For 74 1/2 years, I’ve been accumulating impressions, stereotypes, prejudices and images in my mind, whether I know or like it or not. I’m a white woman who grew up in Oklahoma with a certain amount of privilege, education, and experience which I have taken into the world as I’ve traveled, worked and lived. In 2020, I’m trying to analyze what my feelings are, where they came from and who I’ve influenced along the way.
We were taught that first impressions mean a lot. That’s where I’ll begin to check on myself. I’m figuring out what I see when I “size ’em up” as I meet people in so many situations.
When we see someone, whether walking down the street or being introduced to them, we are flooded with so many things to take in. As a woman, I think I check a person’s sex first. This is probably defensive. If it’s a man, how big or strong does he look, how old is he, how is he dressed, what is the expression on his face? It’s hard to break it down because we see so much in an instant. I’ve been experimenting with this for the last few days. There’s so much to assess. I’m trying to see how prejudiced I am.
Of course, I see skin color, race. It would be crazy to think any of us don’t notice something that is so identifying. What I’ve found is that I have so many prejudices and assumptions about people that it’s hard to decide what I see first.
The song, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,” from the musical South Pacific, reminds us:
You’ve got to be taught
Before it’s too late
Before you are six
Or seven
Or eight
To hate all the people
Your relatives hate
You’ve got to
Be carefully taught
Maybe our parents didn’t specifically teach us, maybe we just observed the way they treated people. The people of color in my life as a child mostly worked for us, but I only respected and loved them. I would have been in trouble if I didn’t mind them. The funny things I remember were hearing that my grandfather said to never trust a red-headed bookkeeper and having my grandmother tell me not to let communist professors influence me in college. Those are amusing, to say the least. Who knows where those ideas came from.
The main thing I am learning is that my parents didn’t dehumanize anyone to us. We traveled to other countries and met people of other cultures and races and learned from them. They passed down to me that people are interesting and you can learn so much meeting others.
I grew up in the 50s and 60s and watched the world change. I’m stunned now to have friends who grew up in other circumstances in the same city and were subjected to prejudices and abuse of all kinds because they were Jewish, Native American, Black, or crippled. One friend told me she was bullied because she had lived in South America and spoke fluent Spanish. She was called names and was so traumatized that she quit using her Spanish. She is quite white, by the way. And, my friends who have been treated differently because they are female is a whole other discussion. I’m in that group myself but I digress.
Being white in Oklahoma is almost an anomaly. At one time, I worked for the American Red Cross, where I took a lot of diversity training. The Red Cross has a large number of volunteers who work with staff to assist people in disasters and they emphasize that you cannot discriminate when people are in crisis after a fire or tornado or other tragedy. We spent a lot of time learning how to approach people from other cultures. I did a lot of the programs in rural areas and schools for all ages. We were supposed to report the demographics of who we spoke to after each program. My reaction was that I couldn’t even tell the boys from the girls when I was speaking to the classes. Especially in Oklahoma’s rural areas, there are so many children from mixed families – Native American/Hispanic, Black/Hispanic, White/Black, etc. So many combinations. It’s amazing that we are considered to be such a “Red” state since we are a true melting pot.
I’m finding that I have fewer prejudices towards the melting pot I find myself in than I do to the actual people I should feel most comfortable with. I’m back to the things I notice and the prejudices I have. I’m old enough to take my initial impressions with a grain of salt. Tattoos are a great example of something that used to signal one thing to me and now are just another feature of someone to learn more about. Fluorescent hair and messy clothing (which may actually be very expensive) are things that aren’t what they seem. Not all blondes are dumb and not all teen agers are on drugs and so on. We have so many assumptions we make at first glance. Today’s political strife is not making it easier. We judge people quickly by stances they take online and it’s a strange world we are in where we are making judgments on people we have known forever.
In the late 60s or early 70s, t-shirts became a fashion statement. I’m old enough to remember making the stupid statement that I wasn’t going to wear men’s underwear. Now my wardrobe has an inordinate number of t-shirts covered in logos from places I’ve traveled, groups I belong to, or statements I want to make. Here I am after the first Women’s March of the current times on January 21, 2017. 
