HIGH SCHOOL DURING WWII AND ITS END

Thanks to you kind folk who commented on my last blog. The concern and support felt good.

And now this is a segment from my "Riding in the Back Seat." I've tried to keep each section to 1000 words more or less, not counting the title. This one makes it exactly. What you see in it depends on your age, of course. I hope you find something of nostalgia, history, or comedy (how camp!) in it.

CARRYING THE TORCH

In September 1943, when we were bussed in from Forestville to become part of the Bristol High School class of 1947, the heaviness of WWII, the most widespread war in history, accompanied us. Bristol buzzed with activity, especially at New Departure Ball Bearings. Rumors claim that at least one of the clock companies did secret work for the war effort. Anyone who could work was employed, at high wages. Day care centers provided care for employee’s children. Air raid spotters and Wardens did the work I’ve described earlier, most with greater efficiency than Hallie and I demonstrated. When we recited allegiance to the flag, we pledged to “one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Visits to the movies, largely cheerful musicals, began with newsreels of war, horrible but distant except for habitual fear for the guys (sic) fighting overseas, and for the people living there. Isolated in our own freshman building, we concentrated on being teenagers. Miss Jones gave me an A with the comment “Excellent capture of an experience” for an essay I wrote claiming Thelma’s misadventure at People’s Forest as my own. Nothing sufficiently exciting had happened to me. In the spring I phoned Eddie McHugh to ask him if he wanted to go to the dance. His answer was “no.”

As summer vacation began and we anticipated, with some dread, our move to the big high school building in the fall, news came that changed the atmosphere we breathed. On June 6, 1944, as my parents celebrated their twenty-seventh anniversary, D-Day, the bloody but ultimately victorious battle of Normandy, began. Hope, a sweet, shallow-breathing, painful emotion, shaded our fun in the sun.

In 2001 our family visited Omaha beach. Feeling like hallowed ground, row upon row of crosses and Jewish stars brought order out of what had been terrible chaos. A few years ago an offensive e-mail made the circuit focusing on the crosses there, claiming that battle as evidence that we are a Christian nation. Wrong! It took all of us.

In August 1944, just before our sophomore year, tension began to yield as newsreels announced that all of Northern France was under allied control. Sadness, gloom, and dirges prevailed, however, in April when President Franklin D. Roosevelt died on the twelfth of the month. Our class history pointed out, “The President of the United States passed away before being able to rejoice at the end of hostilities in Europe” Harry Truman was sworn in. Who?

The dirges were personal for us as Uncle Everett died of heart failure at just about the same time, leaving Aunt Gerda alone, and the one who finally had to move in with my aging Grandpa Anderson to care for him until the end of his life at age ninety-two.

Close to the end of our sophomore year, on May 8, 1945, Germany’s unconditional surrender was announced and hope became more excitement than dread. Before the newsreels at the movies the bouncing ball led us in singing, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again ..”

That summer I learned to type. My parents insisted I should, but there was no hope of my taking that course in school; kids in the college curriculum were banned as there were only enough typewriters to serve students in the business courses. So I traveled daily that summer to a typing course in a private business school in Bristol. I became sufficiently proficient in QWERTY to make some extra money typing papers in college.

I’ll bet part of my parents’ motivation was the fact of my terrible penmanship. The Palmer method of wide circles and up and down motions in the early grades hadn’t done much for legibility, so I imagine typed papers in themselves might have biased teachers in my favor. On the other hand, I’ve claimed that the reason I got so many As in my bluebook exams was the fact that teachers just threw up their hands in despair for their eyesight with an “Oh what the heck! Call it an A and move on.”

The lack of room in the typing class may also have reflected what was an apparent growing population of Bristol teenagers. My memory is vague, but I recall that our days were divided in two, so that some of us went to school in morning sessions and the others in the afternoon. This isn’t a real memory, but I’ll guess I preferred the afternoon assignment. I still slept well, long, and late in those days.

