The Washington Post - 20.08.2019

TUESDAY, AUGUST 20 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 B3

“Do I want to pursue something that I love, and that I know I want to do? Or do I continue on this traditional school path, university, et cetera,” Reeves said. “And I didn’t.” He paused, and chuckled. “So I guess that was a pretty important decision.” [email protected]

In part, Reeves said, his enthu- siasm for the movie and the charity stem from a pivotal mo- ment in his own life. The two protagonists in “Already Gone” have to decide who they want to be, he said — and he faced a similar choice when he dropped out of high school to pursue a career in acting.

through Klock about a year ago, said he is thrilled but unsur- prised the actor agreed to help out. Decatur recalled Reeves as “such a giver, very humble.” “The truth is, he made all this happen,” Klock said. “The movie doesn’t happen without Keanu, the screening doesn’t happen without Keanu.”

It was Decatur who introduced Klock to Green in late July during one of Klock’s visits to Virginia — setting the whole plot into motion. “Vernon’s nonprofit, they do incredible work in our community,” Decatur said. “I was kind of hoping — I mean, you plant a seed, you help people connect, you’re hoping something good is going to come from it.” “Sometimes, great things happen,” he added. Klock, impressed by Green’s story and by G3CS, reached out to Reeves and Kenneally to gauge their interest in promoting the charity. Both signed on without hesitation. About 10 days later, Klock, Kenneally and Green were in New York together at the advance screening of “Already Gone” — preceded by Reeves’s video for G3CS. (Reeves could not attend because he had to work.) The movie stars Tyler Dean Flores as Robinson, a 15-year-old who lives in New York’s Coney Island with an abusive stepfather named Martin (Seann William Scott). Unbeknown to Martin, Robinson has developed a crush on Martin’s girlfriend Keesha, a 19-year-old exotic dancer played by Justine Skye. When Martin tries to pimp Keesha, Robinson steals her away and embarks on a road trip fueled equally by love, desperation and Martin’s drug money, which Robinson takes before he leaves. Kenneally said there’s a perfect resonance between the work G3CS does and the tale he hoped to tell in the film — both focus on “children confronting difficult situations.” “It’s almost magical, in a way,” he said. “You make a movie, and then you wind up doing something that’s helping actual people.” Decatur, who met Reeves

the family saw Reeves’s YouTube video, Green said. Then, “there were tears, there were cheers, it was emotional.” Reeves said he was happy to help. “I love the little children, the kids — you have to help the kids,” Reeves told The Post. “There’s some kind of connection through my upbringing, which was great, by the way, but had its challeng- es.” He added that he knows first- hand how important mentorship can be for children — Reeves still remembers his teachers from third, fourth, fifth and sixth grade. Their passion for teaching and humor had a lifelong influ- ence, he said. Klock said he is amazed that everything “just fell into place” for the screening. It was possible because the cop-turned-actor maintains strong ties to the state where he once chased drug deal- ers. After about a decade as a police officer, Klock left Virginia about 14 years ago to pursue a career in Hollywood. He found spectacular success, acting alongside stars including Jamie Lee Curtis and Matthew McCon- aughey. Most recently, he appeared in the Oscar-winning “Green Book.” Klock has been good friends with Reeves since they appeared together in the 2016 film “The Whole Truth.” When Reeves ap- proached Klock about serving as the second executive producer for “Already Gone” in 2015, his answer, Klock said, was “an in- stant yes.” Klock also stayed connected to his police roots. Not only does he return to Virginia several times a year to serve as a part-time deputy sheriff, but he keeps in close touch with Stafford County Sher- iff David Decatur, his boss and “best friend.”

hobnobbing with potential do-
nors. As of Sunday evening, he
had already received about 40
donations.
Reeves — who is busy filming
“Bill & Ted Face the Music” in
New Orleans — even set aside
time to record a YouTube video
promoting the charity’s work.
G3CS, launched in 2015, runs
coaching and mentoring pro-
grams targeted toward at-risk
youths in 10 Virginia public
schools.
Green, an Army veteran and
chief executive of a cybersecurity
company, founded the nonprofit
organization after observing a
lack of respect for teachers in his
daughter’s school. What began as
a “character development” initia-
tive for young males blossomed
to include programming for all
kids, he said.
Today, G3CS works with
schools to offer instruction on
topics including leadership, re-
spect and “STEM subjects” such
as coding and drones, areas in
which Green has expertise.
Though the charity’s main focus
is on children and teenagers, it
also aids military families, help-
ing veterans find jobs and reinte-
grate into civilian society.
“This takes us from a very
small-scale to national-scale at-
tention,” Green said. “This type of
thing is exactly what we need to
bring together the exposure, the
awareness, the resources so we
can do what we need to do for
these children.”
Plus, Green admitted with a
laugh, it’s “just cool.” He’s a long-
time fan of “The Matrix,” and he
loves the John Wick series, too.
When Green first told his three
daughters — ages 12, 19 and 28 —
that Keanu Reeves was promot-
ing his charity, they didn’t believe
him.
It didn’t “become real” until

