I grew up in the small southern town of Ashland, Alabama.  It was a wonderful place to call home.  It was “Mayberry” in more ways than one.  My grade school years coincided with the time known as the Civil Rights era– the 1960’s.  I began elementary school in a racially segregated world, but entered high school in a totally different world where blacks and whites graduated school together.  It was a changing time filled with uncertainty for everyone, especially in the Deep South.  But I had a advantage over many of my friends– my grandmother.

Grandma Nichols was different from her contemporaries.  She would have been perfect to play the part of Skeeter in the movie, “The Help.”  She was truly color-blind, in the symbolic sense.  She was gifted in mercy, compassion, and generosity– for black and white the same.  I stayed with her on Saturdays while my parents worked in their retail business.  We would spend much of our Saturday distributing leftover lunchroom food to needy families; checking on elderly persons in their homes; visiting patients in the nursing home; and cooking for folks who were sick.  Black, white, or green– it made no difference to her.  Compassion was for everyone.

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