We lived directly across the street from Webster Elementary on the corner of 28th and Webster. My dog spot loved the school more than I did. She crossed the street every day just before recess to lay in the shade and be petted by the school kids. She never missed a day.
My first memory of school came in Kindergarten. However, One can never be sure if it is a memory or if you have just heard the story so many times that you think it is a memory. Wherever it comes from it was a warm spring day. We were all sitting at our desks finger painting. I slapped the top of my head and began screaming. I then got up, ran down the hall, out the door and directly across the street to my mother. By then I was crying and screaming hysterically. It seems my teacher was running behind me all the way trying to catch up. Mother took one look at my head and then looked at the teacher, “What happened?” “I don’t know. He just started screaming and then ran home.” “But he’s bleeding, didn’t you see what cause it?” “No, there was nothing I could see. He wasn’t hit he didn’t fall. I have no idea how this happened.”
Meanwhile mom had begun digging through my mess of hair and the red goop she had not determined was not blood. “What does he have in his hair?” The teacher came for a closer look and exclaimed, “Red finger paint.” Together they washed the paint out of my hair and then mom found the problem. I had been stung on the top of my head by a bee. Mom was big on a making a poultice to pull things out, especially splinters. The teacher returned to school and mom made her egg and bread mixture and taped it to my head. This was supposed to pull the stinger out of my head. If it were up to dad he have pulled out his pocketknife and dug into my head until it was out. He was not too fond of doctors and figured he could take care of most things. Doctors don’t know anything, he would say.
Third grade was the only time my mother walked across the street to confront a teacher. I had come home a few times with red marks on the back of my left hand. It seems I was writing with the wrong hand. There were to be no students writing with their left hand in her class. It was not proper. Mom, who was normally very timid when it came to strangers, let her know she was never to hit my hand again. I’m still left handed.
My life and real memory began to change in those last two grades (7and 8). I was developing a worldview.
Austin was my best friend. We were also Safety Patrol Partners on the corner of 30th and Burt. We wanted to be Hollywood stunt men when we grew up, so we practiced by jumping off things, rolling, pretending we had been shot and fake fighting. There was an empty lot at our safety patrol corner. It would be nothing for us to pretend to be fighting while awaiting our few street-crossing customers (6 if I remember right). Sometimes we stayed after all had crossed to get in a few extra licks. We weren’t bothering anyone and we stayed as far away from the street as possible.
One day a car came screeching to a halt and blocking traffic on the very busy 30th street. A man came running over to us and pulled Austin off me and screamed at Austin with a string of profanities I had never heard before and will not repeat here. I think the proper expression is @*#!!z&^! “If I ever see you doing this again, I’ll beat the living crap out of you.” I nearly laughed. What is living crap? He released Austin with a shove. We separated and went to our homes.
That night I told my dad what had happened and that I didn’t understand why. We were only playing. “Well, Austin is black.” “So?”
About a third of my class was black. I had grown up with most of these kids and skin color differences seemed normal. Heck there were Jews and Catholics there as well. So what! Dad tried to explain the difference color seemed to make in our 1950’s culture. “Ridiculous” was my only comment.
The next day when Austin and I were together discussing the incident, we laughed about it and began to develop a great plan. We decided to move our fights closer to 30th street and count the number of cars we could get to stop. We figured that we were young and fast and knew all the great hiding places in our neighborhood. We learned a sobering lesson. When I was on top appearing to beat the snot out of Austin, no one stopped. When he appeared to be winning we could stop one or two cars a day. We soon stopped. My worldview had changed. I felt bad for Austin
2 comments:
Your story about Austin and you is so significant. I've already shared it with some friends.
Thanks. I never thought of it that way. I always thought about how unaware of my world that I was. However, it is exactly how kids are who did not grown up in bigoted homes.
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