Each year at this time I descend upon my son's closet and drawers,
trying to find out if he really does have more than one pair of jeans to
wear to school in the fall.
Each year, I am amazed, flabbergasted and utterly "That's
incredible!" at the things that have accumulated in the space of a
year.
If all the once-living objects that have been dehydrated were put
in water, the room would look like a pharmaceutical laboratory.
I have a special basket for Socks without Spouses. These socks are
worn in case of emergency until some blessed day when it becomes a fad to
wear socks that don't match.
Q-tips that have definitely not been used are put in the bathroom.
McDonald's Valentines are moved to the attic. Unused penmanship books left
over from the second grade are left in the drawer -- just in case.
An old broken Rubbermaid spice organizer is disposed of along with
numerous box lids, Pizza Hut place mats and a Halloween mask. Old Cub
Scout manuals and drawings of rooms filled with electric equipment are put
in piles. Pepsi Cola lids and Super Elastic Bubble Plastic are thrown
away. A copy of "Legend of the Christmas Rose" and a bumper
sticker are put in the pile containing the journalism notebook.
Erasers decapitated from pencils, yards of string and Scotch tape,
missing for months, are put into the Lost but Now Found box.
Articles put into the "Go Through These, Mike" box
include shoulder pads two sizes too small, empty shampoo bottles, Star
Wars cards, golf balls, Christmas decorations, plastic model cement,
marbles, BB shot, miniature flower pots, poker cards, spruce gum from
Maine (where did he get that?), a car litter bag, Perrier bottles, a
gyroscope, modeling clay, a book of mazes, magnifying glass, soap dish
from Children's Hospital, part of a microscope, little cars, string of
Christmas tree lights (bulbs missing -- no doubt used in some electrical
project), four banks -- empty, six trumpet books, numerous school papers.
National Geographic maps, two post cards -- one from Mouse Mine
Station (?) and one of the model boat from the treasures of Tutankhamun, a
box with some rubber bands in it marked, "Found dead -- killed by us,
Secret Spy Jim Sitz," the tail of a paper-mache bird, a black lite
bulb, a pamphlet on why one should invest in gold coins, a corn-on-the-cob
holder, a box with cotton in it in which to place one's "dead"
finger for the purpose of making sisters scream, insides of watches,
batteries, bubble gum wrappers, stamps, part of a ruler and other items
too gross to mention, especially the carved likeness of the torch held by
the Statue of Liberty made as a father-son project for Scouts.
All of this paraphernalia eventually gets back into the five
drawers from which it was removed, leaving two drawers for clothes,
thereby necessitating the use of doorknobs on which to hang shirts.
Despite the drawers, I would have to say that our son is an orderly
person. He rarely loses things and has a sort of scientific mind.
I was behind the scenes at the Smithsonian once and got to look at
the thousands of drawers filled with everything from rare African birds to
pieces of dead insects. Mike would have loved watching those scientists.
All I could think of was that they surely did need a mother.
Back to the top
When I was young I thought dancing was sinful and drinking
alcoholic beverages of any kind was wrong. Some of my uncles were
fundamentalist preachers and my family and I were all Baptists.
My father was an educator, though, and more tolerant of other
persons' views than were many of his counterparts. He also learned a lot
about ministers when he was chief administrator of a denominational
university.
In my opinion, both my parents and I have greatly broadened our
views in the last several years, though I still believe overindulgence of
any kind is detrimental to life, and I have firm beliefs about religion.
The new Right Religion Rhetoric, however, terrifies me. The speed
with which politicians are jumping on the RRR bandwagon and the number of
young parents I know putting their children into private
"Christian" schools so that they will be taught the new three
R's along with the old three R's convinces me that this rhetoric is not a
passing fancy.
The multi-million dollar media campaigns and three R TV networks
make it impossible to ignore.
I will compare it to the McCarthy era because I see the same
silence now as then on the part of persons who ought to be speaking out
against the blatant misuse of religious and political power.
I see the same labels of "communist" and
"anti-American," which were handed out so freely in that earlier
ugly period of American history being attached to anyone who holds a
different viewpoint about ERA, the Panama Canal treaty or Salt II.
I get mail implying that if I am moral, I will certainly want to
donate money to fight the anti-moral Darth Vaders lurking behind every
bush and tree.
I hear cries of "Persecution!" if anyone dares to ask how
ministers get so rich from the poor they serve.
I see Right Religionists taking over in areas where they are
unknowledgeable -- school textbook language concerning evolution and
creativity, child psychology, sex and even medicine, under the guise of a
direct message from God.
It reminds me of a young ministerial student who told the president
of his college that the reason he had missed so many classes was that God
had told him to go preach to a little church in the country a lot.
