The Crab Chronicles

So You Want to Be a Paralegal?

Being a paralegal is far more complicated than most people realize. I belong to a networking group for paralegals on Facebook and a young woman posted yesterday and said she is a teacher but she wants advice on getting a job as a paralegal. She assumes that with no background in the law and not a single paralegal class on her resume she can just apply to law firms and get hired to be a paralegal.

Can you imagine a nurse getting hired to be an RN with absolutely no medical training?

The truth is the teacher actually might be able to get hired as a paralegal or legal assistant with absolutely no education or training in the law, depending on where she lives.

Location is everything.

I live in Atlanta. She can apply to paralegal and/or legal assistant jobs here all day and it's 98% certain she will not get hired, unless it's as a receptionist or billing clerk or something clerical. However, if she does get one of those jobs, she might be able to work her way into a paralegal position.

If she wants to get hired as a paralegal with no education or experience she needs to look in medium or small towns.

In 1987 my firm hired a "paralegal" who had just finished college and had never worked in a law firm and had no idea of the difference between a plaintiff and a defendant. Her daddy was a golf buddy of one of the lawyers. I had to train her in how to do everything. I worked my tail off with her, then a year later she quit to have a baby and never returned to the working world.

That tomfoolery was going on in 1987 and it's still happening today, much to my disgust. A friend of my son's got a clerical job at a law firm here a few years ago and was promoted to the role of Paralegal without any kind of legal education.

That's the frustrating thing about being a paralegal. Some of us go to school for years, pass tests like the NALA Certified Paralegal exam, or even get a master's degree in paralegal studies -- and still have a really hard time getting a job. Others get hired with none of that on their resume.

Small law firms in small towns will sometimes hire a person with no paralegal experience or education, and just train them, and that person can work there a few years and quite possibly go on to have a successful paralegal career. (Generally speaking though they won't make as much money as an educated and/or certified paralegal.)

When I was in Knoxville I worked at a firm where there was a real estate attorney who only practiced actual law about 20% of the time. His secretary, who had only a GED, did everything for him. She prepared all the closing documents (which is a complex job) and all the attorney did was go into closings and sign on the line. His secretary was actually practicing law for him. The attorney was a very immature overaged frat boy who liked to drink, party, and wear very expensive suits, but he didn't actually like practicing law. His secretary lived in a mobile home and made less than $25K a year.

 

So here are some true statements about the legal profession:

There are really bright people working in law firms who do not have law licenses, and often they put in long hours and are woefully underpaid.

Most attorneys who are reasonably successful work 60-80 hours a week for their entire career, and no, not all are millionaires.

Some Paralegals may be highly educated, licensed, and able to function as semi-lawyers, even doing legal research and writing briefs. [Of course, they still cannot actually practice law without a license, or they may go to jail.]

Occasionally you will find paralegals that may have only a GED and yet make as much or more money than the highly educated paralegals.

Having a degree in Paralegal Studies does not guarantee that you will be able to get a paralegal job when you finish school. You may not ever get hired to be a paralegal.

Some attorneys will hire a person and call them a paralegal, then make them work very long hours and pay them very little.

Attorneys generally fall into two categories: 1) they expect their paralegals to have a ton of knowledge about the law and will ask them to do very substantive work like drafting pleadings to be filed in court or  2) they view paralegals as slightly more educated secretaries and will give them a lot of clerical work only

Most paralegal schools will not tell you any of these things.

Having said all this, I do have hope that my profession will one day become far more regulated. Just as no doctor will hire a person and call them an RN if they have no medical training, no attorney should hire a paralegal with no paralegal education or licensure. If attorneys want really top paralegals they need to regulate their own profession more, and not hire or promote complete novices. I know that might sound harsh. Here's the truth, though: most lawsuits are worth either a substantial amount of money, or (criminal law) they center around someone's freedom. There are very big consequences to what lawyers do, and the paralegal profession needs to be better regulated. 

right, me in paralegal school

Check out my book Paralegal 411: Tips, Tricks and Timesavers for the Litigation Paralegal

#paralegaleducation, #whatittakestobeaparalegal, #howtobecomeaparalegal, #howimportantisparalegaleducation, #gettinghiredasaparalegal

For Evil to Flourish

I flinch when I turn on the news now. I flinch and I feel myself grimacing as I watch people in Israel, and Gaza, and sometimes I get big tears in my eyes. Like others around the world, I am mesmerized by what I'm seeing on the television.

