Growing Up In the Race Divide (part 2)

Ironically enough, my first encounter with racism had to do with myself. Let me explain!
But, first, go back and read part one of this series.

I didn't get very many birthday parties when I was a kid. In fact, I got a sum total of two. The first one was during first grade. My mom actually gave me a party at McDonald's, which is probably something that I wanted to do because what kid doesn't want to do that? Okay, kids these days probably don't want to do that so much but, back in the 70s, it was a cool, new thing to do. The problem was that, due to the cost, I was limited to something like only five friends. Or four. Some small number. It meant making some hard choices as to whom to invite.

Three of the people were a given. Two of them, the boys, were my best friends all through elementary school. Well, that elementary school, at any rate. The other was a girl who would end being my longest running friend. Basically, she and I grew up together from kindergarten until we graduated high school. Of course, I didn't know that was going to be the case in first grade, but it says something, I suppose, that she was one of my best friends even then. All three of them were at that party.

There may or may not have been one other person there but, if there was, I can't remember who it was.

The issue, though, arose over the "last person" I invited.

I remember the discussion with my mother about whom I was going to invite. On the list were the three (or four) people who ended up coming, and I had one more person to go. I was conflicted. I could either invite Derrick, a black boy in my class at school and next in line on the "friend scale" after the people I had already invited, or I could invite Chris, a boy who had lived down the block from me before we'd moved and had gone to my school until he moved. He had been one of my close playmates for a couple of years, but I hadn't seen him since he left my school. Playdates weren't a thing back in 1977 so inviting him to my party seemed to be the only way to get to see him again. I ended up choosing Chris over Derrick.

That turned into a problem. Chris didn't show up to the party, so my mom wanted me to call Derrick to see if he could come because she had to pay for the guest whether there was a person there or not. So there we were at the party and my mom was telling me to call Derrick and also telling me about how upset Derrick had been not to be invited and that Derrick's mom had even called her and said that I didn't invite Derrick because he was black. Basically, my mom was shifting the racism comment onto me.

Of course, she hadn't told me any of this ahead of time. She waited until we were actually having the party. Evidently, she'd suspected Chris wasn't going to show because his mother hadn't RSVP'd, and my mom was upset about wasting the money. The problem is that I can't remember whom she'd wanted me to invite in the first place. I remember there being a discussion about it, but the only part I remember is that I wanted Chris to be at the party more than I wanted Derrick at the part because it had been close to a year since I'd seen him.

The party was... traumatic. The only thing I remember is being on the phone, listening to it ringing and ringing, and my mom telling me that I didn't invite Derrick because he was black. And crying. I was pretty horrified, too, at the thought that Derrick would think I left him out because he was black, which just wasn't true. And, of course, no one answered the phone. Because Derrick's mom had taken him to do something fun and special because he didn't get invited to my party. The party I can't remember.

I don't remember our friendship being the same after that, and I have always always felt bad about what happened over that birthday party. Sure, yeah, I know it wasn't my fault. I was barely over a hand old. But that doesn't change the emotion involved. In general, when they ask that question about things you would change in your past if you could, I don't have a lot of those things, but this is one. I would certainly go back and invite Derrick instead. If I'd known how important it was to him, I wouldn't have cared about Chris being there at all.

But I didn't know.

It was this relationship, though, that inspired the character of Derrik in "Christmas on the Corner." See, I did grow up in the South, and I did have black friends. Let me rephrase that: I had friends who also happened to be black, because I never thought of my friends in colors. They were just my friends. Derrik is a reflection of that dynamic and, I think, an important one. But Sam won't be having any birthday parties that Derrik doesn't get invited to.

The Cat Came Back (part 2)

This whole thing with the cat took place over months worth of time starting last spring some time. It caused my daughter no small amount of anxiety when we took our trips during the summer, and we still didn't know if "Sam" had an owner. Who would take care of the cat? Not that we were taking care of the cat, not exactly, but we were keeping an eye on it and slipping it some food every so often. As it turned out, many people were slipping that cat some food every so often.

In fact, a woman a couple of doors down would feed the cat every few days as a distraction to keep it out of her garage after the cat got closed up in there one day. That might have been okay except that she has a couple of dogs (that don't like cats), and she discovered the cat when it dodged into her house as she was going into the garage through the door in her house. After that, she would give it food in her driveway so that she could close her garage door without the cat slipping inside.

And that cat does like garages. He got shut up in ours one morning as I was getting the bikes out before school. I did actually check for him before I locked the garage back up because he'd been hanging around outside, and, when I went to lock up, he wasn't outside anymore, but I didn't see him in the garage anywhere, so he got locked in. I found him waiting to come into the house from the inside of the garage a few hours later by the surprisingly loud sound of his meows. Talk about animals being shot from cannons... that's how quickly he sprang into the house.

When we did finally find out who his owner is, the man said jokingly to my daughter, "Well, don't feed him, or you'll never get rid of him." I didn't tell the man we had already been feeding him. Not that I didn't already know that piece of wisdom, but we (my wife and I) had already had the discussion about the ramifications of feeding the cat before we started doing that. Besides, the cat was being fed by many other people, many of  them feeding the cat that-was-now-Jack on a much more regular basis than we were. But we hadn't known if Jack had an owner and it was often apparent that he was hungry.

Then, Jack started wanting to come into the house. For a long time, we wouldn't let him. At least, that was the idea. But he's a cat, and the kids don't always know what to do about such things as the cat sliding under the open door, so he started coming in on his own, much to my daughter's delight. At first, we'd just snatch him up and deposit him back outside, but he really wanted to be in our house, so, eventually, we just kind of let him. He is, after all, a nice cat.

We started talking about what we might need to know about cats if he was going to hang around all the time until my wife finally said, "It's time to look up cat behavior." What we found out is what I already knew: cats are weird. But we also found out some very interesting things about them, not the least of which is that "they" (they being the people that know and study cats) believe that cats adopt people rather than the other way around. Rather like wands choose the wizard in Harry Potter. This is something I also sort of knew but not to the extent that it was presented. I mean, cats actually adopt their owners.

It's not like with dogs. You go and get a dog, and the dog is like, "Yea! A human that wants me!" It jumps up and down and licks your face and forms a bond with you rather like when you spend time with a kid or another person. Dogs socialize. They respond to affection with affection. The dog becomes your friend.

This is not how a cat works. I mean, we joke about it all the time, but it's really not how a cat works. You go get a cat, and, yes, it will let you feed it and take care of it, but it is not "yours." Not to the cat. The cat is just using you. Unless, of course, it decides that it wants to "own" you. Adopt you. It may well never decide that, though, and you would never know. Not until someone else comes along that the cat does actually want, at which point the cat may just take off. It no longer needs you.

All of this stuff about cats made me think of readers, but I'll get to that next time.

For now, it seems we have been adopted by this cat. It was kind of sealed when we kicked the cat out one night, because, you know, he's not ours, but he was waiting at our front door the next morning at 5:30 to come back in. It was clear that he hadn't had anywhere to be all night, and it had been cold, and I felt really bad. The next night, we didn't kick him out, just waited to see if he would want to stay or ask to leave or what, and he went and snuggled into bed with my daughter.

He doesn't always stay, and, if he asks to leave, we let him out. We also let him in, now, if he wants to come in. We've let him adopt us while being fully aware that he doesn't "belong" to us. It's clear, though, that we belong to him. At least from his perspective. It's kind of surreal, and the dog doesn't know what to think of it. But, for now, it is what it is.

It is highly amusing, though, to watch the two animals trying to figure out how to play with each other. They clearly have two different styles of play and can't figure out how to get them to work together, even though they want to.