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As I leave the DA's office building, the cold wind bring me wide awake. I trot down the steps through the shouting reporters without a word, turning left toward City Hall, which abuts the southeast face of the courthouse Just as I think I've cleared the feeding frenzy, someone catches hold of my arm. I whirl in anger, then find myself facing an elderly black woman huddling in a jacket. 'Yes, ma'am?' I say. 'How can I help you?'
"Isobel Handley,' she says with a smile. 'I want to know when you're going to do something about the schools, Mayor. You got elected saying you were gonna fix 'em, but right now it's a crying shame how few children who go into the first grade make it through the twelfth for graduation. And you've been in office two whole years!'
The reasons for this state of affairs are both simple and unimaginably complex, and I certainly don't have the resources to go through them on a cold sidewalk. Not today, anyway. But conversations like this one are the daily fare of a mayor.
'I'm talking about the PUBLIC schools,' the woman goes an. "Not the private white schools where the only black kids are football players.'
'Yes, ma'am," I say hopelessly. 'I'm working as hard as
I can on the issue, I promise you.'
'If your little girl wasn't in a private school, you'd work harder.'
'Mrs. Handley, I-'
'You don't have to explain, baby, I understand. But you take a stick to them selectmen and supervisors, if you have to. That's what they need. Sometimes I think the schools were better before integration. At least we learned the fundamentals, and we graduated knowing how to read.'
There's no point trying to explain that I have no authority over the county supervisors or the state board of education. 'Sometimes I wish I could do exactly what you suggested, Mrs. Handley. Now, you'd better get out of this cold. And Merry Christmas to you.'
At last she smiles. 'You too, Mayor. God bless. And don't pay these reporters no mind.
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