It seems like something out of a horror movie, incomprehensible.

"For evil to flourish it only requires good men to do nothing." - Simon Wiesenthal

Only once in my life have I ever witnessed someone seriously hurt by other human beings and it shocked me, and there was absolutely nothing I could do.

I made two trips to Kazakhstan to adopt my son in 2007. On the first trip I went to the orphanage every day for several weeks and visited Michael and got to know him, then there was the adoption hearing on April 3, then a wait of several more weeks before everything was legally finalized. I flew home during that time, so I could work and save my leave time for when Michael got home. When I returned in early May 2007, I took a flight to Frankfurt, then another flight to Astana.

I got off the plane in Astana and had to go to the customs line and show my passport so I could get into the country. I was standing at the end of the line and I heard a noise behind me and turned around. A very large Russian man was being led over to the customs area in handcuffs. Clearly, he was a prisoner. The small Asian men who were guarding him looked like elves escorting a gorilla. When the Russian man saw a way to run out of the airport -- we were near the doors -- he bolted, but he didn't get but a few feet away before the small Kazakh guards tackled him to the ground.

For several minutes, the guards savagely beat the big man, hitting and kicking him as he screamed HELP ME HELP ME, in Russian. I had studied Russian and learned those words. I stood there frozen in horror, unable to not look. Finally, the big man fell silent. The guards finally pulled away, and I saw a huge pool of blood spilling out from the Russian man's head. A stretcher was brought in and he was carried away. The pool of blood remained.

There is a vast difference between watching a movie -- or even a documentary -- and seeing someone beaten, and watching it in real life.

I had never seen something so terrible, and it shook me up very much. I don't know what the big Russian man had done, what crime he had committed, but I know how I felt watching that beating. I felt terrified, and horrified, and I have never forgotten what I saw. I will never forget what I witnessed.

I cannot watch very violent movies, even though I know the violence is not real. I flinch. I grimace. I usually pull out my phone and stare at the screen.

I tell this story because I feel utterly helpless regarding the situation in Israel and Gaza, and that worries me.

I don't ever want to feel nothing, in the face of human suffering. If we are insensitive to horror then we lose our humanity.

I am descended from mostly British and Irish ancestors [88%, according to 23andMe] and many of my ancient ancestors were the barbarians who brought down the Roman empire.

My Scottish ancestors [there were many] were/are fierce fighters.

I descend also from a Civil War sharpshooter. I am the granddaughter of a professional soldier and the sister of an Army major.

I am not a violent person but to protect my family, particularly my children, I would call upon the spirits of my fighting ancestors and ask them to help me protect those I love. I am talking about an extreme, and unlikely situation, though. I hope and pray I will never have to defend myself or my family.

What I cannot understand is WHY. We live in an amazing age of technology unsurpassed in human history, so why are we still savagely killing each other?

I condemn anyone who would kill another human being not for self-defense or protection of family, but simply for land, or a political ideology.

The older I get the more I believe that the power and energy of human love is the most powerful energy in the world. We have to somehow harness that power to defeat hate. Hate is the ultimate Evil, the direct opposite of Love.

If we focus love and healing energies to places like the Middle East and Ukraine, where Evil is winning, I think we can change things. What else can those of us who are old and/or powerless physically actually do?

I have started to pray constantly for Love to win. I leave the "how" of that up to God.

 

Working Hard

As a child, I was bad about blurting out inappropriate or odd things at inopportune moments. Sometimes it was funny. Oftentimes, it was not. I liked to push the envelope and was often accused of "talking back" -- in other words, saying rude and/or disrespectful things. My parents had a very low threshold of tolerance for backtalk from me and my brother. I was thinking of that recently while listening to an audiotape of a long-ago Hasty family get-together. My 8 year old voice can clearly be heard saying to my grandmother "But you all were rich Memaw, Mommy said you were rich growing up!"

My grandmother, Wilma Butler Hasty, ignored me and went on with what she was saying. When I heard myself years later I cringed, because I could imagine the awkwardness of how my beloved grandmother must have felt. She grew up in a wealthy family, yes, but in the 1920's her family lost their money. My grandfather lost his major league baseball job in 1924 and went out west and played for minor league teams for years, before coming back east, and then in 1929 everyone lost everything.

