RAILROAD TRACKS

I grew up in a town laid out like a diorama of Civil War America. Through the approximate center of town ran a railroad track and a major thoroughfare: our Mason-Dixon line. North of the line brown faces drove past billboard ads for liquor and cigarettes, down potholed streets to poorly supplied schools. South of the line my white friends and I enjoyed shopping at the one mall in town, riding our bikes down smooth roads and learning in well-stiocked classrooms. Their high school was named after the notable Union general, John Tyler, and ours after Confederate general, Robert E. Lee.

I remember only a handful of kids darker than me before my teen years. Only knew one by name. By high school there were four or five non-white students in my classes. The lack of diversity bothered me I guess but I still kept my relationship with even those few minority students I knew of about as close as Baptists in a liquor store: Nodding as I passed but finding reasons not to avoid conversation. I had the biggest crush on an almond-eyed African-American girl in my computer science class but stopped short of asking her out, afraid of what she and everyone else might think of me - of us. At church an older white woman shouted in a business meeting, upset about "colored" people from the neighborhood visiting our services more and more. "I come here to be with people like me!" And I didn't want to be one of them when I grew up.

I walked out my back door this morning to laughter. Fourteen kids of every shade in my yard: Swinging each other in my hammock, playing catch with my football, riding their bikes in my driveway, and sitting at my folding table rolling snakes out of Play Dough mounds. Fourteen hot and sweaty kids a couple hours later circled Becky and I and a tray of cantaloupe, strawberries and crackers brought out from our kitchen. Becky's face radiated contentment, and mine awe, as dirty hands clamored for helping after helping of snacks, no one seeming to notice the peculiarity of what to me is a miracle.

People my color only crossed over the tracks back home because they got lost, to go to church or to throw a parade. And we weren't apt to make friends while we were there. Every year Tyler, Texas still gathers for the Rose Festival. I remember it well. The richest eighteen year old white girl in town sits on a float as "Rose Queen" and rides through the streets of the North side. The white haves parade across the tracks and flaunt their wealth before the mostly non-white have nots, leaving them no better off and no better friends when they head south again.

When parade day comes around this year I'll be a decade and seven hundreds miles away from it - in my front yard with a pile of fruit, some crackers, Play Dough and fourteen friends. Just like every other day, far from the railroad tracks.