Nelson Mandela's passing is quite all over the news, and it comes almost flush with Mom's birthday. Mom is very quiet of late but in talkative times she would seethe when he was on the news. Or a lot of black people. A point of pride with her many years ago was crossing King Day from calendars.

Mom was generally a nice person, "BUT". . .

A dear friend asked me about my favorite comedians the other day. One gentleman I have enjoyed on late night shows, and small wonder I have yet to watch him on YT, is the ironically named George Wallace. Yes, he is black and no Oreo cookie; he presents racial things funny more than presenting funny thing of race.

Mom spent her senior year of high school in Charleston, South Carolina, and those happiest of years young and earning a living as a nurse there prior to marriage. Once the latter occurred, so did I. My brothers were born at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, where she spent some time after what I call, among other names, The Divide, when the "troubles", as we Irish say, commenced in April of 2006.

Charleston was a touchstone for her of when one was happiest, and I had to share with her a segment from a Mr. Wallace monologue. Two young black men, he related, were driving to a northeastern institute of higher learning from Florida and on a highway in South Carolina were pulled over by a white cop. And "one of those". He ordered both guys out of the car and immediately whacked the driver "upside the head". "Boy, don't you know to get that license right out?" he snarled with a grin.

Well, I recall license and the un-classic, hello Janis Ian and your calling-out of these types, noun.

Then the cop went over and lit up the passenger, who retained enough on-his-feet to say, "Why'd you hit me?" Smugly quoth the enforcer of alleged law, "Well, boy, don't you just know y'all will be down the road and you'd have said, 'he should have tried hitting me upside the head!' ".

I am a nice guy. I wish I could have told and might someday tell certain folks to shove it. But again I hate conflict---some don't as we know---and I prefer nuance and example, see previous entry concerning Catholic school, even if a lot of lunks appreciate little or nothing of this.

Mom did, though. Life remains puzzling.