A Laurel Note: MLK

I was never a good mother for organizing after-school play dates, and instead would just walk Owen over to a nearby playground to meet up with any of his kindergarten classmates who might be there. On this particular, rather bleak day in January, in the week leading up to Martin Luther King day, or maybe the week following Martin Luther King day, we found nobody in the park at all. After a few minutes of rather desultory play, we decided to go home. I bought him a knish from the street vendor, and we headed toward the bus stop, but little Owen insisted on a cab. In truth, it was cold, raw and gray, and a cab sounded nice, but as the mother of a child in a progressive New York City school, it was my job to impress upon Owen that we weren’t entitled to take a cab any time we just felt like it. So, I continued arguing for the bus, and Owen argued for the cab, until finally, emboldened by the facts he’d recently absorbed in the classroom, he looked me straight in the eye and declared, “Well, King Martin says it’s a free country, so people can do what they want.”