It has been a minute since I have written.
Things these days don’t have to be about me but, preferably time with members of my family.
The movie “The Butler” is a must see movie. What I can tell you is that it is a history lesson for everyone who has forgotten what went on during the civil rights years.
Some refuse to talk about it, others will talk to remind their families what it took for us to be where we are. What I have learned is that our counterparts went through most of the things we went through: they keep it in the past and move forward.
We all know the difficulties our ancestors had with eating in shops.
They were not allowed to sit and be served at the counter. Amazingly enough in my home town there is a place that is still open that used to do that.
It’s set up the way it used to be back in the early 60’s. it’s strange that even in the early 70’s I had a little taste of what it was like to be asked not to sit at the counter where we were still not served.
We had to go to the other end. It feels as though someone is doing their best to set back the clock. It starts with one person and that one person may have many friends to back them. Every person is not like that. You have friends that are willing to stand up for what they believe in with you.
In the 1960’s there was a sit in, in a few states during the Civil Rights movement to give the blacks the right to be served in stores and delis at the counter.
They made a way for everyone and much more in history. August 16, 2013, on a trip to visit my cousin in a nursing home in Mt. Pleasant, my mother had the worst experience of her life.
All she wanted to do was eat. My mother LOVES her Pittsburgh Links. It wasn’t cooked the way she usually eats them. She walks back up to the counter and politely tells the server/taker that the links are not to her liking. So, the young lady behind the counter stated that she would see what she could do to fix them. Then, a man who claimed to have his name on the building told my mother that this was the way thy were supposed to be cooked.
My mother didn’t want them and she had already placed the food on the counter while she waited to be served again as far as telling the young lady at the counter about the Links. As she walked back to the table to get her things, the man who claimed to have his name on the building had snapped her picture; by then, she turned around and seen that he was snapping so, she in turned pulled out her camera phone to take his picture after asking did he take her picture?
He responded “yes” and she stated in a calm voice that she could do the same. He sarcastically responded “I don’t care if you take my picture. I will smile for you.” As my mother was leaving, he told her not to come back.
If he had a bad day, he didn’t have to do what he did. That makes the business looks bad. All he had to do was step back and take a breather. People spend their well earned money to eat at an establishment that is “supposed” to be good, not to be treated unfairly. Especially, snapping a picture for no reason just because YOU‘RE mad. Makes people wonder how many other people this man spoke to in that manner.
Stacey Barlow is a contributing blogger for JenningsWire, a blogging community created by Annie Jennings.
