The Crab Chronicles

Formerly the Queen of the Uptight

I used to be a person that freaked out quite easily. I was the opposite of laid back. I was the Queen of the Perpetually Uptight. That's not a good thing, trust me.

Everything is energy. It took me years to really grasp that but that's one of the benefits of getting older. If you're lucky, and you keep an open mind, you will accumulate knowledge that will help you cope. My hard-won knowledge of energy is as comforting to me as religion is to a lot of folks. 

One of my cousins posted a long essay about vibrational energy on Facebook. Below is a quote from it:

7 things that affect your vibrational frequency from the point of view of quantum physics.

Vibration in quantum physics means that everything is energy. We are vibrating beings on certain frequencies. Every vibration equals a feeling and in the "vibrational" world, there are only two kinds of vibration, positive and negative. Every feeling makes you emit a vibration that can be positive or negative.

 

Every thought emits a frequency out to the universe and that frequency goes back to the source, so in case if you have negative thoughts, discouragement, sadness, anger, fear, it all comes back to you. This is why it is so important that you take care of the quality of your thoughts and learn to cultivate more positive thoughts.

 

So true. When I was younger my head was filled with a lot of negative thoughts. School stressed me out because I was always wanting to make top grades and when I didn't immediately grasp the material I panicked. I also got bullied at school because I was chubby. At home, I was a constant source of annoyance to my older brother because I was walking around breathing in the same house, so he liked to tease me mercilessly.

 

I grew up and became a paralegal, mainly because my dad thought it was a good idea. I really never wanted to be a paralegal. It took me years to make peace with it. I felt obsolete in my last paralegal position -- lots of negative energies. (Thanks be to God I now have a job I love where I can use my legal background but I get to write all day, a huge blessing.)

 

I have told my son many times, we can control our thoughts. He is only slowly coming around to accepting this idea. It's true, though. Once he really understands that and puts it into practice, life will get easier. I have noticed this in my own life. It can be very tricky to do, though.

 

I have a relative who is a big strong guy but he is the most fearful person I know. He constantly worries about everything, and as a result those fears control him. My last few conversations with him have been very strained so I have decided to distance myself from him for the time being. If I told this guy that the key to inner peace lies in thought control he would snort with contempt. [I've seen that many times! He is the Snort King!] He cannot do what I do so often in life and simply turn it over to God. He knows the concept, but he cannot do it. Turning it over to God is just a mental exercise. It's the act of saying to God [or the Universe, or whatever deity you believe in] that you feel completely frustrated and unable to handle a problem, but you are going to turn your thoughts elsewhere and trust God/The Universe/Buddha/whoever to handle the problem. Taking a mental vacation from your thoughts can be very difficult to do because you stop trying to control the situation. It's absolutely necessary, though, to avoid all the worry and feelings of inadequacy and anxiety.

 

I think sometimes people cling to their negative thoughts because letting go of them would feel like a betrayal, or an acknowledgement that they aren't always right.

 

When you focus on the positive, though, it changes things. Let's say you don't believe in God. You know the happiness you feel when you express love? That's positive energy and that's a healing energy. Pet your dog or cat for a few minutes. Play with your child. Take a walk by a lake or river. Close your eyes and listen to a favorite song. Take a friend out to lunch. Put those positive vibes into yourself and see what happens.

 

I don't want to get into a political argument here but I was reminded of this yesterday as I watched the news coverage of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Half of the people in America are in deep despair over that Supreme Court ruling. The other half are rejoicing and celebrating -- but also quite anxious about the possible backlash. The same can be said for the gun control bill just passed by Congress. Some rejoice, some despair.

 

The entire country feels awash in negative energy. We all need to walk that back -- and we can. All the negative energy accomplishes nothing. It's really wasted energy. Roll up your sleeves and work for the side you believe in, and keep focusing on the result you want. Protest peacefully if you like. Don't riot because that does nothing good. Express loving feelings through acts of kindness.

 

My dad had a very stressful job. He was a bank vice president. His days were often long and very stressful. When he got home from work, though, he would always change clothes and spend time with his children, usually playing with us. He really played -- on the floor, playing with toys, singing songs, playing games. He told Mom it was his favorite part of the day because he could forget about all the stress of the day.

 

We all need to remember that. You want to change the world? Fine. Go play. Go love. Go sing your song. Fill yourself with positive energy and wait for the blessings to roll in, as inevitably as the tide.

 

 

The Post Plague Years

I did not realize until yesterday just how much I have missed feeling like a reasonably normal person in a normal/typical/average world. I did something yesterday I had not done since approximately January 2020.

I met a friend for lunch.

I know it's not a very exciting event to report, two women sitting in a Greek restaurant eating and catching up, but it gave me a tremendous boost that was sorely needed. I just didn't know it was needed.

I have known my friend Dana for almost thirty years. When I first moved to Atlanta in 1993 she was working as a legal secretary at an insurance defense law firm just off Clairmont Road and every day we ate lunch together in the break room. When she left the firm it was really upsetting to me, but I understood her reasons. She eventually became a paralegal. We stayed in touch and over the years socialized as often as our busy schedules allowed. It seemed like right as her sons were getting grown and freeing up her time I was adopting my kids and my life got super complicated. Dana and I have very similar tastes in movies and books so often we would go to an afternoon movie together. Sometimes we would read the same book and enthusiastically discuss it. 

Here's the fascinating thing. I don't recall every having a serious disagreement with Dana. I treasure her friendship.

