9/11: Impossible to Forget

September 11, 2026 //
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Today is the 25th Anniversary of 9/11 and I am struck by the millions of Americans who weren’t alive when it happened or are too young to remember, including my 8 grandchildren. It’s too important to forget, impossible for me and I was just a 55 year old widow in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the time with seemingly little direct connection. But, we all have stories and they are all a piece of the history and its lessons, so I will share my memories that I want my grandchildren to know.

In Oklahoma, we had already been through the Oklahoma City bombing where almost everyone knew someone who was impacted directly. We had experienced what an attack does to a city, state, nation. I remember standing before the wreckage with my husband, maybe a week later, looking at the damage that spread miles away to the high school my father had attended, looking at the teddy bears and messages hung on the fences surrounding the building. The city where I was born was showing the world how to take care of each other in a disaster. To this day, I still fear homegrown terrorists more than people from other cities with good reason. There are little camps of them throughout our country, filled with hate and anger.

By 2001, I was widowed and had five little grandsons. I had made changes and was now working at the American Red Cross, where I had once served on the Board of Directors. I was the representative in two counties outside of Tulsa, with offices in each. My three daughters were busy with their little ones, with my two youngest daughters ready to deliver babies within two months. My son, my youngest, was in Seattle having treatment for a rare cancer at the University of Washington Medical School.

On the morning of 9/11, I was in my office in Owasso, Oklahoma, a Tulsa suburb. I placed a call to Southwest Airlines to book a ticket to Seattle to bring my son home after his treatment ended. One still had to call the airlines way back then. When the agent at Southwest answered from the office in Dallas, she told me that an airplane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. My initial thought was that she was talking about the World Trade Center in Dallas, part of the market centers there. I pictured a private plane hitting a building I had been in many times. When she explained it was New York, I was confused. When I got off the phone, I tried to get on the computer, which was dial up access and slow. Of course, all access was extremely slow that morning as the whole world tried to log on. Then my Red Cross pager, which I had with me 24/7, beeped and I was told to come back to the home office in Tulsa. On the 15 minute drive, I listened on the radio, all the time watching an airliner coast to a landing in Tulsa with the backdrop of the BOK Tower in downtown Tulsa behind it. The BOK Tower is a replica of the Twin Towers, much smaller, of course. It was a surreal image with what I was hearing reported.

Arriving at the office, I found a television to watch what was happening. The towers hadn’t fallen yet and I was assigned to the Call Center, one of the Red Cross functions in any disaster. The American Red Cross works as a center where families can reach out to find out the status of relatives affected by a disaster. We were all trained in this function. The calls were coming in quickly to our office full of staff and volunteers. The best we could do was collect information so that they could be notified when anything was confirmed. We filled out a lot of forms that day. The call that will forever live in my heart was talking to a man whose brother worked on the 105th floor of one of the buildings and wanted to know if I thought he was ok. All I could do was try to be calm and hopeful and take the information. We watched the towers fall soon after that and I don’t know his brother’s fate.

The day of the disaster, a long time friend of mine’s older son was working as a non-military person at the Pentagon. Of course, she was scared, but he and others were led away from the building and a thoughtful officer made sure he could call his mother to let her know he was unharmed. A sigh of relief for all of us who have known him his whole life.

The American Red Cross is an organization mandated by the US Congress to assist in disasters, which means any disaster from a single home fire to a mass disaster. They are all the same to the person or persons involved. The Red Cross is also an organization comprised of highly trained staff and volunteers, with the volunteers outnumbering the staff. Because everyone must treat people affected by a disaster regardless of their religion, race, nationality, sexual preference, etc, we had a lot of diversity training. My good friend, Dannette, was the Director of Diversity in Tulsa at the time and wrote much of the curriculum used nationally then, including working with Native Americans, Hispanics, elderly communities and others. I learned so much from her. The attack happened on Tuesday and she was sent to New York on Saturday, one of the first people allowed in. She was stationed at Ground Zero for the next three weeks with the responsibility of going to apartments in the area to check on residents. One of our group of Red Cross friends called her every night so she could unload the enormity of what she was experiencing. She described the sounds, the smells, the dust, the people. It was crushing her inside, I think. When she returned, we greeted her with a welcome home party to give her hugs and hear the stories. In the following years, she developed health issues that were connected to those weeks in New York, but it took years to get her approved for government assistance. Yesterday was her birthday and she is in a memory unit, probably connected to her experience there.

Disasters don’t stop the day of the event. The consequences multiply and keep affecting everyone. I have a dear friend since junior high, Robert W. Jordan, who is an attorney in Dallas. He had done some work for George W. Bush, who remembered him and appointed him as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia on September 10, the day before the attack. Bob went at the worst possible time and I remember emailing him (no texts or other ways to reach him back then) to make sure he was safe. He later wrote a book about his years of service, “Desert Diplomat: Inside Saudi Arabia Following 9/11.” Talk about being thrown into a situation he had never expected. He’s still involved with leaders in Saudi Arabia and think tanks here working on peaceful solutions to world problems.

When the attacks happened, I was terrified for my son, who was in Seattle and hard to reach. Cell phones were new and long distance calls were expensive. We relied on email and calling cards to reach each other. He would go to a little computer cafe near his temporary apartment near the campus to check in. When the world realized it was a terrorist attack, nobody knew if there would be more attacks and he was in a coastal city. Everything was unknown then. I wasn’t even sure he knew about the attacks since he didn’t have a television where he was staying. I reached him and kept in touch until the time came for me to come move him back home since his treatments were over. The whole world had changed from the time I flew out there with him in late August. There were security checks at the airports which we had never had before. We took a cab to the airport and were stopped in a line before we got close for security checks. He had a lot of luggage, which wasn’t a big deal when he left, but he had purchased things and accumulated while he was there so we were dealing with bulky bags and things. It was much more complicated to travel immediately after 9/11 and hasn’t gotten much easier. We came home to my first granddaughter/his first niece, who had been born while we were gone. My sixth grandson was born the next month and my second granddaughter, my son’s child, was born eight years later in Seattle. None of my grandchildren is old enough to remember.

Following 9/11, the American Red Cross developed a curriculum for students in grades K-12 called Facing Fear. It was to teach students of all ages how to deal with events in the world. I was trained to teach this and took it to schools in our area, which I’ve written about in an earlier blog on this site, “Facing Fear,” which you can search so I won’t repeat myself. I don’t know if those lessons are still used, but it was a well thought out way to help students. I think it would be useful today, thinking about the lessons we used.