In the meantime, adults were creating for themselves the perpetual problem of how to deal with teenagers. One solution was Teen Town as reflected in this quote from ‘The Torch,” our yearbook. “… many of our classmates could be found after school or in the evening at Teen Town. This teenager’s haven was something new in our town and attracted many of the students.” I think my attitude was closer to the truth. I resented being labeled as a member of some group that needed containment. I don’t remember that Teen Town lasted very long.

Just before we began our junior year, On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy,” the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT on Hiroshima, Japan, a city of 250,000, 70,000 of whom were killed instantly, another 70,000 of whom died of radiation within the next ten years. The bombing of Nagasaki followed on August 9. We were shocked and even gleeful, having no way to anticipate what it would mean that we had just initiated the atomic age. What we did know was that we started our third year in high school celebrating the Japanese surrender on September 2. Euphoria, an all-body wildness I’m not neurologically wired to experience often, zinged through our personal atomic structures.

The War was over. We would live in peace! Our Glee Club practiced “One World” for our participation in the state chorus: “One world built on a firm foundation; one world no longer cursed by war…

PRIDE GOES BEFORE A FALL; I’VE BEEN SCAMMED

There are at least two ways to tell a story. I could take you through the process, the tension, the fears, the resolution, the relief, the chagrin, and the therapeutic action, or I can start with the conclusion and then tell you the story. I’ve chosen the latter. Where does the pride come in? Mine. I thought I was perfectly immune to any kind of scam. Not only am I smart enough not to respond to e-mails from Nigeria, I thought I knew all the possibilities. I know I should never send money to a cause I haven’t initiated or explored fully, especially if I’m asked to do it in a hurry. Daily I check my accounts to be sure nothing weird is happening. I’ve had clients with whom I’ve sympathized when they’ve sent money off for the prize that never came or got caught in other scams. I do lots of things to protect myself, not all of which I’ll report here because I now know there are really bright people ready to turn anything into a plan.

I also want to say up front that, while all this was going on, my grandson Erik was innocently going about his daily business, oblivious to the way he and his voice were being used. And I want to express my high regard for the talent, creativity, and skill of the scammers. Boy! Were they good!

Grandparents among you, please take notice. My cousin in Florida tells me (Now she tells me!) there are warnings all over Florida about this scam, Florida being a great location to catch caring grandparents. I guess the scammers are now targeting wider and less informed territory.

Personally I am hurt. I’ve spent the summer being very careful so I could save for next summer’s vacation and I was just about there. But that’s all that’s lost. I can still pay my mortgage, enjoy my concerts and plays, give to the causes I care about. In other words, it’s not very bad. I’m mildly chagrined, but as the story unfolds, you’ll see how convinced I was that I was talking to Erik. So, on with what I’ve learned.

When I agree to keep a secret, my mind clamps down on it and imprisons it in a special place. Given my career, I think I’m especially susceptible to that. I’m also pretty good at not agreeing to keep a secret until I’m sure I want to and can. But when my grandson, in stress, asks me to keep a secret, I’m quick to agree. First step in the scam, of course. Don’t tell anyone.

What else have I learned? (1) Good people try to intervene when they suspect something may be wrong. (2) Western Union is the one untraceable way to send money. (3) An American accent calling from the police department in Canada should raise suspicions. (4) Essential to a good scam is lots of realistic detail; (5) the scammers could have been right next door to me, ‘cause phones can be rigged easily to appear to be coming from almost anywhere; (6) We hear what we expect to hear; (7) For a couple of reasons I think they were targeting me specifically, or at least my town of Chaska; (7) But here’s the clincher which I learned from my military friend who was once connected with the CIA, people can be, and are, trained to pick up someone’s speech patterns. It takes a short time for talented people, and it’s useful in the job they do. (As I said to my cousin, “Hmm, do you suppose my scammer was once trained with my tax money?)

My immediate reaction once I knew I’d been scammed and Erik was safe was to follow basic therapeutic principles and look for a way to get control of the situation. The money’s gone, but I could still look for a way to follow my former husband’s advice, “Turn a defeat into a victory,” or the saw “When you’re given lemons, make lemonade.” So I sent off a note to a local TV channel offering my story. They haven’t responded, but here I am hoping you’ll hear it to good purpose.

