Month: January 2024

I have worked hard to reach the level of comfort that I enjoy, but there are times when I feel not just fortunate, but even a bit spoiled. Many of the advantages that I enjoy have come to me from simply being born in the right place to the right parents and the right time. My mother and father were loving, kind and wise. I never experienced even a moment of abuse from either of them. I felt safe in their care. When my father died a multitude of relatives rallied to the aid of my family. We were never alone. While we existed on a very small income, my mother was savvy enough to stretch our budget with her ingenious ways of running a household. There was never a day when I did not feel thoroughly safe and secure in her care. She made it seem right to conserve and sacrifice when much of the world subsisted on far less than we had. Mama believed that if the roof did not leak and there was a pot of soup on the stove all was right with our little world.

There was a time when I might have been destined to a traditional life of servitude to a man, but I was born just when women were asserting themselves. They were breaking barriers that had existed for centuries. Colleges opened their doors to me and nobody thought it was strange for me to think for myself and create goals that might have seemed unattainable in another era. With my mother as a role model for independence and my father’s insistence that I see reading as a gift I charted a course of learning that has brought me joy beyond description. I also found my true purpose in passing knowledge forward and encouraging thousands of students to reach for the stars. I was perfectly poised for success.

Living in the United States of America gave me freedoms that so many people around the world never enjoy. I have been able to voice my opinions and choose the people that I want to represent me. I am able to travel from place to place and to enjoy the economic opportunities that allow me to live a very peaceful and comfortable life. 

Because my skin is white I have been able to live quietly and without prejudice. Most of the time nobody even notices me which is a wonderful thing. I have never been stopped from entering a store or place of business because of the color of my skin. I have never been told to move to the back of a bus or to collect a library book from a window in the back of a building. In other words, simply because of place, time and parents I have have a most fortunate life with few to no barriers confining my spirit or my dreams. 

Kings and queens were once believed to have divine rights that gave them powers simply from being born in the correct birth order. In some ways that is how my life also feels. Much of what I have achieved might have been nullified if anything about the circumstances of my birth had changed. I might have been abused by my parents. I might have been born in a country that did not value me as a person or as a woman. I might have suffered under the iron rule of oppression or dire poverty and want. I am fully aware of my good fortune and as such I believe that it is up to me to pay the goodness of my life forward. 

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle all believed that a good life needed to be shared with friends and community. Happiness was to be found in thriving and helping others to thrive as well. I believe such things are true but I all too often allow my human frailties to forget about what a wondrous life I have and instead brood over what is missing. I suppose that each of us falls prey to a bit of self pity now and again. It seems to be in our natures to sometimes want more when we already have so much. 

I look across the world and I see people who are no different from me suffering intensely simply because they did not win the lottery of place, time, and parents. I know that even in my remarkable country simply being born is not enough to insure the privileges that I have enjoyed. Prejudices abound and anyone perceived to be different will likely encounter insults and hurts that I have so far avoided. The world can be as kind as it has been to me, but it can also be incredibly cruel. 

I do not believe that God decides who gets to have a happy life like mine and who has to endure a lifetime of hardship. If there were such a God that would be counter to the compassion promised to us. I simply believe that things just happen as they did with me. Sadly some are not nearly as fortunate and life can be quite difficult for them. 

When I see refugees fleeing their homelands I view them as being just like me only circumstances have made their lives more difficult than mine has ever been. I have great compassion and concern for their plight and hope that those of us who have been luckier will welcome them in their quest to improve their lives. 

I am indeed the fortunate one. I got lucky with the roll of the dice. I am deeply grateful.  

I remember my grandfather opining about the many losses in his life as he inched deeper and deeper into old age. He remarked that most people saw his advanced age of one hundred eight years old as something to celebrate, but he was not so sure that it was all that it was cracked up to be. By that time he had lost his spouse, all of his children, many of his children and great grandchildren, all all of the friends he had once enjoyed. While he greatly appreciated the attention that he received from the many young people who took the time to visit him, he longed for rest from a life punctuated with so much loss from the moment of his birth when his mother died. 

Grandpa was an optimistic soul and a survivor who never complained about anything, but he simply became very tired. He had valiantly found his way from the nineteenth century to the last quarter of the twentieth. He had seen the evolution of the world from a time when small pox was feared to the days when it had essentially been eradicated from the earth. He had lived in a time when darkness was lit by oil lamps into the days of electricity and modernization of virtually every aspect of life. He worked in Oklahoma before it was a state and when oil was first discovered there. He marveled at the movies, telephones, and planes that were invented when he was a young man. He was in awe of the progress that was coming more and more quickly the longer he lived. He knew that he was indeed a fortunate man, but he grew weary in the last few years of his life, mostly because he thought more and more about the loss of the people whom he had so loved. 

