What Do You See When You Look Through Me

We, as human beings, are innately attuned to appearances.  It's hard not to make general assumptions based on what we see.  It is our nature.  How that information gets mulled over in the brain is the important part.  For many, a judgment is made, with not much being "mulled over".  This is where prejudges of all kinds live.  There is no thought beyond the judgmental reaction.  THIS is informing too many people's thoughts today.

I would surmise this is the most crucial of times to realize how this "sense" is helping or destroying us. My lens is unique in many ways, I'll stick to a few.  Being a child of southern white teenage parents, and being male certain assumptions can be made. If you met me on the street your sense of sight would inform you to make these typical assumptions.  Things that happened in my life, however, will not be available for you in this short meeting.  There are things I still can't talk about.

By the age of six my mother was remarried to a Mexican American from California.  My mother can be described best as an intellectual hippie who never found her way in the south.  My conservative grandparents were raising me, yet my Mom and step-dad were in and out of my life.  I spent many weekends and summers living with them and my younger twin sisters who were 1/2 Mexican, who never knew if they would have food to eat or whether their parents would drink what little money they had for food away.
My wife is 1/2 Vietnamese.  Born in Saigon during the turbulence of the Vietnam War.  My sister-in-law has 3 children who are 1/2 black, 1/4 Vietnamese, 1/4 American.  We have a smorgasbord of a family. I lived the first half of my life in the south and moved North to stay in the second half, where I'm likely to remain.  So who do you see?  Do you see any of this reflected in my eyes?

I have mulled over this my entire life which has informed me to be who I am.  I realize daily that this is not necessarily normal, but it's becoming more common.  I remember not being taught Spanish in the house because assimilation was the norm. My step-dad didn't speak Spanish.  I missed out, but mostly my sisters missed out on valuing their heritage.  My step-father had issues that I now look back on and ask myself how his self esteem was crushed by a devaluing of who he was, then pile that onto my sisters.  My twin sisters had a rough time of it, getting out of the poverty that my family left them to wallow in.  I was lucky, I was white.  What do you see?  Do you see this family reflected in my eyes?  Do you see the guilt I carry for them?

My wife was born in Vietnam during the war, her father an American.  Her mother was married to a man previously, with whom she had 4 children, who was not good to her (let's leave it at that).  I believe my mother-in-law sought a way out (what choices does a woman in a bad marriage with children have during a war that is ravaging your existence), but her "American" had pledged his love to another, got both of them pregnant and left for America.  He later chose to return, for the other woman and his son, only to find her married to someone else.  I guess he  felt guilty enough to find my wife and her mother and bring them back to America with him.  Once here, my wife's mother took her and ran away, which says a lot.  My mother, apparently, tried many times to whisk me away from my grandparents.  My wife doesn't even look Vietnamese.   What do you see when you look at her? Do you see her reflected in my eyes?

My nephews are 1/2 black and beautiful boys.  My little niece is gorgeous and 1/2 black.  They are all black in appearance.  What do you see when you look at them?  Do you see them reflected in my eyes?

There is more in my life that I chose not to share yet, that informs my life.  But, with this story you may get a picture of the lens for which I see through.  I am very flawed and make horrible judgments, BUT I do try to remember my lens when I see you and wonder what will reflect back at me.  Who do you see when you look at me?  Who do you see when you look in the mirror?  That person in the mirror needs your undivided kindness so you can see the depth of humanity in others.

My reflexion for the day!

DEFINING ART THROUGH MY GROWING LENS

Only recently in life have I found that the term “Art” has much more depth of meaning than I ever imagined.  I have been a highly-trained musician for the better part of my life, always knowing, clearly, what was and wasn’t art.  This allowed my world to be confined to music, painters/sculptors, etc., dance, and contemporary photography, etc.  Thus, my world view was small, yet I thought vastly large. What changed?

The epiphany for me was when I discovered history and philosophy, yet in my mind I could compartmentalize this discovery apart from art. I was so very wrong.

“Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers – and never succeeding”.  Plato

Now, before I lose you completely, I have come to understand that “study”; that which requires expanding knowledge of self, the past, the present, and the possible future; belongs in the Art category. How can it not?

Why?  I love the Plato quote above as it is precise.  When I study history, a direct purpose is begun that rarely resembles the end, if there is an end.  When it transforms into writing, thought on paper, the same passion I have in music is transformed by as deep a passion for expanding that unobtainable flower blossoming. Thank you, Plato!

