Once in the past, our family had this house where we rented rooms out to people on welfare.

Yes, we were slum landlords.

I had some mis-givings about it ... but then the economic-geek came out - "gee, we're just re-cycling our tax dollars ... cool!" Anyways, that was how I rationalized it.

It was these minorities refugees from the African continent. They were really nice people, running from the civil war in the congo.

One of them had a major B.O. problem. It was not noticeable in the winter because they weren't used to Canadian winters so they wore a lot of clothing, and inside we didn't let them turn the heat up. But in the summer, it was bad.

So bad, my mother actually bought him a deodourant stick and told him to use it. B.O. problem was solved.

I think racism is basically rooted in history and social classes. If a rich white man had given our tennant the deodourant stick, that would be racist. If it was a little old Chinese woman giving a deodourant stick to a big fat African man, then it is more humourous than anything else.

Eventually, interests rates rose, and mortgage payments became too much, the whole thing was stopped.

What I did learn was that the welfare recipient was rather good at paying their rent. Hard to believe, but very true. Maybe they don't want the slum landlord to cause any trouble with their government handout if we complain to the patrol officer or something.

We only had one guy who gave us trouble paying. Actually he was the best guy. His problems paying rent only started when he got off welfare. All those refugee guys got off welfares and started careers. How ironic is that? Haha! Eventually, he moved on and I hoped him the best.

Another time, going even further back, I was at this job fair.

You know, at those job fairs, those lines are really really long.

So we were standing in line. And this guy from the sub-continent really smelled really bad.

No once said anything to him, but it was so bad, he had to have noticed himself.

Me, I was trying to stand as far away as possible but at the same time stay in line. The only thing I could do was hope of a breeze and take a breath.

What was stunning was the couple in front of me, right behind the Indian, a man and a woman both blondes. They were talking and smiling, acting like there was nothing wrong. Myself, it was a real task just to breath. Maybe those two never wash their hockey equipment or something.

Since they were white and he was an Indian, they would not complain because that would be racist.