Kathy Kinnear Hill - Big Walk, Little Feet

 

The year's 1965. Take that in for a minute. 1965. My best friend is Lena and she has beautiful green eyes and sandy blonde hair. And then there's me. At that time, I don't think I had a whole lot of teeth. I was 8 years old and my hair was every direction. We were awkward, we were eight, but we were best friends. She invited me swimming. It was July, middle of the summer, hot in Portland and I was so excited. I'd been swimming a lot, but I hadn't gone to her pool. So, I packed my little beach bag [giggles] like it was a huge outing. It was 13 blocks away. [audience chuckles] And I had my towel with daisies on it. It was the 60s and $1.50, a dollar to get into the pool and 50 cents so I could get two Dreamsicles.

 

This was heaven. And it was in the day that you could go and walk 13 blocks. Moms weren't watching, they just said, “Bye, have fun.” So, we get to the pool and it's Eagles-- it's called Eagles Club. I didn't know anything about that. And so, we're in line. There's a lot of kids with the same idea on this hot day. And we're just shooting the breeze and looking at our little dollars in our hands. That was a whole lot of money. And we get up to the desk before you get to the pool. And Lena was so proud to say, “We're members here and I brought my friend.” And the guy must have been 15, he looked like a really old guy to me. He had a buzz cut, blonde, icy, mean, blue eyes. And he looked at Lena and said, “You can come in, but she can't.” “Wow. What? Did we hear that right? Well, no, this is my best friend. This is my very best friend. And I can bring a friend because I do that. I always do that, remember?” And so, and she has a dollar. And I held my dollar up and I was proud. He didn't take my dollar. She said, “No, my mom and dad said that I can bring my friend. She's Kathy, she's my best friend and we're going to swim.” And he looked at her and he said, “You can go in, but she can't.” So, what does an 8-year-old girl do when she really knows what's going on, but she'd never been there before?

 

In my neighborhood, I've been called that word. There's always one creep in the neighborhood. But institutionalizing racism, I didn't know what that was. I didn't know that this was policy. I didn't even know the word policy. But I knew in my heart that I wasn't going to swim that day. So, I looked at Lena and I said “Sincerely from my heart, you swim, you swim. I’ll just like come over later.” And she's 8. So, she did, she walks away. I turned around and all those kids behind me were looking at me, but they weren't looking at me with hate, they were looking at me because they were confused too. For some reason, I was being punished. And I think the crime was the color of my skin. So, I walked out and I walked what might have been the longest walk of my life and the loneliest walk home.