The boy, who usually slaps hard enough to shatter metatarsals, gently slapped Ali’s extended palm before then holding out his own tiny palm for The Champ to return the gesture.
Ali took a swipe . . .
. . . and missed.
At the very last instant, the Little Man, as he still likes to do, pulled his hand away like a matador’s red cape teasing a bull.
“Too slow,” the Little Man whispered, his two missing front teeth causing the words to lisp slightly. Like, “Tooooth looow.” Like Ali’s own soft voice that now lisps slightly.
And like two six-year-olds they laughed together at the prank.
While still roaring in delight, Ali once again opened his arms and my son once again stepped into them, except this time the shy boy squeezed back, and tightly, as though he were hugging his dear Grandpa. Ali’s eyes caught mine, and I swear to this day they twinkled.
It was an end-of-a-movie fade-out and roll-the-credits hug. A full thirty-second hug. A worth-the-hour-and-a-half-drive-in-Southern-California-gridlocked-freeway-traffic hug.
A hug from “The Greatest” that the Little Man still remembers warmly, and surely will until he is an old man.
As we walked away hand-in-hand after saying goodbye to Ali, my son stopped and looked up at me and said through a Christmas-morning smile in his missing-teeth lisp: “You know, Dad, you were right—he really is The Bestest.”
Woody Woodburn
Big Men, Big Hearts
Character is power.
Booker T. Washington
On the weekends I work in a coffee store in an old cigar factory in the historic area of Tampa. Sometimes kids from the projects stop by for candy sticks, and if I’m not too busy, I let them weigh out coffee and grind it, fill the jars with candy and even run the cash register.
A few weeks ago on a big football weekend, Omar, a bright little ten-year-old, came by to visit, and I gave him some chores to help pass a rainy day. In mid-afternoon, a giant of a man appeared in the doorway, and Omar was goggle-eyed at his size.
“I bet he’s a famous football player,” I whispered to him.
Omar giggled.
The big man approached the counter with a wide grin on his ebony face.
“What you gigglin’ at?”
“I told him you were probably a famous football player,” I explained with some embarrassment.
He held out a hand as big as a ham hock with a gold ring on his middle finger.
“Can you read that?” he asked Omar.
Omar twisted the ring so he could see it better. “Pitts-burgh Steel-ers,” he read slowly.
“That’s right,” said the man and turned his finger sideways. “Can you read this?”
Omar squinted. “Super Bowl Champion!”
A light clicked in my less-than-athletic brain. “You know who this is?” I nudged Omar, hardly able to contain my excitement. “This is Mean Joe Green!”
Omar looked at him quizzically. Then his face lit up. “Do you know Franco Harris?”
I glared at Omar. “I bet you’d like Joe Green’s autograph, wouldn’t you?” I prodded.
“Yeah, sure,” said Omar while I rummaged for paper and pen. “How could I get in touch with Franco Harris?”
Joe grinned. “He’s staying at the downtown Hyatt. Call his room and say you’re a friend of mine.”
Joe signed his autograph and handed it to Omar.
While nudging Omar a reminder to say thank you, I said, “Give me that autograph, and I’ll put it in a candy bag so you don’t get it all crumpled up.” I laid it on the shelf for safekeeping and turned to thank Mr. Green myself before he moved on to another store.
“Why in the world would you ask about another player when you had Joe Green right here?” I snapped. “That was downright insulting!”
Omar shrugged and said innocently, “I like Franco Harris.”
“I’m surprised he even bothered to give you an autograph!” I glared at him.
I returned to helping customers. The day ended with a flurry of business, and Omar, thoroughly chastened, departed abruptly, leaving his autograph behind.
The next Saturday he appeared again. “I forgot my autograph.”
“I know,” I said, pointing to the shelf. “It’s still up here where I put it for safekeeping.”
I reached for the bag thinking, He is only ten after all. Maybe Joe was big enough not to have been offended.
Omar reached into the bag to look at his trophy once more.
“There’s something else in the bag,” he said, puzzled, handing me a second piece of paper. Because I’d been off-duty since the prior weekend myself, I, too, was surprised to see something other than what I had personally placed in the bag for Omar.
I opened it and read out loud:
“Omar . . . sorry I missed you. Franco Harris!”
Omar’s eyes lit up with both disbelief and excitement as he took the paper to see for himself.
These two big men—with equally big hearts— apparently came back into the store after my shift to leave a special surprise for a young boy. Mean Joe Green isn’t so “mean” after all—quite the contrary!
Phyllis W. Zeno
Guess Who We’re Playing
Especially do I believe in the Negro race, in the beauty of its genius, the sweetness of its soul.
W. E. B. DuBois
Growing up in white-bread America during the 1960s and early 1970s, I didn’t meet a black person until I was a sophomore in high school. Other than a few Asian kids and a handful of Hispanics, I attended school and hung out with white kids. Diversity was not part of anyone’s vocabulary who grew up in the then predominantly white suburbs of Los Angeles.
Playing for the sophomore football team, I suddenly came face to face with black America one Thursday afternoon, when we played the team from Manual Arts High School. Most of us had never heard of Manual Arts High School, and even fewer of us had traveled to that part of Los Angeles where Manual Arts was located.