On Friday morning at about 9:30 a.m. I answered a call from a number I didn’t recognize.

Hi Grandma,

Erik, Hi. How are you? [Can’t you just imagine the victory signal in the hotel room? They had me.]

I’m OK Grandma, but – well – can you promise not to tell anyone for now?

Sure. What can I do for you?

Well, Grandma, Craig’s grandfather died suddenly a couple of weeks ago, and he loved his cabin in Canada, so the family came here to leave his ashes. Craig asked me to come, and yesterday, after everything was done, we found a nice fishing spot – kind of isolated and really nice. There were a couple of other guys there too and we got to talking. They seemed really nice, so we invited them to come back with us for a barbecue. On the way there, we got stopped for a broken taillight that Craig didn’t know was broken. The two guys in the back freaked out and the police made us all get out of the car. It turns out those two guys are known drug dealers, and one of them had slipped his stash under my seat. So they arrested us all. They charged us with using, dealing, and intent to transport over the border. So now they’re going to keep us here until the trial unless I can come up with bail. Grandma, I can pay you back tomorrow if you could just send it for now so I can get out of this place. I don’t want to spend another night in this box, and this is my only phone call. Craig’s grandmother has already bailed him out.

How much is bail?

$5,220

Oh my God! I haven’t got that kind of money!

That’s OK Grandma, if you can’t do it.

Of course I can find it! How do I get it to you?

[OK, You folks who are reading this now, knowing it’s a scam, I want you to understand that all this time it’s Erik’s voice. It’s Erik I’m talking to.]

I’ll let the officer tell you.

Officer John Bannon gets on to tell me that Craig and Erik both tested clean for drugs, though the other two didn’t. Then he explains to me what to do. I need to get cash and send it via Western Union to someone named Williams Prince in Miami, Florida. Sgt. Bannon emphasizes the “s” on the end of William. [ohmygod, looking back, isn’t that a suspicious name? Sure. Everything is clear once you know what’s going on.] He’s the person who handles bonding for U.S. Citizens, he tells me.

“Come on, I said, “You must know they aren’t guilty.” And Officer Bannon says, “If it were up to me, I’d let them go, but you know… “

Do I really need to leave home to do this? I have a client coming at 11:00. Can’t I just give you my credit card number? [Oh Mona. Were you ever hooked or what!?] Fortunately he declined that offer.

“It may not take that long,” says Sgt. Bannon. “Where do you live?” I tell him I’m in Chaska, MN. “Let me look it up on the web,” he says. “There’s one right there in Chaska at County Market. And let me know when you’ve sent it so we can let the bondsman be on the lookout for it. And be sure to keep track of the fee for sending it, because we’ll reimburse it.”

Yes, but my bank is in Excelsior. Isn’t there a Western Union there? He asks me to spell “Excelsior” and takes time to “look it up on the web” and tell me there isn’t a Western Union there. [See why I think Chaska was targeted?]

Now I’ll shorten the tale into a narrative. I called my client and asked her to postpone until Monday because of a family emergency. She kindly agreed. I went to the bank where dear Beckie asked me “Are you sure this isn’t a scam.?” I was sure. I had been talking to my grandson (but of course I didn’t tell her – sworn to secrecy, you know.) I asked the teller to look up on the web and see whether there is a Western Union in Excelsior. “Yes, there’s one at TCF bank,” she said, looking at the web. [I know, I know. I know. Why didn’t I catch on then? But I had been talking to Erik!] At TCF bank I learned they had given up the Western Union desk, so I found the County Market in Chaska.

