This post was originally made November 12th of 2017 on our original wordpress.

It's the third weekly Story Saturday!

We believe stories matter. We love seeing how sharing the stories of people in our town connects people and helps us to learn from different perspectives and life experiences.

Thomas and Terry have been married for nearly 18 years, together for 29 years, and both have children from previous marriages. Terry was born in South Carolina, but as the daughter of a military family spent her life here, there, and everywhere. Thomas was born and raised in New York City, joining the military at age 19, He did two tours overseas. They really value the influence of being in the service had on them or their families as it allowed them to meet and learn from so many different people, and they say they’re still learning from each other.

After the Unity in Diversity service, Terry reached out to us and asked what she and Thomas can do to help the vision of Hutch in Harmony, and we were thrilled when they agreed to sit for an interview! Their humor, wisdom, and love for each other were so inspiring and heartwarming to us. We're sure you'll find them as endearing

An image of Terry's left hand, over Thomas's right hand.

When you got married, where your friends and family supportive of the relationship?

Thomas: Ooo, I’ll let you answer that one first.

Terry: My parents weren't really supportive, but after they met him, they really liked him, but my mother fought liking him. And there was, I mean right down the road from the town that my folks lived in - you know those signs that say “this road policed or picked up by such and such group?” That sign says “by the KKK.” and then 60 miles up the road is the headquarters of the KKK. There was a lot of prejudice down there. Still is. But now they'd rather see him than me, I think sometimes.

My friends were very supportive, but I lived in Arkansas, and people at work would say “Don't let so and so know who you married.” You know, that type of thing.

Thomas: I think for my age, I kinda handle things a little differently. I don't let things disturb me too much. Unless you get really irate, but I realize that there’s ignorance in all levels of the human race, and you just have to deal with it accordingly. You know, some folks through positive contact - they hopefully, will change their attitude somewhat. I mean, I’ve been in those types of situations, where initially it was a hostile type situation, but if you project yourself in a positive way, react in a positive way, demonstrate that you are not what they perceive you to be, it goes a long way.

Becca: It’s interesting to hear you say that because that’s something that I continue to hear from friends of color: that they just can’t let it get to them. Otherwise it's going to ruin their day, their lives, and I think it’s so admirable and something I can learn a lot from. It also makes me kind of sad that people of color have had to be the bigger person in so many situations. They’ve had to put in the extra work.

Terry: I only got really snappy once, and I could have bit my tongue afterwards. I was in walmart and this lady came up to me and she goes, “You have stolen my man.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve stolen my man”

I said, “Do you know him?”

“Well, no.”

“Then I haven’t stole your man.”

But she was talking about a white woman marrying a black man. But that’s the only time I really got sassy.

Thomas: If you experience that type of situation, confronting prejudice, you will learn from it, but a lot of folks live in a rose-colored situation; they haven't experienced it. I mean, she (Terry) was once that way. But you know, through communication and interaction, she’s learned a lot.

Terry: One of the big things I can think of is there was this show on TV, and they were in Harlem. And they were gonna leave out some equipment there, and I said, “Isn’t that dangerous? There's so many gangs and stuff, right?” and he’s explaining, “No, there's a lot of really nice places in Harlem.” But I’ve only seen it on TV, and that makes you think gangs.

Can you tell me any other instances of discrimination that you might have faced as an interracial couple?

Thomas: Well, I have one really distinct memory. This occurred a couple years ago, we were leaving here, I had rented a van. My wife and my son (aged 28 at the time), we were going to South Carolina for a family reunion. And this was a large van. We were going through Tennessee, traffic was flowing and I was going along with traffic. We just happened to go by law enforcement. They were going the same direction we were, and traffic got congested in the city area a little bit, and then as we were leaving, started picking back up. I saw the law enforcement there beside me- it was the sheriff- I saw the sheriff and I looked at the speedometer to make sure I was doing the speed limit.

