The Crab Chronicles

Halloween Memories

My favorite costume as a child was a witch costume my aunt gave me. It was a simple black cotton dress she had sewn, and it had fringe around the hem and at the sleeves. There was also a tall witch hat. My cousin had outgrown it so I inherited it. Otherwise, we wore either bought costumes from the dime store, or we made our own costumes.

It was always popular to be a Gypsy, because you got to wear all your mama's old costume jewelry and put on lipstick. Where we got this "gypsy" concept I don't know. For boys, being a tramp was similarly easy to pull together (minus the lipstick and jewelry, usually).

We have no photos of me at Halloween as a child because my dad didn't believe it was a photo-worthy occasion. Film cost money.

My parents made me quit trick or treating in 6th grade because they felt I was too old and it was basically a holiday for little kids. They were right, but I bitterly resented it. However, my brother and I went to great lengths, for years, to rig up fake "ghosts" and play scary music and do all sorts of theatrics to scare the trick or treaters...

Mike got to dress up today to go work at his sports bar job. We thought this was the perfect costume:

Below, some Halloween memories...

Here are a couple of non-Halloween shots but they seem appropriate -

China Lifts One Child Policy

I was watching the news this morning and the Today show said absolutely nothing about a headline I found startling: China lifts one child policy amid worries of graying population. What startled me about the story is that the word "adoption" is not mentioned even once. The one child policy implemented by China in 1980 is the reason why there have been so many female babies available for adoption in that country. Families generally choose to keep male babies and give away females.

Now couples in China can legally have two children.

I have a neighbor who adopted her daughter from China, after about 4 years of waiting. It's not a fast process but it's fairly reliable. I have several friends and one distant cousin who have all adopted from China. I have one friend who adopted a little boy from China who is missing his hand, a congenital defect.These children are loved, cared for just as though they were biological children, and they have chances they would never have had in China. Yet, they will grieve for their lost birth families for the rest of their lives.

The part they missed, the part that's so interesting to me, as it would be to most mothers, is this: hopefully this will cut down on the number of abandoned babies in China. So many of my friends and folks I know who have adopted from China had children who were left at police stations, on street corners, in parks. These babies usually go to orphanages but there is no way for them to ever find their birth families, or it's highly unlikely. My kids were removed from neglectful and abusive birth homes but there IS information, should they every choose to return to their birth countries and search for their birth families. There are names.Conversations are possible.

The emotional cost to Chinese-American children of being abandoned, is very high.

Separating a baby from its mother causes anxiety and stress that can be felt even by a newborn. Then being put into an overcrowded institution, warehoused essentially, without real love or bonding, exacts an even higher toll on a child. According to International Adoption Stories these are common feelings in adopted children:

Questions arise,
“ Why did my birthmother offer me for adoption?”
“ How would life have been different if I wasn’t adopted?”
“ Where is my birthmother now?”
“ Why couldn’t my adoptive parents have just been my birthparents?”

"Most adoptees struggle with these questions several times throughout their lives. The first time is often when they just become old enough to understand the concept of adoption. They often think about these issues throughout their teen years and again each time a life changing event occurs."

Add to that the facts that most Chinese babies abandoned are female, or if they are male they have some medical condition, and you really begin to see the effects on the development of these children.

The sad fact is there are many male babies and children available for adoption in China but they are always "special needs." Many of them have congenital birth defects. I was on a Yahoo group for years, for people who have adopted children with limb differences, and 99% of all the parents there adopted from China. That culture feels like a child missing an arm or foot, or even a few fingers, is defective and brings bad luck. In traditional Asian cultures, the idea that handicapped people can lead full lives is not really accepted, or even considered.

It's hard for people outside the adoption world to really understand the deep feelings of abandonment and rejection experienced by Chinese orphans because in most cases, our parents wanted us and we were loved and nurtured. The wounds of that initial abandonment run very deep, however, and if not addressed and processed properly can lead to lifetime issues with self-esteem, and sometimes substance abuse and relationship issues.

My own kids have struggled with these issues, even though they weren't abandoned at birth. They will always have to deal with the fact that their birthmoms didn't try to parent them, but let them be placed in the orphanage. Good for me, but tough to explain to a child or even an adult. Trying to explain why substance abuse creates an inability to care for others is really tough to do. It doesn't really help to heal them.

