MLK Tribute: Watts Venice and Santa Monica

As a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. I want to re-post a true story about how the pains of being the baby brother of the infamous Wolf Pack were mitigated each week by the Angel from Watts. Also, it is important to those of us from Venice and Santa Monica to know that right in our stomping ground... right  from our city thousands of miles from Selma and right from our very own Saint Monica high school we have a genuine but non-nondescript hero of the Civil Rights Movement... to be proud of (by clicking on the link to the right you can find that story here)...

Circled in red in the picture above is my Aunt Mary with Martin Luther King Jr. in the foreground of the "Selma March"

Now about the large, black lady from Watts who made her way to Harding ave in Venice several times a week for a couple decades; little did I know - she was God's gift to me - my angel. To be the youngest boy of a slightly demented pack of older brothers was a tough job - but someone had to do it.  It was my job to get Jalapenos rubbed all over my body, to be shoved in a hamper of death, to have my temples squeezed and knocked out. Who else would volunteer to be be electrocuted or buried in a pit or left behind at Salton Sea  - NOBODY in right mind.  But someone had to submit the the torture of sadistic older brothers left to themselves without adult supervision.   My mom had checked out, locked herself in her bedroom and our house was like an asylum run by the inmates where all sibling torture ran downhill and fell upon my plate... I had inherited this mantle from the brother before me and he in turn inherited this from the brother above him and so forth and so on.

The only problem was that by the time I came along there was a lot more of them to pick on me and they had perfected all means of inventive torture - never thought of before by the like of the Lennons, Nargies, Tripps, Blasers or anyone from Santa Monica.

The year was 1966 and a lot was going on in the world... besides the Beatles, long hair, hippies, hot rods and Vietnam War protest, there were much bigger stakes taking place in our country at this time. It was the ongoing tension about Race and equality and civil rights. After James Meredith was shot, Stockley Carmichael reacted and said,  "The three terms that black people in this country should learn at birth. One is 'White Supremacy,' one is 'New York Colonialism,' and one is 'Black Power.'"

No matter what white people say in denial... blacks were looked down upon as second class citizens. To a small degree (as much as a 5th grader could wrap his little mind around -  being the tormented baby brother) I understood their frustration. The pent-up need for equality and justice and the frustration of wanting to have a voice had become a ticking time-bomb.

In the seed bed of that context every Friday - an old, black woman took the bus from Watts to my house - on Harding Ave in Venice. Irene was large and squishy and beautiful. She spoke with a southern accent that was so thick, it was as though she was talking a different language. I couldn't quite make out everything she was saying... I couldn't make out most of what she was saying - yet despite my inability to understand her words, I knew she spoke a language that was not filled with hatred, malice or have any scorn... I did not have to flinch every time she rose her hand or fear that around every corner was some kind of diabolical trap. She was different...nice...maybe it was love I thought - the thing I longed for the word I wanted someone to say - TO ME! She didn't look down on me as though I was a second class citizen like my brothers did and she accepted me just the way I was - mosquito bites and all.

Irene came to de-clutter the chaotic mess in our house every Friday. By Friday morning it was always stinky mismatched socks that I had borrowed from the floor of my brother's room. I loved Fridays. I couldn't wait for the bell to ring at Saint Marks school - because I had an appointment with my squishy black angel.

When the bell went off at 2:50 in Sister Godzilla's classroom I darted for door...there was no time for idle chatter. I zigged and zagged in between the likes of Terry and Marilyn and Andrea and Theresa and "Ghering the Great" and Richard and Roberta.  I race home in those smelly mismatched socks. Poochie by beloved beagle laid smack dab in the middle of the warm asphalt and cheerfully wagged her tail when she saw me rounding the corner as I gave an abbreviated salute to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Lennon Sister's front window.

If I hurried, he could beat everyone home. There would be:
No Tony

No Karl

No Bob

No Kris

No Pinky

No Kurt

No Kleghorn

No Chewy

No Erick

No Charlie

No Four Eyes

No Queen of the World

No Karin and no Mrs. D.                 I could have Irene all to himself.

Irene, had heroically and miraculously washed mountains of laundry...cleared one set of stairs, raked the living room and entry of its debris. she dug through millions of years of strata that had collected on the Formica surface of the kitchen table since last week and parted the red sea of Evening Outlook - the Catholic Tiding and the National Geographic magazines that had become an accumulated mountain since the last time she was here. 

The flag was still hoisted earlier this morning, reminding me to be on lookout for the rattlesnake that had escaped last night) and the instant I burst through the front door the foul-mouthed Mynah bird began cussing like a drunken sailor. I shook my finger at the bird and told it to shut up...I didn't have time for it's vulgar language.. This was FRIDAY!  

Tuning out the despicable creature I stretched my neck in the direction of the stairs and listened for the singing.

Ears trained like radar,I had heard it up on the third floor.  I could hear the sweet melody of  "Swing Low" It was one of Irene's favorites. "Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home."  and it had become was one of my favorite songs. 

Rounding the third flight of stairs I could hear my beautiful Irene joyfully singing, “Well, I looked over Jordan and what did I see, coming for to carry me home? A band of angels coming after me, coming for to carry me home. Swing low, sweet chariot.” 

Feeling like a bird set free from its cage I bellowed, "I got-a wings, you got-a wings. All O' God's chillun got-a wings." I sang trying to overpower her - there'd be none of that. When I rounded the corner with my voice cracking, Irene dropped her broom and opened her arms like a mother bird welcoming a chick back to her nest. In I flew. Her arms smothered me like the protecting wings of that mother bird. I was safe. It was Friday and for 20 minutes everything was all right in the world as I made contact with the elusive concept of what I thought might be love.  

She talked! I listened - though I couldn't understand a word she said, I laughed when she laughed at the end of her sentences - hoping my timing was right. 

Irene grabbed my hands... we danced like the Prince and Princess at a Royal Ball and she said..."You got-a wings child...you got-wings."   

Yep! For some reason - I got Irene and she got me. The mynah bird squawked out profanities in the entry as we heard footsteps of the Wolf Pack returning home. I couldn't let them catch me with Irene so I jumped out the third floor window, slid down the galvanized plumbing pipe and  began to work on the fort out back with Tommy.  She finished her work...and took the bus back to Watts. TGIF!
   

In the profound words of Dr. Seuss, in his deep theological dissertation "Horton Hears a Who," just because people are different or smaller than you, remember what Horton learned, "A person is a person no matter how small."  and if I be so brazen as to add - no matter their color, their size of shape...filled with mosquito bites or mismatch socks -  As Irene taught me, we are all God's children and all equally deserving of equality, love, fairness and the occasional tender touch of kindness.