Social media, facebook for me, is a wonderful thing. It has changed my life and broadened my horizons immeasurably. From the comfort of a chair in my living room I have made friends with people around the world. There are people who bring joy to my life every day that I have never met but they hold a treasured place in my heart. In cyber space there are no borders. A friend can be thousands of miles away or the other side of the city.
I started thinking about this when I saw a post on the Repeal of DOMA a couple of weeks ago. The majority of Americans, in all age groups, are now in favor of marriage equality for those who are part of the LGBT rainbow. What is most surprising to me is how quickly the barriers are falling on this issue. Had you asked me ten years ago how long it would take for marriage equality I would have asked "What's that?" Now we are at a point where it seems inevitable. A question of not "If" but "When".
Social media is responsible in a large part for the change of public opinion. It breaks down borders. Borders that are not only physical but are ideological. We hear about the child of a friend of a friend who is bullied or beaten because they are different and we say "that should not be" and we change and we influence the people we contact to change. We see reports of loving couples torn apart and families broken because the couple is gay and we say "this should not be". We see an LGBT character in a TV show or movie and we see that they are really no different than we are and we change.
The shift toward marriage equality is a change whose time has come. The day that it does we need to say thank you to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zukerberg and Jack Dorsey. Thank all the people who took the time to put up a post or click like in support of the organizations that fought and lobbied for change.
I look forward to the days when my friends and I have the same rights as everyone else. In the meantime I'm going to pull up my favorite electronic device and have a chat with some friends.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am a fan of music, particularly the music that is now known as "The Great American Songbook". Give me Cole Porter, Irving Berlin or Jerome Kern and I'm a happy girl. Throw in Richard Rogers and his collaborators and I'm in musical heaven. Add some Broadway and movie scores and I'm in your debt forever.
I just watched, again, Michael Feinstein's American Songbook. The first episode of this season talked about how easily so much of Broadway history was lost. The magic that is Broadway resides mainly in the memories of those who saw a show. Original scores were tossed and cast albums were clipped and compressed to fit the time available on the records of the day. Cameras were not allowed to record a performance so history went unrecorded. There are snippets here and there of show highlights but we will never see Gertrude Lawrence in "The King and I" or Ethel Merman in "Gypsy". So many of the wonderful singers , dancers, actors and actresses that I grew up with are gone and they are being forgotten.
The point of all this is to say 'save what you can'. Save the music that means something to you. Those one hit wonders that no one but you remembers. Tell your kids about the things you saw on TV that made an impression; see if you can find clips on You Tube and share the love. Treasure what you love and pass that love on. (My poor nieces and nephew have been inundated with the movies and music my siblings and I love. This was not a bad thing for them. They are trivia champs among their friends. Go figure.)
Share your books and those CD's, records and tapes. Don't toss all your memories out in the trash. Save that copy of "Goonies" and that playbill from "Wicked".
Save and share the love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilV5K8tw_6o
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Grandmom & Boardwalk Memories
It happens all the time. You're chatting with someone and one little thing is said or you see something that captures your attention and your conversation or your train of thought goes off in a whole different direction. That happened to me the other day. A friend posted a picture of someone at the beach near a boardwalk. That boardwalk reminded me of the summer days I spent as a kid under or close to the Wildwood boardwalk. (Those of course were the days when at high tide the water came up under the boardwalk in Wildwood. People today look at that beach and find that hard to believe.) Those memories made me think of my Grandmother. Since her birthday had just passed she was on my mind.
My Grandmother was a remarkable woman. Far from perfect but strong and unbending to the end. She lived in South Philadelphia, not too far from Second Street, for all of her ninety-two years with more than sixty of those years spent in the small garden front twin house she moved into with her husband and small son around 1922.
Ann left school at either twelve or thirteen and got a job working in a tinsel factory. She moved from there to one of the huge sugar houses along the Delaware River where she sewed large bags of sugar shut with heavy white twine. She also used that twine to crochet and made tablecloths and table runners as well as doilies and antimacassars that would grace her home for years to come.
While her husband was off at war she worked sanding Victrola cabinets at RCA Victor Company in Camden and when he came back and went to work at Curtis Publishing she kept house for her son and husband and went to her parents house regularly and took car of that house as well. After her mother died she announced to her husband, my grandfather, that they would be selling their home and moving back to her father's house so she could take care of Pop and her brothers. My Grandfather bought that house from his father-in-law and my Grandmother ran and took care of it until she was the only one left.