This leads me to such amazing beauty in historical study.  It challenges my preconceptions of people, time periods, and events leaving me with no definitive answers, but more questions.  Sometimes this is frustrating, but recently I have passed that milestone into joy of discovery and beautiful dialogue.  It’s the same emotional high that I feel while listening to Chopin or Mahler, and when, at its sublime, matches performing a Mahler Symphony. The latter is something musicians feel when the music you are playing, surrounded by other musicians, engulfs your being to a point that you can hardly contain your emotions.  You fight back your tears for elation, because who wants to see everyone on stage stop playing and weep.  The audience doesn’t experience the same performance in this way, nor can a recording duplicate the experience.  There is a purity in truth, be it music or history.

I have now found that same experience when I discover something profound to me in historical context that no one, that I have found, has discovered or thought of in quite the same way. This feeling, during the discovery, is not something you can completely share.   

Why does this matter??  We are struggling, in the United States, to discard the instanced past, see it’s glaring mistakes, and accept the ugly truths of the past which devastate our impressions of American History. Historians, for the most part, are leading the charge into the future, yet they are attacked from every angle, especially from those who want so desperately to hold on to how the collective US history has been taught to us all.  We, as a nation, can no longer remain neutral, thus the tremendous growing pains.  Many proud patriotic Americans want to cherish that feeling of superiority over other nations and “others” in general.  Nationalism, whether US or any other country, is only viable if it’s realistic and true. It can be used so horribly, and has in the past, as to crumple the same society that flaunts their belief in greatness. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love this flawed country, but I do so as a father or sibling, yet not a child, realizing that admiration does not replace fact about the horrors committed by the same country. All nations are inherently flawed.  

Back to “Art”.  The parallels in artistic study and the humanities, which includes historical study in my book, is stunning.  Musicians, painters, sculptors, photographers, etc. all know that the moments of sublime are few and fleeting.  Yet, we work hours upon hours of honing our craft to visit these fleeting, highly addictive moments because our souls cannot endure less.  How is historical or philosophical study and writing any different?  It is not, we are comrades seeking the same thing.  Yet, we divide our worlds. 

Why should we care about this distinction? NOW, like pivotal times in history, more than ever, we need absolute unity where we are pushed to divide. I was disappointed in my music history courses because they did little to correlate the rest of history with music history.  I need not know less about the contents of the Bamberg codex than the Plantagenet dynasty during this same period.  Bach’s dates are used to codify the baroque period, 1685-1750.  There’s a LOT of history happening during this period.  Large German migration to America.  Did this impact Bach in any way?  Did these same German immigrants (many to Pennsylvania) bring German influences, musically, to America? One of the great writers of what color means for the artist was Eugene Delacroix who just so happened to be friends with Frederick Chopin, Franz Lizst, and the fiction author George Sand (the crossdressing woman).  The same can be said for the study of history that does not include what is happening in the Art world.

These sample questions are just a stepping point to get students, and all of us, to think differently about historical context, especially in Art. I believe this makes the study more fascinating, likely to spark more interest, and more ability to absorb how both intertwine beautifully.  Memorization of dates and details become unnecessary as it happens naturally in the bigger understanding of it all.

That’s what hit me today.  Let’s just wait to see which direction I go next!

Let us not forget. Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King

On this somber day of the 50th anniversary of the death of MLK, 

I'm reminded we will continue to suffer under 
the self involved ego "I", 

that slams down the collective spirit of the "We" until we say 

"never more, never more" 

for "WE" are the raven

Women's History Month: Billie Holiday keeps tapping on my shoulder

Playing Taps close to Billie's grave

About 5 years ago I played a church service dedication in the Bronx outside at St. Raymond's Cemetery where at the end I was to play taps for Memorial Day.  This is something I do on a semi regular basis, so it didn't draw any attention other than feeling something was special here as the cemetery was quite large.  Before I played taps someone told me, "you know...Billie Holliday is buried out there somewhere close."  I was taken back and decided my taps, although meant for military service was for Billie in my heart.  After I was given a general vicinity to find Billie.  It took me about 15 minutes in the hot sun, but it was worth it.  I was alone, so I cried.  I took a few pictures of how people consistently visit her grave and leave remembrances.  I really knew nothing about "Strange Fruit", but I knew her tragic life.  Little did I know 5 years later I would be drawn back into Billie's life.

