The Crab Chronicles

I Earned This Face

I just read a post on Twitter/X by a young woman who couldn't be more than 35 and she posted on there and said "Do you ever look at photos of your younger self and just want to cry because you don't look like that any more?!" I replied and and said NO! I earned these wrinkles and gray hair. I am glad not to have to worry about my looks any more.

I saw Jodie Foster interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning and she is the same age as me and she looks it. She has gray hair and wrinkles! Good for her! Most Hollyweird actresses over 50 still have long hair and faces that look really weird and unnatural and they creep me out. [Courtney Cox and Julia Roberts, I'm talking to y'all...]

There's only one photo of me that I kinda wish I still looked like:

Then again, I was constantly worried about my hair, my makeup, my earrings, etc. I spent a ton of my life trying to look perfect and attract a husband and it was all a silly waste of time.

I think I am part of one of the last generations to be raised by pre-feminist mamas. My mom's youth was spent in the 1950's -- the decade she graduated from high school, graduated from college, got married, and had her first child. She faced a ton of discrimination. SHe was almost an "old maid" at 22! She wasn't allowed to wear pants to school even in college. Women were denied entry to management training programs because they would "just get married and quit." My mother never left the house without putting on lipstick.

So much of her self-worth had to do with what she looked like, and she tried to pass that on to me. I bought into it in my 20's and 30's, what I call The Husband Hunting Years.

When I adopted my daughter I realized she needed a full-time mom who didn't date, who would focus only on her, because that was not true of her birthmom. She deserved a full-time mother so I quit trying to find a husband, quit worrying about my hair and makeup and shifted into Mom Mode. Ditto for when I adopted my son a few years later. I had gained a lot of weight by then, which I regret of course, but the peace of mind I felt from not worrying about my appearance was priceless.

I think some moms are still preaching to their daughters that looks are super important and I don't agree with that. I think a woman should want to eat right and exercise because she wants to be healthy, not because she wants to "catch a man."

I am not against dating or marriage. Far from it. I am open to any guy who likes full-figured ladies with gray hair. I just won't turn myself inside-out to try to fit some idea of what I SHOULD look like.

I have sometimes reflected on the fact that if I had gotten married in my 20's and had biological children I wouldn't have ever met my children, and that would be truly awful. When I turned 60 I started thinking about all my life choices, good and bad, and I decided to forgive my younger self for the mistakes I made.

As my precious Memaw taught me, "Dee, do your best every day, all the time, and then you won't have regrets."

I've done my best. No regrets.

I earned all my wrinkles and gray hair. I earned and more importantly I LEARNED.

I also earned the ability to laugh at all my mistakes and foibles, and that's why I wrote my memoir, Talking Back, Stories from the Big Hair and Pantyhose Years.

One of my friends who read an early draft, who chose an entirely different path to career and motherhood, said to me after she finished it:

"Omg so much I can really relate to in my own life growing up and now. And future readers of this work of your will also relate as well."

That meant so much to me, that she could relate.

If you are a woman over age 50 you should be able to relate to a lot of things the book. If you're in the legal profession you should find a lot to relate to, and if you're a Southerner you should find it very relatable. If I've done my job right, though, you can be none of those things and still like the book.

You can click on Read a Sample, and scroll down to page 18, and you will get a good idea of the rest of the book. I try to mainly be positive and share funny stories but I mention some of the negative stuff in my life, not because I want anyone to feel sorry for me, but just because otherwise I think it wouldn't ring true. Check it out.

#memoirsofmoms, #funnymemoirs, #funnyparalegalstories, #storiesfromthesouth

The Christmas That Started It All

In my family we really don't give expensive Christmas presents but ironically, I am here today because of an expensive Christmas present. A diamond. My dad was really bad at selecting Christmas presents unless you told him exactly what you wanted. Mom figured that out right off the bat.

St. Patrick's Day, 1956, Atlanta Georgia

Elva Hasty was a young college graduate in her first year of teaching, living with her parents. Her friend Babs was home from college and she decided to throw a party for St. Patrick's Day, at her parents' home in Atlanta. Babs invited her good friend Elva, who politely declined because she didn't have anyone to go with, but Babs was persistent.

