An Ode.

To Miss Sarah C. She is the breadmaking guru and she habitually puts all my attempts at bread making to shame. And yet, when I was face down on my bed trying not to weep after butchering her beloved Ina Garten's Carrot Cake Cupcakes, she was the one who was there, cheering me on and telling me to just fill the sunken things in with frosting already. Today, I made another baking-from-scratch attempt and it was... mediocre. But I think Sarah would commend the effort. So, dear one, this one's for you. (I might as well address all posts to you now, seeing as how you are the only one who knows this thing exists).

I love...

...everything about this man. I think Sarah and I have discussed/written about him sanctimoniously to an extent that might scare some, but, he's worth it. His lyrics are. soul. slaying. This week, all his albums on iTunes are $7.99. I think he's time to expand the library.

My Summer Crush:

This kid. I have been crushing on this bike for over a year now. In fact, during long days at the Scottish Parliament where we were in between jobs, my wife and I had a tendency to discuss bikes quite often, which may or may not have been because we thought the Scottish Sun was nothing more than a tabloid and bicycles existed only in a sunny, vague part of our imagination often referred to as 'summer.' Regardless, the conversations generally went as follows:

B: I don't believe in Peter Pan Frankenstein or Superman all I wanna do is bicycle bicycle bicycle I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride my bike

E: What?! What is that? How can you not believe in Peter Pan? Why would you ever say that?

B: Dude. Queen.

E: All right. I think you are on drugs. Who is the queen...? All I have to say is this: I think you're weird. I don't want you to be my doctor.

B: QUEEN. QUEEN. As in... Queen. Bohemian Rhapsody/We Are the Champions/Fat Bottom Girls/Another One Bites the Dust. Get it, got it, good (picture the hand motions please and thank you). I wanna kill myself. Not really, but kinda.

ps- the gypsy is pretty. buy her.

E: Wow. I am ashamed. I probably won't be able to look you in the eye for at least 20 minutes. I have been in the effing U.K. too long apparently because I'm like 'which one? Mary, Queen of Scots? Victoria? Elizabeth? There are so many! Oh, only kinda for you? I def wish I could scratch out my eyeballs about now. This. Sucks. Goo.

B: Queen is from England.

E: I hate you.

And so, with her approval, the crush continued at full-volume. The pursuit went something like this: All right, everyone, I don't really want anything for my birthday. The time in Scotland has been gift enough. And all I want is the gypsy anyways, but, really, I don't need anything. But if you're going to get me something, I just want the gypsy. But I don't want anything. Except for the gypsy. So don't get me anything. Promise? Okay, good. I may or not be a five-year-old. 

And, then, one fateful Saturday, there she was in the hospital lobby. And I cried. And, yes, I am very, very spoiled. I wish this kind of happiness and sheer, incandescent bliss on everyone. Do yourself a favor and just buy one.

Hold Your Own... Know Your Name

Over the past few weeks, I've had the pleasure of interviewing my paternal grandparents and in that time, I have been able to get to know them better. It was interesting to realize how little I actually knew about them before the time of my father's stories. It has prompted me to make a larger project of this, to make a goal of recording more of their history. But the most poignant moments of these interviews were the parts that had nothing to do with the interview at all. The parts at the end, when they would sincerely thank me for calling, or when my grandpa offered the first piece of advice that didn't strike me as crazy. Usually, he would tell me that if I wanted to get married I needed to get rid of my car or that girls don't need to go to college, because it makes them too smart and boys don't like that. I'm serious. But this time, all he said was: "Remember who you are." And I realized that I was his granddaughter and that all this time, I've been carrying his name. A name I'd really only linked to my Mother and Father. It was a small epiphany. Either way, these are my favorite portions of the interviews...

When my grandpa talked about how cheap gas used to be, I didn't know if I should laugh or cry...

Me: Okay, what is your earliest memory of the media?

Grandma: Dad and mom always read the newspaper. They had it delivered to the house, they always had it delivered. Then there was the car radio. I always remember listening to the radio. We listened to the radio in the car all the time, but then there was radio in the house. Later, Mom worked at a furniture store, so we were the first house on the block with a television and all the neighborhood kids would come over and watch with us.

Me: What would you watch on television?

Grandma: When I was personally started getting involved with TV, it was a program on Sunday night called the Hit Parade and they were the songs that were the hits of the week. They didn’t always have the singers, but they had some singers famous or not that would sing them and act them out and it was very, very basic. Songs like “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window” arf, arf… I don’t know how much you remember those songs… and then there was the excitement of if the person who was famous would come on and sing or not. Yeah, that was a biggie that you didn’t want to miss.

Grandma: The next one was Bob Hope Comedy Hour, that was a big one. I don’t remember which came first Bob Hope Comedy Hour or the Ed Sullivan show, but those were the big ones. In between all that was The Green Hornet and The Shadow and The Earl Rogers Show, you know all the ones that went week to week, and there was Amos and Andy, which was about two black guys, but those first two were the big ones.

Me: I’ve been reading a lot about Walter Cronkite and it seems he was pretty important… what did you think?

Grandma: Walter Cronkite was the man, we believed everything he said. Whatever he said was it, but, at the same time, there wasn’t a lot of competition. He was a biggie… you know, there was Walter Winchell, too. I was too young to know if they were right-wing or left-wing, republican or democrat. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.

Me: Was watching TV common for you?

Grandma: In the fifties for me, it was just the weekends, mainly Sunday night when the big shows were on, but maybe a couple times during the week. Mostly music was big time, and so if one of the big singers was going to be on TV, you wouldn’t miss it. As far as coming home everyday after school and watching TV... no. That just didn’t happen.