Well, you know, I'm the type of individual - I tend to push it a bit, but I made sure I was within reasonable limits-I was pretty close. All of a sudden, this law enforcement officer backed off, got behind me, and activated their traffic signal. So, I pulled over to the side, and the officer came up - and I was thinking he was coming up to the driver's side - but he came up to the passenger side where she was sitting, and my son was sitting in the back, behind her, but he (the sheriff) started talking to her.

Saying “Are you alright? Where you folks headed to?” I mean, she was answering most of the questions. He wasn't talking to me, so I didn't say anything to him, though my Vietnam Veteran Hat was there on the dash where he could see it. He was more concerned about who she was, where we were going. She was the one dealing with him. I just sat there and didn't say a word, I was waiting for him to talk to the driver, be he didn't talk to the driver, so I didn't push him.

Terry: He asked me three times, was I okay.

Thomas: He got the impression we probably had kidnapped her.

Miriam: How old was your son at the time?

Thomas: My son, he was about 28 years old. And I mean, if you see him stand up, he’s 6’8”, but he was sitting down, so. But her he didn't ask nothing about him, just mainly wanting to know where’s this lady going, with this black man behind the wheel? That’s what he wanted. You knew through the interaction where he was going with this.

Terry: He said something about you speeding and slow it down a little bit at the end there.

Thomas:Yeah, right before he left he said real fast, “You know, you were speeding.”

I said “I was? What’d you clock me at?”

“90 miles an hour.”

Now, I know doggone well I wasn’t driving 90 miles an hour. If he had said 75 I would have believed that. Not 90. But you know what, you have to pick your time and place and sometimes it’s best not to push it. That’s one of the things you learn.

Terry: You also have to take into consideration where you’re at, the age of the person, things like that, you know. Because there’s lots of factors that go into it. If you’re in the deep south, and you’re interacting with an 80 year old lady, she’s gonna think worse of it than someone younger.

Becca: Do you think it’s still progressing to be more accepting since your generation?

Terry: Hm-mm. In fact in the south, especially, it’s going backwards.

Thomas: We just spent, back in April/May/June, we were out of our house for two months, while it was being worked on. We went to a lot of public places, and really I didn’t feel any dissention - from her perspective she might have felt a little differently. Like, sometimes, I’ve just I got an armor on and I don’t let some things penetrate. I didn't pick up any animosity.

Terry: I have a friend that’s gay. She can’t get married in Arkansas, she can’t adopt in Arkansas. So they had to move out of state to do this. It’s just - it’s going backwards.

So what is one thing you wish people knew, or you wish did differently about the way they interact with you?

Thomas: I have no response to that because, you know, having been educated in diverse areas, around diverse relationships with people, I don't pay attention to that. I mean, if you take the time to learn who I am and what I’m about, I think you’ll find me to be a decent, admirable individual. You got to do that by interacting with me, don't make your decision based on what I look like.

Now don't get me wrong, I think I’m a nice looking guy - with a whole lot of grey hair now- but you know, get to know me. For the most part, people that I interact with, it’s on a positive level.

A photo of Thomas and Terry, nestled into a sofa at Metropolitan Coffee.

Terry: I tend to have a warped sense of humor, but once they get to know me, it's better. And once they get to know us as a couple- we have a very strong marriage, but there’s a lot of people that don’t want to get to know us.

I had one guy at a church we used to go to. And he came and he said, “Terry, I want you to know that I love you and Thomas to death. You guys are great people. But I don’t agree with the interracial marriage.”

And I said “Well, you need to go to the Bible and look at this.”

A few days later he came back and said, “I need to apologize. I read what you said and there's lots of interracial marriages in there.”

And at least he had the guts to come back and say “I was wrong.”

But, I don't think Thomas and I ever worry about who someone is or what they look like, you know. We just, if they get to know us, we get along great. And if we’re not the best of friends, at least we’re cordial.

So you settled in Hutchinson. Is there anything you feel we could be doing better as a community?

