Chapter 1-Stro1

I was born Grzegorz Majster, June 1974, in Gdansk, Poland. I’m known as “Stro” because Majster is pronounced ‘Mae - ster’, which as a nickname became “Maestro”, but got shortened to “stro” by my friend James Tobin. It was sometime in the early 90’s during a game of two on two, at Garden Avenue Public School in Toronto. In the sort of a sudden withdrawal that calling a name of your teammate to get the ball, and not getting it makes you drop the ‘Mae’ from ‘Mae-stro’ in disapproval. So the ‘Mae’ got dropped and “Stro” just stuck. I’ve been “Stro” ever since and the first Stro I ever heard of. This was the summer of 1991 I believe. I added the 1 to later make it alphanumeric by sometime in 1994 when Graffiti and Hiphop culture became a much bigger part of my life. I was undoubtedly Stro to almost anyone that knew me, and wanted to own it, besides the 1 made it a better tag. No middle name, but I was already on my third or fourth nickname when “Stro” really stuck. I’m a ‘pass first’ sort of player, so for whatever reason I didn’t pass the ball, it was just meant to be. If I did pass it off and not miss the shot, which I often did as well, I’m not so sure if I would be Stro today. Actually my first nickname was “Pumas” back in Poland, and it’s because I always wore a puma t-shirt sent to me by my aunt Ela from Israel. This was 1981 Poland, which was a communist state at the time, so logos and the glitz of the west was a far off dream. So you can imagine I wore that t-shirt a lot , which stood out with the other kids. As first graders who were let loose on our neighbourhood at an innocent time in a kids life, and behind the safety and freedom of being behind the iron curtain, we made good use of all we had. And all we had was soccer and making friends with the conscripted soldiers in the nearby barracks and training ground polygons.