Things Change

In an era when people are so amazed at our country electing an African American President, I have to say, I am not surprised. I guess this comes because I was never raised with these kinds of prejudices, although many in our country have been. My great Grandfather was a farmer, and his main ranch hand was, unsurprisingly, a black man. What was unusual, especially at the time, was that he was also my Great Grandfather's BEST friend. Their families did everything together. My Mother spent her summers there in tiny Temple, OK and I always love to hear the stories.

Growing up, my Grandparent's continued the tradition, even though they had moved to the big city (Oklahoma City). A couple times a year they would make the trek back to Temple with a truckload of baby chicks for Lome and George. I have such fond memories of these trips. Grandma and Gramper would have a big box of baby chicks in their trunk. They would always allow me to pick one baby chick, which I always fitting named "Peep", to ride up front with me in a shoe box. We would drive the couple of hours it took to get to Lome and George's little while house with Peep in my lap.

Being a city girl myself, going to a real farm was always alot of fun. I would race out of the car and hug Lome and of course introduce her to this trips' "Peep". She would always save the chore of getting the eggs from the chicken coup for me on that day. That's what I was always most excited about! I would take the basket and go to the hen house looking for those warm treasures that seemed so amazing to me and proudly carry them back to the house. The afternoon would follow with the Grandparent's inside visiting and me running around outside exploring and picking apricots off the tree to eat. Dinner time would come and we would eat some amazing fried chicken and Lome would always promise me that they would never eat my little Peep.

Back in those days though, you never saw any teen movies where there was any interracial couples. Sixteen Candles....Pretty in Pink...Breakfast Club....nope. Ah, but times have changed, and so much for the better I think. In watching my daughter grow up and begin to have boyfriends, I have seen the way things have become different, and I am glad for it. Audrey is only 13 and has just done the typical pre-teen and now teen thing of something I refer to as "The Boy of the Week Club" (Of course that is a whole other story!). The point being, she has had crushes on a rainbow of boys. She sees them no differently than she sees herself. That makes me so very happy. Every race has it's prejudices, blacks can be racist against whites, whites against blacks and so on....the reason? Because we are all people, we are all HUMANS. We are all the same.

What made me really think on this subject was much more than the election. I won't share my political views here and now, but to be honest, political views make no difference. Barack Obama is an American. Period. Just the same as any other President we've had. I'm really talking about how the American view has changed. Audrey and I finally finished watching "The sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2" today. In this teen love story there are mixed couples everywhere. It rocks! I hope that our country and our world can continue to see all races as equals. And that's my soapbox speech for today:).