China is still a communist country. Oftentimes that is forgotten by the rest of the world, even by journalists. That means the individual has no rights all. The rights are in the hands of the state. The individual exists to serve the state. That philosophy even reaches into the very private decision of how many children to have.

I will be interested to see how the change in policy affects international adoption.

I hope and pray for all the children adopted from China who have suffered due to the one child policy. I pray for healing for all concerned who have suffered - the mothers who felt they had no choice but to abandon their children, and the children. I also pray that American parents seeking to adopt will be able to find the right children to complete their families, whether from China or somewhere else.

my children, 2007

Life Causes Cancer

The news outlets were buzzing yesterday with the announcement by the World Health Organization that Processed Meat Causes Cancer. The problem with news these days is that most of it comes at us in easily digestible sound bytes. Those snippets of news are fast, easily digestible, and almost always distortions.

I like this article a lot because it takes time to explain, in more detail, exactly what the meat causes cancer outcry is really saying: Here's why you shouldn't panic over processed meats causing cancer.

Here's an excerpt which put it in perspective:

Recent estimates suggest that, around the world, 34,000 cancer deaths can be attributed to diets high in processed meat each year. Diets high in red meat, which has not been positively linked as a direct cause of cancer, could be responsible for as many as 50,000 deaths per year worldwide, though it’s difficult to know exactly. By contrast, smoking causes about a million deaths per year, while alcohol consumption results in about 600,000 deaths each year globally.

So yes, eating a lot of bacon and steak is not a good idea. Cutting red meat out of your diet will lessen your chances of getting cancer. Vegetarianism is a great idea. I totally endorse it.

However, I will not be turning to vegetarianism any time in the near future. I cook for my mother and my mother loves beef. My mother eats red meat a LOT. She is 81 years old, soon to be 82.

We recently stopped eating bacon, but that was due to Mom having difficulty chewing it, not because it's bad for her health.

I think high cholesterol is caused by genetic factors. If you are genetically destined to have high cholesterol, I'm so sorry. Years ago I worked with a lady whose cholesterol was so terrible she had to take medication. She has not overweight, didn't smoke, and ate very very healthfully. I ate lunch with her nearly every day. Yet, she took medication to try and keep her cholesterol down, and they were still sky-high despite all her efforts. My dad was the same. He had to take cholesterol medication.

My mother, however, has enjoyed bacon and eggs nearly every day of her life. A couple of years ago she had to have a pacemaker implanted, and they did a heart catheterization. I sat in the waiting room, awaiting the doctor's report after her procedure. I was sure he was going to tell me that my mom was eaten up with heart disease. He came in and told me, his voice grace and serious, "Miss Thompson, your mother is a character." That was the first thing out of his mouth. I was so startled I laughed. "Yes she is, that's absolutely true," I replied.

"We looked at all the arteries going in and out of her heart, and there are no signs of heart disease. Her arteries are clean as a whistle, probably clearer than mine."

I just stared at him. He was in his 30's and had the physique of an athlete. "I run 5 miles a day," he said.

When I was in the hospital a few months ago and had a heart ultrasound, I was told my heart is similarly healthy. It just has an arrhythmia that's annoying, but the pacemaker has taken care of that. 

Now, do I think that eating tons of red meat and processed meat is a great idea? No, of course not.

When I was watching the news last night, there was a doctor who was interviewed about the WHO announcement and he said basically that if you eat a lot of red meat and/or processed meat it raises your cancer chances by about 1%. Another doctor on a different network said the takeaway from the study is that people should eat healthfully, and eat junk food and processed foods in moderation.

I mention all this for a couple of reasons. One, the news media is too quick to be alarmist.

Two, I refuse to live my life obsessing over what causes cancer and what doesn't cause cancer. [In all fairness, I will say this: if there were a strong family history of breast cancer in my family, like one of my friends has, I would consider a preemptive mastectomy to cut my chances. I totally understand that.]

Cancer is a mysterious and terrible thing, but living life in its shadow is not the way I choose to live.

My father died of cancer. I watched the disease ravage him, and I watched him change from a strong, energetic man to a frail old man in a matter of months. I would not wish that death on my worst enemy. I look back on my life and it divides neatly into two parts, the part from birth to age 34, when Dad was alive, and the part since then.

I never thought I would have a personal encounter with cancer, but it happened.

