Racism in New England

You know, New England, the home of American intelligentsia, tolerance and , well just good old superiority. I've lived here on and off since the forties. I've also lived in Florida and New Mexico for decent amounts of time, and travelled extensively in the lower forty-eight (I used to want complete my states list in Alaska, but I'm afraid to now) and Hawaii. I can say with impunity that New England is as racist as any place I have ever been. Karen went to fill up the car yesterday and saw a car with these two bumper stickers: NOBAMA, and a hand made one that read BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA TERRORIST. Did anyone ever stopped to think that Obama is half white? It's friggin' 2008 and the USA is still shackled to eighteenth century thinking. McCain tried to work that angle throughout last night's debate (hah!)...I thought he was close to crossing the line more than once. The land of the free, right?



Luckily my introduction to black people came at an early age. I had a gigantic black Nanny in Panama, Marina, and she hugged more than anyone else until, well I don't know when. At two people are people. I was also lucky to grow up in a family that for the times was very liberal...though they did vote Republican once in awhile. My step-father owned a gas station in uber-wealthy Greenwich, CT when I passing into puberty. In those days, the late fifties, you could work when you wanted to...despite child labor laws. I started my career in a professional church choir...five bucks a week in '54 was giant bucks for a kid. And, best of all it turned me off to religion for life. Then I caddied at the blue-blood country clubs in town. The highlight of that was falling in love with my bag (player) in a girl's national under eighteen tournament at the Greenwich Country Club. She had an asshole for a Dad, who called her every move. If he had let her play, who knows. When he paid me without a thank you I felt like a booger being flicked off a fingernail.



Then the time to work in the old man's gas station presented itself...a buck an hour, tax free, some of my friend's Dad's weren't making that kind of money. Although some were making millions, even then. But the benefit of working, the most important of all, didn't take hold until some time when I was in college. The reason, the pump jockeys (no self service then) I worked with were two black men from the south, who had moved north for opportunity. They were probably the two most visible black men (colored then) in town. Of course they didn't live there. But my step-father didn't have a second thought of hiring them. Their names were out of central casting, Jimi Pinnix and Otto Phillips. They taught me the moves for kissing ass on our self-important customers. It was a race against time then. You stuck the filler hose in the tank and then proceeded to wash the windshield, check the oil, water, battery and sometimes even the air pressure in the tires. Washing the windshield gained in prominence as the skirts of the late fifties started rising in the early sixties. I was too stupid not to make small talk with any good looking young girl driving Daddy's Caddie, I honed my mid-minor league flirting skills with girls while wiping their windshields, praying for a glimpse of leg before I had to check their tires. Hey, I even thought they liked me when they'd give me a quarter for the service. I couldn't have asked for a cooler job at the time. I wore a pressed uniform with a Texaco Star on it, can you beat that?



Can you believe we had a locker room? We all wore street clothes to work and went up to put on our uniforms, and slick our hair in place. Otto had a process, and wore a "dew rag" in every morning...part of a knotted woman's stocking, and placed over the straightened, pomaded hair style that looked like a shiny black birthday cake. Jimi sported the close cropped look, and I felt like the most special kid on the planet when they shot-the-shit with me before we hit the tarmac. The room resonated with James Brown, Bobby "Blue" Bland or the Temptations while we performed our morning ablutions. They manged to complete the change wile dancing around the room and singing exactly as the performer on the radio was. Slick as shit, we opened the place up before the mechanics and the manger got there; stacking quarts of oil in silvery pyramids, putting out the windshield wiping rags and filling the buckets of water for the thirsty radiators. I was a professional. Yes sir, "You Could Trust Your Car to the Man who Wore the Star", Texaco' slogan of the era. Sure I knew they were "coloreds", but more important, they were my co-workers..and they were teaching me to dance. (They also were teaching me to drink, but that's for another time.) They also talked about reefer, but that they never offered.Those guys were really special to me, the first people to treat me like a man, albeit, maybe a tad early.



So the enduring story of the time was the "whisk broom". My step-Dad, in the never ending battle to give MORE SERVICE, land on what he thought was the genius plan of all time for the summer. With a fill-up, along with the aforementioned services we were to whisk broom the beach sand out of each and every car. It was a bit much. Cars would be waiting while all they could see were green clad Khaki legs sticking out of the cars in front them, whisking the precious Greenwich beach sand onto the ground. It was evident this added feature was slowing down business rather than improving the bottom line. Otto and Jimi badgered me to approach my old man to have the sweeping jettisoned from or duties. Dad, being a reasonable man, said fine. "We'll drop it tomorrow."



It didn't cause many problems, we had a loyal clientele and a good location...but we did have one little snag. You see, Otto had some serious hearing loss from the war. He didn't talk too much to the customers so it wasn't generally a problem. Until a little old lady, typical over-bred, liver-lipped stockbrokers wife who asked "Where's the restroom?" I was at the next pump and heard Otto reply, thinking she had said whisk broom instead of restroom, reply, "Sorry mam, but if you pull over to the air pump, I'd be more than happy to blow it out for you."



She went all fourth of July fireworks on him, and I think she asked to speak to the president of Texaco. My old man cleared it up with tank of gas and an extra book of green stamps.



Leaving those guys to go to college was tough. They would smile from ear-to-ear when I came home for a holiday. They had gone from co-workers to friends. On those rare trips home we'd celebrate with Imperial and orange soda. I have to thank my Dad for one of the most important life lessons one can get.



You know, whomever you're voting for (especially if you're from New England) skin color issues were supposed to have gone away a long, long time ago.

So, on that note I hope the Red Sox get their asses kicked tonight, though if my wallet was involved...let's just say Kazmir will be gone by the sixth.

Great article by an Inuit (Nick Jans) in Salon on the Bering Sea Bimbo (Palin). He totally elucidates here shortcomings and tells us that you can only see Russia from a small island she's never stepped foot on.

Later, biff