Bobbie Wayne's Blog

This blog is taken from page 129, Lifelines, Daily Antidotes to Animus and Angst, by Bobbie Wayne

The day after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. third-grade teacher from Iowa, Jane Elliot, divided her all-white class into two groups: those with brown eyes and those who had blue. For a day, the brown-eyed group were treated with more respect, extra privileges, treats and play time. The blue-eyed group wore special collars for easy identification.

Both groups adapted to their new status, believing negative propaganda about the “inferior” group. The next day, teacher Elliot switched the groups, treating the blue-eyed children as “superior” and the brown-eyed group as second-class citizens. Once again, they readily adapted to the new stereotypes.

Her class of third-graders reunited in 1984 and related how they were teaching their own children about tolerance and discrimination. Miss Elliot’s exercise, they said, had changed their lives. In 1985, PBS’s series, “Frontline” made a documentary about the experiment which is still available to watch.* Anyone can replicate this exercise with adults who, unfortunately, are easily convinced of their own or another person’s superiority or inferiority, depending upon the circumstances.

 I get another email with a photo of my front stoop and a package. The message reads,  “How was your delivery?”

“I laughed, I cried, I nearly wet myself!!!” This is what I feel like writing in response to the endless questionnaires I get whenever something I order is delivered. While I believe in speaking up, especially if the service was poor, or the box was damaged along with whatever was inside. But lately, everyone seems to be starving for feedback, whether it is from a delivery service, an online purchase or a person-to-person experience, such as a hotel stay or a visit to a doctor or a hospital.

Following each doctor visit or medical test, I am called by a computer, requesting that I take a “short” survey over the phone. A chirpy female voice explains that my feedback will help the hospital, doctor, etc, provide better service. That sounds reasonable at first. But after each question, the computer states, “Choose #1 if your answer is “not at all.” “Choose #2 if your answer is “Somewhat.” “Choose #3 if your answer is “Most of the time.” “ Choose #4 if your answer is “All of the time.” Not only is this tedious; it takes up my time. Many of the questions aren’t relevant. I resent speaking with machines, no matter how perky they sound. I don’t know who will be listening to my responses or what they will be used for.

I have, on occasion, written letters in praise of doctors, customer service people, politicians and delivery folk who went out of their way to help me, their customer. I believe in praising people when they deserve it. In pre-technological days, (God bless ‘um)! marketing surveys came only by mail or telephone. Sometimes a person going door-to-door with a questionnaire,would come to the house when I was a kid, but it took one second to say, “Sorry, not interested.” 

Why do people love masquerading? Throughout human history, people have dressed up to be something they are not. Shamans altered their appearance to “become” spirits who could communicate with the dead. Hunters donned animal skins, not just to trick the herds they were stalking, but in order to summon the spirit of the animals they sought. People’s clothing can be a way of taking on a new identity, or a different class of society. Marie Antoinette sparked a fashion movement by dressing in her version of what a simple shepherdess would wear. One can tell the rank of soldiers and religious leaders by their outfits; and often, by how costly and ornate they are. 

There are other reasons for hiding one’s identity. TV protagonists sometimes disguised themselves to fight “the bad guys.” The Lone Ranger, comes to mind, as does Zorro. Super heroes, too, masked their faces, the better to hide their double lives as mild-mannered reporters and such. The really bad guys simply pulled their neckerchiefs up over their noses and mouths. In horror movies, rubber masks and even hockey masks are the choices for slashers.

We humans have a dark history of wearing masks to avoid identification when we perform cruel or cowardly deeds in public. Executioners often wore hoods as they stood above the crowd on a platform where they lopped off the heads of the unfortunate. Here in America, the most infamous masqueraders are member of the Klu Klux Klan, who don white priestly-looking robes and pointy white cone hats. The outfit’s origins can be traced to Spain, where it was worn during Holy Week ever since the Inquisition as an act of humiliation or penance by those who had transgressed church doctrine. In recent times, penitents still wear the cone hat as they re-enact Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

The Klan does not wear its outfit as an act of penance; rather to hide the identity of people acting as vigilantes. Founded on December 24, 1865, in Pulaski, Tennessee, the KKK was established by six Confederate veterans who were opposed to federal Reconstruction efforts and aimed to restore white supremacy in the South through violence and intimidation. While there were several iterations of the Klan, the general purpose was always to suppress African American equality or progress. “The Birth of a Nation,” one of the highest grossing film ever made, adjusting for inflation, portrayed the KKK as heroic, chivalric saviors of innocent white maidens. African Americans played by white actors in blackface, were depicted as ignorant and sexually rapacious. The film was so openly racist, it was banned in five cities. One theatrical release poster shows a Klansman decked out like a knight from Camelot, a crusader’s cross in red on the front of his robe, riding a rearing stallion. Clearly, gangs of disaffected white men bent on bullying people while hiding under a sheet, lacked any of the nobility the image tried to portray. 

