Kids!!!

We lived in Utah for 4 years, 2 of those years was in Salt Lake City. There is this wonderful huge department store there named ZCMI (I can't remember what the official name is - the joke was Zion's Children Must Increase, but it was something like Zion's something Mercantile something). ZCMI had a bargain basement that held lots of fabric. I needed fabric.
That Christmas the only way we had any money to buy gifts was if I made and sold dolls. And, boy, did I. Bruce and Chris even helped me at night stuff legs and arms. The rest of the children were too young. I know I had to have made about 100 dolls that year.
This one evening Bruce was at work, but I needed muslin. I put all 5 children in the car and drove to ZCMI. There was a huge scandal at the time about children being kidnapped - blond, blue-eyed children, just like mine. So I had Chris take Nikki by the hand, put Rob in the baby back pack and held Steve by one hand and Brian in the other. Chris and Nikki walked in front of me so I could keep an eye on them.
We made it down to the basement without incident. As we walked from the stairs to the fabric area a beautiful black woman crossed in front of us. She was dressed in a suit (I'll never forget this moment!) and heels. She was young. And really quite pretty. My cute little guy, Brian, looked up at me and with a clear loud voice said, "We don't like black people, do we Mom."
Had the floor opened up in front of us I would have gladly sacrificed this sweet child to the tile God and jumped in after him. It was as though time stood still and slow-motion took over. Her head swiveled toward us and her eyes were filled with something akin to hatred.
My little procession stopped. My mouth opened and I finally said something about "Yes. Yes, we do." What else could I say?
I have no idea where Brian came up with that statement. We never taught any kind of hatred in our home against any group. The 'n' word was definitely never said.
The woman went on her way without a word to me. We bought our muslin and left the store. I was so humiliated. Brian had to have been around 3 years old. I tried to talk to him about not saying things like that, but I dn't know if it ever got processed or not.
We didn't take too many trips out in public like that anymore.