At County Market I left the Western Union order on the order phone and gave the guy the money. “Are you sure this isn’t a scam?” he asks. Of course I’m sure. I’ve been talking to Erik. Once that’s done, I call the phone number I’d been given where a guy answers “Niagara Police.” I ask to speak to Sgt. John Bannon. The 'officer who answered' gets him on the phone, asking what the fee was for Western Union so they can reimburse me. I’ll be getting the check in about two weeks, he says. He tells me they’ll call me when Erik is released. The time goes deep into the afternoon and I’m about to go off with Doug, so I call the number again and the “Niagara Police” answer. “We’re processing it,” he tells me. It will probably get to be midnight or so. “Is Erik going to need a lawyer” I ask? “I don’t think so,” he says. “The charges will probably be dropped.” You can call anytime, though you might get a different officer tomorrow. "Tell Erik I’m going to be with Uncle Doug. Is it OK to tell him?” ‘Officer Bannon’ turns to ‘Erik” who says “No. I’d rather wait until I can explain it to the family tomorrow.” [Something about this is weird. The kids never keep anything from Doug. Is he really that embarrassed?]

Off I went with Doug. No phone call, and no phone call in the morning. Finally I called the number for the ‘Niagara Police” and got a recording in French, followed by an English translation, that no one is answering at that number. Getting scared for Erik’s safety I leave him a message on his cell phone. “Where are you?” and I check the web for reverse phone numbers. There is no one attached to the number of the “Niagara Police.” I call 911. “It’s a scam,” I’m told. “I’ll send an officer to talk to you.” Now I was really scared for Erik. I had been talking to him. Had they kidnapped him? Just as the cop arrived, Erik called. “What do you mean where am I? I’m in Philadelphia, of course.” When I told him the story, he said “I don’t even know a Craig.” I was so relieved Erik was safe. Money is only money.

And there you have it. Erik’s safe, and I’ve learned a lot. Oh, by the way, when I was believing the story of being stopped by the cops, I thought what a great way for smugglers to get their stuff across the border, hiding it in the car of the innocent and letting colleagues on the other side fetch it.

Camp Woodstock and stuff

I goofed! If you are on the automatic recipient list, please disregard the too-large double-spaced thing that just came through. Now I'll start over.

I haven't written here because I've been wrapped up in two things, trying to learn Italian, and enthusiastically writing "Riding in the Back Seat," a book no one will probably ever want to read, but I feel compelled to write it. Anyway, I decided to include one segment (the equivalent of pages 74-76.) I'm trying to keep each chapter/segment to 1000 words.

Reactions would certainly be appreciated, but in the meantime, I hope you'll just enjoy ...

CAMP WOODSTOCK: JOY, FUN, ACCOMPLISHMENT, AND SAD ASSOCIATIONS

I just googled myself right back there – into the wood smell of the cabin and my upper bunk, canoes in sweet blue waters, the barn with its long meal tables, craft stations for interlacing leather belts and lanyards that went home as gifts and souvenirs. Two-weeks at the YMCA camp in Woodstock Valley, Connecticut; the feel of total immersion. If that sounds like a form of baptism, it’s pretty close to the truth. The intimacy of the immediate and the sublime was realized in one of my favorite spots, the hallowed Cathedral in the Pines. Nestled in the trees, sweetened by the smell of living wood and the calm of blue lake waters, it was the site of formal worship, and more important, the place of escape from whatever was too much of the good and bad to bear in the busy day.

Hallie was with me in 1942; World War II was in full horror overseas; the outcome was unclear; and we were twelve. Gas cards were saved to fuel us there. We outlined the initials of our latest crush in tape on our upper legs so there would be a white imprint of sorts left after we got really tan. I chose the initials HB for Harry Belmar. He, of course, had no idea I had a crush on him – a cute blond guy who was in my confirmation class – a joint venture of our Forestville church with the Bristol church that shared the same pastor. I’m not sure I even felt an attraction for him. It was more important to have a crush than to experience it.

I received a blue ribbon, designed especially for me. Something like, “Most surprising progress in diving,” or whatever nice way they came up with saying it. The fact is, although I loved swimming and had no fear of the water, I did fear going in upside down. Learning to dive involved kneeling on the dock and going in headfirst. Having mastered that, one proceeded to do the same thing from a standing position, ultimately to propelling oneself into the water from the diving board. Daily, as everyone moved beyond me, I knelt on the dock trying unsuccessfully to invert myself into the water. Night after night in my bunk, I imagined the feeling of diving. On the last full day, I walked out on the board and, quite nicely if I do say so myself, executed the headlong catapult into the water that I had been imagining. I picture counselors huddling to discuss possible ways to recognize that astonishing feat which would not have been noteworthy had I not displayed a long period of failure.

