Harlem to Holsteins

The house where my father grew up in Paris, Tennessee, was an alien place to a three-year-old. It was a full dimension away from my birthplace, uptown, in Harlem, and the Jacob Riis projects, downtown, on the Lower East Side. The summer we visited my paternal grandmother in Paris, she tried to ease my discomfort by giving me a plastic Holstein cow as a toy. Perhaps subconsciously, I knew then that I would someday live one life within many as a farmer. Maybe I even realized that the cosmos of non-peers would not comprehend how I could know and love both Harlem and Holsteins. What matters most is what I know now: there is ample room for both in my life and possibly, in yours.