Sometime in 1940 my grandparents bought a neighborhood bar. While taking care of her home she took care of cooking for their business too. It was a hectic time and business during WWII, in a neighborhood that served longshoremen and factory workers, was booming. Life was good but it had ups and downs. There are stories about the time my grandparents had a fight and she picked up a bar stool and threw it over the bar at him. Ann was no shrinking violet.
Her son, my Dad, fought in WWII and returned home and went to work for his father tending bar. He married my Mom and they lived in the apartment over the bar while they saved to buy a house. When I came along my grandmother had a girl in the family to spoil and spoil me she did. My siblings do not let me forget that.
My parents moved to a house in Northeast Philadelphia when I was two and with no car in the family it was an hour's trip from our house to South Philly where my grandparents lived but it never seemed to be a problem and my Grandmom would hop the bus and trackless trolley and make the trip often.
As a kid, for me, the highlight of the summer was spending a week at her house. We went to town and shopped and went to the movies and if the timing was right we went to Wildwood to visit her sister Helen who was staying at her son's home there.
And here we are back to the Wildwood Boardwalk. Those days in Wildwood were happy ones for my Grandmom. She laughed a lot and relaxed more than she was ever able to at home. We went to the beach during the day and did the amusement rides with my cousins at night. Basically we all had fun.
She lived a good life and a very long one. She was a tough woman who loved her family and friends. She worked hard and played hard too. She was my Grandmom and I loved her and whenever I think of the rare summer days I spent near a Boardwalk I think of her.
My Grandmother was a remarkable woman. Far from perfect but strong and unbending to the end. She lived in South Philadelphia, not too far from Second Street, for all of her ninety-two years with more than sixty of those years spent in the small garden front twin house she moved into with her husband and small son around 1922.
Ann left school at either twelve or thirteen and got a job working in a tinsel factory. She moved from there to one of the huge sugar houses along the Delaware River where she sewed large bags of sugar shut with heavy white twine. She also used that twine to crochet and made tablecloths and table runners as well as doilies and antimacassars that would grace her home for years to come.
While her husband was off at war she worked sanding Victrola cabinets at RCA Victor Company in Camden and when he came back and went to work at Curtis Publishing she kept house for her son and husband and went to her parents house regularly and took car of that house as well. After her mother died she announced to her husband, my grandfather, that they would be selling their home and moving back to her father's house so she could take care of Pop and her brothers. My Grandfather bought that house from his father-in-law and my Grandmother ran and took care of it until she was the only one left.
Sometime in 1940 my grandparents bought a neighborhood bar. While taking care of her home she took care of cooking for their business too. It was a hectic time and business during WWII, in a neighborhood that served longshoremen and factory workers, was booming. Life was good but it had ups and downs. There are stories about the time my grandparents had a fight and she picked up a bar stool and threw it over the bar at him. Ann was no shrinking violet.
My parents moved to a house in Northeast Philadelphia when I was two and with no car in the family it was an hour's trip from our house to South Philly where my grandparents lived but it never seemed to be a problem and my Grandmom would hop the bus and trackless trolley and make the trip often.
As a kid, for me, the highlight of the summer was spending a week at her house. We went to town and shopped and went to the movies and if the timing was right we went to Wildwood to visit her sister Helen who was staying at her son's home there.
And here we are back to the Wildwood Boardwalk. Those days in Wildwood were happy ones for my Grandmom. She laughed a lot and relaxed more than she was ever able to at home. We went to the beach during the day and did the amusement rides with my cousins at night. Basically we all had fun.
She lived a good life and a very long one. She was a tough woman who loved her family and friends. She worked hard and played hard too. She was my Grandmom and I loved her and whenever I think of the rare summer days I spent near a Boardwalk I think of her.
Ann Easter 1956
Thursday, February 21, 2013
A Few Thoughts On My Catholic Education
Something sort of funny occurred to me last night while I was posting on facebook and it made me think that it was a subject worthy of a blog.
I'm part of a group where we discuss a slew of topics that range from anything to everything and a good time is usually had by all. Last night one of the ladies posted a link for a page that has the title "24 Signs You Went To Catholic School". Some of the observations and pictures were spot on and rather funny. A result of the posting was a discussion with friends about the merits of a Catholic school education and the nuns who taught in them all those years ago when I was a student.
