Details: I was walking the dog by the library to get us both some exercise and to drop off some movies that I had rented there and I passed through a small crowd of Ethiopians waiting on the library steps for the bus.

I live in the most international part of St. Louis such that walking through a crowd of Ethiopians is not an unusual thing. There seems to be a social/cultural fear of dogs in the general Ethiopian community and so I made a show in small gestures of how friendly my dog is and also how restrained he was. Still, as I neared the steps, there was a general retreat towards the safety of the library doors. I was thinking about the history of violence wherein a fear of dogs might develop when it occurred to me that I had forgotten about Johan.

When I was fairly young my parents began to help a small family of Ethiopian refugees that had landed here in St. Louis. The oldest brother, Johan, had escaped across the desert in the middle of the night. He’d managed to smuggle out his siblings later, but not their parents. I believe that their parents were killed. They stayed with us for awhile; we always had people staying with us in the guest room and on the fold out couches.

We helped them find an apartment in the neighborhood I live in now. We helped find furniture and get the younger siblings in school. There was a daughter, slightly older than me, who I had the ubiquitous crush of proximity on. We had lots of families that we helped like this. Some have stayed in touch and others not. When I go home to Wisconsin my parents sometimes have new pictures up on their refrigerator of new children or people who have come to visit them.

As I think back on my mental shoebox and rifle through for memories of Johan, I come up with the Thanksgiving dinner we shared with his family; his sister and two brothers. A simple detail – before and after the meal my father gave up the television so that they could watch soccer on a day traditionally given over to football. To a child raised in a house of rituals and certainty, the surrender of the TV to this foreign game seemed to encapsulate casual generosity that was neither casual nor ordinary.