Cow House

Being in the American South, it didn't come as a complete surprise to me that one would find artifacts and stories about a white Roberts family in Paducah as well as a black one, nor that there was some kind of relationship between the two, black and white. I'm talking about this relationship in this indirect some kind of way for two reasons. First, as of this writing, I'm still in the discovery phase of my research so I don't know for a fact that the Jack Roberts who bequeathed two slaves, Charles and Jane Roberts to the Catholic Church in 1850, is the progenitor of the white Roberts families in the town today. Second, I'm procrastinating. Of course I don't want to deviate from my orignial destination -- compulsively I need to touch the gate first. I need to be satisfied that the people buried in Mount Carmel are indeed my people. I need to know why my grandfather left. But really, I am just not ready to look into the face of another living human kn...

After I'd lain for a while on the lawn at Mount Carmel, I got my car to drive back to the hotel, aiming to decompress. It was then about twelve-thirty in the afternoon. Around nine that morning, I'd stopped for gas, water and cash before heading to breakfast at I-Hop. While waiting to pay, I was taken aback by this guy in front of me in line with scraggly mouse-colored hair, cheap-looking tatoos, sun-raw white skin and a denim shirt with cut off sleeves. He smelled like cigarettes, lawnmowers and sweat. No mask and a cocky posture, his disposition toward the older woman behind the counter was impatient. Typical , I started to think. But then I was struck by the snap nature of my own bias. The guy might have just been hot and really have to pee after working all morning behind a lawnmower. True, he might have been in the aryan prison nation. But, he hadn't spoken a word to me. All this was in my head. I had mapped what part of me had wanted to see over his reality. That sa...