When we were told that Manual Arts was an all-black school we thought our coaches must be crazy. We figured we stood no chance against them. They would be bigger, faster, stronger and better than us. Not to mention, most of us were scared of blacks.
During practice the week of the big game, our coaches kept emphasizing that the players from Manual Arts were no different than we were. We were told that they put their pants on the same way we did, and if we tackled them hard enough, they would feel pain the same as we would. None of us were buying into the daily pep talks by the coaches. Most of us were convinced that what we really needed was to take out a life insurance policy prior to Thursday’s showdown.
When game day arrived, we were getting dressed in the locker room when the football team from Manual Arts arrived. Strolling through the boys’ locker-room door around forty players poured in, all black, all talking, laughing and carrying on as if they were attending a birthday party. Most of us just stopped and stared at them, marveling at how much bigger than us they were. Even before we hit the gridiron, we were convinced of our opponent’s superior speed, strength and ability. In all honesty, we were also staring because for many of us, myself included, this was the closest we had ever gotten to a black person. Besides their size and apparent superior physical strength, I was immediately impressed by how “loose” these guys were. Prior to a game, most of our guys were tense and barely said a word, while the kids from Manual Arts actually looked and acted as if they were having fun.
During the pre-game meeting, our coaches continued to emphasize that we had nothing to fear. Other than skin color, our coaches proclaimed that we were no different from the kids from Manual Arts. We hadn’t believed him in the first place but now that we had actually seen our opponents, the coach’s pep talk fell on totally deaf ears.
When we took the field for pre-game warmup, we knew we were in trouble. While our coaches kept yelling at us to keep our eyes on our side of the field and focus on the mission at hand, most of us
kept diverting our eyes to the other side of the field. Even during pre-game warmup, the kids from Manual Arts were impressive and fast, very fast. I would like to say that our team pulled off the upset of the year, and that the end result was reminiscent of the championship game depicted in the movie Remember the Titans. Unfortunately, the outcome was a 55-0 shellacking at the hands of Manual Arts. The only reason the score wasn’t 155-0 is that the coaches for Manual Arts pulled their players back in the second half. If anything, I surmised that black people were sympathetic. As it turned out, Manual Arts was a far better team than us, in more ways than one.
At the conclusion of the game, the players from Manual Arts poured onto the field to offer their congratulations and let us know how well we played. I couldn’t believe it. Normally, at the end of the game, win or lose, it’s a few quick handshakes with the players from the other team and then it’s head for the locker room or the bus—but not these guys. Here they were patting us on the back and complimenting us on our effort, and asking us questions about our school and the remainder of the football season. This was a far cry from the violent, stealing, cheating, lying, lazy people that I had been told made up black America. Then something really strange happened. A number of the players from Manual Arts invited us to walk with them to the bus. Not knowing exactly what to say, most of us said, “Okay.”
As we walked off the field, white next to black, black next to white, I started to understand what our coaches had been trying to tell us all along, which is that “They’re no different than you are.” But in fact, these guys were different. The players from Manual Arts were friendlier, funnier, more mature and a lot looser than most of us white kids, not to mention far superior at the game of football. They asked us more questions than we asked of them, and they showed a genuine interest in us.
As their players were boarding the bus, the middle linebacker, who had been in my face all day long since I was our team’s quarterback, approached me and said, “Hey, next year you guys come to our school and we’ll play ball again, okay?”
Somewhat surprised, I quickly replied, “Alright, let’s do that.”
Somewhere deep inside I knew that would never happen, even though I felt at that moment, and still do to this day, that a bunch of white kids from the suburbs traveling to Manual Arts for a football game would be the best thing that could happen to any white kid who had grown up with little or no contact with people of color.
As the bus started to roll away, the players from Manual Arts leaned out of the windows of the bus and waved enthusiastically and bid us good-bye. At the same time, they were singing a Motown favorite, changing the chorus just slightly and chanting, “Na, na, na, na, Na, na, na, na, Hey, hey, hey, we’re number one.” As the bus drove out of the parking lot and onto the street, they kept waving to us and singing their re-created Motown fight song. In fact, as the bus got to the end of the street and turned right to head for the freeway, we could still hear them singing as the bus drove out of sight. There we stood, a group of gangly white kids, wondering what the heck just happened.
Back in the locker room, the conversation centered on how nice the kids from Manual Arts were, how well they played football, and how they could have easily beaten us 100-0, if not for an empathetic head coach. Whereas two hours ago we were scared and bewildered by these black kids from Manual Arts, now all we had was respect and admiration for them.
The next night, many of the players from the sophomore team attended the varsity football game. As we normally did, we all sat together in the stands. One day removed from our game with Manual Arts, you could tell that something about us was different. Even though we had gotten our brains beat out just twenty-four hours prior, we were laughing, joking and having a great time. In the second quarter, we burst into song, singing the “Na, na, na, na” song that we had learned from the players from Manual Arts.
One of the adults sitting near us said out loud, “What the heck has gotten into the sophomore football team?”
Another person said, “I don’t know what they’re so happy about. They lost yesterday, 55-0.”
