Column:

Kevin Babb makes the best of life

By Jacob Houska

Published Sept. 26, 2008

Kevin Babb punched a hole in the wall right above my brother's bed. Then he punched my brother. Then he stormed out of my house faster than Jeremy Maclin can run the 40. Then he called a month later, apologized and fixed the hole. Then he called two months later with his tail between his legs and asked for a place to stay. For some reason, someone told him yes and that he had two weeks to get his life together. Six months later, he still lived in my home and had managed to graduate high school during that time - something he had pretty much given up on before. Now he's 21, has a job, his own house and a music career that is making him money, even though he would do it for free. "Its not like I'm Lil Wayne, I haven't made enough to retire yet, but I enjoy doing it," Kevin said, downplaying what's really going on with his talent. Even if he never makes a dollar, it has already made him rich. If he didn't have this outlet for his frustration, he might not have graduated high school and he absolutely wouldn't be someone without a single unhealthy habit. People are generally products of their environment. That's why kids who don't know their dads and whose mothers are in prison for selling drugs generally don't do many good things in life. I'm not saying they can't, I'm just saying they probably won't. If the cards you are dealt suck, you're probably not gonna win many poker tournaments. But here's a kid who never met his dad, whose mom went to prison his senior year of high school for selling prescription painkillers and whose mom's ex-fiancé committed suicide in their home. "I'm still dealing with all the harsh realities of the world, and sometimes I can't help but be pessimistic. But I'm trying to grab the world by the horns and tear it down," he vowed with an indescribable look of determination. Everyone has so many things they shouldn't do that they absolutely have to do, just to avoid going completely insane. If you show me a person who studies five days in a row for 10 hours a day for a test he or she has on a Friday, I'll show you a person who is getting hammered that Friday night. So, applying that logic, if I show you a kid who was born to a 17-year-old mother and an alcoholic father he never met, was constantly betrayed by those close to him, watched his mother get hauled off to jail when he was 17, and had to strictly eat cheese, bread and mustard for weeks at a time to save money for his mother's heroine addiction, you might expect me to also show you a delinquent deadbeat who needs drugs to be happy and will probably wind up on Judge Judy. Instead, I show you Kevin. He doesn't smoke, didn't drink (he recently turned 21), and doesn't even swear in his music. I know this because he lived at my house for more than a year. He turned chicken shit into chicken salad. He punched my sibling and punched a wall, but made a great friend in the process. Just like usual, he turned a bad situation into a good one. In the game of poker, a great player can sometimes overcome an awful string of cards and still come out on top. In the game of life, a great person can sometimes do the same. Kevin did.