Gardening With Gloria July 17, 2008

My annual pilgrimage to Cincinnati means catching up on U.S. culture, affording my 1^st grader quality time with his grandparents and respite for me from the pressures of a single-mom lifestyle in Tel Aviv.

Last Saturday my father, mother and I bumped into one another while out shopping and we headed out together for a leisurely lunch. When our conversation turned to the topic of my former San Francisco neighbor – an arthritic septuagenarian who recruited me to help her in the garden – I reminisced: “There was always something going on at Miss Mayes’ house.”

The three-story, 1900’s Edwardian pulsed with the energy of adult children, grandchildren, business clients or church ladies stopping by for visits or consultations. On quiet days Gloria joined me in the garden. “Don’t pull those up!” she would scold. They’re plants, not weeds!” When she wasn’t teaching the finer points of horticulture, Gloria shared.

Tales of raising thirteen children and grandchildren, of organizing church socials versus rollicky younger days, of community volunteering and a troubled marriage, of her son lost to gang warfare and of her growing up years in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

“One time,” I narrated between bites, “she told me about a white clerk who wouldn’t hand her the change after a purchase. The woman put it on the counter and actually told her she wasn’t about to touch her!”

My parents clucked. My father, a ‘Northerner’ son of Polish immigrants, grew up in an urban enclave, traveling south to New Orleans’ Charity Hospital for his medical internship. “I’ll never forget the first time I treated a person of color. I came into ‘The Colored Ward’ and said ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Jones,’ to a patient. The attending was furious. ‘You don’t call him Mister. He’s boy.’ I was shocked,” my father relayed.

My father grew up during the post-WWII era of extreme prejudice. But he was raised to know better because, as the Jewish immigrant son of non-English speaking parents, he was also a product of unfounded bias.

Over lunch he reminisced about being in a popular downtown Cincinnati ice-cream parlor with my mother as desegregation was being instituted. “In walked a couple,” he shared. “And the manager went from table to table putting out little notes: ‘We’re sorry but By Law we Have to Serve Them.’ I said: ‘To hell with you!’ and walked out.”

Unlike my father, I didn’t experience 60’s riots, separate hospital wings or protest marches. My youth was marked by a different type radical change: the post-Vietnam War flower power and love child period characterized by equality-invokers like my third grade math teacher Ms. Martin. Ms. M. kicked off each daily session with a lusty round of Three Dog Night’s: “The Ink is Black, The Page is White, Together We Learn to Read and Write. . .”

Nonetheless, I wasn’t immune to what was going on in my world. There were painful memories of the lone girl of color in my private school class of twelve who didn’t get invited to birthday parties and in later years, while interning at WLWT News, there was the day Clyde Gray first anchored the midday broadcast. An uber-mensch and gentleman, Clyde was one of the significant mentors in my formative professional years; we remain in contact to date.

Manning the assignment desk phones that day, I was stunned when a random twangy-voiced caller on the other end of the receiver shouted: “That’s all we need is another (expletive) on television!”

Stunned and too green to know what to do, I passed the call to then-reporter Jeff Hirsh. “Uh Jeff? I think you’d better talk to this person.” The caller apparently repeated herself, Jeff cursed loudly into the receiver and then slammed it down. Jeff and I were red-faced & ashamed. We never discussed it and we never told Clyde.

This week, as an estimated 9000 NAACP Conference-goers pulled into Cincinnati, I noted Clyde’s image in Cincinnati’s Sunday paper alongside that of Mayor Mallory, school superintendent Rosa Blackwell, Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis and ninety-four other influential area African Americans. Campaigning presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain are both putting in conference appearances.

“I’m glad you’re alive to see all this,” I told my parents after lunch. During their lifetime, more than mine, much has changed. These are exciting times for all of us. And I’m glad to be here in the U.S. and in Cincinnati to witness the change.