I get what you're saying Brook- I do. And it's not that I'm arguing, challenging or disputing your eloquent explanation...

But, I've heard this from many folks all my life. And I know it must be true for some- or once was. But it hasn't been my personal experience. So it's at best a partial preference, for a partial number of us. We've probably all even known those who flee'd like hell from folks of our own kind! Not to mention the countless mixed marriages, and blended bloodlines/multiple skin tones resulting from draws to those different than ourselves.

When I walk into a mall, or a school cafeteria, or a new workplace with three hundred people sitting in a room- I don't seek out other white, fat, gay guys with thinning hair, eating chicken thighs & spaghetti-o's... Ha! I've more often been drawn to folks different than I- and many in my acquaintance have similar experiences that way.

I don't think there's a right or wrong- or a preferred. And as you offer- I see less harm in it, less mean-ness in it than some would have us believe. But I dig a table of diverse folks- I would be no more comfortable with a group of all-white, casserole-toting mid-westerners in a church basement, than I was w/ a gaggle of Eskimos, Koreans and Hispanics at work-camps up north.

I guess we all simply do our best to work within our various zones of comfort... and hopefully folks are always trying to widen those cirlces...

So there's a certain amount of logic to your position- though I don't think it's as wide-spread as maybe it once was- with as many as it used to be. Or maybe I'm just totally whacko in my perceptions...

And then there is me.....I go to this market where I am the only one there that's a non-hispanic and I shop and get excited and speak broken spanish to every one and am in my typical jovial mood and BINGO, even the cashier is chatting away as she checks my pruchases. I have found that most folks no matter what walk of life they come from just get a lift out of being around a smiling happy face, and a smile is contagious:) If I get some stares or there is some sour puss that doesn't like it as far as I am concerned he can take a flying leap...... no matter what their race creed or color! And believe it or not almost everywhere I shop the owners love me and look out for me too, and lead me to the real bargains!

I am really glad you have such a cool place to shop Cathy. The stores in this town are so bad. They had baby zucchini at the store here in town yesterday. Unfortunately they were so soft you could put your finger through them and so were the cucumbers.

I've always found it so curious that when you actually live in farm country you can't get decent produce?? That just boggles me but it's true most of the time. I can understand it now because not much is growing just yet but in the summer I would think you should be able to get all kinds of great produce. Not true. My family who lives very close to you in Wheelersburg Ohio has the same problem. They have to grow their own.

I am so looking forward to the farmers market opening up the end of June.
I was so disappointed over those zucchini. I saw them from a distance and had already had plans on how to cook them before I got close enough to see how bad they were. Their parsley has black spots on it there all of the time. It is the bigger of the two stores here in town. It is a Foodland and they should be ashamed of what they put of there for sale. They laughed at me once when I asked them to go into the back and see if they had fresher greens for my pet rabbit because what they had out there had mold on it. I told them in not uncertain terms I wasnt feeding my pet any veg I would want myself and I told the produce jerk what I thought of his selection.