The greatest thing Dana ever did for me -- besides taking me home and staying with me after I had dental surgery 20 years ago -- was recommending a doctor for my mom. The last ten years or so of her life Mom was the patient of a gerontologist at Emory who had been treating Dana's dad. Mom hated doctors on principal but she loved Dr. Graves. Yep, you heard that right, a gerontologist named Graves. Great guy.

After Mom passed away in 2020 Dr. Graves called me and talked to me for 20 minutes. He told me he had reviewed all the hospital records from Mom's final days and although she had Covid, it was really kidney failure that did her in. I had unwittingly contracted Covid and given it to Mom, so it was really kind of him to call and discuss her final illness with me. A great weight was lifted from me. When Covid hit in the spring of 2020 Mom was in rehab, and when she came home in April of that year I had been so careful to quarantine, restrict her visitors, mask when out of the house, wash my hands, etc. I did everything the CDC said to do and I still got it. Mom was 86 though, and it was just her time.

Anyway, I digressed.

Dana is now taking care of her Mom and I know so well how hard it is to be a 24/7 caretaker of an elderly person. Mental health breaks are super important. Dana also is in the process of selling her house and her mom's house and I know the gut-wrenching process so well, having sold my house last year. So I've tried to pass along a few tips to Dana.

It has been really hard getting accustomed to being alone after my mom passed away and my son moved out. Strangely enough, although I miss my wonderful neighbors very much, the apartment has not been all bad. I walk Lola twice every day and I often run into familiar faces and we chat. Lola loves everyone and makes new friends easily. I can feel the sun on my face. I know if there were to be an emergency I could go knock on the door of a neighbor and they would help me. There's a lot to be said for being part of a community.

Covid has taught me the value to human interactions, while also making me more cautious about germ transmission. My grieving process for my mom has been complicated because of covid but there are many people in this country who have had it much worse. Perhaps the world needed to be shaken up, a bit. Perhaps like the Spanish flu of 1918 we will always mark this time in history as a learning time, as a nation. Despite all the chaos in the world today, I think most Americans are grateful to be alive, grateful to be American, and much more aware of our need for human connection.

We are all in this together.

left, my son and Lola

right, outside my apartment

Fish on Good Friday

On this Good Friday/Passover I wanted to share a few general thoughts about Easter, and finding a church home.

I grew up looking forward to Friday because I knew chances were good we would either get to eat fish sticks for dinner, or macaroni and cheese. My parents raised us as High Church Episcopalian and (like the Roman Catholics) we were supposed to sacrifice and not eat meat on Fridays. We ate fish or mac & cheese instead. If we were really good we might get to go to the cafeteria and partake of both! Plus jello!

Let me explain something important. My parents were both raised Southern Baptist and they remained part of that denomination until shortly after they were married. About six months after the wedding Mom miscarried a baby at about 5 months along. She and Daddy were devastated. Dad's father was also very ill and would die a few months later. Shortly after Mom was discharged from the hospital the pastor of the church they had been attending dropped by the house and told Mom she should be happy because her baby was with Jesus. She was shocked and upset, and he couldn't even understand why. My father was livid when he heard about it.

Mom and Dad then decided to look for a church that felt more like a home. They went all over Augusta visiting mainstream Christian churches, for several years. No church felt quite right. They talked about this one night at a party with some of the neighbors and the neighbors strongly suggested they visit Church of the Good Shepherd, which was [and still is] an Episcopal church.

At last, Mom and Dad felt at home. My one set of living grandparents were horrified, but they got over it. [They took us to their church once and I tried to drink all the little glasses of grape juice in the tray so we didn't have to go back after that...]

I knew very little about other churches as a small child. I just knew about our church. I knew I had to wear a hat or big hair bow, and Mom had to do the same, because women were supposed to always have their heads covered when they entered the sanctuary. I loved seeing Mom sing in the choir because she looked like an angel, although she stopped doing choir after a while. I knew how to genuflect. I knew I was allowed to sit in church with my parents and skip nursery as long as I behaved myself. Mom always carried paper and crayons in her purse for us.

I loved how everyone spoke a lot of the service at the same time. I knew the Lord's Prayer before I started school. I loved hearing the hymns. I loved the vestments. I wanted to be an acolyte one day and light the candles.

It felt like a holy place, our church.

Easter was my favorite holiday. I loved coloring eggs. I adored getting a pretty new dress and a basket full of candy. I loved going to church and showing off my patent leather Mary Janes and white lacy anklets, and comparing notes with other kids as to who got the most candy in their Easter basket.

Eventually, though, Mom realized that our Friday "sacrifice" was not really a sacrifice at all. My brother and I loved meatless Fridays.

After we moved away from Augusta, when I was 8 years old, Mom quit doing meatless Fridays. We were disappointed but we didn't carry on too much because we didn't want her to feel bad.

We got Easter baskets and chocolate bunnies all the way through high school. However, I learned at a fairly young age that the Easter bunny was as fictitious as Santa Claus.

Somewhere around the fourth grade they felt I was old enough to learn the details of what happened to Jesus that caused us to celebrate Easter. I remember being horrified by the thought of the evil Romans nailing our Lord to a cross and leaving him to die in agony. Years later I couldn't watch the movie Spartacus because it had a very graphic sequence showing crucifixion. Ditto for The Passion of the Christ -- you could hear me sobbing all over the theater, embarrassing my date.

I think if we focus on agonizing death we miss the point, however.

I watched the Today show this morning and they had a story where they interviewed a rabbi and an Episcopal priest [both female, yay!] about Passover and Easter, and what we should be thinking about. They basically said the same thing as this, which I found on the Good Shepherd website: "We will offer our lives as active partners in God’s mission, remembering that we are people blessed with an amazing array of gifts and abilities to bless others."