We can all complain now about inflation and high prices but the Great Depression was far worse.

At that point in my life I had no idea what the Great Depression was, or how hard my grandmother had to work, for years, first to keep food on the table when times were tough, then to put her children through college. Finally, in her 60's, she stopped working a regular job but she worked hard as a seamstress, sewing dresses for me and my mother, and other family members. Memaw made all of my school clothes, for years. Little girls had to wear dresses back then, and children's clothing wasn't cheap. Memaw had 5 granddaughters, 2 daughters-in-law, and many siblings and nieces, nephews, etc.

I was blessed that Mom told me many stories about the remarkable lady I called "Memaw." She was an amazing person. Smart, funny, energetic.

I wanted to share three anecdotes about my grandmother, that made a big impression on me.

When I was  about 7, Memaw said to me: "Always do your VERY BEST, every day, Dee. Always. Then at the end of the day, FORGET IT. Then you can sleep." She was right. If you always give every task 100%, you don't have to worry about regrets. I'm sure there were things in life she regretted, but she didn't dwell on them. She just did her best and got on with it.

VERY valuable life lesson, there.

Memaw may have grown up rich, but she lived through The Great Depression of 1929-39 and she had three kids to feed and a husband who restlessly changed jobs about every year. They didn't always live in places with indoor plumbing. There wasn't always any family around to help.

During the Great Depression, Mom told me, hobos [homeless men] would often come to the back door of the house asking for a handout. Memaw never just gave them handouts. She would ask them to do something, and then give them some food before sending them on their way. The chore might be pulling weeds, or sweeping the porch, or whatever they could do, but she never turned anyone away hungry. Of course, most of those men were just out of work, not alcoholics or mentally ill. They were usually just good people who were trying not to starve. Mom said the hobos would carve symbols or numbers into a tree or fence or somewhere in front of the house to signal that it was a place with kind people who might give a person a meal.

When Mom was small, at one place where they lived, there was a tiny school but there was no cafeteria. Every day at noon the kids were given an hour to walk home and eat lunch and walk back. A lot of those kids had no lunch waiting for them at home. Memaw got together with other mothers and worked out a plan so each mother would take a turn every week or two, and bring food to the school and serve it to the kids. It might be only a sandwich and an apple, or a plate of beans and cornbread, but each child [in the entire school] got fed, each day of the school year.

My mother was a wonderful storyteller, and I was so lucky that she told me many stories about Memaw. I am thankful I knew her, and she spent a lot of time with me when I was a child.

Memaw worked hard, but she also laughed a lot, and she raised her children to be hard workers, but also to hold onto their sense of humor and to not dwell on past mistakes or misfortunes.

Most importantly, she had an abiding faith in God, and she passed that along to us all. She didn't just talk the talk, though. She was kind and generous to everyone, and although she could be a bit demanding in restaurants she was never rude, and I never heard her raise her voice.

The older I get the more I appreciate her profound influence on me. I wish I could have a visit with her. I have an audio clip of her telling a funny story and occasionally I listen to it, just to hear her voice. I played it for Michael yesterday and he listened thoughtfully and said "She sounds a little bit like Granny." So true. The apple didn't fall far from the tree.

I still talk back, and still occasionally put my foot in my mouth, but I apologize and I don't lose sleep over it.

The Legacy of Tina Turner

I remember seeing Tina Turner on the Ed Sullivan Show when I was a little girl and loving seeing her dance. She looked incredibly strong and powerful. I had no idea when she was with Ike Turner he was beating her up constantly. I was shocked to find out years later that she had to literally flee from him, in fear for her life, to get out of that marriage, as she wrote about in I,Tina.

Here's a bit of truth that makes people very uncomfortable: in the old days, which many people refer to with great fondness as "the good old days" women getting hit by their husbands or boyfriends wasn't discussed. It was considered nobody's business. The mantra "mind your own business" covered a multitude of sins, from domestic violence to child abuse, to child molestation, etc.

Tina's courage in walking away from Ike signaled a change in society, a huge shift in how women allowed themselves to be treated.

My mother told me when I was a teenager and starting to date "Never, ever let a man hit you and get away with it. If it happens once and you take it, it will happen over and over. Get away from him. If you're married, walk out, and take your children. NEVER put up with it, not for a minute."

