Julie and I and the Fresh Air Fund

Sixty-seven years ago this month, someone snapped this photo. We look happy, Julie and I. But it was a sad day. We were saying goodbye—though only until the next summer when Julie would again climb onto a train in New York City with other Fresh Air kids and ride back to the mountains of Western Maryland and down my grandma’s lane to stay for a week. Or if we were lucky, two weeks.

Each summer Julie and I connived ways to get together. At my house or Grandma’s, we played in the woods and packed picnics to eat on the porch. Dumped into the same bathtub at the end of the day, we slathered bubbles over our bodies to see how they showed up more on Julie’s shiny black skin than on mine.

Back then, the reason Julie came was simple to me. She came from the city to breathe country fresh air, of course. But mostly she came to make a party. During Fresh Air weeks, our parents gave us all a break—fewer chores, more ice cream, a trip to Swallow Falls, hot dog roasts, Bible school classes, hayrides, and firefly catching long past bedtime.

I never wondered, not once, why Julie always came to my grandma’s house while I never saw where her grandma lived. Why Julie milked our cows, while I never rode her trains, the ones she said traveled underground.

Looking back, I can see how much I assumed. That my grandma’s mashed potatoes and gravy and the rich Jersey milk  from my grandpa’s cows were a treat to Julie. That our country food was better than Julie’s pizza and bagels and pastrami sandwiches, foods I’d never tasted. That there was everything to learn in the country and little of value in the city.

But in the decades since, my assumptions have turned to questions. Of the nearly two million Fresh Air kids who have participated in the program, how many sensed that their host families felt country life was superior?  How many of these kids were targets of intended or naive cultural insensitivity, oppressive attitudes, or racial slurs?

It was hoped that the Fresh Air Fund would quell cultural misunderstanding and ease racial tension. But this is too heavy of a load for a one-way, short-term program.

On the way to the train station my last summer in the Western Maryland countryside, Julie and I sat in the back seat of the car clutching each other in deep sorrow. We would probably never see each other again, we thought. And we were right.

Even so, knowing Julie in those early years of my life impacted me and still influences the way I read books and engage in conversation and travel through cities.

If only we could find each other again, Julie and I, and have one more day to remember and hear each other’s grown-up thoughts.