The thing that most surprised me about the conversation was the fact that I was slightly insulted by someone who had never attended a Catholic school making light of it. I could only compare it to how you feel if you hear someone making fun of one of your siblings. It's perfectly fine if you do it but god help the outsider who does it.
I was born into a Catholic family in 1948 and am part of the huge Baby Boom that has been making waves worldwide since it began in 1946. I grew up in Philadelphia, a city that is proud of its history of Catholic education. There was never a question about where I would go to school. I would go to the parish school and then onto the all girls high school in my area.
In the fifties and sixties I would guess that 95% of Catholic school teachers were nuns. As with any large group of people there were some good and some bad apples in the barrel of teachers I came in contact with over the years. There were definitely women who were too old to be standing in front of a classroom everyday and there were others who were too young and inexperienced. The thing is that it was because of the sacrifice of these women that I received a great education. I grant you that there were nuns who were quick with a ruler over the knuckles but they were keeping control of classrooms bursting at the seams and without their discipline it would have been chaos.
Think about the fact that there were between fifty and sixty of us in a classroom and one nun did all the work. There were no aids or helpful moms who were there to lend a hand. Sister had to handle it all herself. In the grade school I attended there were six classes in each grade. That's a lot of kids. In my eight years there I had one teacher who was not a nun and there were only two lay teachers in the school. If one of those poor nuns was too sick to make it from the convent to the school there was no substitute. The nuns in the rooms on either side assigned desk work and traveled back and forth to make sure all was quiet and orderly.
When I went to high school it was a whole new world. From dealing with one order of nuns I now had eight orders of nuns to deal with. Again there were very few lay teachers. In my four years of high school I had three lay teachers (and one of those was for gym). Think about the fact that there were eight periods a day plus home room and that's a lot of teachers. Nuns were the backbone of the Catholic school system. I'm of the opinion that these women, some of whom still give me the willies, provided me with a great education. Any weak spots were mine and not theirs. Looking back I can see that many of my teachers were probably in their late twenties to mid thirties when I was in high school and were, for the most part, very nice women.
I graduated high school in '66 and did not go on to college. I went to work, as did most of my friends, and missed much of the upheaval of the late sixties and early seventies. While folks in colleges were protesting the war in Vietnam I was volunteering at the USO. While my contemporaries were "Turning On, Tuning In and Dropping Out" I was working hard and saving my money so I could travel. But I digress.
While there was social unrest in the cities there were winds of change blowing through the convents too. In the seventies many of the women who had donned habits took them off and left their orders and their classrooms behind. They found that they could do social work and help others without being bound by a habit and vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Lay teachers became the rule rather than the exception. Catholic schools went from being the default educational choice to being a luxury that most families could not afford. Those absent nuns were replaced by lay teachers who needed to be paid and insured and the only way a school system could do that was to charge ever increasing tuition. There was a chain reaction that took place that is still being felt today.
I have to say that having gone through twelve years of school with nuns that there was a time I considered that life. I found I enjoyed having a bit of freedom and some spending money more. I had over thirty high school classmates that went into religious orders and as far as I know only three remain.
What it all boils down to is that while Catholic schools and the nuns that manned them may be a source of jokes they were also a gift. I firmly believe that the education I received is far superior to today's. I think that the thousands of women who were in school when I was would, for the most part, agree. (There were between three and four thousand girls in my high school while I was there from the fall of '62 to the late spring of '66.) If I had the chance to go back and do it all over would I? I honestly don't know. I certainly wouldn't be the woman I am now without the schools I attended and the women who taught me.
Thanks for reading. The link to the site that started all this is below.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjkiebus/signs-you-went-to-catholic-school-6ygq
If you look at #7 you'll see a Sister of Saint Joseph and a girl wearing a uniform almost exactly like the one I used to wear. (Our jumper was Air Force Blue with a 'Blessed Mother' blue blouse.)
I'm part of a group where we discuss a slew of topics that range from anything to everything and a good time is usually had by all. Last night one of the ladies posted a link for a page that has the title "24 Signs You Went To Catholic School". Some of the observations and pictures were spot on and rather funny. A result of the posting was a discussion with friends about the merits of a Catholic school education and the nuns who taught in them all those years ago when I was a student.
The thing that most surprised me about the conversation was the fact that I was slightly insulted by someone who had never attended a Catholic school making light of it. I could only compare it to how you feel if you hear someone making fun of one of your siblings. It's perfectly fine if you do it but god help the outsider who does it.
