Jessie Zorzella: Growing Up in Lawrence Heights

Jessie Zorzella: Growing Up in Lawrence Heights

I was born at North York General Hospital on September 9^th, 1988. I came home from the hospital to Lawrence Heights. 51 Blossomfield- I think it was the 3^rd floor.

We lived there until I was about 4, then we moved to 21 Varna, over the bridge, into the 5 bedroom houses. We were there until 2001 and then we moved to 41 Bagot Court. That’s the house I lived in until I moved out of Lawrence Heights.

Young Jessie

Too many (big laugh)

I have my older sister Collette Zorzella, she’s the eldest, then my brother Christopher Zorzella, then it’s me, then my brother Jacob Zorzella and then there’s twin sisters, they’re the youngest. Their names are Michelle and Monique.

What was it like growing up in Lawrence Heights?

It was fun- I loved it. I wouldn’t really trade it for anything. We used to have manhunts, play every sport, we used to ride bikes, made up games.

I don’t even know- I guess it would have to be my Super Nintendo. One time I asked my Dad to get me a Super Nintendo for my birthday and he just laughed and laughed- like it was the stupidest question I ever asked, it was expensive. And when it was my birthday, I opened it up and I got the Super Nintendo. I already wrote it off in mind cause I didn’t think I would get it. I was really happy. My Dad was laughing.

Well, my younger sisters they were just like a committee of two, they did their own things. Collette my older sister, she was in and out a lot. It was just like the boys I guess. It was mostly my brother Jacob and me, we were so close in age, we’re only 18 months apart and we spent a lot of time. My older brother and his friends and our cousins, they used to come over. It was like a mini-community centre in our house.

Jessie and Jacob Zorzella

The first school I went to was Flemington Public School from Kindergarten to Grade 5. I wasn’t the most well behaved student there (laughs) But it was a lot of fun. I liked my kindergarten teacher, Miss Oldenberg, she was nice.

I loved playing hockey, when the police had a little league. We played a school from Black Creek, or from Jane and Finch or Rexdale. It was really fun.

What was the best thing about growing up in Lawrence Heights?

Probably that there was always someone to play with. There was always so much kids around. I was the kind of kid that would go anywhere in Lawrence Heights, I would just get on my bike and find someone to play with. That was really fun.

(Laughs) well we used to love wrestling and pretend we were WWF wrestlers. We used to try and do the best moves. One time Hot Rod Murray ordered a WWF Championship Wrestling Belt from TV. So then we started playing 24 hour matches- anytime you see each other, you could fight for the belt, you just had to have someone there to do the count. Hot Rod always had the belt, he was bigger than us. You could fight him for it and sometimes he would make it interesting- you could be winning him for a while but then he’d always get it back a few minutes later. One time Jamoy got it off him- he pinned him and got the belt and ran home with it. Hot Rod was pissed, because he lost the belt. (laughs) All my other funny stories are bad- I don’t want them in there (laughs)

Yea, for sure.

Basketball, cause that’s just what everyone plays here. I really like football. I like baseball, hockey and soccer. In basketball we just played, we were all pretty much guards, we’re all the same height. We all play the same position really. In football, I could pretty much play anything.

I could throw the ball good (laughs). In high school I played corner back.

Jessie wears the wrestling belt
OK what was your best subject in school?

Hallway….lunchtime?? (laughs)

French was my worse subject. I wish I was good at it, I really do. I wish I could speak it. I tried but it wouldn’t work. The first French teacher I had was really good but I always gave him a lot of problems. His name was Mr. Vicaria. He taught me so much - all the French I know is pretty much from him. He used to do magic tricks. He used to have a system, it was called Gold Point. If he asked you a question and you knew the answer he would give you Gold Points. Maybe if I would have paid attention I would have done better later on. But I just wasn’t behaving in school at that time.

After I graduated from Flemington Public School, I went to Lawrence Heights Middle School. That’s when I started really liking school.

Doctor Chris Spence. He made it fun, to go to school, all the activities. He gave us a say in things, like someone was listening to us. He made us black kids growing up feel like we had a place in the world. He made things fun - like the choir. You might think what boys would want to be in the choir but everyone wanted to be in the choir because of how he runs things. And he got the teachers to buy into the way he did things. It wasn’t like a textbook education, it was real. He let kids did the announcements their way, and things like that. Memorable times.

