The reality of having my eldest son live in the Philippines is daunting in the sense that…I am seriously old… and the PI is a long ways away. At least 36 or more hours at best. This is me vulnerable and cranky and needy, okay? But, as with many things in life there’s an upside. This is me being Pollyanna. Scott comes home a couple of times a year and stays a month or so…in other words I’m actually spending more time with him than when California was home. In fact it’s long enough for me to notice that he really does a bad job of bed-making and for him to realize that it’s always too warm in the house because I keep sneaking the temperature back up. The truth is we usually get along quite famously…talking about the great issues of the world (or more likely movies, books, politics, TRAVEL, food, although I’m an extremely disappointing conversationalist in the case of the latter), and we watch a little too much TV. His brother is here with us much of the time, and we do more of the same; our familial habits of teasing, bickering, and generally just wasting time most pleasantly remain strong. I find this all absolutely satisfying…in fact when they’re at their goofiest, I’m sort of transported back many decades to a home noisy with wild little boys of the goodish variety. I do love hanging out with my ageing children.
Shortly after Scott arrived in July, he and I took a week’s trip up the Minnesota to spend time with jolly old uncle Robert…who only appears curmudgeonly when his sister is around. We had a splendid week. Visited the Old Place, half of which is Scott’s; stopped by the neighbor-friends, some of whom farm the property; watched the Olympics with great pleasure (France being one of my top three favorite places in the world); had a party with Robert and Marsha’s friends, who, over the years, have become my friends as well; walked by the Mississippi, and did a little shopping, eating, complaining about the state of the world (as old people are wont to do), but more than anything we appreciated our lives.
As you know from the tens of posts and, quite likely, hundreds of photos I’ve posted over the years of the little farm where I grew up, I feel an abiding need to spend a few hours there whenever possible. Restores my sense of just exactly who I am. This year was no different. We did stop for coffee with the Ungerechts, neighbors of mom and dad’s for as long as I can remember, helping them often as they grew older. One member of the family keeps an eye on our place now, as he plows and hays the open fields. Eventually my sons will pass the land on to their children, each of whom will become property owners of 20 acres of woods, fields, and swamp in Koochiching County, Minnesota. In a part of the continent that will be the last to fatally succumb to global warming…as I frequently remind them.
The day trip of Up-north to Northome isn’t over yet. At the corner cafe, where a gas station use to be, we stopped for beer and burgers. AND had the perfect hamburger. Exactly like mom used to make. A buttered bun browned on the stovetop and a well-fried piece of good ground beef topped with ordinary cheese. Couple of tiny dill pickle slices on the side. No green stuff, no veggies at all. No mayo, catsup. It was delicious.
We drove home by way of the Lost Forty. Forty acres of land that got overlooked when boundaries were drawn back in the day. No one owned it so no one could cut the timber. Consequently it retains a bit of the grandeur of old growth forest. Then…a wild Minnesota party with Robert and Marsha’s friends. Eventually we were back in Albuquerque enjoying our last weeks with Scott before he returns to the Phillipines.
The best thing about blogging my journal or journaling on my blog is that I get to share pictures, adventures, and opinions simply for purposes of reminiscing (when I’m old!). Or I can believe that my sharing includes the entire world. And it doesn’t really matter. My pleasurable time with words and pictures has been had.
About NOW. Pretty amazing by anyone’s estimation. Joe Biden did himself proud. And who knows, maybe the timing was just right. From all indications, every rational person in the US and beyond is breathing a deep sigh of relief…AND experiencing something new to recent political life…excitement. But more about that as regular everyday life in New Mexico rolls on. Right NOW, I am in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. My favorite spot in the world–the northwoods, upnorth, Itasca, Koochiching, Beltrami Counties, Minnesota. Only for a few days. Not even enough time to see my northern friends or eat enough walleye.
Aren’t these pictures pretty? Yeah, I know, every time I’m up here, there’s an overdose of green and of trees….if Robert and Marsha would just stay put for a winter, I could bring you white and ice and storms.
I was more than a little anxious about how I would adjust to retirement after 55+ years in the work force—the majority of that time not at all unpleasant, many of those years exciting, invigorating, challenging; some even decently paid. And then, a few months ago, it was over. Done. Fini. Made it just under the line, before I became Joe-Biden-level-befuddled. (Or so I’m imagining?) Anyway, turns out I’m thrilled with the whole thing and here’s what’s making it all okay…
To celebrate I went to Austin to hang out with my most delightful granddaughter and her equally agreeable partner (nearly-husband—but that makes them sound so grown-up, serious…will future visits be as much fun? Will we have to discuss the best quality lawnmowers and the price of eggs in China and tax cuts and cruises and….well, real married people stuff?) Instead of apocalypses and books and trips to far countries. Anyway, here we are now, and it’s good.
In January, 2025, Teresa and Jon will be married in Busuanga, Palawan, Philippines. Then they’ll return to Austin for a couple of years while Jon completes his doctorate, working with robotics and AI and Renaissance poetry (I made that last one up), with the eventual goal of taking over the universe, or perhaps a small island in Lake Superior when the rest of North America is underwater or droughted out.
