Don't Gel Too Soon

John Kennedy, Barack Obama, 2 Inaugurations and 2 Generations of Dreamers REDUX

I wrote this piece right before the Obama Inauguration.  This seems like a good day to share it again.

I seem to be living in the WayBack Machine this year.  Lots of memoriesof 1968 and even 1963.  Now as January 20, 2009 approaches, yet anotherlooms.  January 20, certainly, but in 1961.

See that crowd?  Somewhere, way in the back, probably at least a block beyond, stand an almost-fifteen-year-old girl and her mother.  Fresh off an overnight train from Pittsburgh, having arrived at Union Station in time to watch the Army flame-throwers melt a blizzard's worth of snowon the streets of the inaugural route, they make their way to their parade seats: in the bleachers, way down near the Treasure Building.  

I spent most of 1960 besotted with John Kennedy.  And Jackie.  And Caroline.  And all the other Kennedys who came with them.  Most of my lunch money went to bus fare as, after school, I shuttled  back and forth "to town" to volunteer in the local JFK headquarters.  I even had a scrapbook of clippings about Kennedy and his family.  

So.  My parents surprised me with these two parade tickets.  My mom and I took the overnight train and arrived around dawn Inauguration morning.  We couldn't get into the swearing-in itself, of course, so we went to a bar that served breakfast (at least that's how I remember it) and watched the speech on their TV, then made our way along the snowy sidewalks to our seats, arriving in time to watch the new president and his wife roll by, to see his Honor Guard, the last time it would be comprised solely of white men (since Kennedy ordered their integrationsoon after,) in time to see the floats and the Cabinet members and the bands and the batons.

It was very cold.  We had no thermos, no blankets, nothing extra, and my mom, God bless her, never insisted that we go in for a break, never complained or made me feel anything but thrilled.  Which I was.   As the parade drew to a close, and the light faded, we stumbled down the bleachers, half-frozen, and walked the few blocks to the White House fence. I stood there, as close to the fence as I am now to my keyboard, and watched our new president enter the White House for the first time as Commander in Chief.

That was half a century ago.  I can't say it feels like yesterday, but it remains a formidable and cherished memory.  It was also a defining lesson on how to be a parent; it took enormous love and respect to decide to do this for me.  I was such a kid - they could have treated my devotion like a rock star crush; so young, they could have decided I would "appreciate it more" next time.  (Of course there was no next time.)   Instead, they gave me what really was the lifetime gift of being a part of history.  And showed me that my political commitment had value - enough value to merit such an adventure.

Who's to say if I would have ended up an activist (I did)- and then a journalist (I did) - without those memories.  If I would have continued to act within the system rather than try to destroy it. (I did)  If I would have been the mom who took kids to Europe, brought them along on news assignments to Inaugurations and royal weddings and green room visits with the Mets (Yup, I did.)  I had learned to honor the interests and dreams of my children the way my parents had honored my own.  So it's hard for me to tell parents now to stay home. 

My good friend, the wise and gifted PunditMom, advises "those with little children" to skip it, and since strollers and backpacks are banned for security reasons, I'm sure she's right.*  But if you've got a dreamer in your house, a young adult who has become a true citizen because of this election, I'd try to come.  After all, he's their guy.  What he does will touch their lives far more than it will ours.  Being part of this beginning may determine their willingness to accept the tough sacrifices he asks of them - at least that - and probably, also help to build their roles as citizens - as Americans - for the rest of their lives.  Oh -- and will tell them that, despite curfews and learner's permits, parental limit-setting and screaming battles, their parents see them as thinking, wise and effective people who will, as our new President promised them, help to change the world. 

*I know, I thought of Christina-Taylor Greene as I re-read this too.

This post also appears in the forthcoming PunditMom's Mothers of Intention: How Women & Social Media Are Revolutionizing Politics in America

  

 

Sarah Palin, The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Tea Party

 

This is a sincere and committed couple. I am not mocking them. It does demonstrate the depth of anger in our country in a dramatic way though. What do you think?

(Thanks to @Lizardoid who retweeted this from a tweet by @JamesUrbaniak and @boloboffin)

Carrying our Burden: The Military and the Rest of Us

NOTE; From my archives (one of my first posts) August 8, 2006

The National Military Families Association is an old client of mine and today I'm meeting their former CEO for lunch. She and I had hoped to use her site and some of the "women's" content sites to begin to bridge the chasm between military and non-military families. Who if not the women would be capable of that? I had just read Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point, a wonderful book about West Point and leadership so was particularly interested in removing the stereotypes and isolation suffered by the military in my formative, actively anti-war youth. We were unable to interest most of the women's sites into doing anything without payment though; it was quite sad.

When I think of 9/11 and of the Iraq War - and remember how my parents used to talk about the "GIs" and their position in the world during World War II, it's particularly unfortunate that we now have a "military class" that is separate from the rest of us in so many ways - and whose parents and children were also likely to be military -- so much so that we're worlds apart. Today Oliver Stone told the Washington Post that he thought combat experience "softens you, if anything. It makes you more aware of human frailty and vulnerability. It doesn't make you a coward, but it does teach you. " Yet, as he noted in this interview, none of our current political leaders has any combat experience at all. I know we need to end this division, but I have two sons and what seems sensible in the abstract is horrifying in the concrete. I have many friends whose kids have gone to live in Israel, for example, and they seem to accept the fact of their sons' military obligation with equinimity but I don't know if I could. And I"m not sure if it's the scars of Vietnam and even more recent futile endeavors or rank selfishness on my part.... More later.

