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. Former playmates remember Obama as "Barry Soetoro," or simply "Barry," a chubby little boy very different from the gangly Obama people know today. 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. 'We had great vibes between us.'. 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. And when tempers flared, Barry was the peacemaker. "He never verbalized any of that," Orme said during a telephone interview from his home in Oregon. Some, like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, counted later acquaintances among political donors as friends. With Obama just days away from turning over the reins to Donald Trump, Coach Mac and some of the guys young Barry played ball with at their Honolulu prep school reflected on his presidency and their playing years with pride. By ---------- Kirsten Scharnberg reported from Honolulu and Kim Barker from Jakarta, Indonesia; Tribune staff reporter Ray Gibson contributed to this report. As you know, he made getting better health care for Americans one of his missions.. A boy wants to find his place in a family where he is visibly different: chubby where others are thin, dark where others are light. The 1979 photo was snapped inside the home of former classmate, Kelli Allman, who was the prom date of the pr, Fashion alert! When Obama was in 4th grade, the Soetoro family moved. After a recent lunch with a reporter, he winked at a table of faculty-lounge colleagues and joked, This one is with Playgirl.. Yet even Obama has acknowledged the limits of memoir. The three men - Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg. 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. It can be very racially hostile, especially if youre white or black. Thats what we did to fit in, he said. College would be his next stop. Meanwhile, the search continues for Obamas closest high school friends -- the self-proclaimed Basketball Jones, who raced around the island in Darin Maurers two-toned beige VW van with the band Earth, Wind and Fire blaring from the cassette deck. They only did it to Barry." 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. Mr. Titcomb was golfing with the president within hours of the Obamas Dec. 21 arrival on Oahu. The photos appear in the new issue of TIME, which hits news stands Friday. The fourth person in the picture is Obama's date,Megan Hughes. 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." But the reality of Obama's narrative is not that simple. When she told him she loved him, he responded with 'thank you', according to Maraniss, and they broke up in May 1985. "Barry's biggest struggles then were missing his parents. He had friends there, he was comfortable there, and to a kid his age, that's all that mattered." Greg? He rode a bright blue tricycle with red, white and blue streamers dangling from the handlebars. Likewise for Mr. Obama, it seems. They're not his wife and daughters, who came with him, but a trio of pals whose friendship dates back to Obama's high school days in Hawaii. Bendix added that he was not shocked when Obama was elected president. 'He and I really clicked,' she told TIME. His love for Michelle and Sasha and Malia is outstanding. 'We were all cracking up, and everyone was smiling.'. They're not his wife and daughters, who came with him, but a trio of pals whose friendship dates back to Obama's high school days in Hawaii. The Latest: Obamas, friends tour Hawaii Islamic arts center She also sent advice about his future. Daily Mail Reporter Young Barack Obama in a 7th grade photo in 1974 at Punahou School, Honolulu, Hawaii. He was probably studying them and learning from them. For Orme, the Obama he saw on the court was a lot like the Obama who occupied the White House a team player who liked to win. We have this tradition to head home to Hawaii for Christmas. Yet those who knew him disputed that during recent interviews. They have a different level of affection for you than friends you meet later in life. We have had presidents who have not modeled that super well., We had a long basketball career together, Orme recalled in a telephone interview from his home in Eugene, Oregon. After years during which the friends grew apart, Mr. Obama reconnected with Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme a decade ago. Kelli Allman is the pretty redhead pictured in the photo. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. 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 . Corky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital. 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. 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. For a reputed loner, Mr. Obama has remained remarkably close to a trio he met as a teenager at Honolulus prestigious Punahou School boys of Hawaiis year-round summer with whom he played basketball, bodysurfed, drank beer and, like so many other young islanders in the 1970s, smoked pot, the choom of that long-ago nickname. If someone is brown, they can be Samoan or Fijian or Tongan. That thoughtful poet is not remembered by any of his basketball buddies, coaches or friends. Many of the men were black. Obama is. Others almost certainly illustrate how carefully the young man guarded the secret of his loneliness from even those who knew him best. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Two Russian tanks annihilated with bombs by Ukrainian armed forces, Ukraine soldiers shoot down enemy drones with drones of their own, Dozens stuck in car park as staff refuses to open gate for woman, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Insane moment river of rocks falls onto Malibu Canyon in CA, Fleet-footed cop chases an offender riding a scooter, Isabel Oakeshott clashes with Nick Robinson over Hancock texts. And he frequently made peace--even allies--with the very people who angered him most. He said Obama may have come across as easy going, but he was no pushover. We get together for golf, he said. Others are more skeptical that the boy known as Barry felt the angst described by Barack. In an essay about what he wanted to be when he grew up, Obama "wrote he wanted to be president," Sinaga recalled. But twice that year the group gathered in Hawaii in August before the Democratic National Convention and in December after Mr. Obamas election. A high school friend has shared photographs of Obama at his prom night withTIME magazine - as well as a very friendly note he penned in her yearbook, in which he calls her 'sweet and foxy'. 