Tag Archives: midwest

Jul 13

A kernel of possibility

On Friday, I mailed a card to a woman I’ll call L who was in my life for only a couple of years when I was a teenager. She dated my dad and briefly lived with us until they went their separate ways. I liked her. She took me to the local beauty school to get my hair highlighted by beauticians in training. The first trip went well; I left with just a few strips of caramel-colored streaks in my dark hair. The second trip things went a bit too far—I left with a lot more chunks of too-light color for my hair. The hard water at my house tinged it red. A classmate referred to it with a racial slur when I returned to school. I think my mom thought it looked terrible and was irritated that this woman would take it upon herself to introduce me to such alterations. When L left (and I should note she always had her own house, and simply stayed with us because she wanted to while she was dating dad), I remember sitting at the dining room table, in one of my bad moods with her departure being the source. My dad asked me what was up. I can’t remember my exact words when I responded, but I know this was the gist of it: What is wrong with you? Why does everyone leave you? I am mortified to remember I said some version of this to him. I was angry L had left. I was angry my mom had left.

I don’t really recall his response. I don’t remember him being angry; he was not one to get angry often, and I don’t think a smart ass remark from his teen-aged daughter would have bothered him a great deal. He may have even sensed that this was coming from a place of my own hurt. When I think deeply on the scenario, he may have said something along the lines of things don’t always work out. In hindsight I realize their relationship was never that serious. They were never going to marry. They were never going to join families. He and she may have known that all along, but I saw her as a partner for my dad so he wouldn’t have to be alone. I don’t think that was a concern for him then, and a few years later he met and moved in with the woman he would spend the rest of his life with.

I ran into L last year when I was leaving the hospital in my hometown after seeing my uncle who had been recently diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. My aunt saw her first and said Hey, there’s L. I could scarcely believe my eyes. She looked exactly the same but older—like everyone. It may have been more than 20 years since I saw her last. I told her where I lived and what I did. When she asked about my brother, I broke the news that he had died from pancreatic cancer. She said she had looked for me on Facebook; I used an alias on the site so was not easy to find, and since our conversation last year, I’ve deleted the account. I had told her I would find her on FB and we connected right before I made the decision to move away from FB completely.

Recently, however, a memory came to me of a conversation we had all those years ago, when I was around 14 or 15. I was absolutely mad about the 60’s group The Doors. Completely consumed with Jim Morrison and his legacy. Morrison died in 1971 and was buried in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. I had a collection of books themed around Jim Morrison and a paperback travel guide about Paris was part of it . I remember being in the living room talking with her and holding the Paris book. Maybe you’ll go there one day, L said to me. Reader, she may as well have said maybe you’ll go to the moon one day. That is how unlikely leaving the country seemed to me. Basically unfathomable. In rural Ohio, on a dirt road, surrounded by dense woods, no money, not old enough to drive, picturing a life beyond that place seemed impossible. But L buried that small seed of idea in my brain back then, and it wasn’t until recently, with a tiny bit of world travel under my belt (but not yet to Paris) did I realize that she may have been the first person to ever propose the wild notion that I could fly across the ocean and see the places I read about. In the card I sent her I thanked her for that.

Aug 28

Not Hiring

It was culture shock when my mom moved away from hot, sunny, diverse Juarez, Mexico/El Paso, Texas and arrived in cloudy, cool, tree-covered, monolithlically white rural Ohio. This was the early 1970s and she was likely the only Mexican in the surrounding 25 miles.

She struggled with her accent & people not understanding her–they told her in blunt and unkind terms.

My dad told her she didn’t need to work, but when my brother was a toddler, my mom was alarmed at how angry my dad would get if my brother left the lights on in the bathroom. He would rage. She decided that if money was so tight they couldn’t afford to leave the lights on by accident, then she needed to work. She had always worked. She is one of the hardest workers I know.

But her job search was fruitless. Someone she knew would mention that a factory was giving out applications, but when she arrived, they would tell her they were not giving out applications.

She would cry over her situation–she wanted to work so badly. She wanted to be able to support her family should something happen to my dad. People around her were applying everywhere, but she couldn’t even get an application.

She figured it had to do with her skin color or her accent…that was why she was being turned away. She recently shared a story with me that confirmed that idea.

My dad was on an unemployment. Both of my parents were factory workers in their early lives (my mom continued as one until her factory closed, but my dad moved on to being a cement truck driver).  I don’t remember why dad was on unemployment at this particular time, but occasionally there would be layoffs at the factory, but workers knew they would eventually be called back. In the meantime they’d receive unemployment.

However, one stipulation of unemployment was that you had to actively look for work. My mom says an unemployment office worker called our house and she heard my dad say he wasn’t interested.

“Who was that,” mom asked.

“The unemployment office,” dad replied.

“What’d they want?”

“Oh, Lawsons is hiring and they wanted to know if I wanted an application.”

“Why didn’t you take it?”

“I’m not interested in working there.”

“I would work there. Do you think they’d give me an application?”

My dad said he didn’t see why not, so they got into the car and he drove mom to the unemployment office.

He waited in the car as she went inside. Soon she walked back out and got in the car, empty-handed.

“What happened?” he asked her.

“They said they weren’t hiring,” she responded.

“Come with me,” he said and they walked in together.

He went to the front desk and said to the woman, “I received a call awhile ago offering me an application for Lawsons. I don’t want it, but my wife would like to have it.” Mom stood next to him, quietly. She told me you could tell the woman at the counter was flummoxed and looked back and forth between dad and mom. She finally said she needed to speak with her boss, so she went to a back office. Mom said they could see the two unemployment office workers talking and looking over at mom and dad. Eventually the woman returned and gave the application to mom.

Mom applied and GOT the damn job at Lawsons and worked there for a bit before getting a better paying job at a different factory, where she stayed for 30 years.

I love and hate that story. I hate that my mom had to deal with such stupidity and ignorance, but I love this show of solidarity between her and my dad in the early days of their marriage. My dad could be an intimidating guy, so I love imagining how pissed he was when he saw for himself the prejudice mom had to deal with, and decided to address it himself.

This story came to mind when I read in the NY Times today about Trump’s rental practices in the 1960s, and not allowing blacks to rent from his buildings. It is such a passive, bullshit way of mistreating people and making them feel inferior. It is infuriating.