A SEASON AT THE PROMS

This is prom season in our town. The local newspapers feature photos of the various high schools with prom goers displaying their finery. I have noticed that each year seems to produce a certain flair of clothing. Gone are the simple elegant classy gowns and tuxedos. In their place are brilliant electric colors schemes with boys and girls trying to outdo each other.  There are singles, couples, groups. Mixing and matching clothing and mixing in whatever friendship combinations there are. All is joyful even if a bit bewildering to me.

My own prom experience is limited to three proms. First, the one for my high school.  I didn’t go. Why? Many reasons. Partly because I grew up in a conservative Protestant Church environment—no dancing. Along with no smoking, no drinking, no movies, no  ... whatever.

And I wasn’t asked. And back “in those days” you simply didn’t go to the dance unless you were asked. Things seem kinder now. At least I hope so.

Then, there were the proms each of my children went to. Sweet occasions, at least for mom. Watching this boy and this girl, who my husband and I brought into the world, whom we nurtured along the way. And cheering as well as dreading the impending arrival of adulthood. Our son working up the courage to ask someone. Our daughter looking so elegant in her gowns ( both of which I still have hanging in our basement closet). Watching them pull away from the house after the customary photos at home. 

How long have there been proms? I wonder if there’s a connection to the cotillions of days past? Or the debutante balls now opened up to all society. I remember working for wealthy Americans several summers while I was in college. Debutante balls, sometimes called coming out balls, where young women were “introduced “ to society, presumably to be on the marriage market. 

Parenthetically, I should add that high school proms are completely different from 

“Going to the Proms” a la London style. These summer symphony programs at the Royal Albert Hall are wonderfully celebratory. One of the few things on my bucket list (trust me, I really don't put much on my bucket list...seems somehow too limiting) is to attend the Last Night of the Proms--complete with "Rule Britannia."

Back to high school proms. I find it very heartening the way the binary assumptions are falling away. You know, boy asks girl in ever more elaborate ways. Girl accepts. Now I’m not sure who is expected to ask whom. And it is no longer obligatory to pair up. Now girl asks  boy, girl asks girl, boy asks boy, groups of boys and girls OR whatever. Why not? No one who wants to go to the party should be left out.

One of the most endearing experiences of my life had to do with proms. During my work career life, I was involved with health policy analysis and development. In that capacity, I attended a conference focused on the AIDS epidemic and what appropriate policies and actions should be in place to provide proper health care, support and counseling. 

Among the attendees were medical and health professionals, health policy people like me, and advocates for gay issues as well as people who were in fact AIDS patients. It was a rigorous and vigorous conference. One of the most astounding parts of that conference was sitting in a discussion group with health professionals and lay people. At a lull in the discussion, some of the gay men began talking about and reminiscing about buying their first prom gown. I listened in amazement and in silence, with a touch of jealousy. That memory heartens me, even as I rue my own teen years bereft of a season at the proms.

So, here's to the proms in all their glory and in all their permutations. Everybody dance now. 

The Boycott

More aptly, I should title this blog “The Latest Boycott.”

At the outset, I need to say I am not opposed to boycotts.  It is a time honored way of seeking to bring about change. I have boycotted companies in the past—in particular grapes and Nestlé.

Grapes—the grape boycott was organized in part by Cesar Chavez.  This quote from Wikipedia gives you a quick summary of the grape boycott:

“The Delano grape strike was a labor strike by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and the United Farm Workers against grape growers in California. The strike began on September 8, 1965, and lasted more than five years. Due largely to a consumer boycott of non-union grapes, the strike ended with a significant victory for the United Farm Workers as well as its first contract with the growers.”  (See the whole entry here--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delano_grape_strike)

You can see both the time frame and the reason for the grape boycott. Workers who did the back-breaking field work were paid an inadequate wage. Additionally, the workers were denied the right to organize a union to represent their interests.

The outcome was that the primary company which had been denying worker rights and paying such poor wages finally relented.  Workers were given the right to vote for representation, and thus the United Farm Workers was established.

This was for me a simple straightforward boycott.  Company X engaged in practices that resulted in harm to workers. Consumers joined a nationwide boycott, and eventually workers won representation and saw their working conditions and wages increase.

Nestlé--The second boycott in which I took part was the Nestlé boycott. In this instance, the main issue was that Nestlé, which made infant formula, began an aggressive campaign to get mothers to eschew breast-feeding and instead switch to formula. There is, of course, nothing at all wrong with feeding an infant formula. There are various occasions in which that is the only option available.