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. These previously unpublished photos, obtained exclusively by TIME from Obama's schoolmate Kelli Allman (ne McCormack), show a 17-year-old Barack Obama on the night of his senior prom.. 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. (Photo by Joaquin Siopack-Pool/Getty Images) KAILUA, HI - DECEMBER 29: (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. In the 2004 presidential campaign, both John F. Kerry and President Bush were embroiled in disputes over their Vietnam-era records, controversies that were stoked by the conflicting recollections of people who knew them. "Suddenly we asked, `Where's Barry?' Hes exhibited class and dignity all the way through it. While the foursome gets together in Hawaii over the holidays each year, Titcomb, Orme and Ramos. Get-togethers in the decades after high school were rare as the men built careers and families, although Mr. Ramos, Mr. Titcomb and Mr. Orme attended the Obamas Chicago wedding in 1992. And having a Hawaiian in the White House made them all proud. Elite Dutch colonists once lived there; the Japanese moved in during their occupation of Indonesia in World War II. Throughout his youth, as depicted in his first book, he always found ways to meld into even the most uninviting of communities. For the past two weeks, he has been recharging on Oahu after an unpleasant year in the job. He made an appointment to see me one day and he brought along a couple other guys who wanted more playing time, Chris McLachlin recalled. Hopefully now that hes done well get to see each other more, he said. 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. They're not his wife and daughters, who came with him, but a trio of pals whose friendship dates back to Obama's high school days in Hawaii. Obama devotes many words in his book to exploring his outsider status at Punahou. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. "Stanley loved that little boy," said Abercrombie, now a Democratic congressman from Hawaii. "In the absence of his father, there was not a kinder, more understanding man than Stanley Dunham. Among his supporters, his likability and credibility have only been boosted by his stories of being an outsider trying to fight his way in. The first family has attended Titcomb's annual luaus in the past. "I went to those parties up at Schofield but never saw him at any of them." Hes not like that.. ', In his memoir, 'Dreams From My Father,' Obama recalled a high school career that was, for the most part, ordinary 'marginal report cards and calls to the principal's office; part-time jobs at the burger chain; acne and driving tests and turbulent desire. 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. In August, Obama kicked off his 53rd birthday weekend golfing with the three friends in suburban Maryland before heading to Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains. But he took the high road and showed a lot of integrity. The reality was less tidy. Here is how some of Obamas former teammates and coaches remember those years: To understand President Obama, you have to understand his Hawaiian roots, Maurer said. Or Japanese. Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb, and Greg Orme-friends from Obama's high school daze in Hawaii-joined the president for a round on the links at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Saturday morning. It was also how he wanted to be remembered. Associated Press , updated "If this story is eight paragraphs, seven of them go to Greg. The three men - Mike Ramos (right), Bobby Titcomb (not pictured) and Greg Orme (left) - are among the few people still in Obama's life who knew him long before he was famous. remembered Ati Kisjanto, 45. But one word Obama learned quickly in his new home was curang, which means "cheater." But I was pretty wrapped up in my own world back then.. 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. Those are qualities a president should have. When a friend gave him shrimp paste instead of chocolate, he yelled, "Curang, curang!" Right: Obama wrote the above note in Allmans yearbook at the end of his senior year in 1979. I guarantee he would have won a third term if he could have run again. All three live mostly private lives when they're not being photographed with the commander in chief. He didnt have to see me, but he was a man of his word, 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.. "Not even close," he said, adding that Obama was dealing with "some inner turmoil" in those days. Maybe we could have helped him. In 2011, he pleaded no contest to soliciting a prostitute, but Obama has stayed fiercely loyal to his childhood friend. There was his mother, Ann, a brilliant but impulsive woman; his grandmother Madelyn, a deeply private and stoically pragmatic Midwesterner; his grandfather Stanley, a loving soul inclined toward tall tales and unrealistic dreams. But absent from those discussions, they say, was another student then known as Barry Obama. Hed tell us to move on if we got into it with another player. Ramos is most often referred to in stories about his relations with the president as a businessman. Tucked away in someone elses shoe box of adolescent artifacts, there might be a picture of you in garish clothes and with an outdated do, your arm around a high school squeeze. We could all be hotheads at times, but he was very diplomatic, he said. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Incredible footage of Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russians in Bakhmut, Fleet-footed cop chases an offender riding a scooter, Two Russian tanks annihilated with bombs by Ukrainian armed forces, Isabel Oakeshott clashes with Nick Robinson over Hancock texts, Dozens stuck in car park as staff refuses to open gate for woman, Insane moment river of rocks falls onto Malibu Canyon in CA. Just as he was the only African-American on the basketball team, he was also the only jock working on the schools literary magazine, Ka Wai Ola. Obama, too, was about to journey far from these familiar shores. 