Random Memories - Interracial Neighborhoods

I am sure you know I spent years five to eighteen in a mainly Catholic old well maintained neighbor hood.

Our house was three from the corner of the street that divided our neighborhood from ghetto. Three or four blocks farther were the railroad tracks that marked the other end of the ghetto.

I walked almost everywhere but I only walked through the ghetto when absolutely necessary. This white boy got many a threatening look and was confronted several times.

Never got my ass kicked but I think that was because I was a pretty big boy and had lots of big friends. My first memory was a kid at school that lived two blocks down called me a whitey living in the ghetto.

My ‘big’ friends corrected him without touching him. Me and that kid became good friends. He later went to the majors and played for my beloved Cubs. His sister became a very good teacher. They were the lucky ones.

My most memorable racial situation was after a football game one evening.

The football field was four blocks in the opposite direction as the ghetto. Between us and the field were one block of houses and three blocks of park, most of it open. I learned lots in that park –sports - tennis, baseball, football and basketball – to how to open a bra with one hand.

This particular night my younger brother and myself were walking home from a high school football game through the darkness of the park.

A group of black kids from the ghetto were walking near the middle of the park. When they saw us they gave chase. We made it to the street light at the edge of the park and one of the ghetto kids told the rest of them to leave us alone – we were good people.

The kid that probably saved us from a beating was the biggest, meanest, stupidest kid in school. My brothers can supply a name with the initials A.H. or the fact his nickname started with a S.

Once the rest of them saw us in the light many said hello and let us go on our way. I have never been more afraid in my life except maybe the first time I held my daughter.

Our ‘friend’ protected us every time a racial issue came up – and there were many – it was the late sixties – I saw him once when I was in my mid twenties. I was over visiting a friend and ran in to him at a grocery store.

He shook my hand, we traded stories – me not married and a mechanic and him working at the foundry with six kids. He was driving a nice Cadillac and I was in an old convertible whose roof leaked but had a great motor.

I once drove into the south side of Chicago to fix a computer. For several blocks I did not see a white person. When I stopped, pulled out my took kit and set my alarm everyone was quiet and probably deciding how to rob me.

I walked to the door of the building and someone said we can’t mess with him he’s here to help us.

When I came out there was a big black guy sitting on the bumper of my van. I ignored him, put my took kit away, climbed in behind the wheel and cranked the van.

He looked at me and I raised my hands in a WTF gesture. He shook his head, laughed and got up waving goodbye.

But he held up his hand and asked if I had a smoke – I gave him the last four or five in my current pack and he told everyone else that I even smoked their brand of cigarette, Kools.

He handed me one back and lit it for me telling me the white part of town was a long way away. I waved and drove very carefully to the white part of town.

I was wishing my friend from high school was with me but it dawned on me later that one of his friends must have helped me – two hundred miles away.