"Sorry, son," replied the president, "God didn't
tell ME a thing about it."
In her book, Interview With History, Oriana Fallaci quotes
Archbishop Markarios as saying, ..."And the representatives of the
Church aren't the Church; the representatives of religion aren't religion.
When you think that not even the priests, bishop, archbishops, and
theologians have been able to uproot religion from the hearts of
men!"
Thank God.
Back to the top
During a televised professional football game last weekend, I saw
some girls dressed in long-sleeved sweaters, skirts and socks and oxfords
making a pyramid on the sidelines.
Rubbing my eyes, I asked our teenagers, "Are those...can those
be..real cheerleaders?"
"Yes, Mother," they said. "They're back."
"I don't believe it," I said. "Are you telling me
burlesque queens and football don't go hand in hand anymore?"
"It's too sexist," said the girls. "Besides,
everyone is tired of sex. They're sick of seeing it everywhere. A tattooed
lady and a half-dressed one would each turn as many heads."
Later, when I read about the Cuban immigrant who had gotten
nauseous upon seeing the overabundance of food in an American grocery
store, I realized what had happened to many of today's teenagers. They had
literally gotten sick on sex-oriented movies, songs, clothes, TV shows,
magazines and advertisements. The larder was too full and it had caused
the same reaction in the teenagers as in the refugee: The scene was
"grotesque."
Hindus believe that men may follow four ways of life, if they act
with integrity at the level they choose. The lowest level is kama, or
sensuous pleasure; the second level, artha, or pursuit of wealth and
power; the third, dharma, or fulfilling one's moral obligations, and the
fourth, maksha or salvation, with its twin aims of escape from illusion
and entrance into Nirvana.
Anyone who begins at either of the first two levels, it is
expected, will find them less than satisfactory and will go on to the
third and fourth levels, either in this or a following life.
Those who disagree with the Hindu philosophy can still appreciate
the travel from the baser to the more self-respectful attitudes in life.
Maybe Americans are gaining enough self-respect to move away from
sensuousness and the pursuit of wealth and power and on to fulfilling our
moral obligations and escaping from illusion.
Laurence Sterne said, "To have a respect for ourselves guides
our morals; and to have a deference for others governs our manners."
Hooray for men and women and teenagers and children having
self-respect!
It almost gives me enough nerve to tell the managers of stores with
pictures of half-nude girls wearing certain brands of jeans to take the
pictures down. Sex and anorexia have stopped selling.
Back to the top
When former British Prime Minister James Callaghan resigned last
week because of his inability to control the Labor Party, he was quoted as
having said, "They like me, but they won't do what I say."
I know how the poor man feels. It has been the story of my life.
When I was a teacher, I would say, "All right, children, take
your pencils and write your names at the top of the paper. Has everyone
done that now? Is there anyone who has not written his name on his
paper?...Okay now.."
I would always get at least three papers with no names.
Then I would go home and ask my husband if he got the car fixed
like I asked him to do and he would say," I decided to do it
myself."
"But you don't know how," I would protest.
"I bought a book," he would say.
I learned later to mentally add the price of the book onto the
total bill from the garage without saying anything.
When we had children, the problem was compounded. When I said to
take a nap or (later) to keep the cat outside or (still later) to take a
shower or (later) to stop taking so many showers, no one listened.
I've always loved to give advice on everything from septic tanks
(Don't put egg shells and coffee grounds down your disposal and do use
one-ply toilet paper and Rid-X once a month) to saving energy (Don't let
the water out of the tub after taking a bath. It will help keep the room
warm.) The problems is, no one listens.
Part of the reason may be that my image needs improving. Some of
our kids' friends once told them that if people talked to me for only a
few minutes, they would think I was really flaky.
Also, I like to play charades and yell at athletic events and tell
politicians they're psychotic. I have holes in my boots and my nails have
never seen a manicurist. I have walked with a limp for four months because
I have a wart on the bottom of my foot.
Gosh, now that I start writing them down, there are more reasons
than I thought that no one listens to me. I may even have to call my
mother and see if she still likes me.
Life's tough, isn't it, James?
Back to the top
When our daughter had pneumonia this month, my mother was reminded
of her father's bout with pneumonia almost 60 years ago when my mother was
a small child.
My grandparents had left their relatives and friends and moved from
the fertile fields of Iowa to the dusty plains of Texas. They were
pioneers. Anyone who has experienced moving only a short distance can
empathize with the desperate loneliness they must have felt at first.
Grandmother's fifth child was due during the month of March, 1921.
My grandparents' four children were girls, of whom my mother was the
youngest. No doubt they all hoped that this fifth child would be a boy. It
must've been an already anxious time when my grandfather got sick and
almost died of pneumonia.