Remembering Harry Chapin, Hunger Crusader, on Thanksgiving

I was looking for a Harry Chapin video to add to a hunger post at Care2 and came across this.  Perfect for Thanksgiving and  happy one to all.

Peacemakers Where There Is NO Peace

There's a lot of pain in Israel and a lot of rage, but NY Times reporter Nicholas Kristof found something else. 

Greece's Pain: It's not Greek to Us - It IS Us!

  See this?  Looks like home, doesn't it?  And sometimes it feels like we are the only country struggling with these issues of immigration.  But guess what.  This poster isn't from Arizona, or Florida, it's part of a sign on a wall on Ermou Street in downtown Athens.

It's not the only one, either.  The country is under terrible economic pressure and it's fraying things. 

According to our very sweet taxi driver,  despite the rumors of wild spending on services, Greece does not provide for the homeless or the poor - at least not enough.  And the people coming into Greece want jobs and "a better life" but "they aren't taking any food from me!"   He's with the marcher s- but there are plenty on the other side too.  We know it's true in France and Germany -- and that Mohamed is one of the most frequent names for new babies in many European countries.  But as you can see the sympathy hasn't completely eroded.  

In addition to these posters, there are many stencils, borrowed from Paris, look like the one below, also from a wall in our neighborhood here.

 

 

For more evidence of how bad things are  -- look at this sure coal mine canary: Squeegee men vintage NYC in the 1980's - all over town.

 

I'll keep you posted as we move through the islands - assuming things will be different there.  Would write more but it costs the earth to use the web on this "yacht."
 

RIOTING IN AFRICA? STRIFE IN IRAN? You Have to Read This

You’re not going to believe it but this was written by Sheldon Harnick in 1958 and recorded by the Kingston Trio.  Does anything sound familiar?   I couldn't find a decent video but it was too good to waste.

 They're rioting in Africa (whistling)

They're starving in Spain (whistling) 

There's hurricanes in Flo-ri-da (whistling)

And Texas needs rain

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls

The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles

Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch

AND I DON'T LIKE ANYBODY VERY MUCH!!

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud

For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud

And we know for certain that some lovely day

Someone will set the spark off

AND WE WILL ALL BE BLOWN AWAY!!?

They're rioting in Africa (whistling)

There's strife in Iran

What nature doesn't so to us --

Will be done by our fellow "man"

Do We Love this or What?

This Is Up on Lisa Ling's Facebook Page: Save Women, Save the World

She calls it a "potential game changer" in Afghanistan.  Over and over we've learned that when women are empowered educationally, economically or politically the standard of living rises.  This is a great example. 

Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck and Roman Holiday: a Political Lesson? No, Really.

It was a fairy tale about a princess on a journey. Doing her duty, kind of like Diana (but, since she was played by Audrey Hepburn, even classier,) she came to Rome, after Athens, London and Paris, to conclude her mission. 

But she was young and beautiful and sick of receptions and parades. And so, in the middle of the night, she snuck out the embassy window and ventured across the Piazza di Spagna and into the Roman night. 

If you know this movie at all, you remember with sweet nostalgia the way you felt the first time you saw it.  The princess asleep near the Trevi Fountain on the Roman equivalent of a park bench is awakened, like Sleeping Beauty, by reporter Joe Bradley, played by Gregory Peck. ( If the film has a flaw, it's that we know some of what will happen once we see him there.  He's a good guy and that's who he plays.  He is Atticus Finch, after all.)   

The film was released in 1953, right in the middle of the 1950's.  Written by Dalton Trumbo, "Roman Holiday" was credited to a "front" named Ian McLellan Hunter, because Trumbo, blacklisted as a member of the Hollywood Ten, wasn't permitted to write for movies any longer.  It's one of the darkest chapters in Hollywood history, very much a part of the image of the decade and a sad facet of a beloved film that won three Oscars and introduced the world to Audrey Hepburn.

There's something else though.  The people in this film behave well.  There are things that they want, desperately, but there are principals at stake, and they honor them.  When Peck meets Hepburn, he doesn't recognize her but lets her crash at his apartment.  Once he figures out who she is, he knows this "runaway"  could be the story of his life.  Even so, after a brief, idyllic tour of the city, (SPOILER ALERT) she honors her responsibilities and returns to her royal duties, and of course, he never writes the story.  It was very much an artifact of the "Greatest Generation" ideals, manifested with such courage during WWII and very much the flip side of the jaundiced (and just as accurate) Mad Men view of the 50's.  Duty and honor trump romance and ambition. 

Once again, I'm struck with admiration for the people of these times.  Yes the 50's did terrible damage and made it difficult to be eccentric or rebellious or even creative.  But films like this one, or Now Voyager and similar films of the 40's, sentimental as they may be, remind us of what else these people were.  They'd lived through the Depression and the war and they had an elevated sense of responsibility.  As we watch much of our government (and some of the rest of us) disintegrate into partisanship and self-interest, it makes a lot more sense than it did when we rose up against it all in the 1960's.  Doesn't it?