A couple of years ago, in the summer of 2013, I had to have a hysterectomy. There were cancer cells in my uterus. It was Stage 1. The surgeon felt like she got it all. No radiation or chemotherapy were necessary. When the gynecologist told me, after a D&C, that I had cancer cells in my uterus it felt like someone had punched me in the gut. The word "shock" can't begin to describe it. However, I very quickly wrapped my head around it and it didn't bother me as much as it did my family. I simply knew it wasn't my time to die.

Don't ask me how I knew it. I just knew. I knew recently that my heart issues were not going to be fatal either.

Undoubtedly I will die one day, maybe one day soon, but I think not. I think I am going to live probably another 20-30 years. I am 53. [I eat a reasonably decent diet and I walk every day. I don't smoke or drink. I am working on making my diet better.]

Here's the other aspect of it, though. If I am wrong, I do not fear death. I don't. I have faith. I know I will see my father and my grandparents and many others on the other side.

I think when it's someone's time to die, they die. I think it's preordained. So there's no reason to obsess over it.

Michael and I were talking today about life, and the fact that it is, at times, very hard. "It's HARD. I don't really want to be here," Michael said. He is prone to dramatic statements like that but they don't alarm me.

"There is really only one reason to stay here and stick it out," I replied.

"What?!" he said, his voice challenging and angry as only a teenaged boy can be angry.

"It's simple. LOVE. That's what makes life worth it," I replied.

That took the wind out of his sails. Hopefully it gave him food for thought. He knows I love him LOTS. I tell him every day.

 

Rather than fearing cancer, or fearing death, I try to live life in a positive frame of mind. I try to savor the good things in life -- my garden, my writing, the love of my family, music, cooking, reading, my friends -- all the things that give me pleasure -- and ignore the yucky parts, or at least just pray my way through them. Plus I try to act in a loving way towards folks. That's really the best anyone can do.

I refuse to live my life worrying about my death. When it's my time, I will die. Until then, I intend to LIVE fully and intentionally.

"The cure for dirt is soap and water. The cure for death is life."

Chinese Proverb

 

Important History Lessons for Females Under Thirty

There is a new movie out which looks excellent, Suffragette, about the women's rights movement in England a hundred years ago. It looks like a movie everyone should see. I posted a video clip of the trailer on Facebook the other day:

 

My friend Carla Satterfield Hargrove posted this comment in response: "I took a Women's Studies class this past summer. Almost all of the young women professed to be passionate about women's rights but really did not understand when I spoke about life when there were no female sports teams, admittance caps in medical and law schools, and women were limited to professional choices. They could only talk about slut and fat shaming. Not a single one knew who Betty Friedan was." [Friedan "published The Feminine Mystique, which explores the idea of women finding fulfillment beyond traditional roles. Friedan co-founded the National Organization for Women in 1966, and served as its first president."]

When I read Carla's comment, I was HORRIFIED. APPALLED. SHOCKED.

School history classes have become a lot more inclusive and less WASPY. I know this for a fact. I used to read my kids' middle school and high school social studies books, helping them with homework or helping them study for tests. The last time I recall doing that, the text was much more open about the fact that white settlers in Georgia stole land from the Creek and Cherokee tribes. When I was a kid they just said something to the effect of "The white settlers moved onto land that was formerly uninhabited except by Indians." I never questioned that. We tend to just accept what's presented to us.

Textbooks have gotten much more sensitive to presenting black history, and that's a great thing. Clearly, though, it's not enough.

Are History books failing to tell our young girls THEIR history? Based on Carla's comment, it would seem to be true.

So here are some important points that young women under thirty need to know, IMHO:

Hilary Clinton's campaign for the presidency is the culmination of more than two hundred years of women fighting to be treated equally to men. I don't know about her mother, but I guarantee you her grandmother didn't even have the right to VOTE until she was middle-aged. Women in America didn't have the right to vote until 1920. It had been a hard fight, for decades. Men claimed we didn't have the intelligence to vote, or we would just vote for who our husbands told us to vote for - women were considered hysterical and unreliable.

You think fat-shaming is bad? Really? Well I'm not in favor of it, but imagine a world where young women's bodies are abused by corsets, and a woman appearing in public in PANTS would be considered indecent. [Yes, I know corsets are making a comeback but they are really just traps designed to make young women suffer. Corsets constrict breathing. They impede running. They make females less able-bodied and able to resist an attacker and therefore IMHO they are appalling.] In the 1940's when Katharine Hepburn wore tailored slacks in London, Claridge's hotel made her use the back door, because she was so un-ladylike.

