Desegregation 3

When we moved to Texas, it was a culture shock. Wichita Falls was a small town consisting of smelting factories, the Levi Strauss distribution center, and a major hub for cattle passing through to be put on trains. We lived a few miles from downtown in a small house behind my Grandparents house. The school I was to attend was an all black school. When we were enrolled, I could not believe it. I got my mother's third grade teacher! I thought she would be nicer to me, but she treated me just like everyone else. As a matter of fact, I remember her grabbing my mouth and squeezing hard to see what I was chewing. It was just an eraser, but her actions are vivid in my mind because she hurt my jaws. When I told my Grandmother, she said I should not  have been chewing on it anyway. I do believe if I had been at Pearl Stephens, and a white teacher had grabbed my face, it would have been all over the news. Those were the sign on the times.

One recollection of my short time in Wichita Falls, was the tornado siren. We had just returned home from school, and the warning went off. Mind you, Wichita Falls is a part of Tornado Alley. This is an area in the Midwest that is notorious for having quite a few tornadoes. I remember my mother screaming at me to get my shoes, because my after school routine consisted of me taking my shoes off as soon as I got in the house. She screamed never mind, and hustled the four of us to the car. We did not know where we were going, but it was in the opposite direction of that 40 mile wide tornado!

As we sped down the highway to my Great Grandmother's house, I could see the huge tornado behind us. I screamed at my mom to go faster! We got to my Great Gran's house and felt safe. We could see the tornado in the distance as it turned and went downtown to the other side of town. That huge tornado cut a swath through the well-to-do side of town, and skipped the poor section of town.
The year was 1968. A few months after that, my father returned from Korea, and we went to Okinawa, Japan.