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. Titcomb, who golfed another two days with Obama this month before the others got into town, was a year behind Obama at Punahou. And when Obama came back for Christmas, he got invited to join the new president at a pickup basketball game. Electricity had arrived only a couple of years earlier. Having their back. He said that of the three, only Mr. Orme, another Punahou hoops player, was in the gang that Mr. Obama described. "He challenged the coaches.. He also was one of the only neighborhood children whose parents enrolled him in a new Catholic school in an area populated almost entirely by Betawis, the old tribal landowning Jakarta natives who were very traditional Muslims. During her son's earliest years, Obama's mother, whose full name was Stanley Ann Dunham because her father desperately had wished for a boy, attended college at the University of Hawaii. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. 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. The annual gatherings perhaps speak to Mr. Obamas greater need for their connection now that he has what is called the loneliest job in the world. Hes been so gracious to him.. Now lots of people are interested in helping graduates of Punahou School jog their foggy memories, trolling for revelations about a young man who spent much of his time that season riding the bench. Or f------ Eskimo." "But he wanted to remain at Punahou. He'd pick them up if they fell down,'' Darmawan recalled. Barack Obama as a sophomore with the junior varsity basketball team at Punahou School, Honolulu, in 1977. His spelling wasnt too good either, he said, referring to the note Obama wrote in his high school year book. I think hes done great with all the stuff he inherited, like the recession and the two wars. "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? 'You really deserve better than clowns like us; you even laugh at my jokes! He would bring up worldly topics far beyond his years. And they have cheered Obama on even when they disagreed with him. 'The sexual warmth is definitely there,' Cook wrote in her journal. The president was returning to the White House on Monday. Since returning to his childhood home this month on vacation, President Barack Obama has spent a good part of most days cloistered with three people whose company puts him at ease. We didnt aim high enough., Every time I see him on television its surreal, said Topolinski. "He'd go right up to the coach during a game and say, `Coach, we're killing this team. Outside of their regular vacation activities, the First Couple (along with Vice President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden) released their holiday playlists. All four were classmates at Punahou School in Honolulu, which Obama has described as 'a prestigious prep school, an incubator for island elites. If Obama did show flashes of anger or hurt, according to friends and teammates, it sprang from his lack of minutes on the basketball court more than his angst as a young black man in a multiracial society. I dont know why people have slammed him like that, said Maurer. 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?" 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." John F. Kennedy had his band of brothers from wartime. He remembers one day when young Obama, a hopelessly upbeat boy who seemed oblivious to the fact that the older kids didn't want him tagging along, followed a group of Adi's friends to a nearby swamp. When it rained, Obama and his pals went bowling, instead. We have so many tones of brown here. Hes off the grid, said Hale, who is now the schools head basketball coach. Their. They were. The U.S. military was expanding on the island of Oahu, home to the new capital of Honolulu. 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. Barack Obama as a baby. I don't see that we are producing many Thomas Jeffersons nowadays. "He didn't say what country he wanted to be president of. When youre on a school team, theres more discipline involved, he said. He is 9 years old, living in Indonesia, where he and his mother moved with her new husband, Lolo Soetoro, a few years earlier. 21:01 GMT 31 Dec 2014. Of course, Obama embraced the image of the athlete, dribbling a ball to school and between classes. She wistfully showed a reporter the love note Obama wrote in June 1979. . Aging photos show Obama and Orme decked out in 1970s fashion with their dates before attending a high school prom. 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. Still, all of his teachers at the Catholic school recognized leadership qualities in him. The Los Angeles Times weighed in the other day. Once content to join their parents for outings to the aquarium or to get shave ice, Sasha and Malia are now more independent. Another story put forth in "Dreams" as one of Obama's pivotal moments of racial awakening checks out essentially as he wrote it. Bendix said he and Obama stayed in touch and he was at his 2008 inauguration. Even though Trump is a loose cannon at least he will stick up for what he believes.. After graduating in 1979, Maurer wound up at Stanford where he made the team as a walk on and found God. We played a lot of playground ball.. Obama spent the weekend in California after meeting Friday at a resort with Jordan's king. At the same time, several of his oft-recited stories may not have happened in the way he has recounted them. Since 1995, Kakugawa has spent more than 7 years in California prisons and months in Los Angeles County Jail on cocaine and auto theft charges. The president turns 53 on Monday. The term wasn't considered a slur at the time in Indonesia. But the reality felt far different for the handful of African-Americans attending classes there. ', '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.'. But Obama never gave up and his work ethic was second to none on this team. But after practice theyd hit the public courts. Right around then, we really started getting into basketball., Obama was all business when it came to "the game. The number at Dunhams apartment in a nondescript Honolulu high rise has not changed in more than a quarter-century.
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