Until I was in 6th grade I was not allowed to wear pants to school, except on the rare "snow days" a few times a year. I wore dresses or skirts. My mother never wore pants to school. It was considered improper.

See how things have changed, just in my 53 years? It's staggering.

If you were born in the 1890's instead of the 1990's your life would be very different. You couldn't vote until 1920, but that's not all. Women then weren't allowed to own property in their own name. They couldn't sit on juries. Most women didn't go to college because it was considered a waste of time. Most women just got married and had children, never working outside the home. [Working inside the home was very hard, too - there were no washing machines, no dishwashers, no convenience foods. Clothes had to be sewn by hand or on machines. Cars were luxury items. Telephones and electricity were not common.]

Birth control information was illegal. Want to limit your family two two children? Here are the options: stop having sex or hope you didn't get pregnant. It was illegal for people to try and limit family size. In 1873 Congress had passed the Comstock Act, outlawing the dissemination of birth control devices or information through the mail. [This is why my great grandparents all had families with 8-12 children.]

Want to be a doctor or a lawyer? Forget it. Medical schools and law schools wouldn't admit you, no matter how good your grades. The only two professional paths for women were teaching or nursing. Women who had to work [the working poor] usually worked in factories for very low pay, or they cooked or cleaned for wealthy families.

Sports were not an option either. Girls didn't play on school sports teams. That was true even when I was small. It wasn't until 1972 that Title IX was passed, giving girls access to sports teams. According to the National Women's Law Center: Title IX is the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in schools that receive federal funding — including in their athletics programs. Despite the fact that Title IX has opened many doors for women and girls in athletics, schools across the country are still not providing equal opportunities for girls to participate in sports and are not treating girls’ teams equally in terms of benefits and resources. 

Things still aren't right or fair of you're a female.

A friend of mine posted on Facebook that her 12 year old daughter loves basketball and wanted to play on a school team, but there is no girls' basketball team at her public school. She had to try out for the boy's team recently.

We've come a long way in the past hundred years, but we still have a ways to go. "Women working full time, year round in the United States were typically paid only 79 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts in 2014. For women of color, the gaps are even larger," according to the National Women's Law Center.

So young women today have many more options. They don't have to just stay home and be housewives, although that may be one option. They can play sports. They can pursue a career. They can wear pants out in public. They can marry or not marry. They can be mothers or not.

The most important thing mothers can do for their daughters is make them aware of history. Our daughters need to be aware of pioneers like Susan B. Anthony, who fought with the abolitionist movement and fought for women to have the same legal rights as men - in the 19th century when women had almost no rights. She dedicated her entire life to making the world a better place:

Susan B. Anthony was born February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. She was brought up in a Quaker family with long activist traditions. Early in her life she developed a sense of justice and moral zeal.

After teaching for fifteen years, she became active in temperance. Because she was a woman, she was not allowed to speak at temperance rallies. This experience, and her acquaintance with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, led her to join the women's rights movement in 1852. Soon after, she dedicated her life to woman suffrage.

Ignoring opposition and abuse, Anthony traveled, lectured, and canvassed across the nation for the vote. She also campaigned for the abolition of slavery, the right for women to own their own property and retain their earnings, and she advocated for women's labor organizations. In 1900, Anthony persuaded the University of Rochester to admit women.

Anthony, who never married, was aggressive and compassionate by nature. She had a keen mind and a great ability to inspire. She remained active until her death on March 13, 1906.

Will Hillary win the White House in 2016? I don't know. If she does, she should make it a priority to finish the fight and get women on a truly equal footing with men in this country.

