I talked to Dorothy and then my friend Carol from Ohio while Elsa and I did our morning walk. It is a delightful way to spend that time. True, I didn't get to focus as much on my body, but I got 5,000 steps in. The walk seems easier with the company. In both conversations, we talked about our childhoods and our families of origin.
Dorothy and I brought up names of miscellaneous people that were in my parents' lives. We knew these people were relatives, but we had no idea how they were related to us. The family connections on my paternal side are known. While my father had only one brother, he had five male cousins with whom he was raised and one female a good 25 years younger than him. Dorothy and I have a clear understanding of our relationship with them. But then there were all these other people we visited or visited us.
There was Aunt Rita, who lived in an apartment with a great view of 5th Avenue in NYC. I remember watching the Macy's Day Parade from her apartment one year. I also remember that she had lost her senses of smell and taste. She explained that she remembered the taste of things as she ate.
There was Joel and his wife, who lived in Younkers. We visited them every few months. I have no idea who they were. Then there was Mattie Cohen, Paul Cohen, who I realized as an adult was her son, and Gabby, who was a little older than I was. For the longest time, I thought Mattie Cohen must have been the mother of my father's best friend as a child, Eric Cohen. But we never talked about him and his family that lived in Memphis when we went to see them. I now believe that all these people were relatives on my paternal grandfather's side. We also had some relatives in South America. There was a family in South Africa. I understood our relationship with them. Their father, Max, was my paternal grandfather's nephew, the son of his brother Louis. Dorothy and I both remember stories about Uncle Louie. Max died in his forties, leaving his wife and two young sons. They moved to Israel. We lost touch with them.
With Carol, I talked about her mother. She sounds like an amazing woman. She bore six children and ran that house with an iron hand, a kind iron hand but an iron hand, nonetheless. The kids were required to do chores around the house. Anyone remember that? Dorothy and I didn't' get many of those because my mother didn't think we would do them right. We did get to make our beds after we learned how to do it correctly in camp, and my mother approved of our performance.
I also got to iron my own clothes, starting in 7th grade. The gym teacher had us take home our gym outfits to be washed, starched, and ironed every week. These were blue cotton uniforms with short baby doll sleeves and similarly puckered short pant legs. My mother took one look at that and said she wasn't going to iron it. When she saw that I could manage an iron, she let me take over that chore with all my clothes. I loved it. I rather like ironing to this day. I guess the rule is if you want someone to do some work, deny them the opportunity, and they'll love to take it over when given a chance.
I did some work on the book I'm writing. Yesterday, I was feeling overwhelmed. Today, as I reread what I had written, I was able to tighten it up a bit and see ways I could make it flow better and not feel so all over the place. Dorothy and Shivani both criticized my work on that count. They said I did not define my terms adequately and meandered from topic to topic. On the former, defining my terms is irrelevant for my work, particularly the word phoneme. Not only do I never use that term with the students I work with, but I also think it has been bandied about in the educational circles to help people sound more erudite without having more knowledge. From what I can make out, the phoneme is equated with the sound a letter(s) make. No, no, no. My guess also is most teachers have no idea that phonemes don't just exist in English. I suppose they could infer that, but not when it is bonded with the English alphabet letters.
Judy and I talked. She apologized for not calling me back yesterday. She said she had several long conversations and was talked out. I found out that tomorrow is her birthday. Happy Birthday, Judy. I promised her the Ross Happy Birthday version of the song. She said, please, no. It bears little resemblance to the original. Mike couldn't sing, so I helped him to make an adaptation where he didn't have to carry a tone. We just howled; the song follows the words, but besides that, it is an entirely different tune and rhythm.
Judy and I lapsed into talking about our pasts, stories about our parents, and our childhoods. I told her I am finding that all my conversations with friends and family lapse into this. No, that's not true. It doesn't happen with Damon, Shivani, or Yvette, all from the generation after mine. It just happens with older people. I don't mean being analytical, commenting on what was good or bad. No, I mean just telling stories. It's all very interesting.
Judy and Paulette delivered sandwiches to the homeless last night. They prepare dinner for over 60 people once a month as one of their ministries. Judy told me that they have opened the whole parking lot at that site for people to pitch tents. She said no one was wearing a mask or taking any precautions, and no one has the virus. Now, everyone has to have the temperature taken before they can participate in the dinner. However, is it possible that living rough has made these folks immune to this virus? Has living rough strengthened their immune systems or just exposed them to this particular virus? When I looked up information on the virus in the homeless population, all I got was warnings about how many will probably die, but not how many were sick or had died.
We already know that too much cleaning leaves the immune system untested and weakened. People from cultures or homes that are kept immaculately clean tend to have allergies or get sick. Are the homeless who live closer to how we were designed to live in better health in some ways? Interesting.
A friend told me a personal story that supports this theory. He suffers from allergy trigger asthma. When he was young, he suffered continuously. His mother took him to a doctor when he was three. This doctor had an unconventional approach. He told my friend's mother to take him home, take off his shoes and shirt, and let him around and play in the dirt. His mother's first reaction was, "No, way!" The doctor said, "Nothing else has worked. Try it for a month." After a month, his asthma was much improved. Dirt, the great healer.
Mike and I were never super cleaners. I should be way ahead of the curve. With my loose social connections and my dirty house, I should live forever.
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Musings:
Dorothy and I talked about a relative through marriage, long dead, of our grandparents' generation, who was the embodiment of haughty arrogance. I told Dorothy that our dad thought she was a 'real lady." I thought this summed up what was wrong with him. How does putting out a constant stream of contempt make you a lady? I did and do choose other words to label her.
But Dorothy pointed out that people like her are impressive. They may not be nice, but they are impressive. They enter a room with certain assumptions and force others to bend to their will by the sheer power of their entitlement.
I can think of someone I know who has this presence, and all I want to do is run for my life. As I understand it from his daughter, everyone else feels that way too. Aside from his family, he has no friends. I think that kind of presumptiveness is a form of mental illness.
There are positive iterations of that presence, actors, lawyers, and classroom teachers. God bless the teachers that enter a room and without saying a word, command the class and extract calm and organized behavior. Neither Dorothy nor I were blessed with this disposition. Both of us had to work for whatever we achieved in this regard.
This lack made me an inadequate classroom teacher. Also, I am preoccupied with details. Why can't Johnny do this problem? What is going on in his head or not going on in his head? This is not a rhetorical question; it is the challenge I choose to face. It keeps me up at night, sometimes quite joyfully, as I struggle to find a solution. This is great for Johnny, but my attention being focused on Johnny means the rest of the class sees the teacher has left the room, and . . . .
Fortunately, I had the opportunity to spend every year in my over 50 years of teaching working with individuals or small groups, except for two. They were my first two years of teaching. They were not good. For some reason, I knew even then that I would someday be a great teacher. Somewhere along the way, I achieved that. I am considered a miracle worker. It would be nice if people would be interested in learning what I do instead of just calling me to work with kids they can't help. Oh, well. Maybe in my next lifetime.
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