I want to share my experiences as a 12 year old (1960) and as a 16 year old (1964) in Los Angeles then.
First the 12 year old experience. I was about 12 years old in 1960 and I was learning the electrical trade one warm summer day from my father who was an Electrical Contractor. We were wiring up a Catholic Nunnery near USC which was then a mostly Black area.
My father told me to go out to the Electrical utility body Truck and I noticed that rocks were hitting the truck near me. They mostly missed me at first so I went in and asked my father what I was supposed to do about black kids throwing rocks at me and the truck. After all, I wasn't on my own turf so I didn't know the rules there. Turf just means there are ways you behave in different neighborhoods that might be acceptable or not when your life is threatened back then in a specific neighborhood.
So, my Dad said: "Just dodge the rocks because if we call the cops someone might die!"
So, I kept going out and getting wire and plugs and cable for wiring up this nunnery and trying to avoid the rocks being thrown across the street from black kids about 9 to 12 or more years of age. There were by now some nicks in the window you look out when looking back from the cab and some nicks in the paint but so far I had managed to dodge the rocks thrown at me.
Eventually, they hit me a few times in my back but the rocks were not big enough to do much damage just scratches. Eventually we just finished the job and drove home from there.
Then at age 16 I was driving and making 3 dollars and hour working for Ernie's Camera Shop in Glendale and driving their sporty Oldsmobile car and picking up and delivering camera equipment all over Los Angeles County (The minimum wage was 1 dollar an hour so I was really raking it in for working part time after school and getting to drive at 16 all over the county from about 4 pm to 8 pm 4 to 5 days a week then.
I got lost in Watts just 1 year before the riots and I looked up and realized I was on a big boulevard and that I was the ONLY white person in sight and I was scared because this was a different time than now and I just did a U-Turn on a 4 lane highway through town and got the heck out of there. About 1 year later Watts blew up and burned down and 34 people died.
These were my two experiences back then.
Then at age 21 I knew Bill Cosby's double for the TV show "I Spy" which was my favorite show back then on TV. So, I did know some black people in Hollywood back then when I lived in Venice, California. This was about the Time I think Arnold Shwarzenegger lived in Venice too and went to Muscle Beach which was next door to Venice to Work out there with friends.
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