The Generation Gap

I got a real dose of reality today called “The Generation Gap”.  I’m hoofing it across the bridge that walked daily to try and shed off a few of these unwanted pounds and I was coming through an affluent neighborhood and then I hear someone yell out at me from a distance, “You trying to get to the bus stop”?  I turned around and there was a silver-grayed foxed hair older black women who had pulled over and was going to give a complete stranger a ride to the bus stop because I was a black female, walking in a rich neighborhood of houses averaging a million plus and incomes grossing more than I probably have made within my last five years of working - in their last year.  She came from a time where black folks were only seen walking in these type neighborhoods if they were maids and nannies or some other position of servitude to the upper-class.  And I then I thought to myself how crazy it must be for her to see me meandering around this community and just to be exercising and enjoy the views and vistas of the river through the trees and houses, (without fear or trepidation) of being arrested or harassed.  Though I enjoy a certain amount of freedom - black males unfortunately do not; and that is sad.  I know that they don’t want me walking their streets like I own them but until they put the gate up around the community – I don’t see why I can’t go about my life as I so choose.  They might own the streets I walk on but this world is my Father’s footstool and I sit at his feet and take from him that “good part” as Mary the sister of Martha chose to do.  Yes there are gaps that separate each generation and I truly believe that life is orchestrated that way – in order to keep the balance of things; to look back in order to move forward into the future.