Serendipity indeed!  Many may know the haunting song made famous by Billie Holliday.  What you may not know about the songs history and historical connections is fascinating.  A story that should be a part of every learning institutions focus on slave history.  You will have a captive audience if you entwine this connection through many lens of time and genres; music, poverty, prostitution, self-esteem, race, etc.

DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx is famous around New York with such graduates as James Baldwin and his collaborator Richard Avedon, Burt Lancaster, Stan Lee, Jerry Moss (co founder A&M records), Richard Rodgers, and many actors, artists, etc.  Who you don't know is Abel Meeropool.  Who??? Abe was a graduate of DeWitt Clinton in 1921, and later a teacher of English there where James Baldwin was one of his students.  He is also the composer of "Strange Fruit".

Connecting the dots is fabulously fun and it's what I do! Abel Meeropool, after seeing a picture of a prominent lynching, wrote a poem, "Bitter Fruit", that he later put to music.  How did it get to Billie Holliday?  There was a social club in Manhattan, the only bi-racial one, where Meeropool played his song for the club owner.  The club had opened in 1939 and the song presented in that same year.  Holliday was performing there and was asked to sing it at the end of her set, in complete darkness, without anyone being served, per the owners decision.  It made Billie uncomfortable.  Which is another story.  Your imagination of having to do this at that time should fill you in about her reticence.

Serendipity doesn't end there.  W.E.B. Dubois was giving a party at his home in Manhattan where Abe Meeropool and his wife attended.  Without a deep history lesson into the McCarthy era, there was a socialist/Communist movement about in New York, and the famous people involved is another tremendous story.  Meeropool was brought before a committee investigating Communism in the public schools because they wanted to know if the American Communist Party had hired him to write "Strange Fruit".  At this time the American Communist Party was very involved with civil rights.

The later infamous couple, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were also at this party at Dubois' where they met the Meeropools.  The famous trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. on being Russian spies, led to their execution.  Family members of the Rosenberg's were reticent to take in their two sons.  So, despite what it might mean for Meeropools career, he used the alias "Lewis Allan", they adopted the Rosenberg's sons.

There have been articles written about the song and Billy Holliday, see below, but I haven't found anyone writing about the strong connection to the movement and DeWitt Clinton High School with it's long list of graduates.

 the-man-behind-strange-fruit

There is always more to the story if we just look deeper and reveal the serendipitous connections that connect us all to a more human world possibility.

The Civil War was about Race

Section of the Cornerstone speech, by Alexander Stephens VP of the Confederacy, that gets to the heart of why racism then and today is the “cornerstone” of our divide.  This speech was delivered at the Savannah Atheneum weeks before the first shots started the Civil War.  Remember Stephens was elected governor of Georgia years after the Civil War, AND did not support session from the Union.  He told the truth about the motives.  This is why you hear nothing about him.

You cannot celebrate your southern pride, your Dixie flag, without knowing what part racism played and still plays in that history. The words are there for posterity and no one can deny what the confederacy was all about.

“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.” 

There is no argument.

Harriet Tubman with rescued slaves.

We Need Focus and Action Now from our Democratic Leaders

Our school's safety is the most important issue before us, NOT Russian trolls.  That is a diversion that only helps divide our focus.  That issue can wait as our children are more important, don't you think?

If we focus on gun regulation, relentlessly. and give Republicans two choices:

1.  Gun regulation

2.  Absolute Gun removal from citizens

It's time to stop asking for No. 1 politely and go aggressively for No. 2.  WHAT????

The Democratic Party has made blundering errors that they will not fess up to.  Yes, errors.  It is time to learn and change tactics.  What am I talking about???

The current Republican party has masterfully figured out strategies that work.  They are calculated, ambitious, and in many cases down right evil.  BUT, they work, and we are all paying a heavy price, now and down the road.  Oh, yes, it will get worse.

The strategy I'm talking about is aggressive legislation or aggressive attack on legislation they want to weaken.  For example, Obamacare is not Obama's original plan.  His plan was well presented, well thought out, and moderate in it's presentation, already bending to accommodate Republican ideas.  I firmly disagree with anyone that said Obama didn't reach across the isle and compromise.  I believe he was pretty conservative in his democratic views, many I disagreed with, except where Republican's hated the most, social issues, where I agreed.  But, I digress....

