Tuesday, February 23, 1993 was quite a coincidental day for me. Maria Laria, the Oprah Winfrey of Telemundo did a piece on the New Nazis in America. She documented acts of hate by those she categorized as the "the new Nazis in America" against Jews, Blacks and Hispanics. That same day crude swastikas were drawn on about 75 fliers announcing an upcoming lecture at the University Of New Mexico in Albuquerque by Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. These two occurrences reminded me of how I almost lost my life in the fall of 1977, i.e. my tenth life.

I was the Area Manager for the Atomic Energy Commission, later DOE, at Dayton, Ohio. My middle daughter Cecilia was in her first year at Wellesley. She had taken with her a VW microbus, which had been very handy for moving her belongings from Albuquerque to Wellesley, however due to its size and the limitations of parking space in and around Cambridge, she wanted to trade with me for a VW bug I had.

After work, on a late October Friday evening, I set out from Dayton to Wellesley in my little orange bug with Cissy's bike mounted on a rear bumper rack. I stopped for a bite to eat in Steubenville, Ohio just before crossing over into West Virginia. I had planned to rest for the night as well. The diner I chose was typical of those found in those days on off-ramps from US 70. A greasy spoon and bar is a good description. I was tired and sat at the counter and placed my order of soup, sandwich and a beer.

I did not notice the slim, rather common looking middleaged white man at the end of the counter, who appeared to be in conversation with the female bartender. She waited on me, brought my order and rejoined the conversation at the end of the counter. Then the man moved over to within two stools of me and I noticed that he kept looking at me. The bartender got on the telephone.

Finally, the man moved over to the stool next to me and he said, "You have lived the last day of your life." At first I was not sure I had heard him correctly and I asked him what he had said. When he repeated himself, I asked why he would say such a thing as he did not know me and I certainly had not done anything to offend him. To which he said," You are a Guinea or a Jew aren't you?" I laughed and said, "No, I am not Italian or a Jew. I am a Chicano." "That is even worse!" he said. His face was now beet red and he had a frightening look in his eyes.

I heard the bartender say on the telephone, "You better hurry!" Something told me that I better just not engage the man in any further conversation. I continued to eat my soup and sandwich and tried to figure what I should do. I got my check, paid it and went into the rest room. The man followed me. Unknown to me two policemen also followed into the rest room. The man had a knife in his hand. One policeman stopped his swing at me as I stood with my back to him at the urinal. It took a total of three men to subdue the individual. They took him away in a straight jacket.

I came that close to being stabbed in the back with a hunting knife, by a man who hated Jews and Italians and who apparently hated Chicanos even more.

There is still hate in America. An update of the Kerner Report to the President of twenty five years ago indicates that things have changed very little, if at all. Steubenville is a small Ohio town. The culture is rural America at its worst. I found out about hate in America that Friday evening. The police asked me some questions and for identification, I then proceeded to Massachusetts. I did not stop to rest until I got to Washington, Pennsylvania much later that night.

I did not tell my family about this incident at the time. I just kept it to myself, writing it off as an almost unbelievable occurrence. But, it is not, and things have not changed. The Kerner report concluded that, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one Black, one White, separate and unequal." The update reports that nothing has changed in 25 years.

Former Senator Fred Harris, one of the authors of Kerner, states that America's social ills require strong medicine. He says, "It wouldn't hurt today's leadership to take a second look at what federal action can do for depressed urban areas. For years, the Reagan administration propagated a myth that everything government tries, fails or that everything we did was wrong." "Fact is," the folksy Harris says, "everything we tried worked. We just quit trying."

Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcom X, says "Instead of blaming others for racism in America, each of us must accept culpability for it and do something positive about it." I agree. There is a solution. Each of us individually must acknowledge that Hate in America exists. We must educate the public about it. The alternative was clearly pointed out by events in Yugoslavia. We haven't seen what hate can do to a society until we understand what is going on there. Eli Wiesel, explaining why he went to Sarajevo said, "I believe in bearing witness." Wiesel was in Albuquerque to bring his message. His talk was on, Ethics and a Moral Society.

Hate in America is real, it is here and now. It also brings to mind the lyrics of a song by Rodgers and Hammerstein in South Pacific:

In the wake of Paducah, Jonesboro, Littleton, Albuquerque, Belen, etc. the words of Rodgers and Hammerstein ring as true as they did in the pre-civil rights era in which they were written.

As recent as November 19, 1999 the FBI reported that race bias was behind most hate crimes in 1998. It was reported by the AP that racial prejudice motivated more than half the 7,755 hate crimes committed in 1998 that were reported to the FBI.

I know that I owe my life to that White female bartender at the greasy spoon where I stopped for soup, sandwich and a beer on that fateful evening.

My tenth life ended in October 1977 in Stubenville, Ohio. Two years later I retired. But there is a + to the title of this saga.

Read On! Enjoy!