But when he left, it went back to shit. That’s when I started getting in trouble again. I missed out on a whole bunch of stuff.

When you were growing up, what did you think about the surrounding neighbourhood, and the fence between the communities?

We knew the other side as the Jewish area. Before we knew they were Jewish, we used to think they were white Amish people (laughing). Then my Mom explained it. We knew they had big houses that looked different. The fence was just there, we didn’t really think about it. We never went into the other neighbourhood, we just used to go through it to the library or Lawrence Plaza. We knew which yards had peach bushes and cherries and stuff, sometimes we got caught stealing their fruit. We never mixed with any people from there.

To a certain point. I probably realized toward the end of middle school. People started making fun of you, your shoes, that kind of thing. I knew that I couldn’t get certain things, it was too expensive. Like I wanted to go play hockey, but I couldn’t play hockey because we had too much kids. And my brothers wanted to play hockey too. And even down to the stuff we ate too. Like during the week it would be just like hot dogs, macaroni, whatever. We would get like one good meal during the week. Like sitting down all around the table with mountains of food all around, it wasn’t like that. Unless we went to summer camp. That was the best part. The food. I went to summer camp from about 5 or 6 until I was about 13.

The best thing was the food. You had breakfast, lunch and dinner. There was so much. My Mom worked at this camp one summer, it was like a camp for regular kids. She worked in the kitchen and we got to go. And we were the only black kids there, they were scared of us. But the Scott Mission Camp was the best. So now it’s everyone from all these different neighbourhoods were together. Everyone is coming from a Housing neighbourhood. It was a hundred times more fun. I went there for a couple of years from when I was about 10 or 11. Those were the times you started liking girls and stuff (laughs). Now there was girls that actually liked you. Once I started doing my foolishness, we had a lot of fun. I still see people around from those days.

I’m trying to think. I would just have my Granny make me a regular meal like she does. I would have fried salmon, chicken, macaroni pie, rice and peas. I used to hate brussel sprouts so much when I was a kid, but now I just cut them up and eat them with the meat. Whatever my Granny makes, I’ll just eat it.

Jessie and Jacob judge a pie eating contest


You were always around a lot of kids in your life, right?

Always. I really like being around kids. It’s kind of refreshing, they don’t care about the kind of stuff that adults care about. They keep you up to date with stuff too.

I went to Sir Sanford Fleming for 2 years. It was shit. There was nothing to do. We didn’t have a ball team, there was no programs. In Grade 11 I went to Central Tech. I met a bunch of new people. I went there to play football. That was my goal. I played defensive back - corner. I did really good. My coach there actually liked me - I think his name was Mr. Whitfield. At first he didn’t remember my name. But then one time in practice they did some kind of play fake, it was like a bootleg. It was like a fake hand off. The quarterback ran and faked everyone. I’m the only person that didn’t bite and I stopped the play. I saw the whole thing coming. And then the coach was like “Who is this guy?” And after that it was all good from there. I started every game. A lot of the older guys kind of grudged me, because you know it was their time. But at that time I was better than a lot of them.

I grew up watching football. Whenever football is on TV on Sundays, leave me alone- I’m watching football. (laughs) I know the game. That’s what gets me a bye in sports- I’m not the biggest guy. I’m pretty strong but I’m not even close to the strongest guy. It’s just understanding the game. I’m good at tackling too.

After Central Tech I went to Vaughan Road. Wilton, the Youth Outreach Worker at the community centre told me to come to Vaughan Road. I ended up graduating high school from Vaughan Road. I was one of the first one out of my set of friends to graduate. I was 19 at that time - I took 5 years in high school. It wasn’t really a big deal to me at the time, but eventually everyone started graduating too.

You spent a lot of time at the Lawrence Heights Community Centre growing up. What kinds of things did you do there?

We were always playing sports. A lot of basketball. We used to have a thing called Learn to Play. We played different sports all week and at the end of the week they gave prizes like Sportsman of the Week, it had to do with your attitude, stuff like that. I got that a couple of times. We had a cooking club when we were teenagers. They had Halloween parties and stuff like that.

