This is a flashback to the mid-50s, and to my first memories of anything that could remotely be considered erotic.
In 1954-55, my father was doing his Physical Therapy Residency at the White Memorial Sanitarium (now White Memorial Medical Center) in Los Angeles. We lived nearby in what was then a brand-new low-income housing project in a neighborhood that was then mixed black/Mexican (about 75/25).
My mother was working to help pay the bills, so my brother and I were left during the day in the care of our next door neighbor. She was a young black woman, probably late teens or early 20s. I don't remember much about her (I was 4-5 years old, for Christ's sake) but I can still picture her.
This period was significant for me for two reasons. One, it exposed me to some of the best music this world has known -- Jazz, Blues and early R&B -- music my rural white parents certainly never listened to.
The other thing was that she apparently thought my younger brother and I were young enough that she didn't need to give any thought to us when she would undress or change her clothes. So, my first recollection of female breasts were those full, firm, dark chocolate beauties. Damn, I can still picture them. And the image is still incredibly erotic.
From the time we moved away in in December of 1955, I never had a close encounter with another black person until after I graduated high school, but I never lost that love of the music or that erotic image.
From this perspective looking back, I note that a hugely disproportionate number of the women with whom I have had some sort of relationship have been black, and I attribute this in large part to that early experience.
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