I was born into a Catholic family in 1948 and am part of the huge Baby Boom that has been making waves worldwide since it began in 1946. I grew up in Philadelphia, a city that is proud of its history of Catholic education. There was never a question about where I would go to school. I would go to the parish school and then onto the all girls high school in my area.
In the fifties and sixties I would guess that 95% of Catholic school teachers were nuns. As with any large group of people there were some good and some bad apples in the barrel of teachers I came in contact with over the years. There were definitely women who were too old to be standing in front of a classroom everyday and there were others who were too young and inexperienced. The thing is that it was because of the sacrifice of these women that I received a great education. I grant you that there were nuns who were quick with a ruler over the knuckles but they were keeping control of classrooms bursting at the seams and without their discipline it would have been chaos.
Think about the fact that there were between fifty and sixty of us in a classroom and one nun did all the work. There were no aids or helpful moms who were there to lend a hand. Sister had to handle it all herself. In the grade school I attended there were six classes in each grade. That's a lot of kids. In my eight years there I had one teacher who was not a nun and there were only two lay teachers in the school. If one of those poor nuns was too sick to make it from the convent to the school there was no substitute. The nuns in the rooms on either side assigned desk work and traveled back and forth to make sure all was quiet and orderly.
When I went to high school it was a whole new world. From dealing with one order of nuns I now had eight orders of nuns to deal with. Again there were very few lay teachers. In my four years of high school I had three lay teachers (and one of those was for gym). Think about the fact that there were eight periods a day plus home room and that's a lot of teachers. Nuns were the backbone of the Catholic school system. I'm of the opinion that these women, some of whom still give me the willies, provided me with a great education. Any weak spots were mine and not theirs. Looking back I can see that many of my teachers were probably in their late twenties to mid thirties when I was in high school and were, for the most part, very nice women.
I graduated high school in '66 and did not go on to college. I went to work, as did most of my friends, and missed much of the upheaval of the late sixties and early seventies. While folks in colleges were protesting the war in Vietnam I was volunteering at the USO. While my contemporaries were "Turning On, Tuning In and Dropping Out" I was working hard and saving my money so I could travel. But I digress.
While there was social unrest in the cities there were winds of change blowing through the convents too. In the seventies many of the women who had donned habits took them off and left their orders and their classrooms behind. They found that they could do social work and help others without being bound by a habit and vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Lay teachers became the rule rather than the exception. Catholic schools went from being the default educational choice to being a luxury that most families could not afford. Those absent nuns were replaced by lay teachers who needed to be paid and insured and the only way a school system could do that was to charge ever increasing tuition. There was a chain reaction that took place that is still being felt today.
I have to say that having gone through twelve years of school with nuns that there was a time I considered that life. I found I enjoyed having a bit of freedom and some spending money more. I had over thirty high school classmates that went into religious orders and as far as I know only three remain.
What it all boils down to is that while Catholic schools and the nuns that manned them may be a source of jokes they were also a gift. I firmly believe that the education I received is far superior to today's. I think that the thousands of women who were in school when I was would, for the most part, agree. (There were between three and four thousand girls in my high school while I was there from the fall of '62 to the late spring of '66.) If I had the chance to go back and do it all over would I? I honestly don't know. I certainly wouldn't be the woman I am now without the schools I attended and the women who taught me.
Thanks for reading. The link to the site that started all this is below.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjkiebus/signs-you-went-to-catholic-school-6ygq
If you look at #7 you'll see a Sister of Saint Joseph and a girl wearing a uniform almost exactly like the one I used to wear. (Our jumper was Air Force Blue with a 'Blessed Mother' blue blouse.)
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Another Sunday
I don't have a lot to say but it's been so long since I've done a blog I'll just riff a bit and we'll see if there's enough worth hitting the publish button once I'm done.
This week saw the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday. I must sat that day is barely a blip for me any more. At my age I no longer feel compelled, nor am I required, to follow the rules concerning fasting; that and it's been more than a dozen years since I attended mass regularly. I never would have believed that I would turn away from the church where I was raised but I realized that the church and the men who run it turned away from me. The do not recognize that women are equal to men in the eyes of God. They refuse to realize that in this day and age a disease that can be spread via intercourse can be prevented by the use of a condom. They preach that the use of one is wrong and how many useless deaths have there been because of that? They preach 'artificial' birth control via a pill is wrong but say nothing about the fact that a man can take a pill to ensure an erection. To me that is hypocritical. I won't go into the scandals that have rocked the church. Their treatment of nuns who provided support and charity to LGBT youth is not only unkind it is ridiculous.
