Having My Back

My boss is fond of saying she's "got my back." She says this often, so often in fact I have to wonder just who she's got my back from. Are there people with knives out coming for me? Does the 12th floor (where the brass is) hate me and she is my protector?

I finally asked one day when she said this for the 1000th time just what she meant. Turns out that no one in my current place of employment is out to get me or doesn't like me, she was referring to how some of my old colleagues in my old life had bad mouthed me to her. Whatever. If there is one thing I've tried to really remember over the past 2 years it's that what other people think of me is none of my business.

That said, I want to tell a story about a guy who did have my back. When I was a little kid in Detroit, I went to public schools. I lived in the city so do the math. I never had any problems. Little kids, at least back then, are kids really. We're too young to start making judgements based on skin color or appearance. I was one of a handful of white kids in my class. I also had longer than usual hair for a first grader that for some reason fascinated many of the black girls in my class. They used to love to play with it.

Anyway, while there may have been racial harmony at Hampton Elementary School (since renamed), that doesn't mean there was harmony. We actually had gangs and at lunch or after school we'd have fights, throw rocks, all sorts of stuff.

My best friend in those days was Todd. His father played defensive tackle for the Detroit Lions. No shit. Now this was the 70s long before huge contracts, mansions, etc. so he lived in the same neighborhood I did.

One day Todd got detention. I don't know what for. All I knew was that this meant I'd be vulnerable on the playground after school. Sure enough, after school this bigger kid grabbed me and started throwing me around and taking great glee that I was alone.

This goes on for what seems like an eternity but was probably only five minutes or so when out of the corner of my eye I see Todd running across the playground. I warned my attacker (I can't remember his name) of this and he laughed and said, "nice try but that fool is in detention."

About fifteen seconds later Todd came flying in and tackled the guy who was jumping me. Freed at last, I turned around and also jumped on the guy and we pummeled him. Yeah, it was two-on-one but the playground knows no rules.

It's funny. My brother once told me how I used to come home talking about all these fights at school and everyone thought I had some vivid imagination until one day I came home with my shirt torn and a bloody lip or something talking about what an awesome battle we'd had on the playground that day. They all just stared with their mouths wide open.

I tell this little story as a salute to Todd. Someone who knew what it meant to really have someone's back.