Blended blessings

From age 2 to 10, my life was spent on a farm between Sheldon and Milo. We raised cattle and crops mostly. We also had this Guernsey milk cow. This cow had no name, but she was a big part of our lives. The milk we got from this cow was raw milk. It was not pasteurized, and most certainly was not homogenized -- blended together to make a more cohesive, healthful result.

When I began school, I started drinking milk that was both pasteurized and homogenized. After moving from the farm, I never to my knowledge drank raw milk again.

People in America and even here in Nevada, are becoming like milk. In my younger days, most people around here were raw white people. In this new century, the blend has changed.

Now this subject is not an easy one to write about for some people around here. In fact, just discussing racial mix is a topic that many would prefer not to hear about at all. Facts are facts, and to simply ignore them is not very smart. Our world is changing, and the racial mix is becoming homogenized. You may not agree with it, but it is happening.

The news of the past few months really got me to thinking about this. Last year, Tiger Woods became even more dominant in his sport of golf than ever. He almost seemed unbeatable.

Tiger's wife, a pretty blonde from Sweden, also gave birth to their first child.

Barak Obama has also become a household name in our country. Barak is also a person from a multiracial background. His father was from Kenya, and his mother was white.

Last week, I watched the NCAA basketball tournament. In the semi finals, the team from Davidson almost beat the future national champions, Kansas.

The star player from Davidson was Stephen Curry. Stephen's father is a black former NBA star, Del Curry. His mother was white.

I truly enjoyed watching Curry play. He was this smaller than average player whom the big schools had overlooked in recruiting. His game reminded me a lot of our former Nevada star, Chris Smith.

Like Chris, Curry did not depend on size. He used three talents to make himself the most interesting player of the tournament.

First, he used his speed. No one seemed as fast as him. Second he used, like Chris Smith, an unbelievable shooting range. You had to have a hand in his face at all times or he would score from anywhere. Finally, he had the heart of a winner, the same as Chris Smith.

In my youth, the very idea of a kid from Nevada even dating a person of another race was almost unthinkable. It was just not done.

The times they are a changing as the saying goes. Many families from our town now have children and grandchildren from a mixed background.

When this first began to happen, the old guard did not want to accept these new changes. If a young person from Nevada, had a mixed race child, they were often ignored.

In hushed whispers, people would say something like, "did you know that so and so's daughter had a child by a black man?" The town and the families for a long time were often unwilling to acknowledge these relationships and children.

Then the wonder that is America and also that of our own town, began a transformation. Americans and Nevadians are basically good people. Their behaviors are not set in cement. They change with the times.

In towns all over America, these beautiful children from mixed families came out of the background and hiding. We began to see them in school, church, and in all walks of our daily lives.

These young people have the blessings of a mixture. As time has passed, they no longer had to be viewed as different.

In the future, our country and our town are going to see the end of racism and all its ugly ramifications. It won't happen because somebody in Washington passes a new law.

It will happen because the best of all our races in this country will blend together in a new mixed race of citizens. One day no one will have to mark on a box what their race is when applying for a job.

If you have a problem with these wonderful mixed race kids in our town and country, you are the one with the problem, not them.