CHARITY FROM B1

“It resides today in my garage in D.C.,” he said. “The license tag, needless to say, is ‘VN XKE.’ ” [email protected] Twitter: @johnkelly

For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/john-kelly.

founded in 1997. “Without me knowing it, he tracked the car down, bought it back from the guy I sold it to and presented it to me as a surprise,” said Bob, 75. Bob has spent years restoring the 50-year-old car to better- than-new condition.

beautiful car he’d ever seen: a Jaguar XK-E fixed-head coupe. “It was locked, so I couldn’t even sit in it,” he said. Bob never forgot that car, and when he was in Vietnam, he sent Nemet a $50 deposit and ordered one. He completed the balance on the $4,500 car when he returned to the States and picked it up at the dock in Baltimore in 1968. There was supposed to be a little package inside the car containing the mirrors, radio and other small items removed for transit. Bob’s had been stolen. “I had to do a fast insurance claim and go to a dealer in Baltimore to get the things installed,” he said. Bob drove the XK-E to Atlanta, where he worked as a reporter for the Atlanta Constitution, and in the District, where he was the paper’s bureau chief (and sole member). “Two seats, no air- conditioning or power anything, but it was my beloved every day driver,” he said. Bob sold the car in 1974 to get a more practical vehicle. He missed it and often spoke of it to Frank Norton, the partner in the lobbying firm they co-

send the needed parts on a bus overnight,” Stan said. “Faced with an unexpected stay in a small town, I asked the mechanic what folks did in Eunice on a Saturday night. In response he took me to a Cajun party — called a fais dodo — where I had a great time and ended up being glad that the MG had broken down.” Unfortunately, the MG was only too happy to keep breaking down. Not long after Stan moved to Washington in 1971 to join the U.S. Foreign Service, the battery failed. Over the next two years, the MG required four brake jobs. Stan finally sold it. “There will never ever exist again the mix of thrill and frustration that was the quintessential British roadster,” he said. Two years before Stan picked up his mail-order MG in Galveston, Bob Hurt picked up his mail-order Jaguar in Baltimore. Bob had stopped to visit family in Atlanta before deploying to Vietnam as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Special Forces. While in Georgia, he’d gone to a car show and fallen in love with the most

Lark, and I wasn’t scooping up anybody,” Stan said. Stan was drafted and sent to Vietnam, where a thought came to him: “After all of this, why shouldn’t I have something that I’ve always wanted?” Stan survived Vietnam, and in May 1970, he picked up his brand-new mail-order MG Midget convertible at the dock in Galveston, Tex. He drove it to Louisiana State University for graduate school. The first few weeks were what any MG owner hopes for, as Stan tooled around in the British racing green rag top. But about a month later, when Stan was driving to Houston, there was a loud bang, and steam started to pour from under the hood. “I stopped, looked under the hood and found that the generator pulley had disintegrated, taking the fan belt with it,” Stan said. “The car had logged just 5,000 miles.” Stan was able to nurse the Midget to a garage in the nearest town, Eunice, La. “At that time there was an MG dealer in New Orleans, and the mechanic in Eunice was able to arrange for the dealer to

Imagine walking
through a foreign
jungle in the
middle of a war
wondering if your
next footstep is
going to be your
last. You might
say to yourself
something like
this: “If I get out
of this place alive, I’m treating
myself to something nice.”
Thousands of GIs did just
that during the Vietnam War,
clipping a coupon and sending
it to an address in Jamaica, N.Y.,
where a dealer called Nemet
Auto International could get
you 30 percent off a foreign
sports car, anything from an
Alfa to a Volvo.
“They advertised heavily in
auto publications and in the
Stars and Stripes newspaper
that we soldiers all read in
Vietnam,” said Stan Myles of
Laytonsville, Md. Stan, 72,
responded to my recent call for
old car stories.
Stan had wanted a British
sports car ever since he’d
watched a classmate in his
native Texas “scooping up all the
girls” with a Triumph TR-3.
“I had a 1962 Studebaker

