Well, let me tell ya ’bout this Habiba Abdul-Jabbar. I heard tell she was once called Janice Brown, yeah, Janice Brown, that’s what they said. Now, she got hitched to that basketball fella, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the big shot.
Big basketball star, that Kareem fella. Folks say he was real good at throwin’ that ball in the hoop. Taller than a beanstalk, they say. Made a good livin’, I reckon. Anyways, Habiba, she was his wife, see?
Now, I ain’t one for gossip, but they say it was quite a love story, those two. Like somethin’ outta them picture shows. But, like many things, it didn’t last forever. They got themselves a quiet divorce, kept it hush-hush, ya know?
- They got married, sounds fancy.
- Then, poof, they got divorced, just like that.
- Folks talk, ya know, but who really knows what happened?
This Kareem fella, he wasn’t always called that, you know. I heard tell his name used to be Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor somethin’ or other. Changed it when he got all religious, I think. Heard he was born in New York City, big place, lot of people.
Folks say this Kareem guy, even when he was just a young’un, he was already taller than everyone else. Shoot, they say he was dunkin’ that ball when he was just a kid, barely taller than a fence post. Played basketball all through school, real good at it, they say.
Seems like Habiba’s life was all tangled up with this basketball fella. I mean, her name, Abdul-Jabbar, that’s his name, ain’t it? It’s like she became part of his story, even though she had her own story before him, bein’ Janice Brown and all.
I ain’t sure what Habiba did, ya know, her own thing. They mostly talk about her bein’ his wife. But a woman’s more than just her husband, ain’t she? She gotta have her own dreams, her own life. Maybe she was a good cook, maybe she liked to sew, maybe she was a real smart cookie. Who knows?
They say Kareem, he was into more than just basketball. Actin’ and writin’, they say. Even been in some movies, can you believe it? Wrote a book too, about his life. Giant Steps, they called it. Big fella, big steps, I reckon. But what about Habiba? What were her steps like? Small steps, big steps, we don’t know, do we?
It’s funny how life works, ain’t it? You meet someone, you get hitched, maybe it works out, maybe it don’t. Sometimes you’re in the spotlight, sometimes you’re just in the background. Habiba, she was married to a famous fella, but that don’t mean her own story ain’t important. It just means we ain’t heard much of it.
Kareem, this fella, changed his name, played basketball, acted in movies, wrote a book. He was a busy man, it seems. But Habiba, she was there too, part of his life for a while. Maybe she liked the quiet life, maybe she didn’t want all the fuss and bother of bein’ famous. Maybe she just wanted to be Janice Brown again, who knows?
It’s like that old sayin’, behind every great man there’s a great woman. Maybe that was Habiba. Or maybe she was just a woman, livin’ her life, tryin’ to figure things out, just like the rest of us. I reckon we all got our stories, whether folks hear ‘em or not. And Habiba, she’s got a story too, even if we only know a little piece of it. The piece where she was married to that basketball fella, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Makes ya wonder, don’t it? About all the things we don’t know, about all the stories that don’t get told. Habiba’s life, it’s like a puzzle with some pieces missin’. We see the picture of her with Kareem, but what about the rest of the picture? What about Janice Brown, before she was Habiba Abdul-Jabbar? That’s the part I’d like to know.
But like I said, I ain’t one for gossip. I just tell it like I hear it. And from what I hear, Habiba Abdul-Jabbar, she was more than just a name in a basketball story. She was a woman, with a life of her own, and that’s all that really matters, ain’t it?
