I have probably written this particular blog 10 times when topics come up about poverty in the mainstream news or something.  I have dumped most of them for fear I might end up sounding like Vanilla Ice.  I lived with my father and we were definitely middle class and lived in the suburbs.  But my mother is married to a black man who was a gift to our family.  So here is a little of that story and how it happened.

My parents divorced when I was 4, initially my mother was given custody but through a crazy series of events that my mother could not control I ended up living with my dad.  My mother struggled after that and ended up going through job after job and relationship after relationship.  At one point she dated a man named Harold (who was African American), my mother didn’t make the best life choices back in those days and Harold was a scumbag, he died of Aids because of drug use and sharing of needles.  My mom got caught up in that lifestyle, eventually I would as well.

I didn’t see my mother a lot at this time but occasionally we would have visits that I couldn’t tell my dad about.  She took me places no kid should go.  I saw a lot at a very tender age.  I also got my ass kicked a lot being the only white kid in a predominantly black area.  I remember being dropped off at people’s house that I didn’t know.  A lot!! It always seemed to be some grandmother who held down the fort for her family, she was normally overweight, cooked great and by nights end I was in her lap and she was my new best friend.  After getting my ass kicked a few times people started to realize I wasn’t a punk and I made a few friends.  Most of this scene happened around a grocery store that my uncle owned.  My uncle was disowned from our family when he married a black woman, this was like in the 50’s.  He ran card games in the back of the grocery store were they played boo-ray and tonk.  Most of the people playing were playing with their net worth, so occasionally fights would break out, I shouldn’t have been there but I often was.  Looking back the games likely weren’t on the up and up.  Occasionally my uncle would take me to K&B for some ice cream, he was like the kind of old guy everyone was scared of but for some reason he liked me.  In fact, everyone liked me, of course there was the whole ass kicking thing, but I was polite and I knew my place, what wasn’t there to like?

My mother and I grew a bit closer when she started living with my grandmother (who I visited weekly) she worked at a grocery warehouse 1/2 block away from my grandmother’s house, I was between 16-17 at the time.  I eventually started working in the warehouse.  I was horrible at everything.  It also didn’t help that I was once again one of the only white people other than a guy named Maurice.  The characters there were so colorful I could write blogs about all of them.  There was Joe, who was the meanest person I have ever met and still is, Arthur, who was the supervisor and eventually he was murdered by his wife for cheating on her.  This was some real raw stuff.  Most of my time then was spent going to work and doing drugs and getting caught up in a lifestyle that was anything but glamorous.

That grocery warehouse is where my mom met James.  James is African American and he is now my stepfather.  James was god’s gift to my mother.  In fact, he was god’s gift to my whole family, from the way he treated my grandmother on her death bed to the way he makes my daughters feel every time we visit.  He also puts up with my mom which is no easy task.  My kids have a black grandfather and I kid you not when I say this to you, they have no idea he is black.  It literally never comes up and never has.  They have gradually started to figure things out but it all seems normal because it is normal for our family.

All if this is fresh in my head after Barack’s speech yesterday.  He captured that moment so well and for people who have straddled the divisive lines that race often creates it was a welcome dialogue.