Sorry for the mirror image, but you get the drift and you would correctly assume from this that I was marching for women’s rights, the climate, and civil rights – all causes I’ve been working for most of my life. I wasn’t a marcher most of my years, but I’ve worked to better my community for all who live here in these areas and others.
This week, I saw a woman wearing this t-shirt. 
I immediately made assumptions about her, based on my own prejudices. I saw someone who was proudly proclaiming that she was a Republican and would only vote Republican and there is no point trying to talk to her about anything. She is right (and probably never wrong) and proud of it. I watched her play with her child and thought how much that t-shirt had changed how I was reacting to her. All my own prejudices were on my nerve endings, an emotional and visceral reaction, which is pretty amazing since I spent most of my voting life as a Republican.
It would be wonderful to think that my years of experience have taught me something, taught me to not put people in little boxes of my own assumptions, but I’m not even close to that level of perfection, no matter how hard I try. The only thing I can conclude from my study of myself is that I don’t think I dehumanize people, whether I like them or not. They are all still human beings to me and I know they have challenges in their lives that I can’t see at first glance or qualities that I should spend time discovering. I know I need to listen to more people and learn from other’s experiences. Working on being sympathetic, empathetic, and understanding are at the top of my list of things I want to improve in myself. I try to practice the Golden Rule in all things that I do.
And, yet, when I see or meet people and “size ’em up,” there are my lifetime of assumptions oozing out of my brain. In these troubling and confusing times, it’s a good idea to step aside and look in the mirror. We can all do better – and should.
The family moved to Oklahoma City at some point, where my grandfather started his automotive parts business, J. C. Hamilton Co. Here is a photo of the family during that time. My father is on the front fender behind his brother, Ed. Bill stands on the running board between his sister and parents. It’s the only photo I can find of the whole family together, but you get the idea. 
Years passed, the children grew up and the boys went into the family business. Sarah married my other Uncle Ed and started their family. When the United States joined World War II, all the men went into service. Here is my Uncle Bill with my grandfather. 
My grandfather was about 5’8″, so Uncle Bill was the smallest of the brothers in the family, besides being the baby. I still don’t know where my father got his height of 6’2″.
And then this article from the local paper.
All I had ever heard was that he was shot down while parachuting into Germany and was buried there, far from home. Then I found this touching letter, written to my father. I’m not sure how this got into this group of papers, but it showed a big brother trying to find more information about his little brother, probably trying to get answers for my grandparents.
The letter shows they didn’t know right away if he was killed or captured, as this letter was written well over a month after he must have been killed, according to the newspaper clip above.
The words served all my teams well through the following years, both at the museum and at Oklahoma State University, where I did the same kind of work with college students.
It looks like my family has made it. You can just look at the way we dress and see that we are successful…not to mention on trend, with it, cool.
My grandmother kept my mother’s dresses to make quilts. I have a few well worn quilts and some unfinished quilt tops from then that show the thinness of the fabrics. There was no waste in those days. They couldn’t afford it.
My mother always looked stylish after she started working. Here she is when she was young.
I only have photos of three of my great-grandmothers. This is my father’s paternal grandmother, shown with him. These were their everyday clothes. They weren’t poor, but they had lots of children to keep dressed.
This is my mother’s paternal grandmother, shown with my mother and her brothers. My mother may be wearing one of the dresses that ended up in a quilt. My mother told me her grandmother dressed the same way until she died, wearing layers of clothes as they did in the late 1800s. The earliest information I can find out about her is that she worked as a house servant in Texas when she was 14. Later she married and traveled to Ardmore, OK by covered wagon, where they set up the West Wagon Yard and did pretty well, although she always lived very simply.
This is my mother’s paternal grandmother. They were poor, living on a farm in southern Oklahoma. Both she and my grandfather ended up, literally, at the poor farm. I’m not sure if they were suffering from dementia or just couldn’t afford to live on the farm anymore, but I learned that they both died at the home in Vinita, OK. She was buried there and the family managed to bring him home later. 