Benjamin Braddock is politely chatting with his parent’s friends at the high school graduation party they have hosted in his honor. He is taken aside by Mr. McGuire. Their conversation goes something like this:

     “Ben…”

     “Mr. McGuire?”

     “I just want to say one word to you. Are you listening Ben?”

     “Yes.”

It starts with a tingling in your throat, or your chest. Pretty soon, you are hot, a little dizzy and on your way to “miserable!” No, I’m not talking about falling in love. I’m speaking of a tiny little invasive “bug” that can bring a strong person down: the cold virus. 

I woke two days ago feeling awful. I thought I had allergies, but, NO! It was the beginning of a chest cold. I haven’t had a cold since Covid entered the scene, so I was unhappily surprised by this one. Traditionally, my colds appear dramatically, quickly making their way to my sinus cavities where, the virus sets up a little condo, inviting their bacteria friends to move in with them. We have all heard by now that we take too many antibiotics and they don’t work on colds anyway. But they do vanquish bacterial infections.

My particular “colds” used to last up to three months; three months of not sleeping, having laryngitis, low-grade fevers and lots of lots of strangely-colored phlegm. But cold viruses only last about seven-fourteen days. Tell that to the legions of doctors who refused to give me antibiotics to kill the bacterial infections I always got whenever I caught a cold. I actually had to find a new doctor when mine refused to give me antibiotics and the bacterial infection, over a three-month course, spread to my eustachian tubes, causing tinnitus and permanent hearing loss in one ear.

One of Brigham and Womens’ top otolaryngologists and surgeons treated me with weeks of Prednisone and wrote a letter to my doctor, explaining that the particular configuration of my sinuses, along with surgical scars cause blockage when swelling from bacterial infections. Without antibiotics, I can’t rid myself of the infections. Fortunately, my new doctor keeps a copy of that letter on file, but I still panic when I feel I’m coming down with a cold.

Luckily, this cold is not up in my sinuses. I’ve had total laryngitis for four days. I’ve been drinking gallons of medicinal teas and fruit juice, holding my face over a vaporizer and trying to get more sleep. I try baking it out by using a heating pad on my chest. 

All twenty-six of us on the Roads Scholar trip to Quebec privately feared we would be treated with distain by the Quebecois due to our president’s comments about appropriating Canada. Our fears were groundless. The people we met couldn’t have been kinder. They blamed our government officials; not us. At the end of our seven-day visit, we expressed our relief at realizing that the entire group was of the same opinion: Notre president est con et nous n’avent pas vote pour lui (Our president is crazy and we didn’t vote for him).

“How sad,” I thought “that these interesting people, many of whom were history or science teachers, should be ashamed of our country and its “blowhard-in-chief!” Our median age was about seventy-two. Dan and I were the only performers, but we were all passionate about the lessons history should be teaching us. I had studied French for seven years, yet having not used it, I could only express myself in short phrases. Only two in our group spoke French.

Quebec City is located high above the St. Lawrence river, 1321 feet above sea level. The upper part of town is fortified with a thick wall that has 41.6 km of ramparts. The streets are incredibly hilly and curving; many are paved in cobblestone. Along each side are old stone or brick houses with pitched metal roofs. Many of the oldest buildings are stuccoed white overtop the stones. As this was a tour with approximately three mile walks each day and several hours of standing in or climbing stairs of museums, I worried that some of our less mobile members wouldn’t be able to keep up. Yet, we were a tenacious group. One person had Parkinson's Disease, yet managed to negotiate every challenge.

We visited an18th c. garrison, the Ursuline Museum, and the Marin Literary Society, which had been a jail in the 1700’s. Visiting required going up and down narrow, wooden stairs, worn by centuries of use. The doorways in the jail were short and just wide enough for my shoulders to fit through. One annoying problem was the weather: drizzling, gusty and in the forties. We all packed spring clothing. Our visit to Montmorency Falls, which is 98.4 feet taller than Niagara Falls required riding to the top of the cliffs in a cable car which passed over the plunge pool. The cliffs were nearly vertical, but there were 487 steps one could walk down which led to observation sites. All of us walked several flights, despite being damp from the spray and chilled by the wind.

Our leader was Chantal Bellon, a tireless mother of four in her mid-sixties with long red hair. Happy, knowledgable and experienced in guiding tours, she shepherded us with the careful efficiency of a a Border Collie. Each morning started off with an excellent buffet breakfast at our hotel, followed by a lecture on what ever we were about to view that day. These talks were given by Chantel’s well-informed and amusing assistant, Marie. 

The objects in the picture below are not Easter Eggs. They are rocks I collected from Phillips Beach, in Swampscott, MA. For some reason, all the rocks on this beach, regardless of their mineral make-ups, are egg-shaped. What could possibly lie on the ocean floor along this beach, in particular, that would cause this phenomenon? I should know the answer; I had a geology class during my senior year of college.

