“Not so far apart”

By

Gerry Niskern

Have you had your car tires rotated lately? Takes a while, doesn’t it?   Last week, after a long wait, I attempted to chat with another woman.

“There’s fresh coffee over there,” I remarked as I joined her.

“I don’t drink coffee,” was her terse reply.

Fine. I returned to my paper. Later I noticed her examining the carpet under our feet. Soon we were discussing floorcovering. The wear and tear by grandkids. Ah…..Today’s children.  She had twenty grandchildren.  I had three.

It’s not easy for parents or kids these days, we both agreed. Our instant rapport didn’t seem to call for introductions.

“You know, it didn’t take much to entertain us when I was a kid,” she said. “We put on our bathing suits and played in the water when they flooded East Lake Park.”

“I remember splashing through the irrigation water at the state capital,” I chimed in. We realized we both were kids in the 40’s in Phoenix. She went to Booker T. Washington and I attended Jackson and Adams schools. Carver High for African-American kids was her alma mater and mine was Phoenix Union. Her family lived at 16^th Street and Jefferson. My home was on 17^th Avenue and West Madison. Only thirty-three blocks, but worlds apart.

“We rode the streetcar uptown to the movies on Sunday,” I reminisced.                    “So did we,” she laughed, “but only if we had attended church in the morning.”

“Really! My Dad had the same rule”

While we waited for our cars, we discovered we agreed on many things.  The standard of living has changed.  It’s difficult to monitor television after school when both parents have to work to make ends meet.  Back then, when we wanted to go to the movies all our parents had to worry about was if they could afford the dime admission, not what the rating was. Today’s kids are saturated with violence on the tube and at the flicks. They’re becoming hardened to the idea of death.

“The boys all carried pocket knives when I was a girl. The Boy Scout knives were accepted. Parents didn’t give it a second thought,” I reminisced.

“Yes,” she acknowledged, “But many of the kids that are carrying a weapon now days have an intent. It’s not the same.”

“I lost a grandson,” she said suddenly. “He was killed in his neighborhood. I believe if he had stayed with his daddy when his parents were divorced, he would still be alive today. Children need a strong role model, someone special they can look up to!”

“I agree.” I said. “It’s hard for parents to teach them what’s really important.”

“There’s one way that I know,” she volunteered. “We have a family meeting once a month. We discuss anything that’s troubling one of the family, young or old. They need a sounding board and we provide it. If one of the children needs traveling money to participate in a school event, I tell them, I want ten or twenty dollars from each of you. You can spare it. He needs our support.”

“Good idea,” I replied. “My family works hard to maintain family traditions on holidays. We concentrate on those games that involve everyone, from ages five to eighty-five. Generations communicate and it’s good fun competing and laughing together.”

My car was finished first and as I shook hands with my new friend I was thinking, “Sixteenth Street and Seventeenth Avenue wasn’t so far apart after all.”