[graciegirl]

As I have said before, there was a Mosque in our Cincinnati neighborhood and it gave us a big opportunity to learn and to know and to enjoy many of our Islamic neighbors.

In fact our neighborhood attracted a lot of international business and professional people and their families who worked as engineers and scientists for Proctor and Gamble and General Electric and researchers and physicians at University of Cincinnati Medical Center. We had a wonderfully diverse neighborhood and some eye opening experiences when it came to day to day living.

The influx of these cultures, many of whom promoted scholarship and dedicated work vastly raised the bar in our schools and many wonderful things happened as a result. There was much more emphasis on the sciences and math and the kids in the families of the new immigrants weren't allowed by their parents in many cases to participate in sports or other extra curricular activities. Almost always the valedictorians of the two high schools were kids whose parents were from China, India, and Africa. We had kids from all over but those countries were the ones to beat scholastically. We had engineers and researchers and scientists of every color and hue and it was amazing the similarities that we found in each other. I served on the curriculum committee of our school district and we charged forward in advance placement courses and enjoyed seeing the wonderful influence of our world neighbors making homegrown kids really have to compete.

Our own grandchildren who lived nearby in the same neighborhood and school district frequently brought their friends to our house and we were always feeding a bunch of interesting kids of international origin and learning from them as they sat around our table and debated with each other and with me. Our granddaughters two best friends were and still are a girl from China and a girl from India (Now young women on the road to successful careers in law and medicine) We always threw a Christmas party for our grandchildren's friends. I was so delighted with their social graces and their manners. (The homegrown ones too) I love learning things and I love kids.

There were some cultures that our grandchildren found hard to understand and some that held their daughters back in our grandchildren's eyes. But living on American soil is a wonderful experience and opportunity for these new immigrant families and we look forward to this new generation that now marry for "love" and do not have different gender potentials. Many of the children enjoyed our big Christmas celebrations and I hope we were good ambassadors for our traditions too.