Another memory that popped up today was of my Red Cross friends and me working at one of the local television stations to take donations for victims of 9/11. We stood outside and people drove up to hand us money – and teddy bears. The generosity was incredible. People who didn’t have much themselves handed us the coins they found under the seats in their cars. We got small bills and large checks. One family brought a teddy bear so big that he took up the whole back seat. They wanted to help so badly, in any way they could. We had seen this before after the Oklahoma City bombing, when people gave teddy bears for the children, which was sad since the children had been killed. I assume they went to siblings or others, but I know there was a warehouse full of them in Oklahoma City. You can’t refuse people who want to help and I guess giving teddy bears is a way to send a hug or comfort. The people who had been so helpful in Oklahoma City traveled to New York City to give back with what they had learned from their experience and I think they shipped a lot of bears that direction, too.

Huge events such as 9/11 affect everyone in different ways. Even though my involvement was very remote, I’m sure it is similar to many who knew someone or were affected at work or lived in New York or the area. Everyone in America felt it and it was a time of massive patriotism. There were flags everywhere and gratitude for our leaders and protectors. We were one country united within the horror. I still remember being grateful that President George W. Bush took great care to ask the nation not to blame our Muslim neighbors for the deeds of a few. We took great pride in our country while we faced a world where we now knew we were vulnerable.

Those are my memories, which are such a tiny part of what happened. I suppose this is my version of “what were you doing during the…”. Like horrors that happened in other times, this one needs to be remembered so that we learn how to prevent, how to respond. There is no limit to man’s inhumanity to man as shown throughout history, but we must always hope that we can be better. We can at least read all the stories and find ways that we as individuals can treat others as we would like to be treated. It’s the only way we survive.

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Categories Events, History, Memories, Uncategorized

So, here I am…

August 25, 2026 //
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So, I’m 80. I realize that if I die today, everyone will say I had a long life and how nice for her. Very true. And I appreciate every year I’ve had, the good and the not so great. I really have had more than my share of happiness and so many special experiences and adventures. And, yet, I still want more. How greedy of me.

There are funny things about being 80, starting with looking in the mirror and wondering how that happened. We’d all like to think we don’t look our age, but there is the proof, staring back at you. Of course, 80 doesn’t look the same for everyone. I look ok, but I know people who are in better shape and some who look a lot older. There’s no real way to tell how old anyone is these days. It’s also funny when you get things in the mail asking you to subscribe for two years rather than one to save a few dollars. I now look at those and laugh. Who knows if I’ll be here or driving or reading or anything. It’s all pretty up in the air.

I’m lucky to have minor aches and pains. I still have my original knees and hips and eyes and teeth (although there are crowns, an implant, and fillings). I have scars from some surgeries, but who doesn’t have some kind of scars at 80? If you don’t, you must not have done very much. I have visible scars and also the unseen ones where life stomped on your heart and left you reeling. If you have lived this long, you have encountered some hurt inside and out.

The reality is that everything does slow down, even with the most active of my friends. It takes a little longer to do everything and we don’t even care about dealing with things that seemed important not that long ago. The battle is to stay on top of your life before your body or your brain or your finances topple you.

My projects of the moment include going through my house, which is filled with a clutter of memories, as I say, and clearing space. I honestly can’t walk a step in my home without seeing something that reminds me of someone or some time. I love that, actually. I remember cleaning my mother’s house after she died and having fun going through everything. She had cleaned out the trash, which helped. It was just the objects. I’m trying to get there for my kids’ and grandkids’ sakes. There’s also the feeling that, if I don’t get it all done, oh well. My house is paid for and they all live nearby, so they can take their time and enjoy it. I’ve tried to point out which items are old family items and which are valuable, so don’t sell them for pennies. They don’t really remember what I’ve said, which I understand, so I’m trying to document what I can. Sigh.

The cleaning out takes time because you uncover such treasures. Yesterday, I found a teapot I was going to give away because I have no idea how I got it and then did a little research and found it was worth something. I decided to give away my husband’s cowboy hats and asked all my grandkids if anyone wanted them and they all did. Now I have to figure out who gets them, which is another dilemma. He would get a kick out of it.

I find myself saying “I’m 80” a lot. Sometimes it’s to my self, just because it’s seems so unreal. Sometimes it’s to someone else because I guess I’m hoping they’ll take what I’m saying more seriously. And, frankly, sometimes it’s to get out of something. Hey! Have a little respect for the age. I’m not quite sure how other people take it. We don’t quite live in a culture that automatically respects age.

80 is an interesting age. We have so much experience and, hopefully, wisdom in at least some areas, and perspective, but there are limits. I don’t think 80 year olds should be in charge of everything or of much. They should be there to mentor, advise, assist, but it’s time for others to take over. We should be ready to turn over responsibilities, information, and have a plan for turning over possessions. For gosh sakes (sounds 80ish), get out of the way. Have faith in those younger who may be able to make this a better world than we have. I hope. For all the progress and wonderful things that I’ve seen happen in my lifetime, we sure seem to be able to mess it up.

Since I was born at the end of 1945, the end of World War II, I’ve seen some remarkable changes. The technology is mind-blowing, as I watched early television, talked on phones with cords and operators, rode in cars where we had to crank the windows down by hand, lived without air conditioning in summers where we slept spread eagle on the bed with fans blowing. We even took trips in cars without air conditioning. I survived chicken pox, measles, mumps, whooping cough and avoided polio and will stand in line for any vaccine that will eradicate those dreadful diseases. I have arthritis in my thumbs, my lower back and my neck, but there are so many things I can do about it now that my poor grandmothers who were pretty crippled by it couldn’t. My husband and son died of cancer decades ago and I’ve watched new treatments and cures discovered that might have given them more years. Medicine is full of miracles these days.

I learned to write cursive and go to the library and look things up in the card catalog. I took notes in class and wrote papers out by hand. I learned to type and turned in college papers that could have no mistakes and had to have copies made by typing on several sheets of paper with carbon paper between. Correcting was tricky and we welcomed the invention of white-out and then correcting tape before the first word processors came along. A few years ago, or was it a decade ago, I found myself working again at Oklahoma State University, where I had first worked as a graduate assistant in the 1960s. So many hours of my college years had been spent in the library, looking up sources in the card catalog, then physically finding the magazine or book in the library, then copying information by hand into notebooks and notecards. I went back inside that gorgeous building and looked around for anything familiar. I told a student working at the desk that I hadn’t been in since 1967 and she smiled and said, “Welcome back.” There were no books in sight, only desks with computers. I will say that the library was full with people looking up information and rooms where humans were actually sitting and reading. It was still a beautiful place.