If Democrats go after No. 2 aggressively it will cause an uproar.  Yeah!  It will be defeated....don't stop...present legislation over and over again attacking gun ownership, period.  This is how we got the crappy budget that passed.  Republicans go after things they know won't pass, but what they end up with is close to what they wanted in the first place.  Read that sentence again.  They have been doing this for years and are now at the peak of success with this strategy.

Can't Democrats grow some and learn from this method? Yeah...it sucks, but I believe that we can get  Republicans at the table if we go aggressively after gun ownership 100%.  They have proven time and time again that they will NOT negotiate gun regulation.  If not, give them No. 2 as there only alternative.

Democrat and Progressive leaders in any position within our government, I implore you to be a nuisance on our behalf.  We have supported and elected you to serve us.  We can't protest this away without your help.  Even if your legislative proposals get voted down, keep presenting it, keep bringing it up, become the biggest nuisance you can.  I can guarantee Bernie Sanders will be right there in your corner.  Put your damn egos aside, he's good at being a nuisance.  But, ultimately, you can do this without Bernie, without Hillary, without anyone put who is right there working with you.  I can guarantee I will and the majority of your followers will be there.  This is so much better than taking money from businesses for your coffers.  You'll sleep so much better at night.

What are you waiting for??

Eulogy for Diane

I write as therapy and I have a lot to say right now.  Because of a family history of secrets, it is important that I make my thoughts public.  Secrets I will no longer hold onto as they have festered for generations and need to be released.  I will piss off some family, but deal with it.  This is as much for me as it is for my mother.  I know how vocal she was and it is what she would want me to do.

My mother and I, her first born, have had a bond, unexplainable, yet heart wrenchingly turbulent.  There have been occasions when she was so present and strong in my heart. Over the last year or so I have found writing to be cathartic.  My guilt for not being with her more in her life is huge and painful. She was in and out of my life as a youth.  Something I found devastating every time it happened, and it happened often.   Had I known my first marriage wasn't going to work out sooner, maybe I would have focused more on saving Mom.  Could her life have been helped or saved?  I don't know...I know that sounds unreasonable, but I'm wallowing in guilt right now. 

I have come to believe that she needed to erase her past and her family to survive.  In her chosen community, she was known as "Georgie", a nickname given to her when she was young by her favorite uncle, Sam.  No one knew Diane.

A few weeks ago, I woke up around 3am with a surge in my chest of longing for her and a poem just came out of me.  I thought then about whether I would hear of her passing at all.  For years, I've been waiting for that call, hoping, at best she would be in a home, warm and safe passing peacefully as she deserved.  But, knowing, at worst she would be found crazy and homeless, frozen on a street, in a bush...well... you know the rest.  Some of us feel this possibility for our loved ones, but most cannot understand that my mother’s probability was huge for the later.  When I got the call, I assumed the worst.  Later, through second hand information I believed she did pass of natural causes where she was living.  For that, I was grateful.  But, when calling the coroner's office to get the death date, I didn't realize it was 3 weeks before when they found her.  More guilt and anguish. 

I owe no one an explanation for my Mom's life, but I owe it to her to honor her life as best I can.  So... here I am raw, it will take me a while to process, not just grief, but responsibility, huge loss for a life not well understood or able to quite grasp.

Before I get to bogged down in history, here is the poem I wrote when I was thinking of her, that most likely coincides with her passing:

    Her existence strangles my heart,

    I feel her gentle touch on the corners of my ear,

    longing for a superhero in me that can save her,

    knowing she is gone but still living.

  

    Too much weight broke the legacy denied,

    I see her broken soul in my heart's pain,

    Will I ever erase responsibility?

    Numbing memories of a broken soul

    One meatball

    One meatball

    You get no bread

    With oonnnee meeetballll

I am no poet, but when words come I write.  When they don't come in coherent sentences, which I'm most comfortable expressing, I let them be unorganized poetry (my apologies to real poets).  The little ditty about meatballs is one she made up and sang (in the highest falsetto) to my sisters and I when she was lively, glowingly present...usually on a Sunday afternoon with the record table playing a Spinner's song or a song from the Redbone album.  Of course, after a week of heavy, I mean, heavy drinking.  At that time, she and my step father were raging alcoholics.  My sisters can only speak of how they were treated under the influence.  I would stay with them off and on, but could always go home because I lived with my grandparents.  My sisters were not so lucky.  My mom and step-dad would be in a drunk stupor, very passive and fall asleep.  Most Sunday's my Mom was amazing.  My step-dad would take me fishing very early on Saturday morning starting his long day of drinking and I was in heaven.  BUT, I got to leave and go back to my grandparents’ house.  Again, my sisters did not.  They suffered....

