Auld Lang Syne
Dec. 12th, 2009 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumMy second stepfather died this week. If I am doing the math right he was 57. There's no need to offer me condolence. I'll take it as read. Sadly the news wasn't a surprise, though it was a shock. He had diabetes, and had the misfortune to have chosen a good field; for the late '70s. Problem was, by the mid-nineties, there weren't so many mainframe computer systems for him to operate.
So he was unemployed. Had to move in with his sister for a few years. I don't want to make this political, but part of the reason he's dead at 53 is that being black isn't the best thing for one's health in the US.
I lived with him from 11 to 15. Formative years. Some of who I am, how I look at things, are things he taught me. He thought I was too quiet, a bit too meek. We lived in a less than swell part of town. He thought I moved like a target. I don't know how much of the way I am not seen as a target is because of his telling me I had to keep my eyes up, and my head on a swivel.
I do know that when I was in college, and a black kid tried to intimdate me at a party it didn't go the way he expected it to. Yeah, it was a white part of town, and I am a slightly built guy, but his being black didn't matter to me. That I wasn't scared of him hung him up, and the fight he wanted to start didn't happen; which caused him to leave the party.
On a lark he and another friend decided to go get steak tartare one evening. So they got dressed up enough to be let into the sorts of place which serve it. They would ask the maître d' if the place served steak tartare. They then asked if they could get it well done.
It wasn't until something like the eighth one that the maître d' looked at them and said, "If Messieurs desire their steak well done, they shall have it well done." They said it was the best burger they'd ever had, and worth not the trouble, but every penny they spent on it.
I saw him last about a year ago. We had a good catching up. He was, in a quiet way, proud of me; I could list worse accomplishments.
So he was unemployed. Had to move in with his sister for a few years. I don't want to make this political, but part of the reason he's dead at 53 is that being black isn't the best thing for one's health in the US.
I lived with him from 11 to 15. Formative years. Some of who I am, how I look at things, are things he taught me. He thought I was too quiet, a bit too meek. We lived in a less than swell part of town. He thought I moved like a target. I don't know how much of the way I am not seen as a target is because of his telling me I had to keep my eyes up, and my head on a swivel.
I do know that when I was in college, and a black kid tried to intimdate me at a party it didn't go the way he expected it to. Yeah, it was a white part of town, and I am a slightly built guy, but his being black didn't matter to me. That I wasn't scared of him hung him up, and the fight he wanted to start didn't happen; which caused him to leave the party.
On a lark he and another friend decided to go get steak tartare one evening. So they got dressed up enough to be let into the sorts of place which serve it. They would ask the maître d' if the place served steak tartare. They then asked if they could get it well done.
It wasn't until something like the eighth one that the maître d' looked at them and said, "If Messieurs desire their steak well done, they shall have it well done." They said it was the best burger they'd ever had, and worth not the trouble, but every penny they spent on it.
I saw him last about a year ago. We had a good catching up. He was, in a quiet way, proud of me; I could list worse accomplishments.
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Date: 2009-12-12 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 12:45 pm (UTC)thanks for that and for sharing...
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Date: 2009-12-12 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 03:42 pm (UTC)As for the non-target part, I seem to have some of the same bearings. I keep on living in first-wave gentrification areas, and I've never had any issues. I never feel threatened. Hardly ever even slightly uncomfortable. And the other day, a panhandler was busy chatting me up, and tried to get me to tell him I was afraid of him, and that I was afraid of him because he was black.
The question just seemed bizarre to me. And the fact that I was white and NOT afraid of him seemed just as bizarre to him.
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Date: 2009-12-12 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 06:07 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2009-12-12 06:19 pm (UTC)Julia, went out by PLU yesterday; all the readerboards reference the Lakewood cops...
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Date: 2009-12-13 07:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-13 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 08:27 am (UTC)Auld Lang Syne
Date: 2009-12-16 05:36 pm (UTC)I have relayed the news to Momcat (Diane Myers) who was his apartment-mate for some years.
--Lee Gold