PERCEPTION IS A LIVING, GROWING THING

An old memory on the subject of 'possums and how our perceptions grow as we grow older.  We have not entertained a cat at our house for almost six years now, and have decided that life without a cat is not so bad.  Therefore, 'possums never come to the door looking for a meal.  I'm sure they're out there, but they are not OUR 'possums.

12/30/98

When I was eight, I used to walk every Wednesday after school to Mrs. Mellie Sims Lecky’s house for my piano lesson.  She lived right at the edge of that area of town where the colored folk lived (remember, this was 1944).  I remember being amazed once when a black man came to the front porch, and “Miss Lecky” went out and talked to him for some time.  She actually called him by name and everything.  I was really impressed.  When I was eight, I didn’t know that you could tell black people apart.

When I’d grown up and started reading Jane Goodall’s work, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to find that each of the chimps she spent so much time with was easily recognizable after you had looked at their pictures for awhile.  They were not all cast in the same mold, as I had previously thought.  They had their own faces and personalities, and each had a name.

Now we have, for some time, been visited in the early evening by a number of ‘possums, who take turns coming to the back door to eat the cat food that the cats almost never completely finish.  Who woulda thought it, but as an old guy I find that ‘possums not only can be distinguished by size and color, but each has its own  unique, expressive face.  They don’t all look alike.  We always know which ‘possum (or sometimes two or more) is paying us a call.

Last Saturday, as we were heading toward Austin, we saw a large beige colored ‘possum lying dead in the road.  My wife immediately announced that it was not OUR big beige ‘possum.  Then she went on to say that we should name our visitors.  My response was that since we only name our cats because the vet needs a name for his records, why would we name ‘possums?  But the more I think about it, the more attractive seems the idea.  We have come to know these animals.  If we call them by name, it will be a lot easier to talk about them, and keep track of who’s come around the most, who seems to have moved on, or when a newcomer drops in.

I’ve decided to start taking a closer look at the minnows in our garden pool.



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Adventure on the trail........

I seem to have had an interesting morning. My wife started it, when she looked at the package I'd brought home from CVS yesterday, and said, "I thought you were going to get some vitamins!" "I did.", "Then, where are they?"

Oops! It's easy to remember to forget things when you're an old guy. I distinctly remembered placing the bottle of vitamins on the counter, and after I'd paid for my order, I picked up the prescription bag, and walked away! Well, no wonder the load I rode home with was so light! The bottle of vitamins probably weighed almost as much as the prescriptions combined (about six or seven ounces).

I road back up the trail this morning, and got my vitamins, which I'd already paid for the previous day. In addition, my wife had asked that I check the bank balance while I was in the area, and so I did.

I decided to explore a subdivision directly behind the bank, and came to the realization that this upscale (by today's measure) subdivision was probably where the bronzed blond bikini hiker, known to a few Flickrs, but maybe not to the general public, must live. It's easy to imagine that someone starting from this cluster if "nice" houses could easily walk a short distance through the woods, and connect with the north shore leg of the Loop Trail, and therefore to the lake.

An eventful morning, so far, and on the way home, my mind was wandering around a letter I'd read in the Kiddierag this morning:

The trouble with labels

Re: May 31 column by Arnold García Jr., "The convenient distraction of claiming Cardozo was Hispanic."

I agree that the meaning of the term Hispanic is slippery. I am an Italian. My father immigrated to the United States.

When I came to Texas, I learned that many Italians immigrated to Mexico. They assimilated with the Mexican culture, and their descendants are as Mexican today as any native born. Even though they have Italian surnames, they are classified as Hispanic. I am not.

Is an Italian a Latino, since the Italian language is derived from the original Latin? Given that description, Italians, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanians all would be Latinos.

That's the problem with labels. I remember the uproar when Robert Barnstone, whose mother was Hispanic, ran for the Austin City Council. As he used to say, "Ya basta." Enough.

Tony Tucci

I had frequently and repeatedly related to my younger co-workers that Hispanics didn't have their own race when I was growing up, and they couldn't quite understand what I was talking about.