My Aunt Valeria was also a centenarian and much like my grandfather she often spoke of being ready to meet her heavenly reward but wondered why it was taking so long for the completion of her days on earth to be resolved. She would joke that perhaps she was still a bit too mean to travel to heaven. Of course that was her impish way of making fun of her long and wonderful life. She was the last of what had once been a very large family. Nine of her siblings had already died, some as infants. She had been a good and faithful woman but like my grandfather she was tired. Her osteoporosis had stolen her ability to walk and confined her to waiting for a caretaker to move her from her bed. Her life became more and more limited as the years continued to pass. Those who had once religiously visited her were no longer on this earth. Others became disabled themselves and so there was a kind of dreaded loneliness that defined her world. Still, she always found a way to smile whenever I visited her. 

There are people who somehow outlast their peers by decades. We don’t always know who they will be. My grandfather’s grandmother lived until the age of eighty eight in the nineteenth century without any kind of medical care, so genetics may explain his longevity. Most of my aunt’s family members died before their nineties with the exception of her twin sisters who made it to almost ninety five. She was the second oldest child so nobody expected her to be the last to die. Perhaps the care she received in the nursing home where she live for over twenty years may have made a difference. I suppose we will never really know why some people leave the earth quite early and others remain for an unimaginably long time. 

Neither my grandfather nor my aunt had particularly good habits. Grandpa smoked cigars and a pipe until the final months of life. He ate fatty foods and sugary treats without concern. My aunt’s diet only became controlled when she lived at the nursing home. Before that she never exercised or did any of the healthy living that we are told will provide us with longevity. Her biggest health problem was severe osteoporosis. 

I have been thinking about such things because I know that many of my schoolmates have already died. Others have been sidelined by heart disease and cancer. Somehow I just keep rocking along feeling as though I am still a teenager aside from my own osteoporosis which I am keeping at bay with biannual injections of Prolia. Other than some arthritis in some of my joints I have a strong heart and no real medical problems so I sometimes think that I might follow in the footsteps of my grandfather and my aunt. Having listened to them I wonder if that will be a blessing or a difficult time when I have to watch my circle of family and friends dwindling.

All the talk of whether or not Joe Biden or Donald Trump should be seeking the presidency at their advanced ages has made me think about growing old. I am not quite as old as either of them but I know that I sometimes forget words and have to pause for a few moments to retrieve them from my memory. I can’t move as quickly as I once did, but I get more done in a single day than most women half my age. I know that those who do not know me view me as an old lady, but I have not yet felt that way. I suppose that we can’t really define the moment when someone might become too old to do something. 

My grandfather was working fourteen hours a day on his farm when he was well into his eighties. When my grandmother became ill with cancer he secured a job at NASA where he did manual labor until a supervisor insisted that he go home at the age of eighty eight. His mind was clear but his gait was measured as each subsequent year passed. He might have easily handled the duties of President of the United States even beyond the age of one hundred. Thus I think we worry a bit too much about what older people might be able to do. If they have the stamina to keep going why would we want to prematurely shut them down? 

None of us ever know when death may come. Our lives can end in the blink of an eye regardless of age. On the other hand those men vying for the highest office in the land may keep going for another twenty years or more. We just never know. What I do know is that age should not matter and it is silly to worry about when death will come. What really makes us old is the feeling that we no longer make a difference in the world. We would do well to provide meaning to even the oldest among us and not focus on our fears about them. We simply cannot know how long anyone will be remain with us.  

Some philosophers suggest that our view of the world is limited and often even influenced by the rose colored glasses that we tend to wear. They argue that we can never really know what true reality is because of the limits of our perceptions. I suppose that there is some merit to their beliefs, but I also think that we are indeed capable of moving beyond the limits of our experiences as long as we are willing to consciously seek to find answers to our universal questions about our place in the universe. 