Beginning in the 1800s, laws in the United States prohibited birth control, when temperance and anti-vice groups advocated outlawing birth control devices and information about birth control devices. These groups considered birth control information to be obscene, a belief that was popular enough that in 1873, Congress passed the Comstock Act outlawing the dissemination of birth control devices or information through the mail. Most states followed suit by passing their own laws outlawing the advertising, sale, and distribution, of contraception. - See more at: http://family.findlaw.com/reproductive-rights/birth-control-and-the-law-basics.html#sthash.Hvcq6twM.dpuf

Beginning in the 1800s, laws in the United States prohibited birth control, when temperance and anti-vice groups advocated outlawing birth control devices and information about birth control devices. These groups considered birth control information to be obscene, a belief that was popular enough that in 1873, Congress passed the Comstock Act outlawing the dissemination of birth control devices or information through the mail. Most states followed suit by passing their own laws outlawing the advertising, sale, and distribution, of contraception. - See more at: http://family.findlaw.com/reproductive-rights/birth-control-and-the-law-basics.html#sthash.Hvcq6twM.dpuf

Things I Never Thought I'd Say to My Son

When I adopted a little boy I knew it would be different but nobody prepared me for HOW different. He has been a joy 95% of the time since he came into my life, and he has taught me a lot about how much I had missed by never living with a male during my entire adult life. [The phrase put the toilet seat DOWN, comes to mind, among a few others...LOL]

In a way, parenting a boy worked out better for me, though, because I am not a "girly girl" and it's easier for me to relate to a boy. Boys are pretty straightforward. (I love my daughter but she is a "girly girl" and I think this may account for some of the challenges in our relationship.) My son never makes me feel guilty for not taking him for a "mani/pedi" or shopping at the mall. [I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than do either activity...]

Here are a few things, though, I never THOUGHT I'd hear myself saying to my son..

"You have to give a speech dressed as Harriet Tubman?!" [that was in 3rd grade and he was still learning English and didn't understand the instructions until it was too late]

"Oh, those ear gauges look nice with that outfit."

"You want to borrow WHAT to put on your hair?!?" [gel]

"Do you really think running down Stone Mountain in your Vans [shoes] when it's raining is a good idea?!"

"You really like a German performance art group, Du Hast?" [I really didn't want a translation of the German...]

"Don't get a tattoo that can be seen in a job interview." [it never occurred to me any child of mine would get a tattoo, or three..]

"Since you started college, I don't get my usual Fall school photos, so how about we make a photo right now, and call it your Fall Photo?!" [the result is below]

For those who are interested, the "Sasha" tattoo is a memorial to his older brother Sasha, who died, and angel wings; the one on the underside of his upper arm is the phases of the moon and Cancer [his astrological sign]; the one on the lower part of his arm, red roses and my name...

Color Me Happy

When I was a child I was a champion at coloring. I loved my crayons. I loved to paint. Every day in first grade, the teacher handed out "washing hands" papers. They were mimeographed pages with simple line drawings and we were supposed to color them, quietly, and when we were through we could wash our hands and get ready for lunch.

I remember my teacher praising folks who colored within the lines. I colored within the lines.

I didn't stop coloring within the lines until... college?! I was a conformist, most of the time. Don't judge.

As an adult, I've often thought of a time in high school when some friends and I spent about an hour at a kids' playground playing. Swinging on the swings. Going down the slide. Yes, we were teenagers, but there was nobody around, and it was glorious, being able to just step back a bit and play. Most of my frantically busy high school years are a blur, but that hour is clear to me.

As adults, we often don't give ourselves permission to stop "adulting" sometimes, and just play. We have to take the kids to sports. We have to get to work. We have to clean up the kitchen. We have a million things to do, and all of it's important and we have to do it all RIGHT NOW. Perfectly. We are expected to color within the lines or face severe judgment from our peers, neighbors, families, you name it.

A few months ago when I was still feeling pretty wiped out from the surgery and was bored, I decided to order myself a coloring book. I saw this: According to psychologists, coloring is the best alternative to meditation. I ordered my book from Amazon.

I dug around and found the big tin box Alesia had used to put all her felt tip markers in, and went to work coloring, with abandon.

Michael started coloring, too, and picked up the new colored pencils shown about, at Walgreens.

"Coloring allows us to unlock that creative potential that we all possess.  Yet more importantly it helps with relieving anxiety and tension.  When you are coloring it helps unlock memories from childhood, such as having fun laying on your stomach on the floor and letting your imagination run wild and free."

When I am coloring, I am not thinking about anything but making my picture look nice. I often have to TV turned on, but I just listen, or turn the sound off entirely.

Some people cannot meditate. I can, but it's hard to relax completely. Expecially when the neighbor's yard guy is blowing leaves, and Lola is snoring, and I've got a sinus headache, and... you get the idea.