I learned computers as a volunteer in my children’s elementary school when the PTA purchased the first primitive computers. I decided that if the kindergarteners could learn it, so could I. I stay up with the technology pretty well, although I don’t even try to learn it all because, frankly, I don’t need it all. When I was back at OSU, I laughed when I had to record grades for the students. In the 1960s, I wrote the grades on a sheet of paper and walked them over to the office. This time, I used a computer program, which I had to learn, and send them electronically. I sat at the back of a classroom to see how the students were listening to a guest speaker and observed them taking notes on their laptops as well as digressing to social media, emails, etc. They could get the information they were seeing projected on their computers rather than trying to write it all down, although there were notebooks and pens seen sometimes.

The changes for women and minorities in my lifetime have been major and won after hard fights. When I was in college, women had to live in the dorms until they were 23 or married. When I got married at age 21, birth control was still pretty new and I had to have permission to get it. Roe vs Wade passed, women were allowed to get credit cards and own property, and women were advancing in their professions, although they were still paid less. My daughters and granddaughters had rights my mother and grandmother didn’t imagine, yet here we are, losing them again. I’m a privileged white girl, but I watch my friends of color and hope their advancements don’t go away, too.

The most difficult part of growing older is losing people. My husband died when he had just turned 53, but we had our first three grandchildren born the year before he got sick. I learned perspective with that, even while I grieved and realized my life was going to change. I found that you have to balance the grief with the celebration of lives lived and new lives begun. We have no time table given to us, which is why 80 is a landmark in life. At 60, I felt empowered. At 70, I didn’t feel that different. At 75, I realized my body was changing. 80 is an accomplishment, if you can make it with your mind intact and your body working.

My 80 year old friends are all facing something, whether it is loss of memory, failing bodies, loss of income, estrangement from family, or loss of everyone around them. It’s not easy, but friends help. We can laugh together at the changes and drive each other and enjoy the memories and roll our eyes at our children and beam at our grandchildren. It helps to hang out with younger people and absorb some of their energy and perspective.

These days are to be enjoyed. A nap is often taken, whether you planned to or not. Dozing off is ok. I spend my days taking care of things around the house, keeping in contact with family and friends from all my 80 years, doing puzzles to keep my mind sharp, reading to keep up with the world, trying to stay physically active before I can’t, and planning adventures. I’m blessed or lucky to still be curious and want to see more and learn more. Since last fall, I have taken three trips, two to Europe and one to Oregon with family and friends. I still want to be able to do that. I’ve marched in protest of things I find wrong. I’ve met with my investment club, played mah jongg with friends (my mother played when I was young and I’ve played off and on for years, before the current rage for the game), and hosted parties and dined out with friends.

I realize sometimes that I’m trying to cram in everything before I can’t. Nobody knows when it will all end or how it will end. You can predict, but you can’t know. There are more memories behind me than I can possible have in front of me, so I’m happy to wallow in the pictures and sounds and objects that trigger them and make me feel sad, happy, silly, angry, nostalgic, lonesome – all the emotions.

On the days when I am discouraged by the evil changes happening today, I think I should just relax and let it happen. Mankind is pushing itself to extinction because we don’t take care of the planet and we don’t take care of each other. Then I shake my head and keep speaking out and fighting for my grandchildren and those to come. I like the old belief that we should make decisions based on how it will affect us seven generations from now. Sigh…

My time with my children and grandchildren is more precious than they will ever know. Having them all together brings tears to my eyes as I watch them interact, seeing the ties that we have carefully built with love and marveling in the fact that they are my greatest creation. Seeing them as a group that is bonded together makes seeing them individually even more special because each one of them is unique and incredible and a joy in so many different ways. I can’t predict how many years each of them has in front of them, but I hope I have provided at least some examples of how to deal with the curves that life brings. I hope I leave them, when I leave them, with the tools they need to make it as far as I have – strength of character, the ability to love, the ability to forgive, the ability to see different perspectives, kindness, curiosity, and determination. They have the genes of generations mixed in to make them unique and I hope they learn all those stories of the people who contributed to who they are and take it to the next generations.

So, here I am…an 80 year old lady, looking back and looking forward and being grateful for it all. What’s next?

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Categories Uncategorized

The Downhill Slope

November 12, 2025 //
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You climb hills in life and, after you reach the top, you face the downhill slope, the sometimes slippery one. I think I’m on the last slope as I turn 80 (YIKES!) in a few weeks. When I turned 79, I looked down at my fingers, thinking how we used to hold up fingers to show how many years old we are. Now I was looking at them, thinking how many of these finger years do I have left. One hand worth, both hands, more? The answer is I have no idea, but each of them is going to be important, not to be squandered.

Life is uncertain. We think we will reach middle age in about our 40s. My son died at 35, so he was basically in middle age while in high school. My husband died at 53, so his middle age was in his 20s. I was thinking about my grandparents and parents. My father was in his 80s when he died, as were both of my grandmothers. My mother was about to turn 86. That’s not many years left if I were to follow their path, but I don’t have some of the health issues they had or am being treated with more modern medications. There’s a good chance I can go beyond that if I’m careful – and lucky.

80 is a definitive age. There’s no way to pretend you’re young, even if you look younger than most people presume 80 year olds look. It’s a hard age to swallow. You can be proud to have made it, you can embrace it and keep going, if you are healthy in body and mind. There is no doubt that our bodies are aging because parts wear out. Your frame has weathered 80 years and how many things are still working the same after 80 years. You can exchange parts, exercise, eat healthy foods, keep your mind active, and have a good attitude only to have something break down that starts to take the rest of you with it. There is a saying among doctors that if you’ve seen one 80 year old, you’ve seen one 80 year old. We are all different.

Watching your lifelong friends and family age is a landscape of what can happen. I have good friends who have lost their vision, their hearing, their mobility, and their memories in varying degrees. Reading obituaries is an unspoken exercise in checking the person’s age. If they died younger than you are, there is a sense of thinking you have made it longer than they did. If they are your age, you think YIKES! If they are just a few years older than you are, you are reminded that you may only have a little time left. If they are a lot older than you, you think there is hope. At least, that’s what I find myself doing, even as I grieve their loss and treasure the memories of our time together.

There are some bonuses to being 80. I find that it can be a good excuse for just about anything. I don’t feel like doing that and it’s ok because I’m 80. And there are things that you actually can’t do as well. I try not to get on ladders and watch my steps more closely. We all know that a fall can be the beginning of the end. I’m lucky that I can still drive and can drive at night, so I find myself continuing a lifetime of carpooling as I drive friends to appointments and outings. That’s ok. I’m grateful I can still do that. I used to take off by myself on day trips to wherever and I don’t tend to do that now. I’m trying not to be reckless with the years I’ve been given.

