General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: DUers, what did your dad do or say during your childhood that has influenced how you live [View all]aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)and this was when I was very young in the racially difficult 1950s. The same can't be said for other members of his family. My dad was a career officer in the Air Force and had suffered a great deal as a POW during WWII. My dad always spoke highly of the black soldiers who served under him. He organized a base baseball team and coached a number of black players and became close to some. A second baseman he raved about named Sandy Sanford is one for whom he obtained a major league try-out back when black players were just breaking into the majors (my dad pitched in the minors when he was young). If some of his men acted up or had issues, he always tried to work things out with them. When we lived in Georgia and there was a lot of racism, my dad opened our house to a little black kid named Greg who had no father and whose mother didn't really take care of him. Greg practically lived at our house and brought over his friends from school. Some white neighbors would look at us askance for that. My mom was the same, The compassion shown by my parents towards others and their refusal to treat anyone differently because of race or religion I think influenced me a lot.