When I was in the fourth grade at Central School, about 1959, I was asked to learn a song for an upcoming musical. It had two verses, the first of which went
"I'z a little pickaninny, blacker dan a crow
I'z as sweet a 'lasses candy, mammy told me so
She calls me tiny bit of sunshine
Calls me precious lamb.
Calls me tiny bit of sugar
Cause dat's what I am."
By the way, my fourth grade musical was a minstrel show done in black face. Central, which then had fewer than 250 students in grades 1 through 12, was just north of Madison, Ind., which is probably 80 or 90 miles south of the Mason-Dixon line.
After learning the song, I refused the part, not because of the racial message, but I thought it was sissy and I still remember watching from the wings as a classmate sang it to approving parents at the performance. The whole thing was vintage complete with "Mister Interlocutor", a standard minstrel show character who was essentially an emcee, The only other thing I remember was him telling the audience it would now see a dance by the Central Fifth and Sixth graders.
The reason I remember this has nothing to do with the theme. It was the age at which everything we learn sticks with us. I can still recite Longfellow's "Ship of State" which is from a longer poem. But somehow I'm glad I did because it's a part of history that needs to be told.
I didn't know any blacks. There none in our school and the only one I remember seeing in elementary school was a gentleman who worked at the Kroger Supermarket and whom my Dad was friendly with. About the only kind words I heard from relatives and friends say concerning blacks were about "cute little nigger kids." I think when they got bigger, they must have seemed less cute and I have relatives who never liked any black that showed leadership or decried the system. The "N" word got used a lot.
We are all born with innocence. It is things like minstrel shows, which treated a minority as cartoon characters, that soured it for many and as a friend of mine who taught in Madison in this decade said, there were many students he taught who showed unbelievable racism.
It is this innocence that led me not to recognize how segregated Madison, Ind., was during the 1950s. Of course, living in the country, I didn't see it every day. I had heard much later from a friend how when his family moved into the area, members were urged to join the now defunct country club so they wouldn't have to swim with the black kids at Crystal Beach, the municipal pool.
The real lesson came when I read excerpts of "All We Had Was Each Other," an account of the Madison black community published in 1998 by Don Wallis Jr., son of the editor of the Madison Courier. Even the country club/Crystal Beach issue apparently was an improvement as Wallis wrote that blacks once had to swim in Crooked Creek, which runs through town.
In one chapter, a trio of women born in 1948, a year before my birth, recounted segregation during their childhood, including the fact blacks had to sit in the balcony of the theater. In fact, I'm not sure from the book how much of the strict segregation, blacks not eating in white restaurants or being able to join white organizations, still operated during the late 1950s. My research tells me that school segregation and segregation of public facilities were outlawed in Indiana in 1957. One of the women recounted hostility when the elementary schools were integrated.
And there was a flash when I suspected I now knew why my parents never gave in to my request to sit in the balcony, which always seemed like a cool thing to do.
There are other stories that defy my memory of a quiet little town. The town wouldn't run sewer lines to black homes and Crooked Creek was full of sewage. Black women couldn't have their babies at the hospital.
There are some tremendous ironies here. Jefferson County, Ind., was a leader in the abolition movement in the 1800s and coincidentally had more than its share of residents who caught escaped slaves for the reward. One community built the Eleutherian College, an integrated, co-education college in Lancaster Township, which opened 1848. And there were those who burned down buildings students were to live in.
Even more ironic was the role of Central School (now Ryker's Ridge Elementary), which sits between the Ryker's Ridge Baptist Church and its cemetery. The church has always been proud of its role in aiding slaves to escape via the Underground Railroad and the story is they were hidden in the church. The caveat is that the blacks buried in the graveyard are buried in a corner far away from all the other graves.
Oh, yeah, the other public high school in Jefferson County is still called "The Rebels" with the requisite Confederate flag as the symbol. Unless things have changed recently.
I suppose the good news was that in the musical when I was in the fifth grade (chosen by the same teacher), I got to play a seal who rescued the hero. And the villain and I dueled it out vocally in a song that I realized years later was based on the quartet from "Rigoletto".
