On My Back Porch

Music of the 1960's and 1970's plays in my ears as I contemplate what it is like to again be out on my back porch enjoying the warming weather while listening to the Cream and Hendrix softly whispering into my imagination and memories of what it was like to be a teenager again...  for me, it was not like what others endured because I was white and theoretically was being raised on white privilege...  curiously, my parent's house was smaller than the house my wife and I live in 60 years later.  

We had one bathroom with a shower for 5 of us to use and our outside yard could be mowed in about 30 minutes.  We lived in a community that was considered to be in the country...  4 miles south of Alexandria and 8 miles south of Washington, DC.  My father walked two blocks to catch the bus into Washington where he worked.  My mother did not work and we had 1 car that did not have a heater or an air conditioner because those features increased the base price.  We wore coats and sweaters in the car in the winter and rolled the windows down in the summer.

However, my parents lived better with children than they had lived in North Carolina as children with their parents...  BUT, according to the critics, both my parents and I were raised on white privilege.

WHERE PRIVILEGE ENTERED THE PICTURE was when I attended high school in Cairo, Egypt and attended classes with students of all colors from countries all over the world.  Our 1966 graduating class was 28 in number with 15 different nationalities; in fact, the VALEDICTORIAN of our senior class was a HUNGARIAN COMMUNIST who was flown to Russia after he graduated.  Whites, Blacks, Browns, Asians, Africans, Canadians, Europeans, Chinese, Japanese shared life together, never realizing we were different in color or different in our religious beliefs, or different in our political ideologies.

In the summers and since we could not work, groups of us 10-15 would travel through Europe for 30-60 days.  At that time, we could travel through Europe between $3-$5/day.  We oftentimes purchased a EURAIL PASS that gave us UNLIMITED mileage for 30 days for about $100.  So, the total cost of traveling throughout Europe was about $500.  And...  the education we received was invaluable and had nothing to do with white privilege...  as color was present all around us...   if your parents worked for the US EMBASSY, then you were privileged...  there were just as many blacks as there were whites...

After graduating from high school whatever privileged I had previous enjoyed VANISHED into the thin air of LIFE.  I worked while I attended college because I no longer wanted my parents to control me and require that certain grades be achieved.  I dropped out of college and ENLISTED into the US NAVY and there is no privilege associated with being an enlisted man in the military.

After two years, I was honorably discharged from the active duty military but had to continue 4 more years as a RESERVIST.  Using the GI BILL, I finished my undergraduate degree and also had enough money to complete an MBA.  There was no white privilege there either as I earned the right to have the government pay for my education, especially since we were engaged in the Vietnam War at the time.

Throughout my 45 year career, I was FIRED because I challenged the incompetence of management and refused to kiss the ass of management or violate my integrity.  My behavior was not an example of white privilege...  in fact, it was an example of having no privilege at all.

At the age of 60 I experienced a serious heart attack and my Cardiologist recommended a triple bypass...  My brother was on the Board of Directors of NY Presbyterian Hospital and opened the door for me to fly to NYC and have my arteries cleaned out and five stents inserted over a period of 3 operations.  THIS WAS CLEARLY AN EXAMPLE OF PRIVILEGE and to be quite honest I am glad that MY BROTHER had been in a position to have forced this to happen.  And...  13 years later, my heart is responding perfectly for a man of my age.    

On my back porch, I reflect and remember a not so glamorous past and I wonder if I would have changed anything if given a second change since this is what actually happened and since this is what actually happened why would I ever want to change it?

Similarly...  what's happening now is what is happening...  and, when it is done, why would we ever wish for it not to have happened?  Life happens because it is supposed to happen... and, there is a reason for it to happen whether or not we understand it at the time.  If we loose our freedoms, we were meant to loose our freedoms.