I know that there are people who read this that will despair or feel sorry for me. Don't. I love God and I think S/He still loves me. I pray and I treat the people around me with love and respect. The Church is different than the faith. Jesus told us to Love one another. I figure that as long as I'm doing what he said to do I'm Okay.
What else about this week....??? Valentine's Day was Thursday. I've never been a big fan of the day because I never really had a reason to be but this year was a little different. It was the first year that there was a hope that someday I might have a reason to celebrate the day. I have seen friends find love and blossom because of it. It's wonderful to know that the possibility exists.
One last thing and you can resume whatever it was you were doing before you got sucked into reading this blog...it may surprise you to know that I'm making a concentrated effort to spend less time on the computer and less time on facebook. I've missed reading. I've been missing the thrill of losing myself in the theater of imagination that a good book provides. I still love facebook and will still be there every day working on my group page and touching base with all my friends but the time will be less. I have a host of stories that I'm anxious to read and the only way to do that is to cut back on something and that something can only be the computer.
So my friends go and enjoy the rest of your day. As the song goes "Live, love, laugh and be happy". As for me I hear my kindle calling my name.
This week saw the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday. I must sat that day is barely a blip for me any more. At my age I no longer feel compelled, nor am I required, to follow the rules concerning fasting; that and it's been more than a dozen years since I attended mass regularly. I never would have believed that I would turn away from the church where I was raised but I realized that the church and the men who run it turned away from me. The do not recognize that women are equal to men in the eyes of God. They refuse to realize that in this day and age a disease that can be spread via intercourse can be prevented by the use of a condom. They preach that the use of one is wrong and how many useless deaths have there been because of that? They preach 'artificial' birth control via a pill is wrong but say nothing about the fact that a man can take a pill to ensure an erection. To me that is hypocritical. I won't go into the scandals that have rocked the church. Their treatment of nuns who provided support and charity to LGBT youth is not only unkind it is ridiculous.
I know that there are people who read this that will despair or feel sorry for me. Don't. I love God and I think S/He still loves me. I pray and I treat the people around me with love and respect. The Church is different than the faith. Jesus told us to Love one another. I figure that as long as I'm doing what he said to do I'm Okay.
What else about this week....??? Valentine's Day was Thursday. I've never been a big fan of the day because I never really had a reason to be but this year was a little different. It was the first year that there was a hope that someday I might have a reason to celebrate the day. I have seen friends find love and blossom because of it. It's wonderful to know that the possibility exists.
One last thing and you can resume whatever it was you were doing before you got sucked into reading this blog...it may surprise you to know that I'm making a concentrated effort to spend less time on the computer and less time on facebook. I've missed reading. I've been missing the thrill of losing myself in the theater of imagination that a good book provides. I still love facebook and will still be there every day working on my group page and touching base with all my friends but the time will be less. I have a host of stories that I'm anxious to read and the only way to do that is to cut back on something and that something can only be the computer.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Twenty Years
There are some events in your life that you never forget: the birth of a child, the day you met the person who would change your life forever, the death of a parent. Right now I'm thinking of my Mom. It's twenty years that she's gone and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her.
My Mom was not perfect but she was a unique woman. She didn't always have an easy life but she never really complained about it. She fully expected to die at the age of forty, as had her mother and grandmother, and when she didn't she treated the years that came after as gravy. She had a good sense of humor and laughed about the fact that the first thing she read in the newspaper every day was the death notices. She called them "The Irish Comics" and always found something to laugh at when reading them. She often commented on the fact that people would spend an arm and a leg for them. (For those of you who have never thought about it the cost of a death notice in the local paper can be quite expensive. Last I checked it was eight to ten dollars a line and that's without a picture.)
I won't say my Mom was perfect, hell none of us are, and we argued quite a bit, because she always knew how to press my buttons, but we also got to that point where we were friends. I was the one who never left home so I was the one who got to hear all the stories, and she had a lot of them. The woman remembered every outfit she ever wore, every movie she ever saw and all the books she read. The love of movies and books I picked up on but I never really got that love of clothes; I can however describe in detail the dresses I wore for First Communion, grade school and high school graduation. Yes, I am my Mother's daughter in many respects.
