First Amendment Hits Home

In my first few years of teaching I will never forget a real time American history lesson that has always stayed with me.
   In the early nineties in an urban setting of a largely African American elementary school we were knee deep in the study of the Bill of Rights. It was spring, fifth grade, and we were already a close knit family working together, sometimes bothering each other, but mostly helping each other.
    I can remember it like it was yesterday. We had circled our desks at the end of the day and were processing all that we knew about the Bill of Rights.  It was during our discussion, a student Yvette shared animatedly about a man who approached her that morning at the B.A.R.T. station, (our local mass transit system) and was not only spouting speech but was also passing out literature that she didn't understand.   A wise 11 year old, Yvette was astute enough to sense that it might be hate speech but wasn't sure.  She wanted her classmate's help.  Yvette produced a highly derogatory flyer out of her desk and asked, " Miss S what did the man mean by this?"  The hand out she produced was indeed racist, and hateful.  The man that passed it to her actually said something more of the same but it was subtle and full of innuendo. The kids watched my face and I remember I fought to hold back tears.
   "Miss S!  He is down there everyday.  Go down there with me today after school.  We can stop him from doing this, and have him arrested!"
   I collected myself, and spoke as clearly as I could.  I believe I said something to the effect of  the first amendment was there to allow Americans to say good things, as well as bad things.
   I'll never forget their slow, but gradual nodding in tandem as they finally understood the first amendment and what it entailed.  One by one, in that circle of universal desks, the clarity was apparent. More importantly, the look on their faces has always stayed with me.  Some days there are no golden moments in teaching.

     I am a transplanted Southerner through and through.  Both my parents were born and raised in North Carolina and although I hail from northern California near San Francisco, and eclectic Berkeley,  I still consider the blanket of pines in the aerial view from my plane window at RDU, "home."
    In my humble opinion, you just really haven't lived until you have had a holiday meal with my aunt.  I really think my aunt could easily have been the inspiration for the restaurant, "Hometown Buffet." Her holiday spreads are tables' where there are endless food choices, and the selections of cakes, and pies seem to go on forever.
     Diversity?   The city of Raleigh boasts well manicured green velvet lawns, and nights that are as warm, and wet as the mornings.  My aunt and uncle's farm in rural Chapel Hill has rich, orange dirt much like California's adobe, as far as one can see.  The south is still the kind of place where you can get lost, ask for directions, and they will help you with both a smile, and a thick southern drawl.
   North Carolina porches are hard to leave. Despite knowing that all the world's problems can't really be solved there,  it's almost worth a try in a rocking chair, with a cold glass of sweet tea.

Be Careful What You Wish For

    Friday we drove half the day to meet my daughter on a ten hour drive home from college. We met at some drive through and  I popped in my daughter's car and drove the remaining four hours home.  The plan was to break up the ten hour drive for her, but of course it turned into an opportunity for her to finish some course work. So I drove from Red Bluff, California to the Bay Area while she furiously typed away on her laptop,  finishing up some late assignment, cradled in her lap, sprinkling our monotonous drive w/animated asides.
    She's home now, for the duration of the summer. Sister and brother are reunited. When she left three years ago the iceberg was just beginning to thaw between them.  Her love of pop culture, her  constant squeals/yells of excitement, her animal rights activism, and women's rights platforms were just beginning to not irritate him quite as much.   In a scant 24 hours both of them have re-assumed their sibling roles, that invisible hierarchy, just as if they have never been apart.
   And the random socks are in the living room (where she did her yoga) and her threaders are by my sink ('' 'Cause your mirror is better,") and the idle talk about a certain song, or a new TikTok is beyond my comprehension but I listen intently, nod when appropriate, and feign understanding.  I so desperately want to belong to their club.
   And I sleep better when they are home.  I love to see their doors creaked open at night, engrossed independently in their own worlds yet  inexplicably intertwined together unbeknownst to them yet so clearly obvious to me.