ARMEN: BIG BOY RESTAURANT

My son and I were in Bob's Big Boy restaurant in Burbank, near Los Angeles, a place that's been there for over sixty years, and is a hangout for everyone, including movie people and lots of non-movie people.  

We go once a week and have a favorite server named Armen.  When we arrive, and it's
crowded, we ask to wait for his table.  When he was told we were waiting for an open table with Armen, he came over to us, and apologized for not having a table available.
"We will wait for a table of yours to open up." 
"No, no," he said, "I don't want you to wait 20 minutes."

We insisted we wanted to be with him, and waiting was just fine.  "No, no, I can't have you do that," he insisted in a voice of caring.  "I feel guilty keeping you waiting."

Minutes later, he returned to tell us he had asked another server to turn one of his tables over to Armen so we could sit right away, and he could serve us.

We took the table, sat down, and Armen came over, during the crowded lunch time, remembered our order exactly (well scrambled eggs and hash browns with fruit), from a week ago, and with tears in his eyes, said, "Thank you.  You guys mean so much to me."  In the midst of lunch time crowd, we held hands.  He had tears.  He knew he mattered to us more to us as a person, more than the timing.   We had just met Armen the week 
before, just one time.  The food was secondary to us.  The relationship with Armen was primary. 

       

The Rabbi

I was hired as the director for a Jewish Temple Day camp in Los Angeles when I was 21.  Some of the campers were Jewish, and most were something else.  The 65 campers ranged in age from 6 to 14. 

I got to hire the 10 women and men counselors, and I was also the driver of the 65 passenger bus that took them to the beach, and all kinds of interesting places around Southern California.  I loved it.  All the counselors I hired were people-people. 

At the end of one day, before dropping the young people off at their homes  I first stopped by to see the Rabbi at the Temple to check on the schedule for the next day.  I left the bus waiting at the curb with the 65 campers plus 10 counselors.   "Bruce," the rabbi began, "When you drop off the seven-year old negro boy, tell him he cannot come back any more. Don't tell him why." 

”Tell me why,” I asked. 

"Because some of the parents said they did not want their children around negros, and

would withdraw their children." 
"No," I replied, "I will not do that." 
"It's a business decision," he said.  "We have to stay in business."
"I will not do that.  I will quit now if you ask again, and you can drive the children home and find another director.  With our history of being discriminated against and killed because we are Jewish, how could you even ask that?"

Instinctively, he replied with a standard business  response.  I was silent. He paused, and looked into my eyes.  In silence, he withdrew his request. 

I drove the "campers" home and the "negro" child got to return, and no parents removed their children over the rest of the summer. 

For me, I got to remove the pedestal  I carried about men and women of God   More importantly,I discovered a bit more awareness, and natural instinct to stand for, and with everyone, including the Rabbi.      

A BIKE RENTAL

My son and I went to Venice Beach near Los Angeles so I could rent a bike and he could simply step onto his skateboard.  An hour later, I returned the rented  bike and informed the business owner that the gears were slipping and not shifting well.  I asked for a credit.  He immediately replied, "No," and said angrily, "just forget paying me."  In the past, he had often seemed quick and sarcastic as his way of being.  " 

I walked away feeling not so good inside.  It wasn't a matter of who was right. I felt sad about the encounter.  By the time I got to my car a few minutes later, I know I wanted, and had to change how I felt,  and probably how he felt.  From the back seat of my car, I picked up a new copy of my book FREE THE CHILDREN, and walked back to the bike rental place. 

I found the man as he looked everywhere but into my eyes  "I apologize,"  I began, 
"for what just took place between us."  His face softened as did mine.  I handed him the
book and said, "I'm sorry.  I want you to have a copy of my book. You're a good man."   I apologized again.  Tears came to his eyes, as he accepted the gift and extended his hand to reach mine.  I had tears too.  My body relaxed.  I felt good inside. 

ORIGINAL ME

An adult person is a set of beliefs and behaviors, not our own.  An adult is self-perceived as a woman or man that behaves in specific ways.   She or he often speaks in a voice of authority, seriousness, and a language never quite their own.   Take the adult out of me, and what is left?  Me.  The original me, in my case, was when I was
12-years old.  I remember me.  

I freely danced, did hand springs, somersaults, rode my bike down hills that the adult would never do.  The 12 year old, yet to be adult me, laughed a lot.  Not at other people, but with them.  He found it difficult to take seriously much of what the adult me.......does.  Even spiders weren't that scary. 