As it turns out, according to the United States Census, they still don't have a race, and on reading this letter, it's fairly easy to understand why. My mind was still concentrating on this when I passed a serious power walker who was swinging down the trail with a water bottle in each of her hands, and right before me, was a couple of walkers with a dog approaching with the sun behind them. The dog and his man were already behind me when the lady cheerfully called out, "How ARE you?", at which time I thought I'd probably just snubbed some people I knew, but was already well beyond them. Wondering briefly if it would be prudent to turn around and overtake them, I opted to go on home........and that's the it was, on the RiverTrail this morning.


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This was not intended to be about you, Rufus!

I was once again baited by my old friend Rufus this afternoon, and I decided not to take the bait. I thought I'd say something about my daughter, Sifu Donna.

I have started on a GoogleMap, Willie C's Santa Fe, and I intend to elaborate on my adventures in New Mexico back in prehistoric times, around 1961. I will add to it as time goes by.

But as I sat thinking about Rufus's challenge, the History Channel was on, with a feature about the terrorist aspects of The Ku Klux Klan.

For those of you who are not familiar with the 1960's, this should be required viewing! You think that the battle over civil rights is pretty serious now, you really need to know what it was like then!

I'm not sure that they will ever be able to tell the story of the civil rights movement and the injustices surrounding it as effectively as it should be. It can never be publicized enough that people who believe in the founding principles of this country must be always watchful.

There are people at large who deny that Hitler's treatment of the Jews actually happened, and I'm sure it will not be long before people begin to take the attitude that the things shown in this treatment of the Klan are simple fabrications, and could not possibly be real.

I was an adult at the time they were happening, and I'll assure you that they are real. Learn, and remember! Someone once said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Be vigilant!


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Rufus continued.......(not really)

I just put your name up there, Rufus, so that you might think you ought to read it.

I'm only going to tell the story of a single incident, which relates to the days of segregation and "deep, philosophical discussions about it".

When I was about sixteen (circa 1954), I ran across one of my old colleagues from the caddy pool. We were both working in town at that time, and only went out to caddy sometimes when we didn't have anything else to do. I can't remember his real name, if ever I knew it, and I just barely remember what he looked like. We simply called him "Sonny", but I really don't think it was his given name.

At that time, I'd become sort of interested in racial relations and education, so I was asking Sonny about his school. It became obvious to me that they were not given exactly "equal" educational opportunities.

One of the things Sonny said as we were talking was "Did you ever meet Hilliard?" My answer was, "Maybe so, when I was in the fourth grade, the principal of the 'colored school' was introduced to my class". Sonny said, "A large man?" I said, "Yeah, that must have been him".

I think that Sonny and I both were somewhat disillusioned, because yesterday, I Googled Hilliard High School, Bay City Texas, and found the obituary of Asa G. Hilliard III. Only a little is on the WWW about his father Asa G. Hilliard II, for whom Hilliard High School was named, but I could find no connection to Bay City. I'm not sure that there was time in the life of Asa III to have lived in Bay City. Check it out. If Hilliard III was only three years older than me, then, if the Hilliards had lived in Bay City, it would probably have been better known when I was a kid.

The Hilliard family must have been very well educated, from what I read in the obit. And, of course, we see in history many examples of learned blacks throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leading to the present time.

I think when I was growing up, the blacks were tagged with "shiftless and ignorant", not because they wanted to be that way, but under segregation, their potential was limited. The Hilliards were a good example of the fact that 'colored folks' could be industrious and well educated, but, in those days, "what was the point", in the mind of the average black person? They had to make their living in the "white man's" world, and live in an isolated area among their "own kind".

Things are not perfect, nuthin's perfect, but they're much better now, and I hope they'll continue to get better.

I'm afraid that this is probably another "draft". I will probably return more than once to update this. I very rarely think I've said everything to my satisfaction.


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Rufus, Rufus, Rufus, is this a trap?

There is a young man that I know, who lives far beyond The Great Divide.