Somehow, it just didn’t matter that we had gotten blown out the day before. While people looking in from the outside might think our team lost that day, we all knew that we had gained far more.
Tony Ramos
Reprinted with permission of Stephen Bentley and Creators Syndicate, Inc. ©2003.
My Momma Will Give Me More
As we make it, we’ve got to reach back and pull up those left behind.
Joshua I. Smith
I was out making home visits that Friday—out visiting families. Managing the load, doing the paperwork and making the visits was a large part of my responsibilities as a caseworker for the welfare department in Michigan. My clients came in all shapes and sizes. I had a strange feeling that afternoon, almost like I had lost the final piece in a jigsaw puzzle I was trying to put together. Every driveway was filled with large mounds of snow; the snow truck tracks were still fresh on all of the streets.
As I approached my client’s house, I couldn’t help but notice the chipping paint made a small pile in the right corner of the porch. The walkway had not been shoveled in days, and each step I took seemed more difficult than the one before. There was a strong odor of gasoline in the air, and as I looked next door, I noticed a man fiddling with an old car that looked as if it had not been moved from that one spot in weeks.
The wind started to blow again, so I placed my gloved hands on my cheeks to lessen the sting. I stepped onto the porch, reached through a tear in the screen and knocked on the door because there was no doorbell. I stood there in the shivering cold for what felt like an eternity until finally someone answered. The woman and I had spoken several times by phone, and I had advised her that I would be out soon to make a home visit. This was the first time that we had talked face-to-face.
My caseload was heavy and I didn’t remember faces very well, but she had the kind of eyes you’d think I would remember forever. They were haunting, almost dim—noticeably absent of the usual vitality that you normally see in young women. Her skin looked weathered and aged—almost grainy. I could tell that she had been crying. Her thin T-shirt was tattered and damp from tears. I heard children’s laughter in the background, and I heard a little boy say, “It’s your turn.” Children never have to worry about where their next meal will come from or whether or not the house will stay warm for another night. Only a mother lives with that worry.
Before I could take a seat to begin my interview, she said to me, “I spent my last five dollars earlier in the week for food for the children. And now, I don’t have any food left in my house.”
She was out of food stamps and had no other means of buying food until her ADC check arrived at the end of the following week. I looked at my watch; the office was going to close in a half-hour. I didn’t have time to run back for an emergency food voucher, so I did the only thing I could do—I took her and the kids to my house. I had not made up my mind about what I would do next, but I knew that it was up to me to make sure that those children had food to make it through the weekend. I needed to give them enough to sustain them until I could get back to the office on Monday.
My mind wandered a little on the short drive to my house—back to Rapides Parish, to my hometown, Alexandria in central Louisiana. My momma taught me to share at an early age, even though I was an only child. I’ve carried that teaching with me all these years, even on this cold winter’s day in 1972.
During the ride, the children pointed at every drop of snow they saw, naming each one and wishing for more. Their mother had put them in their only coats—which they had already outgrown—for the trip to my house. When we reached my home, I invited my client and the kids inside and offered them a seat in the living room. As I went into the kitchen I heard the mother say in a hushed tone to the children, “Now you both sit still and don’t touch anything.”
I smiled and happily opened my refrigerator door. I always k
ept a lot of food, enough to feed an army, even though there was just little old me. I pulled out all the food I had. It filled two or three shopping bags. I took the bags into my living room and placed them at her feet. She was extremely grateful, and she didn’t know how to accept the food because no one had ever done this for her.
I assured her that I had more than enough and said, “My momma will give me more.”
As my great-uncle Steve would always say, “Baby, if you keep your fist always balled up tightly where nothing can get out of it, ain’t nothing go get in it either.”
For the first time, I saw the wrinkles soften and brightness return to her eyes. They were warmed with a sense of hope. She gave me a hug and started to cry. My momma always taught me to give freely, and to believe that God would always provide a means for us to get more. And He always did. I shared that with her as we started on our way back to her home. I have always given freely, and God has continued to bless me.
She was wiping her tears when her children asked her why she was crying. Her reply, “Because God has always provided a way for us. Just when I thought I couldn’t go any farther, He sends a sign for me to keep on going.”
Then, they turned to each other with a puzzled look on their faces and started talking about everything they were going to eat when they got home. They didn’t understand what she meant, but I sure did.
As time went on, I forgot about that cold, blustery winter Friday and the years went by. One day nearly fifteen years later, a coworker stopped me in the hallway at work and said, “You don’t remember me, do you?”
I tried my best to remember her face, but we had so many new people in my department I couldn’t keep track of all the new employees that hired into the agency. Besides, I had been promoted to management several years back and spent just about all of my working hours coaching my own staff. Well, I don’t need to tell you who she was. Deep down in your soul you know who she was. Yes, she reminded me of that Friday afternoon many years before. She was the client I had taken home with me when I was a caseworker. She shared with me how much I had inspired her back then, and she was determined that she would find me one day and surprise me. I was surprised, indeed! While I thought I had just been delivering food that day, it turned out those grocery bags also contained hope and encouragement, and now, she too is in the position to touch others through serving.