Because I attended a liberal arts college, I was required to take either a math or a science class, even though I was a music major, concentrating in voice. I had struggled with math (due to an un-diagnosed learning disability) throughout school, so I chose Geology, which required a three-hour weekly lab as well as a weekly lecture. I had always loved collecting rocks and shells and stuff. What could go wrong?

My roommate, Jane, was a history major and nearly as math-phobic as I. We sat next to each other in lab where each week we were given a printed page with a lengthy problem to solve which required the ability to use graphs, maps and do lengthy calculations. Our classmates completed their work and usually left early, leaving Jane and me with the two lab assistants.

Worse still, the music building, Swigart Hall, was right across the street from the science building. I could hear my fellow music majors practicing piano and vocalizing through the open window. This, along with past math trauma and the utter impossibility of my being able to complete my work sheet, would cause me to have a panic attack. Even if Jane managed to struggle through her assignment, she would stay with me out of loyalty; she knew what was coming. And each week, things became a bit worse since my terror manifested itself through laughter. The longer I was trapped, the more likely any little thing could set me off.

For example, there was a large pull-down topographical map in front of the class hanging above the blackboard. Each student had to consult it by pulling the map down like a shade, then allowing it to roll back up. I had been stifling giggles and snorts throughout the first half hour with some measure of success. When I approached the map, it refused to pull down, no matter how many times I tugged on the handle. I took a peek over my shoulder and saw that everyone was watching me. I pulled and pulled until…Yaay! The damned thing finally unrolled. But before I could sigh in relief, it rolled itself up with a loud SMACK before the whole map fell from the wall and crashed to the floor at my feet.

Merriam Webster defines a fool thusly: 1. A person lacking in judgement or prudence, 2. a retainer formerly kept in great households to provide casual entertainment and commonly dressed in motley with cap, bells, and bauble, 3. One who is victimized or made to appear foolish, 4. A person lacking in common powers of understanding and reason, 5. One with a marked propensity or fondness for something, 6. A cold dessert of pureed fruit mixed with whipped cream or custard. 

It being April Fool’s Day, I’m wondering how each of us might find examples of Webster’s definition of fools in our own lives or in the lives of those around us. I thought of all the times I’d played the fool in life; times of which I am ashamed. I might have actually had the judgement during some of those times, but chose to ignore it for whatever reason. Out of those of you who are reading this, I’m sure there are more than a few who were the “class clown,”making a show of themselves by their shouting out, pulling pranks or outlandish dress.

I don’t agree with Mr. Webster’s third definition. What he describes I would rather term a “prey” than a fool. Anyone who has allowed themself to be bullied has done so out of self-preservation, not possessing the ability to fight back. This, to my way of thinking, does not describe a fool.

In these days of inclusiveness, definition number four would be considered a slur, as it describes many groups of people who are intellectually or socially challenged through no fault of their own. Having a learning disability myself, I know what it is like to be thought a “fool” because I couldn’t perceive some things others considered to be commonly understood.

We are all fools for something, as in definition number five, be it a particular person with whom we have fallen madly in love, a food or beverage group we crave such as sweets, a love of certain things like cars, puppies, shoes, sports, etc. We might be quite dignified and serious until we come upon our obsession. Then, we seem to turn into a whole different person; a “silly” person in the eyes of the unsuspecting acquaintance who observes us coming into contact with the object of our obsession.

I have spent many years working on and publishing my own book, LIFELINES, Daily Antidotes to Animus and Angst. Having suffered from a debilitating Chronic Anxiety disorder that began over a decade ago, I began the book as a daily self-assignment designed to pull myself out of my illness by changing my behavior through little daily tasks. Each had to be fun, easy to do and interesting. Some tasks involved music, art, drama, writing or dance. Others were designed to self-empower by learning how to discover what was true in the media. Still others were acts of kindness or civility, designed to force me out of my isolation and into contact with strangers. With lots of work and years of seeking the best help I could find, I began to slowly recover. I posted many of the “assignments” online and got so many  positive comments that I considered turning the tasks into a book to help others.

Then, Donald Trump, the playboy blowhard buffoon who had gone bankrupt six times and was a laughingstock amongst fellow New Yorkers, ran for, and became elected President. Fearing that all the chaos, vitriol and hate that this over-aged, pudgy Pandora set loose on America would push me right back into the depths of anxiety, I got back to work on the book. 

As the song says, “Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come,” I learned a great deal about editing, publishing, and especially hybrid publishing over a three-year period. Covid struck, I had to go through a second cervical fusion in the midst of the epidemic and I watched my country torn in little pieces by a ruthless megalomaniac so cold that he would not call off his rabid followers, even when they wanted to hang his own Vice President. 