"There will be a guy there with no date, a friend of the family, Tony Thompson. He's a little older than we are but he's nice. Come on to the party and he can be your date," she encouraged young Elva.

Elva thought about it and decided since she had nothing better to do, she would go to Babs' party. She arrived at the house and was greeted by Babs. "Go on back to the kitchen. Tony's in there talking to my dad," Babs told her.

Elva went into the kitchen and Tony was deep in conversation with Babs' father and barely looked at her. Babs' father introduced Elva and Tony. Tony said hello and kept talking to the older man. Elva stood there for a few minutes and then went into the living room and chatted with some of the other party guests, but she felt awkward since she had no date.

Finally, Elva decided it was a boring party and she preferred to just go back to her parents' house where she could read in private. She was a voracious reader.

She found Babs and said "I'm going to call my dad to come pick me up." Suddenly, Tony was there. "I'll be glad to drive you home, Miss Hasty."

Tony was working as an accountant for a chain of grocery stores, the Big Apple Stores. His mother was a retired schoolteacher.

They dated for a few months, then broke up during the summer of 1956. They got back together in September.

In late November, Tony arrived at Elva's parents' home late on a Sunday afternoon, and Elva was furious. He had promised to be there hours earlier, and Elva had carefully dressed and fixed her hair and makeup, then then just sat, waiting on Tony. She didn't have a way to call him. He had moved back to Augusta and was just in Atlanta for a weekend visit. She didn't know the name of the aunt he was staying with, or the phone number. She figured he had probably forgotten he was going to see her, so she re-dressed, not caring how she looked.

Tony finally arrived, late in the afternoon. He found Elva wearing old dungarees and a tee shirt of her brothers, her face scrubbed clean of makeup, hair pulled back in a ponytail. He was surprised because she had never looked so sloppy before. He quickly realized she was furious.

"OK so listen up," she said curtly.  "I'm almost 23 years old and I'm not getting any younger. [Her aunt Miriam actually had her Sunday School class praying every Sunday that Elva would find a husband before it was too late!] I'm ready to get married and settle down. I want four kids and a dog, and I plan to stay home. If you aren't interested in getting married, that's fine, I won't waste any more time on you. If you are interested in getting married and starting a family, tell me now. I'm tired of waiting."

She basically gave him an ultimatum.

There was no dramatic proposal with him on one knee. No ardent declarations of love. Elva was ready to get married and he could either fish or cut bait. [Keep in mind that in those days, nice girls didn't sleep with anyone unless they were married and Elva was a nice girl.]

Tony agreed, but Elva wasn't done.

"I've been seeing another guy all summer and he says he's in love with me. I told him if he wants to marry me he needs to bring me a diamond. Same goes for you. The first guy who gives me a proposal AND a diamond, I'll marry."

[Many years later, I asked Tony if he had loved her at first sight and he said YES! Elva told me she didn't feel the same; he was really skinny and not very good at communicating. Eventually, they became great friends. One of my best childhood memories is hearing them talking and laughing together at night, when I was supposed to be in bed asleep.]

On Christmas Day, 1956, Tony Thompson showed up at Elva's parents' house with a diamond ring and a proposal. She agreed to marry him. He casually said "I want to get married right away, and I want a BIG wedding!" Six weeks later, they were married at First Baptist Church in Atlanta.

That proposal and that lovely diamond ring are why my father's name was Tony Thompson, not Tom Bell.

 

left, Tony and Elva's engagement photo

right, a few years later, Elva with her children Bruce and Dee [me]

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you like interesting and/or funny stories, check out my latest book, Talking Back, Stories from the Big Hair and Pantyhose Years, available on Amazon

Riding the Waves

When I was a child, I was easily frustrated and upset. My memaw told me once I was "high strung." That made me frown. When God was handing out personalities I got a bad deal, it seemed. I am still high strung. I own that. It isn't easy being this way. Sometimes my mind races ahead and I get impatient with those who can't mentally keep up with me. Other times, I realize that I overlook details and make assumptions that I shouldn't, and it would be better to go slower.