Come and Get Your Love-Redbone

Hail (hail)

What's the matter with your head, yeah

Hail (hail)

What's the matter with your mind

And your sign an-a, oh-oh-oh

Hail (hail)

Nothing' the matter with your head

Boy, could that woman dance!

Diana Lynne McCaw was brilliant!  She was 1st chair clarinet in the high school band when in the 3rd grade.  They would sit her on phone books so she could see the band director, and be seen.  So talented on the piano, memorizing and performing Beethoven Piano Sonatas that her teachers tried to convince her mother to send her to a renowned teacher.  Being poor, that wasn't an option.  She quit the clarinet and the piano because she was bored and chose the drums.  Bored again.  Then while in high school when most were enjoying their youth, she became pregnant with me at age 16.  She could not be tamed! 

I see now in hindsight how the times were not a kind one for youth.  If you're reading this and your religion says, "abstinence only, or no contraceptive sex" go fuck yourself!  Don't read any further, I have nothing to say to you here.  This is about me, my experience, my guilt, my life, my memories, and most of all...My MOM!

She quit school, although very smart, and got married to the father who was just graduating high school himself. They moved into a tiny house that his father had allowed them to stay in.  No heat, no running water...winter approached and my mother made the tough decision to move home and call the relationship quits.  She had turned 17 two weeks after my birth; my father was 18.  Insane to expect this to be a lasting scenario.  I know...there have been people who have made this work.  But, boy, were the odds dim.  I'll tell you why.

At the age of 5 my mother had to learn to cook and clean.  She wasn't allowed to play with other children.  Why?  Her mother had contracted TB.  At the time, TB was treated by isolation in institutions in most states.  My mom's dad thought he was doing what was best by moving his family to Missouri where there were no such laws.  Unfortunately, he was working long hours on the oil pipeline as a welder and couldn't be at home much.  My grandmother was quarantined.  By the age of 10 my mom’s family was falling apart.  Her parents fought over custody of her, and custody was given to her mother with visitation by her father.  During all of this, my grandmother had been living in a duplex adjacent to my future step-grandfather.  My mother wanted nothing more than to be with her father.  I would learn many years later that there was a history for this dislike of her mother.  About 5 years after all this my mother, at 16 would find herself pregnant.

Because she was a minor, decisions were not her own.  So... she waited.  You see her father moved close by to stay with my mother.  When she turned 18, she was legal and me, my mom, and my grandfather got on a plane for Oklahoma.  She adored...and I mean adored her father.  And, apparently, he adored me.  He smoked Cuban cigars and would lay down with me for a nap, when apparently, I would pretend to be asleep, wait for him to doze...then hit him over the head with my bottle.  To which he would laugh uncontrollably for my benefit.  One day he found me in the middle of this bed.... box of Cuban's shredded in tiny pieces.  Yes...an entire box.  My mother glowed when she told me how he roared with laughter. 

About a year after the move to Oklahoma, my grandfather, the love of our lives, died suddenly of a ruptured aorta.  He was 46 years old.  My mother and I boarded a plane back to Kentucky and the story goes, she handed me to my grandmother on arrival and said, "I can't do this".   This is how I came to live with my grandmother and step-grandfather.  My step-grandfather became the only father I knew.  All I knew was constant emotional strife, so this man’s meticulous daily routine would never waver and became the desperate stability I so savored all my life. 

About 5 years later, my mother found the man of her dreams.  He was a horse jockey, she was but 5 feet tall herself and he probably about the same.  I remember vague memories of waiting for her on my grandparent’s front porch to come home from her dates.  He asked her to marry him....and he was a bigamist.  When my mother found out...she was devastated.  Knowing that she dodged a bullet wasn't much of a consolation.  At this point, it's only in hindsight that I remember the degrading words my grandmother would say to her.  How could she have much self-esteem at this point.  Did I mention, no photos existed in our house of my father or my grandfather.  When I asked questions of my grandmother, which I did rarely, she didn't want to talk about it.  While you may get a glimpse of my grandmother as being cruel, she was complex, loved her family dearly, but made mistakes I have tried hard to forgive.

