My father was born,grew up in, lived and worked in two major Northern cities before he met my mother at his job. My mother was working in the second city ,BUT she was from a very small southern town where she was born and raised before seeking employment in the Northern city.
As you may imagine though they lived in the Northern city they made frequent yearly trips to visit my mothers side of the family down south. Now my father noticed in the first few years of their marriage that when he wanted to go into town my grandfather automatically would send one of my mom’s relatives to accompany him. In all due favor it was the mid seventies the deep south. At this time my father had a full on beard, prominent jew fro, wore aviator sun classes and sported a military type jacket . Well finally my father got rather fed up with the whole baby sitter situation and asked my Grandfather strait out why he couldn’t go into town alone.
My Grandfather in brutal honesty told him the reason he wouldn’t allow my father to go by himself into town. My Grandfather said it was because until the towns people knew who he was, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY that he was married to my mom and my Grandfather’s son-in-law it simply wasn’t safe.