It seemed obvious to me.

Skip ahead a few years and I am a Freshman in college. One of my friends returns from a weekend at home with a black eye where her boyfriend hit her. She was a cute little blonde, very funny and feisty. I was shocked. I told her she had to break up with that boyfriend "But he said he was sorry and it wouldn't happen again!" I got so frustrated with her. Several of us told her to break off that relationship, but I don't know if she did. I don't know what happened to her because I transferred schools.

My dad had a cousin who was a beautiful lady, very smart, a prominent businesswoman in her small hometown, and her husband beat her. She told no-one except a close friend, and that friend also had an abusive husband. The small town where they lived was [probably still is] very old-fashioned and judgmental.

What many young women don't realize nowadays is that abuse still happens, and shame and embarrassment keep many women from talking about it or doing something about it. I've told my own daughter she must never put up with abuse.

God Bless Tina Turner for taking something so personal and painful out of the shadows, and holding herself up as an example of strength. NO WOMAN should put up with abuse, not even one time.

There is a National Domestic Violence hotline and the number is 800-799-7233 -- if you are being abused, call it. There are women's shelters everywhere, and there's no shame in asking for help.

Labels for Children

As a child, I was a female nerd, long before I ever heard that word. I was also a tomboy, a bookworm, Miss Priss [Mama's nickname for me], The Dee Dee [Dad's nickname for me], Doll [my grandfather's nickname for me] and An Early Bloomer. My mother and my memaw were constantly on my case about being a Little Lady, but eventually they gave up on that. I preferred playing in the dirt to being ladylike, any day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We love to label children. My teachers told Mom and Dad I was precocious, conscientious, creative, and sometimes my attention wandered. Newsflash: my wandering attention was a result of me not being challenged in school. (I learned by 4th grade to always take a book to school so when I finished my classwork I could just read.)

I was also a bedwetter, for many years. It was embarrassing, especially when visiting someone else's house. At my own house, I woke up wet, got up and cleaned myself off and put on a fresh gown, and got in bed with my parents. I was reminded of that reading Sean Dietrich's column, Sleepless in Nashville.

I had stopped wetting the bed around age 11 but I was very sympathetic to the child who wrote Sean. It's super embarrassing. It's also, though, an instant barometer of the adults around you. Mothers tend to be sympathetic and kind, but fathers aren't always so nice, at least in my observation.

I wet the bed for the last time at age 15, while trying to sleep in a hotel room with both parents, who snored like crazy. Thank goodness I was on a cot.

Being a bedwetter also, I am convinced, makes for a more compassionate adult. If you are a bedwetter you feel intensely sympathetic to the child who is nerdy, or who wets the bed, or the little bookworm who hates being the last chosen for a sports team.

I always felt self-conscious and freakish in elementary and middle school. I could never feel good about myself except in the spelling bee or sometimes when onstage singing or doing plays. I grew fast and was taller than all my classmates until 8th grade. Then some of the boys started sprouting, so I didn't feel like She-Hulk by the time I got to high school. 

Parents, if your child wets the bed, trying to make them feel ashamed does.not.work! Set an alarm and get the child up to tinkle in the night. Or restrict liquids before bed. or whatever works. Children need to feel empowered and safe in their worlds. Shame and humiliation don't work.

Being a kid is tough, but being a nerdy kid, a bedwetter, a giant -- those make childhood a real trial by fire. I was also chubby so I got those labels too, which hurt.Try to always speak to your child with Love -- that's the quickest was to effect change.

Feel Good About Aging, Ladies

I used to have an argument with my mother all the time that went something like this:

Elva: "Dee you need to wear some makeup and fix your hair."

Dee: "I hate makeup and I'm not going to wear any."

Elva: "At least wear some lipstick, then."

In my mother's opinion, no woman should leave her house with natural looking lips. She wore a bright red lipstick called Love That Red and I could always tell when she didn't feel well because she would fail to put on lipstick and eyebrow color.

My mother felt like she truly was unattractive without makeup. She colored her hair for years, but then got tired of it, cut her hair short and let it go gray. I liked her gray hair a lot better because it looked natural.

She didn't budge on the makeup question, though. She felt like wearing makeup made a woman feel better about herself. It certainly worked for her. 