None the less, America had four years in the “eye of the hurricane” before hell opened its ugly maw once again, spewing forth the new-and-so-much-worse version of Donald Trump. I have had to take certain measures to protect myself this time around: 1. I don’t listen to the news non-stop. 2. I  read multiplel sources to suss out the truth of daily reports. 3. I try very hard not to compare Trump’s parallel progress with that of Adolf Hitler, with whom he has so many similarities. 4. I work at finding things (other than Trump) to make me laugh. This is proving to be a challenge. But then I remembered an old vaudeville routine that my mother had printed on a card. Long after she died  I found the card with some other papers. I thought it would cheer us all up to relate it. so, here goes:

A young man wanted to purchase something tastefully elegant for his sweetheart for their three-month dating anniversary. He hadn’t known her all that long, so it had to be a gift that would send the perfect message: nothing too personal, but a gift that says, “I think you are lovely and tasteful.” After thinking of jewelry, perfume, etc., he finally decided on a pair of elegant pale pink rabbit-fur-lined cashmere gloves. 

Three winters ago, I purchased a charcoal-black wool Pendleton winter coat. It was exceptionally warm with rain-resistant sleeves, and a large shearling-lined lambswool hood. Like all Pendleton products, it was beautifully sewn and made with the finest wool. I had purchased items from their catalogue before and never had any complaints.

The coat was costly; more than I would normally spend, but I wanted to be really warm. That coat would last a lifetime. Winter was balmy that year, so I did not wear it until late January. One thing bothered me: the coat was very narrow. It didn’t flare out below the hips enough for walking or sitting without putting a strain on the zipper.

A coat is cut narrow for one of two reasons: either to make people look thin and tall or because the maker wants tol save money by using less fabric. We all understand shrink-sizing by now…smaller boxes with the same prices. One sees cheaply made clothes in the big chain stores all the time. Walmart, Target, and Marshal’s sell clothes where the material is thinner, the sleeves, shorter, and the pants legs and shirts, skimpy. They are cheaply made and they quickly fall apart. But I trusted Pendleton; this had to be an honest mistake made by the coat's designer.

Still, I worried that the coat’s narrowness would strain the zipper. I should have returned it, but it was freezing outside by the time I actually wore it and the coat was incredibly warm. I was careful to unzip the bottom six inches when sitting or walking fast. This was not so easy. Double zippers are ornery things in the best of coats. Unless you position the two zippers just so, the slider gets jammed, or you zip  the top zipper all the way up, and the zipper separates. Still, the coat made it through two winters.

By the third winter, (this winter), I worried that the bottom zipper was going to break. I told myself not to worry; Pendleton products lasted forever. The winter started out mild, but by February, a blanket of Arctic air had settled over New England, refusing to budge. It was eight degrees outside when I noticed that the metal bar on the bottom zipper had, as I feared, ripped away from the cloth, making the zipper impossible to use. “But,” I told myself, “Pendleton stands by their products.”

Why did they have to squish Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays together? I do not support celebrating all of our presidents; we’ve had some really awful ones. A few that come to mind are James Buchanan, who provided extremely poor leadership just prior to the Civil War, and Andrew Johnson, who not only mis-managed Reconstruction but actually took away the hard-won civil rights from newly-freed enslaved people. The millions of lives lost in the Civil War were for naught because of this man. The ensuing misery and civil disruption caused by the system of Jim Crow segregation that was allowed to exist from the 1860’s through the 1960’s would not have happened had Lincoln not been murdered and replaced by Johnson and his racist policies.

There are many other presidents who did not take their job seriously; people who accomplished little, not because they were blocked by the opposing party, but because they regarded their role as their destiny. Others spent their term embroiled in scandals. Richard Nixon, deserves credit for creating the Environmental Protection Agency, The Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, as well as improving the US’s relationships with China and the Soviet Union. But his determination to win the war in Vietnam, hardened him against the public, the press and those who opposed him. Nixon resorting to criminal activity that eventually unseated him. Like Johnson and Buchanan, Nixon’s stubbornness cost the lives of nearly a third of those who fought in the Vietnam war. 

We should be celebrating George Washington for one specific reason: he resigned his military commission at the war’s end and became the country’s first President. Like all men, Washington made mistakes; big mistakes. He attacked a party of allies during the French and Indian War, mistakenly signed a document admitting to the assignation of a French officer, and lost most of the battles he fought. His fortune was come by through marriage and maintained by the system of slavery. He had a temper that would put George Patton to shame and it was said he could out-swear most of his men and could drink them all under the table. So what?

The Presidency should never be a personality contest. The President of America is the head of both state and government, and Commander in Chief of the armed forces. He/she must execute and enforce the laws made by Congress. The person holding this office represents the Face of America to the world. Because America has always been a country populated by immigrants from everywhere, it must contend with different cultures, religions, languages and belief systems, all striving to be dominant. The person holding the office of the President must first and foremost be able to understand and uphold the Constitution and respect the delicate balance of Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches. Our founders knew the importance of keeping these three separate to avoid any one gaining too much power. Like a three-legged stool, it will tip over if one of the legs is longer than the others.

