Some years ago, among my many accomplishments, ha,ha, I drove
\na hack in Miami. I worked from six in the morning to six at night,
\nand sometimes later if I thought I hadn’t made enough.
\nOccasionally toward the end of my shift, if I were anywhere near
\nthe southern terminus of Amtrak in Hialeah, the airport for instance,
\nI would go there in hopes of getting a lucrative run to, say,
\nSouth Beach or Gables by the Sea.
\nOn one of those nights a middle aged black fellow came out, hopped
\ninto my cab and asked to be taken to OpaLocka, a relatively short
\nrun. I was a bit disappointed, however you take what you get.
\nOn the way we chatted and it turns out he was a career employee
\nof Amtrak, porter by trade.
\nWhen we got to Opalocka he asked me to stop at a liquor store,
\nwhich I did, but before he got out he asked me to accompany him.
\nAn unusual request I thought, but complied.
\nAs we entered the store I was taken aback by what I saw.
\nTo the right a bullet-proof glass wall extended from the entrance
\nto the far wall of the room and reached from the floor to the
\nceiling, to the ceiling, mind you. Exchange trays were embedded
\nin it, the kind you see at bank drive-throughs.
\nHe made his purchase, I drove him home and then headed for mine.
\nTwo thoughts occurred to me on the way; one was that the liquor
\nstore had the security of a Fort Knox and the other was that this
\nblack man, in his own hometown, felt obliged to ask a white man
\nto accompany him before he entered the store that night.
\nThere is a saying “only in America”, and I’m here to tell you;
\nthat saying encompasses more than you might think.
\nIslander.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some years ago, among my many accomplishments, ha,ha, I drove a hack in Miami. I worked from six in the morning to six at night, and sometimes later if I thought I hadn’t made enough. Occasionally toward the end of my shift, if I were anywhere near the southern terminus of Amtrak in Hialeah, the … Continue reading “Only in America”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1309","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1309"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2473,"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1309\/revisions\/2473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewalrussaid.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}