General Discussion

If I'd known that I'd been reading up on LBJ. I always like his wife and girls as they all had class or to me they did.
Civil rights is enough for me to put him up with the good ones.
I remember growing up in a region where there was the white middle class, a few cherokee middle class, then us white trash and Cherokee trash. we didn't have any blacks in our area so I'd never been around any black people. I'd gone to work after school in the 10th grade at a gas/service station and we sold gas, batteries, tires, bulbs, fan belts, windshield wipers and install them when that was required. Anyway a car pulled into the gas stall and a black family got out of the car, stretching their legs and arms like they've been on the road a while, the two kids heading for the soft drink machine and I ask how much gas and what else and the man asked me to fill the tank and check under the hood if I would and give the tires a looksee, back then tires didn't last but about 10 to 15 thousand miles so they were always a worry. Anyway my boss woke up from his nape and this was a guy up to that point I'd have stepped in front of a car for, here he come busting out through the door saying to this perfect gentleman that get your blankedly blank ass out of here that you just go on down the road there cause the next town has a bunch of you sonabitches there (his words not mine.) I was floored, my spirit was broken as I'd learned to live within the small confines of class of the area where we lived and the people who lived there and I'd never heard any one say anything like this before. We didn't have any blacks living in the area so I was ignorant to the racism of the day except for towards people like us white trash and my Cherokee neighbors and friends. I'll never forget that day for a lot of reasons, I'll give one, one was that here a perfect gentletrashman needing gas, stops with his family at our service station to buy gas and whatever else he may need and my boss come out running him off calling him all kinds of names, his family too. I was sick to my stomach and still am when I think of this. That day made sure that I would never see the color of a persons skin and make a judgment call on him or her, girl or boy. Thats why I like Johnson, he helped to right that wrong.