What I think we all need to remember and think about this Easter is very simple: how to remember to be grateful for our many blessings, and bless others. I think that's the message for all of us, whether religious or not, the importance of gratitude, and the importance of healing ourselves and others.

Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice, willingly. So why can't we sacrifice some of our time and energies, as a way of honoring that? Food for thought.

 

Sneaky Southerners

I was born in Augusta Georgia and I have lived my entire life in Georgia or Tennessee. I never gave much thought to being southern until I was grown and I realized there is a distinct and ugly bias against southerners. To put it plainly: southerners are viewed by a lot of other folks [non-southerners, of course] as being either moronic or evil racists or both.

I used to take non-credit courses at Emory University and I was furious one day when I opened the course catalog and found a course titled How to Lose Your Southern Accent. The description said basically “Hey, if you have a distinct southern accent people will think you’re a moron.” I was very tempted to sign up for the course and sit there and argue with the teacher but I figured it would just anger me to the point of spiking my blood pressure unnecessarily and I didn’t need that. I felt personally insulted, however.

Southerners onscreen are often redneck racists, dim-witted southern belles, or steel magnolias who will happily cook up some fried chicken and then shoot you if you don’t use good manners. [I wouldn't shoot you for using bad manners but I might call your mama and ask why you weren't Raised Right...]

There are exceptions, though.

We southerners know the stereotypes, and sometimes we use it to our advantage. Think about Andy Griffith. A lot of the episodes of The Andy Griffith Show centered around people from out of town assuming Andy Taylor was a rube, an idiot. Andy always bested them. In his later series, Matlock, that was pretty much the premise of every show: Matlock appeared slow but totally upended the convention and beat his opponent, who had underestimated him. (My mother loved that show)

I think part of the enduring fascination with Scarlett O’Hara is that she is far from stupid, but she reinforces the scheming manipulative southern female trope. Yet despite all her bitchiness, we are rooting for her at the end. That was Margaret Mitchell’s genius.

BTW, concerning Gone With the Wind: yes, it described black people in a very racist way, undoubtedly. However, if you want to know what it was like to live through Reconstruction in the South, read it. Mitchell spent years researching and writing the book. She easily recalled listening to her elderly family members reminisce about that time in the south. She knew her subject.

Also, in her later years, Mitchell changed a lot of her racist opinions. She became close friends with actress Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy in the GWTW movie. Mitchell quietly funded a number of scholarships for students to attend Atlanta’s Morehouse College and became friends with the head of the school, Dr. Benjamin Mays. (Source)

The Southern Villain

How many times have you watched a movie and the villain had either a British or a southern accent? There’s a reason for that. In American history the British started off being the enemy: we fought a revolution against them, and fought them again in the War of 1812. For a more pop culture explanation, the Brits themselves glory in their villainy, as this article articulates:

“And while not all Hollywood baddies are British, a disproportionately high percentage of them are. From Christopher Lee in Horror of Dracula to Alan Rickman in Die Hard and from Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate to Ian Holm in Alien, the majority of wrong ’uns speak with an English accent.”

The Brits may be cold and ruthless but Southern villains are of course racist, often moronic, and frequently show the cunning of a rattlesnake. Think about Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear or Buford T. Justice in Smokey and the Bandit.  A recent movie that I liked a lot, Live By Night, features a southern villain who is racist, stupid, and deserved to die in a hail of bullets, Virgil Beauregard.

 

I will never apologize for being southern, nor will I endorse the stereotypes that are so popular in Hollywood. The south I know, while obviously not perfect [what region is?] has a lot of nice people in it. Many African Americans have moved back to the South from up north because they feel welcomed here, and frankly the weather and cost of living are so much better here. A lot of people in the North move to the South when it’s time to retire. If we were all stupid, hateful, bigots I don’t think folks would flock to the South to live…

 

Below, my grandparents Algie and Cordelia Thompson when they were dating, around 1922. Grandaddy would go to town and play the rube and hustle pool until he made enough money to buy his kids' shoes and other things sometimes he couldn't afford during the Depression. I have always admired that.

Learning from Dad

Like most folks my age, I have now experienced the deaths of both of my parents. Mother left me in June of 2020 and I am still processing that loss. My father died in 1996. I had just turned 34 years old. Although at the time I felt middle-aged, I look back now and realize I was embryonic. I had led a fairly sheltered life up until then. I just didn't know it.

One of the nice things about being on the dark side of 50 is that you may have developed the ability to look back and see how the puzzle pieces of your life fit together. When I was in my twenties I found the future terrifying. I had calmed down a lot by the time my dad died, but his death still felt like someone had kicked the chair out from under me, and I couldn't get off the floor for a long time.

I wanted to share with you some things my dad shared with me, that I only realized in hindsight were really important.

Dad had an amazing ability to forgive people who had wronged him. There was a man who had worked for him and gone over Dad's head to say some ugly things about Dad to the big boss at the bank, which in my mother's view was utterly unforgivable. Dad forgave him readily. Another man Dad worked with was mentally ill and wouldn't take his meds, and Dad had to fire him, which was really painful. The man threatened to kill him, and Dad carried a pistol in his car for years and was hyper vigilant as a result. Years later, the man heard Dad was dying and went to see him in Augusta and Dad was gracious and nice. My mother was horrified -- but Mom was much more inclined to hold a grudge.