It would be nice to live in a society that values their elders, but I’m not sure we get that respect in my world. I tend to get more eye rolls than anything. I have been to several protest marches this year and I always recognize those of my generation. We have been here before and are exasperated that we still have to do this. On the other hand, we need to speak out against things happening that we have lived through before and know are wrong. We are also old enough that we can speak out without having the danger of losing our jobs or our clients. Many of our younger friends are unable to be as vocal without repercussions.

It gets depressing sometimes being old and alone. I often wonder if anyone will even know if I die since I have been independent for a long time. My family is here but they are busy and don’t worry about that since I look ok. Actually, I worry more about what my dogs will do if they have to worry about me, although one dog is 18 years old and technically older than I am. I treat her as I would like to be treated. She doesn’t see or hear well, but she is feisty and wants to be part of everything even though she sleeps a lot more. I try to be patient with her accidents and her slowness, knowing that I may get to that stage. Just don’t put me down at the first sign of aging – please.

In my lifelong quest to be out there doing things, I’m making sure to get my friends together whenever we can, and planning trips while I can still take them. My maternal grandmother stayed with us a lot when I was growing up and she always wanted to go somewhere. “Let’s go!” is how I remember her. We would get up and walk to the bus stop and head downtown or walk to nearby shops or just go somewhere. The fact that she didn’t drive didn’t stop her. My mother was even more so. We used to just get in the car and go, driving into the country or planning an adventure or just seeing what was new in town. I’ve inherited this trait to the max. I love seeing new places and learning new things and sharing them with family and friends. My friends who used to go with me at the drop of a hat are mostly sidelined by lack of money or mobility. We are all watching our money in these years when there aren’t many ways to earn more, although I do have a few friends still working. This year, I took three of my grandsons on a trip, which is getting harder since they are adults and have jobs. I was lucky to share time and make new memories with them as we visited some of my favorite places. May there be time for more trips like that.

There are going to be changes with everyone I know and they may be sudden or they may be incremental things that build up. We don’t know. We just don’t. I don’t have any answers – just thoughts. We all hope our lives have made a difference, even if just a small one in our own circle of family and friends. We want to keep mattering. We keep putting one foot in front of the other and hoping we get where we are going as gracefully as we can. Or we have to keep our sense of humor and try to laugh if we do it a little more clumsily than we wish. It’s all we can do

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Categories Memories, Reflections

My Time Capsule Home

June 19, 2025 //
0

Today, I had a rare treat as I got to tour the first home my husband and I ever purchased. We lived there from 1969 to 1975. I was 23 and he was 24 when we moved in with our one year old daughter. This is rare because the home I grew up in and our other home where we spent 27 years after this house have been scraped and either left as a blank space or filled with a new home. This was a surprise. There was an estate sale in the house that my daughter noticed and texted me, so I headed over to see it. I knew the same people we sold it to, almost to the day 50 years ago, had still owned it. I got very emotional driving over – this was a place of very sweet memories.

I had actually driven by the house a couple of weeks ago and took a picture of the huge trees.

As a young wife, I spent a lot of time reading magazines like “Better Homes & Gardens” for ideas for our home. I think I found this landscape design that I liked and had my husband copy it. He planted three trees and they are huge 50 years later. I have to laugh because I don’t think I ever thought they would be so big. Just the first of so many memories – my sweet guy digging those holes and planting the trees.

Walking up the house, I passed the gas light, which I think we updated way back then.

Here I am, pregnant with either our second or third daughter, in the front yard. Photos of me are kind of rare since I usually am the photographer. The lamp isn’t updated yet here.

The front porch, where we took so many photos looked incredibly the same.

I think this doorknocker used to have our name on the plate that seems to have been removed.

Here is one of many photos of my little family getting ready to go out Trick or Treating.

I walked inside, not expecting much & turned down the hall towards the bedrooms, which seem smaller than I remember. In our old bedroom, the folding louvre doors we replaced the sliding doors with were still there. Across the hall, in the bedrooms our two oldest daughters shared, the wallpaper threw me into a new flood of memories. It was the paper I put up when they were little – still there in all its 70s glory.

Walking through the house, the main bathroom still had the pink tiles and the laundry room looked the same as the days I did loads from diapers to my middle daughter’s beloved nitey-nite blanket that she waited patiently for.

My almost 80 year old self was suddenly that 23 year old mother and wife, trying to be the housewife I saw in the magazines. I was making a home for our family. I headed for the back yard next. My husband, Alan, was 6’4″ tall and a strong young man. He would work all day and come home to the projects around the house. We had a big yard in both the houses we owned and he loved to go out to “survey the grounds,” as he loved to say as we smiled at each other. He was the head of his little kingdom and spent so many hours taking care of all of it. Reflecting 50 years later, we had no idea that his life was half over during these years. Life is funny like that.

At the back of our yard, which had a chain link fence to keep the kids from the creek behind us which would flood and rush by to our delight, he built a big sandbox for the girls. Here they are with our next door neighbor who had only older brothers, so she loved being at our house. They are still friends to this day.

After a while, we decided we needed a patio back there, so Alan built it. I picture my big ole guy hauling the railroad ties and bricks, digging out the area and then setting all of it, sometimes into the night after work.

It is still there today, looking more like an archeological dig. I walked along the stepping stones he hauled and laid to stand in the ruins, his work still a strong memory in my mind.

The covered patio at the back of the house where we hosted so many family birthdays and parties with friends and activities for the kids looked the same other than an addition the other owners had added. So so many memories in that area. The kids learned to ride their tricycles there, Alan cooked on his first Hasty-Bake, we laughed with so many people.

Back in the house, the kitchen looked the same. The same cabinets, the same countertops, the same stove. Wow!

My girls had their first cooking lessons here and I baked so many cookies and cooked so many meals and filled so many baby bottles. How many times did I mop that floor and clean the sink?

The den with the high brick fireplace was still there although the room was painted blue when we lived there. That fireplace held one, then two, then three stockings at Christmas time. We hang those stockings plus many more these days. I made them in my craft era.

I have so many pictures of special events in that den. It was a very fun room that held lots of laughter and joy.

The dining room had the same doors and the same rug (Really?) after all these years. I do love red.

I left the house flooded with so many emotions and memories. I came home to look through my photos for more from those years. There were dance recitals and all the holidays and summer fun and winter snow. There was a little trampoline, tiny swimming pools and a swing set, snowmen, trikes and bikes, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins and friends of all ages. It was a very special time.

