Archive for March, 2010

You are currently browsing the archives of Soapbox .

The Quiet Man


This week's poetry slam seemed, unofficially, to be "My Dad is a son of a b**ch" night. I felt the need to reply- "Sorry to hear that. Mine isn't".
 
    My father is a quiet man.
    In a house filled with boisterous, opinionated women,  my father spent most of his free time in his basement workshop.  When he poked his head upstairs, he liked to tell people that he’s 1/3 Indian, then go whistling out of the room, wondering how long it would take them to figure out that, no matter many generations back you start dividing… you just can’t end up 1/3 anything. Sometimes it took a while.
 
     His parents were good, upright, un-demonstrative people, clenched within themselves, mistrustful of the world and disconnected from each other. Dad seemed awkward, almost shy about discussing emotions or expressing affection for his children. When my mother was in the hospital when I was a child, I don't remember him talking with us about that scary, confusing time, but I do remember my father patiently, awkwardly trying to braid my hair every morning before school. I had to have my sister fix them later, but I liked the way it felt when he brushed my hair: safe, loved.

     Dad taught his girls how to use power tools, identify wildflowers and his grin of approval when we could successfully start a one-match, no paper fire on a camping trip made us feel 10 feet tall. Dad’s idea of a good time was pouring over topographical maps of the county. Then, on Saturdays, he would drive us out to some unnamed gravel road, three turns past the back of beyond, pull off where a weed-choked creek met the road and say,
    “I bet, if we hike up the hill here, there will be a little waterfall at the top.”
     And there always was, and we would sit beside it and eat our peanut butter and sweet pickle sandwiches while Daddy identified the bird songs for us and photographed ferns and moss.Once, on the way home, he pulled off the road and we sat for a minute in the twilight with the engine ticking quietly, listening to the hallejulah chorus of spring peepers from a nearby pond.

 
    He grew up ground between the teeth of the Great Depression, so he doesn’t spend money if he doesn’t have to. Though he was the boss, he took a sack lunch to work almost every day. His mantra has always been “Why buy something new when you don’t have to?”
    For my son's fifth Christmas, Dad gave him a hunk of petrified dinosaur bone that his own father had found decades before. My step mother was appalled.
     “You can’t give a 5 year old a rock for Christmas!” she insisted. So she bought Stephen a little hand-held electronic game, which ended up in the trash can pretty quickly. My son took his rock to kindergarten for “My favorite Christmas present” show and tell. Dad knew what he was doing.
     When my daughter was 5, he built her a doll house. It was supposed to be for her birthday but didn’t arrive til Christmas. Apparently there were issues with the curtain rods and Dad was unhappy with the ratio of rise to run on the first staircase he built, perhaps concerned that Skipper might injure herself one night rushing downstairs in the dark to let out the ceramic cat.
 
    My father is a quiet man. My lessons from him come, not from listening, but from observing: Do it right: even the small stuff, believe in what you love, pay attention to what’s around you, keep your promises.
    He has a quick temper, but the only thing I’ve ever seen him punch was a wall, and he spent the rest of that evening plastering over it, making things smooth again My father and mother stayed together long after the love was gone from their marriage because they had 5 children, and I think they felt they owed it to us to finish what they had started. When they finally parted as husband and wife they remained friends, and partners in the lives of their children.
    At around 50 years of age, my father told a new acquaintance that he hadn’t decided yet what he wanted to be when he grew up. Everybody laughed, as he had intended, but we took from it that Dad, though somewhat set in his ways, still was ready to learn new things. I try to bear that in mind today.
 
   At 80 years of age, my dad is still a pretty quiet guy But recently he has taken up the habit of ending our phone conversations by saying,“I love you, Trace” in an awkward, almost shy way.

     They are welcome words, but quite unnecessary. That message from Daddy has always come through loud and clear.

Posted by Tracy on Mar 26th 2010 | Filed in General | Comments (1)

Put down the Pitchforks and Just Talk


    We get it: some people really don't like the new Health Care bill. Fine. There's plenty not to like. Let's talk about it.
 
