Daily Prompt: An Unlikely Friendship
A while back I blogged about my mother-in-law. Today's post is about my father-in-law, Ray. He is my late husband's father, and like Kaz and my own father, is African American. Unlike Kaz, my father and me, he is also deeply religious. I mention this only to underscore that, despite our different views on many topics, Ray and I have become good friends. We've never met in person, but we've talked on the phone every 2-3 weeks since Kaz passed away two years ago.
Ray lives in Florida, about 1.5 hours away from Sanford. The other night, while discussing recent events in that city and how we wish people could relate to each other in a more humane way, Ray said: "Did I ever tell you about my friend in the KKK?"
Me: "Uh, no."
Ray: "It started in the late 70's. I was living in Tuson, Arizona at the time and had just joined this club for racing radio controlled power boats on the lake there. After a while, I noticed this one White guy wasn't talking to me. In fact, he just ignored me altogether. I asked some of the other members, 'What's with that guy?' They said, 'Oh, don't bother with him, he's KKK.'
Well, I wasn't gonna let something like that stop me from talking to him. One day I noticed that his boat wasn't doing too well. So I went over to him and asked if he'd considered using a different propeller. He just looked at me strange. I told him, 'If you use the __ propeller, you might get a better result.' Then I walked away.
The next time I saw him, he said, 'Hey, I changed my propeller. You were right.' And we started talking. His name was Pat and his wife had recently left him for the preacher who lived next door.
After a few weeks of friendly banter, I said, 'Pat, can I ask you something?' He said, 'Sure.' I said, 'Are you in the KKK?' He said he was. I said, 'Can you tell me why you don't like Black people?' He said that it says in the Bible that G-d cursed man by making him Black. I asked him to show me where in the Bible it says that.
For the next few weeks, he tried to find the passage, but of course, he couldn't. Finally he came back to me and said, 'I couldn't find it.' I said, 'Cause it's not in there, Pat.' He said ever since he was a boy he was taught that Blacks were inferior. I said, 'Do you think I'm inferior?' 'No,' he said. I said, 'Do you dislike me?' 'No, not now,' he said.
After that, we became better friends. He left the KKK. The night he invited me over his house for dinner, my wife still stayed up all night worrying about me. We didn't have cell phones back then. I told her I'd be fine, but you know, she couldn't help it. When I finally came home, she was so relieved. I told her, 'All we did was play pool.'
A few years later, we decided to leave Tuscon and move to Florida. When I told Pat, he started crying. 'You're my best friend,' he said. We were both crying. It was sad. But you know what? To this day, Pat and I speak on the phone once a month. He's still my best friend. I would do anything for him, and him for me."
I thanked Ray for sharing this story, and all night kept thinking about it. The next day I called him again to ask if I could blog about it. "Sure," he said with a laugh.
Ray, this one's for you.
[In response to today's Daily Prompt: A friend in need]