50 Years Of Change

I just applied for (and was accepted!) to a very credentialed online university to get my Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy Counseling. Part of the application process was to answer seven essay questions, many having to do with my family of origin, my childhood, my place in my family, and my life experiences. Typing out each of those 500 word responses had me reflecting on some experiences from my childhood and the relevance it has had to this week.  

This week was the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. In 1963 I would have been 7, almost 8 years old. What I remember from being 7 years old, and what I wrote about in one of my responses, was about an incident in a pool in Houston, Texas.  In 1963 there were no more "For Whites Only" signs around town, but there was still an unspoken agreement that Whites and "Colored People" did not go swimming in the same pools.  However, on that day in August of 1963 there was the first encounter  for me and people of color. My family not been swimming long when everybody in the pool started getting out, all at once, for no apparent reason.  My father, seeing what was happening put his hand over my hand, which was hanging on to the side of the pool. He said in a low, but very stern voice, "Do NOT get out of the pool"!  I was not sure what was going on, everyone else was getting out, but my dad was making a point that we were not to get out of the pool. I was momentarily confused, but then I saw the cause for alarm. A Black couple and their children, were walking up to the gates of the pool, wanting to go swimming like anybody else that hot afternoon. My father was adamant that we stay in the pool. Whether it was a show of support for equality or not,  maybe he just wanted to let that family know that not every White family was bigoted or racist. I remember he did go over and speak to them, and we went on swimming, unaware of what had really just happened.

Seven years later it would happen again. We lived in West University, which was basically a White working class neighborhood,  and there was a neighborhood pool. To keep the pool running and pay for life guards, families could purchase a membership each summer for unlimited swimming. You could bring guests for $.75.  My father and mother often went to the pool with us after dinner, and this particular evening, my father saw two young Black boys riding up to the pool on their bikes. The pool's policy for entrance was for "members and their guests". Upon seeing the two boys, my father quickly got up and went to the front entrance, just as the two boys got there. My father did not wait for the cashier or the boys to say anything.  Instead, he asked the two boys if they wanted to go swimming. They replied that yes, they did, and my father told the cashier that the two boys were his guests, and paid the $1.50 for them to get in. He told them to have a good time, and came back to where we were sitting. Just like seven years prior, there were some people who left when the two boys came in.

This was hardly surprising for me or my siblings, since my dad had been telling us for years that we were not any better than anyone else, just because we happened to be born White, because we had nothing to do with that.  He had grown up in the Rio Grande Valley and was super sensitive to the poverty of the Mexican workers who crossed the border every day when he was child. His parents had money, and employed three Mexican workers every day. He wrestled with the unfairness in life, and questioned why he had had it so good, when so many people lived in such poverty. He never talked about White privilege, per se, but he lived it, and it was uncomfortable for him.

My dad passed in 1989, and this week, I wondered what he would have had to say about what is now a very normal part of my life, that quite honestly, I now just take for granted. I was at water aerobics at the Y this week. There are people of color in my swim class, and often in the hot tub that adjoins the pool.  This week, I particularly noticed two older Black men and one older White man in the hot tub talking, laughing, and sharing stories. They were obviously enjoying each other's company, at times laughing loudly at something one of them had shared.  When they got ready to leave I was close enough to hear them ask each others' names, and to see them shake each others' hands. Not forced, not because there was anything to prove, just genuine human kindness and politeness.

Those men made me think about my childhood, and the difference 50 years has made. My dad not letting us get out of the pool when all the other White people got out, and my dad paying for two little boys to swim because he knew that otherwise they would have been turned away. Not because they were not members, but because they were Black, and in 1970, we still judged little children by the color of their skin.  Dr. King's dream speech was only seven years old then, and people's hearts and minds had not yet begun to change. But this week, this week, I did notice that 50 years later, three older gentlemen, Black and White who were most certainly alive in 1963, sat in a hot tub and enjoyed each others' company, and the color of their skin had nothing to do with the conversation and the laughter. Indeed the Y, and countless other places have made it illegal to discriminate based on skin color. However, I am not naive enough to think that it still does not still happen, particularly in the South, and in places where money can still keep people segregated.  But this week I saw a marked difference from my childhood to today. Thank you Dr. King for your dream.

Life Is Not Random.

Working for the University of Texas these days, and my job has me driving back country roads to get to rural schools.  Friday morning we did not have to report until 9:15, so I had some extra time that morning.  I had turned on the TV to the local morning news, and my ears perked up when the traffic person reported that there was a wreck on one of the back roads I was taking that morning. I checked the time, and calculated I probably would not be to where they were saying the wreck was for at least another 45 minutes.  I figured by then, all cars involved, and the resulting back-up traffic would be long gone by the time I drove by.

Imagine my surprise then, when I was getting near and could see the flashing lights of fire trucks, ambulances, and police and county sherriff vehicles.  The road was closed and all drivers were being detoured. I quickly realized that my only route was to get on the toll road, go up one exit and come back down to the other side of the wreck, and continue on my route to the school.

As I came back down off the toll road, I passed the wreck in what seemed like slow motion. I could see that a small green pick up truck had turned left, slamming into an oncoming garbage truck.  The whole front end of the smaller truck was completely crushed in to the front seat of the truck. As I was driving by, I watched as the emergency responders pulled the lifeless body of a man out of the truck.  I noticed immediately there was no gurney from the ambulance,  just a tarp on the ground.  There was no sense of urgency, and I realized as I was driving by, they had probably had to use whatever tools they use to separate the truck from the body. That's why they were still there a full hour later.

As I drove down the road towards my destination, I wondered, did that man have any sense that he would die that day? Was there any sense of premonition, and if there had been, would he have shrugged it off as a silly thought?  Was there anything he would have done differently had he realized his number was up? (besides the obvious!)

................In other news in Austin, Texas on Friday, Gabrielle Nestande was found guilty of intoxication manslaughter for hitting Courtney Griffin with her car one May evening as she came home from a night of drinking.  She got probation, and that had a lot of people upset, including the chief of police.  Could Courtney Griffin had known when going out for an evening walk on a May night, that a young woman, who had been out drinking, would hit her and leave her for dead? Could Gabrielle Nestande have known, while out drinking that her life was about to take a very serious turn for the worse?

The thing about these two events is that sometimes it seems that life is just so damn random! And yet, every spiritual teaching seems to say it is not.  There are reasons why things happen. I think most would argue that had the man in the small green pick up looked twice, he might have seen the oncoming (larger) truck. Or maybe he just thought he could beat it. And maybe Courtney Griffin was wearing clothes that were too dark, or should have had a flashlight, or should not have been walking so late at night. The truth is that when events like these happen, families are the ones left to question the what ifs.  What if he had left earlier? What if she had walked earlier in the daytime? What if Gabrielle Nestande had only had one drink, rather than the 7 beers and a couple of shots? What if? What if? And yet no amount of questioning will take away the pain that comes from losing a loved one unexpectedly. That pain was loud and clear when they interviewed Courtney Griffin's mom after the verdict. I will probably never know the identity of the man in the small truck, or his family. But I am sure of this. Whoever was notified of his death on Friday, whoever was told that he is never coming home again, wanted to know how it happened. And, whoever they are, that kind of pain will always leave them questioning, what if?