What Nestlé did that was objectionable was to mount a widespread “educational” campaign combined with offering free starter samples.  And the marketing program was not just carried out in those countries where women have the means to buy sufficient formula AND have access to clean safe water.  Formula was touted in developing countries where women had traditionally breast-fed their children.  Child advocacy groups began to assess the impact of the Nestlé campaign, and concluded that in fact the formula campaign might have been the cause of rising infant deaths. (Read the whole description here-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott)

Thus began the effort to boycott Nestlé. I joined that boycott too—OK, so I wouldn’t buy chocolate bars or chocolate mix, or whatever products were marketed under the Nestlé name.

But here’s where things got complicated. Like so much business in today’s global economy, Nestlé is not a stand-alone company. It is in fact part of a huge conglomerate. You can read the whole list here-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nestlé_brands. 

Get the picture?  Now, that list is a picture of today’s Nestlé network. But it was no less complicated when the boycott began back in the late 1970s.  Did I stick with my boycott?  Well, yes and no. As much as I could I avoided Nestlé products, but given its tentacles in so many areas, it eventually became impossible to carry out.

However, the outcome of the publicity and attendant boycott was that Nestlé changed its aggressive marketing practices…for a time.  In fact, the practice has not ended completely. And there are on-going efforts to have Nestlé not falsely market formula to women in developing countries without making it possible for the use of formula to be safe and adequate for developing infants.

And now, to the present.  The Target boycott.  Here’s one I will NOT be participating in.  What is different?  Well, I suspect you can sort that out.  Suffice it to say, that with grapes and with Nestlé, people’s lives were being hurt by the company practices.

Not so with the Target boycott. In fact, what Target has done—announce an open bathroom policy for transgendered people—has made it possible for some people to live safer lives.

The people boycotting have made various astounding assertions about how THEY will be harmed by this open bathroom policy. I have even read statements that some people plan to be “packing” when they enter a bathroom.  Just in case they encounter a transgendered person. Just so they can “blow them away.”  REALLY? How insane is that.

Perhaps you have discerned the distinction I draw between the two examples of boycotts in which I participated, and this last boycott.  In the case of grapes or Nestlé, my lifestyle was not being harmed. Even though I was not personally affected by what the grape companies or Nestlé was doing, I joined to bring about social change that would make someone else’s life better. 

It seems to me the Target boycott is all about the people who are mounting the boycott feeling that THEY are the ones suffering.  Frankly, that just puzzles me no end.  The transgendered person—who uses the bathroom of birth gender NOW—can be threatened and harmed by being in the “correct” bathroom.  And Target’s policy change will “fix” that.  EXCEPT.  Except if some person decides that he or she should NOT be using that bathroom and takes it out on the transgendered person.

Despite all these words I have used to get to this point—this whole boycott leaves me SPEECHLESS.

Leaving Home

A number of years ago, I was doing some research on my paternal grandparents. They had been missionaries in southern Africa (from 1920 to 1929), so there was a wealth of material on which to draw. You see, I was writing a short biography for a small historical journal.

Not only did I read letters they had written to each other and various church publications my grandfather had written for, but I also interviewed their children--my father, my aunt, and my uncles. When I posed a question to one of my uncles, he gave an interesting answer.  The question was: when did you leave home?  His answer was--Leave home? I didn't leave home, home left me.

Well.

Leaving home has been a repeating occurrence in my life.  And those times--having to say goodbye--are what I think were the events that moved me from childhood to adulthood.  I can't really say--as my uncle did--that home left me. But my first leaving home was something precipitated by choices my parents made.

(Click to enlarge...I am the one in the yellow dress. Apparently I didn't get the message to wear a blue dress.)

When I was 5 (turning 6 in a month), I first went to boarding school.  You see, my parents were also missionaries in southern Africa. One of the dilemmas that my parents had (as did many people who were "aliens" in a country and culture not their own) was what to do about educating their children. For the first two years, my mother taught me, using correspondence material. But, soon it became clear that as the only missionary child on the mission station, I needed a different environment. I only recently learned that part of the impetus for my early departure for boarding school was the fact that I began to be "too bossy" around the African students at the mission school.

