Tulia
My Home Town is and will always be Tulia, Texas. I’m not sure why, I wasn’t born there, I didn’t live there all that long and I doubt I will ever live there again but it was my childhood home and the place I think of when someone asks me where I’m from.It was the first place I remember always feeling safe. Where I knew if I got hurt there would be people around to save me. Where I learned to skate, ride a bike, drive a tractor and a truck. It’s where I learned how to stack 50lb. bales of hay 6 high on the back of a moving flat bed truck and where I learned how to throw those bales from the ground to the top of that stack. Where I had my first girl friend and got my first kiss. It’s where I lost my virginity. It’s where I learned the value of a dollar and the value of friendship. I learned that it is good to have 20 cousins around when you want to play baseball and where to be when Aunt Betty was baking pies. In Tulia I learned that you really can gain knowledge by listening to old people talk and some of what you learn is what not to do.
We first went to Tulia the summer I was 5 and that fall I was to young to go to school so my younger brother and I stayed home. Mom worked, so we were cared for by an older black lady named Lina who lived just down the walk about 50 feet. She got us lunch and fixed our scrapes and scratches until my sisters got home from school. She was a good part of the reason I felt safe in Tulia. I remember that it bothered me even then when my cousins made derogatory remarks about her because of her race.
Over the years Tulia has picked up a national reputation for being a place where racism is not just tolerated, but accepted. I don’t remember it that way when I was growing up there, but when I visit with some of those cousins now, I do notice they still use words that embarrass me. These are basically very good people who do some bad things. Is it possible to get a good moral education from bigots?
And Now I live in Alabama, The Heart of the South and hardly ever hear an embarrassing word.
Uncle Dave
posted by Uncle Dave @ 5:43 PM
4 Comments:
You wanna see racism? Try being a Dogg sometime.....
Keep writing, I enjoy reading your stuff.
When I was younger I had long hair (did you know me then?) and I had probably the closest thing to racism that I'll ever experience. In some areas it was almost like that movie...with Jack Nicolson and Peter Fonda...only different. Interesting how you knew right from wrong (seemingly inherently) while the cousins did not?
JC
http://www.myspace.com/jcsmack
Yes John, I remember your long hair. As I recall, I thought it looked good. It was also a factor in making me comfortable with taking the job you were offering me. Actually I didn't meet you in person until I had been working for you for about a month but the long hair made me more comfortable that you were not "Yuppie Scum" and would not make me sorry I had taken the job.
Part of the reason I knew right from wrong was that my mother taught us that racisim was bad.
She would actually get in somebodys face for using the "N" word.
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