    But first- can we get off the hyperbole express? Can we agree that, unless the earth is actually going to end in fire and smoke tomorrow directly as a result of children no longer being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions- we will NOT call passage of this bill "Armageddon"? Can we just stipulate that a bill, however flawed, that provides babies with health care, which will, you know, keep them alive is NOT a "baby killer"? Is that too much common sense for people today?
    And "death panels"? Come on! If you don't have any fact-based arguments against the bill, maybe you should shut your mouth and let the people who do speak up.

    Dissent and disagreement are fundamental America rights. But deception, distortion and outright lies serve no common good. Hurling  hideous epithets, mocking those afflicted with a terrible disease who simply hope all like them can get care, invoking Stalin and Hitler (as if they tried to improve the quality of life for the poor), inciting fear and anger with talk of the president pulling the plug on people's grandmothers or Downs syndrome babies- how does this help the country? How does this improve the life of anyone? And how does this create a better health care bill?

   Though I agreed with their position, I did not approve of the Code Pink women who shouted at Bush Administration officials in hearings and confronted them with bloody hands- and I told them so. Now we see not just the empty talking heads on FOX News but even Republican members of congress encouraging even worse behavior, actually cheering a man who was removed from the House chamber for screaming "Kill the Bill!". They whip crowds of the ignorant and angry into a frenzy with rhetoric like "lock and load", talk of the impending end of our nation and a Communist take-over… and all this because  my unemployed son can now be covered by my health insurance until he is 26, if I choose to pay for it.
   Wow. Yeah. That does sound like Armageddon.

   People, we need to put down the pitchforks, stop trying to storm the castle gates and just ring the doorbell and ask to talk! Because when Frankenstein answers the bell, you'll find that he's just a guy with bad hair and a limp, and not a monster at all.

    America should be working on the important details of how to craft a better piece of legislation. Instead, we act like this is a hockey game, cheering when "our side" draws blood.
     At the risk of sounding like a communist, Nazi, baby-killing America-hater: shouldn't we all be on the side of helping people who can't get the care they need, either because they can't afford it or because their insurance company is in the business of finding ways not to pay for care? Is that too much to ask?
  
I

Posted by Tracy on Mar 23rd 2010 | Filed in Soapbox letters,The Daily Rant | Comments (2)

Stand Up and Cheer

     I get it no matter where I go.
     “So, where are you from?”
     “Ohio”
     “Oh, sure, the Buckeyes!!”
      No. No, most definitely NOT the Buckeyes, OK?

     I grew up in Athens, a small oasis of education and progress in poor,
awkward, struggling Southern Ohio. My father worked for the university, Mom and Dad met at the university, my husband and I met at the university. My son got his degree there and daughter will graduate from O.U.  exactly 100 years after her great-grandfather wore his cap and gown there.

    I feel an affinity to not just the college but the town; not just the tree-lined paths of campus but also to the softball fields, bike path, the funky, hippie restaurants, to the rural flavor, to the sheltering hills. And to the hometown team.
     So NOT the stinkin' Buckeyes, thank you very much!
 
    Living in Columbus and hating the Buckeyes is a tough gig, but it's one I’m willing to play.  When the almighty Bucks lose to a lesser opponent I  shake my head sadly and commiserate with customers who lament the loss- and on the inside I say, Yeah, that’s what it feels like to just be regular folks!

     Sports has always been sort of an also- ran at Ohio University.  Ask 20 students why they go to the football games  and probably 17 of them will answer “to watch the band”.  Winning is nice, I guess, but I've always been happy that O.U. is not a big "sports school". In fact, I'm proud of the fact that our sports teams kinda suck. Why?
     Because we’re a university! We’re supposed to be about the medical school, and the engineering department, about the Honors Tutorial college and a nationally recognized program in journalism.
     We pay tuition to get our kids educated, not to buy  ourselves a championship sports team! So suck on that, Buckeyes. Huh.

