LATER EXPERIENCES

I was hit a lot by my parents during the years that I was nine and ten, and I was regarded in my family as the bad kid. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't please then or stay out of trouble. During fifth grade we lived in Norfolk, Virginia where my stepfather was stationed at the navel base, although I had mainly grown up in Yakima, Washington. That summer, 1962, I picked up an issue of the Saturday Evening Post which told about the civil rights demonstrations and marches in the south. The article described how the Negro demonstrators reacted nonviolently to attacks by police and other whites, by curling into a ball to shield their stomach and folding their arms over their head to protect it. Nearly every night during that period of my life I would lie in bed at night before sleep, when I felt relatively safe, and fantasize. Usually my fantasies centered around the Little Men book by Louisa May Alcott. I would play a role similar to that of Dan, the boy who was always in trouble at Plumfield school, and I too would be sent away and make my way back on my broken foot. The only difference was that I was innocent, and this would be discovered during my absence so that when I returned they apologized and wondered how they could ever have suspected me. For awhile then my fantasies changed, so I was one of the black demonstrators being hit unjustly and refusing to strike back. Finally, the white people were so impressed by our courage and goodness that they stopped persecuting Negroes and began to treat us equally.

I ran away from home that year. Instead of going to school one morning I just started walking in the opposite direction, not knowing where I was going, just wanting to get away. Around lunchtime I was in a black neighborhood of old comfortable houses. I bought a nickel bag of popcorn at a little store with my milk money and sat down on a curb to eat it along with my sack lunch. It was a hot day and I was thirsty, wishing for something to drink. A black woman came out of the house across the street, and yelled in a friendly way to me, "Honey, what are you doing sitting out there in that hot sun?"

I told her that I was waiting for my parents to come pick me up.

"Wouldn't you like to wait for them inside where it's cool, and have some milk and cookies while you wait?"

I wanted to very much, but it was still school time, and I was afraid she'd know I was running away and feel she needed to call someone. So I told her I'd better stay outside where my parents could see me.

"Well, if you change your mind, you just come on over here and knock on the door, and I'll get that milk and cookies for you." Then she turned around and went back inside. I wanted to follow her, but instead I started walking again so I would be gone if the police came, if she called them.

Later I wondered to myself whether that was why white people hated Negroes, whether it was because the Negroes were nice to children.
(Solla, white woman born in 1951)

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