Me: What was your fondest memory of childhood?

Grandma: We had a lot of neighborhood kids that we’d play with, just outside games in the Summer time. I always thought that was cool. It was old fashioned things, you know, like kick the can, hide and seek, and we’d play jump rope with huge ropes, stuff like that. I just thought that was so fun.

Me: What are your recollections of the war?

Grandma: I remember my cousin going and coming home and I remember they used to hang these little flags in peoples’ windows if they had someone serving. They had a gold flag, I think, white trimmed in gold fringe, and they had a star for every man they had that was serving. Like, if I were a mom and I had a son serving in the war I’d have one star and if I had two sons, two stars and on like that, and if I had a son that got killed it was a different color star. And I remember my mother talking about things being rationed, but either I was too young to notice or it didn’t really affect my family.

Me: What historical event stands out in your mind? You know, like my generation had 9/11, what stands out to you?

Grandma: JFK being shot

Me: Why is that? Where were you and what were you doing?

Grandma: I was at home and I heard it come over the radio… I was just cleaning house and I called Wayne who was on his way home. It was so shocking because our generation hadn’t experienced anything like that… the fascination… There was nothing like that that had happened in my life and if there was I wasn’t aware of it. That was just very astonishing and tragic. Okay, now you should ask your grandpa all of these questions and see what he says.

Grandpa: You know there was actually time where we had to crank our phones.

Me: Really? You’re serious?

Grandpa: Oh yeah, we had these crank phones and you called everyone through operators. You didn’t have anyone’s phone numbers, you just called the operator and they would connect you. And sometimes everyone would be on the same line! Your phone would ring and it may not be for you, it may be for one of your neighbors. Every house had a certain number of rings. It could be one ring or two rings, because there were three or four on your line. You had to wait until no one was on there and that was even in the fifties. Every little town had their own phone system and I’m sure the bigger cities were different than that, but I never lived in the big city. The operators actually had a board with all kinds of plugs in it, and then they’d plug in wires. That’s what it was like…  It was the good ol’ days… gas was 26 cents a gallon, candy bars were a nickel and you could see a movie for a dime.

Me: Now, can you tell me more about your hometown growing up? 

Grandpa: Country, farmers, small town atmosphere, two gas stations, one bank, one grocery store, one hardware store, one drug store.

Me: And were they all locally owned?

Grandpa: Oh yeah, all locally owned… everybody knew everybody. I don’t think there was anybody in town that someone didn’t know. Everyone was on a first name basis, the guy who pumped your gas, the guy at the bank. 

Me: What are your memories of the war?

Grandpa: Well, I remember all of my mother and father’s friends’ sons went to war and were killed and injured. I remember one coming home with out an arm and another one without a leg. It was hard to get certain commodities like sugar and you had to have permission to get extra gas if you were a farmer, you had to get stamps for gas. And I remember people were always afraid of atomic bombs and so people would build bomb shelters underground and so they would build concrete encasements because we were scared we would get bombed.

Me: What time of your life has been your favorite?

Grandpa: Oh, probably this time of my life.

Me: Really? Yay?! Why?

Grandpa: I don’t know, I think that people, in general, treat their senior citizens with more respect. They are more understanding and courteous when you are over 65 years old. They are kinder and gentler than at any other time in your life.

On Patriotism...

For better or for worse, I feel inextricably and deeply defined by my own Americanism. Raised on hot dogs, macaroni and cheese and apple pie and nurtured on fireworks and baseball, I am rooted to this country, and especially the West, in a way that is difficult to articulate." In his novel "The Emigrants," W.G. Sebald describes a man in this way: "... a German to the marrow, profoundly attached to his native land in the foothills of the Alps" and I have carried that with me ever since. I knew then that regardless of my love for travel, my desire to see every inch of this world and my strong affinity to Canada, my American-ness is in the marrow. And this has led me to a continue a long inward discussion what it means to be a "good" American, both what it means today and what it meant then. 

In all that time, I have become certain of one thing: that to be a good American means asking questions. It involves a healthy amount of insolence, skepticism and rebelliousness of spirit. I like to think that that is what America was borne of... great minds who decided to seek that most elusive and precious right of independence in "times that try men's souls." I think a "good" American is always pushing, resisting, questioning while still maintaining the idealism and hope that has sustained this nation in times of difficulty and prosperity. Both hope and dissent are vital to the health and strength of our nation. Edward R. Murrow once said: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it." 

It is easy in a world that is increasingly difficult to polarize, and even reconcile, to try to overly simplify, ally entirely with one camp or another and accuse liberally of lack of patriotism. But blind acceptance and obedience is another sort of treason. Ignorance will never foster progress, nor will it inspire passion. Ultimately, we must all strive to become the third sort of  patriot in William Sloane Coffin's three types of patriots...

"There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover's quarrel with their country, a reflection of God's lover's quarrel with all the world."

With that said, I have a confession. It very well may be that today, this very day, I found myself actually crying upon the realization that Ernie Pyle died at age 45 in the Pacific. It could also have been the culmination of emotion from a film on the Second World War complete with images and excellent writing that did me in. There was something so overwhelmingly moving about the realization that just as Ernie Pyle loved and lived for the everyday, American GI, he died beside them. So, the real point of this is to say, hats off to Ernie Pyle. The musings on patriotism will be taken up again some other day, replaced by a little, childish, impulsive ode to a great man, writer and American patriot. 

"You feel small in the presence of dead men, ashamed at being alive, and you don't ask silly questions." -Ernie Pyle, "The Death of Captain Waskow" January 10, 1944

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