He called me mister.

(3.5 minute read)

I got out of the Army in September 1970.  The Army was far enough in the rearview mirror for me to have grown a ponytail, when my first wife and I decided to take a trip and see some more of America.  We had won a “contest” that provided for a hotel stay on the coast of Florida for 3 days.  Turned out that it wasn’t really a contest.  The prize we “won” was to get a sales pitch to buy some land in Florida once we got there.  But we knew that we could make good use of the hotel room anyway and do some sightseeing.  The hotel was right off the beach and we could get in the ocean!  Neither of us had ever done that. 

So, we loaded up our Datsun 1200 and set off.  I even had an extra can of gas in the trunk in case of an emergency.  There wasn’t a proliferation of all night stores that sold gas then and I knew that I would be doing some late-night driving.  Yes, I know that’s dangerous and I haven’t done it since but I’m real glad that I did then.  Our trip plan was to head south until we reached the gulf and then go east.  We just wanted to kind of wander along the coast to see what we could see.  It was the countryside and America that we wanted to look at. 

There were some surprises.  Keep in mind that this is the early 70s.  I was 22 years old, had grown a ponytail and gone hippie.  I was a drug-free hippie but a hippie nonetheless. 

We noticed on our journey mainly through Louisiana and Mississippi that there were a lot of black people hitchhiking in the smaller towns that we traveled through.  They would be at street corners with their thumbs out unless the car had a white driver in which case their thumbs would quickly go away.  That should have been a clue.  We got another clue just down the road.

I stopped to gas up at a little backwater filling station in front of what looked like an old-time general store.  No one came out to pump the gas so I got out.  There were probably a half dozen older guys sitting on a couple of benches up on the front porch.  One may very well have been the attendant.  They cleared the benches and started running at us shouting obscenities.  They felt strongly about wanting us to leave.  Immediately!  I managed to get back in the car in time to get out of there.  Another lesson learned. 

We were in the Florida panhandle when we stopped at a local chicken place for lunch.  For some reason we thought that Florida was safer.  A waitress took our order.  We kind of lost track of time as we busily talking about all that we had seen on our trip.  A young black kid dressed all in white wearing one of this little restaurant hats was bussing tables.  He couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9.  He started cleaning up the table next to us.  He started whispering to me under his breath without looking at us. He said, "MISTER!  You need to get out of here!" I casually looked around and the tables in the restaurant were all now empty. Everyone and I mean everyone including all the kitchen help was standing off to the side and glowering at us. They didn't look happy. Every white face was full of malice.  We beat feet out of there as fast as we could. 

I didn't dare acknowledge that young man who called me "mister".  If he hadn't caught my attention I don't know what would have happened but it wouldn't have been pretty.  That kid had more integrity and courage than anyone else in the room.  I can still remember how he looked dressed in an impeccable white outfit with a little white hat. 1970.

He called me mister.