FROM AUSTIN BACK HOME TO ALBUQUERQUE: Robert and Marsha stopped by for a sleepover and few cups of coffee on their way home to Minnesota from their also-home in Arizona, where they’ve lived for close to a year before they sold because … that is what they do for fun. Other old people go to the Senior Center and play cards or to Elks Club Bingo night or Country Kitchen’s early-bird buffet OR, as their mothers both told them… to church. NOT Robert and Marsha, they travel the southlands, occasionally buying a house in a new warm year-round paradise—which they put lots of work into before they decide they really don’t like the place at all, and sell, usually not for a profit. Then they head home to real-home, Minnesota, by way of their settled-unhappily-in-the-blast-of-New Mexico-sun sister. It is their way of staying young and exciting.
Between all of the active stuff, there are books. Murder shows. Other countries with often better-than-our political events to pore over. Sometimes I do the laundry or go to the grocery store. And there are friends here or there that add a nice life bonus. Sometimes, son Steven takes me for a ride in his racer Mustang car. He’s had it many years—I’ve actually never ridden in it because he loves nothing better than to frighten me, of course (the job of sons apparently) and besides, I was always afraid I might drool on the dash or leave an old gray hair on the pristine leather seats.
Here’s an example of a lovely friend event that happened this summer. Many years ago, in the before-times, I worked for New Mexico state government in Santa Fe. One of my workmates was an interesting young man named Musomi. Since we both lived in Albuquerque and neither of us made a whole of money, we shared the commute in one of our old beat-up vehicles—at least I know that describes mine, and I’m pretty sure Musomi had the same type of classy wheels. We both have a fond memory of running out of gas one day, and a kindly truck driver stopping and putting enough gas in, whichever vehicle it was, for us to get to work. Ah yes, those were indeed the days!
I have other nice memories, like the chocolate cookies, I am remembering we both baked, and spent more than a few miles of our commute trying to figure out how to start a cookie business to get a little richer than our current jobs were making us. Since our knowledge of corporate financing was zero, all those other cookie places beat us to the punch, and here we are, still not wealthy.
Shirley, Musomi’s wife, was wrestling with their young children, as I was with my slightly older sons and life as a single mom. But we shared lasagna recipes and, with Musomi on his way to becoming a full-fledged pastor, we were certainly engaged in our lives and world.
In June, Shirley, Musomi, and their daughter, Mariama, stopped by for a talk-filled brunch, and it was so very fine to spend a few hours with both memories and present doings. You know, one of the very happiest things for me at this stage of my life is to reconnect with people who have been special to me at some point in my life, and to realize I still feel exactly the same way about them. Shirley and Musomi’s presence is still warm, comfortable, interesting, and like we just saw each other last month, even if it’s been some years.
I finally visited Luna’s new house, where she lives with her devoted servant, Patricia. It’s small but feels surprisingly roomy with high ceilings and a couple of nice windows. The critical element is that Luna has a fine viewing area from which to keep track of any suspicious activities in the ‘hood.
And of course, there has to be a last, but not least, event. Daughter-in-law Michele’s birthday came around, and since her family is great about food-filled get-togethers, I thought I should try that in her honor. It was nice, although I feel that my ‘gathering’ skills are slipping. They’ve always been a bit slap-dash but not without my ability to get a variety of mostly-good dishes out and efforts to be somewhat hospitable lasting throughout.
Now, I have the perfect ending for this for this catch-up on family events newsletter. The food at the party. Pat, Michele’s mom (with a remarkable stroke recovery in hand) brought delicious macaroni salad and Steven made his super-tasty spinach/cheese and other-fine-ingredients omelet.
To top it off I made the most extraordinary yellow cake with chocolate icing—Michele’s favorite. I searched on line for just the right recipes with a little something different or more complicated in each. For example, chocolate FUDGE icing, not that wimpy chocolate buttercream stuff.
A couple of little things went wrong. The 3-layers of what is the tastiest cake dough ever, all collapsed in the middle. Yup, all layers. Cratered. And while the taste was quite fine, they had the texture of a big cleaning sponge, full of holes and tough. The frosting was honestly amazing and sleekly beautiful, but so full of flavor (with over a cup of unsweetened cocoa plus ½ package of chocolate chip) that it was like a shot of the strongest coffee imaginable or of straight booze or turpentine or something—well, perhaps not turpentine).
Fortunately, Patricia, the family artist was here and she made that one-of-a-kind cake into a thing of beauty.
The second half of an exceptionally exciting year lies just ahead. Visiting son, travel to places near and far, an election to end all elections, I say, tongue only partially in cheek. And great good luck to us, one and all.
On the 4th of July, we Americans celebrate our independence, our right to choose our leaders, our religion, our location, our occupation. In my last posts I’ve been writing about my path to becoming a usually-proud Democrat, and the fact I still feel good when I go to vote. The 4th was just here, shouldn’t I be happy? You know, democracy, elections, candidates, my voice heard…voting…
Actually, I did feel good because my friend Tasia and I celebrated our forthcoming books with a healthful holiday mimosa. See end of post.
