● Keeping Score

Deep down we know that life is short. Live your life today. Be bold. Don’t spend so much time suffering. Be courageous. Be scared to death. Then take the next step anyway.

Baseball, batteries, bigotry, and family bonds

I remember when I was a little girl in grade school. My family lived in the projects. Somehow, my parents began giving us an allowance every two weeks. Since I was the oldest, I got 25 cents. Yes, I am dating myself. Back then, a 5 ounce bag of potato chips cost 5 cents. Every once in a while, I treated myself to one from the neighborhood candy store.

This simple action on my part was a big thing. It meant that I achieved a bit of financial independence. I did not have to ask my parents for money to buy my beloved snacks. It also meant that I could not ask for anything either! I realized rather quickly that if I wasn’t watchful, my money would not last the entire two weeks.

This lesson played out painfully sometimes. It meant that I had to buy a 9 volt battery for my portable transistor radio… myself. I listened to baseball games of my hometown team. I kept very detailed scores which meant I could not miss a game, even night games.

Runs, at bats, strike-outs, errors and other statistics, I did it for all the games and each player. Before spring training, I made my scoring sheets. I plotted my grids on notebook paper leaving room for numbers and comments. Drawing each line was an exercise in anticipation for the upcoming season. It kept my mind sharp.

Getting back to that transistor radio.

I put my radio under my pillow. For a little while, I would listen to the night time disc jockeys play songs that weren’t normally played during the daytime. I had a few favorite stations. One night a week, the dj played an entire album. This was a wondrous thing since I could not afford to buy any with my allowance.

Sometimes but not often, I fell asleep and the battery died. I had to wait for the next two allowance payments before I could buy a new one. No chips, no lunch room cookies! That hurt. If my mom found out about it, she would be pretty upset with me. That hurt too.

It taught me a lesson.

It was a precious purchase. Once my dad got a pay raise to $2.41 an hour (you read it right, $2.41 an hour), the amount that I got eventually increased from 35, then to 50 cents. When I started high school, I got an extra five dollars a month. He was working two jobs then. That was a time of celebration tempered by the fact that I had to buy my monthly student bus pass.

Since I attended a magnet high school, I took a city bus back and forth each day. Once, I walked back home to save a little for an indulgent snack that I ate on the way. It took over an hour to walk home and it was a bit dangerous. I had to walk from school through a segregated neighborhood that was doing everything it could to keep me and my people out. They resented my presence and made sure that I knew it.

One incident that stands out in my mind is having rocks thrown at me by a man tending to his lawn. I was walking home on the sidewalk. Mind you, I had 50-11 forty more blocks to walk. It was a big lawn. Suddenly a barrage of rocks and stone landed all around me. One grazed my leg. I looked around to see this grown man throwing them at me and gesturing!

That gesture from that angry man summed up the ugly and hypocritical ways people act. Experiencing this first hand made me realize the price for freedom is more than 50 cents or five dollars a month. It is an ongoing debt that is paid by vigilance and knowing that it is never fully paid.

Even to this day.

I did not tell anyone about this incident. Unfortunately, the dark and turbulent political, economic, and social (re)volution was something that we all faced during that time. My mother, father, family and friends… all of us. The dehumanization and realization simply made me sad. Then it made me mad. I realized that stories perpetrated on society about my people were simply not the truth. They were all lies.

And still are.

I try to not let these thoughts overshadow the good in the world. I simply strive to be a peaceful person who creates meaning in my life and others. That does not mean I won’t fight back when I need to. I am smart about it when I do. Just doing what is necessary and true. And paying attention to history helps predict the outcome of a current situation. There is truly nothing new under the sun.

Let those thoughts flow through you.

You know what else I think about? My parent’s generosity and trust in me to share what little they had so I could expand my world beyond the neighborhood in which I became a young woman. I know and realize every day that it was a sacrifice they made for me.

Remember, you need just one good year!

Baadaye

Shirley J ♥️