One of the strangest lessons my Oldman ever taught me involved a Polish sausage from Jim's Original.
I was about twenty-five years old, and we were driving to Maxwell Street for lunch. He decided it was time for another one of his fatherly tests. My Oldman was always testing me. Sometimes I would pass the exam, but most of the time I would get his ‘You gotta be shitting me?” smirk.
He looked over and said, "You've got one extra Polish sausage. If you want to get into heaven, you've got to give it away."
"Okay. That’s easy enough…."
"You have two choices. A black man wearing a White Sox hat or a white man wearing a Cubs hat."
I didn't hesitate.
"The Sox fan."
He looked at me for a second.
"Why didn't you pick the white guy, son?"
"Because he's a f’ing Cubs fan dad!"
The Oldman started laughing.
"You passed."
It had nothing to do with baseball. It had everything to do with what he wanted to know about the son he had raised. He wanted to know if I saw race before I saw a person.
My father had a phrase he used that I have never forgotten. He didn't like the expression color blind. He would say, "That's nonsense. Everybody can see color."
His point wasn't that race didn't exist. His point was that it shouldn't be the thing that decides how you treat someone. He called it being color strong.
"Sure, that man's Black," he'd say. " It is pretty obvious, So what?"
That was his entire philosophy. Recognize the differences, respect the differences and move on. Judge people by the things that actually matter.
Their character, their honesty and whether they would help you change a flat tire in February on the side of Roosevelt Road. Whether they would buy the next round at Comiskey.
Or, in Chicago...
…Whether they rooted for the White Sox or the Cubs.
If I walked up to that Sox fan outside Jim's Original, I wouldn't have given two shits about the color of his skin. I would have handed him the Polish sausage and before long we would be arguing about whether the Sox needed another left-handed bat or if the bullpen was going to blow another ninth inning lead.
That was the way my dad looked at the world. He had a gruff way about him, and Lord knows he wasn't politically correct, but underneath all of that bluntness was a simple belief…
…every person deserved to be judged by who they were, not what they looked like.
I think that is a lesson worth remembering. Forget being color blind and be Color Strong.
If you are a Cubs fan, we may have to have a different conversation. We may call Chicago home and eat our hotdogs with mustard, but we will never agree when it comes to baseball…
Gusto and astonishment, you gorgeous Chalkheads.