There were no antibiotics then and no hospitals within reach.
However, an older woman from a neighboring farm moved in my grandparents'
house for six weeks and took care of my very ill grandfather and saw my
grandmother through the birth of a baby boy.
"For free?" I asked my mother.
"Of course," she said. "That's the way pioneers
were. They HAD to help each other."
Looking back on it, Mother said Mrs. Sipes must've had to sleep on
the side porch, a porch with absolutely no heat. It was surely very cold
when she did get a chance to rest. Mother remembers that the Sipes family
had a nice big house with a 12-foot square bathroom -- a lot to give up
for six weeks.
March was a bad time for a pioneer farmer to be sick in Texas, and
my grandfather was near death. It came time to plant the wheat and he
couldn't move.
And then one day, my mother said, 48 men from miles around came
with their horses and their planting tools and planted all of my
grandfather's wheat. Someone came out from town and took a picture of the
scene -- in sections, because there were so many men.
My grandfather recovered, no doubt as much from generosity as from
his own body chemistry.
Nobody in the pioneer west could afford to care about anybody's
last name or where they came from. Lives and dreams, sometimes
inseparable, constantly were at stake -- and men and women were known only
by their deeds.
May Mr. and Mrs. Sipes, their children and the 48 men rest easy in
their graves, and may all of us be needed so badly and be so willing to
help.
Back to the top
This week my husband and I celebrated our nineteenth wedding
anniversary. We figure we have been married for 7,245 days, or 173,880
hours. We didn't know we had lived that long, so we started to figure out
what had happened to the time.
We realized right away that we had spent about 80,000 hours
sleeping (if we included the naps in front of the TV), which left 93,880
hours that we had somehow frittered away.
I calculated we had spend 15,000 hours changing diapers, feeding
babies, driving children places, reading stories and drying tears.
Another 19,000 had been used washing clothes, chopping wood,
cooking, cleaning and shopping. We had spent at least 35,000 hours at jobs
trying to make a living.
Fifty hours had been wasted making crafty uglies (Christmas
cookies, macrame, Boy Scout projects, candles, etc.) with our hands.
We had spent 5,000 hours going to church, 56 hours listening to
"Turkey in the Straw" at thirteen years' worth of children's
concerts and 200 hours waiting in car repair waiting rooms.
We had sat in doctors' offices waiting rooms for 103 hours and in
doctors' offices examining rooms for 178 hours. Seventy-five hours had
been squandered in drug stores, waiting for prescriptions to be filled. We
had sat in a dentist's waiting room for one and one-half hours. (We only
took our children to the dentist once. It took us two years to pay the
bill, so we never went back. Besides, the man said they needed braces.
Being liberal parents, we gave our children the choice of getting braces
and eating gruel for six years while we paid for them, or eating chicken
and hamburger. They chose the hamburger. One can only hope it was the
right choice.)
Eighty hours of our time had been used looking for shoes for
pre-teens and one hundred and ten hours in cleaning up after cats,
attending goldfish and turtle funerals, and other activities.
Three thousand hours had been consumed discussing politics and
religion (to no avail) and at least 2,000 hours talking on the telephone
with persons who called our house to discuss business. More than 700 hours
had been swallowed up going to get milk from the store and 1,003 hours
visiting with relatives at family reunions. (Some of them descended
directly from the witch in Snow White and Bluebeard.)
No less than 8,000 inane hours have been depleted because we were
"involved" in PTA, school board meetings, citizens' groups,
political projects, making costumes for somebody in the Far East.
About 500 hours can safely be labeled "miscellaneous".
This category includes things like riding ferris wheels and having the
flu.
Left over are 3,898 1/2 hours, or about six months of time we
must've spent together. Good grief! We dated longer than that...the
honeymoon isn't even over yet.
Back to the top
Several of my friends get depressed before Christmas -- for
excellent reasons -- but so far I have managed to hold depression off
until New Year's Day, right after the Rose Bowl Parade. It comes the same
day every year for me, though it starts in various ways.
Sub-consciously maybe I get a little sad New Year's Eve when I see
all those persons on television celebrating at parties at which we gave up
trying to have a good time several years ago. It probably should be enough
for me just to accept that I'm getting older and let others enjoy
themselves, but I secretly feel that New Year's Eve should be abolished.
Depression hit me consciously this year, though, when, right after
the parade, I remembered I had forgotten to buy black-eyed peas, which we
always have on New Year's for good luck. Now I have to worry that whatever
bad thing happens to us this year will be my fault for not fixing those
insidious peas.
