Post by mistermulatto on May 17, 2005 6:05:09 GMT -5
Introduction:
My parents moved the family way, way out in the country, after my baby brother was born, to a little tract house in the middle of the Preakness Valley in Passaic County, New Jersey. The valley was open and green and filled with Dutch dairy farms and Italian truck gardens. It lay snuggled between the Ramapo and Watchung ridges. Our family was one of the first to move into the new neighborhood between Old Man van der Veen's dairy cows and Mrs. Capodimaggi's vegetable garden. One day in mid-summer, not long after we'd moved in, a new kid showed up at the baseball diamond the us kids had carved out of one of the still-vacant lots. His name was Willie G. Mann, Jr., or, just "Junior." He became one of my best friends for reasons I didn't understand until many years later.
I was a fat kid. I was usually the last to be picked when the kids chose up sides for baseball. I could hit OK, but I couldn't catch worth a d**n and I couldn't run fast either. More often than not, I'd wind up in the middle of a fight over whose team I'd made lose the last time - until Junior showed up.
The kids on the block thought Junior was "weird-looking" and said so. His complexion was almost bronze. He had sparkling Blue Plate Special blue eyes and jet black, curly hair. He looked for all the world like an Indian to me. To the kids on the block it was clear he wasn't "one of us." He was lanky and athletic, though. It almost seemed he could hit a home run with one hand tied behind his back, catch a pop fly blind-folded or round the bases in a blur and slide into home without a drop of sweat on his brow. He was a natural, and that was all that mattered to them.
Junior's folks had moved into a little house up the block from mine. Their old home in Mahwah was just a few miles away over the mountain in Bergen County. We didn't know it when we first met Junior, but the Manns belonged to a group that the farmers' kids called the "Jackson Whites." There was bound to be a fight when one of Old Man van der Veen's boys called Junior "Bockie," "Jack," or "Whitey." Junior won all these fights. This meant that he soon became captain of one of the neighborhood baseball teams. They called Junior's team, sort of half as grudging recognition and half as insult, the Jackson Whites, but only behind his back.
Junior would pick me first for his team amid jeers of "Oh, no! Not Fatso, again! Jeez!" I'd take my place at his side, ready to defend him against the jeers of "Hey, Jack! Bockie! You nuts?" that followed. I couldn't run very fast, but when I got someone down and sat on him, he stayed down. It became a routine as comfortable as an old shoe. I didn't mind the jeers anymore and the fights became less and less frequent. Together, Junior and I could take on the world, and did. Apart, the farmers' kids could get the better of us, and did. We won our fair share. That's all.
Before long, Junior and I became inseparable. We went everywhere together. Junior had almost an innate knowledge of the hills and trails around the valley. He knew the names of plants and what they were used for. He'd tear up a stalk of touch-me-not, rub it on a mosquito bite and the itch would go away. He knew how to sit patiently and wait for animals to come close. We could watch them, motionless, as they went about their business. We did all these things on long hikes into the hills in warm weather. We wouldn't make it back home until way after dark sometimes. At first, my mother didn't approve of any of this, but I guess when she saw the good it was doing me, she gave up and Junior won a place in our extended family.
Junior and I often wound up on top of Old Baldy, the biggest hill above the valley. It had a beautiful glacier-scoured serpentine barren at the top that the local people called a "bald." That's how it got its name. You could see the whole skyline of New York City clearly from there on a good day. Junior had never been there, even though it was less than thirty miles away. He used to love to listen to my stories about trips I'd taken into the city to see Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or the Rockettes on stage at Radio City Music Hall. He could scarcely believe what he heard. You'd have thought I was describing Xanadu, or something. Junior knew about the mountains. I knew about New York City. Our worlds met on Old Baldy.
One day, after Junior and I had finished a lunch of crayfish poached in a tin can, we discovered a small, rusted steel pole barge, nothing more than an old cement trough, really. It was chained to an iron stake at the edge of Franklin Pond at the foot of Old Baldy. It was made for kids. It called out to us like God-d**n Bali Hai. Junior picked the lock and in no time we poled the thing silently out into the middle of the pond through the sweet flag and water lilies at its edge leaving a fragrant wake behind us. To this day the smell of sweet flag yanks me right back to Franklin Pond.
We spent a long, lazy afternoon floating on the pond watching bullfrogs, snapping turtles, sunfish, dragonflies, and whatever else happened by. When the sun got low, we poled the barge back toward the shore where we'd found it. Junior locked it back up. No harm done, we thought. But on the way back up the hill a woman came screaming after us yelling "Stop, black person! Stop!" with two men close behind her. I'd never heard the word before. I knew instantly, from Junior's reaction, that I never wanted to hear it again.
We ran, but the men caught up with us and tackled Junior. The woman arrived shortly. She grabbed me and spun me around. "You should know better than this, Mr. Ralph!" she screamed into my face. "I've called your father and he's on his way here now. You're in big trouble, young man," she informed me. I was terrified. How did she know my name? She looked familiar but I had absolutely no idea who she was.
