Sailing to Oblivium: July 11, 2017

I had my job because my daddy thought I should work, and he knew a guy. The other fellow had his because he needed to feed his family. I was a white teenager. He was a black man.

We worked at a service station. I earned $20.00 per week, so I don’t imagine he made more than that, less in all likelihood. It was 1960, so that much money went further that it would today, but not very far at all. It would be the equivalent of around $165 a week now, maybe four dollars an hour in today’s dollars, the Koch Brothers’ dream.

The place was managed by a typical Arkansas redneck: a racist, crude, uneducated, foul-mouthed, mean-spirited jerk, assisted by a buddy who was worse. Ever seen the movie Deliverance? Then you get the picture. Anyway, there were periods of inactivity, so the two had plenty of time to think up devilment. One scheme, the one that seemed to give them the most pleasure, was how to, as they put it, “get rid of that n****r.”

His crime? It was a perceived lack of respect, though they didn’t figure the boss would accept that as an excuse for firing. So, they developed an alternate plan. The poor fellow had a set time for the noon break. He didn’t have a car, and no place close by served “his kind.” Each day he hurried to his home on the east side of Pine Bluff, had his “dinner,” and rushed back. Sometimes it took him a minute or two longer than he was allocated. Why not bring his lunch? Well, this was 1960 and our customers couldn’t be exposed to the sight of a “a colored man eating his dinner” just like he was somebody. He just walked home and back.

Get the picture? Yes, one fateful day the rednecks timed him, and when he came back nearly five minutes late, they fired him.

If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget seeing that man turn and start walking back home. And yes, silence was no more than cowardly complicity on my part, not my first and not my last. Maybe I'll be braver when they come after my friends.

This week, it seems that everywhere I look, I see some post about “making America great again.” It has gotten me to thinking. Can anyone tell me the exact date we are supposed to use as a baseline, the time to which we must return?

It sure as hell wasn’t 1960.

Just wondering.