From the peas on, January just gets worse for me. During most of
the Christmas holidays, we have a fire in the fireplace, but not so in
January. It is always cold, and my husband, who used to be a rather
generous person, has lately turned into a heat miser.
I sneak into the living room to turn the thermostat up only to
discover he has installed spy mirrors in the corners of the room. I have
two rather good spiders at work there, so before long I'm confident that I
will be able to once again use my safecracking touch on the heat control.
We usually have several guests during Christmas and we make some
effort to be jovial and communicative. We have been known to sing songs,
play charades and recall humorous stories from yesteryear (the kids say we
recall the same ones every year).
In January, however, we crawl back in front of the TV set like
zombies. Sunday night we had a choice of "Archie's Place,"
"Charlie's Angels," "Chips," or an opera.
We watched the first act of the opera, agreed it was excellent and
that we should watch the rest of it and that the other shows were terrible
but finally changed the channel anyway. That's depressing.
On the Monday after the holidays, the rest of the family goes back
to school or work and I re-read the Christmas cards.
Some of our friends have had disastrous things happen to them since
we heard from the last and I start wondering when we're "going to get
ours."
The rest of our friends have been to London, won the supermarket
bingo game or been appointed ambassadors to Kuka-Monga. That depresses me,
too, because I start to wonder where I went wrong and why they get to have
all the fun.
During the Christmas holidays, there constantly are notices in the
papers and on television about free depression clinics and there are
little tips to keep you going -- but in January, nothing.
In January there is only guilt. There are bills you cannot pay.
There are pounds you have to lose and resolutions you have to make. There
are empty refrigerators, frosted windows (inside), decorations to put
away, thank-you notes to write and income taxes to work on.
The only help I was able to find was in The Illuminated Book of
Days by Kay and Marshall Lee. It says "January is a depressing time
of year for many people. In the Middle Ages, people with melancholy
dispositions were advised to avoid fried meats and overly salty foods.
Venison was believed to engender melancholy."
Having eaten venison, I concur, and no one can afford meat anymore,
fried or not, and a lot of us are cutting down on salt, so perhaps there
is a little hope -- toward the end of the month.
Back to the top
Unlike some persons who just pay their federal taxes and are so
relieved they never think about where the dollars go, I envision all my
money going to the places I most detest.
I imagine normal persons, when asked where their tax money goes,
respond with things like, "hospitals, schools, help for the needy,
highways and parks."
Not me. In the past, my money has gone to the executioners at
prisons, the secretaries of certain members of Congress, Nixon's listening
devices, the research into nerve gas, the defeat of gun control
legislation, the Senators' doctor bills, senile judges' salaries and tax
credits for the wealthy.
This year, I am convinced, all my money (I need it to buy milk with
-- I really do) is going to the Inaugural Festivities.
For those of you who are too young to know, inaugural festivities
are those activities that occur every four years when a new President is
installed. Mostly rich persons, but a few others who have dedicated their
lives to the Party, come together in the nation's capital to dance, dine
and celebrate in New Year's Eve fashion over the inauguration of the new
President. (The same persons did the same thing in November, but in
January, the richest of the group get to do it again at the taxpayer's
expense.)
Specifically, this year my money is going, I am sure, to the
installation of the red, white and blue flashing lights in the shape of
the American flag to be displayed at one of the occasions.
I'm quite sure it will take all of my money and then some to get
the thing together. Light bulbs aren't peanuts, these days, and I doubt if
they even let bids for the electrician. I can see the cost overruns now
when the guy installing the monster falls off the ladder and breaks his
arm.
Then it will be my luck that when they plug it in, on the downbeat
of "Hail to the Chief," the apparatus won't work. Workers in
long-handled underwear will talk excitedly on their walkie-talkies and
push buttons and change connectors, but the flag won't turn itself on
until 30 minutes after the whole shebang is over. Then someone else's tax
money will be spent writing a report on what went wrong.
On the other hand, I guess it's conceivable that rich persons need
to see neon once in a while to show them how the rest of us live. Maybe
using all that electricity will remind all those watching at home to turn
off their lights. Yes, there could be some good things to come out of it,
if it works.
But I'd still rather them gather at the Lincoln Memorial, watch the
President take the oath, go home and give me back my milk money.
Back to the top
When we welcomed the hostages home last week, there were probably
as many different reasons for joy as there were people on the streets.
Some of the children I heard interviewed by a television reporter
probably were there for the best purpose. They said, simply, they were
there to welcome the hostages home.
Two of our children and I were there to do the same, but I knew
that down deep I was also celebrating the fact that my country, so
accustomed to instant gratification, had practiced patience and justice --
and it had won.
My country had considered the lives and welfare of its own people
and those of people all over the world instead of reducing itself to the
"Show 'Em Who's Boss" syndrome.