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My parents moved the family way, way out in the country, after my baby brother was born, to a little tract house in the middle of the Preakness Valley in Passaic County, New Jersey. The valley was open and green and filled with Dutch dairy farms and Italian truck gardens. It lay snuggled between the Ramapo and Watchung ridges. Our family was one of the first to move into the new neighborhood between Old Man van der Veen's dairy cows and Mrs. Capodimaggi's vegetable garden. One day in mid-summer, not long after we'd moved in, a new kid showed up at the baseball diamond the us kids had carved out of one of the still-vacant lots. His name was Willie G. Mann, Jr., or, just "Junior." He became one of my best friends for reasons I didn't understand until many years later.
I was a fat kid. I was usually the last to be picked when the kids chose up sides for baseball. I could hit OK, but I couldn't catch worth a d**n and I couldn't run fast either. More often than not, I'd wind up in the middle of a fight over whose team I'd made lose the last time - until Junior showed up.
The kids on the block thought Junior was "weird-looking" and said so. His complexion was almost bronze. He had sparkling Blue Plate Special blue eyes and jet black, curly hair. He looked for all the world like an Indian to me. To the kids on the block it was clear he wasn't "one of us." He was lanky and athletic, though. It almost seemed he could hit a home run with one hand tied behind his back, catch a pop fly blind-folded or round the bases in a blur and slide into home without a drop of sweat on his brow. He was a natural, and that was all that mattered to them.
Junior's folks had moved into a little house up the block from mine. Their old home in Mahwah was just a few miles away over the mountain in Bergen County. We didn't know it when we first met Junior, but the Manns belonged to a group that the farmers' kids called the "Jackson Whites." There was bound to be a fight when one of Old Man van der Veen's boys called Junior "Bockie," "Jack," or "Whitey." Junior won all these fights. This meant that he soon became captain of one of the neighborhood baseball teams. They called Junior's team, sort of half as grudging recognition and half as insult, the Jackson Whites, but only behind his back.
Junior would pick me first for his team amid jeers of "Oh, no! Not Fatso, again! Jeez!" I'd take my place at his side, ready to defend him against the jeers of "Hey, Jack! Bockie! You nuts?" that followed. I couldn't run very fast, but when I got someone down and sat on him, he stayed down. It became a routine as comfortable as an old shoe. I didn't mind the jeers anymore and the fights became less and less frequent. Together, Junior and I could take on the world, and did. Apart, the farmers' kids could get the better of us, and did. We won our fair share. That's all.
Before long, Junior and I became inseparable. We went everywhere together. Junior had almost an innate knowledge of the hills and trails around the valley. He knew the names of plants and what they were used for. He'd tear up a stalk of touch-me-not, rub it on a mosquito bite and the itch would go away. He knew how to sit patiently and wait for animals to come close. We could watch them, motionless, as they went about their business. We did all these things on long hikes into the hills in warm weather. We wouldn't make it back home until way after dark sometimes. At first, my mother didn't approve of any of this, but I guess when she saw the good it was doing me, she gave up and Junior won a place in our extended family.
Junior and I often wound up on top of Old Baldy, the biggest hill above the valley. It had a beautiful glacier-scoured serpentine barren at the top that the local people called a "bald." That's how it got its name. You could see the whole skyline of New York City clearly from there on a good day. Junior had never been there, even though it was less than thirty miles away. He used to love to listen to my stories about trips I'd taken into the city to see Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or the Rockettes on stage at Radio City Music Hall. He could scarcely believe what he heard. You'd have thought I was describing Xanadu, or something. Junior knew about the mountains. I knew about New York City. Our worlds met on Old Baldy.
One day, after Junior and I had finished a lunch of crayfish poached in a tin can, we discovered a small, rusted steel pole barge, nothing more than an old cement trough, really. It was chained to an iron stake at the edge of Franklin Pond at the foot of Old Baldy. It was made for kids. It called out to us like God-d**n Bali Hai. Junior picked the lock and in no time we poled the thing silently out into the middle of the pond through the sweet flag and water lilies at its edge leaving a fragrant wake behind us. To this day the smell of sweet flag yanks me right back to Franklin Pond.
We spent a long, lazy afternoon floating on the pond watching bullfrogs, snapping turtles, sunfish, dragonflies, and whatever else happened by. When the sun got low, we poled the barge back toward the shore where we'd found it. Junior locked it back up. No harm done, we thought. But on the way back up the hill a woman came screaming after us yelling "Stop, black person! Stop!" with two men close behind her. I'd never heard the word before. I knew instantly, from Junior's reaction, that I never wanted to hear it again.
We ran, but the men caught up with us and tackled Junior. The woman arrived shortly. She grabbed me and spun me around. "You should know better than this, Mr. Ralph!" she screamed into my face. "I've called your father and he's on his way here now. You're in big trouble, young man," she informed me. I was terrified. How did she know my name? She looked familiar but I had absolutely no idea who she was.
Read more
www.netstrider.com/documents/whites/