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  When she finally got me safely on board and I stopped crying, I realized what had scared me so much. It wasn’t the ship itself. It was the water between the ship and the dock. I was sure that if I walked up the gangplank, I would fall into the ocean and drown. But I’d made it, and there I stood, alive and breathing, ready to take off for Europe, which felt like a million miles away.

  I can only imagine how exhausted my mom must have been when we finally got on board, between packing, getting us ready, and putting up with my tantrum. She went straight down for a nap, but as soon as we left the dock, I got a second wind. I was suddenly ecstatic being at sea, and I fell in love with the oily smell of the ship and the people there who took care of me. The crew treated my mom, my brother, and me with dignity and respect, even though we were the only blacks on the ship.

  So while my mother and my brother were green faced and seasick the entire time, throwing up every day from sunup to sundown, I didn’t get sick for a minute. Instead, I ran around the ocean liner, energized and feeling great, exploring the nooks and crannies of the USS Darby. I especially loved the library. I had never seen so many books in one place that I could access. And I loved talking with the stewards and the crew, who came from all over the world and were eager to teach me anything I wanted to know.

  I enjoyed the trip so much, I didn’t want to disembark, a minor miracle compared with how I’d fought against boarding the boat three days earlier. We took the sixty-mile train ride from London to our new destination, Swindon, a suburb where we would be staying for the next two years, and I was fascinated by everything we saw. Eventually we clattered along a cobblestone street and stopped in front of a two-story brownstone at 101 Clifton Street, which was close to Swindon Air Base, where my dad was stationed. We had reached our new home, and Dad was there, waiting for us.

  We threw our arms around him and began to explore our new digs. Mom had done her research, and Dad had rented the upper rooms of a duplex from our new landlady, Carrie Lofton, a sweet British woman who lived on the floor beneath us, and her husband. I was enchanted the moment I saw the flat, and we learned quickly, partly from how kindly Mrs. Lofton treated us, that American-style racial segregation was not an issue in our new home. We saw right away that Mrs. Lofton embraced all of us, and I will never forget her gentle nature and her consistent generosity.

  There were fruit trees in her backyard, and the aroma of sweet apples wafting through the air became odd bedfellows with the musky odor of coal in this small market town. Early in the morning, when the sun was still rising, a horse-drawn wagon pulled a huge load of coal past our home. We had no hot water, so when we heard the bell and the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves (the sounds reminded me of Big Horse), we ran outside and bought a couple of large lumps of coal for the day, which we put into the furnace to heat the house and give us hot water for bathing and cooking. Then we fed a shilling into a meter box in the house that would release the gas and electricity. When it stopped, we had to put in another shilling. It was a pay-as-you-go system that worked very well in this town.

  In the afternoon, the same horse-drawn wagon returned, this time with exotic citrus fruits from Egypt, as well as dates and bananas. We also had a daily visit from a local vendor, a veritable farmer’s market on wagon wheels, where everything was fresh and delicious, like potatoes, onions, leeks, and brussels sprouts that came straight from the earth. We had no refrigerators, but the air was so cold that we kept our fruit and dairy products on the window ledge, where they stayed fresh until we ate them.

  Finally, a vendor pushed a large rolling cart of local fruits and vegetables as he called out, “Fresh tomatoes and lettuce,” in his sing-songy lilt. We would buy his wares, and we got fresh products from a nearby dairy. Back then, milk was packaged in thick, clear glass bottles with the cream sitting on top, and to me, it tasted like ambrosia.

  When we took the double-decker bus to Piccadilly Circus in London, we got to eat fish and chips (my favorite) and drink American Coca-Cola as we visited bazaars where they sold imported fabrics and spices. Back home on Clifton Street, in our multiethnic neighborhood, I learned how to make authentic Russian borscht, cabbage rolls, and Polish sausages from scratch. On our street alone, there was our family and several families from the Mediterranean, as well as native Britons. However much our traditional diets varied, we all baked our own bread, and you could smell the aroma all the way up and down our street in the mornings. You could also smell fresh meats simmering in exotic spices. At mealtime, the various ethnic herbs and spices all blended together just like the people did. It was a generous lifestyle where everyone helped everyone else, regardless of color or race, and neighbors watched over each other’s children like we were one big, happy family.

  It was nothing short of a wonderful life for us. Mrs. Lofton, whom we adored, babysat when Mom went shopping. She loved to read books, so did I, and she taught Mom and me to knit and crochet. When we spent time together practicing my “knit two, purl two,” Mrs. Lofton asked me a ton of questions about America, where she had never been. She was genuinely interested, and I loved talking about the family farm in Wyoming and the house in Denver but left out the painful parts of my life that I was still bound and determined to keep secret. I feared polluting the beauty and flow of my new life with bad memories and agonizing stories. Now that we were in Europe, so far away from my troubles, it felt like they had floated away—as if they never existed. I felt free and happy, with no desire to dredge up the past.

