I grew up....

I grew up in a small dusty little town called San Antonio, Texas.  When we moved there, there wasn't even a freeway yet.  Even Willougby's barber shop still had a wooden sidewalk existing from it's original construction way back from the 1800's.  The city was squarely divided with the poor whites on the South side, the blacks to the East, the rich whites to the North side, and the Mexicans on the West side.  As time passed on, all of that melded together and when the computer age entered San Antonio, the Asian Indians gravitated toward the Northwest.  We were always going to Grandma's house in Louisiana.  As a younger child I never knew a vacation outside of Grandma's house.  There was a story.  Grandma's house. The imagination that I had of my grandmother's attic was beyond any other.  Read, The Train Runs No More.  Everyone else got to go to Six Flags Over Texas, Disneyland, or some other attraction in the United States.  We got to go to Grandma's house.  Not that it wasn't fun there.  I always made it an adventure, especially riding in the back seat of a car with an older sibling that couldn't appreciate the sight of me.  I'd always have my escape routes around her house.  During the school year, I would get escorted by my brother to school, but I either had to walk ahead or walk behind and never with.  I don't know if I just had that look, I don't know if it were printed on my forehead, or just what it was.  But when at school, I would try to join in with classmates and there seemed to be something that said, "Please Fuck With Me".  So, not only would I receive antagonism from home, but also from school.  As I said before, we never talked at home, so growing up, my parents never knew what was building inside of me.  One day, at school, I felt I had had just about enough from one particular guy.  It just so happened to be a Mexican kid.  He was a nice kid too.  He wasn't a punk or anything like that, but he found a soft spot with me one day and the scab came off at the wrong time with the wrong person.  I doubled up my fist and swung and clocked him squarely in the face.  Too bad it wasn't hard enough.  Because after I made contact, he responded in kind only a little harder.  I did manage to remain standing on my feet and I think what stopped him was a good swift kick to the groin.  But, we both got discovered, taken to the Principal's office and both of us received a paddling.  I hadn't quite placed my finger on what age a child loses his innocence.  Is it ten years old?  Is it thirteen years old?  I haven't made that scientific discovery yet.  But I think when I got reprimanded for trying to protect myself in school, that is when I lost my innocence.  It wasn't too long after that fight, the other kid's father made him drop out of school and go work at the garbage dump to help out the rest of the family.  I suppose in those days that was equal to being an illegal immigrant lawn cutter of today.