I spent years carefully planning what I would wear to work each day, fixing my long hair, and carefully applying my makeup. I was trying to catch a husband. I had to bait the hook, if I wanted to catch one. [above, a photo of me next to Mom, in full hunting gear]

When I adopted my daughter, though, I was 41 years old and I decided the Great Husband Hunt was OVER. My family was almost complete. I didn't feel the need to impress anyone. I started wearing stretchy pants, big comfy tops, and Crocs. I quit wearing makeup.

My mother lived with me and was appalled.

I could never get her to understand that for me, giving up all the fuss was a HUGE relief.

I tried to explain to Mom once that in her life, she had been conditioned to feel that if she looked natural -- without makeup, without a hair "DO" and wearing comfortable clothes [not a girdle and stockings/pantyhose] -- that she looked BAD. Furthermore, she was taught that once she had caught a man she still had to keep him. She kept a little basket of makeup, including a comb and perfume, right near the front door. When she saw Dad's car turn in the driveway she would run comb her hair and freshen her makeup so she could greet him at the door with a smile.

Maybe she had the right idea. She was married 40 years. Most of the women of her generation didn't get divorced. Books and magazine articles in the 1950's advised women that if they let a man come home to a messy house and a wife without makeup they would probably wind up divorced.

What sparked this blog was this article about how wonderful Cher looked at a recent event. She is 76. She has always had her own individual style and always flown in the face of critics and anyone who thought she should look conventional. I've always admired her outspokenness and independence. I remember watching her variety show when I was a kid. However, seeing her clearly trying to look much younger, with the long dyed hair and the face that has clearly had every plastic surgery procedure one can have, makes me feel sorry for her. She is trying so hard to fight natural aging. She looks very unnatural and fake. She's also dating a guy 40 years her junior -- so technically young enough to be her grandson, which is super creepy. [I would say that about a man dating someone 40 years younger, too.]

Now, before you compose your hateful comment, know this: I fully support women doing whatever they want to do in terms of makeup, hair, who they date, etc. We still live in a free country and everyone should look whatever way they want to look. Wouldn't it be great if all women were happy to look their age, though?

I just feel like the media is constantly glorifying women who "defy" age and as a result, women spend a huge amount of time and money to look younger. How often do you see the media celebrate the beauty of an older woman who has gray hair and wrinkles and doesn't turn herself inside out trying to look a lot younger? Not too often.

At left, Jamie Lee Curtis. She is 63, so more than ten years younger than Cher. Jamie looks normal, though. She is still attractive but you don't see her dressing like a biker chick and hanging all over a man young enough to be her grandson. Of course, Cher is still trying to attract lovers and Jamie has been happily married for more than twenty years. If she were divorced, would she be trying to "defy" aging? I don't know. Hopefully not.

I also feel like women in Hollywood get celebrated for looking younger, and held up as examples all women should follow, and that's completely unfair. I cannot afford multiple plastic surgeries. I don't want to inject poison in my face (aka Botox). I cannot afford fashionable clothes. I cannot afford a cook, or a personal trainer, or to eat seafood every night. So there's literally no possibility that I can hope to look like Halle Berry or Jennifer Anniston.

That's okay. I'm not crying about that. I am happily single and likely to remain that way. I have always been very independent.

As a society, we need to un-do all the media pressure to look younger. The emphasis should be on looking and feeling healthy.

Celebs like Demi Moore, who say there's nothing wrong with aging, also say things I find quite disturbing. Moore has designed a new line of swimsuits that no normal woman over 50 will look good in! It "...includes bikinis, one-pieces with deep V-necklines, and high-waisted two-pieces inspired by vintage designs. "We don't want to look matronly or not feel sexy." She says her own grandmother at 60 "seemed resigned to being old." Uh, that's called accepting reality. What's wrong with looking matronly, Demi? You're reinforcing the idea that women have to starve themselves, dye their hair, and try to compete with younger women for male attention. Shame on you. The next thing you will see is Demi dating some guy 10, 20, 30 years younger. In Hollyweird that is celebrated. And they wonder why so many of us in the flyover states do not admire them.

In researching this blog I found a lot of articles quoting celebs like Demi and Gwyneth Paltrow and Andi McDowell, etc. saying how wonderful it is that women can look their age, and yet every one of them looks carefully sculpted and groomed to look younger. They clearly don't understand the hypocrisy inherent in their bizarre mixed messages.

