First Years Civilian

 

UNITED Late 60’s

Denver

We lived in an apartment building with other pilot trainees. There was racial unrest in our country as well as Canada. There were several Canadians recently hired as well as Americans. The comment of one of the Canadians was they would trade us their French for our blacks.

Florham Park

I stayed with my aunt in Rye, New York, when we first moved to look for a place to rent. My aunt was recently remarried had a black maid left over from her husband’s first wife. She often reminded my aunt that the first wife “didn’t do it that way.” She was the cook and did light housework. She fluffed pillows and did minor vacuuming. She did NOT do heavy work. There was a black man that came once a week to do that. He cleaned the house including polishing the brass doorknobs. What neither had time to do was sweep the stairs into the basement. My aunt did that.

While we were out in the yard, she introduced me to her neighbor. After we went back inside, she confided that the neighbor was Catholic, but she was nice. I know that my aunt had Catholic friends growing up, so the attitude must have been learned on the East Coast.

She took me to lunch at her very exclusive country club. They had just allowed the men to stop wearing tops to their bathing suits and bikinis were not allowed. Only white people could even come as guests and white did not include Jews. As I was looking out the window of the dining room, I saw a beautiful beach and asked it that was the club’s beach. No, that one belonged to the Jewish club she pointed to the club’s beach, it was rocky and small.

There had been race riots off and on for years. We were in New Jersey the summer of 1967 when Newark went up. My husband flew out of Newark. We lived in Florham Park which was essentially white We drove to a neighboring town to get pizza. I had been teaching my children about the human body, the youngest was two and mouthy. While we were waiting, a black male teen entered. My son said look mommy, he has pigment. My first thought was he was going to hear pig not pigment. It might have helped that said son was chastising the cook about smoking and telling him he was going to die.  Thankfully, there was no comment from the young man. I was glad to be able to leave and return home.

The general corruption of the state and local governments was a discussion among the pilots as many had side businesses. Along with that the types of neighborhoods were also discussed. A recurring theme was their racial/nationality make up. None were actually mixed racially the “good” ones had no Italians or Poles.

Lakewood

Not liking the East Coast, we requested a move to Seattle. The first year was spent in Lakewood on Lake Steilacoom. There was a large military base close by. Martin Luther King had been assassinated. Only about 5 years since JFK. We lived in a private community and there were no people of other races.

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