I probably wasn't wise to become a Litigation Paralegal because litigation is small-scale war, and there are always plenty of occasions when it's easy to get upset while waging war, even if the weapons are made of paper or whatever emails are made of. I made a work mistake recently that upset me a great deal. I don't think it was entirely my fault, but nonetheless, since I've been a paralegal since 1985, I shouldn't be making mistakes, right?!? Unfortunately, I'm not perfect. When you have a lot of gray in your hair, folks expect you to be either All-Knowing and Perfect, or Senile. I am neither one of those things.

This Christmas has turned out to be one in which there are a lot of challenges.

I have one sibling and he lives about 3.5 hours away. I haven't seen him in two years. We had a lovely phone visit on Thanksgiving, but then last week he sent me an email that made me cry. That was all he gave me for Christmas -- not a card, not a call, not a visit, not a present of any kind, for me or for my son. Being mad at me is one thing -- we are opposites in personality and we've had many disputes, all our lives -- but ignoring my son really hurts. My brother is his only close male relative, and he grew up with no father.

Second, my sweet dog Lola had to be put down last Friday. She had endured two major surgeries in recent years, and had lost most of her hearing. She was suffering from a very painful degenerative eye disease and rapidly going blind. Add in severe allergies that made her itch uncontrollably without medication, arthritis, and some signs of doggy dementia, and I felt like it was time. When a dog has to be heavily medicated, and cannot see or hear, there's no quality of life.

My mother always said bad things come in threes and she was right. My son is having major issues with his car. So for us: Bruce acts like a Grinch, the furbaby crosses the Rainbow Bridge and we miss her terribly, we are facing big bucks for car repairs [probably a new transmission].

I'm not giving up, though.

One of the few gifts of getting older is being able to look back on the years I've spent living and to realize that worrying about stuff accomplishes nothing. A great aphorism: Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but you don't get anywhere.

As I told my son yesterday [and it made him smile, thankfully] this is how life is: one day everything's rosy and you're riding a wave [here I made a hand gesture of surfing] and the next day things just suck. You're not on top of the wave. The wave has washed over you and you feel like you're drowning.There are always going to be ups and downs. It's just LIFE. It's just how it is. Everyone goes through good times and bad times, but here's the big revelation:

It doesn't matter how often you get knocked down. It matters that you always GET BACK UP.

I haven't always been a shining example of grace under fire, but I've shown my son that even when things in my life were awful, I never "took to the bed." I never gave up or gave in. Right now I might burst into tears and sob for a while occasionally, missing my dog, missing my big brother, wondering how I am going to pay a bill, or missing my mom. I might eat pie or cookies. I might shuffle around in my bathrobe and leave wadded up kleenex everywhere. I admit to all those unhealthy coping mechanisms, sure.

I don't give up, though. That's what's most important.

Check out my latest book, Talking Back, Stories from the Big Hair and Pantyhose Years.

 

Chicago in the 1970's

I am a packrat when it comes to scanning in and saving photos. I have literally thousands of photos on my computer and I particularly cherish photos that bring to mind memorable events in my life. I love how I feel when looking at an old photo -- especially one I remember posing for, because it's like time traveling to that time and place. In the photo below, I remember the sense of triumph that we had finally reached our destination and I was so happy to see my cousins. It was a very hot day, and yet the wind made it seem not that hot. I instantly understood why Chicago is called The Windy City.

The trip to Chicago commemorated in the photos here was quite memorable.

Left, me and my grandmother Memaw Hasty and two of my Hasty cousins in Chicago, 1974. We drove from Knoxville to Chicago in a 1968 Impala with Memaw sitting between me and my brother on the back seat. Memaw wanted to visit her son Don and his family and stay for a while. She flew home a few weeks after we carried her up there.

I was 12 years old and I had never been to a city as enormous as Chicago. My uncle was an administrator at McCormick Theological Seminary. As part of his compensation, his family was able to live in a row house near the school.

For me it was a huge adventure. There were a lot of firsts.

I had never been in a car that long, for one. In those days it was about 9 or 10 hours. We played a lot of car games, sang songs, and told stories. My grandmother pulled out her crossword puzzle books and gave us all Chiclets.

Our family played a car game where we tried to guess the identity of a famous person based on asking yes or no questions. Memaw stumped us all. She said her Famous Person was a military man, last name started with S. We asked a lot of questions, for miles and miles, and finally gave up.

