TWENTY YEARS FROM NOW

Many recent and anticipated events have me rooting around in my own view of my past, and how I have shared it with others. Probably most outstanding is the sense of being on a long journey, which, incidentally, I expect to continue for at least another 20 years. I anticipate that I’ll understand at that point the real meaning of what’s going on in our world right now. On a very personal level, I find myself ruthlessly throwing things away, with the thought that I want to leave a clean job behind for my children who will be at least 20 years older than they are now when they have to face that sorting. I am eternally grateful to my parents for doing me that same favor. How easy it was when my mother died. All I had to do was sign papers at the lawyers, give some of mother’s clothes away, and take home a little leather change purse while my brother claimed a clock. Everything else had been distributed to the folks mother cared about.

While I’m on the topic of my parents, I have come to appreciate ever more deeply the gift they gave me of kind discipline (teaching), love, medical and dental care, education, and belief in my abilities. My gratitude is enhanced by the memory of the little one-room house in Sweden where my paternal grandmother raised seven children of her own and two “adopted.” My parents really did realize the American dream through hard work, devotion to church and country, and to family.

How will I understand in the future what’s going on now? I revert to what I tell my clients. As they change and become healthier, their families and friends will do their darnedest to get them back to where they were before. People don’t like to see the system change; resistance is deep; the pull to return to the status quo is not cruelty, but nature. The fact is, as my clients ultimately realize, the strength of the backwards pull is directly related to the power of the forward movement. Resistance is a measure of success.

So, what started me on all this? Well, in August I attended the funeral of my former husband. (Today is the anniversary of our wedding on a beautiful, warm, colorful autumn day in Winooski, Vermont.) He has not been my husband since 1976, a fact which in a strange way enhances the backward look as I study our wedding pictures … not with sadness, but with a strong sense of the passing of time.

Then in September, I spent time in Maine and Cape Cod with friends from my freshman year at Connecticut College [for Women] and surviving spouses and partners. What a friendship! - sustained every two years with heart warming reunions as we see ourselves always the same and always changing.

And this month I’m going to my High School reunion in Bristol, Connecticut. I think there were 210 people in our graduating class, and I understand there will be 76 people in attendance at the reunion. I assume that number includes spouses and partners, so I can’t really say that we’ve been a bunch that survived, but clearly some of us did.

And what we did survive! We were old enough to appreciate the approaching end of WWII, singing “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” before the beginning of every movie at the Bristol Theater. And we cried with joy when my brother and brother-in-law, along with all the rest, came home after the war’s end. Actually, my big brother and sister thought I was lucky to be setting out in a world where there would be no more war. Our High School chorus sang “One world, built on a firm foundation; one world no longer cursed by war.” We rejoiced in the story of our planes flying home over the Netherlands, seeing tulips spelling out “Thanks, Yanks.”

We had all pitched in with patriotic fervor, crunching cans, saving ration stamps, buying War Bonds, planting victory gardens. (I even served as an airplane spotter – ridiculous, given my vision), pulling down our black shades at night. My best friend and her father took turns touring our part of the town to be sure no light was showing through to guide enemy aircraft. We had been saving not only ourselves, but also a world that had invited us in to help. We may talk today about realizing that our future is global, but then, we really knew it.

Maybe it was just me, but I thought patriotism meant pulling together for our country and our world. Frankly, I’m shocked at people whose main focus is avoiding taxes. Oh, I’m not stupid, I know there are economists who feel the best way to heal the economy is by reducing taxes. I’m referring to the people who call in to talk shows to say they’ve worked hard to make their money and they shouldn’t have to share it.

It wasn’t long, however, before we were at it again. One of my best friends was off in Korea, fighting a war that never officially got that label.

And there was still the patriotism. President Eisenhower recognized the importance of improving our infrastructure, apparently because he saw how limited our military movement would be in case of an attack, so we had the development of a massive and successful interstate highway system. Looking forward …

I remember Eisenhower’s warning as he left office to beware the military/industrial complex. I carry with me this quote from him: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

I remember as well the grammatical change to the pledge of allegiance during that time. I used to pledge allegiance to “one nation, indivisible” but then we were supposed to interrupt that dedication to indivisibility with the words “under God,” to set us apart from the avowed and enforced atheism of the Soviet Union. I didn’t know it would ultimately get redefined to mean that God favored our nation over all others …

Then the McCarthy era. I confess, I signed the loyalty oath in order to get my first job at Southern Connecticut Teacher’s College. (I advanced from a Teacher’s College to a State College to a State University without ever changing my job.)

Believe it or not, in the 60s Lou and I, when adding to our house, included a fall-out shelter in the basement. It turned out to be a great place for the neighborhood kids to play. During that time, I ceased to be “Dr. Affinito” to my students and became “Mona.” I didn’t resist the effort to remove elitism, but it did take me a while to recognize that I did know more about psychology than my students. That’s why I was there. And that’s why the semester with no grades was silly. And sad, too, was the elimination of the prom, ‘cause that was “elitist.” I do like it, though, that students today don’t need a “date” to attend and enjoy the prom.

More about the 60s, like the times I had to evacuate my office because of bomb threats, the grief of our own national guard killing students at Kent State University. And the pain of being in the apparent minority in opposing the Vietnam War.

OK. I’m focusing on the past. If any of this has relevance for today, I guess it will make sense when I do that anticipated looking back in twenty years.