Delight, Despair

Have you noticed the Change? I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it seems to me that there has been a collective sigh of relief, and people are now thinking that there IS hope, it really is worth looking ahead. President Obama (isn't that delicious?) is taking the reins of an abused animal, and it's going to take a while before he can soothe it and begin to heal it, but I think he's the man for the job. I'm saving newspaper articles and stuff, because some day I'll give it to my brown grandsons to prove that this really IS an historic event; I imagine they'll wonder what's the deal? That's just what we were all hoping when we linked arms and sang "We shall overcome". (Evangeline doesn't know what the big stir is about, either, but wonders if the new President will legislate Tuna in Every Bowl...)

I always tell the children on my Museum tours that one reason it's important to know History is because it gives us a good opportunity to learn from the past, so we don't make the same mistakes. Oh, each generation can make new ones for their descendants to learn from, but hopefully we won't make the same ones again.

Sweater worn by Auschwitz Survivor

on display at our State Historical Museum

But today - and tomorrow (November 9th and 10th) is an anniversary of an historic event that was unequalled in human recorded history. What I speak of, of course, is the 70th anniversary of "Kristallnacht" , "The Night of Broken Glass."

Youngsters (that would be anyone under about age 45) may read about it and shake their heads - "That must have taken place in the Middle Ages, what a terrible thing." Well -- let me put it in a bit of perspective: there are survivors of Kristallnacht alive today, and they are not extremely old. It happened well within the lifespan of many of our senior citizens, and I venture that a visit to a retirement center would produce a group of people who remember hearing of it or reading about it at the time.

I've stated before: if asked "what I am", I reply that I'm Jewish, and indeed I was raised in a Conservative Jewish household. NOTE: "conservative" in this instance means neither the strictness of Orthodox Jewry nor the more casual and modern Reform branch.....has nothing, I repeat nothing to do with politics. Having said that, I also add that I consider myself an ETHNIC Jew, as opposed to religious. Judaism is a religion, true, but it's also an ethnic group - and there are candles burning all over the world where knots of scholars discuss this definition and its consequences until the crack of dawn.

What it means to ME is, when my children were little (and today) I celebrate Chanukah, Passover, and the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement). Part of being an ethnic Jew is the food....and those holidays have the best food (well, except Yom Kippur, which has no food at all - one fasts, *entirely*, from sundown to sundown).

But even ethnic Jews are aware of the history, and Kristallnacht was the match held to the candle that became the Holocaust, and illuminated a period of history that showed, clearly, the lengths that Man's Cruelty can go to. Again, reading of the Holocaust sounds - even to me - like events of that nature must've happened early in the Dark Ages.

My mother was known for her elegant dinner parties, and while I didn't attend (I was a little kid, and not the sort parents trot out for the admiration of their friends) I got to meet the guests before going up to my room. (Oh, hey - my sister and I got to eat the great food, don't get me wrong.)

There were newspaper dinner parties, comprised of journalists and newspapermen who worked with my father (and admired him - did I ever mention that my daddy is in Who's Who in American Journalism? Did I ever mention that I digress?)

And there were Just Friends dinner parties, and they, of course (being the 1950s, &c) were comprised mostly of Jewish friends. I remember occasions where two people in particular remained in my mind, though their names are forgotten to me, along with their faces and their relationship to my parents: one was a woman with a long, dark, purple number on her forearm. My recollection is that she wore a long-sleeved sweater, but I was shown the number. The other was a man, whom I remember thinking was very handsome, who had a leather glove on his left hand. (I also remember him as having an eye patch, but I think that's the romanticism of my little-kid self, to tell you the truth.)

I was told that he wore the glove because his hand was made of iron; he had lost his "meat hand" in Germany, and he was Israeli. He had an ACCENT! I mean, does it get more exciting than that? A tall man (ok, I'm only 4'11" now; I was a kid then; he might not have actually been tall at all) with an exotic foreign accent, described as Israeli - and with an IRON HAND!

Well....I remember asking Mom what was the deal with the number on that lady's arm, and I remember that she answered me and I don't doubt that her answer was age-appropriate, but I imagine it didn't really mean much to me.

When I got to junior high school, I hit a Jewish Phase (have I mentioned that I was a trial to my mother? Ooooh yeah). I bought a large beautiful carved Mexican sterling-silver Star of David on a fairly heavy chain and determined to wear it always. My mother forbade it! I was horrified...and realized, years later, how that must have made her perhaps terrified as well las uncomfortable; her generation practiced their religion openly - but didn't go out of their way in their daily lives to draw attention to it. That's one thing for which I mean to apologize when we meet in Heaven or whatever happens. I was put out, but didn't wear it.