A year later she met the dashing Spanish troubadour, triumph spitfire driving, young man who would become my step-father, from a distance, and the father of my sisters.  He was always decent to me, but not so much to my sisters.  It was obvious in hindsight, these were two people who did not know what being responsible adults looked like.  Why?  These two allowed their young children to go unsupervised while they drank heavily.  The house swarming with roaches because dishes were not washed and garbage was not disposed of.  The summer before my senior year in high school I so desperately wanted to be with this family, I hid the conditions of the household from my grandparents so I could experience freedom.  One night I was bite by something and my face swelled up so badly I was taken to the doctor.  They went to the race track regularly, so we never knew if we would be having tacos, fried chicken, or nothing.  Again, I could escape, but this was the life of my 8 years younger, twin sisters. 

I believe my step-dad suffers from the same type of illness as my mother, but that's another story.  By the time my sisters were in junior high, my mother would have her first nervous breakdown right in front of them.  I remember her mother's livid behavior because the doctors would not let her visit.  They said she only made her worse.  They were right.  My step-dad did what he had to do and took my sister back with him to California.  Their journeys with him were not good.  He didn't have a clue how to be an adult and they suffered for it.

Hindsight not only gives you perspective, it also allows time to reveal truths that may have not been known at the time, but probably sensed.  My biological father's family was one I never knew anything about.  So, over the years, I glamorized a life I knew nothing about; loving father, loving mother, loving siblings who just weren't allowed to see me.  Nothing could have been further from the truth, and I think my mother knew, even if she couldn't put it into words, that she and I should not be around that situation back in that tiny house with no running water or heat. 

I never saw my father, much less saw a photo of him, until about 15 years ago, well into adulthood.  I did, so very much, try to leave my past behind.  I had not returned to what was my hometown since college.  Things changed for me when I tried to find my real father and find answers.  Long story short, I correlated a trip home to my high school reunion and an opportunity to meet my aunt, who apparently was a nurse and helped deliver me.  She was one of the kindest souls I've ever met.  I spent hours with her looking at photos and hearing family stories.  The one that struck me hard was her father, my paternal grandfather.  He beat and raped my grandmother.

It matters to me little that I'm divulging long held family secrets.  Again, fuck you, to those that think keeping secrets in families is good, or those IN my family who are mortified by my divulging.  It destroys lives and generations of lives are affected by this gross practice of fear, it nauseates me.  All this time I thought my having to explain my grandmother being my mother, my step grandfather being my dad, my uncle and aunt being my brother and sister, was an embarrassment.  My conservative, mostly racist, family was an embarrassment.  I'll take that over a man who rapes and beats his wife.  A wife who is 3 times smaller than he, at barely 5' and he over 6'.  A wife who, by all accounts of her children (who all ran away from home before adulthood, because of said father's strictness...by the way he was a devote Gideon, his brother was a minister, and came from a long line of ministers) was the kindest, most loving person they knew.  This family is more fractured than any I have seen because of denial.

But, I digress....

Moral of the story, all families are a bit screwed up, but my two choices were doozies.  Right now, I morn not just the loss of my mother, but the loss of an amazing spirit that I know would have flown so high had she lived in a different time and place.  I know this in my heart.  Why?

My mother was the child of a woman who was very intelligent, but her life was that of a housewife.  Shortly before her death, my mom’s mother, I asked her if she had any regrets.  Her eyes lit up and she said, "I always wanted to go to college and study."  Her favorite subject, for which she was an A student, was Latin.  She adored it!  I now see why see pushed so hard to find a way for me to go to college, even though they had no money. 

Part 2 may happen later, if I have the courage.... hopefully it won't be as raw as this, but....my personal story is an added bumpy ride!

Celebrate a Hero!! This is the month of Frederick Douglass! AND Black History Month

It will be my quest to say Frederick Douglass's name to someone everyday this month to celebrate an American Hero who had more strength and conviction than any of us can claim.  Beyond that, he was an eloquent speaker and writer.  He is as important to the history of this country as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, in my opinion, yet we celebrate him the least.  He was not able to be one of our founding fathers, but I would argue he is the most important founding fathers of Emancipation which was as important to American History as the Revolution.