My country had learned that people of other tongues and other
political persuasions shared our concern over the hostages and offered
their prayers for safety and peace along with ours. My country had
negotiated endlessly, tirelessly and with the help of other nations who
cared. My country had realized that it was a part of a broader world.
My country had watched reporters cry, businessmen donate time and
money to help families in crisis, and thousands of government employees
work around the clock to help reach a solution. My country watched a
president do the right thing instead of the expedient thing.
Thousands of my country's school children had sent cards and
letters to the hostages and their families expressing their love.
My country had cried with hostage families on television shows. We
had shared human tragedy.
We had not deceived ourselves into thinking that there are simple
answers to complex problems.
When the hostages and their families passed by me, grown men in
three piece suits cried and shouted, "We love you."
I have read columns that said that we have nothing to celebrate,
that we are deceiving ourselves.
Deceiving ourselves?
No, I think perhaps we stopped. And that's cause for celebration.
Back to the top
Last Saturday a couple we had met a few months ago was supposed to
drive to our house from their town and go out to dinner with us.
It had been a hard week for the woman. One of her three small
children had been up the night before with an ear ache, and on Saturday
she had driven into the city to a class only to come home and find mud on
the carpet and marks on the coffee table from her eight-year-old's
"club."
When she got into the car for the hour's drive to our house, she
had a tension headache that developed into a full-blown, debilitating
nauseous feeling by the time she arrived.
Insisting that the rest of us go on to dinner, she said that all
she wanted to do was lie down. Remembering how our bedroom looked, I
cringed, but led her upstairs anyway. She looked too ill to care very much
about my housekeeping.
Her husband, my husband and I had a lovely meal and returned home
two hours later to find Pam looking much better and feeling almost normal.
She said she had slept and that was what she needed, but I know the
real reason she got well was the effect on her of our bedroom decor.
On the bed itself we have no bedspread -- just a sheet which
matches the sheets made into curtains on the windows. On one wall there is
still a huge rainbow painted by our girls when they had the room.
Interspersed among the rainbow hues are paintings, prints thumb-tacked to
the wall and a lamp with no shade. On the opposite wall there is a painted
sun and more prints, under which there is a dresser cluttered with six
months' worth of letters, notes, keys which don't fit anything, empty
boxes, etc.
In one corner of the room sits a card table on which there is a
typewriter, paper, stationery, more letters and various other things that
don't belong. Underneath the card table, in boxes and on the floor, are
boxes of newspaper clippings, envelopes, magazines and other memorabilia
that I cannot force myself to throw away.
Another corner houses a box of Valentine decorations, an ironing
board loaded with unfolded clean clothes and two empty picture frames.
Shirts are hung on doorknobs and shoes are flung in the closet
haphazardly.
In short, our bedroom looks like Ma and Pa Kettle's house prior to
their winning the sweepstakes.
Our friend Pam thinks all she needed to get well was a little rest.
I know that all she needed to feel good about mud on the carpet and marks
on the coffee table was a good look at our bedroom.
Amid a neighbor's refuse, one can often find refuge from one's own.
Back to the top
While I was visiting in North Carolina last week, I attended some
of the university classes my brother, a mathematics professor, teaches.
In some erudite book there is a saying to the effect that anyone
who doesn't understand mathematics is at best a subhuman who has learned
to eat, bathe and not make messes in the house. Since I fit into that
category, I prefer to think that my first-born brother inherited all the
math brain cells, and I got the dregs.
At any rate, I was unable to understand much of the subject matter
of Ray's classes, but I was able to observe the students and their
behavior.
The youth of a nation, like its politicians, is the mirror image of
the society. It shouldn't be surprising then, that taking drugs has
notoriously been linked with the disturbed young people fathered by the
"me generation."
I heard a Virginia legislator say the other day that by the time a
group of Virginia youths is 18, a staggering 88 percent of them will have
had a drug experience. Rural Wythe County has one of the highest rates. In
New York, the figure is 64 percent. So, drug use is everywhere, and it's
scary.
But what I observed among the college students I saw was not the
fixed gaze of the pot smoker or even Animal House behavior. These kids
were clean, neatly dressed, respectful, alert and ready to listen. They
laughed eagerly and helped each other find answers.
It was obvious that the girls, unlike many girls of my generation,
were there to learn instead of to find husbands. The boys seemed more
sensitive, less macho.
On my brother's desk lay a Valentine from two former students and a
thank-you note from another. In short, those young men and women were as
refreshing as the young are supposed to be.
The status symbols (who'd have believed twenty years ago that they
would be tiny green alligators and scruffy deck shoes instead of big, red
cars?) were still there, but individual creativity, as evidenced by the
girls' hairstyles, had definitely not been stamped out.
