All It Takes Is A Little Love

I rarely pass a Barnes and Noble Bookstore without going inside. Somehow I feel good just being there. I suspect it is because I associate bookstores with my father who let me tag along with him whenever he set out on a Saturday to purchase a new volume. Like him I have rather eclectic taste and never know what I might bring home to tuck away in the many nooks and crannies where I store by collection. 

I recently did some culling and filled a number of boxes with books that I read once and felt no compulsion to horde forever. I set aside the ones that appealed to my daughter and took the rest to sell at  Half Price Books. I earned a bit over five dollars which was a glorious coincidence because while I was waiting to learn what my pay out would be I found a book on Roman mythology that was so lovely and only cost five dollars. Of course I took it home.

I tell people that when I traveled with my father my souvenirs were always books. We once went to a store in Hollywood just down the street from the Walk of Fame that was several stories high and crammed with volumes of every kind. It appeared to be a place that had been there for decades and every cranny smelled like paper and leather. I remember that I had a difficult time deciding what to choose but my father was not in a hurry to leave so I was able to consider all of the dozens of options. I ended up with a beautifully illustrated version of Cinderella and my five year old brother chose a book about tying knots. 

There is a quaint bookseller in New Orleans near the Sr. Louis cathedral. It is off the beaten path in Pirates Alley and has been named for the author William Faulkner who once lived and wrote nearby. It is one of the places that I must visit each time I travel to New Orleans. I somehow feel my father looking over my shoulder when I am there and smiling to know that I too have become enchanted by books. I most recently found a copy of William Faulkner’s first novel that he wrote while living in New Orleans. Soldiers Pay doesn’t not quite reach the level of brilliance that his later works achieved but it demonstrates his incredible ability to weave a tale with descriptions and characters that are spell binding.

I also found a small volume of strange words that have cropped up in the English vernacular over time. It is the kind of fun book that my father would have enjoyed. I can almost envision him laughing at the illustrations and descriptions and taking great delight in finding such a jewel. The best part is that I left that store having spent only a bit more than twenty dollars but feeling as though I had purchased forever treasures.

My greatest joy came from a spectacular find at the New Orleans History Museum on Royal Street. There an entire floor is devoted to the Audubon study of North American birds. Every page of the coffee table book that I had to bring home is filled with gorgeous drawings of birds that John Audubon studied and recreated in life-sized watercolors. He spent years observing birds. Sadly he had to kill the birds to be able to accurately draw them which is a bit disconcerting but ultimately his The Birds of America is a treasure trove of beauty and information. 

I seem to find books that I must have wherever I travel. I laugh at the realization of how much my father impressed me with the joy of reading. I remember learning how to teach reading to very young people and the professor commented that when children witness their parents reading regularly they in turn want to learn that skill. I suppose that my father instilled that desire in me just as his father must have instilled it in him. I know for a fact that my grandfather was an avid reader who was still devouring books at the age of one hundred eight. Reading is firmly entrenched in my psyche and my family tree.

Most of the doodads and trinkets sold in souvenir shops end up being tossed aside over time but books are lovely reminders of our travels and the ways that we felt in different places around the world. I am often paying extra on my returns home because my luggage has become overly heavy with the volumes tucked inside. I gladly pay that price to have the ability to recreate my favorite moments by reading books related to them over and over again.

We can now read almost everything that has ever been written online which is wonderful but does not have the visceral appeal of holding a treasured volume in our hands. There is something quite magical about spending an afternoon sipping on a cup of tea while traveling to other worlds through the wonder of a good book. I suppose that I will continue adding to my collection wherever I go. 

I was born in the early days of what would be called the Baby Boom. I went through my childhood in the fifties and stumbled through my adolescence in the sixties. I witnessed the innovations that would change the way we all lived. I vividly recall listening to comedy shows on the radio and then engaging in the wonders of television with my father. Back then our screen was tiny and the characters who made us laugh were resplendent in shades of black and white. I remember my father laughing so hard that his belly jiggled and I almost immediately inherited his love of a humor and a good joke.

I grew up in a home with a gigantic fan housed in the attic to pull a breeze into our house through open windows. How we survived the humidity and heat of summers in Texas seems almost impossible now but somehow we soldiered through even in our school classrooms. My mother did not install an air conditioner in our home until I was eighteen years old. Even then she only used it for a few hours each day. 

When I was in middle school I watched the first rockets going into space and then into orbits around the earth. I flew on a plane for the first time on my honeymoon. I remember when CNN first arrived with news all day long and we thought that it was a silly idea that would never last. 