She had one story about meeting a friend for dinner. It was summer and she had a yellow dress and black accessories; hat, gloves, shoes and handbag were all black. The problem was the gloves. They were three-quarter length and did I mention it was summer? Well all was fine until they got to the restaurant and she went to remove her gloves and found that the dye from the gloves had come off on her arms. She ate dinner wearing the gloves.
She was twenty-one when the US entered WWII and she was a registered nurse. Unlike many of her classmates she did not volunteer to serve. He father had died the beginning of 1941 and she wanted to stay in Philadelphia to be close to her two younger brothers who were still in school. She worked as a private duty nurse for a while and earned the exorbitant salary of $50.00 a month for working twelve hours a day, six days a week.
My siblings and I kidded that Mom was a nurse but she always tended to diagnose the ailments of her kids as 1.- Gas or 2.- Too much makeup. (My brother never had to worry about number two and neither did I for that matter.) I remember having the measles when I was in first grade and how sick I was and the care my Mom lavished on me. I remember the first time I saw her cry was when my youngest sister had pneumonia when she was about nine months old and she had to be hospitalized. It killed her that she had to leave her baby in the hands of others. I didn't see her cry again for almost twenty years and that was when my Dad passed away.
When Mom went in the hospital that September day in 1992 she had the knowledge deep in her soul somewhere that she wouldn't be home again. She was hospitalized for over a hundred days before she died and in those days she prepared us for her death. She told us what to put in her death notice, the songs she wanted at her mass, the clothes to dress her in, where to have lunch and what to eat. The thing about those conversations was that she made a joke of them. We laughed when we talked about having soup at the buffet after her funeral; she wanted the guests to have something to warm them up after standing out in the cold. When she did finally let go she waited for all of us to be in the hospital. She knew we would need to lean on each other more than she ever had before.
What else can I say? She loved her kids and thought family was the most important thing in the world. She was a great cook who never really followed a recipe. She loved to shop, especially for shoes and always over packed for a weekend away. She loved to sing. She was a night owl. She loved to talk on the phone and could spend hours chatting away. One of her favorite lines was that she had been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. She had a memory for people and once recognized an old schoolmate from behind more than thirty years after leaving grade school. She was not good with money and was dangerous with a credit card.
She was Mary Katherine beloved wife, mother and sister. She was my Mom and I still miss her.
My Mom was not perfect but she was a unique woman. She didn't always have an easy life but she never really complained about it. She fully expected to die at the age of forty, as had her mother and grandmother, and when she didn't she treated the years that came after as gravy. She had a good sense of humor and laughed about the fact that the first thing she read in the newspaper every day was the death notices. She called them "The Irish Comics" and always found something to laugh at when reading them. She often commented on the fact that people would spend an arm and a leg for them. (For those of you who have never thought about it the cost of a death notice in the local paper can be quite expensive. Last I checked it was eight to ten dollars a line and that's without a picture.)
I won't say my Mom was perfect, hell none of us are, and we argued quite a bit, because she always knew how to press my buttons, but we also got to that point where we were friends. I was the one who never left home so I was the one who got to hear all the stories, and she had a lot of them. The woman remembered every outfit she ever wore, every movie she ever saw and all the books she read. The love of movies and books I picked up on but I never really got that love of clothes; I can however describe in detail the dresses I wore for First Communion, grade school and high school graduation. Yes, I am my Mother's daughter in many respects.
She had one story about meeting a friend for dinner. It was summer and she had a yellow dress and black accessories; hat, gloves, shoes and handbag were all black. The problem was the gloves. They were three-quarter length and did I mention it was summer? Well all was fine until they got to the restaurant and she went to remove her gloves and found that the dye from the gloves had come off on her arms. She ate dinner wearing the gloves.
She was twenty-one when the US entered WWII and she was a registered nurse. Unlike many of her classmates she did not volunteer to serve. He father had died the beginning of 1941 and she wanted to stay in Philadelphia to be close to her two younger brothers who were still in school. She worked as a private duty nurse for a while and earned the exorbitant salary of $50.00 a month for working twelve hours a day, six days a week.
My siblings and I kidded that Mom was a nurse but she always tended to diagnose the ailments of her kids as 1.- Gas or 2.- Too much makeup. (My brother never had to worry about number two and neither did I for that matter.) I remember having the measles when I was in first grade and how sick I was and the care my Mom lavished on me. I remember the first time I saw her cry was when my youngest sister had pneumonia when she was about nine months old and she had to be hospitalized. It killed her that she had to leave her baby in the hands of others. I didn't see her cry again for almost twenty years and that was when my Dad passed away.
