White Like Me

Both boys desperately needed haircuts. For the past 8 years I have cut Emery's hair and for the past 4, Wilbur's too. But they've gotten too squirmy and there's too much complaining and I'm sick of sweeping hair into the yard... So, I started taking them to this little neighborhood 'Hair and Nailz' kind of place. But I want to be able to walk in (their signs always say, "Walk-Ins Welcome") but this last time no one was available to cut their hair. Plus, they'd each had their hair cut at this place once and they hadn't done a great job. All I ever did, and what I wanted done, was a buzz. They both have perfectly straight hair and until they are ready to groom it themselves the only haircut that keeps it neat and tidy is a buzz.

So, out we walked. I told the boys that we were going into town to see if we could find a barber to cut their hair and low and behold as soon as I got downtown in Woodinville I saw a barber's pole. I swear I've driven that way a hundred times and never noticed it, but there we were. I parked the car and we all went in. There were 4 black men getting their hair cut by 3 black men and one black woman. I registered this information - we were the only white people in there - and then realized that one of the guys getting a haircut is a guy that works in my building. So, we spoke and laughed for a moment and I made arrangements for the young woman to cut the boys' hair. We sat down. Emery has been giving me looks and then when he's out of earshot of the barbers and customers he says, sotto voce, "Are we going to get our hair cut here?" I said that yes, we were.

Well, it only took about 10 minutes and the boys were comfortable (there is a chess set and a pool table and they wanted to do both) and they got the best haircuts they've ever had and they were more comfortable actually getting the hair cut (she was good with the clippers I mean). We talked about the experience on the way home. I asked Emery, "were you uncomfortable when we first walked in?" and he told me, "yes - I felt like we didn't belong there" -- I pointed out that any one of those people in there might feel the same way anywhere else in Woodinville. It was very likely that they were surrounded by white people and one of them might be the only black person in the room. I told the boys that it was a good thing to be in a situation like that where you were the 'other'.

I asked the young woman her name as she finished Wilbur's haircut and I paid her. She said, "Mess" and handed me her card. I thought I'd misunderstood her. But sure enough, that was her name.

I Can Read

I remember the mobile library in San Antonio and going to get books there. They always had those books that said "an I Can Read! book"...

Wilbur is just on the verge of reading. He writes, almost compulsively, letters in strings that mimic words, he asks me what every single sign says - along the roads, in the grocery store, everywhere. But he just isn't quite getting it. It's so odd how something doesn't make sense and then one day, it does. I never went through this with Emery because he read so early. I keep worrying that Wilbur won't read or that there is something wrong. It's sort of maddening.

I should just enjoy this and not worry. I should just be where we are and quit trying to get somewhere else faster.

A Rooster Crows in Brooklyn

Years ago Doug lived in Los Angeles - before I knew him. He was deciding whether or not to go graduate school, trying to decide if he should leave LA; and one morning in the middle of LA County he was awakened by a rooster crowing. I often make him tell me this story... and the end of the story is that when he hears that rooster crowing he thinks to himself, "I've got to get the fuck out of here." Like that was the signal it was time to leave Los Angeles, the big city, the excess, the current road trip, all that; and go back to school.

When we lived in New York in Hell's Kitchen I heard roosters crowing all the time. I wanted to leave the City; nothing was going my way and things hadn't worked out the way I supposed. Every time we heard a rooster crow in the morning I would say to Doug, "See? We've got to get the fuck out of here. The rooster is telling us. The rooster is telling us to go." But Doug would remind me that the California rooster was the harbinger and a rooster to be obeyed because his crowing came out of nowhere. And that's why it was a sign. "These roosters crow all the time" he would say as salsa music blared from the apartment building behind us. "Castro had chickens in NY, it's not so unusual here."

I was reminded of all this by this story of a woman getting shot by an arrow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/nyregion/17arrow.html?ref=nyregion

This woman was getting out of her car and as she opened the door she got hit in the gut with an arrow. I think if that happened to me, and Doug were there with me at that moment, I would say, "OK, are you satisfied? It's the wild west in Manhattan. Can we go now?"

Bye Bye Seattle P-I

I've been listening to this series on KPLU (the NPR station at Pacific Lutheran U) on the last days of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, and our last days as a 2-daily-newspaper city. (http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1478803) The broadcast yesterday focused on investigative journalism asking who would be our watchdog if newspapers couldn't anymore.

They had a blogger named Scott St. Clair who posited that the blogosphere (a loathed word) fills this function and there is no need for professional journalists. He spoke of the inanity of 'professional' journalism with such derision that it caught my attention and I started rolling his name around in my mind. And when he talked of representing the Evergreen Freedom Foundation I knew exactly who he was.

Whenever the word Freedom is used by an organization, you can bet that 7 times out of 10 it's some rabid right-wing cabal. And this time was no exception. This fool, Scott St. Clair, was one of the major opponents of Tent City, and, no surprise - the Evergreen Freedom Foundation is a conservative think tank.

That the irony escapes Mr. St. Clair is also no surprise; I mean the fact that he is publicly associated with a conservative think tank and yet proposes to fill the role of an unbiased journalist.

Motel Living

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/us/11motel.html

Our family has been involved in the horror of homelessness since 2004, when the Tent City IV encampment first moved to the East Side of King County. At that time, while we weren't in a recession, while we were all living high on the hog and while the high life we enjoyed seemed never to end, people here expressed vitriolic rage that any roving group of homeless people would be given comfort in our suburban neighborhoods.

I bet some of those people are now facing the prospect themselves.

For some reason, being homeless myself is one of my long-term fears. I have been afraid of ending up with nowhere to go since I first left my parent's home in 1984. I don't know why, it's not always a rational fear, but I think about it. I used to think about who I'd call to ask for help. Maybe it's because I always felt it could happen to me that I felt compassion for people in that situation - I don't know. I had some of the same fears that opponents expressed. But in the end, I'm mostly afraid I'll be one of those people who needs help one day, and if I did, I would hope to find compassion.

Squre Root Day & Give It Up for Lent

Today, 3/3/09, is Square Root Day. Just to mark it and make mention.

And now, Give it up for Lent...

I am going to abstain from Facebook for Lent this year. It just came to me in church on Sunday that that is what I should do. I sit in front of a computer all day and maybe I could get tuned into the lengthening of the days and the season of Lent by not getting online in the evening.