Continutation of the race relations memories - Navy

PENSACOLA

The First Duty station was Pensacola, Florida. That was southern Alabama culture.

There was only one black recruit in the pilot training. The recruits had to do a survival exercise and they were ordered not to touch snakes. Florida has every variety living in the 48 states. He thought he knew which were poisonous and picked one up. He was removed from the program.

There were black and white drinking fountains and separate facilities in general. Banks were open on Lincoln’s Birthday and closed on Jefferson Davis’s. This was when Lincoln and Washington had their own birthday holidays.

I listened to one of the wives who had been a student at Ole Miss when it was desegregated. She said the student could have cared less. The only time there was trouble was when the reporters paid student to throw rocks. Not saying there weren’t any riots, just her experience.

Another friend from Tidewater Virginia. She said at one time she wanted to hug a black person, but just couldn’t. They loved black people like you would love a dog. They would feel like they were eating from the dog dish if they used the same dishes.  She also said the N-words knew their place and they stayed in it.

My door neighbor’s maid often came with money for me to buy her snuff and she usually asked me what time it was. At first, I was confused and then determined she may not have known how to tell time from a clock.

The corpwave that was watching me while in labor with my daughter was black. When the doctor looked in I was about ready to deliver. He really reamed her out. I felt bad for her but didn’t realize how unfair it was until I had my second baby. I make slow progress and then shoot the kid out. To be fair, he didn’t know that either.

SAN DIEGO/IMPERIAL BEACH

Little contact. We had an alcoholic for a flight surgeon. Another squadron had a black flight surgeon. When my daughter fell out of bed and literally peeled her two year old ring finger down to the first joint, I had to take her to civilian ER. Seventeen stitches late we went home. The attending physician was the black flight surgeon. Sure wished we had him.

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