Life in the lily-white 'burbs

Some years back the Dallas paper ran opinion piece written by a smug, self-righteous nit wit from a privileged enclave in Dallas.  Her point was how 'diverse and forward' her little neighborhood was and how fortunate such progressive folks such as herself and ALL of her like-minded friends have a place like her's to call home.  She boasted that her son had an actual minority classmate, a Pakistani (I believe his father is a local heart surgeon), and how his private school [note: he was not enrolled in Dallas Public Schools] composted the uneaten radicchio left over from the school cafe (thus saving the earth; Yes! You earned 30 more greenie points - but who's counting?). She observed that at her local Mexican restaurant they had an actual honest to Virgin of Guadalupe Hispanic cook [bless hear li'l heart, she doesn't even realize that their are Mexican cooks in most every Chinese, Indian, barbecue and even Mexican restaurants all over town]. And dang!  Put another gold star on her liberal card, she even had a homeless man sleeping in a park near her neighborhood!  

Of course she contrasted her existence with the monotonous and presumably backward "lily white" suburbs surrounding Dallas; proudly mentioning she hardly ever drives north past Loop 12 to these embarrassing locations of affordable housing that contain what she implied where people of primitive social development and lacking proper political thought.  She would never want to live in a such a "Leave it to Beaver", lily-white suburb, thank you please.

I wished I would have clipped that article for reference when pointing out examples of baseless ideas held up a truth by those who've never even experienced what they so righteously to condemn.  Alas, I am afraid I do not recall her name either, but I would like to suggest a nom de plume for her: I. Ramos (short for Ignoramus).

Saturday, April 18, 2015.  Just another day in my own lily white world.  

At around 1 PM, Adam rang our door bell.  Adam is a 10-year old with a mop-top of dark curly hair who just moved in to a house one block over. He and his younger sister had moved from Longview, Texas with his mother and her boyfriend a couple of weeks ago.  Before that they lived in Colorado.  He was born in Egypt, but moved to the US at the age of two.  I asked if he was Coptic Egyptian?  He quickly corrected me and declared himself Egyptian-American (the ever important hyphen); he then went on to say that even though He was born in Africa, making sure I was clear on my geography, pointing out that Egypt is on the African continent, he was not to be referred to as African-American, because his skin was not black.  He then asked what "Coptic" meant.  I told him the Coptic's were a sect of Christian Egyptians. Adam said that they became Christians only when his mother moved in with her boyfriend.  With the ethnic and geographical questions settled, we got down to business.

He had come by our house a few days before to make the acquaintance of our backyard tortoises, but soon worked into the conversation with Sue that he was available for odd jobs in order to earn cash to buy a video game.  When pressed today he confessed that the desired game was rate "M" (for Mature) - but he quickly assured me that he already had lots of other M-rated games, so I was not to be concerned about being the very one who was starting him on the road to perdition.  I was to rest assured, he was already there.  We had agreed to hire him for $10 to cut the sucker limbs off the two ash trees in front yard.  We would pay him $20 upon completion of this task, with the expectation he would return in 2 weeks time to prune the Lady Banks rose bushes hanging into our driveway for which he was now being paid in advance.  We shook hands.  I provided the combination pole saw/shears and demonstrated how the jig worked and set him to his task.  He came and knocked on the door asking for a glass of water and then with help re-fastening the folding saw blade.  After about an hour, he was done.  He pile up the trimmed switch limbs on the curb ready for Wednesday morning pick up by the city bulk waste removal trucks.

I admire this kid's pluck.  Out-going, willing to work for a few bucks to obtain what he wanted.  Forthright in his desire to get the job.  Used to be in Ward and June Clever's neighborhood (lily-white or not), the neighbor kids would mow lawns and do gardening chores for pay.  Now days most everyone around here hires Hispanic crews to cut their lawn and trim their trees and shrubs.  I like hiring Adam - or even doing it myself.

After Adam had stacked up the cut limbs, he took off on his lime green bike.  Good to see kids on bikes I think to myself.  A few hours later, I look out the front door window and I see an Asian man sorting Adam's cut switch pile into separate stacks.  I watch.  I try to understand what is going on in my front yard.  I holler to Sue in the kitchen, "Hey, there's an Asian man going through the pile of branches in our yard, and making two piles.  I don't know what he is doing.  I would say this is quite inscrutable."   She advised me to watch and see if I could make the scene 'scrutable'.  I scrutinized for another minute, then I stepped out the front door.  The man looked up to me as I held up my hand in greeting, he motioned a greeting in return, and then gave me a look, that said, "I hope you don't try and talk to me in English", and then stooped to finish inscrutably sorting the stacks of fresh cut branches.  He then looked at me, and pointed to the sky in a way of explanation that I did not understand.  He then gave me the 'thumbs up' signal and smiled, and then said "thank you" in English as he tucked a full arm-load of leafy suckers under his arm and returned to his house two doors down.  Between us and this Vietnamese collector of green sticks, lives a Turkish family that moved in a few months back.  We delivered Christmas cookie to them in December.

For the ignoramus, who though never having lived or driven in a suburban community, to proclaim them lily-white.  She may be shocked to find the likes of Adam the Egyptian-American kid on a bike, the inscrutable Vietnamese gatherer of switches, the Turks next door or even Matthew from India across the street. 

Beaver Clever moved out long ago. 
Oh, and did I mention, we've had a compost pile in our side yard for years.