He was in town recently for the occasion of his uncle's funeral, so he threw a party, reuniting with a lot of his high school classmates, and my wife and I, who were simply parents of a significant number of his old classmates! One of the things he said at the reunion convinced me that black people are still very conscious of race, and I'm led to believe, justifiably so.

He's back out there between the wide Pacific and the San Andreas now, but we're still in fairly close communication through Facebook.

In response to a rather simple comment I'd made, Rufus decided he'd set me up to give my views on race relations. It's probably one of the toughest assignments I'll ever be given.

In a simple declaration, Rufus, I could pull a Hillel and paraphrase, "'Don't do to anyone what you wouldn't want them to do to you.' That's the Torah, learn it!" In fact, Rufus, I think that race relations can be summed up with a "basic" philosophy that I've recently adopted, "It's in the nature of all humans to think that everything would be darned near perfect (nothin's plumb perfect) if everybody could be just like me". You know I can't, and won't stop there. I really need to bore people to feel fulfilled.

People seem to have an inherent nature to be suspicious of anyone who's not "just like them". It is a nature that should be overcome, if one is to be a true believer in this country. Our founding fathers expressed it quite well within the basic beliefs of their day, and allowed for amendments as beliefs evolved, that "all men are created equal, and endowed.....etc, etc, etc".

That basic nature, which certainly predates our founding fathers, and probably predates civilization in general, still comes forth, even in the most disciplined.

A few years before the Bill Finley experience aboard ship on the way to Hawaii (where I've said that my views on race began to form), when I was nine or ten, my mother was driving us back home from a Brownie Scout function in the park. Our (rather my sister's), Brownie function had been rained out. The park was about a mile from town. When we reached the highway on the way toward town, Mom suddenly said, "Let's pick up that little boy". My sister and another Brownie, as well as myself said, "Whaaaat???" We kids were somewhat reluctant to stop for the little black hitchhiker, who was about eight or nine years old, but she stopped anyway, and we gave the kid a ride home. He'd been out at the the golf course adjacent to the park to caddy, and had decided that there wouldn't be much golf that day.

I met up with the kid a couple of years later, when I joined the caddy pool, and spent a lot of Saturdays, and a lot of weekdays during the summer, at the golf course.

The young fellow, I never knew by any name but "Bee". He had two older brothers, Alan, who was called "Dogie", and Hezekiah, who was sometimes called "Yopi", and sometimes in fun, "Hezzybull". There was a younger member of the Clay clan, but I can't remember his name, or what he even looked like. We played a lot of contact sports in our spare time at the golf course. It was common to spend the whole day in the caddy pool, and caddy for two or three rounds at the 9-hole course.

The whole point of the Clay story was simply to lead into telling you that, in her later years, as she became confined to her home, my mother, who had first introduced me to association with black people, gradually began to express a fear of black people, and often expressed her fear, with no basis I can possibly imagine.

My experiences in Hawaii, where for a little while, I was a "minority", perhaps gave me a small amount of insight into sympathy for the "concerns" of minorities. The people in Hawaii represent the "melting pot" that we used to consider the United States back when I was in school, but "white" people were definitely in the minority. For the most part, everyone gets along, although only this morning, one of my former Hawaiian classmates, in an email, mentioned "homeless" and "druggies" in a derogatory way.

I thought I was joking when I used to say that "When I ws growing up, the Hispanics didn't have their own race". I found out a year or so ago, when I decided to look it up, that, for purposes of the United States Census, they still don't. Their "race", for whatever reason, is of their own choosing.

Let's consider this massive, rambling dissertation as a "draft". I'm often coming back and adding or subtracting, trying to "get it right", which comes full circle to "nuthin's plumb perfect".

And it also comes full circle to "It's in the nature of all humans to think that everything would be darned near perfect (nothin's plumb perfect) if everybody could be just like me", which summarizes racial prejudice, homophobia, politics, and who knows what else?

I'm really afraid that minorities are destined to get the shaft simply by nature of their being "minority", because they are........(you know,,,"not just like me")