Friday, March 23, 2012
Hoodie
Walked to the CVS & back, 65 degrees, perfect weather for a hoodie. I wore my gray XL.
I've worn XL hoodies on & off since high school, when it was a skateboarder thing, a practical protection against elbow scrapes. Around 1990 the XL hoodie became my cool weather outer garment of choice. Plain hoodies are cheap. XL are very comfortable, shrink little if washed warm not hot, it's like wearing a blanket. The only non-comfort reason I have for the hoodie is that in the semi-urban areas in which I've resided in Linden, Rahway & Elizabeth, when I go out after dark, it does feel secure to pull that hood up so the occasional opportunistic predator passing through the neighborhood can't see I'm a defenseless-looking older guy while he has time to make up his mind about demanding my wallet. Some people no doubt think my hoodie is silly, but my sister is only person who ever objected to my wearing it.
In her upper middle class neighborhood, she didn't like it when I'd wear my hoodie while walking in broad daylight down the hill to a deli where I'd usually sit out front at a picnic table drinking coffee, picking at a large muffin & reading an exotic Allentown PA newspaper the deli used to carry (maybe humming the only Billy Joel song I like), looking for all the world I like I belonged there, which I felt I did. People said hello to me. I'd see beat up pickups & Bentleys in the small deli lot at the same time. A George Zimmerman type might have resided around there. There weren't any African-Americans, not even household help so far as I could tell, because there was no way to get there by public transit. The idea of a young black guy walking down the middle of the road in that neighborhood for any purpose was so outlandish that residents, upon seeing me - if I had the hood up, which I usually didn't, were likely more piqued than alarmed. Who is that guy? Well, I think most of them knew I was a brother visiting his slightly nutty sister in the house halfway up the hill. As a white man, I could have walked around that neighborhood in a Star Trek uniform or probably even in drag with a five day beard & live goldfish in my clear plastic platform heels & no one would have done anything.
The only time I encountered a George Zimmerman type, the confrontation wasn't racially motivated. He was simply a guy who took it upon himself to "protect" what needed no protection, & probably all his adult life had been looking for a justification to shoot someone & get away with it. It was on a rural, public road in the Ramapo Mountains in North Jersey while I was attending college & residing in the area. I was strolling with some friends. all of us white in our early twenties, on a nice summer day - not the only strollers on this attractive road, which I would call semi-paved. I wasn't wearing a hoodie. There were a few scattered homes on the road, not cheap houses, obviously privacy mattered to those people & they had some money. We came upon the foundation of a house that had burned down, all the remaining superstructure removed. One friend suggested that if she examined the foundation plan, she might have an idea of how the entire house had looked. So we sat on the foundation wall, our feet dangling into the former basement. Out of the trees on the other side of the ruin appeared a man carrying what I was pretty certain was a shotgun. He didn't didn't look like a redneck. Without putting the gun to his shoulder, he sort of jabbed it in our direction & yelled at us to get off the property. I too stunned to be afraid, so I yelled back, "Is this your property?" He shouted, "I'm in charge of protecting it." I didn't believe that for an instant, but sensibly we got up & walked quickly up the road.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I've worn XL hoodies on & off since high school, when it was a skateboarder thing, a practical protection against elbow scrapes. Around 1990 the XL hoodie became my cool weather outer garment of choice. Plain hoodies are cheap. XL are very comfortable, shrink little if washed warm not hot, it's like wearing a blanket. The only non-comfort reason I have for the hoodie is that in the semi-urban areas in which I've resided in Linden, Rahway & Elizabeth, when I go out after dark, it does feel secure to pull that hood up so the occasional opportunistic predator passing through the neighborhood can't see I'm a defenseless-looking older guy while he has time to make up his mind about demanding my wallet. Some people no doubt think my hoodie is silly, but my sister is only person who ever objected to my wearing it.
In her upper middle class neighborhood, she didn't like it when I'd wear my hoodie while walking in broad daylight down the hill to a deli where I'd usually sit out front at a picnic table drinking coffee, picking at a large muffin & reading an exotic Allentown PA newspaper the deli used to carry (maybe humming the only Billy Joel song I like), looking for all the world I like I belonged there, which I felt I did. People said hello to me. I'd see beat up pickups & Bentleys in the small deli lot at the same time. A George Zimmerman type might have resided around there. There weren't any African-Americans, not even household help so far as I could tell, because there was no way to get there by public transit. The idea of a young black guy walking down the middle of the road in that neighborhood for any purpose was so outlandish that residents, upon seeing me - if I had the hood up, which I usually didn't, were likely more piqued than alarmed. Who is that guy? Well, I think most of them knew I was a brother visiting his slightly nutty sister in the house halfway up the hill. As a white man, I could have walked around that neighborhood in a Star Trek uniform or probably even in drag with a five day beard & live goldfish in my clear plastic platform heels & no one would have done anything.
The only time I encountered a George Zimmerman type, the confrontation wasn't racially motivated. He was simply a guy who took it upon himself to "protect" what needed no protection, & probably all his adult life had been looking for a justification to shoot someone & get away with it. It was on a rural, public road in the Ramapo Mountains in North Jersey while I was attending college & residing in the area. I was strolling with some friends. all of us white in our early twenties, on a nice summer day - not the only strollers on this attractive road, which I would call semi-paved. I wasn't wearing a hoodie. There were a few scattered homes on the road, not cheap houses, obviously privacy mattered to those people & they had some money. We came upon the foundation of a house that had burned down, all the remaining superstructure removed. One friend suggested that if she examined the foundation plan, she might have an idea of how the entire house had looked. So we sat on the foundation wall, our feet dangling into the former basement. Out of the trees on the other side of the ruin appeared a man carrying what I was pretty certain was a shotgun. He didn't didn't look like a redneck. Without putting the gun to his shoulder, he sort of jabbed it in our direction & yelled at us to get off the property. I too stunned to be afraid, so I yelled back, "Is this your property?" He shouted, "I'm in charge of protecting it." I didn't believe that for an instant, but sensibly we got up & walked quickly up the road.
