friends on the night of their senior prom in Hawaii. Yet those who knew him disputed that during recent interviews. Hopefully now that hes done well get to see each other more, he said. "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. Old friend disputes memoir Every senior graduating from Punahou gets to design a quarter-page in the yearbook. Or Japanese. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. He then wrote down his number, encouraging Allman to give him a call, and signed off 'Barry Obama'. College would be his next stop. But Obama never gave up and his work ethic was second to none on this team. The President of the United States is no different. "Like being black was a funny costume in and of itself," recalled Smith, now a doctor who specializes in geriatrics in California. Mr. Obamas concern, Mr. Axelrod said, was for Mr. Titcomb, whose arrest was international news because he happened to be Barack Obamas friend.. 14:27 GMT 23 May 2013 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. ', '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.'. "Barry's biggest struggles then were missing his parents. "If this story is eight paragraphs, seven of them go to Greg. 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. He said they adored his slam-dunking style and no-look passing, but their coaches were not fans. I hadnt seen him for 30 years.. (D-Hawaii), a close friend of Obama . Barry spent his days at the Punahou School in Hawaii studying, shooting hoops and goofing off with his friends. He and I really clicked. As Obama's senior year drew to a close, his mother sent him letters from afar, about life in Indonesia and her work there with non-profit groups doing economic development. And he frequently made peace--even allies--with the very people who angered him most. The attention on Obamas time at Punahou -- a country club campus with nine tennis courts, an Olympic-size pool and an endowment of $180 million -- represents the next important challenge for a celebrity politician who leapt onto the national stage with a few swift strides. Bobby Titcomb Photos Photos - US President Barack Obama repares to putt on the 18th green as friend Greg Orme retrieves his ball and Darell Harrington (2nd R) and Bobby Titcomb (R) look on at the . 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. Zulfan Adi was one of the neighborhood kids who teased Obama most mercilessly. His spelling wasnt too good either, he said, referring to the note Obama wrote in his high school year book. In one photo he hugs his beaming sister. (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. Orme would stay for the games. Hawaii is a melting pot, a very intense place if youre a kid. HONOLULU (AP) The Latest on President Barack Obama's annual two-week vacation in Hawaii (all times local): 4 p.m. Because of his biracial heritage, he said, he was "like everyone in Hawaii, a mix of a lot of things." Although the Choom Gang has come to define Mr. Obamas high school circle owing partly to the presidents memoir, Dreams From My Father, and a notation that Mr. Obama made in his senior yearbook thanking the group for good times Mr. Ramos said in an interview after leaving Oahu this week that the phrase does not describe their circle. 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. 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 said Obama may have come across as easy going, but he was no pushover. The three men - Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg. And while they did enjoy marijuana, Mr. Ramos acknowledged, we played a lot more basketball than we smoked pot.. He said that of the three, only Mr. Orme, another Punahou hoops player, was in the gang that Mr. Obama described. He took out (Osama) Bin Laden. , updated One place Obama has said he found a sense of community was on the basketball court. 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. Hes exhibited class and dignity all the way through it. He was always very calm, very level-headed, very rational. Anyone can read what you share. Mr. Orme was unable to travel to Hawaii for the recent holiday, but the others called him twice. A member of the varsity squad, though not a starter, Obama and his teammates brought Punahou the state championship in 1979, his senior year. We could all be hotheads at times, but he was very diplomatic, he said. From TIME's press release on the. Allman said that she thought highly of Obama, who was 'very intelligent and witty'. They have a different level of affection for you than friends you meet later in life. He attended a college basketball game with the first family the next day, and this week he and his wife hosted their annual barbecue for the other families, including those of the Obamas Chicago friends Eric Whitaker and Marty Nesbitt. Cook wrote that she saw his perfect woman as 'very strong, very upright, a fighter, a laugher, experienced - a black woman I keep seeing her as'. I was certainly oblivious to a lot of what he references, Hale said in an interview. In his best-selling autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," Obama describes having heated conversations about racism with another black student, "Ray."

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