But also at that time, I started reading some books, taken from our shelves at home, about the Holocaust, and I came to realize something, which I believe today. (This is my opinion, based on nothing resembling research, &c)

I think there are two kinds of Jews: one kind reads everything they can on the Holocaust, studies it, discusses it, researches it. The other kind acknowledges it, mourns it - but doesn't want to see any pictures or hear any first-person memories. And guess what? I'm both.

I read a lot - but given the chance to tour the famous Holocaust Museum (it's in Washington, D.C., I think) -- my initial feeling is, I won't. I'm sensitive to historical artifacts; I get misty-eyed at our Museum looking at Abraham Lincoln's shawl and the rock thrown through the window of a black woman in Little Rock, AR with a note tied to it reading "Next time it'll be dynamite...KKK".

So walking through a boxcar - seeing (as I understand it) piles of gold taken from people as they entered the chambers....I don't think Icould. Or would. Truth to tell, I don't know. Given the chance (I've never been to DC!) I might try and have to flee; I might not even try; I might go through it, probably sobbing.....I just don't know.

Well, boys and girls, humanity has given over atrocities, we haven't got the whole message from Kristallnacht or from the Holocaust (and I say "we", but of course now, as then, it's the few who somehow lack 2/3 of their hearts and 3/4 of their brains, but still....). There are new ones, or the same old ones performed with modern technology.

But now the world knows of Kristallnacht, and it's mentioned on NPR and in the newspapers, and it must be mourned afresh. I am mourning it afresh - but through my tears, I still feel optimistic. CHANGE, especially as it relates to human beings, is painstakingly slow. But the turtle won the race. So will we; if not in my lifetime, perhaps in my grandchildren's?

I'll end with another memory, one I might have mentioned before: I remember lying on the floor, coloring in my coloring book, while my parents sat listening to the big radio. It was 1948, and I was five years old. It was some dull recitation and I wasn't really listening - but suddenly my parents both cried out, and when I looked up, they were BOTH weeping. I didn't know daddies COULD weep, it was unthinkable! And they said "It's passed the UN, Israel will become a Jewish State." I had no idea what that meant - but it's now one of my most-cherished memories. Advancing age provides an exquisite appreciation for history.

Another Letter to Willie

Willie Lee Carter
Heaven

Dear Willie,

We went over to John and Beth's tonight, because today - November 4, 2008 - was the end of almost two years' campaigning, and the culmination of it all. There had been a huge push to register new voters all over the country and all forms of media declared what an Historic Event this Election Day was going to be.

This was nothing like the voter registration drive I went to observe in Indianola, Mississippi that Spring Break of 1963; I was going to say "Remember?" but you wouldn't, because we hadn't met yet, you and I. But I remember I told you about it.

I had signed up to go to Macalester's "sister city", Indianola, during Spring Break. There was a sign-up sheet on the bulletin board outside Chaplain Al Currier's office, asking for people to go down and take some money we'd collected and some school supplies, because their Freedom School had been burned out. I wanted to know if what I was reading in the press was exaggerated ("Holy cow, it cant' really be like that , it's 1963") or underplayed ("Holy cow, do you suppose it's really worse than that?") or if we were maybe getting the facts.

This was the Schwerner-Goodman-Cheney period, remember. Well, as I told you, no one else signed up. But I thought I'd go anyway, because *I* could take the stuff as well as anyone else, and then I could see for myself. Also, I was curious, naive, not very bright and above all, naive.

I took the bus - Greyhound most of the way, Continental Trailways the rest of the way. My best-laid plans to be travelling in the South only during daylight fell apart when the layover in Memphis was something like three hours, and it was dark by the time we got to Mississippi. The bus went to Greenwood, and I was supposed to call "Larry", a white Civil Rights worker in Indianola, when I got in; then he'd come and pick me up.

When I got off the bus in Greenwood I started into the brightly-lit depot...only to be grabbed by the arm by my seatmate, saying "Y'all don't want to go in THERE!" as she pointed to the sign over the door: "Colored". (Well, matter of fact, I did - but you know, no. And the OTHER depot looked much fancier anyway.)

Long story short, as they say: I was afraid, so I found a cab and asked to be taken to a hotel; in the lobby I took a room and the porter came to carry my bag up to my room. He was black...and only had one arm. He followed me up to the room and when I opened the door, set the bag inside and trotted away. I should've tipped him - but I was nervous and didn't know how you did that.

I called Larry, who asked where I was and what room and said they'd be by to get me. I hung up and was crying (did I mention I was afraid?) and when I went into the bif to wash my face I didn't see the little step up, so I fell and hit my head on the sink and it hurt.

Man, Willie, I'd forgotten a lot of this, although I bet you haven't because you always did have a better memory than mine. Anyway - when Larry got there he called my room and I said I'd be right down. The porter came up to get my bag again....only this time he walked WITH me, and said he hoped I'd enjoy my stay in Mississippi. When the elevator opened there was a thin guy in overalls, and I all but fell into his arms, I was so glad to see him. Remember when I told you that, and you said "How'd you know it was this Larry guy and not the KKK?" Oh, man, Willie. Powerful glad I HADN'T thought of that. Like I said, naive.

