Tribute to an Unforgettable Garbage Man; Pamplin Avenue 03

The alley behind our house in North St. Louis was used primarily as a means of accessing garages and as a service corridor to collect trash and garbage. One early summer morning shortly after turning five years old, I was feeling particularly full of the old Nick, as my grandmother would say, and decided to give Jack, my older and much wiser brother, a demonstration of my stout-hearted courage. As the black men walked down the alley alongside the enormous garbage truck I boldly strutted to the rear fence and, in the brave voice of a little boy secure in his own back yard, called the nearest black man an offensive name I had heard from play-mates in the neighborhood, “Hey, you jigaboo.”

Without missing a beat the man gave me a hard look, slowly pulled an object from his front pocket, and held it up. He pressed a button and as if by magic a long, slim, shiny blade seemed to leap from nowhere. His grin was pure malice as he put the knife to his throat and pretended to cut from ear to ear.

Jack, my previously giggling witness, and I slowly backed toward the now too distant house, terrified. The black man easily vaulted the low fence and reached out as if to grab us. We bolted for the house, screaming at the top of our lungs as if a dozen fire-breathing dragons were in hot pursuit. Up the porch we flew, running through the house, down the basement stairs, screaming all the way, until we squeezed behind the huge octopus-like furnace in a space so tight no adult-sized person could possibly fit, quivering in silent terror lest he find us and slit our soft, white throats.

Even when Mom came downstairs and finally figured out where we were hiding, we refused to obey her order to come out. We were too scared and balked at leaving our safe haven. Not until she went outside and checked the alley and assured us that the garbage men were long gone.

We were never punished for that misadventure. Just got serious lectures from both parents on treating people the way we wanted to be treated. In my mind, I have thanked on countless occasions the nameless but never forgotten black man for teaching a stupid little white boy a lifetime lesson in behavior.

A couple years before her death Mom and I laughed almost to the point of wetting our pants, remembering that story. She and Dad had discussed calling the City’s Sanitation Department and telling them what had happened. Not to cause trouble but as a way of thanking the man for teaching Jack and I an invaluable lesson in racial sensitivity. In the end, they decided that the man would likely be punished or fired by a supervisor without a sense of humor or an ounce of social conscience. So, they let it slide. But neither my brother nor I ever forgot that lesson or the nameless black sanitation worker who taught it.