Marrying Racism and Religion

SHE WAS A BEAUTIFUL GIRL, newly married, and I really liked her husband, a sports fan with a great personality. I had met her through her older brother, a dear friend and high school classmate of mine. The moved into a pleasant, unassuming apartment in an attractive apartment complex, and he worked as a delivery driver for Coca Cola, while she stayed home, an "apartment wife". She might have been a bit bored during the day, so she called me, nearly every day, and invited me over. She often fixed lunch, and we went swimming at the apartment pool. Her one piece swimsuit was worth far more than the price of admission. She was affectionate, our thighs rubbing as we watched television. When she asked me "have you ever had an affair with a married woman"?, my moral values, I confess, had less to do with my "never have, never will" response than fear. I really liked her husband, and wanted to ensure his friendship. She was a devout, fundamentalist, evangelical Christian, and upon several occasions I attended church with her. Though not religious, I try to be open minded, and I enjoyed her company. She was a racist, hard core. The fact that the year was 1980 was to my thinking no excuse, then or now. Nor was the fact that we lived in a mid sized southernish town with a long history of segregation. She made me cringe. She never used any description other than the "N" word, and derided their "grotesque features". Well, whatever. I believe they called it "The United negro College Fund", and advertised on television. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, they told us. True enough, but my lady friend thought it utterly preposterous that anyone would give a fig about the development of the African-American mind. Well, whatever. This appalling attitude was not enough to keep me from coming to her house - the friendship seemed valuable enough to overlook her downside - but it was sufficient to discourage me from inviting them to my house. I guess we will, in one way or another, find a way to make our feelings known, if only indirectly. After a wonderful summer of friendship, she stopped calling me, and I suspect my failure to reciprocate might have had something to do with it. Well, whatever. And well, at length, three's company. I did reciprocate. I wrote a beautiful essay for her "Why I want to become a nurse", which assisted her acceptance to a nursing program, and launched her career, which morphed into a career as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. Her first husband was neither ambitious nor wealthy enough for her, and three marriages later, she lives today in the Rocky mountains high atop a high in a gorgeous mansion, with an obviously quite successful hubby. ironically, she lives only a few miles from where I once lived. I sometimes wonder, but assume that she has long since matured, and forsaken her racism. She is, however, evidently still quite conservative. Racism, religion, and conservatism go hand in had, notwithstanding indignant denials. I added her to my friend list on Facebook, and she probably received much of the avalanche of anti-Trump material I post and share. S well then, to hell wit he must have, and she must be a Trumper. She unfriended me. Well, to hell with her.