Let us not celebrate Presidents just because they managed to get elected. Establishing President’s Day as a national holiday is just like having a national holiday for artists, bus drivers, undertakers, etc; nice, but not necessary. National holidays should celebrate exceptional individuals; not just those who show up for work. Let’s go back to celebrating George Washington’s birthday because he worked hard during his term, and sacrificed his personal life for his country. Most importantly, when his term was over, George Washington relinquished power, establishing the precedent of the peaceful transfer of power. 

Dan and I learned long ago that going out the week before Valentine’s Day for dinner is a bad idea. Not only are the prices doubled; you are likely to be in a crowded, noisy space. Somewhere along the line, the idea of a candle-lit room with music being played while couples sip their wine and speak in quiet voices as they gaze into each other’s eyes went the way of the dodo bird. It was replaced by crowded up-scale restaurants with televisions lining one wall and pop music blasting so loudly that the diners are obliged to shout at each other to be heard over the din. 

I read that restauranteurs adopted this platform in the belief that it creates “buzz, which means more people will want to be where the action is. This may have been true for me when I was in my early twenties, but being exceedingly poor during that period of my life, I never ate in restaurants; I just worked in them. These days, I don’t hear well in crowds and having six televisions flashing “BREAKING NEWS!!!” has all the ambience of being trapped in a traffic jam in a construction zone. 

Instead of going out, I usually make a special dinner, and we sip champagne and listen to jazz, or chamber music. I try to give the room a bit of sparkle with red candles and some flowers. This year, I began looking two days ago for a bouquet, since the prices for most flowers double or triple the closer we get to Valentine’s Day. But to my surprise, the store manager anticipated my move and raised the prices earlier than ever.

There were the roses, the reds and the whites, out of my price range. Additionally, there were bouquets of assorted colors of flowers and greenery, most of which had a rose included. Again, pricey and not to my taste. Yes, I could have gone to a real florist and purchased gorgeous flowers, but spending great amounts of money for something that is so transitory seems wrong. So I chose a bouquet of red and white flowers, mostly daisies and carnations wrapped in festive red tissue paper.

When I got home and removed the paper, preparing to trim the flowers and arrange them in a vase, I notices that at least half of the “red” flowers had been spray-painted, along with their stems and leaves. My first impulse was to try to wash the paint off so the poor flowers could breathe. Someone had actually taken fresh flowers and spray-painted them to make it appealing!

Re-finishing our bedroom door, I had lain it across two sawhorses in our garage. Since our house was built in1859, the door had many layers of milk paint, oil paint and latex, all of which were peeling and bumpy like an old billboard. I was using an industrial paint remover, but that only worked on the 20th c. layers; milk paint is forever! Along with paint scrapers, I had used many sheets of sandpaper, which got ruined by all the balls of gummy schmutz: old paint, paint remover and sawdust. 

It was a hot day, even with the garage door open. I was sweating and the sweat dripped into the goo on the door’s surface, making it worse. Removing my big heavy work gloves I wiped my wet face with the back of my hand. I looked with disgust at all the paint chips and dust on the surface and reflexively swiped my un-gloved hand across the door’s surface to brush it all off. Instantly, I felt a sharp stab of pain in my finger. A jagged piece of wood had separated from the surface and part of it was sticking out of the side of my ring finger. Cursing, I ran upstairs and pulled the wood out with my tweezers. Dousing the wound with Peroxide, I went back to work. 

That night, my finger throbbed terribly. I feared dirt and paint remover had gotten inside the wound and infected it. I kept antibiotic cream on it, but the pain persisted, keeping me awake. After a few nights of this, I checked the wound with a magnifying glass, but saw nothing. “This finger is still sore from the splinter and it’s been a whole week,” I complained to Dan as weI lay in bed. Absently, I massaged my finger and was surprised to feel a sharp point on each side.  Touching both at once, I could feel movement inside the injured finger. A part of the splinter had gone straight through the lower part of my finger and was still in there!

Next week, my hand surgeon and I stared at the x-ray. That splinter was the size of a toothpick and had gone into my pinky finger as well! As we scheduled surgery to remove it, I heard a nurse exclaim, “You gotta see this x-ray. You won’t believe it!” to another nurse. The wood was surgically removed the following week. What I had hoped was a very minor problem had turned out to be costly and time consuming…all because I hadn’t been paying attention.

Our American government, like my hand, has been wounded through inattention. Americans have always paid dearly for our unsolved problems: racism, sexism, and inequality. These are so deeply ingrained in our culture that it takes constant vigilance and effort to keep them in check. Recently, we failed to pay attention to the job at hand. We didn’t notice that we had removed our intellectual work gloves; we had grown lazy and self-absorbed. Before we knew it, our culture was full of splinters of greed, ignorance and self-righteousness.