When Mom went in the hospital that September day in 1992 she had the knowledge deep in her soul somewhere that she wouldn't be home again. She was hospitalized for over a hundred days before she died and in those days she prepared us for her death. She told us what to put in her death notice, the songs she wanted at her mass, the clothes to dress her in, where to have lunch and what to eat. The thing about those conversations was that she made a joke of them. We laughed when we talked about having soup at the buffet after her funeral; she wanted the guests to have something to warm them up after standing out in the cold. When she did finally let go she waited for all of us to be in the hospital. She knew we would need to lean on each other more than she ever had before.
What else can I say? She loved her kids and thought family was the most important thing in the world. She was a great cook who never really followed a recipe. She loved to shop, especially for shoes and always over packed for a weekend away. She loved to sing. She was a night owl. She loved to talk on the phone and could spend hours chatting away. One of her favorite lines was that she had been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. She had a memory for people and once recognized an old schoolmate from behind more than thirty years after leaving grade school. She was not good with money and was dangerous with a credit card.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Christmas for Me
Christmas is almost upon us. We all tend to view the Season a bit differently depending on where we are in life.
As a child I looked at this time of year as being full of the bright shiny things I dreamed about having for my very own. That new two wheeler or a pair of skates. Going to see Santa was a huge deal in my family. Our tree sat on a platform and there was a train that went around that tree. The platform had chimney paper tacked on the sides and the space under it and behind that chimney paper was where presents got stored so there was enough space to walk through the living room.
As teenager I looked at Christmas as a time away from school. A time to be shared more with friends than family. For a short time I got to play assistant Santa for my youngest sister. Helping to buy and hang decorations and setting up the tree was a step toward being an adult. And family traditions changed too. Gone was the platform and trains and now the tree was much taller (for a while it was even aluminum) and actually went up before Christmas eve. I met my friends for Midnight Mass and we all trooped back to one house where the parents welcomed us freezing girls into their kitchen and plied us with hot chocolate and cookies. There was a lot of laughter. The joy now came because we were focused more on others than ourselves.
I got older. My friends became parents and we all got to that point in life where staying up late to kick up our heels became the exception rather than the rule in our lives. We also began to lose those closest to us. People moved and contact was lost. A classmate passes away and a parent dies far too soon. Keeping Christmas became something done for the children that came into my life. I decorated and shopped and wrapped presents and tried to make sure that those I loved had a good Christmas.
Now my nieces have children of their own ranging from seventeen years to two months old. There is less decorating than there used to be and we are back to a short tree that sits atop a cabinet. Less lights are strung than in the past and there are fewer decorations gracing the rooms of my home. When you're in your sixties getting out that second or third huge container full of decorations just doesn't seem quite as necessary as it used to.
I do my shopping online and my siblings and I stopped exchanging gifts because we've gotten to that point in our lives where if we want something we buy it for ourselves. We don't have the patience or the budgets that we used to. We still buy for the children in the family but the newest member is too young to know what is happening and the others no longer believe in Santa. A bit of the luster has gone off the day.
Midnight Mass is a thing of the past too. My sister and brother-in-law and I have friends in on Christmas Eve and we eat delicious food and chat and catch up on each others lives. Come Christmas day we'll travel to my youngest sister's home and we'll all be together in one place. That is the best part of Christmas now. One niece with her husband and daughter will be there from Massachusetts and her brother will drive up from Virginia. My oldest niece and her three will be there too and most of the people I love most in the world will be together under the same roof. That is the greatest present.
I will share time with my friends. The women who have been part of my life for decades that I'll sit down and share a long chat with, be it face to face, by phone or by video chat and the new friends that I spend a part of every day with in the virtual world online. All the lovely, strong, vibrant females that bring joy to my life simply by being a part of it.
So Christmas has changed for me. It changes for each and every one of us as we grow older. If Christmas is not your holiday I'm sure there is another day or occasion during the year that means as much to you. Whatever that day or occasion is I hope you enjoy it and treasure it as much as I do Christmas.
As a child I looked at this time of year as being full of the bright shiny things I dreamed about having for my very own. That new two wheeler or a pair of skates. Going to see Santa was a huge deal in my family. Our tree sat on a platform and there was a train that went around that tree. The platform had chimney paper tacked on the sides and the space under it and behind that chimney paper was where presents got stored so there was enough space to walk through the living room.
