Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. Alex ran into racism the other day. Alex is my 6-year-old grandson. He is as big as an 8-year-old. He has redish brown hair, dark eyes and a year-around golden tan. The tan is because he is half Hispanic. His sister missed out on that and is only slighly darker than her blonde mother.

At school recently, another kid told him, "We don't play with people who are your color." I don't know what went through is mind, but when he got home he asked his mother why his skin wasn't like everybody else's. She explained how it happened, using a family picture that shows four people with four different skin tones.

They are an extremely attractive family. (I think I am allowed to say that.) The father is a handsome Peruvian, the mother is a perfect sterotype of a flight attendant, and the two kids reflect their parents looks. Both kids are natural atheletes. They are both outgoing, and smart. Alex has been in the first grade for three weeks and is reading quite well. His teachers always say he is a leader, but being a teacher myself, I know that sometimes means "ringleader." Let's just say he is looked up to by his peers.

So he has survived the first of many of life's hard lessons. I think he will be able to handle it.
Howard