There was the very tense ride to Indianola, where I sat in the front seat between Larry, who was driving, and his friend (name forgotten) -- he was black. Didn't occur to me as anything odd, until Larry pointed out that there was a car behind us keeping the same distance whether we sped up or slowed down.........but nothing came of that. "Teenagers", Larry said, "they like to try to scare folks." Yeah well, it worked on me, I can tell you.

I was there for three days, which included a trip to the police station with Larry and two little girls, about 9 and 13, to report that they'd been threatened by some white guys with rifles sitting on their front porch as they (the girls) had walked past them en route to school. The police chief asked me how to spell my name ("uhh...D A L E") and then asked what the ni****s where doing there.

That was when I learned the Secret of the Civil Rights Workers: wrath cancels out fear. You don't use that term, ( where I come from ) and CERTAINLY not in front of children. Nothing ever came of it, but Larry and the other white workers were trying to educate the black citizens of Indianola that they DID have rights, and they should exercise them.

The other two days I was there, we went around and talked to people about registering to vote. We had to point out that ... the fact that the black folks had to recite the State Constitution before they could register (!) ... wasn't legal and couldn't be demanded. (I ask you, Willie, could you have recited the Alabama Constitution? I didn't think so, and NO, Silly, you knew I couldn't do Minnesota's, either, so there!)

There was the girl who told us that her husband was in jail for singing "We shall overcome" in the hearing of some white folks, and that the cops had come to ask her to sign a paper so they could release him....to the prison. When she refused, they made threatening comments about her baby, but left - only to come back later with a BLANK piece of paper for her to sign. She refused and had called Larry to get the name of a lawyer for her husband.

I told you I didn't know if I'd have been able to do that, refuse after they threatened my baby, and you said "Oh, sure you could, believe me." I'm not so sure about that, but then - I didn't live in Mississippi and I wasn't black, and at that point I didn't even have a baby.

There was the night Will Henry and Lynnie and I walked from their house (where I was staying) to a store to buy beer for a little gathering that night...and as we walked back Will Henry swung his arm across my and Lynnie's backs, sending us sprawling face-down in the dirt road -- as some shotgun shells whizzed past and hit the dirt a few feet in front of us. He'd dropped too, and when the car the shots came from sped past we got up and when I asked Will Henry how he knew there were kids and shotguns in that car (because he did NOT ever even look over his shoulder) he said he just knew; the car wasn't going "the right speed". And you nodded when I told you that and said "Yeah, you just get to know stuff like that."

And the night before I left (because most of the white Workers and a lot of the black citizens were leaving for a big rally in D.C. and I really did NOT want to stay down there pretty much by myself, I didn't have THAT much confidence in my wrath), Will Henry tapped on the bedroom door (he'd given up his room for me while I was there) and when I said "Yeah?" he said "Hey, y'all wanna see the KKK?"

Well hell NO! but... you know, I said "sure...." We went into the kitchen, with all the lights out, and across the back field from the house they were marching along, two by two, with a burning cross thing at the front. And he said "They ain't gonna do nothing fitted up like that, because they know there's them FBI around. They're only dangerous when they dressed like regular folks."

The police cars there were the whitest cars I ever saw, and the Workers told me they had, next to their police radios in the cars, radios belonging to the White Citizens' Council. And when the people called the fire department to report the fire in the Freedom School - they came out and pissed on the fire to put it out. The school was, of course, a total loss.

Well, my dear Willie - THIS year, I bet those people registered. And I bet they voted (without reciting the State Constitution). And I am here to tell you - that Mississippi went for McCain, and so did some other states (because he did have some things to his credit and was even a Viet Nam vet like yourself, and he did time in a prison camp and stuff), but more people all over the country registered to vote, and more new voters registered, and more people actually got out and WENT to the polls, than probably ever ever before; the statistics aren't out yet, but they will be,) and I bet you'll be able to see them from there, too.

And Willie? Barak Obama won! He's going to be the next President. He's the President-Elect of the United States of America. We're going to have a black President. And a black First Lady (instead of all the black ladies in the White House serving food....which may not be fair, but I bet there's some truth to it).

Check out that picture at the top, I took it right off of the teevee (we have these digital cameras now, they're very cool).

I bet you can see the future up there, huh? Well, don't tell me, because I'd rather be surprised, and maybe we'll be together by then and can watch it on the teevee up there - but maybe our grandson, Domanic, will be in the White House one day. He could, you know. I mean, we always used to say that, but now? Well, the precedent has been set. And probably even HE won't believe me when I tell him what a big deal history thing this election has been.