So, my parents took me to a boarding school. That was the first of several such schools. Each time, I was away from home with holiday stretches in between terms.  Then, when I was 15 we returned to the U.S.  However, my parents did not stay here. After a year's furlough (kind of a working vacation) they returned to southern Africa. 

My parents asked me if I wanted to stay in the U.S. I was in 10th grade, and college would be the next stop on my educational pathway, which would mean either I stayed in the U.S., or returned. I chose to stay.

That was, as I now reflect, the moment when I crossed over from childhood to adulthood. Oh, there were other gradual maturations along the way. But once my parents were on another continent, I had many decisions to make on my own.  My uncle* and aunt had accepted guardianship for me, but I did much on my own.  For example, I opened a bank account...which was at a bank in a town 5 miles away from where I lived. No such thing as on-line banking.

Even though I turned 16 about the time my parents returned to southern Africa, I did NOT learn how to drive. My uncle was not too keen on a teenage "daughter" learning to drive. Oh, I forgot to mention that my uncle and aunt had no children of their own, so suddenly having a teenager on their hands was a real shock.  

For two years, I lived with my uncle and aunt  where my uncle was college president. Then I went to college at that place. One year after I began college, my uncle accepted another position, and moved half the country away. I stayed put, of course, being in college. So my self-reliance increased. 

When the college was closed for holidays, I had to find a place to be. Very kind dear friends at times invited me home with them. Or I was in college choir, and we toured during spring breaks. Summers were another challenge. For 3 summers, I traveled to near Fort Erie, Ontario to work in wealthy folks' summer homes along Lake Erie.  How did I get to Canada and back? From central Pennsylvania? I have no idea, except somehow I managed to arrange rides.

So, did I leave home? Or did home leave me? Whichever (or both) I certainly had to grow up.  Not long before her death, my mother expressed to me her regret that she and my dad had agreed to allow me to stay in the U.S.  I thought for just a few moments, and then said to my mother--don't. Don't regret a decision you thought you had to make. I like who I am now, and obviously part of what made me who I am is a consequence of the life I have lived. So don't regret your decision.


---------------------
*Not the same uncle as in the story in the first paragraph.

Fledging Time

It's that time of year, again.  The time when the sweet young people that parents have been nurturing get ready to leave home to go to college.  Or get ready to launch out on their own, having graduated from college and now on their way to that first job.

It is indeed a bittersweet time.  That time was for us, my husband and me, some years ago.  Usually, I am not so aware of this rite of passage--buying up the supplies, figuring out how to pack and load all of it, stuffing the family car to the gills with the entire contents of a child-becoming-adult's bedroom.  But this year, I am more aware as two young people in our neighborhood are launching out.  One is on her way to college, the other on her way to her first job more than half-way across the country.

We have watched these girls grow to women, and have cheered them on their way, from a distance of course.  What we are now particularly watching is their parents as they go through all the letting-go agonies that parents before them have experienced.  The agonies that we too experienced a decade or two ago.  In talking with these parents, it is evident they are feeling those mixed emotions--pride and worry all intermingled.

I especially recall when our older child, our son, went to college that it didn't "hit" me all that much.  First, he was going to a college somewhat nearby--close enough that if either we or he needed to, we could drive to see him.  I recall that I did not cry or even tear up when we--his parents and his younger sister--got in the car and drove away leaving him to make new friends, meet new challenges, and live on his own.

I do confess that four years later, when he had graduated and was now heading to graduate school, it did "hit" me--my son was REALLY leaving home.  Graduate school was in another state, and his then girlfriend (now wife) was going along with him.  That surely meant that we had been replaced as the central figures of his life and that he really was "leaving home."  And, as they pulled out of the driveway to begin what became a life journey, I did cry.

I faced the emotion of separation with our daughter in a different way.  Her first college was further away from home, and as it turned out not the right place for her.  So, after a successful semester, she asked for and received our permission to embark on an even bigger adventure.  At age eighteen, she went to London for a half a year.  She found a job in London and found a city that she loved (and now calls home).  Of course, she returned to the U.S., transferred to the right college for her, and finished her undergraduate education with a flourish.  

This spring, a robin built a nest in our next-door neighbor's hanging flower pot.  First there were four lovely blue eggs, and then four scrawny absurd baby birds.  They turned into four constantly open mouths.  It was fun to watch the dutiful parents flying back and forth bringing beakfuls of food for these ever-hungry babies.  Then we left on vacation.  By the time we returned, the robins had fledged and were gone.  I was sorry to miss watching that wonderful transition--when the baby robin first leaves the nest, and the parents flutter around for several days watching, guarding, squawking encouragement or last minute instructions.  