Well, right now, I’m actually considering whether I’ll vote or not in this next election if Joe Biden does not resign almost immediately. If you’re shocked to read that, you’re probably not nearly as shocked as I am to think it and write it. But, you know, my candidate of choice doesn’t usually win anyway so I’m used to morning-after disappointment…and I truly believe there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that Biden can beat Trump. Facebook keeps feeding me memes with things about ‘sure, Joe’s old and slow and a little goofy, but he’s still not the bad guy.’ True, but, in my mind, he becomes the bad guy if he hangs in there when he’s so obviously failing. I’m older than Joe—and I’m keeping a sharp eye out for all of our failings—Joe’s, mine, and my aging siblings, friends, and children! And Joe may even be suffering more of this old-age stuff than me. Or not. But it’s too much.
Can Gavin, Kamala, Gretchen, whomever, beat Trump? Maybe, maybe not, but if they do they’ll at least be able to fight on through what may be the second toughest four years of this nation’s history. Joe Biden will not be able to do that; we absolutely all know that. So, let’s stop with ‘well, he’s done a good job’—to which I say, kinda, sorta—but he won’t for four more years. Well, they say, ‘he has and will have good people around him.’ And, of course, we know for sure, these good people around him would be capable of gaining back some control of the traditional ‘American’ narrative? (Admittedly, “American” has always been a fraught word if you weren’t white, male, and straight but it did mean something positive every now and then.) No, we don’t know that. Not infrequently, our presidents’ closest advisors have led them down some seriously dangerous garden paths. Iraq. Case rested.
I honestly believe that Joe Biden will be defeated, badly defeated, by Donald Trump this November. I’ll probably vote anyway. No, I won’t. Because why would I vote for a supremely selfish old man. And don’t tell me, if the old man stays in the race, he’s doing it for the country. How many of you truly believe that Joe Biden, or very many other old guys (of any color or creed) in power are capable of relinquishing said power and its accoutrements thoughtfully, unselfishly, gracefully? Look around the world. Pick your continent (except Antarctica). Zero. Well, no. Not zero. Which brings us to the next topic. UK ELECTIONS.
Our sometimes-fine Mother Country voted yesterday. IT WAS A BLOODY SMASHING LABOUR VICTORY. The Brits said okay, you bumbling, wild-eyed and haired crazies (think Boris Johnson) and simpering bumblers (think Liz Truss), and slick but ineffectual millionaires (as in Rishi Sunak), be gone with you. And, would you, my fellow Americans, believe this. The defeated leader of an important country, said, with no recriminatory, whining, threatening language, ‘Okay, you guys won fair and square, good luck and god speed’ or something like that. But then that used to be the norm here too, didn’t it? And how is it something like half this country accepts the fact it no longer is! Sorry, two sentence rant.
I have a suggestion. Let’s say that at some time in your life you’ve been a political junkie and have had to give it up in the midst of 24-hour a day talking-heads TV, lackluster politicians, and the existential threat of a theocratic fascist state proving too stressful (maybe theocratic and fascist together is just a little redundant? Just a little?). But you really can’t quite stifle that latent desire to know who pretends to be running things and who owns those people? May I recommend dropping anything labeled ‘news’ on TV all together (although getting your news from YouTube excerpts of the late shows is not a completely bad idea) and following world politics through the many reputable sources still available in newspapers, newsletters, and magazines. Everything is on line, and the sources and publishers are fairly easily researched for affiliations, credentials, and real-news authenticity. More notes about how I’m doing this in order to keep sane—while occasionally checking in to see whether good old Joe has resigned yet—will follow in a few days.
A somewhat positive South African election just took place—a most interesting one in fact considering the hopeful South Africa of not so very many years ago, brought almost all the way down by Zuma and his nasty Indian and African friends. I’ve referred to South Africa often, but am only now seriously reading on a ‘daily’ basis the Daily Maverick, a voice in South Africa comparable to The Guardian in the UK.
A scary French election coming up Sunday. But more later about all that too. Sorry, but as an ex-political junkie who feels only anxiety and dread for her own country’s future, I must get my fix elsewhere.
Now for the important stuff. I celebrated July 4th with my friend Tasia, an incredible person in many ways, but most impressively to me, a writer who has just completed an important book. I won’t describe the book now except to say it documents, in a personal, journalistic narrative, the history of the women’s movement in its varied forms in New Mexico. Tasia’s in the process of contracting with an interested publisher—so the done deal stage of all that writing is nearly completed.
At the same time, my book is ever-nearer turning into something you, my lucky friends, can hold in your hands. It’s not important to the world at large in the same way Tasia’s book is…however I’m quite fond of the story since it’s all about me!
More about these amazing works of literature later.
Best picture of all. A Joe Sackett work of art. My house in my house. Well, actually on loan from that maker of sometimes strange, kinda magical, and always wonderful sculptures.
As I wrote this, intended to be funny, with only a touch of seriousness, post, I felt increasingly childish/silly/spoiled/clueless. Almost deleted it, in embarrassment. But, since my posts serve as part of my journaling obsession—the part other people get to read if they’re short of more exciting or challenging literary resources at the moment, I decided to post it.
Yesterday, for the first time since I retired (2 ½ months ago), I felt at loose, very loose, ends. For a few afternoon hours, I did not know what to do with myself. Yeah, I know, not a big deal in the course of human events…to me, Big Deal.