When I was a teenager we used to go there a lot. We used to play ball until we could hardly move. There was nothing much else to do. It was pretty much like a second home. Still to this day, the gym, I don’t want to lose to anybody else on my gym floor. If anybody comes in from anywhere else, we just want to send them back. (laughs)

It was fun when you were a kid. It wasn’t really good, like a regular neighbourhood. There wasn’t always the best stuff happening. Like every summer, there was always someone who would get hurt or killed or something. You see that stuff but you just keep going on. When you’re a kid, its like a shock especially when its people you know. But you just keep going.

It’s like the song from the TV show Cheers….”Where everybody knows your name…and they’re always glad you came…” (sings a few lines and laughs)

OK- you have your family at home, and then you have your family in the neighbourhood. Instead of explaining everything, people were the pretty much the same. We were all the same. You can’t make fun of people because their house is broken down, because your house is broken down too.

Helen at the Centre. At first she was just like a lady at the Centre, but later on you could see that she actually loved the community and wanted to be a part of it too. Even if she’s just adopting it, she still cares a lot. Paul Watson used to always do soccer with us when we were kids. He did it all on his own time. He was like a mentor to youth. I don’t think he was getting paid for it, he was just doing it on his own. That’s how I do stuff with kids sometimes. Some kids don’t have anyone looking out for them or anything like that.

I was with the African Food Basket first. Then when I was around 20 I was the Food Justice Coordinator at the Centre. There was a group, the Youth Environmental Justice Group, Dulaa was the leader. I was supervising that group and taking care of the garden and taking part in the Food Justice Working Group of the LHION. I used to do the in-charge staff on the desk. I helped create a boys group- “Young Boys in Charge”. They were from 8 years old until about 16.

At the Lawrence Heights Community Centre garden


There are lots of people who grow up in Lawrence Heights who want to give back to the community when they get older. Why do you think people want to give back?

I can’t really speak for anyone else, but for me, the community would be lost if people didn’t take the time to do stuff in the community- whether it’s some kind of group or just being with the kids or things like that. I heard there’s a women’s group- they don’t get paid for things they do. They just do things. For me, growing up I know there were sometimes at home, things weren’t good. And then I would go and just play and then you just forget about things. Someone would always took their time to play ball with us. I know there’s a lot of kids who go through the same stuff as us. They might not say anything but they go through the same. Even just to be there and say to them “What’s up?” because maybe no one ever talks to them, ever.

Maybe somewhat. When I was growing up there used to be so many kids outside running around. But now you go out and you don’t see so many kids. I don’t know if that’s a neighbourhood thing or a world thing- everyone has technology now. Like my niece for example, she goes to dance and stuff like that but otherwise, she’s at home. It’s not the same.

It is a big question. I don’t think I would be as aware of certain things in life as I am coming from here. If I came from somewhere that else was like well off, and things just came easy to me- they wouldn’t mean as much. Like I actually had to work for things. I had to struggle. I think that’s a big factor. Having to struggle in your life like that, it’s like a blessing and a curse. It’s been a curse and a blessing coming from there- well, not really a curse, more like a double edge sword. I didn’t have as much opportunities as someone from another community. There was so much kids. I wanted to play football but there was no way I could play football growing up, we couldn’t afford it. If I just got everything, if it came easy, it wouldn’t mean the same. It has a lot to do with who I am today. I try. There’s a lot of times in my head I struggle with stuff. It might not look like it though, but I do. I’m far from being perfect. But I’m doing all right.

One thing I want to see is that the spirit stays the same. I know a lot of people worry about that. I worry about that the most. I want new houses, I want new stuff, new community centre, all the opportunities. I think it’s the right thing to do- I wouldn’t have bought into it and work with it if I didn’t think it was the right thing to do. But it needs to keep the same Lawrence Heights spirit. Who knows, right? When they first built Lawrence Heights, they probably thought “This is the greatest thing we’re doing” but then 40 or 50 years down the line, maybe they think they should have done it differently.

Jessie and Councillor Josh Colle
I think they need to leave room in the new community to not have everything regulated. A lot of good stuff happens when you relax the rules, especially when you are trying to help people who need it the most. You need some freedom, not everything to be so bureaucratic. A lot of good things happen in the gray areas of life (laughs)