Maybe America has been through its mid-life crisis and maybe its
young adults are growing up. Maybe there are just more people who
understand mathematics and fewer sub-humans.
All I know is that at that university, I was impressed by Youth.
Some Youth looks better these days than when I was young, and I like it
that way.
Back to the top
Can it have been 20 years since my husband and I were members of
separate social clubs at our university? The young student who called last
week asked us if we were coming back to the reunion. When he found out we
were charter members of our clubs, he gasped, "Gosh, I'm talking to
history!"
I had never thought of myself as walking history before and when I
laughed, the young man apologized. "Oh, I didn't mean it that
way. I just meant..."
What he meant was that he was talking to the first president of a
club that was conceived before he was, and to whose "brother"
club he had pledged and then been assigned to call all the old geezers
long distance.
After I hung up, I couldn't stop laughing. I don't remember if I
ever thought of myself as being 40 one day when I was younger. I probably
didn't, since I don't even think of myself as being 41 next month. I do
remember patronizingly guiding alumni around the campus, pointing out new
facilities, when I was a student. I probably even told those who were my
age now to be careful going down the steps.
It's just as well I couldn't foresee the actualities of life then.
I'd have laughed even harder at "Love 'Em and Leave 'Em Larry"
turning out to be a preacher against sex education, the college queens
wearing their hair the same way it was in the yearbook but adding more
purple eyeshadow each year, and me applying for a job in a restaurant at
minimum wage after going to college for four years.
I guess all of us girls who started our social club were too young
to ever think of ourselves as historical figures. We never dreamed that
when we were old we would be honored for wanting to have fun when we were
young.
Kids have more class these days than we did, I guess. They are able
to recognize history right over the telephone. I always had to read it in
a book. I never thought anything was history unless I had studied it in
school.
Oh, my gosh! You don't suppose they will study me on Alumni Day at
the club's tea, do you? Will the pledges have to memorize the names and
diseases of the charter members? Will they research us and tell what we
have accomplished?
Boy howdy! (old expression) I had better get busy! Move over, Clara
Barton, here I come! Such pressure! And to think, all I wanted 20 years
ago was to have a good time.
Back to the top
An old friend of mine called me last week and said she got our
daughter's graduation announcement and then she asked, "Have you
decided what you want to be yet?"
"You mean my daughter?" I asked. "She's thinking
about law or acting."
"No, no, not her," she said. "You -- what are
you going to be? The kids will be gone before you know it, and a woman's
peak years are from 45-55. What are you going to give the world?"
"Gosh," I said, "I gave it three children. I made
mud pies, watched homemade plays, joined the PTA and voted by secret
ballot whether to buy or bake cookies for the Valentine parties, boosted
the economy by buying tennis shoes every year, waited in the car when the
kids were ashamed of me, shamed them when they drew on their walls when
they were toddlers and said, 'That's good!' when they drew on their walls
when they were teenagers. Isn't that enough?"
"No, no," she said. "Now comes the productive
part."
"I produced, I produced!" I cried.
"Of course you did, dear," she said, "but I hope you
don't think you're through."
"I hadn't thought about it," I said. "I've been too
busy capping strawberries."
"Strawberries are delicious," said Martha, "but they
go with whipped cream and that goes straight to your hips. You'd better
think of something else."
"Well, what are you doing these days?" I asked.
"I just landed a job as administrative assistant to an oil
executive. I'm flying to Denver next month for training," she
replied.
"That isn't fair," I said. "I used to live in
Denver. I have friends there I haven't seen in two years."
"You have to work for success," she said. "it took
me almost three years to get this job. That's why you've got to decide now
what you want to do with your life."
"But I've been looking for jobs for months," I said.
"You can't just look for jobs, Peggy," she said.
"You have to know what you want to be first."
"Well, I can't afford to be a doctor and I don't think they
let people my age become stewardesses."
"I mean now you have to realistically decide what you want to
be. You should know by now what you can't be. Focus on the things you can
do."
"You mean like capping strawberries?" I asked.
"Think executive," she said. "Strawberry executive."
I got excited.
"I think I could do it!" I said. "First you buy this
little strawberry huller at the hardware store -- costs 55 cents. My word,
I could go into strawberry pies, strawberry syrups, strawberry mousses.
Thanks, Martha! You've changed my life. Years from now people will be
reading about this conversation on the back of a box of pie. It will
inspire millions of women to be something...I will be flying to
Denver every month throwing strawberries on skiers out of a helicopter.
Strawberry men will be serving my strawberry whole-grain cereal at the
White House...singing my strawberry jingles..."
Martha interrupted.