For those of you who can't meditate, try coloring. Put on some music you like, and just color. Don't worry about it being perfect. Nobody needs ever see it. Just use colors you like, and have fun.

Above, my first completed picture. Note how I went outside the lines and even off the page! Take THAT, Mrs. Jones [my first grade teacher]!

Once I got that out of my system I went back to coloring within the lines, of course...

The Family Quilt

In early 1933 my grandmother, Wilma Butler Hasty, realized she was pregnant, for the third time. She and Papaw had two boys, Bobby Jr. and Don, and finally it was time [she hoped] for a girl. She had been married nearly ten years.

Mamaw, Papaw, Bobby and Don, before Elva was born

In 1933, the Depression was in full swing, and times were very hard.

My grandfather was playing for whatever minor league team he could, including for a while the Atlanta Crackers, but many of the minor league teams were going under. Folks without jobs couldn't afford to go to a baseball game.

above, Bobby Jr., Mamaw and little Elva, around 1935

In anticipation of having a girl, Mamaw started a quilt, probably in early 1933. She did it in pink and blue, just in case. The pattern is called a wedding ring or double wedding ring [you can tell I know very little about quilts].

After Mom was born in December 1933, Mamaw brought her home and the next several weeks were chaotic. Mom was a newborn, and Bobby and Don had whooping cough. So Mom stayed downstairs with Mamaw and the boys were sick upstairs and Papaw tended to them. They couldn't let them around the new baby.

That was in the days before whooping cough vaccine.

Mamaw put away the beautiful quilt top she had made for baby Elva. For years, it languished in a box in the closet, moved from house to house, but not finished. There was no back on it.

I don't blame Mamaw for not finishing the quilt. She had to get through the Depression, then World War II, seeing her sons off to war, putting kids through school, working, taking care of Papaw, etc. Life was BUSY. 

Mamaw loved to sew. She sewed dresses for herself and her little girl. She sewed all my school dresses for years. She sewed for her sisters sometimes. She made clothes for my Barbie dolls.

She tried to teach her daughter to sew but that didn't go so well. Mom didn't inherit the sewing genes..

Michael holding the quilt top I discovered in a closet

About 2 years ago, I found the quilt top she had made [see above].It was in very good shape for being 81 years old. I pondered what to do.

Not many folks can say they have a hand-stitched wedding ring quilt made during the Depression. It's a treasure.

I am not a quilter. I can sew on buttons and do basic hems, but that's it. Mamaw tried to teach me to sew, and I could make simple clothes when I was a teenager, but they never looked exactly right so finally I gave up.

My very talented cousin Pat [a Thompson cousin, Dad's side of the family] is a quilter. She made me the beautiful Crab Chronicles quilt, below, that I treasure.

I sent her a photo of the quilt that Mamaw had started in 1932, and asked her if she thought it would be possible to finish it, all these years later. She said send it on -- she lives in Summerville SC. I sent it, and she finished it for us -- an incredibly kind and generous thing to do. Pat is a busy lady who keeps her pre-school grandchildren.**

It's a full-sized quilt.

So Mamaw, up in heaven now, finally has a finished quilt to wrap her "baby" in, after 82 years.

Mom cried when Pat gave it to her this morning.

What an incredible gift. What a blessing to have such wonderful folks in our family.

**Mother has always felt a special kinship with Pat and her sisters because when Papaw was managing and playing for the Cordele Reds in the late 1930's Fleeta [Pat's mother] used to babysit Mother. Fleeta was a young woman and Mom was a toddler. Mom's family lived in a boardinghouse in Cordele that summer. Little did they know that one day Mother would grow up and marry Fleeta's cousin Tony Thompson! Fleeta's husband Woody Hargrove played baseball for Papaw that summer and was very fond of him.

Debating the Old-Fashioned Way

I have not made up my mind who I am going to vote for in the presidential election next year. Until I see who gets the nominations in each party, I don't really want to expend too much mental energy on it, frankly.

I vote for the person, not the party. I have voted for Democrats and I have voted for Republicans. (I might have even voted Libertarian at some point..)

The very first presidential race I voted in was in 1980. I was a freshman in college. I didn't have a car. My dad drove to campus, picked me up, and brought me home in time to vote just before the polls closed. I went back to school the next day.