One thing after another advanced our society at such a rapid rate that I began to simply take it for granted that inventions would enhance my world to a point where I was literally living in luxury that would have confounded a king of old. I sometimes spoke of our incredible progress with my grandfather whose life spanned two centuries and innumerable innovations. He viewed the world with great optimism because he had seen the world light up with electricity and communication systems that made us more and more aware of each other.

I have travelled to other nations and enjoyed their history and cultures but I always see the aspects of living that we share with each other. People from around the world are no longer foreign to me because in the end it seems that we all yearn for much the same kind of peace and progress in our lives.

One of my high school teachers would tell us that he wanted to make us citizens of the world. I suppose that at least with me he was a success. I have filled my home with books that showed me how much alike the human spirit is no matter where people live. There is so much available information now that I do not feel sheltered from viewing the earth and its people in very personal ways. My friends represent a global patchwork of beautiful souls who continue to teach me about humanity.

Now that I am older I feel grateful for the many advances in medicine that no doubt have enriched my life. I walk without a limp because of a titanium replacement for my knee. I take medication for the “gut trouble” that my grandmother prophesied would one day be my familial fate. I can see clearly because the cataracts that were clouding my vision are gone. I have been saved from terrible diseases because of the vaccines that I have received since I was a child.

The grocery stores that I visit are a cornucopia of variety. I can get tomatoes in the cold of winter and oranges in the months of summer. I enjoy tea from around the world and my pantry if filled with delights that I did not know existed when I was a child. When if think of how fortunate I am I sometimes feel a sense of guilt in knowing that not everyone enjoys the safety and security that is mine. 

My work as a teacher has shown me that there are children who only eat when they are at school because there is no food at home. They only read the books and magazines that I provided them because their families could not afford to splurge on such things. I have listened to children asking Santa to bring them a bed to sleep in. I have heard about a family living in a car behind a funeral home where they freshened up and sometimes entered to stay out of the cold. I have known children who became the parents of their younger siblings while their own mother and father were working double shifts just to pay the rent and keep the lights on in the house. I know that in spite of our incredible human advances there are still far too many people in the world barely eekeing out a living day by day.

I suppose that I engage in my political rants because I see such things and understand that those who have much must never forget those who have so little. My mother taught me that even with a meager income one can share a bit with others. I am willing to share even more. As long as there are people on this earth suffering from want we should all be focusing on helping them rather than fighting with each other and groping for more and more and more. 

When you get to my age the possessions begin to mean less and less. People are far more important than a fancy home or an accumulation of wealth so vast that it can never be spent in a lifetime. Those of us who are Boomers have been lucky for most of our lives but the younger generation is struggling in ways that many of us have never experienced. It is time that we give them the boost that we had in those years when the sky was not even a limit. We should be making it easier for them to be educated if they wish. We should have programs that provide them with ways to get homes. Our focus should not be on getting rid of jobs but instead is should be on creating them. What we do for them will pay big dividends in the end. They should be able to one day look back on their lives realizing how wonderful they have been just as we are able to do. Every decision that we make should be laser focused on creating an ever better world for all people.

Back when I was a young girl growing up in Houston, Texas my mother set aside Saturdays as shopping time. First, however, we had to do the weekly chores. My brothers worked on the lawn and Mama and I cleaned the house from one room to the next. Our incentive to work quickly and efficiently was based on the reality that we would not be able to leave to do our weekend shopping until our mother had deemed our efforts to be up to the standards of perfection that she required. Most of the time we would go to the local mall but the trips that we enjoyed the most involved going to downtown Houston to shop at Foley’s, a local department store that literally had everything imaginable under one roof. 

Sometimes my mother and I would have our hair cut and styled in the salon there. We always went to a man named Mr. Peters who was an artist with scissors. I was never particularly impressed with what he did with my hair but he always made my mother look like a movie star. My brothers would sit at the entrance to the salon looking bored out of their minds. Sometimes they became a bit too rascally forcing my mother to give them the evil eye. 

Next we went from floor to floor looking at the newest merchandise and deciding if there was anything that we needed at that moment. If we found something my mother would often take out her metal charge card that had her name and number embossed on the top. Most of the time she insisted on only purchasing things that she was able to afford in the moment. Somehow because of that we always ended up in the Foley’s basement where all of the bargains were housed.

If we had behaved nicely she would give each of us a dollar to use in case we found something that enchanted us. I recall buying things like a coin purse or maybe a cute pair of socks. One time I found a pair of gloves for the winter. The best investment came at the candy counter where sweet delights sat in class cases making our mouths water at the prospect of enjoying their sweetness. Other times I saved my dollar for the next visit when I might purchase something far nicer. 