In my own life, I have friends I rarely exchange a cross word with, and friends I fuss and fight with frequently, but I forgive them (and they forgive me) and we remain friends. My brother is like mom in that he holds grudges, but I don't really see that as a positive trait. In the end, not forgiving is more harmful than forgiving someone because you are holding onto ill feelings that are poisoning you, not the person who wronged you. Forgiving releases you from that prison of negativity.

Dad always hated hypocrisy. I remember him going to a funeral of a man he knew professionally who wasn’t a personal friend and coming home really disgusted. Everyone at the funeral had spoken about the man in absolutely glowing terms. Dad told Mom they guy was a real jerk, but nobody was telling the truth at the funeral. Everyone felt they had to only say nice things because the guy was dead. Dad hated the dishonesty of that. Mom’s attitude was well what did you expect?! I see hypocrisy sometimes now and I feel like Dad; it’s nauseating to me. However, I refuse to let it bother me. Hypocrisy is like death and taxes; inevitable.

Snobbery is a terrible thing. I’ve seen Dad go out of his way to be kind and friendly to the janitorial staff and be just polite to the bank president. He had a way of being friendly to everyone which made people love him, because they could see that he was the opposite of a snob. Even though Dad had a master’s degree and spent 95% of his professional life as the vice president of a bank, he was never snobby. I think that humility was one of his defining characteristics because Dad was raised by two parents who couldn’t have been more different. Grandaddy was raised in a poor farming family in South Georgia and he had to quit school and help support his mother and siblings at a young age. Grandmother was also raised in a farming family, but in a prosperous, socially prominent southern family. A lady in her position shouldn’t have fallen in love with an uneducated man who had very little money and wasn’t her social equal, but she did. Mom said when Thompson was dying she nursed him faithfully and would talk about how beautiful he was, and Mom had never seen someone so loving and devoted to their spouse. Grandmother obviously was not a snob.

I like to think I inherited Dad’s anti-snobbery. I have known girls [mostly in high school] who came from well-to-do families who were just obnoxious. I also had a friend in high school who came from an obviously poor family, but he was far more friendly and interesting to talk to, and he was brilliant. I was delighted to find him on Facebook a few years ago and see that he is doing really well. To be fair, most of the obnoxious girls are now nice people, I am happy to report, and many are grandmamas now. People mature – a good reason to forgive. [Nobody should be judged forever by how they acted in high school!]

One should always be kind to young people who are still learning. Dad was always unfailingly kind to my friends, our neighbors, people he worked with, people at church, etc. but he had a soft spot for younger folks and I think that came from being raised by a teacher. Helping someone learn and grow as a person is a hugely rewarding thing. I’ve seen him mentor and nurture folks at the bank only to lose them to higher-paying jobs but Dad always wished them well.

I have tried to be a good friend/mentor to younger folks, personally and professionally, but I’m not sure if I am always successful. I do try.

Savor the joyful moments in life. Sometimes we are so anxious and/or stressed out that we forget to be joyful. I have fond memories of seeing Dad’s unbridled joy at something as simple as going swimming, or getting a phone call from one of his brothers, or discovering a new barbeque joint. His joy was contagious, too – I would see his delight and it would make me happy. He loved Christmas and would always take great delight in opening presents and seeing us open presents. I sometimes forget to enjoy my life, because there are so many things that are worrisome. I need to try and remember to seek out and cherish things I enjoy, and to put aside fear as much as possible. [Covid has made that difficult to do consistently.]

Love fearlessly. If Tony Thompson loved you, you knew you were loved. You would have no doubt. We would have some major disagreements sometimes, but I never doubted his love for me. I try to tell my kids and my friends I love them, fairly often. Some people say the words are meaningless but that’s not true. Saying the words is important. At the end of your life you are not going to look back and say “I shouldn’t have said I love you as often.” No, you will regret not expressing that more, because in the end, you will realize that material things are meaningless, and love is the most important thing in life. I hope when I am gone people will say If Dee loved you, you knew you were loved! It would be the highest tribute.

Read to Your Children and Grandchildren

Years ago a lady I worked with who had two little girls told me about a wonderful product she'd found that would "read" to her children. It was a tape recording of someone reading; basically what we would now call an audio book. I said something like "Well that's great, for when you can't read to them." She said "Oh no, you don't understand, now I don't need to read to them." I was so taken aback I couldn't think what to say.

Reading is super important. That's not a new idea. You can see lots of reasons why here and here.

"Reading aloud to kids has clear cognitive benefits. For example, brain scans show that hearing stories strengthens the part of the brain associated with visual imagery, story comprehension, and word meaning. One study found that kindergarten children who were read to at least three times a week had a “significantly greater phonemic awareness than did children who were read to less often.” And the landmark Becoming a Nation of Readers report from 1985 concluded that “the single most important activity for building knowledge for their eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.”

But reading also strengthens children’s social, emotional, and character development. According to a recently published study, reading to very young children is linked to decreased levels of aggression, hyperactivity, and attention difficulties. The study’s lead author shared this insight with The New York Times, “When parents read with their children more . . . they learn to use words to describe feelings that are otherwise difficult and this enables them to better control their behavior when they have challenging feelings like anger or sadness.”

A friend of my mother's, Caroline, raised three children, and her husband read to their children every night after dinner, for many years. I think he continued that right up until the youngest went away to college. The kids didn't watch TV after dinner. Their daddy read books appropriate to their age level and maybe a little bit beyond. All three kids were honors students and I think 2 of them went on to get master's degrees.

I have a lot of happy memories of my parents and grandparents reading to me.

Clearly, reading is good for children. I wanted to throw in a few personal anecdotes, though.