The bottom line here, as I see it, is this: I cared way too much about looks when I was younger. Now my only real concern is being clean and wearing clean clothes. No amount of makeup or hair dye will make me look ten or twenty years younger and that's fine. I'm comfortable in my own skin. I'm not worried about catching a man. I want to feel well and one day have enough energy to play with my [future] grandchildren.

I am so much less concerned with what anybody thinks of me, now. I don't let minor stuff upset me. I get a lot of pleasure out of simple things like a nice meal, a wonderful song, a great movie. I tell people I love how I feel, without fear. I cherish my friends. I like me.

I hope and pray future generations of women will stop feeling so much pressure to "defy aging." It's inevitable and we should embrace it.

#womenshouldembraceaging, #wrinklesarebeutiful, #celebsshouldshutupaboutaging, #agingisnormal, #embraceoldage, #loveyourselfatanyage, #grayhairisbeautiful, #stoptryingtolookyoung

A Woman Must Always Be Cautious

I read Sean Dietrich's column every day and the one for today is particularly poignant because it talks about runners doing a memorial run for a young mother named Eliza who was killed in Memphis last week by a man who never should have been out of prison.

Sean quotes a father who says: "I don’t want my daughter growing up in a world where women have to be afraid."

I have news for you, Sir: there are two kinds of women in the world. Those of us who are acutely aware that we aren't as strong or tough as guys, and we take precautions to stay out of situations where we could be hurt, and women who think the world is a safe place. It's not. Eliza went out jogging at 4:30 a.m., alone. Bad idea. I am NOT "blaming the victim." She should have been able to jog safely.

However, the man who abducted, raped and killed her, was out on the street, not behind bars, as this article says: If he had not been released early due to sentence-reduction credits, he would have been behind bars during both the attacks on Fletcher and the other woman.

He was supposed to serve 24 years but he only served 20, according to this article. I blame the politicians who allowed him to go free. THEY should be publicly apologizing to Eliza's family.

Years ago when I got out of college and got my first apartment alone, my brother gave me intensive self-defense instruction. He also bought me a .38 pistol and showed me how to use it. If Eliza had had a pistol -- or even pepper spray -- she might be alive today.

Newsflash: 99% of all women in the world are simply not as strong as men. We don't have the size or strength of men. We HAVE to be cautious. We SHOULD worry about our own safety. We should never assume we are safe in ANY neighborhood.

Below, some great advice for young women about being safe.

Echoes from the Past

There is something profoundly moving to me to see photos like the ones below. I look at the faces and I search for things like my chin, my father's curly hair, my mother's nose, my brother's mouth. I study their faces, and even their lives, with utter fascination.

I have cousins who literally have no interest in knowing anything about their ancestors, and I find that completely puzzling. How do you know who you are, if you know nothing about those who came before you? I truly believe that the DNA we all carry in our bodies contains not only genetic materials, but memories. How else to explain my father's severe claustrophobia that he hid from his children until the day he died?

How else to explain the wisdom passed down from mother to daughter, to granddaughter? "Let the man think he's the head of the household while you do what you want. If he thinks it's his idea but it's not, so what?!"

[those are only two examples of many]

I wonder why great grandmother Ginnie Hasty lost one of her twins, but one survived, and how did she feel about that? I think she gave birth to 11 or 12 children but only 8 lived to adulthood. How incredibly sad. Things we don't have to deal with any more like diphtheria and whooping cough and measles actually killed children 120 years ago. (Maybe that's why I could never let my children opt out of vaccinations. Too risky.)

Sometimes I will see an image or a view and I will shiver as though someone is walking on my grave, as the saying goes. I feel a deep sense of connection to the image even when it's [oftentimes] a place I've never been before. My mother and I used to just gaze in awe at the Smoky Mountains when we rode around East Tennessee when I was a kid. Many of our ancestors came from the Scottish Highlands. When I was in England years ago, riding on a bus touring the utterly gorgeous English countryside, I got this sudden wash of sadness and this thought popped into my head: how could they have left all this beauty? How bad must life have been for my ancestors to get on a ship and endure weeks or months of hardship to arrive in America, a place filled with disease and danger in the 18th century. How badly did they want to get away, make a new start?