Let me tell you one last thing -- and also, thanks for slogging through this. I remember you used to grin and shake your head when I started in one "one o' your tales", you'd say. I seem to still be at it. Anyway, this guy came to the door earlier to ask me to get out and vote (and for Obama, please); when I told him I already had, a couple weeks ago, he gave me a big yellow "I VOTED" sticker and told me this thing he'd heard. When I shut the door behind him, I cried - but you knew I would, didn't you? It goes like this:

"Rosa sat - so Martin could walk; Martin walked so Obama could run.

Obama ran so our children can fly."

Love,
Your Wordy Widow
PS I still want some of your barbecue when I get there. Our daughter's barbecued ribs are fabulous.....but yours are still better.

*tink tink* Is this thing on?

Summerti-i-i-i-i-me....and the livin' is eeeeeeeeasy.....today it's supposed to be Truly Hot, and I mean to spend the afternoon and evening in my "cool room"; in this, the 21st century, I can take my portable telephones, my laptop computer and my knitting, and nevermind the heat!

I did get through my presentation yesterday, though "Cousin Hattie" had a little problem with the Magic Lantern Show. (See, Daisy - my laptop - wasn't working right so we used the center's laptop; all was going along fine...until the screen went BLACK!) Seems we'd forgotten the power cord, and my mouth ran longer than the battery! What does a proper 19th century lady do? Why, keep talking! The Helpful Lady managed to get it functioning again, so I sort of switched back to the Illustrated Portion. Between that and my puffy eye, I was unimpressed - but I survived. Interestingly, when I finished there was a question about my clothing, and everyone perked right up! I'm thinking - perhaps a powerpoint show about the history of women's clothing might be of interest in the future?

True Confession: in spite of the fact that there was a gentleman present - I revealed my petticoat, my hoop - my chemise, and (dare I say it?) my knickers ! FYI: these were not the authentic "split" knickers. I mean REALLY! I'm not THAT kind of girl.

So what have I done these last few days? Going to synopsize here, for your viewing pleasure. We spent a lovely day at Old World Wisconsin, which is a series of ethnic farms from early Wisconsin, a wonderful open-air historical site with "costumed reenactors". Allow me to display some scenes:

Besides the fields of rye, which I thought were wheat but someone said nope rye, there was flax available. In one barn there was an area with flax... and a brake and hackle; I'm guessing that during school tours they demonstrate processing the flax. In the same barn there were sheaves of thatch drying in the eaves, and a number of the buildings had thatching on their roofs. Each farmstead, incidentally, was moved from their original sites around the state and repositioned.



As well as the beautiful buildings, all happily restored (they were moved from their original sites around the state) there are gardens around the houses; we did get a few interior shots but it was a beautiful day and there were very few interpreters on site at the time. On a regular day there are folks at each farm, working in the fields, cooking &c. This day we only saw a couple ladies, and because it was late in the day the fires were out, any cooking had been finished, and there was a big "end of workday" feel to it. Oh, we understand; no matter how much fun it is, one runs out of steam. In our case we develop "museum legs" - you don't realize it until the last kid is out the door, but THEN, sitting down becomes a major priority.

One of the funnest things we saw, though - were the ani-mules. I LURVE me some farm animals, what can I say. I've always said, some day I'd like to live on ten or twelve acres and have a fat little Welsh pony and small buggy, and use no other vehicle. And get the reputation of "that eccentric old lady who knits, has cats, and rides around in a horse-and-buggy."

There were sheepies - but only these three that we saw. I scritched, I whispered endearments - nothing could drag their attention away from the grain they were nibbling. Don't you love the cronsch cronsch sheepies make? They're my favorites, of course, being toques-on-the-hoofs and all.








There were horses, several actually, which are used to pull wagons and ploughs and also to draw shuttles for people who can't or prefer not to walk from farmstead to farmstead. The site is actually many acres, and the shuttles permit folks to see more in the time allowed. These guys did come over and let me rub their velvety noses. The animals on all the farms may be part of a working historical site, but believe you me, they are pampered babies, each and every one.





But the best conversation we had, the most outgoing and social soul we encountered, and the one who proved to be amazingly intelligent and the source of a lot of good information, was...... THE PIG!

OK, I know, these guys have a bad reputation - "eats like a pig" (well, it's true, his manners left a little to be desired), "filthy as a pig", (yup, he was muddy - they do that to keep cool, and it's actually very sensible because they don't have sweat glands.) And besides, this guy afforded Mr Dearling the opportunity to get what I think might be our prize-winning photograph of the summer. Are you ready?

Aww, c'mon, that is one cute picture. Biggify at your own risk. But I'm thinking about entering this in a competition somewhere. Or framing it. Thanks, Mr Dearling.

....and she wanders off, laughing....