I was all ready last night to watch the returns, snuggled in with my little spaniel on the sofa with his toys and my rum and coke. I had even cleaned the house like I was having company, though I wasn’t expecting anyone - it just seemed right somehow. I felt as though we had waited so very long and this was going to be the night that our nightmare would begin to end. I expected to feel emotional when the election was called for Obama but I didn't expect the depth of the feelings that washed over me from the time the first states in the east were called - I swear I went through a half a box of tissue. I didn't expect the memories of my childhood in Oklahoma in the ‘50s - the days of segregation and separate water fountains (even as a little kid I thought that was the dumbest thing I ever saw), the movie theatre I wasn’t allowed to go to even when it was showing the best movie - those memories that brought home the real meaning of the history that was made last night. (Besides the amazing discrediting of neo-conism which was also tissue-worthy itself!) And I didn't expect to have the company, the presence anyway, of a very special man. I'd like to tell you about him.
It was 1957 - I know that because that's when we moved to Enid. I was 4 years old and hadn't yet mastered the art of shoe tying. With my brother and the other neighborhood kids in school, I was outside playing by myself when my shoe came untied. I hated shoes under the best of circumstances (still do) so having one untied and flopping around on my little foot while I was trying to run and play was intolerable and a source of significant distress. I don't know why I didn't just go in the house and get my mom to do it - I probably would have but then the garbage truck came. Hey, there's a grown-up! He can tie my shoe! When the truck got to our house, I was waiting by the trashcan for my savior.
"Would you tie my shoe?" I asked the trash collector, a tall slender black man in worn gray pants and plaid shirt. I remember so vividly the look of fear cross his face, his hesitation as he looked around to see if anyone else was around or watching – I didn’t understand it. But then he kneeled down and tied my shoe just the way I liked it, not too tight with a big bow so the ends weren't too long.
"Thanks!" I exclaimed with genuine appreciation of his kindness before running off to get on with my playing.
A bit later that day, I told my mom about the nice man who had tied my shoe. "I know," she said, her voice kinda dark and angry. A neighbor had seen it and called her. I was entirely bewildered by her tone - had I done something wrong? What the heck, I just needed my shoe tied and he knew how. It was only later after my dad got home from work and I overheard them talking that I found out the reason for my mom's ire - the nice man was a NEGRO. I had actually talked to a NEGRO and, no doubt worse, had let the NEGRO touch my precious little lily-white foot.
That pissed me off. She was wrong and mean. He was a nice man who had shown me kindness, helped me out when I needed it and nothing my mom said would change that. Ever.
That was my first direct contact with an African-American – and my first direct contact with the ugliness of bigotry - and bless that dear man, the lesson I learned that day has stayed with me for a lifetime. It took some years, of course, to understand how I’d put him in very real danger of losing his job or much worse and I pray he didn’t pay a price for his kindness - I have no way of knowing and I don’t recall ever having seen him again. But he knew it very well and still, he helped out a grateful little girl in need.
I thought about him a lot last night and figuratively held his hand as I watched state after state being called for Obama. I raised my glass in a spiritual toast to him through my sobs, overwhelmed by emotion, when the election was called. I wondered if somewhere he’s still around, some 50 years later. I wondered if he was watching this night unfold as I was – I so hoped he was, that he'd lived to see it. I wanted to thank him again, this time with gratitude much greater for having shown me the truth by his example so I could recognize the lies, even when they came from my own *mother.
This one, sir, is for you.
*To my mother’s great credit, she recognized her prejudice, owned it and tried not only to change it in herself but to avoid instilling it in her children - pretty successfully, I believe. It's a subject we talked about a lot when I was growing up. What spilled out of her that day, probably motivated more by a mother’s fear, was something I never saw to that degree again so I think she learned a lesson, too. Hearing one’s buried hate coming out of one’s own mouth has got to be sobering.