Thoughts for Valentine's

Good morning!

Theodore gave me chocolates for Valentine's. He asked what kind I wanted (See's, of course) and I said, "Nuts and chews" because I am full of truffles.  So yesterday morning he gave me a nice big box of them, mixed dark and milk chocolate, and happy am I.  He also agreed to hoard them for me and give me one for dessert every night. He is good at  passing stuff out like that and at saying NO when one grovels and pleads, so my slim figure is safe with him!!!

If he eats one now and then, it's only his due.

I am full of random thoughts today. But it is February, month of Presidents, Love, and --African Americans.  The last category is often overlooked in the mainstream news though a P/C mention is made from time to time. But it brings forward a truth in my mind, that San Diego is a very racially segregated city.  Yes, it is. I lived for twenty five years in Mission Hills, and everybody there was white.  There was one house which was notable and pointed out as the residence of a black family, but I never in all those years saw one glimpse of purported owner.  We were all full of amistad and tolerance, but that was the fact: No African Americans lived there.  I don't see any when I am visiting up there now either.

On Sunday that very random thought passed through my mind. There was not one dark face, that I could see, in all those faces in the San Diego Master Chorale.  Not one.  In a city of 3 million people, that is hard to believe.  In the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, not one that I could see though I do believe that there are African American players, a few.  Why should this be so?

In about 1978 I really had to go to work. Postponement was no longer an option. My first year with the San Diego Unified was as a sub.  I arose from my bed in a big house in a wonderful neighborhood, and traveled in my car by freeway and many an unfamiliar street, to some cold and dank classroom in a poor neighborhood, hurriedly studied the instructions left by the absent teacher, if any, and surveyed my temporary workplace.  I was in a universe so far from Mission Hills that I might well have been on Mars.  My comfortable life with my children was changed for good.  Most of the people I knew in my neighborhood were keeping on with our old routines and occupations, though some were pursuing higher education and taking jobs too.  I will never forget the gut-clenching moment in those strange classrooms when the bell rang and the thundering hordes lined up outside or came into the room, and I had to meet my reality. All my San Diego working life was spent in neighborhoods far far from the life of Mission Hills.

My Episcopal Church now has more than just a handful of African Americans--well, a large handful, perhaps.  I am so glad to see this, because it never made sense for any large cultural institution in a city of three million to be exclusively utilized by one faction.  As for Mexicans, we have a separate congregation, a principle I do not approve of as it is just another form of segregation. "Well, that's okay because that's the way they want it."  Oh? Really? Too bad. It is wrong. They should learn English like lots of other people are   trying to learn Spanish, and even if they don't know it they should be absolutely more in the mainstream of the rest of the church.

Fifty percent of my ancestors had their roots in Spain, overlooking for now the indigenous bloodlines that worked their way into us in Mexico.  But look at Spain. Occupied by the Moors for hundreds of years, host to Jews for many hundreds of years, it is a Joseph's Coat of skin tones. "Scratch a Spaniard, find a Jew," runs the saying, which might well say, "Scratch a Spaniard, find a Moor." My own immediate family has skin tones that range from the darkest to the lightest.  I can't afford to be prissy about skin color. Thank goodness our television generation has finally liberated the dark-skinned person and has begun to celebrate dark beauty. What glorious people. 

I have more to say about this topic, about Ebonics, Bilingual Education, and so forth.  I was also going to give a recipe for truffles (my favorite kind of) from Alice B. Toklas's cookbook. I don't know if that 's against the law or not.  I had trouble getting onto my blog today but have become so habituated to sharing everything with  you that I couldn't bear it if I had to go to jail and not write my blog. Anyway, more writings will have to wait till tomorrow; I have written enough for today. YAZZYBEL