While we human parents may not do so much fluttering around and squawking, we do completely share the nervous anxiety wondering and worrying--will she make it? what if she needs something and I'm not there? does she remember to....?

My blogging friend, Julie Zickefoose (who is far more eloquent than I) has her own fledgling child who heads to college this year.  Read her lovely blog post here.

And, if you are anywhere where you see a nervous set of parents fluttering around their daughter or son, send a couple of helpful thoughts and prayers their way.  It is, after all, fledging time.

The Last Word...

...for a time, dear reader, just for a time.

When I first became aware of blogging, I began writing and reading.  My first blog entry was about a trip to Spain we had recently completed.  Once I wrote up the entire vacation experiences, I moved on to other topics--plumbing childhood memory depths, then observations about teaching, life, movies, along with the occasional rant.

I also began reading other writers' blogs.  Blogging is so much more satisfying for me than tweeting, or than reading Facebook entries.  First, almost every subject I can think of as a potential writing topic requires more than the truncated entry requirement of Twitter, and more than the clever or titillating bon mot that catches my eye on Facebook.  Second, I tend to limit whose blogs I read, which I also do with Twitter (for me, the least used of these self-expression media), but which I am less inclined to do with Facebook.  While I don't accept every request to "be friends" on Facebook, I have a wider circle there than I do in the blogging world.  

But what I observe is that blogging is slowly falling out of favor.  Some of the early blogs I read no longer exist--in a few instances, the writers have died: they wrote bravely about their struggles with diseases that eventually silenced them.  Some of the blogs I read have fallen by the wayside as the writers move on to other ventures.  Some bloggers are still perking along, bubbling with a fountain of creativity as prolific as Ponce de Leon's mythical fountain of youth.  Sometimes I find a new blog to read and enjoy (see Pieces of Peace). 

I know, in the core of my writing being, that Facebook will also fade.  And as I peruse the entries each day, I see it fading.  No need to catalog the Facebook complaints and woes here.

So, why my dire "The Last Word..." title?  Because I am about to take a mini-blogging break.

While you know we have traveled--both to the west (California, here we come!) and east (maybe something to do with this sweetie),  ----------->
I will soon be venturing down a path that age has set me upon.

SIGH.  The knee that has plagued me since college basketball is about to be replaced.  And I will provide humor fodder for my husband as I try to make my way around with a walker. 

When I muster enough energy to come back to writing, I will.  Maybe I will have some new hospital stories.  Maybe I will have a rant or two.  But, whatever I do, I will pick up the proverbial pen and resume writing.

50 Shades of Brown

When I returned to teaching college English, I helped select a textbook of essays for students to read and then discuss.  We selected a text with a wonderful variety of engaging essays on a wide array of topics.  One of the essays, written in 1998 by Luis Urea and titled “Nobody’s Son”, included the observation that by the year 2050 “Latinos will be the majority population of the world. Not only will America be ‘brown,’ but it will also be the home of the new Democrats.”

I posed the question to the class—what do you think will happen in the U.S. when the majority population is brown?  Well, swaggered one student, it won’t matter because whites will still hold the power.  And, I swear, he snickered at his brilliance.  Maybe this year, that former student voted for Romney—and like Romney must have been stunned when Romney didn’t win.

Welcome to the new normal, as they say.  Or, as they say—this is not your father’s Oldsmobile.

There have been many analyses of the reasons why the 2012 presidential election turned out the way it did.  I can’t compete with all that greater wisdom, but I find it noteworthy that, as far back as 1998, someone such as Luis Urea anticipated the impact of a political party’s stance on issues would have on voting response.  He wrote: “most Mexican immigrants—both ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’—would vote Republican if given a chance, except the Republicans scare them.”

This wisdom was something that Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove seemed unable to fathom.  Karl Rove’s meltdown on Fox News was particularly embarrassing, excruciating, and delicious to watch.  Perhaps—like too many Republicans, he has ignored facts for so long that, when faced with indisputable statistical evidence, he simply couldn’t believe that the skewed polls the Romney campaign had been relying on toward the end of the campaign could have been wrong.  But wrong they were, and wrong Rove was. 