"Peggy," she said softly, "on second thought, maybe
you've done enough."
Back to the top
As I have said before, when I was a little girl, in order to keep
me still while my mother cut my toenails, she put them into a large brown
paper sack and my father exclaimed over them when he came home as if they
were something to be very, very proud of.
When my children were small, it seemed to me that if I had done
everything else I needed to do for them, their fingernails and toenails
always needed cutting.
And after they got older, I thought as I vacuumed that they must've
played tiddly winks with their nails when they cut them -- always missing
the trash can.
I thought about all my adventures with toenails this week when I
walked through the living room and found our son clipping his toenails
into a neat pile on the carpet.
Mike will be 12 this week, and to my knowledge that was the first
time he had cut his toenails without being told. "It must be a sign
of manhood," I thought.
And then he did another strange thing. He actually asked me to take
him to get a haircut -- another first.
It was almost too much of a shock. Our youngest child was passing
into puberty right before my eyes.
"How odd," I thought, "that toenails should be the
first sign." I wondered if it had anything to do with the ugly
picture in the Guinness Book of World Records of the man with the longest
fingernails in the world.
That night I heard the clip-clip-clipping of nail clippers.
"Cutting your toenails?" I asked my husband.
"Yes," he said, "but don't worry. I'm using the
wastebasket."
"That's okay," I said. "Leave a few on the carpet. A
whole era of my life is passing, and I just realized that toenails are
symbolic of it."
"In that case," he said, "bring me a big paper sack
and I'll save them for you."
They're right. Life is just a series of cycles.
Back to the top
"Mother, what's competency?" asked the five-year-old
daughter of a friend of mine I was visiting in another city.
Her mother said, "It's being capable -- able to do certain
skills. Why?"
"Because I have to take a test in kindergarten to see if I
am," said the little girl. And then she started to cry. "What
will happen to me if I'm not?"
"Don't worry, honey," said her mother. "Nothing will
happen to you. You're competent. And even if you weren't, it wouldn't
matter."
"Did you ever have to take a competency test?" asked the
little girl.
"No, I guess I didn't," said her mother.
"Why not?" asked the daughter.
"They hadn't thought of it yet, I guess, when I was
young."
"Who thinks of it now?" asked the little girl.
"People who are trying to prove they are competent, I
suppose," said my friend. "Now quit thinking about it and go
play."
After the girl left, my friend turned to me and said, "Gosh,
we're next. It's really scary."
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Anything that happens in kindergarten just foreshadows by a
few months what happens in the rest of society."
"I don't understand," I said.
"Don't you remember a few years ago when they started showing
fathers washing the dishes and doing the laundry and mothers driving
trucks in kindergarten books in order not to reinforce old role
models?"
"Yes, I thought it was great," I said.
"So did I," she said. "But it never happened. Now I
drive a bread truck but I have to do the dishes in my free time. And I'm
not very competent at both."
"I don't know," I said. "I think you drive a pretty
mean bread truck."
"Oh, I do," she said. "But the house looks
awful."
"Who cares?" I said. "You can always clean it up
when you have time."
"Don't you see?" she said. "They are going to start
giving us competency tests."
"You mean housewives?" I said. "Nobody cares if
we're competent or not."
"You mark my word," she said. "If somebody cares
whether five-year-old kids are competent or not, within a few months
somebody will care whether housewives are competent. They'll have a
Congressional hearing on us."
"But that would be discriminating," I said. "It
would have to be a house person competency bill."
"They can call it what they want to, but you and I know who
would get tested. And it wouldn't be my husband."
"But what would they use for criteria? Every time I turn on
the vacuum cleaner, I have to stop to take one of the kids to practice for
something. The vacuum has been sitting in the living room so long my
husband put a plant in it. Do you think driving time would compensate for
not vacuuming?"
"I don't think it would," she said. "It would
probably fit under the category of 'Preparing for a Career.'"
"Gosh, I wish I could afford a maid," I said.
"Hey, that's it!" she said. "I'll put down that
you're my maid and you can put down that I'm your maid. That way we'll be
rated incompetent as maids, which is not our profession anyway, but we'll
be cleared as housewives."
"That's called Beating the System," I said.
And she said, "And that's worth a dishpan full of competency
any day."
"Well, let's change the system," I said. "Then we
wouldn't have to beat it."
"Oh, no,"
she said. "If you tried to change the competency system, people would
say it was because you were incompetent -- and who wants an incompetent
five-year-old or a house person with a dirty house?"
Back to the top
I am always amused at the answers money experts give to the
desperate people who write and ask how they can make their paychecks cover
their living costs.
