The ghetto vegitarian

Yesterday, I was doing the pac man for my students. One boy stared at me for a minute then said “Mr. Payne, you’re a vegetarian, but you’re ghetto!”  Like the two were mutually exclusive. I laughed out loud. That was the funniest thing anybody said to me in a long time. He was already grappling with the fact that as a black man, I didn’t eat chicken, but now this. He was genuinely puzzled by the whole thing.

My son Elijah is in this summer program called Oakland Freedom Schools (OFS). It’s a reading enrichment program for black kids, modeled after the Freedom Schools in Mississippi in the summer of 1964. OFS is very radical. I was a OFS teacher back in ‘95 and the director in ‘98. It is only natural that my children attend the program. After 1 day at the school, he is on our back porch chanting “Chant down Babylon, OFS is the bomb, we ready, we coming...”  Another favorite that I am sure they will teach him is “We be an African people…”  and  “Revolution has come! Shine your light like the sun!”  I asked him how was his day and he starts talking about “the girl who doesn’t listen”. He doesn’t even call her by her name. He starts off a sentence like “Dad, today the girl who doesn’t listen… fill in the blank.” Like that’s her Native American name or something. I ask him, “son, what’s her name?” He pauses and thinks for a minute, trying to access that information. A few seconds later he remembers. I say, “Son, from now on, call her by her name.”

Elijah is also quite the filmmaker. We have this flip camera and Elijah makes 15 minute movies of himself walking around the house, playing with his brother and engaging his parents. He surprised me today when he revealed that one of his movies has a title. We’re watching one of his “movies” and he says “is this ‘Walking on Water?” “Huh? Walking on water? Is that the title of your ‘movie’? When did you come up with that?” The boy is creative.

And lastly, reason #235 why I hate the media: Obama visits Ghana yesterday. This is his second visit to Africa (he was in Egypt a while back) but they repeatedly described it as the presidents first sub-Saharan African trip. Why? Did they every say, “his first trip to eastern Europe?” No they didn’t. I checked google. Then to top it off, they show the Ghanaians celebrating Obamas arrival and they show hundreds of folks literally dancing in the streets. With all of these people to choose from, they choose to interview a lady wearing 2009 shades. You know, a pair of glasses that are in the shape of the number 2009, with sparkles and glitter all over them. You know, the glasses you wear for new years eve. I don’t even remember what she said. All I could think was: Why? Why? Why? 

Just enjoy the ride

Flying to New York on Sunday for an all day funeral on Monday and returning on Tuesday would seem like a big, stressful event. Especially when you throw in traveling with a 5 year old and an 18 month old. I did my best to make it easy on myself: Took time to relax Friday day before the trip, bought direct flights from Oakland to JFK which was 10 minutes from where I was staying in NY. I traveled light, carried lots of snacks for the kids, and spared no expense in the airports and on the plane. You want to see a movie for $6? No problem. You want a burrito? juice? muffin? headphones? magazine? You got it! Excuse me, can we get 2 more bags of animal crackers? 

The trip was indeed major. Small jubilant, active children in a funeral home for 3 1/2 hours was a bad idea but necessary. Family is family and when one of their greatgrandmothers passes, they have to be a part of the transition, for their sake but more for the surviving families sake. So we went and I was exhausted. 

Checking in at JFK to fly back home, the airline had 50 people in line ahead of me and the line was moving slow. Cameron waited a full 10 minutes before he started screaming. Elijah wasn't sympathetic. He started whining too. People started staring. When your baby starts screaming in public, you get all kinds of looks ranging from "Oh, poor baby. He's so cute, etc." to "What kind of parent are you? Your child is screaming." I just looked back at all of them like "Say something and you'll get your feelings hurt in a New York minute." Cameron screamed for a full 10 minutes before the airline people pulled me out of the line and checked my bag, explaining to me that "Your child is screaming, let's get your bag checked."  I resisted making a dozen different smart remarks and simply expressed my humble appreciation of the gesture. I get up to the counter. Cameron promptly stops screaming. I smile and explain to Elijah the silver lining of the moment. 

On the plane, I got up to walk Cameron around the plane to prevent a meltdown, leaving Elijah in his seat next to a 15 year old unaccompanied minor and I hear Elijah behind me whimpering, following me down the aisle. I turn around and walk with him back to his seat and explain that I wasn't leaving him and that I was coming right back. He listened to me patiently and indicated that he understood and then whispered very loudly in my ear: "but daddy, he's a STRANGER" And he was right. I didn't have any reason to trust him with my son and Elijah wasn't going to take the risk. Sure the chances are slim on a plane 30,000 feet up but we taught him, a stranger is a stranger. You don't trust em, on a train, or in a plane, in a box with a fox eating green eggs and ham.

Finally, I am back in Oakland waiting for my bags. The first batch of bags come then the conveyor belt stops. and it stays stopped for 10 minutes. Half the people from the plane are still staring down the conveyor belt looking dumbfounded. I overhear someone who spoke to an employee of the airline mutter something about them being short staffed today. I mused to myself that I wasn't 'short' when I paied for my plane tickets. I couldn't say to the ticket counter "Oh, I'm a little short on cash today" and expect to get a ticket. Oh well. 

It was when I returned to Oakland, relieved to be off the plane, that I relaxed for about 1 hour then started thinking about the class I had to go to in an hour and the assignments that might be due and the work I missed the day before and the meeting I had to go to for work and the team lead I needed to call to let them know I would be in a meeting and not to expect me until after 11 or so... it was after the flood of details and preparations started churning in my mind that I realized how much of a mental break the trip to New York was. It was physically taxing no doubt, containing Cameron within a 2x3 area on the plane for 5 1/2 hours each way, and helping Elijah find the cartoons, but the mental complexity of the task (keeping him fed, contained and not screaming) was a piece of cake compared to the juggling act of work, school, home, work school, home. But I'm not complaining. I just enjoy the ride and try not to take any of it for granted.