Of course Foley’s was a fantasy land at Christmas time. The windows in front of the store were festooned with toys that often ended up on our wish lists. Santa came back there year after year and we sat on his lap in awe of the fact that we were able to get close to the jolly old soul. We had to spit out our requests quickly because the lines were long and he wanted to spend time with every child.

When my father was still alive he often took me to the department store. We would head for the record section and listen to the 45 rpm music that he was considering to bring home. He would ask me what I liked best and often purchase the recording that had pleased me in the moment. 

Of course our next stop would be the book section where he invariably found a new volume to bring home. One time he splurged and bought a set of two gorgeous books filled with fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. He would read one of the stories to me each evening after he got home from work. I still have those books and they are treasures. After a time I liked those tales so much that I developed the incentive to read the stories myself.

The last time I accompanied my father to a department store he confided that he had put a special gift for my mother in the layaway, a system for buying and then paying without interest until the cost of the item was secured. He showed me the lamps that he had chosen for her birthday. He imagined them sitting on her dressing table providing light while she put on her makeup and combed her hair. When he died the lamps were still in the store with one more payment to make. I tearfully told my mother about the gift that he had wanted to give her and we made a special trip to secure the lovely items. I still have one of them in my guest room. The other one was accidentally knocked over years later and broke into a thousand pieces. I cried when I heard what had happened. 

After my father died I don’t recall visiting the book section with my mother but sometimes I took that dollar that she gave me and used it to buy a 45 rpm record. I gave most of the ones I had to my daughter a few years ago and she still plays them now and again. 

The nice thing about Foley’s back in the day is that they had a restaurant inside the store. On most of our trips we stopped there for an afternoon pick me up. I always felt elegant there because most of the time eating out meant grabbing a burger from Chuck Wagon or stopping for waffles at One’s A Meal. 

After shopping we lugged our bags down Main Street to one of the movie theaters to watch whatever film was showing. The theaters were as lovely as the department store with gilded ceilings and velvet curtains hiding the screen until it was time for the show. Mama would give us a quarter for refreshments which was more than generous back then. I usually opted for some candy and popcorn and often had change to put in my piggy bank back home.

After the movie we travelled back home either in our own car or inside a city bus. It always felt as though we had experienced something magical with those downtown visits. Eventually Foley’s became Macy’s and one day the downtown store was closed permanently. That was a very sad day for me. 

Those old department stores were glorious and the only time I have ever felt the same magic of my youthful Saturday adventures was in London when we visited Harrod’s and then went down to Selfridge’s which reminded me so much of the department stores of old. Many of them are gone but a few continue to attempt to prosper. One of my dreams is to visit Macy’s in downtown New York City at Christmas time one year. Now that my granddaughter is living there maybe I will finally make it happen.

Courage is often difficult to muster. I have witnessed courageous people throughout my lifetime and wondered what I might do in a moment that demanded me to find the integrity to step forward. I think of the people who provided me with examples of how to be in difficult moments. There was the woman who rescued the screaming children begging for help after their father had killed their mother. While the rest of the adults waited for the police to arrive she demanded the father to surrender the little ones even as he threatened to hurt her like he had done to his wife.

There was the woman in my apartment project who seemed to be a kind of rebel in the way she spoke and dressed. She too endured the wrath of a brutal man who was beating a woman whose screams echoed across the area where we all sat frozen in silence. I can still see her bounding up the stairs and banging on the door using the kind of language that I was unaccustomed to hearing. She won and managed to stop the savagery even before the police arrived. 

There was a student who demonstrated her integrity by stepping forward to urge her fellow classmates to be honest about a cheating scheme. Even as they gave her a cold reception she spoke the truth because it was the right thing to do. 

Ironically everyone of these women were small in size. The men and people they were willing to overcome might have easily broken them in half but honor was more important to them that safety in those moments. They are forever etched in my mind as people of incredible character. My admiration for them has never faded.

So it is with Jack Smith, the man who investigated Donald Trump’s attempts to overthrow the 2020 election results as well as looking into Trump’s illegal determination to keep security documents that should never have left the White House. In each case he took his time to learn the facts and to decide what if any laws had been broken. His ultimate belief backed by an incredible amount of evidence was that Donald Trump had indeed broken the law. As such Trump should have been prosecuted and never again allowed to run for office but sadly Trump was protected from responsibility because he audaciously ran for president once again and won. 

Jack Smith revealed that he had been threatened by Trump and his followers. This is believable because the same thing has happened to others who dared to stand up to Trump or disagree with him. People speaking the truth have lost their jobs and in many cases feared that they would be imprisoned. We saw the same kind of thing with Dr. Anthony Fauci. We saw Liz Cheney being shunned for her participation with the January 6 investigative committee. 