100 years ago this month Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born, he later adopted the name Douglass.  Many may know his difficult childhood of slavery, but if you don't, just know he doesn't know his true birthday other than the month of February 1817/8.  Born of a slave mother with the last name Bailey, which probably was a slave master name handed down.  This may have been Douglass's motivation for picking the name Douglass instead of Bailey, no one knows for sure.

He knows little of his mother other than she was, shortly after his birth, moved/sold off to another plantation about 12 miles away.  His memory of her was only late at night in the dark as her only method to see her son was after a long days toil in the fields, walking the 12 miles to see her son go to sleep and walking back to begin another days work.  My heart hurts for what that could mean for a young child.  I'll leave you with that and hope, if you don't know more about this great man, you will seek out more information.  If you want recommendations on how to do that the internet is filled with basic stuff, and I would be happy to point you further.  But, I would recommend reading his own words as he published several autobiographies.  His wonderful speech July 4, 1852 Fordham University site  which also has other references, is worth seeing if you what a taste of his brilliance, but there are numerous websites with lots to see other than wikipedia, which I recommend the former.

 "Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future."

When asked "who are the 5 people you would have lunch with", Douglass is one of my 5.  My fantasy wish is for there to be a real Mr. Peabody, that I could travel back in time with, but cartoon characters rarely come to fruition😄😄

Historians are the answer, but are they really the problem?

It took me a while to stew over this and I just kept getting more agitated, so I decided to put in my 2 cents.

In the below Guardian article "Our world is changing.  It's time for historians to explain why?", there are points to make because we can always do better, but I will tell you why it's just too damn easy to place blame in the wrong place, even if it is well intended.
Guardian Article

First and foremost, the past 10-20 years have seen an explosion not only in historical and biographical non-fiction, but new fields emerging that merge history, political science, and the humanities.  Publications are really putting out enormous easy to grasp scholarly work.  Amazing steps forward!  Scholars from many different areas are collaborating and appearing on panels discussing current events.  Turn on C-Span3 on the weekend and you will be privy to some of the most exciting books and research happening today for free without leaving your home.

Historians are getting much more exposure outside academia than every before, in my opinion.  Not only that, they are toning down the scholarly gibber gabber to be more accessible to the public.  They're engaging across many other disciplines.  It's much easier to devour a non-fiction tome of 5 lbs (I still buy and check out books that you can hold) without drool escaping your weak, muscular, orbicularis😅😜...sorry, I couldn't help myself.

I'm sorry, but I cannot disagree with this article more.  I have an obsession with history, especially any american history pre-1900 with an emphasis on abolition, slavery, and suffrage (I used to limit myself to pre -1850, but scholars started moving away from Civil War battles dissected ad nauseum, and onto great substance in the field, and here I am with a voracious appetite with an unending list of books to devour.  You can't be interested in History right now and not feel like you've hit the mother load.  Libraries, on-line, EVERYWHERE there is an explosion of interest in the past.  If you don't have a computer, libraries often do, and we need to talk more about how to preserve these free institutions of learning more than ever.  We need to support historians while the right leaning leaders are trying to abolish it.  Why?  Because an educated population won't let you lie and manipulate so easily.  Blind Faith is their motto.  Education is their poison.  You will see countless people ignoring what's right before their eyes because of Blind Faith. This blindness makes them feel so warm and protected while their being scammed.  Unfortunately, we all are suffering because of this delusion.

I went off here, because it's important to keep our eyes on the prize and support those who really make a difference in our understanding of the world, and most importantly the past with all of it's difficult grays. THAT is our current batch of historians and I could not be more proud of everything they are doing with their countless hours of research and writing. It's a huge sacrifice that we need to acknowledge and support.

"Historians are skilled in building and interpreting varied narratives dealing with change over time. Yet still too many are reluctant to attempt comparison of any kind between past phenomena and contemporary concerns. Far from being irreconcilable opposites, the past and future should be viewed as two sides of the same coin"

Cormac Shine, below is a link to one of the finest conferences I've ever been to so far in my life. It's focus was on exactly what you complain doesn't happen. And you know what, it was free to the public, and it is currently free to view every lecture on-line for free. This is happening everywhere, not just at Yale. All you have to do is a little research😙

https://glc.yale.edu/Events/Conferences/2017-annual-conference