It is the morning of Thanksgiving Eve in 2018. We’ve moved to Marblehead in May and things are mostly in their places. All was going well until last September. Dan and Liberty were attacked by yellow jackets and Liberty got stung way in the back of her mouth. She reacted first by not being able to eat without pain and then began to develop huge black blisters on her muzzle. We have spent the last months taking her to specialists who are stumped by the blisters and who keep prescribing various drugs, notably, Prednisone. Liberty reacts to the pain by hiding and refusing to eat. I feed her by hand, literally; one mouthful at a time. Eventually, the sting will turn into an abscess which will enter the bone and require surgery on her jaw. We won’t know that for several more months. I do alot of crying.

But this morning I am not in tears because I am looking forward to going to NYC for Thanksgiving at  Linda Russell, our old friend,’s apartment. Linda and I both love to cook and have shared many a feast at Easter and Thanksgiving. I have yet to pack and am still in my animal-print pj’s and slippers. I’m carrying Liberty’s big plastic crate back downstairs. It’s empty, but it is big enough to block my view.

I need to interject that the stair treads in our new house are much more narrow than any in our last residences. Going upstairs, I keep banging my toes, while my heels hang in mid-air. In the future, I will develop a “duck walk” position going downstairs so that my whole foot is on the step. However, on this Thanksgiving Day eve, in the early morning, I can’t look down at my feet because of the big crate I’m holding. So, when my slipper slides, ever so slightly on the top step, I lean backward so as not to fall down the stairs. But my slipper keeps sliding and I sit down, HARD on the landing; so hard that I bounce upward. I hear myself say, “Uh-oh,” as I realize I can’t right myself.

Dan is downstairs, watching me. I see his lips move as he screams, “NO! NO! NO!!!” I can’t let go of the crate or see where I am in space since my view is blocked. I am tumbling over and over the crate down the flight of thirteen wooden steps. It feels like I’m in an industrial-sized dryer with four or five bricks: the fall itself seems slow and dreamlike, punctuated by incredible blows to the head, back and legs. I am furious that I can’t seem to stop the fall nor the pounding I’m getting. I want to hit someone back!

And then…suddenly everything is eerily still. Dan has stopped screaming; he is frozen with terror. I am splayed out on the tile at the foot of the stairs like a rag doll with the crate nowhere in sight. My head rests on the first step. I consider my cervical fusion and tentatively move my head to see if my neck is broken. I arch my back, wiggle my feet and bend my knees. By now, Dan’s white face is bending over me. “Can you move? Is anything broken?” he says.

I read in the New York Times that Paris Hilton had lost her house in the great LA wildfire last week. This is sad. Losing one’s home means losing treasured memories, photos, etc.

“Is she the one who is famous for going to parties?” Dan asks.

“I thing she has a business now, but, yes, she’s a socialite and a Hilton,” I reply. This conversation took place last weekend and I only recalled it because we stayed in the Hilton Doubletree Hotel in Hartford last night. I was performing a story at a Speak Up Storytelling event in the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, a two hour drive from home.

In the olden days when we did a lot of musical gigs in folk clubs we stayed in budget motels and on stranger’s couches. Dan had a day job but I was a free-lance signpainter and also worked with a marionette theater. We needed every dollar and would never have dreamed of staying in a hotel, much less a Hilton. But things drastically improved for us during Dan’s retirement. The Hilton is close to the museum so Dan booked a room with a king-sized bed for overnight. I must say the bed was comfortable, the shower had good pressure and hot water, the toilet flushed and they provided Crabtree and Evelyn guest soap. 

The room looked as though it had been designed by a group of art school flunk-outs. It had all the ambience of my childhood dentist's waiting room. The color-scheme was primarily dark brown, black and dingy oyster white. The black and brown rug had turquoise accents and the pattern that reminded me of standing atop a rotting deck. The wall across from the bed was dominated by a gigantic black screen mounted on an even larger brown rectangle. To the right of this monolith was a metal door with so many locks and bolts it could have been in a New York City apartment. This apparently lead to the room next door. On the screen’s other side was a huge round mirror that looked like a four foot Shaker tray with a brown edge that stuck out into the room.

Short, small, measly, slight: all words which can be used to mean “less than what was expected, rather disappointing or meagre.” As I have aged, my own height has diminished by two inches, granting my childhood wish to be short like my friends. I remember my initial shock when, at thirty, I first heard Randy Newman’s satirical song, “Short People,” in which he describes their having, “little hands, little eyes. They walk around tellin’ great big lies.”Randy concludes, “Don’t want no short people ‘round here.” Newman’s song was a parody on prejudice…obviously. However, in America, where many of us take every comment as a personal attack, people jumped to be on the correct side of this issue: “Why, I myself have MANY friends who are short!” they sniffed, nostrils flared.

