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The early 70s is when we moved from Hawaii, to Alabama. I went from a pretty good understanding of the local Hawaiian kids pidgin English, to total confusion of the way the black kids talked. I could only understand about 1/2 the words they said. My school in Montgomery, AL was 60% black kids and I ended up with several black school friends.
I will always remember a kid tapped me on the shoulder right before class started and asked me a question, and as far as I knew he was speaking a foreign language. I had no clue at all what he said. After three or four tries, I explained I was not trying to be a pain, but I simply could not understand him. She he tried to speak slowly and I could finally guess he wanted to "borrow" a pencil. He was saying "yagottapinclman" with the words not enunciated. I let him have a pencil stub I had and we ate lunch together for most of the year. I taught him some "really valuable" Hawaiian slang, and he taught me a few of the local "jive" phrases. He was actually a pretty cool kid, but lived on the other side of town from the Air Force Base that I lived on.
It was the era of busing kids everywhere and no kids got to go to a local school.
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Glen
49 Year member of the Porsche Club of America
1985 911 Carrera; 2017 Macan
1986 El Camino with Fuel Injected 350 Crate Engine
My Motto: I will never be too old to have a happy childhood!
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