When it came to Romney’s explanation as to why he lost, he also ignored the numbers, focusing instead on a variation on his 47% theme.  Obama—according to Romney—simply gave too many gifts to too many groups of people and Romney couldn’t compete with that.  Gifts?  Oh, right—such as forgiveness of college loan interest, or health care, or amnesty for children born in the U.S. or brought here as infants by parents who were illegal immigrants.  Sounds rather like Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus.”

I found it fascinating if not troubling that Romney saw those things as gifts—with a clear implication that the recipients were not worthy to receive—but did not see his own plans as gifts.  What about more tax breaks for the rich?  What about privatizing some of the essential elements of government so investors could reap the profits?  Romney also didn’t seem to realize that he himself benefits from “gifts”—a tax structure that grants him a far lesser tax burden than it does most of the people he disparaged.

But I digress.

If you want to delve into the numbers a bit more, here’s a fascinating graphic that looks at where Obama’s strength was, and where Romney’s was. Note that the trends that have continued to move in Obama’s favor are voters of Hispanic background. 

We are now two weeks past the election—and Romney has had his say.  Amazingly, other leaders in the Republican Party are distancing themselves from the “too many gifts” approach.  And, some of these leaders are even beginning to recognize that, if the Republican Party is going to survive into the future, it has to begin to reckon with the new normal.  Whites are now becoming a minority—as Bill O’Reilly observed, with a touch of amazement—and now there are fifty shades of brown. 

P.S. Karl Rove's new job (thanks to Farleftside.com)

 

What A Difference a Day Makes

Well, could you make that a year.  No, how about a decade.  Or two decades--minus one year.

Nineteen years ago, when I was having trouble with my left knee, I had arthroscopic surgery.  I have inherited one of those lovely family genes (from my mother's side) which makes knees (and hips too, I fear) susceptible to extra wear and tear.  As years go by, the grinding increases along with the pain.

Nineteen years ago, my knee decided--yes, it does seem to have a mind of its own--that bending beyond a 90 degree angle was something it would not do.  So, I sought medical help from an orthopedic surgeon.  First stop was an X-ray.  The tech told me to lie on my stomach, and bend my leg as far as I could, so she could take an X-ray pointing down at my recalcitrant knee.  I bent it as far as I could--only to hear her say: can't you bend it more?  No, I muttered--that's why I am here.

Anyway, the verdict (I suppose I should say diagnosis) was Chondromalacia patella.  It sounds a lot fancier than it is.  In short, it means kneecap pain, which can be caused by wear and tear, torn cartilage, or misalignment of the knee.  Uh huh--I felt like I had all those. 

Eventually, the treatment was an arthroscopic procedure to "clean things out."  I don't know--but there is nothing particularly comforting to me about hearing a doctor say he (or she--but in this case, he) wants to clean things out.  Makes me feel as if I have been an untidy housekeeper of my own self. 

But, I had the procedure.  And, sure enough, I was able to bend my knee more than a 90 degree angle after that.  In my renewed vigor, I thought--well, I can run, and do those wonderful aerobic exercises that help one trim down.  Alas--running caused my knee to balloon in size.  So I stopped that. 

I resigned myself to bad genes and sore knees.  As if I needed final proof, while rummaging through photos in our basement, I came upon a college photo of me in basketball uniform (ooh, remember those cute little basketball pinnies?) and--lo, and behold--I had a brace on my left knee.

Fast forward to 2012.  This year, in a once-again renewed resolve to drop a few pounds, I began cycling (on a stationary bike) as well as continuing my walking of our dog.  I confess, my husband has been walking the dog more than I have, but I do try to get in one walk a day with the dog.  Anyway, the stationary biking turned out to be a bad idea--knee puff again.

So, once again, off to an orthopedic surgeon.  This time, I was less passive--maybe a bit more assertive--and I announced that if I needed a knee replacement, I was ready.  Well, the surgeon said--let's try this.  So first, a cortisone injection, which got me one week of relief.  Not long enough, he admitted, so the next step was an MRI (didn't have that 19 years ago), and arthroscopic surgery.  The MRI showed a torn medial meniscus, hence the anterior pain.

Well, I am now three days post-surgery.  And let's just say--the body doesn't bounce back nearly as fast as it did when I was in my 40s.  And, on top of that, the verdict is:  knee replacement sometime in the future.  How soon?  I will just have to let pain be my guide.

Oh, goody.

The Face is Familiar...