It’s not often I get a surprise like this one these days. Rather than being horrified that the house looked the same after 50 years, I was literally transported back to being that younger version of myself with all the wonder of being a mother and wife and all the unknown ahead of us. I can look back with love and wonder, pasting what has happened since onto my thoughts, the good, the great and the sad, and be grateful for those sweet years that helped build the foundation that propelled our family into its own future with all that life can bring. My heart is full with all the memories of events, faces, voices from those days. Such a gift.

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Categories Memories

Old & Reliable

February 8, 2025 //
19

This thought began because my dishwasher wouldn’t start – it’s less than 4 years old. I emptied it and hand washed all the dishes because it was going to take a few days to get the repairman here. Washing dishes takes me back to my childhood and my early married days when I didn’t have a dishwasher. I looked around my kitchen and saw my old friends, the pieces I can always rely on.

First, there is the old wooden spoon that was a wedding gift as part of a kitchen shower package. I’ve been using this spoon for over 58 years and it never lets me down. I have other spoons, but this one just feels right. I have stirred so many things with it and it just keeps going.

In the drawer was the hand mixer that I was also given as a wedding gift. For the first few years of my married life, this is what I used to make cookies, cakes, mashed potatoes, whatever needed mixing. I only use it about once a year now – to beat eggs to add to the German Chocolate Cake mixture for my husband’s birthday, which we celebrate even though he’s been gone a long time. The beaters don’t always stay in as well, but it functions, as it has for over 58 years.

The writing on the front says it all for a 1966 miracle appliance. It has done its job.

When we had been married two or three years, my husband gave me my KitchenAid mixer for Christmas. I was so excited as I had used my mother’s growing up. Unfortunately, my husband took my excitement to mean I liked getting appliances, so he was shocked at my lack of enthusiasm when he gave me an electric floor cleaner for another Christmas. He learned. Anyway, this gem is still working and is my old reliable in the midst of all the newer gadgets around.

The life this mixer has had. The dozens of cookies, the cakes (you can tell I like to bake most), all the recipes we have tried. This is the mixer that my children used as they learned to cook growing up. Here’s my middle daughter. I promise she’s not this messy now, but this is a good representation of her then.

All of my three girls learned to cook, but my son was the one who really took to it. Here is how I found him when he tried to do it without me.

Years later, after he had been treated for cancer and lost his ability to speak clearly, I told him to find something he loved doing. He went to culinary school to learn real baking skills and worked in a wonderful bakery in Seattle. This kid, who hated getting up early, went to work at 4 a.m. every day to bake wonderful cookies, cakes, tarts, pies. I snapped a picture of him when I visited once.

Having my old mixer around is a sure way to unlock more memories of my children and grandchildren waiting to lick the beaters or help make their treats. At this point, it’s a race to see if my mixer lasts longer than I do, but I’m planning to win. No matter what, those memories will last me forever.

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Categories Family, Memories, Recipes, Reflections

Child of the 60s

February 1, 2025 //
2

I started the 60s as a teenager in 9th-10th grade and ended the decade as a college graduate, married and pregnant with my second child. It was a time of immense change in both me and the world we had known.

Not sure if I was a typical teen, but I was a busy one. I studied hard, learned all the social graces, dated and fell in love, got my driver’s license and cruised with my friends, went to movies and football games and laughed a lot. I was an oldest child, anxious to please adults and do the right things…and I was a girl who was taking in all the things I saw adults doing that I thought were not quite right. I wasn’t as much quiet as observant. And, I read a lot. I’m a month too old to be a legitimate Baby Boomer, which makes me the end of the Silent Generation. My parents and grandparents had lived through the Depression and World War II, which they didn’t talk too much about. I learned through digging through the photos and objects in their houses. In school, we read all the dystopian novels, “1984,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Animal Farm,” “Fahrenheit 451,” and I was absorbed with the “Diary of Anne Frank,” both the book and movie. By my senior year, I was exploring the works of Camus and Kierkegaard and other existentialists while developing my own faith and belief system.

By college, we were listening to folk music along with our beloved rock and roll, which we danced to with great joy. I spent many years rolling my eyes at my parents as they rolled theirs at the music, the slang, the way we dressed. My freshman year had barely started when we were rocked by the assassination of President Kennedy, followed by the Beatles coming to America the following spring. Everything was changing so rapidly and we were watching all the things that had seemed so stable begin to show the cracks in the systems.

I recently watched the Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” and actually got teary listening to the music and watching the images of the 60s. In my Freshman dorm room, we only had one or two electrical outlets, which my roommate and I shared. We had a popcorn popper, hair dryers, lamps, and I had an electric typewriter (I think I had an electric one by then), a clock radio and my record player. I played my records all the time, listening to Joan Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary, and so many other folk singers over and over. As the Viet Nam War started to build up, we saw our contemporaries going to college and/or getting married to avoid the draft. Many of my classmates were shipped out after they graduated. One classmate was killed as soon as he arrived. Protest songs were becoming more relevant to what we were living.

The Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, the Anti-War Movement were all around us. In particular, we were seeing the inequalities for women. We had different curfews, campus rules. Once we were out of college, we had to either hope to get married to someone who could support us or get hired. The most touted options for us were Secretary, Nurse, Teacher. I went to hear Gloria Steinem on campus and read the latest feminist works. Even the women’s magazines my mother subscribed to were beginning to have articles on women’s place in society.

My boyfriend was in the Navy and we married when he got out and returned to school. We were poor and happy and welcomed our first child with complete ignorance of what to do. He joined my father’s business and I became the housewife and mother I was supposed to be. But, I found that there was so much more to do. I joined a discussion group of other young mothers, I volunteered in the community, and I kept questioning all of the norms in society. I could write more about all the things women couldn’t do, even as educated white women, but there were so many. We were basically still second class as far as many businesses and laws were concerned. By the time I had three daughters, I was doing all I could to make sure their world had more opportunities for them and their daughters. My last child was a boy and he was the one who really cared about women’s rights by the time he was in college. His mother and three sisters motivated him, as he said.

That decade of the 60s was definitely a major time period in my overly privileged, white life. From my lofty perch as I rapidly approach 80 this year, I wish that I lived in a society that listened to its elders and learned from the wisdom we have acquired, but I also see people my age living greedy, selfish lives and impacting others in negative ways. There are so many times I think we are going backwards – in a bad way.

I guess we all take different ideas from our lives. I like to think that this Child of the 60s came out of that time with a greater appreciation for those who didn’t have my advantages and a greater sense of empathy for the suffering of others. This makes it my responsibility to always do what I can for others, whether it is speaking out or making contributions or taking actions to make changes for the betterment of others. I’ll never get too old for that. Peace and Love!