It taught me something I later used in some of my classes; I discovered that athletes have been known to do that kind of practice in imagery – a great example of the intimacy of mind and body.

Overcoming shyness, I sang in the talent show. First time successfully performing in front of people – makings of a college professor?

I wish I could honor the memory one of our counselors by recalling her name; she was tall, blond, pretty, and very nice. On November 28, 1942, she died in the Coconut Grove fire in Boston, one of 492 killed, closed in by boarded up windows, locked doors, a revolving entrance trapping people unable to move either in or out, lax enforcement of insufficient fire laws, and overcrowding by 500 over the limit. Death by painful violence, unlike my Uncle Emil’s quiet demise at home.

I still find remnants of the empathic frustration and anger I felt at the image of people trying to escape out the limited exit space. I thought of her in my classes when on occasion I’d talk about the study that observed people pulling their own rope-attached beads out the neck of a coke-like bottle. When people cooperatively took turns, all their beads got out. Not so when people competed to be first to save themselves. The Coconut Grove fire spread so fast it was basically impossible for anyone to help anyone else, to say nothing of take turns. Even the firefighters couldn’t get in to help. I experience even more intensified anger when people have been trapped more recently in similar fires because a choice has been made to keep exit doors locked. More should have been learned from the Coconut Grove fire, or the concern for people’s welfare over profit.

By the way, googling reveals the photo of a Coconut Grove matchbook advertising dinner for $1.50. Among the dead was Buck Jones, in town to promote War Bonds and his own films.

In the mid 1980s, I had just finished teaching research related to pro-social behavior. It involved [fake] smoke creeping under the door and people’s reactions under varying conditions. As we were discussing those results, and the deception, another faculty member gestured me into the hall, pointing out the fire in the ceiling. I returned to the classroom, requesting that people leave calmly and quietly, because flames had been detected. Of course, they didn’t leave – not about to be fooled - until I sent one student out to validate the observation.

A few years back, after a picnic on the palace grounds in Colonial Williamsburg, the fireworks display ended in a sudden downpour of rain. In demonstration of the beads-out-of-the-bottle effect, some people huddled under the exit gate, making it almost impossible for the rest of us to get out. The following year that event was cancelled, citing the “riot” that occurred in the rain.

And there you have it – the juxtaposition of personal delight, war, terrible civilian tragedies, and very uncomfortable but minor inconveniences. That’s part of the accordion effect – juggling the simple and glorious with the complex and tragic.

When my children were of late childhood age they went to Woodstock. It was a nice experience for them, but not the thrill it was for me. We can’t relive our own pleasures by exposing our children to them.

HISTORY MOVES SLOWLY

I am constantly reminded that history moves slowly. In college in the late 40s and early 50s, I decided that I would follow my passion for psychology on to graduate school and still see myself as an attractive woman, potential wife and mother. Beginning in 1970 I began teaching the psychology of women with textbooks just beginning to appear. Related to that I did talks about town on A Healthy Woman is a Crazy Person, usually beginning by singing, “This Little Light of Mine; I’m Gonna Let it Shine.” Contrary to the beliefs of the opposition, the point was not to hate men, send women out to work, and avoid wife and motherhood. The point was to make possible the full potential of women’s gifts. We talked about flex time, working from home, shared jobs, help with child care. Indeed, at Southern Connecticut State College where I taught, we pleaded for a day care center for faculty. It would have made sense, since SCSC specialized in Education training, so it would have provided practical training for Early Childhood majors. Even there, though, the culture wasn’t ready. My memory tells me the day care center at SCSU didn’t develop until after I had retired in 1986.