I was charmed recently while listening to Terry Gross conduct an interview on Fresh Air with Anna Quindlen.  Quindlen has long been one of my favorite writers.  She knows how to turn a sentence as one would turn a prism--slowly, holding it up to the light, giving time for all the colors to sparkle.

I was a huge fan of her writing when she wrote opinion pieces for the New York Times.  To my great dismay, she announced in 1995 that she was giving up writing a regular column.  It turns out she was devoting her writing energies into writing novels (she has written 5 thus far) and non-fiction.  And then in 1999 Newsweek recruited her to write the last page column which she did for 10 years.

When I was teaching, I used one of those articles Quindlen had written about plagiarism.  An article she wrote had been lifted, almost wholesale, by Wayne Newton when he was asked to write a guest column.  She called him on the appropriation of someone else's work (which is what plagiarism is) and his defense was--my, isn't it interesting how our minds were so in tune that our words matched.  Um....no.  I had to stop using it, however, when students asked me--who is Wayne Newton?  Oh my.

Well, I had best get to the reason for my rumination.  Her most recent work is a book, a sort of personal memoir, titled Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake.  It was the publication of this book on which Terry focused her interview.  Among many topics covered, Terry queried Anna Quindlen on one admission in her book--she has had Botox injections, and some facial fillers.  Why? Terry wondered.

And I wonder too.  Quindlen's reasons are her own, and they are perfectly good reasons.  After all, any decision to alter one's appearance is personal.  Quindlen compared her periodic Botox injections, to relax muscles on her forehead that tighten and give her an unintended scowl, to periodic eyebrow waxing.  Small tweaks to improve an overall appearance.

Let's face it.  Our society puts a great deal of emphasis on how we look--but the pressure is greater on women than men.  Sometimes, when I watch a news show and see a male reporter with a face that shows every wrinkle acquired over decades of living, I can't help but muse that a female reporter with a similar road map of life on her face would not be on television.  Think Morley Safer--is there a woman reporter whose faces shows as many decades as his does?

It is a rare woman in public life who has not felt the pressure to have "some work" done.  Some women trumpet it, making sure that every tweak is noted, while others deny, deny, deny all the while their looks belie.  Sometimes the results are gentle and hardly noticeable, sometimes the results are disastrous.  And sometimes, she no longer looks familiar.

I know I am not in the public eye, but a long time ago, I vowed--my face gets to age as it will.  No nips, no tucks, no tighenings.  That way, perhaps the face will stay familiar.

The Big Move

This post is just a brief breaking into the Lenten interlude that I am observing.

I have been occupied for the last several weeks with getting things ready for my father and step-mother to move from their cottage in a retirement village to a two room apartment in a sheltered environment.  Any moving process requires much preparation, but some take more time than others. 

As it turns out, my father has lived in this location longer than he has lived ANYWHERE in his whole life.  He and my mother bought their cottage in 1987.  And he has lived there since their move there in the summer of 1987.  Twenty-five years.  Longer than any other place he has lived.

My dad grew up as a missionary child.  He was born in Pennsylvania, and then when he was a bit more than a year old went with his parents to southern Africa.  He lived there until he was ten.  He moved around with them, living first in Oklahoma for several years, then in southern California, where he lived his teen years.  Southern California reminded him very much of southern Africa--and he loved living there.

But when he graduated from high school, his parents moved back to Pennsylvania, and he along with them.  Only--he was not to live with them.   Hard times called for hard solutions.  His parents had three younger children, and they basically told my dad that he was on his own.  So he worked on farms as a hired hand for a while, until he saved enough to go to college.  When he was able to, he returned to southern California to enter college. After completing college, and getting married, he and my mother went to Africa as missionaries.  That was 1946.  They were to stay there, returning to the U.S. twice for vacations, until 1965.

Back to Pennsylvania once again--where he lived until 1972 when he and my mother moved to Indiana for a decade.  The last stop for a few years before my dad retired was some time in Ontario, Canada.

So, the long journey of moving around as a child, then as an adult, finally ended with retirement in Pennsylvania, and the retirement cottage in which my parents lived.  1987 until 2012.

Twenty-five years--of house furnishings, of personal possessions, of memories, of joys, of sorrows.

Tomorrow, my father and step-mother will move within the same complex from one living arrangement to another.  The big move. 