We haven’t learned much since the release of “Short People” in 1977. The truth is, Americans generally prefer things to be tall, big, bountiful, and over the top. We build bigger houses, purchase larger cars, expect “all-you-can-eat” portions of food and need larger sized clothes as a result. We like our music loud, insistent, and omnipresent, sharing it with others, whether they want to hear it or not. We adore sporting events and concerts which are huge spectacles and we build ever-larger stadiums in which to attend them. If we can’t be there, we have television screens that are larger than the home-movie screens of my childhood, and twice the size of the floor of my New York apartment bathrooms. 

I don’t recognize New York City these days for all the tall, faceless, rectangular glass and steel luxury sky-condos poking upwards like so many middle fingers, inappropriately dwarfing the brownstones in the neighborhood. What’s so great about towering over everything?

“Big box” stores sell us things in bulk, supposedly saving time and money which we use to shop online from home. We turn to the modern-day genie, Amazon, to grant our every wish. Big chain stores like Walmart, Home Depot, Target, once struck the death knell for family businesses, small shops, drugstores and the downtowns of America. Now, these dynostores cringe at the very mention of Amazon, the TYRANNOSTORIS which gobbles up malls, services and the media alike. We are so spoiled; we are willing to sacrifice all of the small pleasures which used to define and give meaning to our lives in the name of convenience and progress.

So before we are all sucked into the black hole of the 21st century, disappearing in the name of “bigger is better,” let us recall a few small, but powerful things:

In 1969, during the summer after graduating from college, I lived in a Conestoga wagon in the wood at a camp in Berks Co., PA. The camp was in a Pennsylvania Dutch area, set deep within the woods of the Blue Mountains. Many of the counsellors came from Lancaster, Litizt,  and other Pa Dutch areas. Many came from farms. One of the young counsellors, Crissy Bucher, became my room-mate a year later, when I rented my first apartment. She had come from a farm community and since we cooked Pa Dutch food, she gave me her mom’s sugar cookie recipe, which had come into her family from a neighbor, Helen Phillips.

 Like many Pa Dutch recipes, these cookies are plain, using butter, flour and sugar with a little baking powder. They are rolled out to an eighth of an inch and then cut with tin cookie cutters. One may add a touch of vanilla, lemon, or other flavoring or leave them plain. I use anise. My cookie cutters were probably very old when I bought them at one of the many Pa antique barns I used to haunt. I ice them with icing piped on from icing I make from butter, cream and confectioner’s sugar. Each is a little work of art and I have made them every year since 1971.

Thirty-five years ago, when I was performing my music and instrumentals in clubs and at festivals. My best friend, Colonial balladeer, Linda Russell, suggested I create a Christmas show. Dan and I were living in Nyack, upriver from the City. Nyack is a pretty little river town along the Hudson and is filled with antique shops. I took a pile of books about the origins of American Christmas customs and sat outside of a cafe shop every day drinking numerous cups of cappuccino and creating a script for a show I would later call, “Greensleeves.”

Once I had a script, it was time to select songs to sing and play on my harp. That first year, I used mostly songs everyone was familiar with: The Holly and the Ivy, Silent Night, etc., but i continued doing the show, I added songs in French, Gaelic, Spanish, and Italian. I had sewn a costume of dark green velveteen with a silver underskirt and silver trim. The gown has  a medieval look. A holly wreath on my hair completes the picture.

I performed the show at churches, town halls and historic sites; some years doing four to five performances during December. But one thing was missing: presents. So I started handing out Helen Phillips’ Rollout Cookies recipes after the show to the audience. It is likely over a thousand people got them over the years in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Massachusetts. 

I used to go to the Lincoln Center Library at the Juilliard School when I was an abstract artist  in Lower Manhattan through the 1980’s. I would hang out there listening to recordings of opera or find the scores for arias I wanted to learn. I had an undergraduate degree in music, but my schooling was so inferior that I could barely read notation. I didn’t play an instrument. I had planned to study opera on a graduate level, but found the make-up courses would have amounted to another four-years of study at another school. 

Having no money for further study, I was hired by the state of Pennsylvania in 1969 to work as a music therapist. Over the course of six years, I worked in three state facilities, eventually becoming Director of music Therapy at the last. I had no degrees in psychology or education; I couldn’t get a job again without being certified. I couldn’t get certified without those degrees. I quit anyway, at the urging of my friends, who knew I belonged in the arts.

I applied for art school, after taking a summer of basic classes in drawing and painting. I was shocked to be invited to join an experimental Masters Degree program. The fact that I hadn’t been “corrupted” by studying representational art worked on my behalf. I spent two years making abstract art in a studio, secretly sneaking off to take undergrad courses. Once again, I graduated with an empty degree. But by now I was thirty. It was the abstract art world or nothing. 

With the  $7,000 my mother left me when she died, I moved to New York in the winter of 1977. Spending a third of that as “key” money to rent a loft, I spent a lot more on wood, tools, electrical supplies and books to teach myself how to build a living space put of a warehouse. I was in Tribeca, with little art training and no job skills, spending my days struggling at something I didn’t really want to do. I felt like a fraud. My neighbors drove me crazy with their parties and their loud, drecky music. I needed visits to Lincoln Center to stay sane.

