Race relations--and my personal education

In the venomous hate for President Obama that circulates on Facebook, at protests, etc. innuendoes and outward expressions of racial hatred are too often clear. I can't remember now what comment it was that sent me reeling back in time to examine my own education in race relations. I was raised in a liberal household where no hint of prejudice would have been tolerated, but I also grew up in Kenwood, a South Side Chicago neighborhood that by the '50s was ringed with poorer black neighborhoods. I was afraid. Yes, I'd been coddled by black nannies (one of whom proudly told my mother one morning that I'd eaten four eggs for breakfast!) but I heard at an early age that black men did bad things. This was reinforced by an aunt who lived two doors away and once, looking out the window to see a black man walking peacefully down the street, said to me, "Look how evil he looks!" (This is the same aunt who washed tomatoes with soap and water before peeling them, but I loved her.)
Al Knowlton was the first black man I really knew. He was a painter at the hospital where my father was administrator. Al came on Saturdays and some evenings to do the chores that my did couldn't or didn't want to do (Dad spent his weekends gardening and wasn't a particularly good handyman). Saturdays were a highlight for both of them--Mom would serve them lunch at the kitchen table, and they'd talk about the hospital and Al's days as a waiter on the trains (when trains had uniformed waiters and linen and fine china as well as fine food), and I remember they both enjoyed the visits. Al always called Dad "Dr. Mac."
Two incidents stand out in my mind. One night, when I was maybe eight or thereabouts, I was flitting about the house in my nightgown until my mother told me it wasn't fitting to be in my nightgown around a man who was not family. Period. No mention of race, but I made a subtle connection.
Another time Al surprised me somewhere in the house, and I cried "Oh, Al, I thought you were the bogey man." I got a severe lecture for that: black people, my mom explained, were particularly sensitive to being called the bogey man.
Of course there as the time Mom went to the hospital to pick Al up, having thrown on an old coat. She asked the switchboard operator to call him, and the operator asked, "Should I tell him his wife is waiting?" Even Al got a kick out of that one.
When my dad retired there was the usual hoopla, dinner, etc., and in all the pictures, Al was quite prominent, wearing the only suit I ever saw him in along with a broad grin. Theirs was truly a great friendship...and a lesson for me.

Oh, my, what a wonderful day

I had a rare treat today. I fixed lunch for the girl I grew up next door to. I thought I hadn't seen her in fifty years but she says she remembers coming to visit once--there's so much of my past I've forgotten. But when she walked into my house she said no, she hadn't been here before. Her husband, a retired Episcopalian priest and a wonderful man with a wry sense of humor, was with her, and we were joined by good friends of mine who are active in the Episcopalian church--they know each other from national church meetings. So there was much talk of Episcopalian politics (they are convoluted) but Judy and I found some time for reminiscing--and we need more time to do it again. We talked about her family and mine and incidents from childhood and books we read as youngsters--Albert Payson Terhune and Walter Farley--and we talked about going back to visit as adults. I truly wish we could spend two days, because already I've thought of so many things I didn't say, ask, whatever.
We sat on the porch for an hour, with hummus and crackers and then went inside for lunch. Fixing lunch for these people was a big deal for me, though I usually entertain easily. But I wanted this to be just right. I set a spring-like table with my mom's Susie Cooper china--a light turquoise border around a flowered center. The menu was curried chicken salad, fruit salad, bread, (I experimented with butter and used one that has olive oil and sea salt--couldn't tell the difference). Dessert was small mint chocolates. I think--hope--it was the perfect menu. I had thought to make a layered sandwich--slicing a round parmesan loaf into three layers and filling them with chicken salad, pimiento cheese and egg salad--but when I was at low ebb last week that seemed like way too much trouble and I changed the menu. I may still do that sandwich loaf sometime.
It's so lovely to call up past memories with someone who shared them with me...and we had little, odd moments to share: a Congo line for Dewey which led my dad to call me inside (he was a huge Democrat  and Judy's family was Republican), the time I had whooping cough and we finally talked over the fence, her grandmother who spent every day in a chair by the window that looked out on our house but assured my mom it was friendly interest. Wonderful stuff. The stuff memoirs are made of.
Then tonight Melinda from TCU Press picked me up for the annual dinner for Friends of the TCU Library. I saw people I was glad to see but a lot of people I didn't know and I missed a lot of faces I thought I'd see. Good dinner, generous happy hour, long acceptance speech (read from his book) from Rick Bass, winner of the TCU Texas Book Award. I'm not sure how long I'll keep attending such events but I was glad for a visit with Melinda and for a few people I saw and value--Paul Boller, Susan Hotard, Susan and Jim Smith, Sue and Alan Winter. I'm sure I've left some out.
A good day and I'm tired. 'Night all.