COMPASSION FOR EVERYONE

 The "hate the Jews" experiences I have gone through as a child, (and sometimes still hear), allows me to know, feel and have great compassion for most others in the world that feel or believe they are not wanted.  

The traumatic mean stuff of my past, taught me compassion for others in the world that experience such hatred, marginalization, blame and never being heard or seen.  I've learned to see personal negative events as having "happened for me, not to me."  How did being treated so badly happen for me?  I learned to feel what people of color feel every day.  What women often feel when not "seen," nor respected, or just seen as bodies on  display.  Or what children go through when surrounded by an adult world that talks down to them, demands more, punishes them and teaches them "no matter what you do, it is never good enough."

When asked "what have you done with all those past hurtful experiences?  Therapy? Counseling?"  What I have done with all the past hurts, is learn to honor the feelings of others, with listening deeply, caring and joining with them.  The feelings are an inspiration to step into situations where adults or children are being marginalized with attitude, tone of voice or "make wrong."  I have learned how to, more often, find ways to bring people together, release my own judgments that often lie hidden in habit and familiarity.  I can still momentarily feel the past hurt in my body, release some tears and then appreciate that I get to still have tears and feel everything.  

When I'm lost in myself, (the poor me part),  I notice it, and give myself permission to honor "the poor me" too. 

TRUTH OF THINGS

A six-year-old girl sitting in the lap of her dad, both quietly talking, smiling and holding one another.  His voice is equal to hers, hers to his.  A quiet calm surrounds them.
 
They slowly get up from their chairs, open the glass doors, and walk outside to cross the street, holding hands.At a distance, they are one.  Inside me, I see the truth of things. 

TEN YEARS OLD AND COUNTING

When I was ten years old, growing up in Los Angeles in a regular middle class neighborhood with all white people, some who had problems =with Jewish people too, I met my first black person when she came to our home one day a week to clean for my mom.  Her name was Minerva 

  Minerva.  I didn't really notice her color in any significant way.  I just noticed she had darker skin, and I thought nothing of it at the time.  At 7:30AM on the one day per week she came to our small house, I sat with her at the kitchen table as she drank a cup of coffee, black with no cream, while eating a piece of toast.  We sat across from each other just talking and sharing.calmly and honestly. 

I had about 30 minutes with Minerva before I walked the two blocks to my elementary school.   Minerva was the first human being to "see" me.  She always made eye contact, and her voice remained even and kind.  She talked with me, not down to me.  I did not have words at the time for how she met me equally.  I only knew she was different than most adults who spoke to me as a younger person, not considered a full human yet.

At the age of 10, I learned how much Minerva was being paid for the eight hours of work on this one day, and her two hour roundtrip travel by bus across Los Angeles.  I immediately asked my parents to double her pay out of fairness and justice.  They did.  They listened to me.

Years later, when I was 23 years old, I received a phone call from Minerva's family in Los Angeles, inviting me to her funeral.  I lived 400 miles away at that time, and I didn't think I mattered that much to the family, for me  to attend the funeral.  I took the invitation as a "nice" thing, but not that special.   I later found out, that I was the only White person close to Minerva, and she had told her family about me. 

I was fortunate to go to the only high school in Los Angeles that had a blend of white, black and Latino students that simply came together without making it happen.  And it was my own experience with extreme prejudice at the age of five that gave me a sample of what it is like to be marginalized, hated and spit on for having an identity of being Jewish, something I was not aware that I was, when five. 

I soon learned how the dominant white world controlled things, and often made war on people of color, and did so believing they were right and justified.   I did get to visit Milton Anderson at his home with his family when I was 16.  Milton was another Black man in my high school. 

Then I went on to teach high school only to find the principal segregating the black students from the white students.  I did speak up right away.  I did lose my job, but that was OK.  Then I got to work among Native Americans for three years, and found the same marginalization, a word that seems too sweet for what was happening.   Again I spoke up and reached out, and lost the job, but gained many friends and fellow and sister lovers of people. 

Today, I can get angry and frustrated with the continuing injustice and ignorance around color, dominant cultures, and children everywhere. I am left with devoting my life to finding ways to stand with and for all people.     

In a dream I had years ago, my father, a man who died decades ago, stepped out of an elevator that had just descended, walked towards me at my present age, as I stood alone in an old wood paneled courtroom.  He walked right up to me, looked me in the eye, and said, "Your life is about fairness and Justice."  He then turned around, walked to the elevator, stepped in and the doors closed and he ascended. 

These stories keep me awake, and remind me to make contact with everyone I meet.
Even if just a simple Hi.. 

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