The answer? Colonel Sanders. Mom and Dad laughed about that for years.

From the houses to the train to the stores, Chicago was a fascinating place.

I had never been inside a brownstone -- I'd only seen them in TV shows and movies. The idea of building such a vertical home just fascinated me, and of course scampering up and down the stairs was fun. [Now, almost 50 years later, my knees hurt just contemplating all those stairs!]

My cousins and brother and I were able to get out and run around by ourselves, in a big city! That was major league fun, in my book. I had never been on a train. I had never been in anything like the Field Museum. I was used to museums that were enclosed in old houses, easily viewed in an hour or so. I could have spent a week in the Field Museum and not seen it all.

My cousins had the enviable life of freedom, and although to me the city was scary it was also fascinating.

We wandered into a little junky "antiques" store, the kind of dusty little shop one finds everywhere, and I found a blue bottle that I loved, the blue a rich dark purple-blue that reminded me of my mother's eyes. When we got back to the house and I showed my mother she burst out laughing. My Dad laughed. My aunt and uncle laughed. I was upset because I felt like I had messed up and I didn't know why. Finally, Mom explained that the writing on the bottle, "Strychnine," was a type of poison. I had never seen that word. None of us kids knew the word. From feeling proud at finding a cool present for Mom, I felt like an idiot.

We left Chicago and drove to Springfield Illinois, to see where Abraham Lincoln had lived for years, and visit his law office and his in-law's house, all of those places having been well preserved. I think we also spent a night in St. Louis, and my brother and I wanted to go up inside the famous arch, and my parents said NO. My mother was deathly afraid of heights.

I came home happy to see the mountains of East Tennessee, happy to not take any more long car trips for a while, but missing my cousins. It would be years before we would see them again.

 

If you are looking for the perfect Christmas gift, check out my newest book! Talking Back

#funnystoriesfromthesouth, #paralegalstories, #funnystories, #boomermemoirs, #perfectchristmasgifts, #bestmemoirever, funnymemoirs, #humorousbooks, #paralegalmemoirs, #greatchristmasgiftbooks,

The BEST Thanksgiving and the WORST Thanksgiving

When I was a kid we had two kinds of Thanksgivings, the ones with the extended family and the ones with just the four of us. Over the years we would sometimes get together with my mom's two brothers and their families for Thanksgiving, but not every year. 

Left, about 1968 or '69, with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. I am in front wearing blue pants and a red jacket.

The holidays with the extended family were always fun, because my mom and both aunts and my grandmother were all wonderful cooks. Nobody has ever equaled my mom's homemade dressing, as I explained in an article for The Cook's Cook a couple of years ago, Enjoy Elva's Cornbread Dressing. I was unaware there was anything other than cornbread dressing until I was almost grown. One year when it was just the four of us, Mom made a small pan of oyster dressing in addition to the standard one. It was delicious, but not something she did every year. In addition to the dressing, the Hasty Thanksgivings also included the standards: turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pies.

The BEST Thanksgiving was in 1970, when the family gathered at Amicalola Falls in North Georgia, and rented a cabin in the mountains. I slept on the floor in the main room with my cousins, in a sleeping bag, but I didn't mind. I got to play with my cousin Linda, and my brother played with Bill, her twin. We were all happy to be together. The food was marvelous, too, of course.

One of the highlights was my uncle Don showing all of us a cassette tape recorder. In 1970 that was hi tech, exciting stuff! He worked in the corporate office of GE and always got to use the latest techno wizardry. He recorded all of us kids, and some grownups, talking about the weekend. Years later, he and my aunt found that tape and had copies made and sent a copy to each family. I still have it. It's one of my most prized possessions. A few years ago I played the tape on an old boombox and I recorded a snippet of my grandmother's voice and it's stored now on my desktop, where I can listen to it any time. I love hearing her voice again.

Linda recently sent me a copy of some of the home movies her dad made that weekend and I got such a kick out of seeing those. I had forgotten that I was a Hot Mess. I am constantly turning cartwheels and jumping around and pretending to be a ballerina. I had forgotten I was such a lively kid.