50 years ago, soldiers in Vietnam could order British sports cars from a war zone

John
Kelly's
Washington

VIRGINIA

Police charge man after domestic incident

Authorities have charged Mark E. Johnson, 54, after they say he was involved in a domestic dispute and ran at responding officers with a knife before being shot by two of them. The incident occurred on Thursday at a home in the 4300 block of Flodden Court in Woodbridge, according to Prince William County police. Officials said they were told that a couple was arguing and that the man had threatened to hurt the woman and her children. She said he was armed with a screwdriver, knife and BB gun, authorities said. The man identified as Johnson at one point came to the door, then later charged officers with a knife before they shot him in the upper body, according to police. The man was seriously injured and taken to a hospital. Authorities did not say whether Johnson lives at the house. He was charged with attempted malicious wounding of a law enforcement officer, according to police. The uninjured officers were placed on paid leave, which is standard procedure in such cases. — Dana Hedgpeth

THE DISTRICT

1 slain, 2 wounded in Northeast shooting

A man was fatally shot Sunday night in Northeast Washington’s Kenilworth-Parkside neighborhood on the same block where another man was shot and killed four days earlier, according to D.C. police. A police spokeswoman said detectives do not think the incidents are related. The latest shooting occurred about 10 p.m. in the 1500 block of 45th Street NE, between Douglas and Ponds streets. Police said a man and a woman also were struck by gunfire and are expected to survive. Police identified the man who died as Corey Wells, 40, of Capitol Heights, Md. No other details were immediately available. Police spokeswoman Karimah Bilal said detectives do not think the incident is connected to the slaying on Wednesday of Alonzo Richard Hines Jr., 20. Hines, who had an address in Southeast Washington and another a block from where he was shot, died Thursday. No arrests have been made in the case. — Peter Hermann

LOCAL DIGEST

Results from Aug. 19

DISTRICT
Mid-Day Lucky Numbers: 4-4-1
Mid-Day DC-4: 9-1-0-6
Mid-Day DC-5: 3-8-4-5-0
Lucky Numbers (Sun.): 8-3-3
Lucky Numbers (Mon.): 7-2-6
DC-4 (Sun.): 8-3-3-8
DC-4 (Mon.): 7-7-3-2
DC-5 (Sun.): 1-4-7-0-7
DC-5 (Mon.): 2-3-1-2-5

MARYLAND
Mid-Day Pick 3: 6-5-9
Mid-Day Pick 4: 5-2-8-9
Night/Pick 3 (Sun.): 4-4-1
Pick 3 (Mon.): 7-9-7
Pick 4 (Sun.): 5-4-5-5
Pick 4 (Mon.): 7-6-2-1
Multi-Match: 18-24-34-35-38-41
Match 5 (Sun.): 2-14-20-38-39 23
Match 5 (Mon.): 1-3-20-22-34 4
5 Card Cash: 7H-3D-10C-4H-QH

VIRGINIA
Day/Pick-3: 7-4-7
Pick-4: 8-9-8-3
Cash-5: 1-2-12-23-25
Night/Pick-3 (Sun.): 0-2-5
Pick-3 (Mon.): 0-7-7
Pick-4 (Sun.): 1-9-8-1
Pick-4 (Mon.): 9-8-3-2
Cash-5 (Sun.): 2-11-16-24-25
Cash-5 (Mon.): 4-13-16-23-27

MULTI-STATE GAMES
Cash 4 Life: 1-15-31-43-56 ¶4
Lucky for Life: 8-17-26-28-40 ‡10
*Bonus Ball ‡Lucky Ball ¶Cash Ball
For late drawings and other results, check
washingtonpost.com/local/lottery

LOTTERIES

Hollywood film connection aims to help local youths navigate tough situations

ABOVE: Vernon Green Jr., center, instructs children at a Virginia public school as part of his work for G3 Community Services. When he first told his three daughters — ages 12, 19 and 28 — that Keanu Reeves was promoting his charity with a screening of the new film “Already Gone,” they didn’t believe him, he says.

RIGHT: Jim Klock, left, a former police officer and current part-time deputy sheriff who made it big as an actor and is one of the film’s executive producers, patrols with his boss and friend David Decatur, sheriff of Stafford County.

STAN MYLES While in Vietnam, Stan Myles saw an ad in Stars and Stripes and ordered a 1970 MG Midget by mail from a New York dealership.

JIM KLOCK

VERNON GREEN JR.

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The Washington Post - 20.08.2019

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