It’s not that I’m hugely ambitious (as many of you know), it’s just that I always have a little or a lot more to do than I have time in which to do it: reading, writing, life-keeping (you know, the bill-paying and picture, recipe, letter, document sorting, that oldish people do), house stuff, friend and family stuff, thinking, not-thinking while streaming cop/murder shows.
And it’s not that I’ve completed all those to-dos and was left with nothing to do, it’s just that, all of a sudden, unused time just stretched before me into a sort of void. I dislike New Mexico afternoons anyway—all that bloody sun—but this felt ridiculous. Since none of my normal activities appealed, what about a nice long nap (won’t work, slept well last night), how about I drink four wines (nope, alcohol over a thumbful makes me sick), how about a walk on this sunny afternoon in the nineties (dead as a doornail on the sidewalk in half an hour).
So. Okay. Here’s where I realized how absolutely pampered this all sounded.
After an hour or so of pacing around the circular layout of my home, I finished an excellent book with only a few pages to go (This Strange Eventful History), I ate a dish of a new exotic ice cream found on the shelves at my handy little neighborhood store for the well-off [who am I kidding?]: Maple Cardamom Candied Pecan. I pondered my meaningless unemployed old age. I made it through the afternoon.
I could have been Jeff Bezos girlfriend and not sounded any more privileged.
It’s the word ‘meaningless’ that matters in this post.
I’ve recently started reading or rereading the books in the opening photo. Yalom’s book is a favorite from college, and “At the Existentialist Café” is newly purchased but already of great interest and value—having to read everything twice so far to understand the earliest of those seriously difficult-to-understand creators of what seemed then a mostly new branch of philosophy. I’m imagining reading the whole thing more than once or twice before I’m fluent in “existentialist” speak.
I’ve long called myself an existentialist which means, as far as I’ve thought, that the meaning/quality/purpose of my existence is up to me. So, no long hours to waste without knowing it’s my fault they’re wasted.
Anyway, since my posts are really me-keeping-track-of-me, I’m going to go ahead and post this. And read much more and reflect on just how I make these last 2 or 7 or 15 years of my life matter to somebody or something beyond whether I get bored in the afternoon!
Not sure if the following quote is pertinent to this post but seems like a good one overall.
“I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.”
~ Albert Camus, 1955, The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.”
– Henry David Thoreau
In the last post I gushed about An Unfinished Love Story and felt quite enthusiastic about the continued sharing of my political-origins story. Upon a few days’ reflection, while my admiration for Goodwin’s book has not lessened—I realize my enthusiasm for the words (“Ask not….”) and activities of political life (including that most sacred of responsibilities—voting) has, over the many decades since, mostly been beaten into a sullen sense of responsibility. I am sad to say I’ve become a cynical old curmudgeon, which I think I’ll just share here and there, now and then, because, in real life, I don’t want to continually mouth these negatives in front of my grandchildren. As I’m sure I’ve said before—everyone needs hope to get through to the next day—who am I to cast doubts?
However, I am determined to complete the story of Me, the Democrat. When I say complete, it’s not that I’m no longer a Democrat or that I won’t continue voting, it’s just that seeing clearly now with the rain being gone isn’t giving me that old song-optimism, instead it looks like the sun is scorching the earth beyond salvage. Oh, stop it, Marjorie. Enough with the doom and gloom for a moment.
Back to the 60s, 1964 to be exact. My baby boys and I fly off to the Philippines from Bemidji, Minnesota, by way of Minneapolis, San Francisco, Hawaii, and Guam. And there, we live happily for nearly a year and a half, with husband Don, jaunting off to Vietnam, practically right next door, to serve 1-2-3 month stints as a “village sheriff.” Do you see the layers of irony (or sadness or disbelief or naivety) here? First of all, Don was one of the least sheriff-like people in the world. He was an air force enlisted guy, a former crew chief for the Thunderbirds. He was, as far as I remember swagger-free, prejudice-free, opposite of militaristic or gung-ho, and really just wanted to go to work, maybe a regular day around airplanes, and then go scuba-diving, or just hang around beaches and water. At least that’s my long-ago memory of him.
And then there’s me. Clueless. I did know the US was engaged in Vietnam. But I had no opinion. Yeah. Me. Vietnam. No opinion. As an excuse (although not a good one), I had two small boys and (me, the kid from Northome, Minnesota) a life in the tropics. I was reading spy novels, preparing exotic dishes from an assortment of Ladies Magazines, and mothering (with the help of Lety, our housekeeper). I smoked cigarettes, drank coffee, pondered World War and Cold War spies (thanks to an obsession with le Carré), and do not remember ever considering what the hell the US was doing in Vietnam.
Early fall 1965, we fly back to the States, to be stationed in Goldsboro, North Caroline, where we would live until moving to New Mexico in 1970. Not an interesting place, in fact uninteresting enough to finally drive me to where I had long been desirous of heading—college. East Carolina University to be exact. Where I finally joined the real political world from several directions.
Before too many semesters passed, I had realized history was my preferred route to knowing stuff. While I loved all of those basic classes in math, science, philosophy, and literature, it was history that led me down so many wondrous paths of discovery. I was soon completely engaged, taking as close to a full load of classes, both at the Center in Goldsboro, and eventually the main campus in Greenville, as I could muster.
