Center and a little left for me

Yesterday, my wife thought I was a bit harsh describing Bill Maher. After further thought, I may have been. I hope I don't come off as a conservative, I'm not. You see I was raised in Iowa and Illinois in the early 60's. I was a young black kid, in the great white world. There were black folks in the parts of Iowa and Illinois I was brought up in, but not many. During my high school days in Iowa, if they hadn't bussed in blacks folks from across town there would not been any. Except me, a pretty girl name Jill and my partner Kevin. Growing up with a mother and father in the house, was also normal. I can't remember anyone, growing up- tell I was fourteen, that didn't have their mother and father living under the same roof.
Our father Ronald, was strict, as simple as that. He didn't like to see kids have a lot of spare time on their hands. This led to him constantly trying to find something for his five children to do. For me as the oldest boy in the family, I was always busy. And if that meant going out on our acre of land and pick weeds out of the cracks in the sidewalk, so be it, that's what we were doing on a Saturday morning. We grew up attending bible study classes with our grandmother. This happened twice a week, if I remember correctly. We were in all the church programs, as a child I was the Youth Minister on youth day, imagine that. I was good.
Growing up along the Mississippi River in Davenport wasn't bad though, we would ride our bikes from morning tell dinner. We would be everyplace with our neighbors the Pearls-- Gary and Nancy. Growing up in Iowa the boys started Little League baseball, Midget Football, City Park Track League all at 8 years of age. This would go on until you were 12 and then you would start Jr High School Sports and then off to High School Athletics. That's the way it was growing up in Iowa. I didn't really know any real thugs, and now that I know what a 'real' thug is, there were no thugs in Iowa, where I grew up. No crack mammas and if someone was on welfare I had no idea. That was Iowa, a good place to grow up and leave or stay- your choice.

So when people, assume that I'm Liberal because I'm a Democrat, I didn't have that experience and the black folks that I grew up with didn't have that experience. This is especially true having met real liberals after leaving Iowa and moving to the big city. First Atlanta and then a short pit stop in NYC. I've met real card carrying liberals and they were decent enough people. What I've found out is that most liberals that I've met have been wealthy or came from homes of privilege but they didn't know it, or had been raised like this so long that they thought everybody else was raised like this. The liberals I've met over the years have almost, always went to Ivy League Schools. Most had traveled through Europe. And the new young ones, they're traveling to Hong Kong and exploring Africa, Europe doesn't do it for them anymore. No I'm no Liberal, nothing against liberals.