Hello Kitty

Driving in sleepy Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, my nine-year-old son turned to me today and said, "To me, the words 'black' and 'poor' mean 'friendly'."   I had just finished rolling back up my son's window after leaving the last stoplight.  I had rolled it down to tell the lady in the passenger seat of the car to my right that my daughter loved her Hello Kitties, yelling it over my son's shoulder.

She was a skinny black woman with a long cigarette dangling from her slender hands.  The driver of the car was a very large black man with corn rows, tightly woven braids in his hair that look like corn rows in a cornfield.   We had passed them earlier in their beaten down Oldsmobile Cutlass from the 80s.   The windows looked broken out and the sides and bumpers were all beaten up. He looked rough and intimidating.  She looked like she might be on drugs.   I wouldn't have dreamed of talking to them at the upcoming stoplight.

But then upon looking closer at the interior of their car, I noticed Hello Kitty cats everywhere.  It was like they must've taken an old Hello Kitty pink bed sheet and cut it into pieces-one piece to cover the dashboard, another to cover the interior walls, another to cover the headrests.  They were covered with plastic, probably sealed down with packing tape to protect them from getting dirty.  Even the hood of their trunk had a big Hello Kitty sticker fading from the sun and rain.

The boys started staring.  My daughter started staring.  I started telling them to stop staring.  When we arrived at the stoplight, side by side, I nudged my son again to stop staring.   I noticed then that the woman was looking at us laughing.  My daughter had been caught and was now hiding her head behind her stuffed animal.   And then, so naturally, my window lowered.  "My daughter loves your Hello Kitties".

I'm on vacation at my grandmother's house in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida.  It's on the less touristy side of Florida, what they call the panhandle.  It's more deep south here, just under Alabama.  We drove here from Maryland, cutting through Tennessee and then straight down Alabama.  The further south we drove, the deeper I could breathe, the freerer I felt.   The roads smaller, the small towns run down, old junk gathering around deserted barns.  Porch swings and ladies in nightgowns.  Barefoot shirtless men at gas stations, walking across steaming concrete.

There's a mile long fitness trail at the park across the street from my grandmother's house.  I walked it the other morning, pushing my daughter along in a stroller.  Every single person I passed looked me in the eyes and said good morning.  Every one of them.  At least fifteen.  And when we passed each other the second time around, we looked each other in the eyes again with a friendly nod.  I don't think 15 strangers have said good morning to me in my entire eight months in Bethesda.

Here's what I love most about the deep south.  Here, no matter what you look like, no matter what you've got in your wallet, no matter what you drive or how you act, people will share a moment with you with a kind word and a smile, and even roll their windows down to compliment your Hello Kitties.