Thank you so much for that article you wrote. It brought back so many memories of my own growing up here in Missouri...

When my Dad and I moved back to Missouri in May of 1955, the street we lived on with my Paternal Grandmother was called Bedford, and one side of the street consisted of white families, and the other side of the street was black families.

Kids being kids, we were all constantly running back and forth to each others' houses, and I probably spent as much (or more) time in the homes of my friends who were black as I did in the homes of my white friends. I ate many a meal at their dinner tables, and they ate many a meal at ours. We were all the best of friends, and those of us who are still living remain so to this day, 43 years later.

I remember clearly the one (and only) time I asked my Father about the word "nigger," and his reaction was both angry and swift. He clamped both hands down tightly on my shoulders and put his face right up to mine. He said very slowly, "Don't you _ever_ use that word around me again!" And since I had never seen his face looking like this before, it scared me and so I never did. When Dad had calmed down, he sat me down and told me a story, one which I will never forget.

My Dad had a younger brother who died before I was born. My uncle Charles had worked for the railroad, and he was killed one night during a heavy rainstorm when his foot got caught in a "frog" which was a section of switchable track. There was a locomotive coming, preparing to change tracks, and it struck my uncle and killed him before he could free his trapped foot.

Dad said that at the funeral, two of the Pallbearers were Norman and "Bizzy" (Dean) Gorham. They were two black brothers who had grown up with my uncle and when they got word of his death, they dropped everything and flew back to Missouri from California to help carry him to his final place of rest.

Dad told me that when they were growing up, my uncle loved to fight, and the Gorham brothers loved to fight, and so Norman, "Bizzy" and my uncle spent most of their youth trying to beat each others' brains out! lol. These fights were usually about kid stuff, but never racial simply because they had all grown up from toddlers on, and the Gorham brothers simply looked upon my uncle as another "brother," years before that term became cool, only in their case they meant "brother" as in the flesh-and-blood sense of being a brother. They loved my Uncle Charles and he loved them. At the funeral, Dad said both brothers wept openly as they carried his coffin.

Up until my Dad passed away in 1977, telling that story always made him weep. He said that at Uncle Charles' funeral, he (my Dad) simply couldn't shed any tears, for whatever reason, and yet here were these two tall, strong, ex-college football stars, weeping openly for a man they both loved. Dad said that at that moment he understood what it _really_ meant about love being "color-blind."

The issue of race relations in America is a difficult one, to be sure. But all my life, Jeff, I have lived by one guiding philosophy. That being, simply put: If we are not _all_ free then we will _all_ die shackled to our chains.

America is such a beautiful, bounteous land. We are _all_ of us a great people and what makes us great is what each of us brings to the tapestry that is the fabric of America itself. We all need each other, and if we will all recognize each other as equal members of a large, and ever-growing family, then our achievements in the next Century will be magnificent beyond anything we can imagine today.

Thank you Jeff, for everything. I am grateful for your friendship. I want to wish you and Pat a Happy 4th of July, and I hope that your day is a good one! Please take care.
Bob

"We never know when lightning is about to strike, or a cornice to fall. Perhaps it is just as well." - Jean Shepherd