This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, from the arts to sports and from business to history and everything in between, including your

stories, send them to Our American Stories.com. That's our American Stories.com. They're some of our

favorites. And now our own Alex Cortez brings us the voice of someone who's worked at the highest

levels of two radically different yet similar jobs.

But you might not have expected it, giving this beginning, this very early start of his life.

There was this lady named O.C. Pittsfield that was allowed to come into our home and she became the lady that

cared for me and took care of me. Instead of the Stockton kid, Earl Smith's mom. As a result of that,

I really bonded with O.C. Pittsfield, who I called Grandma. And she was like the protector for me.

My dad worked three jobs, and he was my best friend, and he still is, even though he's passed away.

And in the midst of all of that, as I grew up, I felt a sense of rejection.

Especially around a memory of when he was four years old

and he was sitting with his mom and her friends. And Earl noticed that the bottle for the newborn

baby sitting on one of the ladies' laps was empty and being told, shut up, fool for what he said.

I said that baby ain't got no milk and, you know, being slapped, being embarrassed to the point

that I wet my pants because the women and the women are laughing and I got slapped.

And I'm this little kid and I felt like, wow, it was a horrible feeling to be laughed at.

I don't know what age people can go back and remember things from, but when you're four years old and you can remember an incident like that,

that puts a print.

It stamps something into your memory, into that memory bank that it just doesn't go away.

And what I did not realize was my mom had her own stuff in her box,

and she was trying to deal with her stuff,

and I was part of the stuff that she wasn't quite sure how to maneuver through.

...