“What cha doing here bie!?”

He asked as I stood outside of Mr Horton’s office, yet again.

As a second year student I was now facing this older student who seemed to have this eagle eye out to stop school yard mischief transforming into full blown trouble.

“Listen up bie. You know the deal. Rules are Rules”

“You know Horton is gonna throw the book at you so just go in there and act humble and I will come talk to him for you.”

So said, so done. My latest transgression of flying a paper jet plane in class was met with three days detention instead of a whole week. Prefect Rodney Trott had once again stood in the gap.

Rodney had sort of adopted a few of us as little brothers, he would help to mentor into men during our time at Berkeley.

We took to him for a number of reasons:

- He always dressed neatly, teaching us the finer art of how to make skinny ties and the proper way to buff up our penny loafers.

- He was very athletic. Which of course meant fringe benefits of cheerleaders paying us some attention.

- He often helped us with our homework when we were heading for disaster by not turning it in on time.

He essentially became our Big Brother until he graduated. Leaving us to fend for ourselves.

With his grooming, we too made it through to graduate.

“What cha doing here Bie!?”

He asked as I walked into the Police station contending that I should not have received a speeding ticket as I was only ranging off of the hill and not actually “speeding per se.”

Once again he pulled me to the side and listened to what I had to say. Yet once again stating. “ Rules are Rules. “

In this particular case the rule of gravity and velocity equalled 53km/hr = fine.

But hey, at least I felt better hearing it from him, than from some uncaring police officer.

Even in his role as a Police Constable 458, Rodney Trott exhibited his true nature as a Big Brother.

“What cha doing here bie!?”

I heard the voice before I saw the face. I spun around, pleasantly surprised to see his pearly white smile. With swiftness, he embraced me with a bear like hug as I walked in Byrdies Café a few years ago.

It had been many years since I had seen Rodney as he had moved abroad for a bit. He spoke glowingly about his daughters and coming back home to Bermuda.

As always he imparted his Big Brother/ Police Constable 458 like advice when we parted.

“Get ya facts and evidence and keep at the writing Famous. You are a Berkeleyite so don’t back down. Rules are rules.”

Two weeks ago I was parked on Reid Street outside of P Tech and saw a small yellow van pull up across the street from me. I saw the driver step out of the van. There he was, dressed as neatly as he was in Berkeley.

I went to shout out to him “What cha doing here bie!?”

However, I said to myself “nah that would seem way ghetto.” I figured I will catch up with him another time.

I never had that chance on this side of life.

Two days later my Berkeley Big Brother was called home to glory.

There would have been much said and spoken about Rodney Trott aka Nathaniel Stone over the last few days.

Many videos of him singing would have been watched.

Many of his songs listened to.

Many lives impacted by his departure.

Like many of you, I hope one day to walk through the gates of Zion and hear him shout out: “What cha doing here bie!?”