Date of the story: Some time between 1969 and 1973
Story submitted by: Kevin Gaines
I grew up in South Los Angeles during the ’60s and ’70s. Which is to say, I had a purely academic understanding that white people exist, because I saw them on TV and read about them in books. But I had never met one in person other than priests and nuns at the Catholic church/school we attended and certainly had never had a conversation with one. That is, until my dad, Jim or Jimmy, took me to a game at Dodger Stadium.
Knowing nothing about baseball at age 6 or so, I couldn’t figure out what was happening on the field. But those hot dogs were incredible, and people-watching was enough to hold all my attention. Most interesting was the way my dad interacted with people sitting or standing near us in every direction. Coming into this HUGE stadium, everywhere my dad led us, he talked with people I’ve never seen before.
White, brown, black people, it didn’t matter. He’d start conversations for no reason at all, and seconds after, end up laughing, shaking hands, and gesturing wildly, like they were playing cards at my aunt and uncle’s house. And it didn’t happen one or twice….the trip to the bathroom while standing in line. The concession stand for those hot dogs. The game seemed to go on FOR. EVER! By the time the game was over, the section we were sitting in looked like one of Florence and Uncle Henry’s holiday parties. Instead of heading straight out of the stadium afterward, Dad had a super long chat with some white man with a thick mustache. This guy had a boy with him who looked close to my size. We didn’t speak to each other…we looked everywhere but at one another. Finally, Dad, Ann, and I headed out in one direction and those white people went in a different direction. I asked Dad, “How do you know those guys?” He said, “I didn’t until a little while ago, now I do.”
Perhaps weeks later on another visit with Dad, we arrived in a neighborhood I had never seen before, but was close to Dad’s place. It was a house near a Catholic church that was smaller than the one I went to. To me, it felt like a place where the Brady Bunch would live. Dad introduced me to the white guy with the mustache from the Dodgers game, and that guy introduced me to his son. I don’t recall the kid’s name, but we played like best buds for an afternoon. First white people I remember interacting with, ever.