My whole life I have been seen as a weird person, even in here I am viewed as weird. Hell, even some officers call me weird. People at the church I attended thought of me as weird as I presented ideas to bring people into the fold. If they were impressed by those ideas, they mainly wanted to take them and implement them themselves for the sake of getting credit. I never cared for credit, but for results. If lives were changed by exposure to God’s grace, it didn’t matter to me who got the credit, God would know who was who. But jealousy, and (I guess) fear of me being too popular or having too much influence made enemies in the church that I didn’t want, or need.
My whole way of seeing the world is weird, and sadly that have left me somewhat crippled. I had a friend who died on May 8, 2011 (Detlyne Regis) from a major heart attack. He was a true friend, a loyal friend, a hard working man, a good father, husband, brother and overall stand up fella. His word was as good as diamond, if he told you that it would rain on Wednesday, buy an umbrella on Tuesday. He was dependable, nonjudgmental, supporting, funny, and easy going. His motto of choice was, “Expect No Less!” And he lived up to the creed, he had to die to disappoint me.
Growing up, he and I would sit on the stair in our apartment building in Opa-Locka (Miami) and dream up of things to build. We would tear apart radios, and TVs to see how they worked. I never had a grasp of their inner workings, but he always tried to explain them to me. I would be the one with the crazy ideas, that I would try to draw on paper and after we argued over it for hours, the next day he would come up with a gadget that resembled it. We build elevators together using electric motors from old toys, DJ sets (in an effort to mimic the DJ’s who would set their 30 – 40 speaker towers in the parking lot and jam in the summer times. Mind you this is the mid 80’s and early 90’s.
Life went on and we separated, but no matter how long we went without seeing each other, the moment we hooked up again, 5 minutes together and it’s as if we hadn’t been distanced for years. We would talk about things we saw on the news (the bad things) and I would tell him of an idea I have to fix the problem. Unlike other friends who called me crazy when I presented a new ideas, he was always interested, and my ideas always challenged the mechanic in him. I watched him marry his high school sweetheart, purchase his first condo, have his first son, and I rejoiced on the sideline to know that he was progressing in the world.
The first time I ever got in trouble he made sure no one messed with my sister, if I had to fight he made sure I never got jumped. The one thing we always dreamed of doing was opening a shop where we can build all of this ideas I had and get them patented and manufactured in Haiti, where jobs could be created and the quality of life could improved. There were other so-called friends who had money (drug money), but they hated my ability to think of things in different ways, and a lot them hated the idea of me being able to become rich with my ideas. I didn’t care about bieng rich, I wanted to help solve the problems in my home country.
They would laugh at my ideas, call me crazy, say that the idea was stupid, yet they failed to realize that not thinking outside of the box was the primary reason Haiti was in the economic mess that it is in right this moment. In my culture, jealousy, envy, and witchcraft were something that sullied, and permeated my people, (which I also believed crippled their progress, and cursed the land, but I digress as it is only my opinion).
In July 26, 2002, I visited my friend’s mom in the hospital, and there I hugged and kissed his son for the first time. In the parking lot of the hospital, after spending time with his mom, and dad, he and I sat in my car and spoke for nearly 2 hours, and I knew that he wanted me to make the move and pursue my dreams.
I had enough money to pay for my rent and other living expenses, but was in no position to finance a start up. Mind you back then a brother in Miami knew nothing of Venture Capital funding, and if we were ever aware of it, the doors would have remained shut to us and our crazy ideas. I left that day with the intention of securing $250,000 in cash to work on 2 majors ideas that I knew would be easy to build, and take to market. I left Miami the next day and have not been back since. My friend died and left 2 boys to fend for themselves in this world and I am no where to offer assistance.
In my typical weird way, I dared to write a couple of venture firms with the intention of having them mine for gold (new business ideas) in the most unlikely of places, prison, but alas. I wanted to interest one of them to view the financing of my fight for freedom as part of the seed money for the future prototypes that I would build, (after all, I can’t produce, if I’m locked up right?).
If you decide to call me crazy after reading this note, I won’t hold it against you, but in my situation and that of other 3rd world countries, shouldn’t other methods of attacking problems (sickness, poverty, lack of education, lack of adequate health care, unjust incarcerations) be examined and encouraged?
In honor and memory of my friend, I want to name my shop, D.R.I.L which stands for Detlyne, Roman, Inventive, Laboratory. Our motto will be “Expect No Less” and I want to be able to promise little and deliver much.