I remember asking him who I should vote for, because I was so busy with school I really wasn't paying attention to the election. He said something along the lines of "vote for Reagan, he's a good man." So I voted for Reagan, something I regretted later.

Dad never told me how to vote again. We had a lot of rousing arguments about politics when I was in my 20's.

I never thought he didn't love me because of my political opinions, though. There was always mutual respect and love.

It saddens and disturbs me to see how ugly things have gotten over on Facebook, and sometimes in blogs, too. I read two blogs written by women who are highly intelligent and I respect them. Both refer to Republicans like they are villains and monsters. If I could sit them down in front of me and give them a lecture I'd say something like this: my mother is a Republican. She picked that party in the late 1950's when the Republican party stood for integration and against racism. In the South, the Democratic party was the party of racism and segregation [George Wallace is a great example of that] and she felt like that was the wrong side. Today, she doesn't agree with the Republican positions on certain issues, but she sticks with the party because she agrees with most of their positions. To blatantly paint all current Republicans as evil is just wrong.

Let me make something clear right away: I do not belong to either party and I will never claim affiliation with either party. There are good things and bad things about both parties.

However, I grew up with very Republican parents, parents who worked for that party. They felt like it had the best vision for America. In doing so, they defied their parents, who were Democrats. Some of my aunts and uncles vehemently disagreed with my parents, but the discourse always remained civil. Nobody stopped loving their sibling because of political disagreements.

My grandmother Mamaw Hasty had a rule: no discussions of politics or religion at the dinner table. She kept the peace that way.

Facebook has become sort of a virtual dinner table/meeting place for folks from all over to share jokes and funny stories and videos, sometimes sad news, sometimes prayer requests.

I made a decision months ago to resist the urge to post political things on Facebook. I have kept to that decision, for the most part.

I have friends on there who are very liberal and friends who are very conservative.

I feel sad that I am getting to a place where I have had to stop looking at what many of my very liberal and very conservative friends post, because the political things they post are so often distortions of the truth, or just plain lies, or they contain foul language and are really hateful. Most of the time I just "Un-Follow" folks who post crap like that, so we are still friends but I don't see what they post unless I go deliberately over to their page and see. Sometimes I have to reluctantly un-Friend them.

I realized recently, however, that if I un-Follow all my friends who post stuff that's tacky I won't have anything in my Newsfeed.

This was posted by a friend of mine just this morning:

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Here's something I want all my Facebook friends to consider. IF you post something that makes me really angry, whether it's because I disagree, or because I think you're simply trying to inflame opinion, do not expect me to think kindly about you. I am speaking to both sides of the political spectrum here, too.

I see things a lot of times and I think "That's pretty outrageous. I wonder if it's true?" and then I Google it and try to do some research. Oftentimes it is NOT true. Or, it may contain a kernel of truth, but then things have been distorted or exaggerated to simply provoke a reaction. Hateful memes make me furious.

We need to return to civility in this country. We need to stop hollering at each other and actually LISTEN to the other person's opinion. If someone posts something they've written which is thoughtful and from the heart, even if I disagree, I don't get mad. If it's a link to a thoughtful, well-written piece, that's OK too. However, if someone posts something that's just hateful jargon, I get angry.

Debate used to be civilized. There were rules.

Let's go back to that, before we all turn into haters.

Stress Days

Yesterday was one of those super stressful days, but not for anything huge. I got to the end of the day and realized there was just annoyance piled on annoyance and I was mentally exhausted.

My friends are faring far worse than I am these days, which stresses me out, because I hate to see folks I love suffering. For privacy reasons I can't mention names or anything too specific but here are their woes. If you want to pray for them, please do:

• a dear friend is facing a job loss;
• another one is facing a huge increase in her rent, that she can't pay;
• one friend is dealing with a pregnant teenage daughter;
• another friend is dealing with chronic debilitating medical conditions and is in tremendous physical pain;
• another friend has a child who is constantly screaming at her that she's never done anything for him -- and she has done EVERYTHING for him...

I believe in the power of prayer. It's what makes life bearable.

All morning long I was trying to work and Lola kept barking to go out. I'd bring her in, wait 2 minutes, and the barking would commence again. This is unusual. Drove me nuts.

Michael is a sweetie 99% of the time but he can also be a typical teen. Yesterday afternoon I asked Michael to go to Walmart and pick up a prescription for Mother and he gave me attitude. This was after I had asked him to vacuum the family room and walk Lola -- two of his regular chores. He was not home for dinner and spent the entire evening hanging out with friends.

