Grassroots
"Itatemuhmoney". The phrase caught my attention as I was leaving the gas station and I froze. She said it again before my hand touched the door handle and I almost laughed out loud. "Itatemuhmoney." I knew that it was the black woman in the over-sized satin jacket speaking to the woman behind the counter, because I had seen her when I first entered the establishment.

I had heard this phrase at the bowling alley a week before, but it was much more indignant a tone. The guy behind the counter kept saying the same thing, "There's no refunds. It's posted everywhere. It's policy." Another black woman in an equally over-sized satin jacket, three children in tow, brooding boyfriend hovering menacingly, nodding in agreement to her assertions. She repeated her mantra over and over louder and angrier, "Itatemuhmoney, ItAteMuhMoney, ITATEMUHMONEY." Nothing was resolved, and they wouldn't give her back her dollar. I just wanted to buy another game, but instead I had a flashback to summers filled with Big Red, baloney sandwiches, and the smell of sweaty gymnasiums.

The Boys Club of America in Bryan, Texas in the mid-seventies was black. Black as in: me, another white kid and two Mexican kids were the only non-blacks in a population of about 100 kids who went there to escape the oppression of one hundred degree Texas summers and nagging parents. I learned how to play pool, foosball, and what a prison feeder program could look like if run correctly. No one was ever shanked, but my head was aways on a swivel in that place. Everyone seemed to have an angle and the best one was always, "Itatemuhmoney." Pretend to insert quarter, press a few buttons, find the proprietor, and then begin the mantra until they relinquish you a quarter that you never had in the first place. Socialism at a grassroots level is an education that lasts a lifetime, because I heard it again today on the radio.

If I close my eyes I can hear President Barry beseeching the senate and the house: "itatemuhmoney, itatemuhmoney, itatemuhmoney...".