This time around the committee attempted to demean Jack Smith with phony evidence and often with no evidence at all. They let us see how grotesque much of the Republican party has become in bowing to Donald Trump even when it is evident that he has committed many crimes. It is stunning to watch the once Grand Old Party throw all sense of integrity to the wind simply to retain their power and influence with a man who is rapidly destroying decades of progress in our nation. At times they even support the flaunting of the Constitution itself.

There are former Republicans who have found the backbone to point out the rot of the Trump administration but they are far too few. Somehow Trump is surrounded by a cult-like support that overlooks his many flaws as though they are afraid. I keep waiting for that one person in the Republican party who will march forward and finally demand truth and decency. 

We are on the cusp of a midterm election. Nobody knows at this point how it will evolve. We do not know if Trump will be unwilling to accept the results just as he was in 2020. There are threats of ICE officers being sent to the polls. We hear of the possibility that Trump will declare martial law. Trump is offering to pay Americans if Republicans win. All of it is so dirty and so vile and yet all we can do is hope that other citizens will emerge as patriots willing to stand up to such authoritarian ideas. We need to send a message that we the American people will not accept such lawlessness. If Trump keeps his cover and finds ways to win again I fear for what will happen to the future of our nation. 

Things are already falling apart. We have lost our status with the rest of the world. Our economy is shaky and the fact that we are even worried about dirty tricks is an anomaly that never should have happened. God bless the patriots who bravely call out the vile actions of our president and his enablers. They are the best hope that we have for keeping our republic. 

Since the death of my mother in 2011 my brothers have called me the matriarch of the family. It is a title that I don’t wear easily because both my mother and my mother-in-law were such incredible women that I can’t fathom myself being in their orbit. Still I know that as the oldest woman in the family I bear that title like a reluctant queen inheriting a destiny that does not exactly feel right.

Now that my father-in-law has died some will say that my husband, Mike, is the new patriarch. In many ways I think that he actually earned that title long ago. He has been caring very respectfully for my father-in-law for many years now. When my father-in-law remarried when he was in his seventies he embarked on a years long honeymoon with his bride. During that time my husband quietly kept things running for the family at large. It is as though he has practiced being responsible for many years. When his father came to live with us my husband was the caretaker in chief who continually helped his father with virtually every aspect of life. I suppose that Mike is more ready to officially accept the title of patriarch even as it does not seem to fit his idea of his role as a person.

The big difference in how Mike will carry out his duties is that he does not see his responsibilities as authoritarian. His goal has always been to work in tandem with his daughters and grandchildren to honor them as the adults that they are. He respects their wishes and wants to support their dreams. He views them as the hope for the future and sees himself as an assistant for them rather than someone who wants to influence their thinking.

The modern world requires every person to be capable of thinking deeply and critically and Mike is a proponent of that model of living. He likes to engage his family in discussions in which nobody wins or loses. Every idea is acceptable and honored. He is simply waiting in the wings in the event that someone requires his help or asks for his advice. He views himself as a loving supporter of each individual’s dreams.

One thing that both Mike and I have realized is that each person in our family is incredibly unique. Every individual is also genuinely loving of every other member. We may voice our differences and openly and politely discuss them but at the end of the day we do not expect to foist them on each other. We understand that our personal belief systems are the result of every interaction that we have with what we see and read and hear and believe. In the end it is up to those of us who are older is to have enough wisdom to accept that the world is changing and that most of those changes are actually quite good. Going back to the old ways of doing things and then attempting to force them on the rest of the family is unhealthy.

Back in the day we were indeed taught to be seen and not heard around the adults who raised us. We were taken to church and sent to schools that provided us with moral training. As we grew in wisdom and age and grace we realized that in almost every situation young people have a voice and it is important that we provide them with an opportunity to speak their minds without humiliating them or chiding them.

During the last years of his life my father-in-law came to live with me and his son. Each afternoon we sat down at the kitchen table and embarked on discussions over a glass of wine. It was a habit that he had followed for years and we honored him by providing that moment for him. During our conversations he provided his own wisdom but eventually began asking us what we thought about things. I watched him change form someone who believed that he should be in charge to someone who trusted us to do things our own way. I felt his blessing and approval of who we were as people.

At times he began to ask us for advice and to speak of the old ways to relate that he saw much of his youth and even adulthood as being limiting to the young. He was delighted to develop new ways of looking at the world. He became more and more open-minded and in the process our relationship as honored equals elevated our mutual admiration of each other. 

So now that Mike and I have been dubbed as patriarch and matriarch we must do as we believe and open our hearts and minds just as my father-in-law was ultimately so generous to do. Our children and grandchildren are beautiful and brilliant and have so much to teach us. Our journey together is going to be so much fun.