My ancestors lived in conditions that most people today cannot really fathom. I can't imagine not having an indoor bathroom, or running water, or access to an education. I cannot imagine not going to the library every week as a child and getting all kinds of colorfully illustrated books. When my grandparents were children books were still rare and precious. Ironically, some of my happiest memories are of my grandparents reading to me. 

I think traits like determination and courage and love of music and artistic talents can all be passed down through the generations, just like hair color and eye color. My forebears were smart, hardworking, and moral people. They persevered in the face of some incredible hardships.

Their greatest talent they passed down to me? The ability to love. That has to be consciously passed along to the succeeding generations. It isn't automatic, like the fight or flight response. My parents were flawed and they made mistakes (like all parents) but one thing they got right was they showed us how to be loving and how to accept love. It shouldn't be taken for granted. My children lived in orphanages before coming to live with me and I had to teach them how to be loving. It was easy because they needed love, and they absorbed it so quickly, and returned it so easily. Because my parents were so good at it, my children blossomed beautifully under the loving care of me, my mother, and my brother. So even though my children aren't connected to my ancestors by blood, they are connected by love.

As long as I have breath in my body I will long to know more about my ancestors.

photo below, the only photo I have of my great grandparents on Dad's side, James and Martha Henderson. James had red hair and my hair is auburn, just FYI. The shorter lady behind the little girl is my grandmother Cordelia. The little girl on the far right is Virginia and her granddaughter is one of my dearest friends today.

bottom photo, my grandfather Bob Hasty and his family

top photo, my grandmother Wilma Butler Hasty and her sisters

 

Dads Defining Beautiful

If you are the father of daughters, I want to tell you something really important: tell your daughter she is beautiful, often. Say it with feeling. It is so critical to her emotional well-being.

I grew up hearing a lot of conflicting voices about myself and what I looked like, and it's only been in the past few years that I have been able to process what I heard and put it all into perspective. As a child, I was a sponge. I had no perspective. I just always felt inferior.

My grandmother told me many times that I looked like Princess Grace. I had no idea who that was or why I supposedly looked like her, but I figured if she was a princess, that she must be beautiful. Mom told me I was beautiful too, on occasion.

I don't remember paying any attention whatsoever to my looks until about first grade, when I realized that I didn't look like all the other little girls. I was taller than everyone else. I looked like a third grader amongst my smaller classmates. It's bad enough feeling like you don't fit in, but feeling like everyone else is pretty and you aren't is pretty devastating to a little girl. Kids at school made me feel awful about my looks.

I don't remember my dad ever telling me I was beautiful. He likely did. I just don't recall the words ever coming out of his mouth unless Mom was standing there goading him, saying things like "Tell Dee how nice she looks!" -- usually after I was dressed for church, or some special occasion.

Meanwhile, my brother told me very often that I was ugly. Little boys at school told me I was ugly and fat. There were very many male voices telling me that I was ugly -- a sea of voices -- and there was no counterbalance telling me I wasn't.

It seemed to me like beautiful girls looked very different than me. They had long hair that their mamas would fix up with hair ribbons. My hair was always short because Mom decided she didn't have the patience to fix my hair every morning before school, so it was cut short, in a pixie cut, until I was old enough to fix my own hair.

Little girls on TV and in movies didn't look like me. They weren't freakishly tall. They didn't wear their cousins' or brother's hand-me-down clothes that didn't quite fit right. I always had skinned knees. My hair was usually a mess. I hated wearing shoes and had to be threatened with spanking to get me to wear shoes when it was warm outside.

I was pretty shy and quiet at school, but at home I was loud and rambunctious and completely different.

My dad appreciated pretty females and was not shy about complimenting a woman and telling her she looked beautiful. He said it to friends, relatives, neighbors, work colleagues, you name it. I don't recall him saying it to my mother very often, however.

To be fair, Dad grew up in a family with two brothers, and a mother who didn't believe in expressing strong emotions in front of her children. She told my mother that she always went in a closet and shut the door when she had to cry. So all three of her sons were freaked out when they got married and saw that their wives would occasionally get overwhelmed and cry. Mom and her two sisters-in-law had to try and educate their husbands that women just cry sometimes, and the best response was not to tell them they were being overly emotional or crazy.

