Sweet or Sour

Sweet or Sour


Walking down Bosworth Street to the BART(subway) two young children were turned around in the back seat of their parents’ car, waving wildly, trying to see who would wave back. "Sweet or Sour” was the game my children played and I played before them.
Who will wave back? I smiled, a big, broad smile and waved at them as if they were my long lost cousins. For a minute they were taken aback, the car stopped at a stop sign, but then, even through the window glass I could see big smiles spread across their faces. I was a stranger, after all. I had entered their evolving psyches as “sweet” and maybe because of that, they could believe, the world was, in fact, a sweet world.

A few hours later, at City College where I teach, I was standing outside of the bookstore. Usually the people who congregate there are occasional faculty members and students, ranging in age from 18 to 40 years old. However, that sweet and sour day, there were a few middle-schoolers about to walk across the street to the bus stop. For whatever reason, I don’t know, but they turned to me and waved and then giggled, turning into themselves like snails climbing back into their encasements. Again I waved, a big friendly wave(trying not to look like a complete idiot on the sidewalk but ever cognizant of my potential role as they tested the water of this life) and as they ran across the street when the light turned green, I heard them say "She waved back! She waved back!!!"