What would Tom Metzger think about black relation?

So it turns out I go to the same bank as Tom Metzger.

The other day, I overhear a friend – who recommended her bank to me – telling someone how she keeps running into San Diego's best-known racist at the bank. My bank.

Anyway, this reminded me of the fact that our family tree contains an Ida Metzger, from California. That's all we know about her – that she moved to Toledo, Ohio, in the late 1800s from California.

Because of the potential for a Tom Metzger connection, it's a branch of our family tree that I've not explored – if I'm related to the guy, I figure I'd rather not know.

But I got to wondering, what if I am related to Tom Metzger, KKK member, founder of the White Aryan Resistance (as opposed to, what, nonwhite Aryans? Talk about stretching for an acronym ...), convicted racist? What would he think of Alex, my nephew? Funny, precocious, smart – everything a seven-year-old should be? As much a Metzger as a Trageser, and half-black to boot?

How would Tom Metzger respond to a black blood relative? Would he respond as my grandmother did, by refusing to acknowledge Alex's existence? I loved her dearly, but I had told her she wouldn't get to see our child until she acknowledged Alex as her great-grandchild. She died a month before Larissa was born, before we could learn whether the hate or love would win out.

I like to think she would have accepted Alex as her own flesh and blood had she had another chance. She told my mom a pretty insightful story just before she died, a story that hinted at the possibility of growth even late in our years.

She was still living back home in Dayton, Ohio, and took the bus downtown to the doctor's during a pretty nasty snowstorm. After her appointment, she was waiting for the bus when the cold and wind got to her. She ducked into a doughnut shop, but the clerk – a white girl – ordered her out unless she bought something.

So my 80-something grandmother went back out to the sidewalk to wait for the bus. She hadn't been there more than a few minutes when a young black man came up to her and invited her into his grandfather's shoeshine shop next-door to the doughnut store. When she entered, she found a black man of roughly her own years sitting in the back by an electric heater.

"Now you come in here, young lady, and warm yourself until your bus comes. My grandson will stand outside and have the driver wait for you."

She tried to object, but he'd already removed her coat and scarf, sat her down in his own rocking chair and planted a cup of steaming tea in her hand. When the bus arrived, the grandson flagged it down and he and his grandfather got her bundled up again and on her way.

A few months later, she was gone – and I wonder if she didn't open her heart a little first.

Maybe it's time to do some digging and see just where Great-Grandmother Ida hailed from. And then give Cousin Tom a call.