A REMEMBERED STORY

This story will be, as most of my stories are, hard to write. Not because of my lack of talent, as I am, after all, a Genius. However, I am too aware that today's world will not abide the world I grew up in. After all the World now contains Generation Z, which for the most part, is afraid of everything!

And that is a shame. Because there is was much freedom, for some, but I assure you, there were constraints on each person, black, white, or whatever color of skin. No, you could not, for instance, dress as you do today even back then in the 50's and 60's.. If you dressed as you do today, britches hanging down (if anyone still does that?), shorts so skimpy as to have almost no "legging" below the crotch, "sports bra", pants "ripped" in just the right places, and most especially, the "Gay" lifestyle, if it is still called such. You would be arrested.

Yes, I'm very old. I have no idea what you call half of what passes for fashion these days. Even my own children handicapped me for living in today's modern, but ancient times; "It's all been done Eons before" in history. All the "Woke"; the "Gay"; the..."Everything" of our outrageous, so-called Society, fashion, and World, can bring forth today. That's right, it's all just a re-run! Romans married their horses! And made an Island called "Lesbos".

Back to my kids though. They dressed "Western". And at school, hung out with that crowd. Each group dressed and separated, and named, after their particular chosen classical social future endeavor. Although "Western" could branch off into, say financial jobs, still it would be Farm and ranch financial in nature. They would go on to A &M college for instance, as opposed to some legal college. And if able, their Professorship would be in some agriculture endeavor, such as biogenic; grass and feeds; or chemistry. Starting out counting bovine f$rts is no glamorous job, but in today's world it seems important to those who eat!

By the way, don't go into a rant about "Vegetarianism". Like i said, I'm an old bird, and them shoes you wear might not be made of leather, but I know the car you drive has animal by-products in it's manufacture, and there was probably two or more cows consumed for every car built! You can't stick on the assembly line drinking fake yogart, not unless you are doing what these "dyed in the wool" Veggiers in New York do. They rent special dining rooms for two and, eat a big steak dinner in private about twice a month. Check it out, ask a waiter or two. That is if there are any fancy restaurants in New York today, or waiters either, these days!

Speaking of rant'n! But cha' see, my problem is how to write it, that is to say, write it so as not to get tossed off this here platform. Nor enrage you instead of informing you. Yep, you got a lot of young people these days need a "safe space", whatever that is. Ya see, back in the day you just spouted the truth as you seen it. Not without thinking of course. And then you defended your point of view. Knuckle bumps on yer haid, and scars on yor' knuckles and face! It'll heal,..some. O'course, those better equipped by genes and nature had a better point advantage, (That's what the thinking beforehand is fer), but if you stay quiet all your life it shows you were easily led, or pushed, around. And that would never do.

Speaking of safe spaces, there ain't none. Wait until you get into a sweat like combat, and maybe some Officer thinks throwing you against an enemy position with impossible survival odds, just as a "Fient", so they can fool the enemy into dealing with killing you, while the "real" effort is taking place somewhere else. That's right, your life don't amount to squat up against "The Big Picture". That's right, throw you away, and tromp through your spilt blood later without thinkin' about it. Getting any respect now, are you, for those that faced similar, and gave all, so you can go uptown and act a fool, if you want to? 

That pistole on an Officer's side is to shoot you with, if you don't comply with orders. And all that stuff in enlistment contracts, like which school your promised, is all taken away in the last paragraphs. All your guaranteed by law is; one meal a day (you might have to kill something or someone, to get to eat.) And one hour's rest. Not sleep; rest. Per day!

Not that matters in the personal scope of things. But it gives your mind something to "curse" upon whenever your backed up a river too small to turn your 30 ft. patrol boat around in, as you await the two o'clock Vietcong village meeting. Which the Seals will try to attend or at least disrupt with fireworks, before running to your boat fora quick getaway, their shirts on fire from a dozen AK-47's! 

So now we've accomplished a couple things, although you might not think so. We understand my brain's wave pattern better, and something of my life experience. Prepared you to understand the problem we have communicating "correctly", which I aim to do, so as to benefit you and society. And we got the dull brained to leave us. All intentional I assure you.

One day long ago, when I was very young, (Yes, even I had days like that.) so as to see the road ahead and read the signs better. I was "learning to drive, as every kid wants to do. I was standing up on the floorboard of the pickup to see over the dashboard. (If those terms are hard for you to understand you might have been better to have gone already. :)

We had a family pickup as well an older car, being in TEXAS, that's still the way most do it. The car for Mom, the family truck for hauling hay to the horses. Everyone I knew had at least a couple. And then fishing just ain't right without a tailgate to sit on, backed up to the lake or river.

So as my Dad worked for Lone Star Gas Company, we were riding in the "company" truck. He had several small towns in North TEXAS to take care of. We were just leaving one, and on the way home just about dusk of a summer's day. As we came up to a city limit sign, I dutifully read that aloud, ignoring all others.

My Dad slowed and pulled to the side of the highway stopping behind an older car with the hood raised, which I had not seen, because I had yet to learn to look far down the road, which is an essential skill to driving.

There was a Black man, about mid-thirties, dressed in work clothes, bending over the front fender of the car, then straightening up to see who was stopping. He walked back to my Dad's window as my Dad asked if we could help, maybe give him a ride? His answer was that the problem seemed to be a broken fanbelt. 

He had relatives just up a dirt sideroad he explained, swinging his arm to point, He could just quickly walk up the road to get all the help he needed. The main problem to him, he did not have to explain to my Dad, but was not understood by me as I remained silent, was the car needed to be given a push of a few yards along the road. My Dad agreed to push his car, a thing he NEVER did with the "company" truck, which did get my attention.