Flying cockroaches, a shaving cream war, and a memorial of sorts

A shaving cream war at its height

Years go I had a dear friend, a generation older than myself, whose son had divorced. She remained fond of his ex-wife and her family, so she called them her outlaw family. This weekend my kids and I had a joyous reunion with my outlaw family--the New York Alters, with their indomitable (?) patriach, Uncle Mark. In the 30 years since Joel Alter and I divorced, I have seen Mark and Amy twice--in 1997 at Jamie and Mel's wedding and again in 2004 when Jordan and Christian married. We have emailed sporadically, though always warmly and with fond feelings--still there was a distance. My children have seen more of them--a few at their children's weddings, Jamie on business trips to New York, all of them on a couple of visits to Joel in the years before he died. But this was a full-blown family reunion--with their oldest daughter, Jordana, her husband Don and 15-mos. daughter Ayla, and their youngest daughter, Emily. (We were missing their son Jeremy and his wife, but hey! they have three-month-old twins and a three-year-old--would you bring that crew from Baltimore to Houston?) We gathered in Houston for two days that went by way too quickly. And there was not for one minute that awkward, "How are you?" "Well, fine, how are you?" It was instant warmth and hugs.
I've always noticed that when my children are together, the grandkids almost don't have individual parents--it's sort of like a commune, where everyone takes equal care of all the children, from handing out treats to soothing skinned knees (several, including one child run over by a bike who said he now understand why his parents tell him to be careful of cars), blackened eyes (we had one), and hurt feelings (lots of those inevitable). But Mark remarked that Ayla was immediately adopted by the children especially Maddie and Eden, both old enough to care for her. My family just absorbed these new people and went on with their usual rowdiness. And they can be overwhelming at times.
Saturday night there was a kickball game in the cul de sac, enlivened by the fact that we spectators were sitting near the strangest sewer I've ever seen--it was in someone's yard, with a concrete base and the usual sewer top. The trouble was that cockroaches (Mark called them cockaroaches--you can always tell a New Yorker!) kept crawling out of them. All the girls went hysterical and were alarmed that I, sitting nearest the sewer in a folding chair, didn't seem alarmed until one crawled up my dress and Megan nearly hit me with my walking stick in her zeal to get it off. Worst of all, these were flying cockroaches, all headed for one tree which we decided was the mating tree. They buzzed right at the girls who screamed and laughed by turns.The children of course made sport of squashing them (I wasn't sure about the bloodlust here) but the street was soon littered with dead cockroaches. Brandon went in the garage, got some insecticide and sprayed it into the sewer, so then we had double reason to warn the children away.
When Mark has been to Fort Worth for those weddings, he wanted, almost demanded, Angelo's BBQ, so Sunday lunch we went to Tin Roof in Kingwood, the closest we could come. They told us they'll be on "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" this week. We had an entire section to ourselves and all ate too much. The owner obligingly took a group picture, but I don't have it yet. The highlight of the day, however, was the shaving cream war. Colin spread black plastic on the grass, Lisa provided cans of shaving cream, and the kids--plus Uncle Mark--went at it. He was the only adult game enough, and I intend to warn him that Brandon put a video on YouTube and people are bound to ask "Why is that old guy in there with all those kids?" It was wild good times at their best, and we spectators--at a safe distance--thoroughly enjoyed. Afterwards, of course, there was the hosing off.

