Wow, what an early introduction to the cultural mosaic! And you still remember t.
My introduction came 1964 when I was 13 at a movie theatre in downtown Ithaca, NY. Two or three black girls were acting up during the movie as they are won’t to do. I asked them politely to be quiet. They got more unruly and louder. I went up and got the theater manager and he got them to be quiet.
Movie ended and I was in the exit aisle when WHAM! Wheeled around and socked hard in the face by one of the bruthas.
You never forget those lessons.
When I was in Jr. High, it was an all-White school, but one year we had a new black student. I played trumpet in the jazz band and one day, I couldn’t find my trumpet. I figured I had misplaced it or something because no one had ever stolen anything from me before. So the teachers locked down the classrooms and they got a master key for the lockers and they opened up all the lockers one by one.
So here’s a test for you. There’s a school with hundreds of White kids, and one, lone black kid. —can you guess whose locker it was in? If you can’t guess it, we will ask Boo-boo, because Yogi’s friend is always right.