So, I stand in the middle of the generations, looking back at my great-grandmothers who lived difficult lives, but managed to patch their children’s clothes and keep the families together, to my grandmothers, who both were poor as children, but worked hard and raised their families, to me, who was born to a comfortable lifestyle, which my husband and I worked hard to provide for our children.
Our family has made it, if you look at the generations. I have grown children and grandchildren who can afford to buy expensive, torn clothing to show how well we are doing. I think I understand why I haven’t embraced this trend. I’m stuck in the middle of those who had nothing and those who have much. I look back and I look forward and I appreciate the progress. These are my people and I love them all.
He said this was his first time to come here and I told him I come whenever I can. I asked him where he was from and he said, “Checotah,” which is about an hour and a half away. Then he told me that he didn’t have much of a Bucket List because he didn’t have much money, but he had a Thimble List. I told him this was definitely a great place to have on it. He told me he had never seen the ocean, but was planning to go next year. He told me that even if you were Rembrandt, whom he admired, you could never outdo the Lord’s work. I told him it was definitely a place to restore your soul.
I watched the shadows from the clouds spread across the valley and took in all the beauty around me. 
We all need a Thimble List, which I define as a list of places to visit and things to do that are not unobtainable, not far from home. I can’t criticize him for just now getting to this beautiful place because I didn’t see it for the first time until I was in my late 50s or 60s. It’s only 2 1/2 hours from my home, but I might have missed it.
Way back in the 1950s, when I was younger than my granddaughter now, we used to drive to visit my grandmother in Ardmore, Oklahoma. At that time, until the turnpikes and highways were built, the drive from Tulsa took at least four hours and involved going through multiple small towns and then winding along the narrow roads through the Arbuckles until you hit a flat road into Ardmore.
This doesn’t look too bad, but it was narrow with big trucks going by quickly. It used to scare me, sitting in the back seat looking at the drop off. I can now drive myself through the mountains in California and Colorado without freaking out, but it took me a long time to get over this minor childhood trauma (I had a great childhood).
Maybe my granddaughter will remember doing this – maybe not. That’s ok since we have plenty of other memories we’ve shared. For me, this was a trip back in time, into my heart and soul, for the sweetest of times, the times of love and family.
Mickey was named for Mickey Mantle because he batted at things with both feet, a switch hitter. He was more burly looking and was the sweetest boy, always doing something silly or cuddling up with the dogs or me. 
Guy was definitely Siamese, named Guy because I thought he was female and gave him a girl name until I found out. He did not like to be held or confined, but loved to be petted and purred so loudly you could hear him across the room. He was elegant and strong. 
So we lived our lives with the girl dogs and the boy cats existing in harmony. The boys were inside outside cats and spent time with their secret lives outside, but mostly hanging around the yard or curled up inside. They were street smart as to dogs, cars, hawks and owls and even an occasional fox.
I knew immediately what had happened. You need to understand that I live in the city, an urban area, although there are creeks and the Arkansas River within a couple of miles. We’re not in the country where I might have expected this. This is a predator who has invaded our city, taking pets from yards. We had severe flooding this spring, coupled with ever present development, so I can’t blame the animals for being animals.
Looking at this picture of my family on Easter, 1953, you must notice the unique Easter baskets we are holding. I’m not sure why we all look so serious, but those baskets bring a smile to my face today.
One of the things I think about when I remember the baskets is how my grandmother’s hands were crippled by arthritis. She also had a finger that she couldn’t bend, the result of blood poisoning when she cut it on a tin cup from what I remember. That makes me appreciate the delicate work on the baskets and makes them even more dear to me.
Even after all these years, you can see the work. They started with a Quaker oatmeal box and cut it down. I guess the handle was wire, wrapped in ribbon. The petals and the little flowers are heavy crepe paper, cut and shaped very delicately. All the pieces were assembled with precision by these women, working in their small Episcopal church in Oklahoma City. The church was later closed (maybe moved to a larger location, but I don’t know). I heard the building I remembered became a bar.
Confetti Thoughts 