As teenager I looked at Christmas as a time away from school. A time to be shared more with friends than family. For a short time I got to play assistant Santa for my youngest sister. Helping to buy and hang decorations and setting up the tree was a step toward being an adult. And family traditions changed too. Gone was the platform and trains and now the tree was much taller (for a while it was even aluminum) and actually went up before Christmas eve. I met my friends for Midnight Mass and we all trooped back to one house where the parents welcomed us freezing girls into their kitchen and plied us with hot chocolate and cookies. There was a lot of laughter. The joy now came because we were focused more on others than ourselves.
I got older. My friends became parents and we all got to that point in life where staying up late to kick up our heels became the exception rather than the rule in our lives. We also began to lose those closest to us. People moved and contact was lost. A classmate passes away and a parent dies far too soon. Keeping Christmas became something done for the children that came into my life. I decorated and shopped and wrapped presents and tried to make sure that those I loved had a good Christmas.
Now my nieces have children of their own ranging from seventeen years to two months old. There is less decorating than there used to be and we are back to a short tree that sits atop a cabinet. Less lights are strung than in the past and there are fewer decorations gracing the rooms of my home. When you're in your sixties getting out that second or third huge container full of decorations just doesn't seem quite as necessary as it used to.
I do my shopping online and my siblings and I stopped exchanging gifts because we've gotten to that point in our lives where if we want something we buy it for ourselves. We don't have the patience or the budgets that we used to. We still buy for the children in the family but the newest member is too young to know what is happening and the others no longer believe in Santa. A bit of the luster has gone off the day.
Midnight Mass is a thing of the past too. My sister and brother-in-law and I have friends in on Christmas Eve and we eat delicious food and chat and catch up on each others lives. Come Christmas day we'll travel to my youngest sister's home and we'll all be together in one place. That is the best part of Christmas now. One niece with her husband and daughter will be there from Massachusetts and her brother will drive up from Virginia. My oldest niece and her three will be there too and most of the people I love most in the world will be together under the same roof. That is the greatest present.
I will share time with my friends. The women who have been part of my life for decades that I'll sit down and share a long chat with, be it face to face, by phone or by video chat and the new friends that I spend a part of every day with in the virtual world online. All the lovely, strong, vibrant females that bring joy to my life simply by being a part of it.
So Christmas has changed for me. It changes for each and every one of us as we grow older. If Christmas is not your holiday I'm sure there is another day or occasion during the year that means as much to you. Whatever that day or occasion is I hope you enjoy it and treasure it as much as I do Christmas.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Sunday, December 16, 2012
A Few Thoughts on Guns and Loss
A score of children were lost on Friday to a young man, not much more than a child himself, who obviously had problems. He took his own life after ending the lives of twenty seven others. There is so much to blame that you don't know where to start. Access to firearms, check, access to the technology that can turn a gun into a means of massacre, check, lack of access to a mental health system that could have helped the gunman, check.
There is no solution that will easily solve these problems. Funding is needed to make access to weapons more difficult. Funding is needed to provide care to those people who could commit such crimes. And where do we get that funding?
We know that the NRA spends a huge amount of money every year lobbying to protect the rights of gun owners. Maybe a percentage of their budget should be appropriated to safeguard the public. I've seen figures from $200 million to more than $300 million as their budget for 2010. That is just the budget for one year. Imagine how much better our mental health system might be with that influx of funds. It wouldn't cure the problem bit it sure could help.
Now this part is all me...based on what I know of the way things work. Make gun owners carry insurance. You carry insurance for your cars and your homes and your boats. What if every registered gun owner had to buy a policy that would cover them for use of their firearms. The law in most states makes sure you have a policy in order to drive a car in case something goes wrong. Well what if something goes wrong with a gun? Make sure there is a pool paid into for the damages that are inflicted to the families and community when these horrors happen. Because we all know it will happen again. It has happened time after time and public grief and the call for action will not keep it from happening again.
If responsible gun owners were going to have to pay for the losses caused by the few they may force better rules to be in place. Rules like mandatory trigger locks and the banning of military style weapons sales to individuals. They would turn to the NRA and demand action be taken. There are safety labels galore on a ladder or an extension cord but I've never seen a warning label on a gun.
It is true that people kill people. but people with guns can kill a lot of people in a very short period of time. People that might be six or sixty. Lets make it harder for this to happen. Please.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)