We had some class, after all.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
On the Joy of Raspberry Preserves
It is always with trepidation that I open the first jar, that jar with purple goo where the hot mixture of berries, water and sugar coalesces after being dribbled down the side. It is the first testing of the season's preserves.
There have been the jars full of rock-hard, raspberry candy and the ones full of liquid that could not possible settle on a biscuit with ease. Yet, I am too proud to do other than stir and attempt to judge from color, thickness and the kinds of bubbles that well up when it is ready than do the sensible thing and buy a thermometer. And so I stir and sweat over a stove when the temperature outside is already in the nineties. And I test the thickness by letting drops fall into a cup of water and judging the results.
All of this is for these jars that surpass expectations; that have just that right mixture of texture, not runny, not hard, full of flavor. And all my doing.
What is it about food that is derived direct from your source by your own hands? There were the peas that decorated my yard in spring and fall for a full years, yielding memories of home and tender seeds until the Eastern rabbits learned their taste and drove me from this field. But they were always fresher, hence better, than anything from the artificial store shelves.
Then, there is the walnut tree in our back yard that I had not noticed for years until an unplanned change of career left me home during day light with time to notice the hulls on the ground. I spent days sifting through fallen leaves. Most of the tree leans over our neighbor's yard and I would lean over the fence and grab them with one of those "garbage pickers" or use a rake to bring them closer. My neighbors did not use walnuts and for some reason, never seemed to be around when I wanted to ask permission to come over to remove them from their yard. I graduated to using a tree trimmer with an extensible pole to broaden my reach.
After a suitable drying period, they were cracked. I found that lying them flat on concrete steps and tapping firm, but not hard enough to send pieces flying, produced decent sized chunks. These are black walnuts, not the Asian varieties from supermarkets that produce large seeds that separate easily from the shell. These yield bits and pieces and require frequent use of a knife pick.
"Those were mighty expensive walnuts," someone wrote after I posted on Facebook the amount of time it took to harvest a couple of plastic bags full. And yet, I have been more inclined to use walnuts in hot cereal with these pieces than I ever have been with purchased nuts, despite having to pick shell fragments out of my mouth.
There is a satisfying lesson that food has a life apart from us; that it is not there simply for our pleasure; that it does not exist for us. It exists for itself, for its own perpetuation through the product its species; to be knocked accidentally to the ground or carried through the digestive system of some animal; and to fall somewhere on good ground.
We make use of it, but for someone somewhere, in getting the ingredients to our table, there is work by someone, that effort must be made, that there is a cost to everything, and that we are simply part of the chain.
There have been the jars full of rock-hard, raspberry candy and the ones full of liquid that could not possible settle on a biscuit with ease. Yet, I am too proud to do other than stir and attempt to judge from color, thickness and the kinds of bubbles that well up when it is ready than do the sensible thing and buy a thermometer. And so I stir and sweat over a stove when the temperature outside is already in the nineties. And I test the thickness by letting drops fall into a cup of water and judging the results.
All of this is for these jars that surpass expectations; that have just that right mixture of texture, not runny, not hard, full of flavor. And all my doing.
What is it about food that is derived direct from your source by your own hands? There were the peas that decorated my yard in spring and fall for a full years, yielding memories of home and tender seeds until the Eastern rabbits learned their taste and drove me from this field. But they were always fresher, hence better, than anything from the artificial store shelves.
Then, there is the walnut tree in our back yard that I had not noticed for years until an unplanned change of career left me home during day light with time to notice the hulls on the ground. I spent days sifting through fallen leaves. Most of the tree leans over our neighbor's yard and I would lean over the fence and grab them with one of those "garbage pickers" or use a rake to bring them closer. My neighbors did not use walnuts and for some reason, never seemed to be around when I wanted to ask permission to come over to remove them from their yard. I graduated to using a tree trimmer with an extensible pole to broaden my reach.
After a suitable drying period, they were cracked. I found that lying them flat on concrete steps and tapping firm, but not hard enough to send pieces flying, produced decent sized chunks. These are black walnuts, not the Asian varieties from supermarkets that produce large seeds that separate easily from the shell. These yield bits and pieces and require frequent use of a knife pick.