At that time, if you wanted sheet music for an aria or a song from a Broadway musical, you had to go to a music store, hoping they might have what you wanted or you could go to the Lincoln Center library, find the score and copy the piece you needed on the coin-operated Xerox machine in the hallway. There was always a long line of musicians and students with bad haircuts who couldn’t afford to buy a whole score when they just needed to learn one piece from it. 

From the camera's vantage point, I can see the tops and backs of people’s heads. As is her habit, my friend Linda sits in the second pew from the altar. Although the camera presents a somewhat blurry image of those down in front, I know it is Linda, who is fairly tall and has long brown wavy hair. Because of the blur, I take the triangular shape of her head and hair for a Christmas tree until the congregation stands to sing a hymn and I can see her green patterned coat. I can also hear her voice soaring through the singing. I wonder if she can feel me watching her, hundreds of miles away in Massachusetts.

I opened Zoom late, coming in during the sermon. I look at the spot where I I usually sit when my husband Dan and I visit New York at Easter to see our old friends. No one is sitting there. Sometimes, I tell Linda I saw her in church, describing her coat or dress. Weird…The world has become so damn weird!

When my dad was transferred from NYC to Maryland, in 1962, I was prevented from entering my progressive, arts-oriented high school in Merrick, Long Island. Instead, I attended a high school with a choir so awful I quit, an art teacher who threw a wooden drawing board down the stairwell at me, and no drama department or creative writing program. I didn’t get to study any of the things I needed to fulfill my dream of being a Broadway performer.

My fellow students were nice but artistically unsophisticated; we did not share the same interests. There were no cell phones or computers and long-distance calls were expensive. I cried and drank at home and spent my time writing letters to my friends back home in NY.

I pretended that my friends were next door, in my grandmother’s bedroom; I just couldn’t see or hear them. Letters arrived from Merrick full of details about the choir winning competitions, the musicals and plays everyone was involved in; trips into the City to visit the Guggenheim or the Met. I imagined everything I was missing so clearly that it was as if I were still there, or watching from out of my body…

In the rural town of Townsend, MA, there are many antique shops housed in former barns and farmhouses. Townsend is just half an hour from American K9 Country, in Amherst, NH, Liberty’s training and boarding facility. We usually pass through whenever we go to Western Massachusetts, or if we are boarding Liberty and then driving to New York or Pennsylvania. We have visited lots of those antique shops over the years. Primarily long buildings with rows of vendors, cubicled-off from one another, they sell pretty much the same stuff you find in your parent’s or grandparent’s basement, attic or garage: old Formica kitchen tables, mason jars, Bakelite dish-ware, doilies, worn-out toys, and furniture that has seen lots of use. Some have displays of coins, faded photographs, rugs, paintings, records and strange, unfashionable clothing you can’t imagine anyone ever wearing. The stuff in these shops usually dates from the 1900’s to the 1970’s.

But today we visited Antique Associates of west Townsend, situated in an old ochre-colored farmhouse and barn with dark cranberry trim. The rooms were just as they had been when the building was used as a farmhouse: small, dark with crooked wooden floors and staircases leading you to places other than you had expected. Tole-painted hope chests, rockers and cradles, beautifully primitive and un-signed filled the first room. A carved wooden painted bowl from the 1700’s, large enough for me to fit in, sat atop a rustic table.

Many of the narrow second-floor rooms were lined on both sides with glass cases, which held early pottery, Redware, Native American baskets, 18th and 19th c. miniatures, pewter, early glass wear, daguerrotypes and hand-made toys. Other rooms and hallways were filled with portraits of and by anonymous people from the 19th c. The quality of the paintings as well as their frames and their excellent condition showed them to have been gently cared for. Beautifully-made 18th c. furniture filled other rooms along with desks, beds, chests and boxes decorated with faux-grain to make the wood look expensive. We passed by George Washington’s, Daniel Webster’s and the King of Sweden’s portraits hanging alongside paintings of schooners.

A well-lit but narrow hallway was lined on both sides with 18th and 19th c. pistols, swords, and rifles, safely locked behind glass. They ranged from a tiny derringer small enough to hide in one’s hand to a dark, cumbersome-looking blunderbuss, whose barrel ended in the shape of a clarinet. It resembled the hunter’s guns from my illustrated childhood album cover of “Peter and the Wolf.” All looked as if they had been well-cared for. Most had been used in Europe and America’s endless wars. Like the carefully-preserved toys in other exhibits they lay silently on their white cloth background.

“How many of you have killed someone?” I murmured as I passed by. Needlepoint samplers, crafted by young maidens, displayed gentility and skill. The elaborate samplers, un-doubtably made by girls lucky enough to have the leisure time and training, hung in gilded frames. We followed more stairs to the first floor where were rooms full of crockery, beautifully shaped to hold grains, flour, seeds and liquids.