The gift of a lesson learned

My family is about as white as it is possible to be in this melting pot we call the United States. Known ancestors come from the British Isles, Germany, France and Holland. Though I’m brown-haired and hazel-eyed, my children are blond-haired and blue-eyed. In another era and in a different place, they could have passed for Nordic “Aryans” and would have been well within the norms for being thee Teutonic racial ideal. Not only do we tend to be white of skin, we tend to be Midwestern (Iowa and Colorado) and live in white neighborhoods. My ancestors also tend to be politically and religiously conservative. All this is to set the stage for an incident which my wife and I experienced in the late summer of 1971.

We were married in June, 1970 in San Diego - a white-only affair, in a white community---the church itself was actually stark white, perhaps emphasizing the whiteness of our lives. We moved to the Bronx in order to teach school during the 1971-72 school year. She taught first grade; I taught third (another lesson learned - don’t teach unless you have the calling - she does, I don’t).

1971 was a time not so far removed from the racially charged times of the late 1960s that we didn’t remember the fear and anxiety. I still remember the smoke rising from the Los Angeles Watts area during the summer of 1965. Skin color was a touchy issue, sometimes more than socially touchy.

Suddenly we were plunged into a racially and culturally diverse community. We lived on the Grand Concourse, just north of the Cross-Bronx Expressway. We walked about a mile to the school where we taught. Though the neighborhood was culturally and racially diverse, there were distinct lines drawn. The Grand Concourse was a thin white line where all the apartments were restricted to white residents. On the side streets there was a mixture of African American and Puerto Rican apartments. Housing was technically non-discriminatory, but we applied for an apartment in a building whose owner told our Puerto Rican principal that there was no vacancy. We got the apartment; she didn’t.

Prior to learning that NYC is not a place in which to own a car, we had our 1969 Pontiac Tempest with us. Mostly having it meant that before you parked for the night, you had to carefully check to see which side of the street would be swept. If you forgot, your car was impounded somewhere in New Jersey and there was no public transportation to New Jersey. But I digress.

One day, for some reason, we were driving the Pontiac on a parallel street to the Grand Concourse. It happened to be the street on which the Elevated ran. We stopped to shop and when we returned to our car, it would not start. Among my few talents, I cannot count auto repair or even good trouble-shooting skills. I understand the general theory, but even removing a bolt was and is a challenge.

I got out, had my wife pop the hood latch, and stared at the offending hunk of metal. I reached in and tugged at a couple of wires so my bride would think that I was actually savvy about this domain of the male ego. I asked her to try the ignition again. Nothing.

A cardinal rule of NYC streets is: Don’t Be Noticed. We stood out like a sore thumb: We were driving; we were in a disabled vehicle; the hood was up; I was scratching my head; we were white.

Suddenly, to my left, I felt a presence. I turned to look and found myself staring at the abdomen of a man. My eyes drifted up and then froze. He was black. I don’t mean brown; he was black as skin can get. I froze. All my whiteness was fully on display. Besides being in a distinct minority in that place and time, I felt half his height and certainly half his bulk — none of which was fat.

“Got a little trouble?” he said.

“Yes,” I gulped anticipating all the pain I was certain would follow.

“Let’s see here,” he said as he leaned into the engine compartment. “Go try the ignition,” he commanded. I slid into the driver’s seat, taking back one small part of the male domain. I turned the key. Not a peep from the engine.

He fiddled for a minute or two and said, “I see what the problem is.” Now I don’t know for the life of me how he knew. What magic is given to some people to know these things without tearing the whole engine down and putting it together again?

“I’ll be back,” he said, and crossed the street to the Elevated.

True to his word, in an hour he returned with a part in a brown paper bag. Removing and replacing the part, he said, “Try it again.” The engine roared to life. “How much do I owe you?” I asked with some trepidation (together my wife and I earned $1000 a month, of which fifty percent went to rent).

“Nothing,” he replied.

At least let me pay for the part,” I said, hardly believing my ears.

“No, I won’t take it.”

He closed the hood and stepped onto the sidewalk. I should’ve watched him walk away - he might have been an angel and I might have seen him disappear; but I didn’t.

A gift on top of a miracle smothered in kindness.

The gift I received was more than the five dollar part. I was wrenched from my comfortable white cocoon and thrust into a real rainbow world and found that people are nice on the other side of the color divide. I found heart, love, acceptance and giving--humanity, the commonality just under the skin. Every so often I bring my own heart back to this story to sit by the still-warm embers and bask in its heat and am inspired and challenged once again by an unknown man showing himself to be, for a moment, my neighbor, my brother.