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Categories Books, Events, Family, Friends, History, Memories, Reflections

The Big Picture

October 14, 2024 //
0

There is nothing like standing on a beach to remind you of what a minuscule speck each of us is in the scope of the universe. Those are the times you recognize your belief in a greater force of nature than your own limited understanding of your place in all of the beauty and wonder of all you can see and feel.

When I was in college, a friend told me I had a great ability to see all sides of a situation. I like to think so and believe I grew in that ability through reading, meeting people from all ends of society and traveling to other countries and parts of my own country to broaden my perspective. I don’t think I have to have had every experience to try and put myself in someone else’s place when trying to solve a problem.

Through the years, I have had many leadership positions that challenged me to find solutions to problems that affected more people than just my own family or friends. When I was President of the PTA at my children’s elementary school, I spent a lot of time in the office with the Principal and visiting with teachers. Parents who advocated for their own children often overlooked the needs of the entire student body. It was advocacy in motion and sometimes either frustrating or narrow in view. There is nothing wrong with standing up for your child, but sometimes you need to look at other children and the issues that teachers and schools are dealing with to help all children. If your problem is one that many children are facing, there should be ways to find solutions for all.

The same thing happened when I was President of my Neighborhood Association. I get that, too. Our homes are usually our greatest financial investment and what is happening in our own area is important. Once again, maybe your neighbors have the same issues or maybe your grievance is something based on just your own personal beliefs or desires. There are rules and regulations for all of us and we can always come together to find solutions.

Unfortunately, I have watched meetings in many groups become contentious and ugly rather than productive. I’ve seen this in families, churches, businesses, organizations of all sizes. People get defensive when defending their opinions. After all my years of taking classes in conflict resolution and group facilitation, I am still shocked when confronted with people who are going to stand their ground no matter what facts are presented to them.

Believe me, I’m not always right and I can get defensive, too. I’m just always trying to find that way to peace. I think it comes from being the oldest child who had to sit between siblings in the back seat of a car while they reached across me to hit each other.

And so, we come to the world today, where I have never in my almost 79 years seen such division. People I know are afraid of everyone who doesn’t look or believe like them or they are afraid they will lose all their money or power. Others are sure they are right because of their religious views or their own self-righteousness over people who don’t live just like them. And, never have I seen so many people who are only concerned with what happens to them. Those who try to see another point of view are called “woke” in a sarcastic way, while I just see an attempt at empathy.

I’ve obviously got more years behind me than ahead of me, but I still like to look at the Big Picture of what might work for most of us. Not everyone has been as fortunate as I have, nor had the opportunities or health I have. Many things are out of our control and we are trying to do the best we can. Mistakes are made in life and people pay for them in many heartbreaking ways. The best we can do is look at the universe and see how we can make a place for all of us to live in peace and some happiness.

If you don’t have a beach to go stand on, find a sky to watch. Look beyond yourself and try to find a place for peace and love in your heart.

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Categories Family, Friends, Reflections

The Displaced Homemakers

September 2, 2024 //
2

Forgive my eye roll as I listen to discussions in the news on how women are most fulfilled by staying home and raising babies. Everyone knows how much I love my children and how I enjoyed being home with them, but…here’s my story.

When I went to college in 1963, women were beginning to be expected to work really hard through high school to get into college and then…well, the options we were given were ok but really an excuse to stay in school and find a college educated husband. If you had to work after college until you found one, that was ok, but you were still kind of expected to start a family as soon as possible.

I’m not sure I really had a goal of any kind. I was smart, observant, in love, and thought my life would mirror my parents’, which was pretty nice I thought. I was very naive about how the world was going to work for me and my friends. I got married right after I turned 21, finished school, started grad school so I could teach while my husband finished up, and had my first child. Our life progressed as we thought it would and I stayed home and had three more kids before I turned 30. My husband worked with my father, I loved the babies (which I had never even thought about before I had them), and we were happy.

But, there was the fact that I got bored when the kids were asleep or at day care, preschool, school. Housework and playing bridge weren’t really doing it for me. I started doing volunteer work, as was expected of those of us who had it so seemingly easy, and found an unpaid career that filled my time, brought me new friends and taught me more than I ever imagined. I learned new skills and attained new leadership positions. My thought was that I couldn’t be out saving the world, but I could save my own little world, one day at a time, while still doing all the mom things, which I loved.

By the 1980s, I had edited a cookbook, a magazine, planned for city growth, worked with the arts, helped educate people on Historic Preservation, served on Boards of Directors and was feeling pretty good. It was the 80s and women were speaking up more and more. I had heard Gloria Steinem speak when I was in college and read all the women’s and new magazines and current books and was up on Women’s Lib, as it was called, sometimes not in a nice way. I understood and empathized, but I was busy driving a billion carpools and leading committee meetings and selling popcorn after school – all things that were needed. I wasn’t out marching for Women’s Rights. I didn’t have time.

The Equal Rights Amendment was in the news and states were ratifying it and dismissing it. Would it ever get passed? Nope. Women were slowly gaining more rights but were still not considered equal under the law in the United States. That’s the truth and still is to this day. It doesn’t mean that we can’t get more rights, but it means that they can more easily be taken away. Eventually, it was out of the news and women were content with small victories along the way. NOTE: we never should have stopped fighting for it.

I thought of myself as a person who was good at bringing people together to make decisions and finish projects and get things done. I was aware of inequities for women, but I wasn’t much of an advocate – yet. The Junior League of Tulsa was a bastion of educated women who spent their time trying to make the city a better place. It was the epitome of what women, even women who were proud homemakers and mothers, could do to make change. In 1983, two projects were proposed for the coming year. One was to work with domestic violence advocates and organizations to increase awareness. This was a new movement at the time.

The second project was to collaborate with The University of Tulsa to open a resource center for women who needed help as their lives changed due to numerous upheavals and changes of direction. This included women who needed to go to work, women who were widowed or divorced and left to fend for themselves and would help women who didn’t have the opportunities and contacts my friends had at the time. I first heard the term “displaced homemakers.” For some reason, the Catholic community decided that this project would be doing abortion counseling and there was a big uproar with even the Bishop becoming involved, articles in the paper about it all causing much division in the Junior League membership. After all of this, when it came time to vote for new projects to give our time and money to, I wasn’t sure if we should do something that was causing so much friction. I’m not sure how I voted, but both projects passed and were ready to go. Then it was time to choose chairmen for the projects. I was more than shocked when I got a call to chair the women’s resource center project. My first inclination was to say no, because why did I need to have stress like this, but a good friend convinced me that I was the right person precisely because I didn’t have a side in it and could work to bring everyone together. Flattery and a new challenge were appealing and I took off on a year that would be life changing in so many ways.

