Well, I was four going on fifty. Mom & me were living in the town of New Market. The grocery was across the street, post office too. Mom would help me make up a grocery list, send me over. There i was met by the old man owner who give my list to his
boy, Smoky. Smoky would walk around the store with me reading him off my list to him, put stuff in the cart.
Mom told me it was not right to call Smoky boy like the old man owner did. I never did, he was Smoky or "hey you". Not this past time back to VA but the one prior, I saw him again. This time he was the old man owner. He had a young fellow he called boy working in the store. His boy was white. Smoky had took what a four year old boy told him to heart, "learn to read and you can rule your world." He had gone through college & gotten a business degree.
From what he had saved up all his life and some seed money from an uncle, Smoky bought the grocery. Mom taught me there is no color between human beings. We're all the same family like all lions are lions, fish are fish. To me racism would ultimately be me calling someone an elephant trunk platypus with stork legs. That way I could avoid insulting any one animal.
Mom taught me a good bit as we lived there. I learned that if someone wants to break in and steal stuff, help them carry it out, laugh but not at them. Don't worry about stuff, there's always more stuff but not always more you. I learned it was okay to be scared but you had look it in the eye, too. Me & mom had fun there as well. I played with kids from down the block, marbles, jacks, tag, hide-n-go seek. We could run all over town so long as we remembered the polite rule, "children are seen but not heard".
Looking back I realize it was a time when there was no fear. I'm sure there were plenty of child molesters around, kidnappers, crazies. But us kids was let be to enjoy growing up in a small town. There were some grown ups we knew to stay away from and we did, if not mamas whooped our butts. We saw afternoon double feature matinees, Boris Karloff, Bela Legosa, the Thing, The Blob. Those movie trips cost us each a whole nickle and moms didn't like turning nickles loose none too quick.
We started a delivery and message service. Two pennies and we would go from one end of town to another to tell a message. Three pennies and we would haul light packages the same. Then, we divided up the money in our pool for movies, candy, drinks. Back then folks sure saw the world different as well. They liked us kids pitching in and helping out. Folks took the time for kids, set us on the right way and it wasn't all concerned with what got taught in books.
Everybody then was also poor like today but then we knew everybody together had more money than we needed. Stuff was that and that alone, nobody took to hording stuff, folks would pass it along among one another. If you were hungry you ate. You needed to rest they let you snooze on the couch while they looked at the silly t.v. box, or listened to the radio and did their house chores. Poor but nobody was without. Poor but so much more wealthier than the most flush rich person.
Now, don't go reading what I scribble here as indicating I'm all for socialism, communism or anything of the like. I'm not but I am for humanity and people giving a damn. Some of that seems to have got lost in thirty to forty years time. Folks might say we ought to blame Muslims, Christians, Jews. I don't think we need to blame anybody but what we see in a mirror. Gravestones don't care who you are, who you say you worship or how, nor about colors, who you take to bed. Love also doesn't care, love is love. Where did it go, love? Well, it's okay to be afraid but you gotta look it in the eye too.
Well piss, way out of topic here. Apologies. I better get some
& get the day started. Same morning vape for me, unflavored.