More Secrets

Before I left for Saint Lucia, I decided to reveal my secret. I did it in a very public way: on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. It was not an easy decision. I kept journals throughout the years, but never EVER shared my real life. When I saw the draft of my story, in Joe Mozingo’s words, I thought, “What have I done?” I called my friend Adell and she met me at the dog park on 190th Street. While Barkley happily ran around the park with his dog friends, Adell quietly consoled me. She calmly explained to me that I wasn’t going to die – I would be fine. In fact, she said I would feel better when I stopped hiding this part of my life. She was right. Now, it’s written, it’s public knowledge, and I lived through it…and I’m glad I no longer harbor this secret. Since arriving here, I have discovered another secret – maybe not as big, but a secret. These kinds of secrets are like warts. They appear out of nowhere.

I’ve been thinking about this wart since I first arrived on the island. I don’t like thinking about it. I prefer to think about myself without this thought. I don’t want to write this piece. I’ve been resisting for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that when you put things in writing, it becomes real. We are told, “Put your goals in writing. If they are not in writing, they are at risk of never being realized”. Should a thought be put into writing when my thought is something that bothers me? What if I don’t want it to be real? Should I still put it in writing? Or, is denial better . . .if it’s not real, will it go away? The second reason is that I may feel compelled to put this in my blog if I write it. Readers might judge me, but on the flip side, readers may look at themselves and understand. Maybe it’s better to talk about these things. So, this is the dilemma. If you are reading this, you know what I’ve decided. Write it – face it – publish it!

As a boomer growing up in the sixties, I remember some events with extreme accuracy. I was wearing a black skirt and a purple corduroy jacket with a white blouse. It was one of my favorite outfits. I was walking from my office machines classroom to the cafeteria at Thousand Oaks High School. An announcement came over the loud speaker. President Kennedy had been shot. I stopped walking – I was stunned. This is not something that should happen in America. An hour later we were on the football field. The principal was telling us to go home. The President is dead. I walked up the circular driveway and into the house we lived in on Gainsborough Road.

Our house was a two story four bedroom, three bathroom home. My father received a big promotion at work before we moved to Thousand Oaks. It was time to move. We sold our home in Torrance, we packed up and moved “up”.
My mother enjoyed sewing. She was sitting on the living room floor cutting material from a pattern she had purchased at Newberry’s, a chain store that has been out of business for decades. We used to call stores like Newberry’s “dime stores”.

Thousand Oaks was an old farming community that was building new homes and luring young families to a “better life”. There was one Hispanic family in town who owned the local Mexican Food Restaurant. Other than that, it was a homogeneous small town. Although I felt safe there, I was sheltered and I wrestle with whether this was a good or bad thing.

Mom looked at me and said, “What are you doing home?” I watched her expression change from curious to disbelief to shock and sadness and finally tears. It was if time was standing still. This was just the beginning of events that would rock my world.

The next moment I remember is the Watts Riots. I was in my parent’s upstairs bedroom. Their television was on and the pictures we were watching resembled a war zone. Young African Americans were burning their own community. They were smashing large panes of glass in retail stores and carrying away televisions, sofas, clothes and anything of value. The fear coming through the small screen was palpable. It was out of control. Police and other authorities had no control over what was happening.

Thousand Oaks was a 1½ hour drive from the riots and I felt safe in my cocoon. I was living with a mom and a dad and two sisters in a neighborhood that might be termed as a place where people live the American Dream. A few years later I met John. His life was vastly different from mine. He was living in a neighborhood very close to the riots. He was in the Army and was released on emergency leave to protect his mother and their family home. We had contrasting lives until we met. My parents taught me that prejudice and racism had no place in our home. I am grateful for their liberal and sensible approach to skin color; however, I had no direct experience with what they were teaching me. John’s experiences, friends and lifestyle taught me the practical side that shaped what my parents taught me as a young child. The values that I hold dear to this day are a tribute to my parents and John.

In the early 1990s I was working in a corporate office in El Segundo about a half hour from downtown Los Angeles. John and I had been married for a couple of decades. Our children were entering their teens. They were alone at home. I had my own office. I was wearing a suit and heals. I was making a decent salary and trying to climb the ladder. There was an emergency message over the loud speaker system in the office. The Rodney King decision had come in and there are riots in Los Angeles. We were told to go home. They told us to alter our route home – go west, toward the beach.

I packed up my office, grabbed my purse and keys and walked down the stairs and out to the parking lot. I climbed into my 1989 Blue GMC Safari Van. The radio was not working. Cell phones were not yet embedded into our culture. As I exited the facility, it was apparent that the entire city of El Segundo was moving west at a snail’s pace. I had children at home, alone. With no radio and no cell phone, I left in a communication vacuum and determined to get to my family as quickly as possible. Disregarding the advice of my company, I headed east on El Segundo Boulevard. I needed to turn south as soon as possible, but each intersection was jammed with traffic so I continued east. The further east I drove, the more the demographics changed, and the more frightening the drive became. I finally turned south on Hawthorne Boulevard and it was here that things became even more frightening. There were car loads of young African American men. Many were defiantly riding in the back of pick-up trucks holding handguns and shotguns. They were headed toward the Galleria Mall in Torrance.

The cocoon that my parents had built for me so many years ago was shed and I was living in the real world. It didn’t matter what my values were. It didn’t matter if I was empathetic or kind or sympathetic or disgusted or angry. It didn’t matter if I held prejudicial beliefs or if I was a liberal idealist. The only thing that mattered was the color of my skin. I recognized that this might be the way these angry young men might feel every day. No matter who they are inside, people see only the color of their skin. Was I feeling what they live with daily? Maybe.

Every time I passed one of those trucks my heart rate peaked and my palms became sweaty. I checked and re-checked the door locks in the van. I reached my children after three intense hours. Everyone was safe and sound. To this day, the African American’s sitting on the edge of the truck beds, the lawlessness, the guns, and the defiance is a frightening experience to remember.

This brings me to my warts . . . my secret thought . . . my reluctance to admit my imperfect thoughts. It’s not uncommon to see pick-up trucks with black men sitting on the edges of the truck beds in Saint Lucia. Some have a cutlass, a large knife, with them. They are riding down the highways, through the city, and along the small roads in the villages. I see this scene every day, several times a day. Each time, my first thought is fear. It’s a thought I haven’t shed; based on an experience I had two decades ago. But, as quickly as fear sets in, it leaves. It’s legal to ride in the bed of pick-up trucks here. People pick up stranded people on the highway all the time. The big knives? They are used in farming. They cut bananas or breadfruits from trees with them.

So, ok, I admit it. I have imperfect thoughts. But now, having admitted it, maybe I can shed the old memory of fear and replace it with a better experience. No matter how much someone is in a hurry, they are never in so much of a hurry that they can’t stop and give a lift to someone who is standing in the hot sun waiting for a ride, cutlass in hand.