This evening I was having dinner with my mother, Rie, and godmother, Elsie when I heard an interesting story from Elsie.
Elsie is a very sweet, funny woman nearing her 70's. She stays active and works at a bank a few days a week to stave off boredom. A few weeks ago, she tells us, they were all sitting around at lunch, talking about ear piercings. You know, how old they were when they first had their ears pierced, their first set of earrings, crazy peircings that people have...when Elsie piped up to tell the story of her first earrings and how they'd been lost.
She was very young, probably about 5 or 6 when she'd gotten her ear's peirced and in that same year while playing a game of Klu Klux Klan they'd been ripped out by accident.
The room went quiet. Everyone looked at the lone black man standing in the room.
"Thank God he had a sense of humor!" Exclaimed Elsie "I mean, I didn't realize what I was saying! When we played that game we were very young and didn't know what it meant. All we knew was that you wore a pillowcase on your head and pretended to kidnapp each other."
"Like Cowboys and Indians." I offered
"Exactly."
Her co-workers sat stunned, staring first at the man then at Elsie
(
"You know the ones most shocked were the ones feeling most guilty. I hadn't realized what I'd done, I was just telling a story"she frowned.)
He laughed "What exactly were the rules of this game?"
The room relaxed and Elsie explained that she didn't remember much, just that someone with a pillowcase on thier heads came to take you away, and they put a pillowcase on your head as well, which is when her earrings were caught and ripped out. No one was hurt.
A few weeks later the man left, he was only temping. On his way out he said goodbye to Elsie
"Hope I didn't scare you too much." He teased
"Ohhh now you know I liked you all along!" She laughed.