My grandmother was a prankster, all her life, and I never really knew that until that weekend. The second night, she announced she was going to bed early, then snuck out of the cabin and went to her car and put on some old clothes and a wig and hat, and then came and knocked on the door, cigarette dangling, and asked my cousin Robert for a light. (She wasn't a smoker, in reality.) Always polite, he said "I'm sorry I don't have one, but maybe my dad can help." My uncle Bobby appeared, took one look, and knew it was Memaw. He kept bending down to see her face, and she kept dropping her head down because she didn't want him to see it was her, which was pretty hilarious (we all agreed later) because Bobby was 6'3 and Memaw was 4'11! I stood back and watched it all, fascinated. Years later, long after Memaw had died, Mom told me of some of her escapades as a young girl and even as a young mother, including dressing up as a vagrant for Halloween, with a friend, and playing practical jokes on all the neighbors.

The summer before that had been particularly awful for our little family. My mother had been in the hospital, very ill with blood clots in her legs, Daddy had to have emergency hemorrhoid surgery, my brother had been horribly bullied at school, and I had been sick with pneumonia for 3 weeks. Thanksgiving with the family was a welcome change.

The Thanksgiving in the mountains was the last time all of us would be together with my Memaw and Papa Hasty. We didn't know it then, but in January of 1971 our family would move to Knoxville, Tennessee, and be about 4 hours' drive from my grandparents, and my uncle Bobby and his family. About 18 months later my grandfather would die, as a complication of surgery on his hip.

In the coming years there would only be a couple of get-togethers of all the Hastys, as the distances were too great, then of course all of my generation grew up and scattered across several states.

So that was the best Thanksgiving.

The worst Thanksgiving was actually comical, in hindsight.

My brother married a lady who I won't name here but she was very strange. I think she was Bipolar, or something. She was always making crazy plans that she insisted would come to pass but they never did. After my father died, around 1997 or 1998, my brother and sister in law came to my mother's house in Augusta for Thanksgiving. They had no children, but two dogs, who came with them, all in one car. Mom and I were there, working on the big meal to be shared that night. We were all in the kitchen, talking. Sis said that on Christmas she and my brother would be in Colorado, either in a hotel or camping. That struck me as odd because my brother hates camping, and Colorado is a long way from South Carolina.

After my sister in law made her bizarre announcement, I looked at my mother, and she looked stricken. Mom always wanted her children home on Christmas -- the only time she was really insistent on that.

I said "Have you all made reservations? Booked flights?" I suspected it was just another wild idea. Oh no, she said, but it was going to happen. I said "Well couldn't you just wait until the day after Christmas maybe? or before Christmas, so y'all could be with us on Christmas Day??"

"But we want to go to Colorado for Christmas!" she insisted. I looked at my brother's face, and he looked super annoyed, like this crazy plan was news to him.

"I'm not saying don't go, I'm just saying be flexible with the dates," I said.

I wasn't yelling. I wasn't visibly angry, just annoyed. I knew my mother was on the verge of tears, anticipating two holidays being ruined by my sister in law -- a new record, for her.

Instead of engaging in a discussion, sister just screamed at me "You are SUCH a BITCH! We're leaving!" and she grabbed her two dogs, and her car keys, and hustled out the back door. I had never seen her move that fast. My brother looked horrified.  "I'm sorry, Mom. I would stay but I'd have no way to get back to Columbia," he apologized. He had to literally run out the door, as his wife was already backing down the driveway. He told us later he had to yell at her to get her to stop so he could get in!

So that year it was just me and Mom, and Mom was very upset. I think we ended up just eating canned soup or sandwiches.

Fortunately, a couple of years later my brother divorced the Crazy Lady.

The one really good thing to result from that awful Thanksgiving? I never saw my sister in law again. Haven't see her since, and that was about 25 years ago. I hope I never see her again. My brother divorced her but they stayed friends. They still occasionally meet for lunch. She actually had the nerve to tell him she wanted to be friends with Mom again, about 15 years ago. Brother mentioned it when visiting us. Mom said NO WAY. She had welcomed my sister in law to the family and treated her like her own child, but when Elva was done with someone, she was DONE. She never forgot, did forgive eventually, but was quite capable of cutting someone entirely out of her life when they didn't act right.

