A Rare Find

Kami looks around at the many tattered used books feeling a great sense of pride. For the first time, her Grandpa put her in charge of his bookstore.

She remembers Grandpa telling someone he was giving back to the community by broadening people’s minds.

With the store empty of customers, Kami starts to browse the travel section. As she pulls a book from the shelf about Germany, a small black leather book makes a thud as it hits the floor. Bending to pick it up, she feels a surge of energy like she is swinging high on the rope swing.

Carefully inspecting the outside of the book, she marvels at its petite size, which is perfect to slip into your coat pocket.

Overcome with curiosity, Kami moves to the back corner and sits at Grandpa’s small reading table.

The first page is barely legible, but she reads, “Don’t look at them” and “Smile and be polite”.

Thinking how odd these phrases seem, she decides to inspect the back cover. She notices the words “PFC Willie Brown”, followed by his military address in Germany.

A smile crosses her face as she remembers Grandpa was stationed in Germany while serving in the Army.

Excited with her find, she flips about half-way through the book and finds a ledger with rows of numbers. The first column is title “CHARGED”, and the second column, “OWED”.

While Kami wonders what these columns are for, she notices the first entry begins on April 7, 1955. She also sees the words, “Home at last” scribbled on the top right corner of the page.

Nodding to herself, Kami decides Grandpa must be tracking some sort of debt he owes.

Curious to see more, she flips through the book counting a total of 20 pages in the ledger, the last entry ending on April 3, 1968. In the bottom right corner of the last page, she reads the words, “I have a dream.”

She inspects the ledger again, finding all the entries are legible, even though they appear to have been written in haste.

Returning to the first page of the ledger, she notices the numbers in the charged column are always larger than those in the owed column. Beginning at the top, she reads 10.00, 5.75, 19.75, and 5 in the charged column and she reads 1.00, .75, 4.00 and .25 in the owed column.

Glancing at her watch, she wonders when Grandpa will return so she can find out more. Kami loves reading a good mystery novel, but today is the first time she feels captivated by one of his books.

Going back to the first page of the book, she quickly scans to see if she can make out any other words or phrases. She reads, “Always do more than what you are asked to do” and “Work hard because hard work eventually pays off.” She mutters to herself, “Why would he write these phrases down?”

Hearing a shuffle at the front door, she watches as the door handle turns. Grandpa opens the door humming a jazzy tune. He loves music and is always improvising the rhythm of various songs to make them his own, and today is no exception.

As Grandpa calls out to Kami, their eyes meet, and he tap dances and hums his way back to the table. Watching him move, she cannot help comparing him to a twenty-year-old boy, but his weathered frame reveals he is simply aging gracefully.

He plops down in the only other chair at the table, and asks her what she has found?

In her excitement, she stammers and blurts out, “a little black book”. She pauses and then says to him, “It has words like charged, owed, and be polite”.

Taking a deep breath, she looks up to see his puzzled expression, and she asks him, “What does it mean?”

As her words sink in, Grandpa’s eyes begin to twinkle, causing his face to light up like a Christmas tree. Leaning across the table, he takes the little black book from Kami.

As he glances over the pages, he giggles and then hee-haws before exclaiming that he thought he had lost the book.

He explains that he met with Pastor Bob when he returned from Germany because he was looking for a good woman to date. While stationed in Germany, bi-racial relationships were not even questioned. However, being from the deep South, he was cautioned about bringing any white ladies back home from overseas.

Using his massively large hand, he lays the notebook in front of Kami, while pointing to the first page.

He explains these phrases were tips to follow if you wanted to advance in the community. Looking intently at Kami, he leans in close, causing her ears to sharpen a little.

He explains that fifty years ago, black men in the south could not talk or even look at white women. Any black man caught doing so, would be punished by the white men.

Astonished at his words, she feels equally shaken by what he shares next. Sitting back in his wooden chair, it creaks so loudly, it seems like the chair is trumpeting for her to pay closer attention.

Grandpa states, “When I got home from my station in Germany, I got off the bus and ran to the dime store. I could not wait to get a good burger and soda. I rushed up to the counter to give the young lady my order. But do you know what she said to me?”

Kami replies, “No grandpa, what?”

Grandpa says, “Colored folks are not served here.”

Shaking his head, he continues, “I stood there looking at her and said, you mean I can go overseas and die for my country, but I cannot get a burger and soda when I get home?”

When she heard this, Kami felt a little humiliated too.

Still overwhelmingly curious about the ledger, she blurts out, “But what about the numbers in the back of the book, Grandpa?”

