I just had to explain to the young man shopping for my groceries on Instacart what a scone is. "It's a cross between a biscuit and a cookie. Look in the bakery section." I wracked my brain trying to remember the first time I ever heard the word "scone."
I don't know. I've read countless English novels in my life so undoubtedly I read the word there and either asked my mom or looked in the dictionary to discover the meaning of the word. [I think it was many years later when I first ate a scone, probably at Panera. They have incredibly delicious scones.]
As I've noted before, my second grade teacher feared the worst when I failed to keep up with my classmates in reading circle, to the point where my parents were called. I was a whiz with numbers, but letters scared me. My grandmother unlocked the world of reading for me, and I was off to the races.
I can safely say sitting down and tutoring me in reading was the greatest gift Memaw ever gave me. [She was also energetic and passionate about her house and her things being neat and organized, and teaching me how to be carefully organized has helped me a lot as a paralegal.]
Left, with Memaw and my cousins in Chicago, 1974
I saw a story on the internet about a reporter going around Miami asking people basic history questions like "Who won the Civil War?" and was appalled by the ignorance.
"America had a civil war?" one guy replied.
She also asked people if they knew about The Holocaust. You could tell most couldn't even define the word, judging by the many blank looks.
After my son got home from work last night I asked him who won the Civil War. "I don't know" was the reply. "When was the Civil War fought?" was my next question. He had no idea."Holocaust?" Another blank look.
AAAARGH!!!
I was in anguish.
My son isn't stupid. He always made good grades in school. He liked studying History. He has some college credits under his belt, although he dropped out.
Where did I go wrong?! I wondered. How did I raise a child without the same reverence for History that I have?
Could it be because my dad died before Michael was born?
My father was a History Nut.
When I was a kid and we were all in the car, when Dad saw a historical marker we had to pull over and he would read the marker aloud, in a dramatic voice. "On this date in 1862 a skirmish was fought here at Dead Bat Creek, when General Folderol surprised a group of Union soldiers who were bathing in the creek and shot their naked butts..." [OK so I took some license there, those markers are never humorous, but you get the picture.]
We also visited all the battlefields in Tennessee and Virginia. Before I was grown I had toured every battleship and aircraft carrier in the southeast. I had walked the flight deck of an aircraft carrier at Patriot's Point Naval & Maritime Museum. I had also sat through movies like Patton, Macarthur, and Midway countless times.
I never forced my kids to listen as I read historical markers. I never made them walk around battlefields while I declaimed the specifics of the battles in dramatic tones. They've never been onboard a naval vessel.They never saw me watch a historical movie over and over until I could say all the lines.
We have a large drawing of Robert E. Lee hanging in the laundry room, but I didn't take my kids to Appomatox courthouse and re-enact the surrender of Lee, like Dad did with me and my brother.
I used to resent my dad's fascination with History. I thought it was boring. He embarrassed me on those battlefields, acting all dramatic. I didn't realize how well he was teaching me. I liked to read biographies of heroic women like Clara Barton and Eleanor Roosevelt and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I loved to wander around antiques stores and museums. I wrote my 10th grade research paper on Female Spies in the Civil War.
I absorbed Dad's passion for History and struck off on my own, exploring aspects of History that were fascinating to me. The ideas I learned as a kid have stayed with me a long time. Historical figures fascinate me. I love to watch movies set in historical time periods, especially ones featuring real people, like Woman Walks Ahead. I love to read novels that incorporate aspects of History, like Cold Mountain.
My mother was also a huge influence. We talked about history many times. She told me what it was like to live through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and how she couldn't get a credit card in her own name for many years. She told me of having to quit her teaching job because she was pregnant. She explained how her uncle told her she couldn't be a lawyer because nobody would hire a woman lawyer! She passed along her anger at the injustices she suffered as a young woman and made me into a feminist, even though she hated that term.
With the passing of Justice Ruth Ginsberg we have a chance to explain to young people like Michael why she was so important. I need to get him to watch the movie about her, On the Basis of Sex. He needs to understand how one tiny [5'1] woman with fierce intelligence and dogged determination was able to change the world, despite the world being a very hostile place for her when she was young.
Young people aren't stupid. They are ignorant. Perhaps the problem is we have made things too easy for them. I rarely forced my kids to sit through long boring family reunions, church services, or lectures about long-ago battles. I was told in no uncertain terms that my parents were not there to entertain me or be my friends. They were parents of the Old School -- we were taught to be seen and not heard, to follow all rules, to never bother anyone, to mind our manners, and to always put the other person first.
My first instinct is to judge and condemn young people who don't know History. The better plan is really simple. Those of us who love History need to TALK to young people about it. Encourage them to read. Encourage them to see today's events in the context of History. Explain. Analyze. Promote learning the old-fashioned way, by reading, going to museums, talking to their elders -- as opposed to videos and movies.
They need to READ about History.
We are living in a very historically significant time. The youngsters need to know that, and to understand how they are responsible for [peacefully] righting wrongs in the world.
Our lives depend on it.
