she told me that she went to high school near the beach instead of in her local high school out there in the hood

i was driving her from the airport to her home on 60th street in south LA

i love driving these people so much it’s insane.

she told me about going to school by the airport in the 1970s

sock hops, football games, always eating lunch outside.

i was so excited when i became a senior because i could sit on the Senior Lawn and eat. she was beaming like she had just been blessed with this honor yesterday.

dont let them catch you sitting there if you werent a senior she said cackling

i asked everyone knew what year everyone was

oh yes. don’t let em catch you on that lawn, ya hear?

driving from near where her high school was to the house she grew up in near the 110 freeway would take us exactly 39 minutes so i asked her how long it took to take the bus to school every day

bus-ES she clarified, i took three busses. one to inglewood at market street, one to westchester and one to the school. it took about two hours each way, she said but she loved that school.

what was your mascot i asked and she searched her memory banks.

the comets.

on good conversations like the one we had i just turn the stereo down to one. kc and the sunshine band was playing when i caught her looking out the window as we zipped past dulans soul food on crenshaw

we would play crenshaw all the time. back then they were good. they hated us.

why?

because we were a white school. i was one of the few colored girls. they would wait for all us Black kids to get off the bus at Market to walk across the street to catch the next bus. they wanted to fight. i looked away. but i heard. i heard them call us all the most disgusting names just because we wanted to go to that school.

once we were beating them badly in basketball. my friend saw people were whispering. the whispering got to us.

get on the bus.

before the fourth quarter we were on a school bus

out of there.

$10 tip.