In the first place, one has to realize that the "experts"
do not have a problem with money. They are experts on the subject BECAUSE
they have money left over after they pay their bills. Real money problems
are as foreign to them as an airplane trip is to a ghetto child.
That is why their suggestions to people in dire straits include
such things as: "Buy furs in August and TV sets in May and
June."
I would like to offer my own tips from past and present experience
on how to save enough money to eat out once a month (at McDonald's).
1. Eat only one meal a day. If you have small children, send them
next door as often as possible for cookies. If you have teen-agers, make
them get a job at a restaurant.
2. Go to the dentist, doctor or orthodontist only if you are in
intense pain or bleeding profusely.
3. Do not buy or read any magazines or newspapers or watch
television. Your children will want everything they see in the ads and you
will have much more free time to make and sell cookies for your neighbors
to buy.
4. Run the vacuum cleaner only once a week. Let the dog or cat lick
the floor.
5. Never write letters. People who want to visit your area and stay
two weeks with you will call soon enough.
6. Take a bath only once a week. To really save, make everyone use
the same water.
7. If you must have a dinner party, serve only beans, rice or
grits.
8. Do not drink milk, coffee or tea. Hot Kool-Aid may be
substituted on special occasions.
9. Do not accept collect phone calls from relatives unless there
are sirens in the background.
10. Resist the urge to buy gravesites or burial insurance. No one
will leave you lying around dead.
11. Above all, do not go anywhere in your car. Turn the heat down,
dress warmly, gather around the kerosene lamp and sing songs or read a
book. It will be just like the Good Old Days everyone's been longing for
so long.
Back to the top
At graduation time every year, baccalaureate and commencement
speakers the world over search for new advice to give to the generation
going out into the world on its own.
Platitudes abound. Graduation cards repeat the same verses.
Ceremonies struggle for uniqueness, but seem remarkably alike. The cast is
different, but the set remains the same.
The similarity of the scenes tends to make all but the parents and
the participants forget the importance of the fact that the players are
different -- that each generation carries with it a chance of democracy,
of humanitarianism, of destruction.
I don't remember anything about any of my graduation ceremonies
except that when I graduated from junior high my father gave me my diploma
because he was superintendent of schools, and when I graduated from
college, he gave me my diploma because he was acting president of the
university. I was a little embarrassed in junior high when he handed me
the certificate because I feared people would think I was getting special
treatment, but I was glad, too, because I knew he was proud of me.
By the time I graduated from college, I was proud of my father for
his being the man he was. I didn't really care what his profession was,
but I was glad he was giving me my diploma because I was proud to be his
daughter.
Messages to Youth
I read two small books this week -- Albert Einstein, The Human
Side, edited by Dukas and Hoffman, and A Day No Pigs Would Die,
by Robert Peck. There are messages to youth in both.
Albert Einstein wrote: "O Youth: Do you know that yours is not
the first generation to yearn for a life full of beauty and freedom? Do
you know that all your ancestors felt as you do -- and fell victim to
trouble and hatred?
"Do you know, also, that your fervent wishes can only find
fulfillment if you succeed in attaining love and understanding of men, and
animals, and plants, and stars, so that every joy becomes your joy and
every pain your pain? Open your eyes, your heart, your hands, and avoid
the poison your forebears so greedily sucked in from History. Then will
all the earth be your fatherland, and all your work and effort spread
forth blessings."
And Haven Peck, a Shaker farmer in Vermont, who killed pigs for a
living, was explaining to his son why he wasn't allowed to vote. "Who
decides?" asked the son.
"Men who look at me and do not take me for what I be. Men who
only see me make my mark, my X, when I can't sign my name. They can't see
how I true a beam to build our barn, or see that the rows of corn in my
field are straight as fences. They just see me walk the street in Learning
in clothes made me by my own woman. They do not care that my coat is
sturdy and keeps me warm. They'll not care that I owe no debt, and that I
am beholding to no man."
Rich and Poor
The boy asks if it doesn't make the father heartsick and the father
says no, because he is rich and they are poor.
"We're not rich, Papa. We're..."
"Yes we are, boy. We have one another to fend to, and this
land to tend. And one day we'll own it outright. We have Solomon here to
wind up a capstan and help us haul our burdens. And look here, he's almost
done pulling that cratch where we want it pulled to. We have Daisy's hot
milk. We got rain to wash up with, to get the grime off us. We can look at
sundown and see it all, so that it wets the eye and hastens the heart. We
hear all the music that's in the wind, so much music that it itches my
foot to start tapping. Just like a fiddle."
Both Albert Einstein and Haven Peck were saying the same thing to
the younger generation. My father said it to me by the way he lived. To
this day, I never heard him talk about "success," but I know he
knows what it doesn't mean.