  Even going to school felt better in England. Each morning, we enjoyed the charm of the holly-lined cobblestone streets that led to the village center, where the school marm stood outside a brick schoolhouse and rang a large brass bell to gather us all inside. On my first few days, I wore an expensive-looking dress that Mom had picked up for a song at a Goodwill store. The dress had a large bow in the back, and the other kids must have thought we were rich. But that ended when I got my school uniform the very next week, which was one more way of discouraging class prejudice or any other kind.

  Every day at school, gratefully wearing a uniform that made me feel like everyone else, I concentrated on learning new things, like the metric system and other languages. They taught us about world history, math, and the English, Middle Eastern, South American, and European cultures that were merging. When your neighbors are uniquely separate European countries rather than interconnected American states, there is an opportunity to experience life from a variety of cultural points of view.

  School was not the only place that offered lessons. When we drove through the countryside, we got to see the consequences of World War II right in our own backyard. Evidence of violence and destruction were everywhere. I saw areas that had been utterly destroyed by bombs, and people rebuilding their broken worlds with integrity and respect for each other. London was close to flattened after the war, and there were signs of ruin and destruction everywhere we went. I learned at a young age, by seeing it with my own eyes, what a war could do to people, their families, their culture, and their homes.

  When I met my dad in Germany or France during those two extraordinary years, I saw it there, too, where people were exerting tremendous efforts to rebuild. This was a large dose of international politics for a young girl, and I came away with understanding and feelings that were well beyond my years. In the meantime, my mom and Mrs. Lofton educated us kids about Nazism, socialism, and Communism. I was now a member of a global society where war-torn countries were visibly struggling to rebuild their land and their communities.

  But if you think these people were depressed, discouraged, or complaining, it was quite the opposite. It was a testament to the human spirit to see my mom and Mrs. Lofton dancing in the living room to American music by artists like Patti Page, Fats Domino, and Nat King Cole. Mrs. Lofton often invited a group of women over to knit and dance, and my mom and I showed them all the latest dance steps. A seed of cultural creativity was sprouting that had begun in America and had crossed the ocean,
where it was slowly opening into full bloom.

  Mrs. Lofton’s friends loved Americans and our music, and nearly every afternoon there was a dance-a-thon in our landlady’s living room. The ladies, always feminine and conservative, wore long skirts, hand-knitted or crocheted cardigans, and shirtdresses that were popular at the time, with a full skirt and a big pleat in the back. In winter, they wore rusts and browns, and in summer blues and pastels. But whatever the weather, they wore crisply starched white blouses with long sleeves.

  As they danced around in their hand-knitted socks and their high-heeled pumps, they imagined what it would be like to go to an American record shop where they could buy their favorite music, like Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, the blues, and the boogie-woogie. Then we’d have crumpets and tea with clotted cream, orange marmalade, and freshly churned butter.

  These women impacted me deeply. I watched them having a ball and cooking dinner together while they danced and laughed. I listened carefully as they carried on deep discussions about power struggles between the genders and how to survive the oppressive and aggressive ways of their mining and military husbands when they got home from a grueling day’s work. They all agreed with my mom that getting an education made all the difference in the world for a woman. The women’s movement was expanding globally, while these women discussed the care and feeding of their hardworking husbands, which usually started with giving them a tall glass of ale before they talked about anything. Or sometimes the men joined their mates at a local pub.

  At school, I learned to play cricket while I taught the British kids how to play double Dutch jump rope and baseball. Though somewhat shy, I felt more secure here than I had back in Denver because no one persecuted me here, and I hardly stuttered at all. But I was disappointed to see what was happening to Heidi, a white friend of mine from Norway, who was relentlessly pushed around by the other kids.

  It broke my heart when they beat her up, which they did as often as they could get away with. Heidi was a smart and proud young girl, and I started sticking up for her and tried to make the kids stop hurting her. Sometimes I even fought for her. How could I not when I’d been in her position so many times?

  “You’re my only real friend,” she said to me when we were alone. “You stand up for me.”

  “I just don’t get it,” I told her. “You’re white and so are they. Why on earth would they want to fight with you?”

  “It’s my name. They think I’m German.”

  “What’s wrong with being German?” I asked.

  “They think all Germans are Nazis.”

  Once again, prejudice was rearing its ugly head at school, but this time, not at me. They didn’t care that I was black since they hadn’t been raised to hate blacks. Instead they’d been raised to hate Germans. The irony was that Heidi was Norwegian, not German. But because her name sounded German, she became a target for the kids’ cruelty, the token “nigger” on the block. I learned that day that prejudice went beyond color, and I felt a deep connection to and compassion for Heidi.

  She wanted to know why we Americans had so much racism, lynching, and violence. I had no idea how to answer her. It seemed to me that wherever minorities lived, they were held in contempt by others who feared anything different. It was difficult to assimilate into a new culture if everyone pushed you out when all you wanted was to fit in. The human race had a long way to go in this regard; people flocked to their own and were suspicious of those who looked, spoke, thought, or acted differently.

  In the end, our time in England was valuable on multiple levels. The school system was superior to the public schools in Colorado, and my brother and I both advanced academically. I learned the metric system and other languages, and our school uniforms created a feeling of connectedness among kids of different cultures and moved us away from flaunting our class differences.

