My royal blue (as in the Kansas City Royals) friend Marianna
posted an article on the ill-conceived centerpieces & culinary choices made
by a college president (or his staff) to give African American students “the opportunity to discuss their experience at the private
liberal arts school.”
The centerpieces were made with stalks of cotton – stalks of
cotton are not in & of themselves offensive, but perhaps not the most
appropriate or sensitive choice considering the invitees & our current all
too divided political climate.
Cotton is a profitable crop in Tennessee, home of the predominantly
white university with the college president who forgot (or his staff forgot) to
take into account the political climate & the possible family histories of the
students invited to share their experiences as African Americans in a liberal
arts school over dinner.
A dinner that included collard greens, cornbread & macaroni
& cheese.
As I mentioned to my royal blue friend Marianna, there are myths
& stereotypes about everyone & everything Other than one’s self &
experience. Including a stereotype that
all Others with a common history & tradition only eat certain foods.
And I was reminded that the perpetuated myths & stereotypes
are not limited to privileged Others who were born faded & sometimes
freckled.
I grew up one of four children by two people from East
Texas. Our mother Jean grew up on a
farm, with a Church of Christ minister for a father & a quilter &
reader for a mother. Our father Jack
grew up differently, but still East Texas style.
His parents’ only child, he & his mother
often lived with his grandparents while his father worked out of state, rebuilding
America & writing long, intense love letters to his wife.
I found those in a tin box after my grandmother died.
Contrary to the myth that all Texans owning land raise cattle,
my maternal grandparents had milk cows, pigs, chickens, whatever the boys shot or
trapped, Spam & canned salmon. And
what they grew.
No cattle for beef. In
fact, the first time my mother Jean ate a T-Bone steak was on a date with my
father Jack.
In our childhood, we ate meat.
Fried chicken, fried pork chops, fried fish, chicken fried steak, pot
roast, hamburgers, steaks on the grill.
And salmon patties made from a can.
No Spam.
We also ate meatless meals.
Pecan waffles on Sunday nights after Training Union & evening
service. Macaroni & cheese with sides
of French fries & Le Seur green peas.
And meals of pinto beans or black-eyed peas, collard or turnip
greens or cabbage, yams, pickled beets & yes, cornbread.
My father used to enjoy cornbread crumbled up in a glass of cold
buttermilk.
I, however, had no desire to develop a taste for crumbled
cornbread in a glass of any temperature buttermilk.
But I loved those meals of greens & beans & cornbread
& sides.
During my rather inexplicable transition from English nerd to
computer operator to bookkeeper to accountant, I left my first job at a CPA
firm for more money, better benefits & new & fascinating horizons.
The choice proved to be a disaster. And gave me a moment of what wonders sharing a meal
can bring.
I took a position at a newly acquired division of Exxon Mobil,
located a decent commute for my place in the inner-city area of Montrose, but
along the Gulf Freeway. My job duties
included processing the printing of accounts payable checks. Once a week.
The rest of the days at work were spent staring out of the window.
The highlight of the day was when the food truck (in those days
food trucks were called Roach Coaches – no resemblance to the wonder of food
trucks today) entered the yard below & men exited the production floor to
buy sandwiches & chips & cookies & soft drinks.
A huge departure from my life living & working inside the
Loop. Lunch inside the Loop was an
adventure, an hour or more of a perk benefit to eat barbecue or Mexican food or
visit a deli or have burger with sautéed onions & blue cheese dressing or
treat oneself to a visit to Ousie’s Table, which was then near the art museum
& the menu on the chalkboard changed daily.
In those days, the journey down the Gulf Freeway from the inner
city to Galveston was not what it is today.
I had driven it many times & would drive it many more – to get to
Galveston or Freeport or to San Leon & sailing, but I was only familiar
with one restaurant.
Which was, at the time, one of two Indian restaurants in
Houston. And too far to go for lunch in
the days before “to go” menus.
As I mentioned before, the view of my desk was over a concrete
yard located between the production shop & the offices. I had two constant companions in the office –
boredom & my peer.
A young, tall, impossibly lithe & gorgeous woman of
color. With impossibly impressive, long
nails in a time when NO ONE I knew got their nails done. Nails that clicked at 100 times the speed of
my stubs on a keyboard or typewriter.
And whose entire countenance radiated resentment.
Because I have an intense need to connect with Others, even back
then when other to me was a word, an adjective meaning additional or further, I
tried reaching out, only to be rebuffed.
Silence & boredom & loneliness & a sack lunch were
the staples of my days at a division of Exxon Mobil along the Gulf Freeway.
It was during the time before the Internet, not to mention
Google, when computer operators worked in DOS & IBM ruled the computer
industry.
One day, the very beautiful woman emanating resentment turned to
me & asked,
Why do you make
more money than me? Who do you know?
I knew that my peer, who was working so much harder than me, had been
with the company before Exxon Mobil bought it out. I knew she did not like me or my presence
next to her in front of the windows that looked out onto the concrete yard.
While I did not know that I was making more money than she was,
I did know exactly why I was hired.
She kept at me & I finally I asked her:
Are you
familiar with SEU? Source Entry Utility?
Because that was why I was hired. I had a skill that the powers that be that
ruled that newly acquired division of Exxon Mobil anticipated it might be
necessary during the upcoming computer upgrade & conversion.
I knew going into the job that I would have very little to do at first, until the
conversion. I knew I had a skill, had
been trained by a passionate computer programmer.
I explained to her that I was very familiar with & adept at
SEU, an IBM utility that allows a user to update a source in a database or add
records between existing records.
It is strange & oddly amusing to remember that young Jaki
Jean, who wanted to be a computer operator & write. It may explain my eldest son & his status
as an IT / computer geek guru.
After my explanation, my office companion mellowed. We talked more & one day, she asked me to
lunch.
I never knew where she went to lunch – not the Roach Coach. Because I ate out of my sack lunches at my
desk.
So I went & she took me to a drive through a soul food
restaurant along the Gulf Freeway.
In spite of the thaw in her frigid resentment, I still wondered if it was a test or a perceived punishment for making more
money while doing far less work.
I perused the menu in the drive through & when my lunch
companion asked me what I wanted, I replied, beans, collards, fried okra, cornbread & a jalapeño.
She looked at me, with the same look I am sure I get when I
reply to a comment or a situation I cannot fathom & said, “Seriously?”
I replied Seriously.
We returned to the office & sat at a table somewhere to
eat. As we both buttered our cornbread
& I sliced up a jalapeño with a
plastic knife & scattered it across my beans & greens, we talked.
My office peer was blown away by the fact that I grew up eating
beans & greens & cornbread.
I, of course, told her stories & then she told me stories
& long after the buttered cornbread was gone, the beans & greens &
fried okra consumed, we kept talking.
Every day.
Because we once shared a meal we both grew up eating.
Which led to sharing our stories & finding out that the
Other was not so very different.
P.S. I also like mac & cheese. . .
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