Julie Mattson Ostrow wrote:
>Wow! I find it somewhat sad that someone said that diversity is
> overrated!
I grew up in so tight a community that I longed for
"someones different." We were white, we were second and
third generation immigrants from Germany and Ireland. We
were so old world Catholic.
There were two Jews in the neighborhood, quite elderly,
children grown and gone. There were no protestants, but two
excommunicant Catholic women, one of whom was barred from
Mass because she was divorced.
When we went 'over the Rhine' to market (all the way across
town on the streetcar), there were people of every stripe.
Market was wonderful. Market smelled amazing. My brother's
godfather was there selling fruit. My grandma and grandpa
were there visiting with old friends and having the blue
plate special at the saloon once owned by my
greatgrandfather.
My father and mother were in a wrangle/debate with a funeral
director over how the city was run at another table. My
brother and I were having coca-cola, a Saturday treat.
What was always impossible for me to puzzle out, as a kid,
was why so many people were Saturday/market day people.
When I got to Mother Seton High School for Girls (once
elite, during the civil war, now the neighborhood high
school for Catholic girls), I finally got to meet 'Negro'
girls from St. Peter Clavier.
Now, these girls were in every way just like me to look
at--bobby sox, saddle shoes, blue serge
uniforms--skirt-white blouse-weskit-BVM bolo ties-beanies.
Why was I 13 before I met these other Catholic girls?
If you make the circle of village small enough, your
children will break away just to see something different,
hear something different, meet someone unexpected. I needed
to live closer to the market and the Saturday people.
WizardMarks, Central
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