Riot Times

I was a child of the 60s and 70s. When I was young I had bell bottom jeans and fringy belts and go-go boots. I grew up listening to Frank Zappa and Led Zeppelin, Cream and all those greats. As a teen in the late 70s I had a pair of purple super bells. For those of you young-uns who don't know what those are, those were super huge bell bottoms. I thought I was super cool.

I went to a middle school that was pretty much 1/2 & 1/2 black and white kids. Society was such that riots between blacks and whites were commonplace. It's sad  but there were even riots at my middle school! Police men were on campus to try and keep the peace. It was so bad, white girls had to be escorted to the bathroom to avoid being jumped and getting beat up. I was lucky because I had lots of black friends. I didn't and don't see any difference in skin colors. Anyway, I had a friend - Terry Blair (who was black) and she had my back. If any of her friends that didn't know me, started causing me trouble, she'd show up just at the right time to tell them I was cool and not to bother me. She even invited me to her birthday party. I was the only white girl there among about 15 black girls. And I didn't think a thing about it.

One of my brothers married a Mexican girl and their children have beautiful bronze skin. One day, one of my nieces told me that I was a cracker. She followed up that statement by telling me that she was a graham cracker.

You've gotta love that kind of thinking. I'm so glad that these days, there's equality between the races. There may be people out there who disagree, but me...I feel like we're all here for the same reason. We all deserve to enjoy life, raise a family, find love, have friends and just...be.