Cry, the Beloved Country

Lovely mountains around Cape Town

It had been more than 50 years since I was last in South Africa, and--to tell the truth--I had very little memory of the country.  But, having grown up in what was then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, I always maintained a keen interest in southern African developments.  I read much about Zimbabwe and South Africa.  Among these books, I recall reading Nadine Gordimer's novel July's People, written before the change of government from minority apartheid rule to majority rule.  In that work, she postulates the end of apartheid, in a civil war which turns the power structure upside down.  


That vision was entirely credible, and what I anticipated would be the most likely ending of apartheid. 


But, then, the world witnessed the miracle of Nelson Mandela.  Imprisoned for 27 years for his anti-apartheid activities, upon his release he continued working for majority government.  Seemingly, miraculously, he succeeded.  In 1994, he was elected President of South Africa.  A civil war was averted--South Africa managed to make the transition from a minority government to a majority government, escaping the fate of its neighbor to the north, Zimbabwe.


True, many people died on the struggle to reach majority government.  There were multiple massacres of citizens on both sides of the color bar.  Leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) spent years in prison, along side Mandela.  Many of those years of imprisonment were on Robben Island, within easy view of Cape Town's harbor--it must have been maddeningly tantalizing for both sides being so close.   But Mandela seemed to accomplish the impossible--he not only survived; he thrived and honed his deeply moral presence.

Cape Town Harbor with Robben Island in the distance

Under the surface, simmering problems linger that threaten to undo all the creative work to bring the new South Africa into existence.  While the power structure has been realigned, the economics of the country have been largely unchanged.  Unemployment hovers around 25%, with the rate of unemployed youth at 50%.  However, the unemployment rate for whites is around 4%.  Average annual income for blacks in South Africa are around $1,800; for whites around $8,200.


Nowhere is the disparity more evident than in housing.  The three main racial divides in South Africa are white, colored, and black.  Whites are those who descended from the original Dutch and British settlers.  Coloreds (a term I had difficulty with given my U.S. thinking) are those who descend from Khoisan (the original inhabitants of southern Africa), mixed race and immigrants from various Asian countries such as Malaysia.  Blacks are those descended from earlier migration of Bantu peoples from further north on the African continent.  With a population of about 60 million, 80% of South Africans are black, whites around 9%, and colored including Asians around 11%.

A township

Housing is like a pyramid--at the top the lovely houses in urban areas, many in gated communities, are largely owned by whites; in the middle, cinder-block houses in organized communities are owned by coloreds; at the bottom, in a huge swath of housing, are the townships.  The houses in these areas are quickly constructed lean-tos, pieces of corrugated iron thrown up with a roof across.  Township housing lacks internal plumbing; instead townships have communal bath houses where families have to do all their toileting and washing.  Electricity is provided by central poles with wiring from which people string up electrical wires to connect.  Frequently people get electrocuted trying to tap into the power supply.  And these townships just keep growing--one of the largest in Cape Town, Khayelitsha, has over one and a half MILLION people living in it.


80% of farm land continues to be held by whites.  The ANC had promised land reform which intended to restore land ownership to blacks, but over time progress toward that goal has stalled.  Now, newer leaders in the ANC--those who have moved away from the harmonious legacy of Nelson Mandela--promise, or threaten, massive redistribution of land and wealth.  One particular leader--Julius Malema--threatens nationalizing South African gold and diamond mines.


Upon our return from South Africa, my daughter and I set about reading (actually re-reading) Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country.  While many aspects of the novel seem very dated, and also quite simplistic, there is a prophetic sense about the work.  Paton writes:

Have no doubt it is fear in the land.  For what can men do when so many have grown lawless?  ... There are voices crying what must be done, a hundred, a thousand voices...one cries this, and one cries that, and another cries something that is neither this nor that.

Paton envisioned a time when the social fabric, which was already tearing in the reality of which he wrote, would dissolve completely.  


As we waited in the Cape Town airport to board our flight back to the U.S., I perused books in the bookstore.  One was titled After Mandela: The Battle for the Soul of South Africa.  Out of curiosity, I thumbed through the book, and read the chapter titles.  The last chapter title brought me up short:  "The Shadow of Zimbabwe."


I can think of no greater tragedy for Mandela's legacy than to see South Africa go the way of Zimbabwe.  So, indeed--cry, the beloved country.

Photo taken by Kristen, my daughter, of Franschhoek, S.A.

Photo taken by my husband, of Klein Karoo

Sunset over Camps Bay Beach