  Maybe the best part of all was that my dad did not have to face the American stereotypical “black man” prejudice. With so much newfound acceptance and freedom in our lives, it felt like the bar had been raised and we could create a wonderful life for ourselves with brand-new opportunities and loads of encouragement. When people are urged to reach higher, we usually do so, and if you expect more from people, we will most likely give it to you. All we really need is an open door and some help along the way.

  CHAPTER 6

  Home Strife

  Although I loved Swindon, I wasn’t unhappy when it was time to return home. My family had been moving every two years since I was a baby, so I’d learned to accept my present environment, wherever we were, and then make the best of moving on. Now, at eight years old, I had more courage than I’d had before our stay in Europe and a lot more understanding about life in general. Not only did I see things and meet people in England that changed my world view, but it was also powerfully liberating to not be condemned and insulted at every turn, just for being born with dark skin.

  When we returned to the States, we went straight to Denver for a brief visit, where we reconnected with family and told our amazing stories of life on another continent. We talked until we could hardly speak anymore, and we had so many tales to tell we constantly interrupted one another. We spoke so fast and told so many stories at once, Ebonics was like the Queen’s English compared with how my family talked when we were revved up. We described Mrs. Lofton, the dancing, our neighbors, the war-torn streets, the wonderful schools, and the sense of being accepted everywhere. Our stories sounded like fairy tales to the rest of the family, and they couldn’t hear enough about our European adventure. I had even come back with a slight British accent, and they never stopped making fun of me.

  Then we were off to Travis Air Force Base in California, where I enrolled in the third grade. I’d been so welcomed in England, I had erased all memories of racial prejudice—until I was back in the States, where I quickly remembered, whether I wanted to or not. As I worked to reassimilate into school, I tried to stay on target by concentrating on my studies, but it seemed that the school system was not my friend. My mother was enraged when I was forced to go to remedial reading classes, not because I was bad at reading. Quite the opposite. I was way ahead of my age group since our stay in Swindon, and they should have skipped me a year forward. Instead, all the blacks were thrown together in remedial classrooms with no books for the students to take home. That meant that the teacher had to read to us in the classroom. Then, when we got home, since there were no books, we had no homework and very little opportunity to learn and grow.

  Mom constantly had to fight for me as she advanced in her nursing studies. The old sense of struggling against impossible odds was back, and although my life so far had taught me not to waste time missing people and things, I have to say that I missed the ease of my English school, the lack of competitiveness, the constant mental stimulation, and the dance parties, and I really missed Mrs. Lofton. When her letters came, Mom and I read them aloud over and over, but we had to keep looking and moving forward.

  I spent the rest of the year running track, which I liked, and refusing to talk, which I hated. Even the gym teacher had trouble getting me to open up. But I found solace when a friend gave us a sweet little cocker spaniel puppy named Spooky. I loved that little dog so much, and he transformed me, as I became happier and more outgoing the longer I took care of him. The thing was, I had no idea how to train him. One day, after he tore up a brand-new chair with his teeth, my dad decided there was no room for the dog in our home any longer. Instead of looking for a family to adopt him, he abandoned Spooky in a field and drove away with me in the car.

  I sobbed my heart out and yelled at him. “You’re m-m-ean,” I accused him.

  “Stop crying, Pammy,” Dad said to me, looking annoyed. “He’s a dog. He can take care of himself just fine.”

  “But I’ll miss him. What if he dies? What if no one finds him or feeds him?”

  How would he eat, and where would he sleep? Dad obviously didn’t care, and I was so traumatized and angry at hi
m, I refused to speak to him. Mom tried to explain that Dad was on edge since he was about to retire and he didn’t know what he would do next, but I stayed mad. In fact, I was so traumatized about losing Spooky, I started wetting the bed, which was humiliating for a girl of ten.

  Mom had a lot on her hands then as she and Dad argued pretty regularly while she kept up her nursing studies. But when she suddenly announced she was pregnant again, she was set on us owning a home of our own in Denver. Dad suggested that when Mom got close to her due date, we could move to another base nearby with more up-to-date birthing facilities and better living conditions than at Travis. But Mom was determined to have her baby in Denver with her family around her, and she wanted to find us a permanent residence there.

  She didn’t make it back in time for Gina to be born, but soon afterward, she took us three kids to Denver to find a house. When Dad retired, she wanted him to come home to a wonderful place that was all ours where he could get his bearings and plan for the next part of his life.

  I fantasized about having our own home just like Mom did, but when we went to Denver to house hunt, we had to stay with Marky and Daddy Ray. Not only did I miss Spooky, but now I had to live with Marky again, who still resented me because of the beer incident so many years earlier. I think she blamed me for turning her husband against her, and she never forgave me. But Marky eventually came through for us when she offered my mother a loan to buy a home in Denver. Whether it was a gift from the heart or a way to get us to move out of her place, I’m not entirely sure. I only know Mom was thrilled.

  So while Dad stayed at Travis to complete his military work, my mom, my brother, my baby sister, and I stayed in Denver. In a matter of a few weeks, with a combination of her work money and the loan from Marky, Mom found us a beautiful tri-level brick home on Eudora Street in a lovely neighborhood on the east side of Denver.