Thank goodness for friends who will let me call and vent. Those friends are a huge blessing.

Thank goodness for Mother, who knew I didn't feel like cooking and handed me some money and said "go pick up something for dinner."

Thank goodness for my wonderful neighbors. I took Lola to walk and had good chats with three of my neighbors. Living somewhere for 10 years and having wonderful neighbors is a huge gift from God.

Thank goodness for YouTube. Sometimes when I am stressed out I just think of old songs I like and I sit and listen and sing along. I don't watch the videos. I just sing, which soothes my soul. I know every word to the song below by one of my very favorite singers, Mary Chapin Carpenter..

 

 

Big Hair Days

I was listening to a recording of a man talking about how things in his business have changed from 1982 to now, and it made me nostalgic for when I started working. It was a truly very different world when I got out of school and started in the professional world.

My first job as a paralegal, I had to change gears really fast, from student to working woman.

I had gone through college being rebellious and doing my best to not conform to any stereotypical idea of ladylike behavior. I was a Drama major. I smoked. I drank beer. I wore cammo pants and torn tee shirts. I never wore makeup or perfume. My hair was usually a mess. I thought hairspray was for old ladies.

I had no business clothes. My mother bought me a suit so I could interview when I finished paralegal school in 1985. I also had to wear pantyhose and high heels and THAT was painful, with my hobbit feet.

My first paralegal job interview was a fiasco because I slapped on some clownish red lipstick on the way to the office, in the elevator, not realizing how awful it looked. That was with King & Spalding, the biggest law firm in town, where they have original Picasso paintings on the lobby walls.

Needless, to say, I didn't get that job..

When I finally got a job [in Knoxville] I was relegated to a corner of a secretary's office because they had run out of space. I had no computer. I didn't even have a typewriter. The other paralegal in the office whispered to me the first day and said "NEVER type anything yourself. They will treat you like a secretary if you do!"

I gave all my typing to the secretaries. I felt guilty doing it, but it wasn't my fault I had no way to type my own work. The secretaries were still using massive electric typewriters. Some weighed 500 lbs. and had a tiny bit of memory - the typewriters, I mean.. About a year before I left that job, the firm finally got the secretaries computers. All the secretaries hated them and were horrified. Most of them had come along in the days when they had to learn shorthand.

So much was different. I had to wear pantyhose and either skirts or dresses, or very dressy slacks. No open-toed shoes. No low cut tops. I got away with skipping the pantyhose only in the summer, if I had on a mid-calf skirt and could wear knee-hi's.

Thanks to the movie Working Girl, by 1988 I would wear tennis shoes when walking from the parking garage to the office and then put on dress shoes when I got to my desk every morning.

Some people were still smoking openly in their offices when I started working. I would smoke in my office with the window open after I finally got an office. It was the last vestige of my rebellious college self. [I quit smoking in 1997]

I was a paralegal for 8 years before moving here to Atlanta, and that first job here was the first time I had ever had a computer on my desk that I could use. It was such a culture shock, coming to a big city law firm. There were about 8 paralegals! We didn't have to buy Christmas gifts for the attorney's wives or pick up their laundry!

The most "high tech" thing I saw in my first few working years was a fax machine. I had to get permission from the office manager to use it.

I remember when I thought laptop computers were way too high-tech and exotic to even contemplate owning.

Here's one that will shock the younger generation: I remember when there was only one phone company and phones were only bought through them. Here in the south it was Bellsouth. Period. You had a home phone and a work phone. There was no such thing as voicemail.

There was no texting.

Cameras were expensive and had to be loaded with film. Then you had to get the film developed, which took a few days or a week.

The 80's were my favorite fashion time. I loved the shoulder pads! I have very narrow shoulders. I loved the wide belts that accentuated my tiny waist.

I loved the big fluffy hair. BIG hair.

I still have all my 80's jeans and some of the tops, and all of the big earrings. I can still fit into the earrings..

I can get nostalgic about those days, and I miss certain aspect of them, but I don't have any huge regrets. I like my life now, for the most part.

But the fashions, I do miss those. One day, my friends. Everything old will eventually come back into fashion...

this is from about 1986 - I was distressed my hair wasn't bigger... that's Molly, our third bassett