Thomas: I think we need to be more open. There’s a lot of folks in Hutchinson that you don’t see for the most part. Maybe there is a new outing in the community, but some of them don't never come out. They keep to themselves. People need to be more open, I think we need to have more levels of communication - more levels of interaction.

And don’t get me wrong, Hutchinson has a lot of opportunities for interaction through the Cinco de Mayo celebration, and things of that nature, the park events that we have here for the Emancipation Day. But I think they need to be more open, and I think it’s more clique-ish in this town, than anything else.

Which I understand, you know, I do what I gotta do and I come home. When I’m at home, I’m at peace. But we gotta be more open to - the population of Hutchinson, you got 45,000 people here- we could interact more on a positive level, I think.

Terry: 17th seems to divide the parts of town. If you live on the other side of 17th and down, you’re in the - you’re not seen as - (looks to Thomas)

Thomas: Affluent.

Terry: Affluent. If you live above 17th street, you’re affluent. And that’s kind of the divide I see.

The other thing is, a lot of people - emancipation day for example - boy, they’re out there for the free hot dogs and free hamburgers and all that, but they don’t come and help plan it. They’re not getting involved. We need to get more people to plan things, get involved, be invested in the community.... and now we're going to get on my soap box [laughs].

Miriam: That’s great! Get on up there!

Terry: They need to add people that have disabilities. People would be surprised - I've worked with people with disabilities since ‘93. You’d be surprised what people understand. People think, “oh that poor little thing,” but so many people with disabilities are so much smarter and more capable than they are given credit for. They drive their own cars sometimes, they have jobs. It just depends on where they’re at.

And I think we have to get people with disabilities more involved. But you have Disability supports over here, and you have TECH over here, and they don’t like each other. So I think if they could come together and help do things - and there’s a lot of things. There’s just a multitude of tasks that our clients could do, and they could be involved in other things. But they’re not, because everybody forgets them.

Do you have specific ideas - we’ve talked about with Hutch in Harmony, we want to bring visibility to people who tend to be overlooked in our town. And we've talked about people with disabilities, but we don’t have a lot of specific ideas about what we could do, do you have ideas for activities and things?

Terry: If someone could pick them up, and get them there, that would help. The Unity service? Some of them would have loved that - the music and clapping. If there was a cookout or something like that, they could be in charge of filling up glasses, handing out napkins, you know. What you’d need to do is just call, like TECH, and talk to - I'd say talk to the vice president of supports and services - she was my boss when I worked there. And she could tell you the way to help.

What is your favorite thing to do as a couple? And what is your favorite thing to do individually?

Five photos splayed across a brown wooden surface. The photos are a collection from Thomas & Terry's wedding.

Thomas: We like to socialize and entertain. We like to watch television. We haven’t done it yet, but we plan to do it, we’re gonna take a train ride to Chicago on Amtrak. She’s never done that before so we're gonna do that. And then, later on, the plan is we’re going to go on a cruise. We like to travel, experience those things. We just like being together!

Terry: And you do a lot of things like you’re in the choir, you do NAACP things, you sometimes help with emancipation day events. He’s involved in a lot of things.

Thomas: She has a gift, she can sing -she really can. It’s one of those beautiful things she can do, she can really sing.

Terry: I do nothing. [laughs] I’m serious! I stay in the house.

Thomas: We just discussed that we’re gonna go - at least once a month - we’re gonna go out to dinner with some neighbors, just socialize, get to know more people.

Is there a question that I should have asked you, but didn’t?

Thomas: I think you covered a lot of it, can you think of anything?

Terry: No... We don’t have to have the best things in life. We don’t have to have a 2 million dollar house, or anything like that. We have love, and that's what matters.

Becca: That’s Beautiful. It's obvious that you guys have what matters. That’s a good relationship and enjoying the things that you already have.

Archive - Story Saturday - Thomas & Terry - November 12th, 2017