The Chocolate Bar In The Pool

Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

In a scene from the 1980 comedy Caddyshack, a Baby Ruth falls into a swimming pool, causing panic and immediate evacuation as it is mistaken for human stool. Bill Murray’s character, Carl Spackler the golf course groundskeeper, ends the scene in gross comedic fashion when he realizes it is just a candy bar and takes a bite in front of others.

I remember frowning at the pool attendees’ responses when I saw this scene, recalling an incident that was far less humorous, but similar in nature.

Highland, Indiana circa 1977

A few years prior in elementary school, my friends asked me to come with them to Wicker Park in Highland, Indiana to go swimming that summer afternoon. I thought nothing of it as I told my parents I was going swimming, not thinking to tell them where. We had city pools throughout my hometown of East Chicago, so that was their assumption.

Although the trip was only 20 miles away, the demographic was significantly different. This was a predominately Caucasian city, that we only visited when my mother drove to the Aldi grocery store, leaving us in the car as she shopped. My home area of E.C., known as The Harbor, was heavy with minorities, populated almost entirely by Latino and African Americans.

My friends were Mexican and I had not considered that I/we might stand out until we arrived and stood under the cold showers before entering the pool. Being of a matching complexion, they blended in quickly, diving in and swimming off in different directions.

I, on the other hand, stood out and immediately and considerably.

Although I said nothing to no one, it didn’t take long for me to catch the insulting comments, most often from people behind me. No one acknowledged me directly other than the one person who bounced along in front of me in the shallow end as he held one fist up, eyeball high, and mockingly greeted, “What’s happening, BRRRO?!?”

His friends laughed as they all moved towards the deep end.

I worked my way to the side, standing by myself to both avoid close proximity to the majority and to minimize the risk of incident, realizing that I stood out. Especially when someone made the comment that it ‘looked like someone took a big [expletive] in the pool’.

When my friends came back to me, asking if I was going to the deep end, I politely declined, lying that I wasn’t feeling well enough to swim on that end of the water.

It wasn’t until the ride home that our driver, a senior in high school, stated that he did not think about where we were going and that he wasn’t expecting for me to be the only Black person there that day. Everyone got quiet as they realized what it must have been like for me, each offering apologies and asking if anyone had said anything bad to me.

I shook my head as I sat silently, thinking about my father and drawing on his strength to keep from crying. I knew that if any trouble had started, my friends would have joined to help. I was just glad that it hadn’t come to that.

I never told my parents what happened and my friends never asked me to go back to that place again. We kept our activities home, where all of our friends were, at least when they were with me.

It wasn’t the last time that I found myself in the minority of a situation, especially when I became a manager in the working world. At least by then, I was well-prepared, often being the only African American on the management team. At its worst, I was given a promotion and transferred to a plant in Missouri, where I was the only person of color in the entire facility of 300+ employees.

But that’s a tale for another time. A triumphant one, even if I was the chocolate bar in the pool.

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