Way too soon it was late Sunday night and time for goodbye, which took forever. Don, Jordana's husband, got himself a beer, sat on the couch, and said philosophically, "I figure this will take a while." It did, and it was bittersweet but there are plans for an Alter family cruise (I hate cruises!) and more get-togethers. I hope they come true.

This was Memorial Day, and in my thoughts I honored those who have given their lives for our country. But for Mark, Amy, me and my children, it was a different kind of memorial day, a time to rehash memories, good and bad, to patch up the years that circumstances had kept us too far apart, to reaffirm our love for each other and our families. For me, personally, it was eye-opening, a bit disturbing in some things I learned, but a good experience in sharing with someone who understood some things that I had kept to myself. I feel a bit like I've been to an alternate world and it's hard to get back to my daily routine. This is me and Mark, my new-found outlaw brother-in-law who kept referring to me as his sister-in-law and gave me wonderful compliment that I'm keeping to myself.

Did you ever swim in Lake Michigan?

Memoir class always gives me food for thought, and tonight was no exception. Sometimes pieces go in clusters, and tonight they were all childhood memories. One that clearly struck a note with me was written by a woman my age about her summers at a cottage on Lake Michigan. Everything rang familiar--the hot sand in summer, the icy cold waters of the lake, the suspense of the first trip to the beach to see what had washed away during the winter. All these years later, details crowd her memories, the kind of details that make an experience come alive. Oh yes, I may talk to her about avoiding passive voice and dangling modifiers, but it was a great piece. And those of us who grew up on Lake Michigan shared stories--the undertow, the polio scare and being pulled out of the water with blue lips, being taught to swim parallel to the shore.
Another piece was a woman's tribute to her father, chock full of the small moments she remembered with him--trips to the grocery store with the butcher counter in a corner and the butcher in a bloody apron, riding standing in the front of the car, the fear she had of her parents dying and then finding her dad lying on the living room floor with a nervous stomach one day, the family's belief in Pepto Bismol as a cure-all. She didn't need to tell us she adored her father and he, her--every incident shouted it out. And her opening ws funny--she was Andy Mac until she was born and turned out to be a girl. This one made me think of how different things were back then--no seat belts, no central air, no sophisticated cancer treatment in a small Texas town--when the diagnosis came it was too late.
A woman not much older that my kids told of the night she gave a farewell party for her best friend and people she didn't know came. She was horrified--and afraid--when she spotted a beer. Made me think of the parties my children gave--and some they gave when I was out of town and thought they were old enough to be trusted. They told me about them years later, and now I can laugh about it. Interestingly enough, this woman's mother is also in the class, and I am awed by the fact that they are so open with each other, though I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise. My kids are open with me, and for the most part I am with them--some things would only make them uncomfortable, and I don't share those. There's no reason.
But back to memories: everyone exclaimed over the detail in which these women remembered their childhoods, but someone suggested that once you begin to write, it all comes flooding back, and someone else said it's all there in your brain. It just has to come to the forefront.
We laugh a lot at these stories--like the little girls who thought they had eaten poison and would die any minute, so they invited their nemesis, the girl they hated to play with, to come over if she would taste their "lemonade." They figured if they were going to die, she might as well too. Of course all lived to tell the tale, and now the writer is appalled at their cruelty. We dismissed it saying children five and six don't understand the finality of death.
Another woman said she was bothered about presenting because her life hasn't been funny. I assured her it's all in the way you tell it, and that gave her an idea.
I learn so much each week from these women--and we share so much camaraderie. Have  you thought about your childhood? Tried writing about it? See what extra memories writing might bring up.