It is 1954, 2:30 in a bleak, snowy, frigid morning in southwest Philadelphia, and an ER nurse is struggling through snow drifts trying to make a bus stop two blocks from her house. In a wind storm, snow drifts pile the white stuff high along the row of cars, and a little nurse wearing high nylons, low, white nurse uniform skirts is somewhat warm, struggles to cross the snow drifts.
Two, three, then four cars drift by, rubber wheels whiz, spin and grind by her, then-one stops. The door opens, and a deep, dark voice booms out of the back seat, " Hey nursie, want a lift to your hospital?"
Cautious, dark, and cold, her feet squeak in small steps to the car door, peek in and it's full of 5 black guys in heavy Navy Pea coats all drinking coffee and beer. There is an array of guns on the floor of the back seat.
" C'mon, hon, we'll drive you to work, which hospital?" the driver blurts out.
Without a minute's pause, she says, Presbyterian, St Lukes. " Les' Go!" He says, and they're down the street, slush out into the main thoroughfare and on their way.
Unusual? Out of character? Not a bit. The nurse is my mother, and she's as smart, if not wiser than the mid 50's gang bangers she's riding with. Spreading her feet out on the back seat floor so as not to trip over the guns, she rests easily next to one hulking hood and says, " How you boys doing tonight?"
Mom told me that she frequently rode with gang bangers to and from the hospital, and felt safe doing it. I was floored. My Mom??
Think about it, she said. We had a deal. If they got shot up or knifed they knew where I worked, and if they got hurt, they came right to me, I was the Charge Nurse of the ER. When they hit the front door, I took excellent care of them, and, once in a while I saved their lives. We knew each other and got along real well. This was my five foot one inch mother who went to church with me every Sunday. Amazing. I never knew until she told me on her death bed, and she never told my father.
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