    And then the little Ohio University Bobcats, the kids from the styx, won a slot  in the March Madness basketball tournament, the Big Dance. Last night, in the first round they pulled off a huge upset and gave Georgetown an education. And for this non-sports fanatic, the world is a slightly different place today.
    My daughter and I watched the game together. I confess that  I felt ridiculously excited the first time I heard the O.U. band, on national TV, play "Stand up and Cheer".  I nearly stood up and cheered, right there on my bed.
    We were in agony and ecstasy, afraid to watch, afraid to look away, as if the constancy of our attention could somehow provide extra energy for someone's flagging stamina, put the right spin on an errant free-throw. We nearly went nuts when CBS cut away to show the UNLV game.
    "This is Ohio, you morons" I shouted. "Show us the Ohio team!" By the end of the game I was tense, hoarse and exhausted, but I refused to relax with one minute to go and a 15 point lead, reminding myself that now was no time for complacency!
    And finally, the win.
    My team. MY TEAM, from MY school, from MY town,  from an overlooked, misbegotten corner of MY state, upset the number 3 seed!!!
     Whatever that means.

    I guess it means that for once, the big kid got taken down a peg, and the little kid: fast and feisty and smart but always stuck in the back row  because of his size, the guys who everyone knew were just there to fill in an empty line on the brackets until the big boys could whittle things down to the real teams- made a few people stand up and, if not cheer (they probably screwed up a LOT of office betting pools) at least, for one day, take notice.

    Do I wish that O.U. had gotten some national recognition for being a good, solid school in a lovely town, for being a good education value in the kind of place that will remain in your heart many years after you graduate and move on? Sure.
    But I’ll take the win, thank you very much.

    Tomorrow O.U. plays Tennessee, and they'll probably be good campers and lose like the big boys want them to. But if they somehow win… they could meet OSU in the third round. I think, if the Bobcats could knock the Buckeyes out of the tournament, even if they go on to total humiliation after that- even if they never win another game, ever…. it would pretty much justify my existence. And I will get straight ignorant about it too. I will paint "OS-Who?" in big green letters on the side of my car. Maybe on the side of my house.
     And it's not about there being anything wrong with Ohio State: it's about getting tired of always being judged second best over something you know is totally bogus: like the size of your basketballs.

    Today I took my daughter to the eye doctor, both of us in our Bobcat gear. Damn straight! When we walked in the waiting room, the first person I saw was a woman with a big pawprint on her chest.
     “Nice shirt” she said to me, and we both grinned, instant comrads, united through past suffering  and present, fleeting triumph. While I waited, 2 complete strangers came over and congratulated me on our big upset, like I was involved somehow.

     Given my intense effort of last night, I accepted the praise.

OU? Oh yeah!

 

Posted by Tracy on Mar 19th 2010 | Filed in General,So I've got this kid... | Comments (2)

Open Wide

Parenting is about letting go.
The first unbinding is at birth,
when you release the child from under your heart.
You surrender them a thousand times in those first few weeks
to  eager armies of aunts, uncles and friends.
You clasp your hands together akwardly,
grinning fiercely to stop yourself
from begging them not to drop him.

Just when you've mastered that letting go with some equanimity
your baby begins to explore the world on their own
and your arms are wrenched open in another type of release,
one guaranteed to result in bumps and bruises
and some measure of tears on both sides.

Baby becomes child, and mother encounters
school days, sleep-over, weeks at summer camp with strangers
and again and again you must open your arms, just a little wider
and surrender knowing that their hair is combed, jacket zipped,
that they are saying "please" and "thank you".
Then the driver's license, first job and off to college~
Open wide, and release
seeing that they get up on time and get their homework done:
let go of knowing what kind of people they hang around with,
seeing to it they eat right,
knowing without being told if they are happy, or are struggling.

Then comes the day of that final letting go.
The car is packed, a little extra cash tucked in a pocket~
Now don't argue with me, I want you to have it!
quick hugs all around and the car pulls out,
your grown-up child drives away,
off to their own home,
their own life.

You wave with a composed if slightly bleary smile and go back inside
unsure exactly what to do with these
open, empty, vestigial arms.
So you call your own mother, try to explain what you are feeling,
and as she offers you words of comfort
something in her voice makes you realize
that she is still in the process of letting you go.

Posted by Tracy on Mar 9th 2010 | Filed in Poetry,So I've got this kid... | Comments (0)