The Palmerton Halloween Parade

“President Obama” made another appearance in the Palmerton Halloween Parade today.  We were cheered along the route, two women wanted their pictures taken with Obama, and the announcer gave us a very nice introduction.  

For each catcall and boo along the way, there were probably twenty cheers and smiles and waves, yet I tend to remember the negatives.  One guy made his hand into a gun and went “Pow Pow.”  I walked over to him and said, “That is a bad example to set for children.”  He said nothing to me, but I think he made some crack when I walked away.  

We do tend to remember the bad things.  I thought about a poem by Countee Cullen entitled “Incident in Baltimore.”  

Once riding in old Baltimore,

Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;

I saw a Baltimorean

Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,

And he was no whit bigger,

And so I smiled, but he poked out

His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore

From May until December;

Of all the things that happened there

That's all that I remember.