I know it's hard to envision my being silent, but here adults were talking. And in TEXAS, at that time, if someone as young as I interrupted, he would not be sitting down to eat his supper, if indeed he got supper.

My Dad eased up and just touched the vehicle ahead, a thing that impressed me, and as the man drove the car, my Dad pushed it up a couple of lengths along the side of the grass along and off the pavement. Then he backed up a bit, and cut across the highway, checking both ways, I noted, into the off-road the young man had already begun to walk up to his relative's house. 

Then backing carefully out onto the highway as if to head back in the direction we had just come from, he asked me, "Son, you missed a sign didn't you?". Without really expecting my answer, which was only a silent head shake, denying my having misread a road sign, he cautiously circled around to once again head in the original direction of home.

He pulled over right in front of the city limit sign and stopped the truck. "Son," he said, "Read all the signs and understand them."

I read the sign twice silently until the truth, and understanding, reached my young brain. Then I read the sign aloud, hesitating a bit at the word I was not supposed to use, at least, not in public. 

Don't get me wrong, I had no idea we were "Passing", sort of, as no one in the family seemed to be aware of such a thing. And then as we were a bit Indian, and all us kids looking so different from one another, no questions were ever asked. One of us looked "English",with the typical crooked-set teeth and was born in England just at War's end. One looked very English-Irish-Typical American, having very black curly hair, and dark blue eyes. And one looked "Second Generation Indian-English-Irish", complete with eye-folds. My Dad was dark, even darker in summer's heat, but only dark enough to seem of Mexican or Indian admixture. Of course, there was Mom. A typical Berwick-Upon-Tweed Scotland Lass, with a brogh that no one in Texas could, without trouble, understand! It was like listening to a Mexican or Vietnamese just starting to speak English. Having learned it from someone raised in Jersey or New York, which to us TEXANS is much the same!

 I had no idea for many years that there were only two classifications during the World Wars I and II, for those inducted. Eithier you were classified as "colored", or "white". And that "stuck", even though later census taking. Unless you filed to change it. Not as in "Old Virginia" for instance, or worse, during the days of Walter A. Plecker. Now-a-days you are permitted to "self-identify" from a hundred choices printed upon a census form that you fill out. Yes, there is a place to fill-in a number for tri-racial, but I won't tell you it, due to the fact I/We don't use it (Yet), and it might be changed on the next form.

Had the "More-Than-One-Drop of African blood been known, or someone with an attitude had made a point of it, I would have had to attend the One Room Schoolhouse down the hill, literally, from the huge converted old stone four-story Women's College for the white children. With its newer added on open architecture brick Grade School Building. That is, after the death of the Objector.

The "Colored" school, with very little Whitewash paint left upon it's wooden walls was really two or three rooms, or what passed as such. Having One proper room with a teacher/ principal and then a room for the Office of the Superintendent/ principal/ teacher. At least that is what I was told, having never entered it's doors. The older children were bused to the County Seat to the Highschool. One I have never seen in all my years living in that County. A County where the Courthouse was burned down by a man with the same name as my Father-In-Law, who was completely innocent. And the real arsonist/murderer was soon caught.

A Black man was arrested for suspected rape of a White woman. This was before WWII. And to protect him from a mob of White men the Law locked him up, emptied the Courthouse, and armed with rifles and shotguns tried their best to disperse the mob and guard the life of their prisoner. But to no avail. Somone set fire to the Courthouse and the "suspect" was the victim of that horrific act! Then the mob went on a rampage of burning and; ... I cannot now remember my reading about this history. Perhaps further horrors were committed, such as hangings. I have read of similar stories, perhaps one in Oklahoma and other places, back when I studied the subject on my own to learn the truths that my educators skipped over. I could mix the History if I tell you what I'm not sure of. I'm typing all of this from memory tonight, Without notes or reference, as usual.

My brain is not as good as before. Old age creeped up on me and stabed me in the back. And too, perhaps such as this should be forgotten. But I hold that it should be remembered. All of it should. Perhaps not taught to younger minds. I'm not an educator. But finding out after I was grown that the reason many of the Courthouses in Counties, such as the one where I started School, was built just across the street from the old one that sat on the square proper, is due to its burning, And I suppose this is due to Plecker's action. The Nazi loved Plecker's idea to rid the world of undesirables and "Mud People" like me. And of course, the Rockefellers'' sponsored it in America.

One day you're a White man, married to a White woman. You have a Clerking job somewhere and making a living for the family that now includes three small children that depend Soley on you. You awake one morning, and you are a Black man, due to plecker's list. And the little wife is married to a Black man, which isolates her from family and friends. And puts you out of a job! No way you can be a Clerk for a White company handling the confidential information of the White public! But the worst thing is your children have to attend "The Littlt One Room Schoolhouse" at the bottom of the hill! Of course, too, you'll have to move to the "Colored" section of town, No way could your landlord rent that house to a "Colored" family! And seeing that you can't get them to change the records back, nor get at them yourself; someone in your shoes burned many a Courthouse in the Old South!

Don't worry! I've thought of a way to "read" the city-limits sign to you. Only so you won't be stupid all your life. I'm speaking here to non-African influenced here you see, because their education such as this isn't given at home as others are taught by parents to keep their children safe.

And here, in today's "Woke", and "Safe" world is what the meaning the sign conveyed.

"Sir, as the Authorities elected of this great City, we would like to thank you for shopping here. And to point out to you who are of a "particular Race and color, as "The Good Lord" made you, that you must know that we do have wonderful sunsets here. However. we insist that you take advantage of viewing the sunset every day out in the countryside, beyond our city limits, where the air is so much fresher, and breathable."

Naaa....The terror, threat, and old "Plantation" spirit has been lost in translation. Perhaps I can think of a better way as thinking more about this I might get an inspiration? 

Dan Bunch

TEXAS