I grew up feeling ugly. No little girl should grow up feeling like that.

Dads, tell your girls they are beautiful. Tell them daily. Say it with feeling, meaningfully. Tell them what makes a girl or a woman beautiful has nothing to do with her looks and everything to do with the look in her eyes, and her smile, and how she treats others. Help your daughter to understand that it's best to ignore what the world says is beautiful, because most often they will always feel inferior if that's their measurement.

Point out examples of beauty that defy convention. Make sure they see you admiring females who are not conventionally beautiful, like an older woman, or a heavy woman. Point out beauty elsewhere in the world too -- a beautifully ripe melon, a beautifully polished piece of wood, a beautiful sky after a storm, a beautiful piece of music.

Dads, you are your daughter's North Star. She will always look to you for guidance. Help her to understand  and be confident in a standard of beauty that's real and healthy.

Seven Sisters

My Memaw, Wilma Butler Hasty, was one of 7 sisters. Memaw was right in the middle. For her entire life, she was a force to be reckoned with on her own, but among her sisters she was just one of many forces. I was only ever around a few of them at a time. My mom said that when she was around all 7 of them they would all talk at once and yet later, they would all know exactly what the others said.

I heard a lot about aunt Miriam growing up because she had two daughters that Mom used to play with. I also heard a lot about Hazel because Mom adored her and went to visit her a lot in Acworth, and Hazel was really funny. My mom knew all the aunts well.

left, standing Miriam, Dot, Hazel, Jenny, Wilma / Sitting, Marcel [in chair] and Barbara

From my mother Elva Hasty's memoir Singing to the Cows, here are some of her recollections:

Mother and her siblings, six sisters and three living brothers, and all their families got together for almost all holidays and most birthdays.

Gifts were a big part of Christmas for Mother and her six sisters, but nothing expensive. Either Mother or my Aunt Jennie sewed all the aprons for the sisters. Sometimes, they would make cute potholders to match the aprons. The sisters all gave each other Christmas presents and birthday presents and most often, each received one or two new aprons as well as other gifts.

My Aunt Miriam didn’t sew. She always gave panties. She and her family lived in an apartment, on the corner of Peachtree Place and Peachtree St. On the opposite corner was a quite nice ladies’ clothing shop, called Jean’s Shop. Miss Jean was a friend of my aunt. Miriam knew the correct size, style, fabric etc. for each of her sisters and me. Before a birthday, she’d call and order her panties present, have it gift wrapped, charged to her husband, and delivered across the street. Mother thought it was funny but I loved receiving the beautiful undies. (Wonder what she’d think about the tiny, band aide size panties that girls wear now! Hardly worth the bother of wearing them, seems like.)

Right, late 1940's, in line by height! From left, Barbara, Marcel, Miriam, Wilma, Dot, Hazel, Jenny

Her younger sister, Miriam, began college with her. Mother wrote all of Miriam’s homework essays and any writing homework. They laughed about it for years because with one particular professor, Miriam made an A and Mother made a B.

Mother and her sister Hazel were characters, even as kids. Mother started driving at a young age. She would drive all over town, with Hazel working the pedals. That was before you needed a license to drive. Once Hazel was locked up in the smokehouse because she had been so bad. Must have been the end of summer because the entire watermelon crop was there, a lot of melons. Hazel took a crowbar and stabbed and ruined every melon in the building.

The seven sisters and three sisters in law had a well-practiced routine when it came to get-togethers. There was no pussyfooting around when it came to what they were to bring either. One aunt was a sorry cook so she most often was told to bring something “bought” or paper products etc. When you count it up, there were twenty adults and about seventeen kids. Also, Granny had two unmarried sisters who lived in Acworth and they often joined us. It was quite a crowd and we ate at the big, round dining room table plus the very big kitchen table and the men often carried their food out to one of the three porches. Granny had the place of honor at the dining room table and the women sat with her. Sometimes, my aunt’s cook, Oradee, was there and she mostly stayed in the kitchen, riding herd on all the kids. Oradee was lots stricter than the aunts and we had to mind our manners when she was supervising and wielding her long handled wooden spoon.

Anyway, they were all characters, all the Butler sisters!

Above: Dot, Hazel, Wilma [seated] Marcel stands in the back

 

My new novel, Return to Marietta, has several characters based on the sisters. You can order it HERE.