I think sis was/is mentally ill, and my brother eventually came to agree with me. I did exact a little revenge though, as only a writer can. In one of my books there is a character that is a total screwup, an obnoxious young woman who acts like a ho, and I gave her my sister in law's name.

To all y'all out there, I hope your Thanksgiving is lovely, and you are with family and/or friends. It will just be me and my son, and that's fine. We will just eat a lot [pork roast, as we aren't wild about turkey] and watch movies all day.

Check out my new novel Dancing in the Wreckage, on Amazon

Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire

I believe in ghosts. Years ago I used to watch a show called Ghost Adventures and oftentimes the team would go into abandoned mental hospitals and talk about the hauntings there, and how horrible those places were. I have no doubt that they were awful. I would never advocate for bringing back those places, as they were operated in the past. However, I also believe that by closing those hospitals we made it harder to put away severely mentally ill people against their will, and that is a big component in the huge uptick in mass shootings, like the one that took place in Maine the other day.

Just in the past couple of years, mass shootings have increased dramatically (source) and so far in 2023 America has experienced 565 mass shootings -- and we have two more months to go before 2024. Something has to be done.

The factors leading up to this started around 1963, when President Kennedy urged states to close state run mental institutions and adopt a more community-based model for treating the mentally ill, according to Georgia Overhauls Its Mental Health System, a 2011 article. Furthermore:

"By the early 1980s, studies revealed thousands of patients released from state mental hospitals received no follow-up, treatment or assistance. In many states, smaller in-patient facilities like nursing homes and adult care homes became discharge destinations by default. And many of those facilities became the very institutions they were intended to replace, rife with neglect and abuse of those who needed help."

When I was a kid, I remember that you could walk into a store and buy a gun and walk out, without waiting on a background check. Boys could carry hunting rifles to school in their cars. Nobody freaked out. However, back then severely mentally ill people could be locked up in mental hospitals pretty easily too. Those terrible places where people were kept against their will prevented crazy people from victimizing others. I don't want to see them brought back but we have to be able to detect and put away people likely to commit mass shootings.

Details are now emerging about the Maine shooter.

"A Maine law enforcement bulletin circulated this week identified Card as a trained firearms instructor at the U.S. Army Reserve base in Saco, Maine. It said he had reported hearing voices and had other mental health issues..." Also the gunman "...suffered from paranoia and "felt like people were talking about him," factors that might have led him to target the venues he attacked." And yet, "...officials had no evidence Card was ever "forcibly committed" for mental illness treatment." [Source]

I also believe there has been a sharp uptick in all gun violence because so many mentally ill people live on the streets. Serious mental illness and homelessness go hand in hand. According to this source:

"In 2006, Markowitz published data on 81 US cities, looking at correlations between the decreasing availability of psychiatric hospital beds and the increase in crime, arrest rates and homelessness. He reported that, as state hospital bed capacity decreased, the number of mentally ill homeless individuals increased, along with crime and arrest associated with homelessness. This is consistent with studies in Massachusetts, Ohio and New York in the late 1980s finding that, within six months, 27% to 38% of patients discharged from state mental hospitals were homeless or had “no known address.”

Of course there are other factors that are important when considering the causes of gun violence and mass shootings, undeniably. It is very difficult to get mental health treatment -- for anyone. It's expensive and many insurance companies will not pay for it, or will only pay part of the costs.

I also blame the ACLU. Of course, they deny any role in mass shootings and cast the blame elsewhere, saying the gun industry should be better regulated.I disagree.To legally buy a gun in this country is not a quick or easy process. It's actually quite difficult. I should know. My brother works in a store that sells guns. However, to illegally obtain a gun is not that difficult. So if we ban guns, criminals will still have them but good, sane folks will be vulnerable. Most police departments are experiencing critical manpower shortages because nobody wants to be part of that profession. So banning guns or making them extremely hard to get is not a good solution.

I cannot offer any quick and easy solutions. Every time there is a mass shooting people have a fit about gun control, but so far I have not heard one argument from those folks that sounds like a good plan. Posting signs saying "Gun Free Zone" just encourages unstable people to view schools, churches, and shopping centers as great places to kill people. The signs make the problem worse -- and I credit author Larry Correia for teaching me that. He has some very smart things to say about gun control and you can learn more here.

