The neighborhood I cut my teeth on was bitter and clung to guns and religion. Painesville was a small 40,000 peopled town in northeast Ohio able to build two high schools. One was Harvey High sporting the Raider’s as the mascot. It was the city school. The joke about the Raiders was,” What is black black white black white?” answer “The Harvey High Lunch Line.” I went to the other school in the township. At Riverside High we reluctantly sported a Beaver as a mascot. The Raider was a knight mounted on a horse in full charge. The Beaver sat on a log and chewed wood. Most of the Beavers were slavic or italian. Diversity was embodied in the one black boy and one jew in my high school class. They were both in my seventh period gym class. Right before shower they would taunt each other with names like Porker and Jiggypoo. Some of us white boys would squirm but others would mutter slurs.
Many of us had grandparents who didn’t speak english. Fleeing the rumblings of war; they immigrated arround 1917. Those grandparents could not read. When asked “what are you” the sub-text was where were your parents born? The cold war was a wall of cultural silence. Those of us who had ansestors on the other side of the wall hung to some slim idea of a culture blocked by politics. The melting pot had stewed just long enough to make a watery broth. Polish-American, Russian-American, German-American; was the way we claimed our nationality.
I was hearing Joe Biden speak the other day and he was pronouncing Obama’s name O…bama. I joked with a friend the name sounded Irish when Biden said it. Later that day I remembered Obama’s mother was a Dunham. It seems she is full blood Irish; making him the half Irish guy. Not just half white. He is an Irish-American. Slightly amused and slightly ashamed of lingering childhood blindness. I pray there are no October surprises.