Our joint committee of volunteers and representatives from TU worked for nine months to set up the policies and hire a professional Director for The Women’s Center, as we decided to call it. We had a converted house donated by the university to furnish and set up, materials to collect, and publicity to generate. By the time we opened in January, 1984, women were pretty much lined up for the services. I’m proud to say that the center, under a different organization, still exists in Tulsa today. I met women who were desperate for job counseling, looking for places to live, needing just anyone to talk to. Nobody was asking about an abortion, by the way.

A couple of years after this project, I was asked to chair the domestic violence project as the new shelter was opened and new programs being developed. After that year, I continued to serve on the Board of Directors for six more years, including a year as Board President. In all those years, I never spoke to a community group without a woman or women coming up to me afterwards to tell me their story. They were beginning to break free with education about the issue.

This was becoming personal because I was the mother of three girls and I felt like I needed to be a role model in the fight for other women. I needed to expose them to the things that happen to women. And, I was the mother of a son who needed to be a man who respected women. My son was the one who worked for women’s rights while he was in college. Hopefully, they all absorbed some of what I was doing.

Another reason this was becoming more personal was because at the same time, my friends were also going through major life shifts. In my parents’ time, there were few divorces, mainly because the women had no recourse. They had no education or skills, no money except through their husbands, and no support from churches, society or even family. You were expected to stay in a marriage, no matter how bad it got. Cheating and abuse and addiction and gambling and men who couldn’t provide for their families are nothing new, but nobody talked about it. It was the age of secrets. By the time I was in my thirties, more marriages were falling apart. We had married young for so many reasons. Birth control was new and only available if you were married. Girls had to either have abortions in secret places, give their babies up for adoption or get married. Guys could get exemptions from Viet Nam if they were married or couples married because the guy was drafted. You were expected to have your children young for health reasons. But now, maybe some of those reasons weren’t good enough for a sustained marriage. Guys who cheated felt free to leave their families for their new love, husbands died, husbands were cruel. I also had friends who realized that they were gay, which was fine with me. They really weren’t any different, just happier. When I wasn’t out saving the world for others, I was on the phone with friends who were facing new realities.

Those who suddenly had to find work learned that those degrees we got were pretty useless if you hadn’t been in the work force building up your resume. Many sucked it up and called people they had worked with as volunteers to see if there was a paid job they could do. Networking was key to survival. Whatever job was found was mostly at entry level and many still had children at home to take care of. Divorces were messy and many a friend became a fierce advocate for their children and themselves in courtrooms where men still had an advantage. Once you were out there, it was just becoming a thing for women to get their own credit and bank accounts. There were those who suggested that women should stay married no matter what and were no support at all.

Through the 80s and into the 90s, I did a lot of writing, speaking and advocating for these women, these “displaced homemakers.” In that time, my own children went to college. The three girls married and had their first babies and my son was in college. I had gone to work part-time, then full time and had my own business. Then, suddenly, I was one of the displaced. My husband died of cancer very quickly and, after almost a year of being immersed in the world of medicine, I was out there on my own. After putting four children through college and having three weddings, selling our family business and watching my husband have to reinvent himself, our resources were at a low. I was a widow at 52. Life happens.

In the 25+ years since, I have reinvented myself so many times, used every skill I ever had, laughed and cried with friends and watched the world changing all the time. There are so many new developments in medicine and technology for my children and grandchildren. My friends are still going through transitions and reinventing ourselves for our later years. I survived because of the experiences I had through the years, the friends and family who gave me love and support, and because of the strength of the women in my family whose stories I tell with such pride. My daughters, and daughter-in-law, mother and grandmothers and all the women I have known have made me stronger and happier than I ever expected. I ride on all their shoulders.

Looking back, I smile at the dream of the “Happy Homemaker” that we believed in so blindly. It is a great part of life, but it is only part of who we will be as women. “Children are the best thing in your life” is an easy thing to say, but they can be a challenge. Some are born with physical or mental disabilities, some become addicted, some just seem to defy everything we give them, some make bad decisions. And some die. Some women cannot have children by birth and may struggle through fertility issues and adoptions. And, some women just don’t want to have children. Children cannot be the only way to happiness.

I am a lucky girl. My children were healthy and sweet and fun and came out ok. I am a lucky, lucky girl. I will always be grateful for my wonderful children. I will also say that I also had wonderful men in my life, including a supportive husband. I will always be grateful for the loving, kind men I have known and been friends with throughout my life. Because I have been so lucky, I will aways fight for the women who haven’t been. I will write and talk and post and march and vote for the homemakers and the “displaced homemakers” and those who chose another direction.

The thing is that we cannot make decisions for other people. We cannot force them to believe as we think they should or live as we think they should. We cannot judge them for their beliefs and decisions. None of us know what is going on in other people’s lives. We need to support and love and listen. We need to live the Golden Rule. Life isn’t always easy and we don’t need to make it harder for anyone. We need to be kind.

Politics has become a way to beat other people down instead of lifting their lives up. We need to be better.

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Categories Family, Friends, History, Reflections, Uncategorized

MOVIE TIME

June 15, 2024 //
0

Going to the theatre has always been special and you cannot recreate the total experience of being at a live concert or play or musical at home. The same goes for movies. With new technology and streaming services and the internet, you can now watch movies at home, on your computer or even on your phone. You can’t beat the convenience of watching from home, but it’s just not the same.

Recently, I’ve been back to the movie theatre several times. We all got out of the habit with the Pandemic and some people think it’s just fine. I’m remembering my lifetime of theatre going and hoping those days aren’t going away.

The first movie I remember seeing was a Disney film, “So Dear to My Heart,” an adorable combination of live people mixed with animation. I still have a warm spot in my heart for that one.

It was all so magical in those days. We saw a lot of movies without our parents as they could drop up off on Saturday morning and we could watch cartoons, serial dramas, and a feature. Sometimes there would be a live show with someone like a yo-yo man showing us how to do all the tricks.

Movies for many years started with a newsreel, a cartoon, coming attractions and then the feature. We didn’t get our news as instantly as we do today, so I learned a lot about what was going on in the world from the wonderful voice of Lowell Thomas.

We went to local theaters, beautiful downtown movie palaces, and the drive-in movies. I don’t remember my father going to the movies very often, but I have a vivid memory of going to the drive-in to see a golf movie with my whole family (Daddy was a championship level golfer). It was the story of Ben Hogan.

I’ve never been one to go to scary movies, although I’ve seen my share. The first one I remember seeing was “The House of Wax,” which we saw in 3D and I had to watch from the back of the theatre so I could duck at the very scary parts. I’m still scared thinking about it.

