Excerpted from Go to Your Destiny,
by
Alvin and Calvin Harrison. Published
by
Hyperion, New York. Used by permission.
Twins Alvin and Calvin Harrison were born prematurely to a 16-year-old mother in Orlando, Florida. By the time they themselves were teenagers, they were living on their own in Salinas, California. Although track stars in their high school years, the boys eked out a precarious existence, often hoping simply for a "warm blanket and a hot bowl of soup." By 1995, they were living in a car parked on top of a hill in rural California, praying for a way out of their predicament.
Who could have guessed that just a few years later, both brothers would be Olympic athletes --- and that millions would watch one brother passing the baton to his twin in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games?
Calvin
There was a hill a few miles up the road from Marie's house. We decided to park the car there. We sat across the street from a small ranch house that had cows behind it in a field. To our right was a dried up creek bed lined with pine trees and weeds. We chose that spot because hardly anyone drove through that area. We had some blankets and we flipped a coin. Alvin would get the backseat. I would sleep in the front. No big deal, we thought. One or two nights in the car was nothing we hadn't done before. We could handle a couple of days in the car. No problem. At first, it was even kind of fun.
Alvin
The first night was easy. By the third night it had started to become old. By the end of the first week we didn't know if the situation would ever improve. That's when reality started to set in. Pretty soon three weeks had gone by and we were still sleeping in that Mustang every night. Every morning I looked up at the sky and asked God, "How much longer?"
Continued on page 2: »