Here are what I see as the facts of this whole dilemma:

Mental hospitals of the past unfairly incarcerated people and were often horrific places and should not be re-created. However, we need to do better about helping mentally ill people in this country.

Perfectly sane people do not shoot innocent people. The data is clear that by emptying and closing down mental institutions and/or making it difficult for mentally ill people to get treatment, we are just forcing them to live on the streets. They self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol and commit crimes to support their habits, often ending up in prison, which is not appropriate treatment either.

Most mentally ill people do not think they are mentally ill. Often they do not want to take their medication. My son had a roommate who fit that profile in that he hated taking his meds but I have seen him nut up and it is very scary. Years ago, my father had to fire an employee who was bipolar and wouldn't take his meds, and the man threatened to kill Dad. Dad carried a gun for years afterwards. I have seen mentally ill people in my own family who were on the edge of violence. If someone doesn't want to believe they are mentally ill, or doesn't want medication, right now there is nothing that can be done, long-term. You can only commit someone involuntarily for a few days, and then they are released.

The Maine shooter should not have been free. The tragic result of the stupidity and short-sightedness of our treatment of the mentally ill is that good, and normal people are DYING. Every day, everywhere.They should haunt our politicians, get them to enact legislation that will make it easier and faster to get help for the mentally ill.

As a nation, we HAVE to figure this out and it will not be an easy or quick process.

[right, me and my brother in high school, shooting out in the country]

#howtostopmassshootings, #mentalhealthreform, #stoppinggunviolence, #gunsarenottheissue, #homelessnessandmentalillness, #larrycorreiaisright

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.

 

An Experienced Paralegal Speaks to Students

My father was president of Toastmasters for many years, and he actually enjoyed public speaking. His last speech happened just a couple of weeks before he died, to the Augusta Rotary Club, when he was named a Paul Harris Fellow. When I was a little girl, not yet in Kindergarten, Mom woke us up very early one weekday morning to watch Dad on an early morning news show in Augusta, where he was talking about The Importance of Making A Will.

She thought we would get a big kick out of Dad being on TV. We did not. We asked to go back to bed. Mom and Dad laughed about it for years.

Dad was a trust banker, so he helped people with estate planning, trusts, etc. and he felt it was important for everyone to have a Will.

[Right, me and Dad dressed for work, about 1986]

I like giving speeches, too. Many people have a morbid fear of public speaking. I enjoy it.

I have been asked to speak to a class of paralegal students in a couple of weeks and I am really looking forward to it, even though it will be by Zoom. I hope the students will enjoy hearing stories of real life scenarios they may encounter. I've been a paralegal since 1985 so I have a LOT of stories.

A few months ago, I published a guidebook for paralegals, Paralegal 411: Tips Tricks and Timesavers for the Litigation Paralegal.

As part of my marketing efforts, I emailed a number of paralegal schools around the country and just asked them to let students know of its availability in case they were getting ready to finish and get their first jobs. I am not a brilliant sales person. I just thought the "soft sell" was my best approach. Apparently it worked because the book is selling pretty well. 

In paralegal school [like law school] about 90% of what you learn is about the law. You learn little or nothing about real life scenarios. Most classes are taught by lawyers who have never worked as paralegals.

So I am looking forward to speaking to the class and giving them the 411 on some real life scenarios.I really enjoy public speaking and I would love the opportunity to speak to paralegal students. With Zoom, it makes it much easier.

#paralegalspeakers, #realworldparalegalstories, #experiencedparalegalwisdom, #whatitsliketoreallyworkinalawfirm, #paralegallife, #paralegalwarstories, #paralegalwisdom

The Winners!

Michael and his friend Munoz won Best Original Dish in the Men Who Can Cook competition today! Munoz is the Sous Chef at Kindred and an incredibly creative chef and Michael has learned a lot from him, even though they don't work together any more. They are still friends. Several people asked Michael for his number and said they would love for him to cook for them! I told him he needs to start a catering business!

 

I told Michael it's ironic that the dish that won [Vietnamese Hot Wings] was invented by a guy originally from Mexico, and a guy originally from Kazakhstan!