Turning the pages slowly, he comments “U-huh”, pauses, and then comments, “Yup”.

Feeling more than a little impatient with this explanation, Kami asks, “What does it mean Grandpa?”

He lays his notebook down in front of Kami, saying, “See these columns? The one that says, CHARGED was the total Mr. George Green charged me this day at the grocery store. We would watch him add up the bill. But for the black folk, he would lean the broom on the scale to make the price go higher. He assumed we did not know any better. The column OWED was the amount he over charged me that day.”

Kami’s eyes were big and round as a full moon when she looked at Grandpa.

They sat in silence thinking about the ledger.

Then Kami blurts out the obvious question, “But why?”

Grandpa Brown leans back in his chair and gazes off in the distance. Then he crosses his legs and takes a deep breath.

Shaking his head, he says, “Kami, it was just a way to keep us down. It was like a tax on our color.”

When Kami hears this explanation, she feels a warm burning sensation rush over her face. In a higher pitch, she asks him, “Why didn’t you refuse to pay it?”

Grandpa calmly replies, “You had to pay it or go way down the road to the next store, and I did not have any way to get there.”

He smiles and says in a slow drawl, “Blacks made Mr. Green a wealthy man. Yes sir, we sure did.”

Hearing this news, Kami struggles to imagine living with such open discrimination against blacks the way her Grandpa had lived for so many years. While she feels happy public opinion has improved since the 1950’s, she also feels upset it happened at all.

Then Kami asks Grandpa, “What made you decide to write it down?” Chuckling, Grandpa says, “Well, you see, I had the notion that it would make for a good story one day. So how did you like hearing a little bit about our local history?”

As she takes the book back from him, she feels puzzled by his smile but grateful he shared his story. Kami tells Grandpa she liked it.

Thumbing through the pages, she reflects on his words again. Just knowing his side of the story, she feels like she understands why her teacher has been talking about reparations in their discussions about the civil rights movement.

She feels enormously proud that her Grandpa did not let racism stop him from opening his beloved bookstore.

She also hopes that if she works as hard as Grandpa, maybe she will also have her own business one day.

With her mind jumping around like a pinball machine, she looks up at Grandpa to ask him how much he thinks he might have been overcharged, but he is already napping.

Determined to know the answer, she decides to calculate the total for herself. Using her phone, it takes a full 30 minutes to add up the OWED figures for the thirteen-year period.

She feels amazed when the total is $1,204.50. Just to be sure, she checks a second time and gets the same total.

She knows this is a lot of money, but is also curious how much it would equal in today’s dollar amount? A quick web search reveals the equivalent is about $10,531.68.

A web link at the bottom of the page offers to show her a chart outlining how much items cost in 1960.

She clicks on the link and is surprised to learn the cost of an average house is $11,900, while a car cost about $2,600.

Due to these revelations, Kami resolves to learn more about historical events that led up to the civil rights movement. She now understands that simply overcharging blacks for a necessity like groceries was one reason the civil rights movement had to take place.

Suddenly Kami remembers a flyer her teacher handed out in English class, so she fumbles with her bookbag to find it. She pulls out the flyer and discovers it is an invitation to enter a writing contest where the contestant shares a story about local history or events.

A smile spreads across her face as she reads the prize amounts.

The first prize is $15,000, the second is $10,000 and the third is $5,000.

In hopes of erasing some of the humiliation her Grandpa experienced over the years, she decides to secretly enter the contest. She knows it is a long shot to win, but she hopes the story will at least make a difference to the panel of judges.

As time passes, Kami forgets about the contest.

Sitting in this hard metal desk at school, Kami is looking forward to taking the school bus to Grandpa’s bookstore where she spends most afternoons.

She is shocked when Ms. Allen proudly announces that she has placed in the writing contest. When the class asks if she won, her teacher explains that none of the contestants will know until Saturday, and that all the writers will read their stories out loud at the ceremony.

Although Kami is excited about her class attending, her first thought is sharing her exciting news with Grandpa.

The night of the ceremony, Grandpa sits with tears streaming down his smiling face as his granddaughter proudly recants a small piece of his own life story.

When the announcement is made that she has won second place, Kami grabs her Grandpa’s trembling hand, still wet with tears, and pulls him up on the stage.

As the $10,000 prize is placed in her hand, Kami promptly turns and proudly presents it to her Grandpa.

With the audience roaring their approval, she leans over, hugs her mentor, and whispers, “Reparations, Grandpa”.