While ECU was as far from a hot bed of political activity as one could get, we did have one or two small and timid protests on the main campus. We also had a professor whom, oddly enough, I remember fondly, John East, a right-winger, who later served in Congress. I had him for one or more political science classes and, at 27 or 28 by then, I was one of his older and, it turns out, more outspoken students—in fact I cannot remember any other than a few small voices in the room. He loved it and goaded me constantly to defend my positions. It especially interested him that I had subscribed to a Black Panthers newsletter, which being a born-again white southern conservative, he found akin to exchanging letters with Stalin. However, to his credit and the slightly-less dangerous rhetoric of that time, he challenged me, not to shut up, but to figure out how to justify my positions.
While we were living in the Philippines, most of the Great Society of Lyndon Baines Johnson had become a reality: Civil Rights, The War on Poverty, acts improving education at all levels, Medicare and Medicaid, the National Endowment for the Arts and so much more. Some of this had begun during JFK’s time in office, but it took one of the master wheeler-dealers of all political time to get it passed.
For so many years, I’ve thought only of the images of Johnson and Nixon looking me in the eye as they blatantly, cold-bloodedly lied every night on the national news about Vietnam. And the words “Hey hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” echo in my head. Goodwin’s book reminded me in the most thoughtful of ways what a force of good for the whole country he had been until he succumbed to the militarists around him, the reactionary voices of faulty historical premises, unbridled jingoism, and grandiose ambition. I owe LBJ a belated apology after all these years of thoughtlessly lumping him in with Richard Nixon.
All of this discovery and personal change had a soundtrack, of course, incorporating all the folk protest tunes from my one and only favorite musical decade—the sixties. Those songs have lyrics that say stuff. They’re crammed with opinions, meaning, passions that are big and important. Tunes you could sing along with in protest and belief. Everything I catch a line of here and there today is almost blindly-angry or insipid. Personal moaning and desire and INSIPID. There, I said it. How old do you think I am. That would be 103.
Here’s my favorite anti-war song because it’s to sing with and mourn with and Bob Dylan wrote it and first performed it in 1963. It’s titled “With God on our Side,” and I used it to teach history during my one full year of junior high social studies teaching many years later. I’m going to cull a few lines only because, obscure as this blog is you never know when the copyright lawyers will appear. Please google, read lyrics and listen to Dylan sing it.
He sings us from the Indian wars/Spanish-American War/Civil War/First World War/Second World War to what comes next. Each stanza returning with the darkest of refrains…having God on our side.
And that the land that I live in has God on its side
Oh, the country was young with God on its side
With guns in their hands and God on their side
For you don’t count the dead when God’s on your side
The Germans now too have God on their side
And accept it all bravely with God on my side
And you never ask questions when God’s on your side
Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side
So now as I’m leavin’, I’m weary as hell
The confusion I’m feelin’ ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head, and they fall to the floor
That if God’s on our side, he’ll stop the next war
If Taylor Swift started writing and singing comparably challenging lyrics we might indeed have that revolution about which Judy Collins was singing: “We want our rights and we don’t care how/We want a revolution now.” There could be worse things than the Swifties taking over the world, I suppose.
1968 came along. By now I was consuming news like an addict and reading some of the better periodicals along with my history books. I wasn’t exactly well-informed, but compared to the dummy that landed in Goldsboro from the Philippines in 1965, I was a whole different person.
1968. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were murdered right there before our eyes practically.
In my mind’s ear, I hear the exact cadence and pitch of MLK on April 3rd, 1968, my 29th birthday. The night before he was killed. “But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop … I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land”
And Bobby Kennedy, looking so young, turning from the stage “…and now it’s on to Chicago, and let’s win there…’ as he makes a peace sign.
I am tired of this post. So sad…reading MLK’s words, looking at RFK, so promising a young man, turning away from the podium in LA. Hearing Dylan sing.
When I was listening to the audio book of “An Unfinished Love Story” at the gym, I found myself slowing down, tensing up as snatches of the speeches of Martin Luther King , Lyndon Johnson, and Bobby Kennedy were shared. I knew it was among the last words two of them would utter, and that the third, who should have gone down as one of our presidential greats would come to have “…how many kids did you kill today” represent him.
I think, like Goodwin, I’ll stop with the end of the sixties. I could talk about leaving Greenville, North Carolina, where my kids and I lived in a rambling old white house, and I went to school full time and watched the news. And Nixon took office.
I recently read Walter Isaacson’s book, Kissinger, which obviously tells us more than we could ever want to know about Nixon as well as Kissinger. There’s no way around the fact they were both mostly loathsome, adding nothing good to any human endeavors. I unfortunately read that account of the early seventies just before Goodwin’s book on the sixties was released, so the order of the decades was reversed in my reading and hard to keep straight in my head. It was discombobulating to hold on to the reality of future horrors yet to be inflicted by Nixon/Kissinger, while reliving the tragedy of LBJ.