"Those were mighty expensive walnuts," someone wrote after I posted on Facebook the amount of time it took to harvest a couple of plastic bags full. And yet, I have been more inclined to use walnuts in hot cereal with these pieces than I ever have been with purchased nuts, despite having to pick shell fragments out of my mouth.
There is a satisfying lesson that food has a life apart from us; that it is not there simply for our pleasure; that it does not exist for us. It exists for itself, for its own perpetuation through the product its species; to be knocked accidentally to the ground or carried through the digestive system of some animal; and to fall somewhere on good ground.
We make use of it, but for someone somewhere, in getting the ingredients to our table, there is work by someone, that effort must be made, that there is a cost to everything, and that we are simply part of the chain.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Becoming a Facebook Chameleon
The thought has been growing: what if I were to adopt a new life, pick parts that suit me and present a new face to the world. In the era of social media, there's never been a better opportunity to experiment with personality.
Simply start with Facebook and create a page that has a legitimate email address. But from then, I could create a new profile. Suddenly, I have an interest in fine wines and tractor pulls (probably not a convincing combination). I rarely miss romantic comedies and stock car racing, none of which are true currently. I would enter the information falsely, but consistently about what movies I like books I have read and favorite television shows. None of which would match my current profile.
Then, I would begin inviting friends, making sure that only people I have never met will populate my list. Of course, there would be many rejections. But some would hit the "Accept request" button without thinking. Others might be simply intrigued by being solicited by someone who shares so many interests with them.
It would take some effort to convincingly engage in dialog, creating new family members, school history and job experience. But for the most part, most friends would not dig deep if approached in an engaging, seemingly sincere manner. There might be some evasiveness needed if anyone of them want to meet me. Oh, I have this terrible agoraphobia and not only cannot I not leave me house, I got into screaming panics if visitors try to enter.
There has always been this thought that, if I am not me, who would I be? What would I be like had I taken this course, not talked to that person, and missed a particular telephone call? Here is the chance to take that other direction, or perhaps as many directions as I have legitimate email addresses.
I suppose this is not much different than the experience of an actor who is deeply involved in a role or a law enforcement agent who has spent too long assuming a different personality to go underground during an investigation. Or perhaps it's like the impersonator whose story was the basis for the movie "Catch Me If You Can?"
How quickly would I become the other person? Would I indeed become another person or something that's a mix of what I am now with a new reality? Would this be better or worse? Would I be me? Would I know?
Simply start with Facebook and create a page that has a legitimate email address. But from then, I could create a new profile. Suddenly, I have an interest in fine wines and tractor pulls (probably not a convincing combination). I rarely miss romantic comedies and stock car racing, none of which are true currently. I would enter the information falsely, but consistently about what movies I like books I have read and favorite television shows. None of which would match my current profile.
Then, I would begin inviting friends, making sure that only people I have never met will populate my list. Of course, there would be many rejections. But some would hit the "Accept request" button without thinking. Others might be simply intrigued by being solicited by someone who shares so many interests with them.
It would take some effort to convincingly engage in dialog, creating new family members, school history and job experience. But for the most part, most friends would not dig deep if approached in an engaging, seemingly sincere manner. There might be some evasiveness needed if anyone of them want to meet me. Oh, I have this terrible agoraphobia and not only cannot I not leave me house, I got into screaming panics if visitors try to enter.
There has always been this thought that, if I am not me, who would I be? What would I be like had I taken this course, not talked to that person, and missed a particular telephone call? Here is the chance to take that other direction, or perhaps as many directions as I have legitimate email addresses.
I suppose this is not much different than the experience of an actor who is deeply involved in a role or a law enforcement agent who has spent too long assuming a different personality to go underground during an investigation. Or perhaps it's like the impersonator whose story was the basis for the movie "Catch Me If You Can?"
How quickly would I become the other person? Would I indeed become another person or something that's a mix of what I am now with a new reality? Would this be better or worse? Would I be me? Would I know?
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