And this is what she told me,
And this is my story
I was born in Minnesota in 1945
and there were guns in Northern Africa
and guns in central Italy
There were men in the South Pacific
losing their lives
My mother was a black woman
and my father was a white man
And in the middle of a Midwestern winter
they took cover in the night
And he fumbled with his apartment keys
and she searched for conversation pieces
And they sat down in his living room
and the world disappeared
You are the burlap sack, You are Indian silk
You are the terror and comfort of night
You are white and black, and I am chocolate milk
I am the breadth, and you are the height
You are all of the evil and the kindness I have seen…
and I am the in-between
And they talked about injustice
And they talked about freedom
And they talked about Hitler
And made love to piss him off
And they talked about forgiveness
And they cried for their loneliness
And they talked about belonging- immigrant lives
Chorus
And the snow raged past the window
And they held on to each other
And they stared out at Minnesota
And everything looked the same
And this is what she told me
these many years later
I was born in Minnesota in 1945
Robbie Schaefer © 1999 Mrs. Jenkins Productions/ASCAP