My last intense political time was as a staff person at the New Mexico office for McGovern/Shriver. I’ve written about that particular tragedy and posted one of these picture before so I do not have the desire or the energy to say more. As the 70s passed I volunteered a few times on campaigns: Robert Mondragon for Governor (I think?—no, maybe Senator? Who cares!), one of Joseph Montoya’s Senate races, maybe some local pols—a few walks, parties, small contribution or two.
Then I just became a voter. Generally unenthusiastic…but almost any Democrat beats the alternative. (True, even back then) I do remember when I first heard Barack Obama speak. I was driving back from a trip to Minnesota, stopping over in a motel in some almost-surely godforsaken town on the Great Plains. Turned on the 2004 Democratic convention, and there he was. OMG. Called my friend Sue in Texas and said he’s going to be the next president isn’t he? Yup, that happened, but he didn’t save the world, which I guess is going to take starting over at WW2 level carnage. Or extinction/dinosaur-return level.
I did it. Exposed the fact that my serious political life was brief and ever since I’ve just been dutifully voting. Although part of my reason for starting these desultory ramblings through my memories is that a couple of weeks ago we had our primaries. I went to vote with only one interesting race in mind…and remembered that I like to vote.
No one could tell the story of the 60s better than Doris Kearns Goodwin, especially as seen through her and husband Richard Goodwin’s lived experiences, vivid memories, box after box of words and picture artifacts, and so much love, passion, and intelligence for and with each other and their friends and associates—key players all, in a time and in places never to be forgotten. And all here in An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s.
I claim it, just a little, as my story too. It is when I became a Democrat.
Once upon a time, there was a young woman, just turned 21 years old, who could vote for the very first time. She did just that, casting that starter vote for Richard M. Nixon—an act for which she has been apologizing ever since. That was me of course and, just what you might ask, is my excuse. Well, you see, my mom was a devout Christian and a Republican. Before you equate her in anyway with the present-day faux-Christian followers of the Maga-cult, comprised mainly of easily-led, frightened, and ill-informed members of a once-normal political organization, let me just say She Was Not In Any Way Like Them. Ovidia could find good in most things, and two of her most frequent warnings to her children were ‘not to make too much of ourselves’ (meaning don’t be prideful and/or judgmental) and not to use the word ‘hate’ (unless referring to spiders). Easy to see the differences between then and now, right?
So, being a not atypical teenager (meaning I paid little attention to politics), and having grown up under Ike (one of those old-fashioned, slightly-boring, sane Republicans), and also having a politically-disinterested dad, voting as mom did seemed to make sense. By November 8, 1960, although I was by then the young wife of an (apolitical) airman, the young mother of Donald Scott, and a resident of Florida (so long ago there was No Disneyland!), there seemed to be no reason not to cast my first-ever vote as a Republican.
I remained a Republican for 74 days. Then, on January 20, 1961, our new President, John F. Kennedy delivered his inaugural address. These words still echo in my memory:
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans–born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage–and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world....All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. ...And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
And voila…a Democratic family was born.
There are life’s snapshots, right? Memories, often brief, but with photographic clarity. Me, sitting on the reddish couch (did it have shiny threads?) in the fairly basic living room (brown tiled floor, forgettable everything else), in a yellowy-tan concrete block house amidst moss-draped live oaks surrounding a cluster of look-alike dwellings on the shores of Lake Conway in Pinecastle, Florida. My baby must be asleep, I’m drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes (yeah, yeah, not a good-mother picture I know), and watching TV. JFK in black and white. So young and passionate…so not Nixon.
Previously my political awareness had been of the shallowest measure, even though neither the world nor the US were short of big events, many of them stemming from the Cold War—that battle between Russia, China, and the US for world domination—that competition between capitalism and communism which I didn’t grasp for a minute. But never mind that; not high on my list of concerns anyway compared to how to get off the little farm in the north woods and do whatever one did next if you didn’t have the know how or wherewithal to head for college.
I was reading about and paying some attention to civil rights happenings in the south. Feeling repulsed by the actions and reactions of southerners to African American struggles for equality—while being almost totally ignorant of the racism that had always been all around me regarding Native Americans in Minnesota. It wasn’t until my 1958 move to Florida that I even began to ‘get it.’ Especially when I came to have my first black friends. Suddenly the information was coming hard and fast, and events were taking on a personal edge. James Meredith, Freedom Riders, Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, all on the CBS News every night. Don and I sat on the end of our dock, wondering how high the mushroom cloud would rise over Cuba, which seemed a short distance away over Lake Conway.
Summer 1963, shortly after Steven’s birth, Don got orders to head overseas, an assignment at Clark AFB, Pampanga, Luzon, the Philippines. Family to follow in six months.
November 22, 1963. JFK murdered in Dallas. Scott and I are visiting my friend Betty Jo in North Branch, Minnesota. The soap “As the World Turns” is on. Walter Cronkite interrupts, announcing with a catch in his voice,” President Kennedy died at 1PM Central Standard Time…”
I just finished listening to Doris Goodwin’s Unfinished Love Story on the treadmill at the gym. Her beloved husband, Richard, was an integral part of JFK’s campaign and presidency, and he idolized the president. As Doris’ voice carried me toward that dark day, it remained strong, but all of the emotion of a wife mourning, not only her husband (dead not so many years earlier) and their life together, but also what might have been had JFK lived, LBJ not been defeated by Vietnam, and RFK not also been murdered. As Goodwin’s words took me to Texas, and then back to DC that terrible night, I remembered how that act began the irrevocable altering of my understanding of America; of how the mash of patriotism, nationalism, whitewashed history with which school children the world over are indoctrinated, does us all such deadly disservice.