Another scary one was “The Tingler,” which I saw at a theatre that had buzzers on some of the seats to give a jolt to some in the audience at scary parts. When I saw “The Birds,” they released parakeets into the balcony where I was sitting. I still think that movie was scary even when I rewatch it and see how hokey some of the effects were. It did its job on me when I’ve had birds get into my house through the years.

As we got older, going to the movies was a fun thing to do with your friends. For my 11th birthday, we took all my friends to see “Giant,” still one of my favorites. That’s one I can watch every time I see it, which is a good thing about having it so readily available (a tip to modern times).

For one of my birthdays, my little brother took me to see “Ben Hur,” which I still think was so cute of him.

In Junior High and High School in the 1950s and 1960s, the movies were one of the places we could go on a date, either meeting a guy there or being dropped off by parents or, finally, driving ourselves. We went to everything from comedies to heavy dramas like “On the Beach,” a frightening look at the future that still lingers with me. As with many movies, I also read the book it was based on.

I grew up in an era of wonderful musicals and saw them all. I think my favorite is “South Pacific,” although there are so many great ones. My husband loved the movies and we saw everything we could. It was our night out and we saw westerns, war movies, comedies, dramas. Our children grew up with movies like “Grease” and the Star Wars movies and all the teen movies of their time.

A couple of months ago, my youngest granddaughter had just read “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and the local art theatre happened to be showing the movie in conjunction with the play being in town. I took her to the movie, which I hadn’t seen on a big screen since it came out. Wow! I couldn’t help but think that the experience was so much better for her than if we had just found it on one of our many screening services. I felt the same after seeing “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which showed the horrors of events that took place less than an hour away from us. Then I saw a comedy with some friends and we laughed and enjoyed it together.

It began to dawn on me that I was missing the experience of going to the theatre to see movies. There are some that just need to be seen on a big screen with a group of people and the sounds and excitement and a box of popcorn and a drink. When I watch at home, I get up and move around and pause the action and tend to do other things while I’m watching (puzzles, looking at my phone, flipping through magazines). My concentration is not the same, no matter how hard I try to get absorbed. My dogs need out or I need to answer the phone or take the laundry out of the dryer or fix a snack. There are so many distractions.

I applaud movie makers for trying to adapt to the audience’s new viewing styles and I do think some things are very good. When I drive by the theaters, and there are just a few left, I check the parking lots to make sure people are going in person and I do seem to see more cars, although it’s not as packed as it used to be. Time changes so many things, but I hope that going to the movies doesn’t go away. There are just so many fun memories to be made, so many great stories to be thrilled by, and so many times that being with other people to experience something is still the best.

As they used to say, “Let’s go to the movies.”

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Categories Uncategorized

Humanity in the New Year

January 6, 2024 //
0

We’re into a new year and I’m trying to live up to one of my own resolutions – to be a better human being by recognizing the humanity in all of us. I could preach about this, but I’m better off just trying to live up to it.

People tend to put other people in categories, which is normal. When you see or meet someone, you immediately register their size, their skin color, their voice, the way they dress, etc. It’s how we tell each other apart. The problem comes when we start to put people into categories and decide if we like them or not based on what we are seeing. I know we won’t like everyone we meet, nor should we, but we at least need to try and understand them and recognize that they are human beings.

Human beings are capable of such kindness and such cruelty and it doesn’t seem to take much to push us to either extreme. The extreme of cruelty crosses all peoples throughout history. Robert Burns wrote of “man’s inhumanity to man” in his dirge, “Man was made to Mourn” in 1784, but there are examples we are all too aware of, from the cruelty of slavery through the ages to the torture and mutilation of people by almost every culture.

“The Purpose of Propaganda is to make one set of people forget that other sets of people are human.” Aldous Huxley

We’ve seen the use of propaganda by Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan in more recent years. Elie Wiesel wrote of the “Dehumanization in Night,” where the concentration camp guards shaved the heads and branded the prisoners with numbers to make them less human so they could more easily torture and murder them. The Ku Klux Klan considered so many groups to be inferior that it’s difficult to understand who the members who considered themselves so pure were. They were against Blacks, Jews, Catholics, Irish, Italians, and anyone who didn’t fit their image of who they thought they were.

My daughter and I were in Ponca City, Oklahoma a few years ago and visited the statue of Standing Bear, a Ponca chief who sued the United States government and won. In 1879, he argued that Native Americans were “persons within the meaning of the law,” which was the first time that Native Americans were recognized as human beings by our government. Let that sink in. This did not stop the injustices that they were subjected to, but it was a beginning.

Several years ago, I worked for the American Red Cross and did educational programs in several counties in Oklahoma. The Red Cross is very focused on serving diverse populations as its mission is mandated by the U S Congress and they must give aid to everyone, regardless of who they are. After each program I gave, I needed to give the racial makeup of my audiences. I usually got this from teachers when I was in a school setting. I found that there were so many combinations of races in our state, a true melting pot of white, black, brown, red and yellow. For such a “red state” politically, we are certainly one of the most diverse.

Looking at my own DNA, as broken down by Ancestry, I am pretty white, although through various decades, I would have been hated for being Irish, Scottish, Catholic, and poor.

As the DNA tests become more sophisticated, I started seeing that I had some people in Northern Africa, which could mean all kinds of things. As I check the latest findings, I see that they have narrowed it down to the Southern Bantu peoples. I looked them up and here are my new relatives.

I’m really fascinated about the stories that brought so many cultures into my own personal DNA. Ancestry says that the Bantu are from my father’s side, where I know that there were some slave owners along the way. My ancestors range from well to do to Catholic nuns and priests to poor farmers just in the most recent times, so digging into the past yields all kinds of possibilities. I have a very rich heritage of all kinds of traveling people who merged with other peoples along the way. I’m a purebred nothing.

The point is that we all have stories in our ancestry and who are we to think we are any better than anyone else? Why are we afraid to embrace all that those various peoples contributed to who we are today?

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” We need to celebrate all views and all cultures and quit being afraid of anyone who is the slightest bit different than we are. We are missing so much when we shut out the possibility of what other people can give us or the fact we could learn from what they have to say.

I’m going to work hard to ignore the propaganda that surrounds me telling me to think this person has no idea what they are talking about and this person is not worth my time and that person is just plain horrible and try to see each person in their own place in their own life. I still won’t like all of them, but I can at least open my ears and my heart and see them as human beings just like me, just trying to make my way through this life we have been given.

“Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being’s suffering. Nothing – not career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we’re going to survive with dignity.” Audrey Hepburn

And, I’m going to take these words and try to be the best human being I can be. It’s sad that it takes any effort at all, isn’t it?

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Categories History, Reflections
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