Much of what we longed for then has come to pass, spurred by the culture’s economic need and the development of amazing technological advances. These thoughts have been inspired by the book I’ve been reading on my Kindle-- Steven Hill’s “Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age.” Regarding the lesson of the influence of economic need, he refers to “the dependency ratio,” the ratio of dependent members of society to the wage-earning members who contribute to their support. A light bulb lit – like “of course” – when he referred to the dependents at both ends of the age scale. Kids are dependents too. While the number of aging is going up and is predicted to rise even more, childbirth rates are going down. On a short-term basis, that produces a ratio balance. Over time, however, aging will continue to increase, but fewer children will be growing into productive employment. That’s the problem. There will not be enough working folks to support both ends of the dependency ratio.

So, how does this relate to my opening points? Hill cites evidence that there are two potential sources for increasing the number of gainfully employed - immigration and women’s equality, which would have the effect of increasing the number of births. He says it more effectively than I can. “It is deeply ironic that a substantial part of the response to the continent’s dilemmas hinges on two solutions: less sexism and less racism. More immigration and better integration will help reverse the population decline and increase employment, which will positively affect dependency ratios; more women’s equality also will increase employment and the dependency ratio, and could lead to a higher birthrate.” (Kindle location 4669 – 74)

“Feminism is the New Natalism,” he says. Instead of forcing women to choose between career and motherhood, cultural and financial attitudes toward economic support of parenthood would have to change. Citing data from specific countries, he says. “Germany, Italy, Spain, and other countries need a new generation of women’s liberation, founded on freeing women to be both mothers and workers – working mothers. Fortunately, successful models already exist in neighboring Scandinavia and Britain.” (location 4612, Kindle) Those models include parental leave for both parents, high-level childcare facilities, business, insurance, or governmental subsidies for child wellness. The packages differ in different countries, but the goal is the same – to balance the economic health of the country.

The author is talking about Europe, but much of this may apply as well to the United States. I remember, for example, how quickly a child-care center was established in one wing of my grammar school during World War II. The emergency was clear. Similar centers were established in many businesses so mothers could work, knowing their children were cared for. We knew Rosie the riveter had to be freed up to work on the production line. There are employers today who are establishing similar care centers – a great way to help women to be gainfully employed and, not incidentally, providing jobs for the day care workers. It may not be so apparent, but we are in an emergency situation today as well.

I hope this will not be read to suggest that women should take the self-sacrificing role of providing financial as well as personal care of dependents at both ends of the age dimension. Rather, in a culture that cares about all its people, I read it – and I hope you read it – as encouragement for enriching women’s lives even as the health of the economic culture is supported. Remember, Rosie was paid men’s wages.

My favorite young critic (24) wants me to be sure to make the point that we won’t really be “there” until we talk about giving strength and encouragement to “parents.”

Oh, by the way. As revealed in one of my previous blogs and in this one, I’ve made the conscious choice to divulge and to take advantage of my age, knowing full well that our culture sees it not as an asset but a deficit. Who knows? Maybe my college friends and I can change that bias. In the meantime, I feel like a walking history book – a lesson in patience. It, whatever “it” is, takes time. That’s why I’m planning to hang in here at least for another 20 years so I can understand in retrospect what the heck is going on now.

WHEN DOES CAREGIVING BECOME CARETAKING?

This will be a short blog. I have the question but not much of an answer. It started a few days ago when a friend and I were discussing a book we had read. It took us to the issue of family systems and my comment that caregivers require people who need care.

She corrected my language, asserting that I should be distinguishing between “caregivers” and “caretakers.” The emphasis, she pointed out, should be on the last half of the word. I guess in a way it might even be biblical, with the assertion that giving should be done in quiet, without advertising one’s largess, with genuine concern for the person receiving the care. Given that distinction, the term “caretaker” would refer to folks who need some sense of control or competence or superiority or something else, with the emphasis on satisfying a need of one’s own by way of tending to the needs of others.

As you can see, I’m wrestling with the implications of this distinction, a very interesting one. Any reactions?