My grandfather Papa Hasty loved to read children's classics to me like Heidi and Swiss Family Robinson, and I also loved a big book of old Testament stories illustrated for children. Snuggling up against him while he read to me entertained me and made me feel safe and loved. He had infinite patience and would stop and explain anything I didn't understand. My father was sort of like the energizer bunny, always running around and rarely sitting still for long, but Papa always had time to read to me. (Dad always told me bedtime stories, though.)

In third grade I had a really hard year. We moved from Augusta Georgia to Knoxville Tennessee which was really stressful for me. We didn't know anyone in Knoxville. Some of the kids said I "talked funny." One good thing that happened was that the school tested me and put me into the gifted third grade class and the teacher, Mrs. Kidder, was wonderful. Every day after lunch she would read a chapter to us from a children's classic. She introduced me to EB White (Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little) and Beverly Cleary (Ramona the Pest, The Mouse and the Motorcycle). I loved that reading time.

When I brought my son home he was 10 years old, and reading was a challenge. He was reading way ahead of grade level in Kazakstan, his birth country. He learned English pretty quickly after he got here in 2007. About 2 years after he got here, though, his reading comprehension scores were not where they should have been. It concerned me.

A cousin of mine who was a kindergarten teacher heard about the reading issue and sent me a wonderful gift: the first three Harry Potter books. I told Michael I was going to start reading to him every night right before bedtime, for thirty minutes. He was not enthusiastic about the idea.

The first night he fussed a bit but then settled down and we read the required time. He sat right next to me and followed along on the page. The next night he was totally cooperative. It became something we both looked forward to every evening.

We read all the Harry Potter books. He cried when we finished the last one. I tried to comfort him and I said "Maybe Ms. Rowling will write some other books you'll like." He said "Wait. You mean JK Rowling is a GIRL?!" I said well, yes. He was flabbergasted.

We went on to read a lot more books, even continuing into his high school years. Often we would read together on weekends, after school, or whenever he was bored. I loved all the books we read, particularly a series by an Irish writer, Michael Scott, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel book series. He combines historical figures with fictional characters in a fascinating way.

Even in this high-tech world, books can be a magical way of connecting with a child. Besides being good for their brains and emotional lives, reading can be really fun for you, the adult.

The Lesson for Today: read to your children and grandchildren! You won't regret it.

Like the Commercials Say, I am Becoming My Parents

Memory is a funny thing.

My father was a banker, head of a trust department for many years, and a young man named David worked for him for years. David and his wife Mary became close friends of our family. Then they moved to another city. I reconnected with David about fifteen years later and over a pleasant lunch he told me that his main memory of me and my father was that we argued about politics a lot.

I was so startled I couldn’t even respond. I had to go home and give that a good mulling over. I realized he was right. I had forgotten. My father had been dead for several years and those political arguments had receded in my memory, probably because I wanted to remember happier times with Dad.

Dad loved Ronald Reagan. I did not. That’s all I have to say about that.

My parents loved politics and it was often a topic of discussion around our house. My parents didn’t just “talk the talk” though, they really “walked the walk.” They would volunteer to go work for candidates. They went to dinners where you had to pay to get in, and the money went to a particular candidate. We were middle class and lived within our means so they didn’t contribute a ton of money to the Republican party but they did contribute. We got Christmas cards from the Bush family for years.

I never thought about it except to think that I would never allow myself to be swept away by either party. I always try to evaluate every candidate and vote for the person, not the party. My parents were exasperated by that, but they never criticized me openly about it because they knew I was trying to do what was right. My father’s often heard dictum was “Do the RIGHT thing, always!” [I was startled years later by the title of the Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing, but it is a great title.]

My point is that we don’t have to be like our parents, whether they are middle-class suburban white Republicans, or Yellow Dog Democrats. [By definition, a yellow-dog Democrat is willing to vote for any Democratic candidate even if it’s a yellow dog. I always thought that was a weird image, the swearing in of the yellow dog…]

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, our parents influence us throughout our lives, in obvious ways and in subtle ways.

My mother found men with fat fannies utterly revolting. I could never date a man with a big butt, and it’s her fault. I myself have a large rear end but it’s okay on a woman -- or so I was taught. (Mom was right, though. If I had married and had children with a big-butted man our children would have had enormous butts and likely would have had trouble finding pants that fit, and life partners..)

My dad never trusted a man with his hands in his pockets. He told all his employees at the bank he better not catch them with their hands in their pockets. To him, a banker with his hands in his pockets was a shifty character. To this day, I rarely ever put my hands in my pockets, except to fish out my phone.

My mother was raised by my Memaw, and Memaw was a terrible snob, which she passed on to Mom. I didn’t really understand that until I started bringing home friends from school (and later dates) and Mom would always ask them “What does your father do?” If the answer was “My dad’s a banker/lawyer/doctor/engineer/store manager etc. that was fine. If the answer was something like “I don’t know. He likes to sit around the house and watch sports but my mom works” my mother’s eyebrow was instantly cocked and loaded into an inverted “V” and I got the stinkeye. I once brought home a guy I was seeing and Mom asked him what his father did when he was growing up. He replied “I don’t really know… I think he was a salesman?” That, combined with the fact my date didn’t put his napkin in his lap for the entire meal meant I never went out with him again. My parents thinly-veiled looks of pity are seared into my memory.

Dad would never, ever, allow a sign in his yard or a bumper sticker on his car, period. I don’t either, except for the For Sale sign that was in front of my house recently. However, when I was in my early 20’s I laughed when my friends put a bumper sticker on my VW Rabbit that said “If it swells, ride it!” with an ocean wave in the background. My father did not think it was funny. He asked me to remove it. I refused.