The first realization was that my country wasn’t the safe place they told me it was. If presidents could be murdered, the rest of us didn’t stand a chance. And in all of the years since, as I’ve come to better understand that we’re still the same creatures who have been raping, pillaging, stealing, forming gangs and cults and movements, since recorded beginnings and earlier, so it doesn’t really get better or worse overall in the global village. The good and bad that we do just shifts language and culture and skin color and geography. The lucky among us will have been born just as our patch of earth is on an upswing, and live out much of our lives before the good times move on to the neighbors.
So, yeah, I’m pretty much a pessimist about the big wide world of politics. On the other hand, I love my piece of territory—at ground level so to speak. The people and geography and sounds and smells and sights. The everyday and the special events. Even the weather when it rains and the leaves turn color.
Me. The Democrat. To be continued.
Voting makes me feel good, as though I’m part of something meaningful, part of a community of like-minded humans; as though I’m grown-up and responsible and informed. Last week I voted. It felt good—for an hour or two.
I’ve been thinking about me and politics a lot lately. Probably because my treadmill time at the gym has been consumed with the audiobook of An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin. This is easily one of the best political books of all times, a big claim I know, but since it combines the best efforts of Goodwin as historian in a personal and political memoir, and because it covers the decade I became politically knowledgeable (naturally leading to life as a Democrat!) and active, it’s obviously important to me. More about this in another post.
My obsession with this country’s present political life seems to grow, even as I become ever more skeptical of meaningful long-term change. We are humans and our nature really hasn’t changed much, not at all really, even as we’ve moved further and further from the cave. Oh sure, there’s a good century or two with promises of equality and improved living conditions here, there, the next continent to the east, west, or down under, but it always goes up in smoke (so to speak) doesn’t it?
It’s possible to put together an excellent line-up of news sources with a little research. And with my handy dandy smart phone, there they are in my news aps just waiting for me to get up. I still miss my morning papers but I could never have made it through, nor afforded, the array of up-to-date events at my fingertips, available to me on line. But I’ll talk about them in another post also. All of this is related. Absolutely related, but first things first—a TV show.
Right now, it’s one of Albuquerque’s rarest of occurrences, a rainy morning, which is making me feel energetic enough to be seriously pissed off—I want to write about Nazis. All of those excellent news sources mentioned above, don’t usually get to the matter quite as pointedly as the series I’m streaming on a channel called MHz right now (MHz carries only international series, almost entirely drama or murder mystery). Babylon Berlin is a German series, and it’s both cop show and political drama. In my mind, extraordinarily well done. In addition, to being an above average murder mystery/cop show (you should trust I’m something of an expert on this), it’s a better than average look at the rise of fascism and the Nazis as it and they proceeded to divide the country, divide families, and make widespread political violence the norm. I watched the first three seasons a few years ago, thought it very fine, but somehow re-watching (in anticipation of a fourth season) is proving even more frightening and more pertinent (in anticipation of our next election).
I’m one of the crowd that’s been mouthing fascist alarms but, honestly, not really thinking we’d go that far. Some of our most thoughtful journalists and thinkers have known better for a while…but at this age, I just wanted to cast a few more votes without feeling like my grandchildren’s lives depended on it—and since I don’t believe voting is likely to help at this stage, that’s no longer the happy act it once was.
Obviously, now that I’m retired there’s the danger I’ll begin posting endless lengthy tirades on multiple subjects that already occupy too much of our word time.
Forgive me—but if you’re into political drama do consider Babylon Berlin.
I’m rereading a favorite textbook from my social work and therapy studies. Existential Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom. If that doesn’t sound like one of my best loved nordic noir novels, it’s not; but, like them, death is a major consideration. In fact, Part I deals primarily with the subject. Yalom claims the four ultimate concerns of our existence are death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. And as I delve into this most insightful and thoughtful of texts, I find myself as fascinated as I was upon first reading it.
The point of all this being—that I intend to spend these last few years working within Yalom’s categories to make sure my existence considers each, but especially insisting to myself, that I find meaning and purpose. Every. Single. Day.
My grandson, Steven, came to visit this fine April…and a perfect visit it was. He works in IT, as a coder and more, and just as he arrived, his current project had a timing shift, so what was supposed to be mostly free time turned into an intense 16-18 hour a day sprint in front of his computer screens. It worked out in a lovely fashion for me because it meant he couldn’t hang out with his cousins that much, and his wife wasn’t joining us until the weekend. Which meant he had me anxiously awaiting his every break, during which we had passionate globally-encompassing discussions. Steven has always liked to talk about the Big Stuff, ever since he was a kid, so we pretty much covered the meaning of life, transitions, purpose, troubled friends, ageing as seen through the eyes of a person in his thirties, and another in her eighties, as well as AI, virtual reality, and the apocalypse. Since Steven had no time for others, and is on a pretty intense diet of mostly carrots, sweet potatoes (my regular diet), and a steady supply of greens, we didn’t have to break to eat fancy meals or pay attention to humans, dogs, or media. Just us and our brilliant bursts of discussion. And best of all, Steven’s considering transitioning to social work, the clinical therapy branch, probably. I say best of all, because his main interest as a college student was sociology, so not sure IT was ever his first calling…but given the lack of attention to studies that aren’t devoted to the worst of our capitalistic impulses, I’m sure other fields weren’t really pushed at his school. Besides I’m a lapsed social worker.