APPRECIATING GOOD FORTUNE (with special note of 1947 - 1979)

Snippets and snapshots have been dominating my thoughts these days, stimulated by working on “Riding in the Back Seat” and, recently, a request from Boston University for snapshots of memories of my time in the Ph.D. program there. Things that have hovered at the back of my mind are springing forward. How lucky I was that my father was the youngest of his family whose oldest brother was already here when he came from Sweden. There was a family waiting for him. Even though he never wanted to blow his own horn, he had friends at work who would, at appropriate times, tell the boss things like, “You’d better promote Carl Gustafson or you’ll lose him to another company that will appreciate him,” and so he made his way – almost in spite of himself, but based on his abilities – to a nice position.

How lucky I was to be the youngest in my family, born at the beginning of the depression, but old enough when we were pulling out of it so that I didn’t really experience it as my brother and sister did. My parents gave me the wonderful gift of a Connecticut College education. Years later I was fortunate to have a mentor in Bill Trinkaus at Southern Connecticut State College when “mentor” was just a word in the dictionary. And I was among the last group promoted to Full Professor there in 1978 before a long, dry season of limited spending on higher education set in.

All that is personal, but reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers this summer reminded me that my good fortune was directly related to broader demographic factors. My life and my career hit the years at just the right time. Remembering that my parents new home – which they moved into a month after I was born – relied on public events like new roads and electricity to the suburbs, I went back to one of my favorite books, Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were. There I realized how the home ownership my husband Lou and I enjoyed depended upon government action guaranteeing home loans with less than the 50% down payment that was often required before WWII.

Wondering how accurate my perception was that the economic divide had widened during my career and parenting years, I decided to get more specific and google the year I graduated from High School – 1947. (Now you know!) I knew I was among the lucky ones that WWII was over. (Never mind that we really believed wars had ended.) It turns out that 1947 was a significant enough year that it got mentioned in several places. Coontz points out (p. 78) that 1947 was the year when the government began a project to build 37,000 miles of new highway. Oh, and in 1956, the year after I was married and before we bought our first home, the Interstate Highway Act provided for an additional 42,500 miles – all of which helped the growth of suburbs.

Recently I have commented on the lives of the wealthy in Bristol. We had rich folks connected to the clock companies and to businesses that had been especially important during the war. They lived in mansions, quite similar to the starter mansions I see near my neighborhood in Minnesota. But they were a part of our community. Their kids went to High School with me. My boyfriend’s father owned a diner, disparagingly called “Dirty Bills.” by some. One year the daughter of the president of one of the clock companies was his date for the prom. (If you want to know more about why I wasn’t his date, you’ll have to read “Riding in the Back Seat” when it comes out in a few years.)

Were we an unusual community, or was there really not such a huge disparity between the wealthy and the rest of us in those years? I found the Internet loaded with references to 1947. It really was an important year! It didn’t take long to come up with a brief quotable reference. “For a quarter-century after World War II, Americans grew more prosperous and less unequal. Families in every fifth of income distribution saw their incomes double between 1947 and 1979. But the next quarter-century changed course dramatically. Between 1979 and 1998, the top fifth gained 38 percent, and the top 5 percent gained 64 percent, while the bottom fifth lost 5 percent of real income.” (If you copy and paste the following, it will take you to the source of the quote, Dec. 15, 1999 entry, “United For a Fair Economy.”)

file:///Users/mona/Desktop/Report:%20growing%20divide%20at%20decade's%20end%20%7C%20United%20for%20a%20Fair%20Economy.webarchive

See how personal these data are. It wasn’t just my imagination that wealth distribution was fairer in my family-raising and career years. I was part of the filling in a metaphorical sandwich between 1947 and 1959. So much for the bootstraps theory and more evidence of my good fortune just for when I happened to be born.

One last word. Mrs. Job needs readers – and purchasers. And remember, she is now available on Kindle for $6.00. Also, please, if you like her, a review on Amazon.com would be really nice.

Some of you have been kind enough to tell me that you enjoy my blogs – quite a motivator, really. And all the more reason why I feel so remiss that it’s been so long since I wrote.