Mom had a very low opinion of women who couldn’t cook. Her mother was a wonderful cook, and Mom became an excellent cook after she married Dad. However, I’ve heard Mom say a million times “Well, she always looks nice, but she cannot cook a thing.” That was the equivalent of saying “She wasn’t raised right and her heart’s not right with Jesus!” It didn’t matter if the dad was the cook in the home and he liked doing it. Mom thought all females should at least be able to put a decent meal on the table. I have always been puzzled when confronted with a female who doesn’t cook, but the big difference is that I berate myself every time I have an unkind thought about a non-cooking gal, and Mother felt no such compulsion. She would sneer “She brags about not cooking!” in the same disgusted tone she might have said “That fella just ran over his mama at the Winn Dixie!”

Dad never bought a brand-new car in his life, right from a car dealer. He thought that was the height of stupidity, because cars lose their value so quickly. When Dad had been dead about a year I went to a car lot and bought a brand-new shiny black Honda Civic. I was inordinately proud of that car. It was so much more fun than my little used Toyota Corolla had been. I drove the Civic less than a year, and then got in a wreck and it was totaled. When I was sitting on I-285 waiting for the cops to come (I was unhurt, thankfully) I remember looking up at the sky and silently saying to Dad I know you’re up there laughing at me, but just hush! I never bought a brand-new car again and I never will, unless I win the lottery.

My parents were both highly intelligent and moral people. They broke with family tradition and became Republicans because in the 1950’s the Democratic party was the party of segregation and the Old South, which my parents found appalling. However, my father would have been completely mystified by the election of Barack Obama.

Dad would be completely puzzled by the fact that new cars today are scarce because of a shortage of computer chips. He would never have accepted Business Casual as a dress code. He would be appalled at the lack of civility in politics these days, because many of his friends and family members did not share his political views but he cherished those friendships nonetheless.

One of Dad’s favorite sayings was “He ate my barbeque but he didn’t vote for me!” which we both thought was funny – and sometimes very true. Dad hated hypocrisy in any form.

My mother outlived Dad by more than twenty years. She was always fascinated by politics, but in recent years I couldn’t get her to understand the importance of actually fact-checking outrageous political posts that popped up in her Facebook feed. Like Memaw, she struggled with the idea that not everything you read in the paper is necessarily true. I tried to explain to her that editors and producers always heavily influence content – an idea which doesn’t bother me too much – but she was horrified by that.

I try to not discuss politics or hot-button social issues with my friends, because I don’t ever agree with anyone totally, and I hate discord. Unlike my parents, I don’t find politics exciting and fun. I always hold my nose and vote for the candidate I feel will do the least harm. That’s the attitude of most of my friends.

I’m not willing to admit my parents have influenced me too much. I am an independent thinker and proud of it. However, I will grudgingly acknowledge a serious aversion to big-butted men and women who brag that they cannot cook. If I see a politician with hands in his pockets he won’t get my vote. If a candidate is seen driving a brand-new car I am disgusted. Am I proud of those terrible and unfair biases? No. I am just honest about them, which I feel is the first step to Salvation.

I am willing to acknowledge my biases and I am working on being more broad-minded. I would go so far as to posit that if all of us would seriously consider the good and bad ways our parents influenced us, the world would be a better place. Here endeth the lesson. Amen.

The Gift of Time

I never realized how lucky I was to have my mother for as long as I did, until I found myself sitting in my house in the summer of 2020 wishing I could go into her room and share some news with her, news I knew would delight her.

She was in my life from birth until June 2020, when I was 58 years old. She shared all my heartaches and triumphs. She cheered me on when I was down. She was my sounding board when I was wrestling with a problem.

She was always willing to give advice, but if I didn't want it, she would just listen.

We had moments when we didn't see eye to eye. Two women living in the same house for sixteen years meant there was bound to be friction, at times. The dustups never lasted long, though.

If I could have anything for Christmas, just one thing -- if that magic could happen -- I would love to have one day, or even one hour, with my beloved parents.

 

 

Time makes love pass. Love makes time pass.

Italian proverb

 

 

 

 

This is the first known photo of me, in Mom's pregnancy bump.

Above, the three of us around 1988

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old age and the passage of time teach all things.

- Sophocles

If I could wave another magic wand, or make wishes come true, I would love to spend some time with my grandparents. Mom's parents were well-known to me, and much loved. Dad's parents died before I was born but my brother and I are named for them. I wish I had known them. Dad missed them his entire life, and talked about them often. It must have been terrible to lose both his parents before the age of thirty.

To my friends who are much younger, I want to say this: the greatest gift you can give your parents is the gift of time.

I spent much of this past year sorting through stuff that was accumulated over many years by me, my parents, and my kids. None of it was terribly valuable, but there were some fond memories around some of the things. Nonetheless, most of the things were sold or given away. Things start to become far less important as you get older. You begin to truly understand that you cannot take anything with you into the next life. A rich man and a poor man take up exactly the same space in a grave.

Objects have no souls. You cannot share a memory or a laugh with even the nicest shirt, or the shiniest piece of jewelry. A book cannot hold you when you cry. Even a big-ticket item like a car cannot comfort you when you're discouraged.

Over the years some of my friends have died. (Not many, thank God.) Many of my beloved aunts and uncles have died. I wish I had been more generous with my time. I wish I had talked to my friends, aunts, uncles and  parents more often. I wish I had never been the one to hang up the phone. I regret not asking them more questions about their lives. I regret not hearing more about what was in their hearts.

Don't make my mistakes.