The most important things are that Michael learned a bit about how to cook outdoors, and had fun, and all the proceeds went to charity.

 

Mike and I made a Peach Brandy Pound Cake also, and Mike said the slices sold out very fast.

 

The Courage to Love

Control is a funny thing. The more we try to hang onto it, to maintain it, to bend it to our will, the more we learn the price of that way of living.

I have a very close friend and a family member who are highly intelligent, creative, fascinating guys. They are also alone, and that's what they say they want, but I don't think it is, not really.

My friend Andrew (not his real name) is gay. (That's only germane because I don't want to have to switch pronouns.) Brilliant, articulate, funny, handsome, fit -- he seems to have it all. Yet, he has only had one serious relationship in his life. Years ago he was living in Europe and he met a guy and fell in love. As a result, when the guy got a job here in the states, Andrew quit his job and moved back to the states to be with his boyfriend. They set up housekeeping together and Andrew didn't find a job right away. He found himself making dinner and waiting for his guy to get home every night, but that often didn't happen. Boyfriend saw no need to call and say he was going to be late, or eat out with friends, and that infuriated Andrew. After only a few weeks, he packed his things and moved back home to live (temporarily) with his parents. When he told me about it much later I asked why he didn't just get some counseling, try to work through the issues, and Andrew -- normally a very calm, rational person -- got really upset and yelled "I was NOT going to be treated like a housewife!"

Much later, I realized the issue was that for the first time in his adult life, Andrew was in a situation he couldn't control. He couldn't force his boyfriend to be more attentive and considerate. Andrew had gambled a lot, turned his life completely upside down, and his lover wasn't appropriately grateful. That was more than twenty-five years ago and Andrew hasn't had a serious relationship since then.

My relative's situation isn't too different. Let's call him Joe. At age 25, Joe was far from home, working a job in a town where he knew nobody, and met a young lady. She was smart and articulate and she grew up not far from where he did. They got married. For the first year things were fine. Then Joe started to notice peculiar things in his wife's behavior. She would go grocery shopping every day rather than making a list and going weekly. She would feed the cat out of a crystal bowl they got for a wedding present rather than buy a cat dish. Sometimes she would stay in her pajamas all day, staring at the TV, totally non-functional. Joe had decided when he married he would never get divorced, so he just tried to ignore her weird behavior, and "walk it off" which is what guys are taught to do about pain. They weren't successful at getting pregnant but Joe's wife refused to consider infertility treatments or adoption. Finally, after 15 years of marriage, she left. Joe had tried to get her to see a psychologist, or at least go to marital counseling with him, and she refused to even consider she might be bipolar or any other serious malady, so she walked out.

That was more than twenty years ago. Joe has had a number of serious relationships since then but he refuses to consider marrying again. He told me not long ago he was planning to spend the rest of his life living alone and die alone. Complicating matters is the fact that Joe is a heavy drinker and he refuses to get sober.

I love both these guys. They have been part of my life for years. Both are handsome, brilliant, personable, kind -- everything most people look for in a partner. Yet they are both alone.

I think they are actually very fearful of love, and I've tried to analyze that, see if there were something I could say or do to get them to stop being fearful and start taking the huge risk of loving someone.

“The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.” -- Brene Brown

Brene Brown teaches and lectures a lot about vulnerability. I have watched her TED talks several times and each time I come away with a better understanding of what it takes to really live an authentic life, to surrender control, and be brave enough to risk getting hurt.

I wish I could get Andrew and Joe to get some counseling, let a professional help them deal with the fear that is holding them back from finding a loving partner. I pray for them both, often. Being vulnerable is scary stuff. I get it. However, we are all getting older, and neither Andrew or Joe have anyone to look after them when they get old and sick -- which is inevitable, no matter how health conscious one is.

I can't spell out a neat conclusion here, but I want to point out that the "guy code" that says it's somehow unacceptable to seek professional help when you have a difficult problem, that code isn't absolute. However, it's actually quite brave to admit you can't control everything in life, and you're willing to take a risk on a relationship. Risking may mean losing, but it's the only way to [eventually] get the loving partner you seek.

I keep praying my guys will only day find their courage, and find someone to love. I love them both very much...

Check out my latest novel, The Wedding Conspiracy, on Amazon.