On Thursday, April 29, I returned from a fabulous Mediterranean cruise. As I took a few days to do the things one does to get back to normal after a long time away, I kept writing the blog in my head. I had so many things to say, I thought I might have to break it into two. Then I got hit with something very akin to the flu, except without gastro-intestinal involvement. Since “I never get sick,” it came as a shock. All I could do was cough, sneeze, use up boxes of Kleenex, sleep, and occasionally, when energy was really high, stare into space, or maybe even watch TV. Unfortunately it did nothing to reduce my appetite. By the time I was recovered enough to go grocery shopping I was pretty much down to black olives and ice cream bars. I’m happy to say I was able on Sunday, May 9, to see M. Butterfly at a Guthrie matinee. It was fabulous. Not one wink of nap was I tempted to take.

So now, about the cruise. We were fortunate to have a direct flight from Atlanta to the Rome airport, but even at the last minute it looked like we might not be able to do it with Iceland sending its ash over Europe. Even when we arrived at the airport in Minneapolis, we were told we wouldn’t be able to get to Europe. It took insistence and 20 minutes of consultation for the woman at the desk to discover that Rome would probably be opened. Still, even as we flew to Atlanta, we were planning alternatives – maybe John C. Campbell folk school. Meeting Atlanta friends at the airport, we found only Jeff and Max. Val was home preparing the house for our visit, which she was sure would happen. The fact is, we made it to Rome right on schedule.

But lots of people didn’t make it. Holland America kept the ship in port an extra day for passengers held up by the ash situation, and, depending on which rumor you go with, 200 or more people never did make it. And some others had their cruise inadvertently extended as they were invited back on board when they couldn’t fly home. Our schedule was modified to make up for that extra day in port (which we, of course, spent sleeping -- jet lag recovery.) I can’t tell you anything about Corfu. We never did get to do that stop. I can tell you we were lucky in Athens, being there before the strikes that closed down the acropolis. Well, I guess I was lucky. My acrophobia really kicked in there. All the while as I made my way halfway up, I was rehearsing, “What goes up must come down.” I found myself a piece of something to sit on/cling to, while Doug went mountain goating above me. But here I am. A survivor.

I’ll try not to get boring with detail, but I do want to mention the half hour we had in the Acropolis museum. It’s the best visit I’ve ever had to a museum. Our guide took us on a quick tour of the development of statuary art, from the stylized Roman statues to the more detailed and realistic Greek works – mostly marble, because bronze statues had a tendency to get melted down for ammunition. The one we did see had come from a sunken ship. Particularly intriguing was the – probably competitive -- development of grave markers. Engravings to honor the dead or their gods gradually emerged from the marble, finally becoming separate statues.

Marble in the art; marble in the streets - old and a bit uncomfortable to walk on in Ephesus, flat and beautiful in Santorini. Apparently that seismic area produces marble in quantity. That area also had me in awe of the smallness and yet significance of each of us. Civilization after civilization was built on top of the ruins of its predecessor – earthquakes, volcanoes, and the human desire to invade, possess and destroy. With apologies to those who hear this too often from me, all I could think of on seeing the statue of a famous conqueror, “And now he’s a pile of bones.” Makes one think about the meaning of our own existence, and what we’ll leave behind. And time! I wonder whether it affects the sense of individual significance to live on the remnants of so many previous civilizations.

More travel is planned for Italy in November. I’ve ordered Pimsleur “Quick and Simple Italian.” After all, people will see my last name and expect me to understand Italian. I sort of agree that I should have picked up something in my years in New Haven. Unfortunately my in-laws discouraged learning Italian from them. They wanted me to know only “proper” Italian. My parents, on the other hand, didn’t want me to learn Swedish after all the harassment my father had experienced as an immigrant. So here I am, reminded how very difficult it is to learn another language after the age of 4 or so. We’ve become so accustomed to people in other places speaking English as if it weren’t a second language that we tend to take it for granted. Well, I do, anyway. Then I hear someone delivering a major speech, or even a lengthy interview, in basically perfect English, and I am amazed. I do wish I’d been taught foreign languages in grammar school. German wasn’t so bad in High School – so much in common with English, and with the word order I heard in church as a child.

Ho hum, I have gone on. I’ve got some other stuff I want to talk about. Maybe I won’t be so slow to write the next blog. Just one last word. Mrs. Job is now available in Kindle format -- $6.00.