Time is the MOST precious gift you can give anyone.

Maybe this Christmas is a tough one financially. I've faced many of those during my life.

Here's an idea. Write out gift certificates for someone you love and give them the gifts of two hours of your time, for a meal out, or just a visit. Wrap up the gift certificates in a nice box. Or just call your mom every week, or every few days. Or call your dad. 

Maybe your parents don't like to chat. That's OK. Take them for a walk, or a window shopping expedition. Cook with them. Play a board game. Rake leaves. Brush the dog. Put together a puzzle. Do something together.

Put down your phones. Skip the Tick Tok videos for a few hours. Quit texting your friends for two hours. Be really present when you're with your parents or someone you care about. Give that person your full attention. You will not regret it.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

• T.S. Eliot

 

The Office of Long Ago

I started a new job recently, working from home at my own computer, and it has provoked me into a fascinating reminiscence about how much things have changed since I started my professional life after I finished paralegal school.

To People Now Under 35, Yo Dog: It's a different world now. So kids, if you make it past 50 years old, you will probably find yourself occasionally sitting outside your home, thinking back, into the past, before flying cars and virtual families and vegan hotels.

Looking back is a Rite of Passage -- Google that.

I was once young [really] and I well remember my mother telling me about what it was like to work at Sears here in Atlanta when she was young -- the ginormous old store on Ponce de Leon, back in the early 1950's. I couldn't believe she would have to wear high heels and either a skirt or dress just to work in a department store. She said by the end of her shift her feet would be killing her. No kidding. She also wore a girdle, and stockings, styled her hair and wore full makeup. Salesladies had to look proper and ladylike, y'all. (I thought the entire scenario sounded hideously stressful.) Then she had to wait until leaving the store before she could wear loafers and walk or ride the bus home.

When I finished my program at The National Center for Paralegal Training and had to start interviewing for jobs my mother had to buy me an interview suit. One always wore a suit, pantyhose, heels, and full hair and makeup. 

See the photo at left, here? This was made a few years after I started working but I could have worn that to a job interview. I was just out at lunch with the family though, so I felt free to push up the sleeves of my blazer which wouldn't have happened in a job interview.

Fashion wasn't the only thing that was different.

Right -- me in paralegal school, with a 1980's perm. All my roommates persuaded me to go to a fancy salon in Buckhead and pay a ridiculous price to get a perm, and sit outside sipping white wine while it made my already curly hair even more curly. I thought I was something else. When I got home to Knoxville and went with my mom to a hair appointment with the man who had been cutting my hair since I was a child I had to endure a scolding from my stylist, who was like a second father to me and made me cry.

BTW has anyone else ever thought it ironic that such a thing is called a "permanent" when it's so NOT actually permanent? You have to get another one every six months or so.

I started working at a very traditional law firm in Knoxville right after paralegal school. There was one other paralegal at the firm and she was afraid I had been hired to replace her so she refused to help me with anything. I found it very puzzling. I didn't find out about her fears until about a year after I started, when she was still employed and confessed to me as to why she had been so mean. Fortunately, the secretaries and young lawyers felt sorry for me and pretty much took me in hand and helped me learn.

Here's how it was back then:

I didn't get my own office right away. I got a desk in a corner of an ancient secretary's office.

I had no computer and not even a typewriter. I used a handheld dictaphone and the secretaries typed my work for me when they had time.

I had to get permission from the office manager to send a fax.

I had rarely ever used a copier and I remember standing at the massive copier making copies for hours. It didn't collate or staple.

Paralegals had to sometimes Bates stamp documents. Now it's done by computer. Then, it was done with a handheld machine that made one's hand hurt miserably after about an hour.

I was often asked to "run this down to the courthouse and file it" when the college kid who was the runner wasn't there. I kept tennis shoes at my desk so I could cover the four blocks to the courthouse swiftly. (Now everything is filed electronically, on the court's website.)

I was often asked to do a lot of things paralegals are not asked to do now, for instance: make coffee for the attorneys, go out and pick up lunch for everyone in a deposition, pick up my boss from the car dealership and take him to work, pick up the attorney's dry cleaning, clean up the conference room, answer the phone when the receptionist was out sick, drive to some far-off county to file something, etc.

I didn't mind doing anything that got me away from my desk, actually.

In my first few years as a paralegal I was referred to as "Kiddo," "Honey," "Deebaby," "Girl," "My gal," etc. It never bothered me. One attorney referred to me jokingly as "my parasexual" which actually did annoy me, but he was always teasing everyone so nobody paid any attention to him.

The office Christmas party, at the two firms I worked for in Knoxville, consisted of the secretaries and paralegals making a big feast and serving it to everyone in the biggest firm conference room. Attorneys paid for turkey and ham. When everyone was finished eating we could leave for the day, as long as the conference room was spotlessly clean. I was just happy to get the afternoon off to go home and sleep off the food coma.

 

After I had been a paralegal for about a year my father came by my office one day -- we worked in the same building and he knew all the attorneys I worked for -- and slapped a paper down. "That's your registration to take the LSAT," he said. [The LSAT is the entrance exam for law school.]

We had never discussed me going to law school. Ever.

"You want me to go to law school?" I said, startled.

"I know you can get into UT. I know people at the law school. I'll pay all your expenses, so you can concentrate on school," he said, smiling. I was an honors student in college. He knew I could ace law school if I made the effort.

"But Dad, I don't want to be a lawyer."

I had actually pondered the idea, but decided against it because 1) reading case law is really boring to me and 2) young lawyers work 50-80 hours a week, for years, and have no social life. I wanted to get married and have a baby I could actually raise instead of handing the child to a nanny or daycare. I should have explained all that to Dad, but I didn't, not then anyway.

