CF,
Thanks for your reply!
We've been watching the commentaries for the last few days. The way they have been handling this issue is the reason that we wrote the piece. We suppose that it might be good that some blacks commentarors have not had the experiences with terms like this because they have grown up in a less resentfull and bigoted world. Those of us who did are getting older and more quiet as we approach our fates.
The black man who took supper on our back steps had also taken care of a litter of pups that my first pet dog had the year before so we had a relationship of sorts with him. When one thinks about it, just how many five year olds in a lilly white town ever got to have a relationship of any sort, particularly of a positive nature, with a person like this. The two black men took off after the rape and killing and it took them ten days to finally track down my black friend and bring him to justice. Vienna was afraid until they were captured and the nights were scarey, to say the least. We had known this man as a friend and you can just imagine what it was like to be five years old and to be cast into this sort of situation. We might have turned into the biggest bigot in the world over this incident. Instead, we have become the person that we have become and we credit this and other things that we saw during our early years for that happening the way that it did.
Our parents had been raised themselves in households with a stong religious and non discriminatory influence. We credit them with giving us the exposures that we got in those early formative years.
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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