Steven was here for my birthday, which was made most interesting by son Steven’s search for and location of an angel food cake with which to properly celebrate. Angel food cakes seem to have fallen into disrepute, and as I grew up with one every single birthday until I left home, that seems almost sacrilegious to me. Anyway he found one, inferior in texture, but perfect for making it a real celebration for me. He heaped on frosting and found 70+ regular candles and added enough of the sparkly ones to get to 85. It was quite special actually, didn’t burn the house down, and took me back to mom’s ever-faithful birthday offerings.
Me. Versailles. 2010. When I started thinking about writing a travel/memoir book.
Here I am. Me. Now. The new-old me. A slow starter! Recently, my final day on anyone’s payroll. Ever. Just over. In any case, I understand people over 80 are not in big demand in the world of work. Although…my first job with the City of Albuquerque was a contract to do something with the newly purchased KiMo Theater AND to manage the public toilets on Civic Plaza. Surely, I’m still qualified for the latter.
Anyway, here I am, for now unemployed. What to do. Blog more, obviously. Sharing my insights concerning pesky aging annoyances, as well as tips for Apocalypse preparation (#1: Stock up on those little jars of Armour Dried Beef—didn’t your mother make what I think in the army was called SOS—pieces of the beef stirred into a white sauce and ladled onto toast)—I loved it—but there won’t be any milk or flour or butter or bread. However, the dried beef will last until Jeff and Elon can get us to the moon.
To launch my new life, I’m making an announcement:
I wrote a book. As some of you know, I’ve actually been working on this book off and on for years. It’s finally finished and at the publishers. The book is called Window Seat: The Story of a Traveling Life. It is part travel narrative/part memoir, and all about journeying, family, and with some dance thrown in.
One of my travel bookshelves today.
Now, imagine Window Seat in their midst.
I’m self-publishing with Archway Publishing, a wing of Simon and Schuster. Don’t know if this was a good decision, but it’s hard to know where to go when one wants an absolutely professional job done, even though you know you haven’t written a best-seller! Hopefully it will be the best-looking travel memoir EVER. My artist friend, Pat, is helping me design a cover which will distract potential buyers from dwelling on the fact there’s little exotic food, absolutely no prayer, and the sex is pretty early on and doesn’t deserve an R rating.
With Window Seat, I’ve told my story as a woman living through over 80 plus decades when our place in society saw some pretty amazing changes for the better. Changes that helped make it possible to get to all the places I went and see the things I saw, and speak to the humans I met there. Window Seat has been such a satisfactory project over the years, especially being that the important pursuits in my life have been travel and dance, often with family (and friends) as an integral component.
My editors asked me who I was writing the book for. I said: my family, people who like to travel, perhaps contemporary dance lovers, but definitely women. The truth: I really wrote it for me. I briefly studied a therapeutic field called narrative therapy as a social work student. It involves “story” in different ways, but the bottom line I took from it is that every single one of us has a story, and to think of our lives as stories is fulfilling and healthy—and, for the lucky among us, fun—on any number of levels.
Selfishly, I wanted to tell my story because, first of all, it’s full of modest, but almost always pleasurable adventures, and I think some people will enjoy reading about them almost as much as I enjoyed having and writing about them. After all, why should so many memoirs be about resolving horrendous issues, and why should so much travel literature be by men?
Every book needs a theme—for my life and for Window Seat, the theme comes from an old WWII song: Far Away Places. I must get permission to include the entire song as an opening to the book but here are the first two verses (eight lines are permissible to copy): Please, please, google this song by Vera Lynn, Bing Crosby, or Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow. You won’t really understand unless you do.
Far away places with strange-soundin’ names
Far away over the sea
Those far away places with the strange-soundin names
Are callin’, callin’ me
Goin’ to China or maybe Siam
I want to see for myself
Those far away places I’ve been readin’ about
In a book that I took from a shelf
In case you can see titles, the closest shelves hold my mostly Nordic Noir/British detective volumes…honestly the majority of my library consists of travel and history. Honest!
Other lines that appeal to me particularly include “getting restless whenever I hear the whistle of a train” (actually the sight of big buses, trains, boats, ships, and planes has the same effect).
I’ve been thinking about the acknowledgements page, most especially who I’m going to dedicate the book to…. How’s this: to a mom and dad who let me roam about the nearby woods from the time I was a toddler; to friends and family—all explorers in their own ways; and, perhaps especially, to all those books on so many shelves that have made me want to go to every single place in the Whole Wide World.
I guess my favorite line from Far Away Places is “They call me a dreamer, well maybe I am/ but I want to see for myself.”
(“Far Away Places” is an American popular song. It was written by Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer and published in 1948.)