I'll never forget the look of disappointment on his face, though.

I've never regretted that decision. Law school is very challenging and you really need to be committed to it in order to succeed. I had my mind on too many other things to make that kind of commitment in my 20's, and in my 30's I was too intent on finding a husband to be able to go back to school successfully.

I found out years later that my father had turned down a full scholarship to Emory Law School after he finished his master's in business. He chose to go into the Army instead. He wanted to be an officer and would have made a fine one except he failed the entrance exam to officer's candidate school. He swore my mother to secrecy about the law school scholarship. She kept her promise until he was dead.

In hindsight, I wish he had told me about it because it would have made it easier for me to understand why he was so intent on me being a lawyer.

I also found out just a few years before my mother died that when she was young she had wanted to be a lawyer, but her uncle (a lawyer in Macon) told her parents it would be a waste of time, since she would just quit being a lawyer as soon as she got married and had children. They persuaded her to give up the idea and be a teacher. She would have been an excellent lawyer. It was very rare then for a woman to go to law school, unfortunately.

Anyway, things work out as they should in my life. I firmly believe that.

I also appreciate the fact that I can do paralegal work at home, wearing pajamas 95% of the time. No more suits or pantyhose!

Hallelujah.

Revising History to Reflect Wishful Thinking

I remember watching a news story several years ago about the musical Hamilton and feeling really uncomfortable with how it was cast. Black actors portraying aristocrats that socialized with Alexander Hamilton? It just didn't happen.

I am not alone in my feelings on this. As this article points out,

"The performance drew plenty of skeptics. Then-Daily Show host Jon Stewart, in a segment that has aged like asbestos, roundly mocked Miranda and the other poets of color featured in the event, snarking, “You’ve been dissed, disrespected, disenfranchised, but ’dis? Is kind of ridiculous.”

Hamilton went on to break box-office records but it attracted a lot of criticism, too.

Here's a little reminder: In that day and time (the late 18th century) most African Americans were either enslaved. If they were free, they typically worked at very modest jobs like maids or perhaps tradespeople like blacksmiths or seamstresses or farm workers. There was no black aristocracy, except perhaps in New Orleans.

The sort of revisionist history seen in Hamilton or the newer Netflix series Hollywood is really inaccurate and it bothers me on a lot of levels.

Now, I am the child of two parents who liked history and read a lot of history. My father was an avid and voracious reader and a 5 lb. tome about the life of Winston Churchill or George S. Patton was a gift he would delve into immediately after opening.

I was taught to revere history at an early age.

While in the car, we always pulled over to read those historic markers by the side of the road. Dad always took us to Civil War battlefields and any sort of naval vessel the public could tour. We watched movies set in historical time periods. I loved to read biographies of famous women like Eleanor Roosevelt and Clara Barton.

Now that I am a writer, I am diligent about doing my research and trying to portray accurately what life was like in the recent past or the distant past. I did a lot of research for my novel Heart of My Own Heart.

Hamilton and Hollywood are trying to cast more actors of color in key roles and level the playing field in terms of job opportunities. I understand that motivation and I applaud the idea, just not the execution of it. The system has long been biased and it needed to change. I just don't think the way history is being rewritten is a good thing.

Imagine you are a child (not knowing much about American History) and you see Hamilton. It appears as though he had peers who were African American. They seemed to sing hip hop. You will come away thinking that the portrayals in Hamilton are accurate. Perhaps you watch the series Bridgerton, which also has black actors portraying members of the British nobility in the 18th century -- and it's completely inaccurate. How does that feel later on when you learn in school that Hamilton and Bridgerton ignored actual history, and most of your ancestors were likely slaves or laborers or farmers?

Hollywood is an interesting series but it portrays a lot of somewhat graphic sex and no child should be watching it, but if they are, they are getting a similarly inaccurate vision of Hollywood in the late 1940's, early 1950's. It was almost impossible for even very talented non-white actors and actresses to get good roles and the recognition they deserved. That's really unfortunate but it is how things were back then. For instance, Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar for her role in Gone With the Wind but couldn't sit in the auditorium with her peers, due to racism.

In Hollywood, the series, a movie is made that features a black actress, written by a black screenwriter, and it breaks box office records and wins a slew of awards. That's a nice fantasy, but it's doubtful that would have been the outcome even if a studio had dared to try that. Also, it's a slap in the face to people who lived through those segregated, racist times.

Here's a disturbing thought. The implication is that if a studio had just cast a beautiful black actress in a lead role and taken a chance, all would have been well. There's no way of knowing that. It's easy to look back and say of industry executives back then You weren't brave enough to buck convention and just go for it -- but hindsight is 20/20. We shouldn't judge people living during a time it's hard for us to fathom. Black people who went against the mainstream were often beaten or lynched. White people who tried to change the status quo were also often targets of the KKK. That's a terrible truth but it's the truth. It didn't happen only in the south, either.

You could make the argument that all of history is inaccurate. It's always written by the winners. History must be portrayed as accurately as possible, however, in my opinion.

I feel strongly that entertainments should not portray history the way we would have liked for it to be. Future generations shouldn't be confused by a well-meaning but highly inaccurate depiction of historical facts and events. We owe it to subsequent generations to show how it really WAS, the good and the bad. To do anything else is dishonorable and just wrong, in my opinion.

One final thought...

Sydney Poitier actually broke the color barrier in the early 1950's, the first person of color starring in movies popular with all audiences. We should study his life and learn and be inspired by it.