I’ve read that we use only a small amount of our brain power and yet I often marvel at the genius of humans and wonder what we might accomplish if we spent enough time exercising our minds as much as we are often willing to train our bodies. Perhaps universities might be thought of as gyms for our minds but such institutions are not our only source of knowledge. Just as we might purchase equipment for building our muscles and strengthening our bones, we should be creating libraries to widen our points of view. We would do well to embrace a willingness to acquaint ourselves with a multitude of ideas from which we might begin to parse truths or understand how things work. We should never simply rely on a single source of information when attempting to learn. The wise student is openminded and willing to consider both the pros and cons of a theory.

Some truths are quantifiable. Others are more nebulous. We can calculate the strength of a bridge and predict how strong it will be, but we can never fully account for the way humans will approach that connecting road. A sturdy structure may prevent us from falling into a raging river, but it can’t stop a saddened individual from hurling themselves into the deep. The world of unintended consequences is enormous. The glory of our minds is creative. The worst aspect of our minds is hurtful and deadly. The tension between our good and bad natures is the stuff of legends and true crime stories. 

Most of us follow the rules for living together in peace, but now and again we see the human tendency to cooperate being used for grave evil. Despots enlist loyal followers to carry out acts that seem so unimaginable that we ask ourselves how anyone might have been swayed to do such things. History is filled with stories of evil committed in the name of wayward politics. We would do well to educate ourselves enough that we will never be lulled into the complacency of simply following orders when they do not seem right. 

I often wonder how and who first thought of turning us against each other. Why did someone or some group decide that the color of our skin mattered?  How did anyone ever fall for the idea that we should rank people’s values based on a feelings rather than truths? The prejudices that we see over and over again are there because we limit ourselves by relying on others to interpret situations for us. We ban ideas and lifestyles without really knowing much about them. We judge people from behind our rose colored glasses that distort our view.

I find that the more I am willing to investigate controversial topics the better I feel about people and situations that might have once frightened me. I don’t want my mind to be a narrow tube through which all of my thoughts must go. I need room to expand my knowledge of the world. Western thinking is often brilliant but it is not the only source if ideas, just as my Christianity is not the only way to view spirituality. 

My mother took me to church and sent me to lessons in the Catholic faith that she so loved, but she also taught me that there were other ways of believing that I should respect and study. My mother-in-law introduced me to eastern theologies that saw our journeys as humans in much different but equally beautiful and rewarding ways. She warned me over and over again to beware of anyone claiming to have the only true way of thinking. She worried about those who would force their beliefs on others. 

There are those who poke fun at certain programs of study in our universities. They insist that we should measure the worth of an education on the value of the jobs that follow after graduation. They quantify the importance of learning in dollars and cents, then insist that we shut down departments that appear to have little monetary value in the grand scheme of things. They ask why we need to read literature or study the history and sociology of Africa. They denounce psychology as a bit of trivia and laugh at the idea that there is any reason to study philosophy or latin. We forget that universities originally existed to expand the knowledge of wealthy individuals who learned the classics. It has only been in the more modern era that colleges began to teach specific skills in engineering and such. Before that time students interested in such jobs might have focused on mathematics and physics. Those wanting to attain leadership roles in business might have taken classes in rhetoric and writing. Now college majors are more and more focused even as we all know that what is presented in a computer science class today will already be outdated when we graduate tomorrow. 

The focus of education should not be only about learning skills. Instead it should be about knowing how to find and present information. It should be mostly about learning how to continually learn. Banning or dropping anything would be counterintuitive to a knowledgeable society. We should insist on the variety and openness of schools, not a pared down version of what we judge to be practical and acceptable. Limiting what is available for students to learn is the antithesis of what we should want for ourselves and for future generations. We should instead insist on creating a cornucopia of learning for all of our students.

I really really really want to be optimistic about the state of the world, but it sometimes seems as though a significant number of humans have gone mad. I find myself wondering if this is how it felt to be alive during the period of time between 1914 and the year of my birth in 1948. People who were alive back then witnessed a war that was supposed to end wars but did not, a worldwide depression, climate induced droughts, the rise of fascism, a second world war and the birth of communist China and the Soviet Union. Little wonder that my maternal grandfather often openly cried about what he witnessed happening across the globe. 

I never met Grandpa Ulrich but I saw his library of books and heard snatches of his biography from my mother and one of my cousins who was old enough to have met him. He was apparently a learned man who found refuge in the United States of America when the politics of his homeland became unbearable. He created a good life in Houston, Texas with back breaking labor and determination. In spite of his worries about the ultimate fate of the world he was optimistic enough to make plans for one day retiring and moving to land that he owned where he would finally be able to farm. A fatal stroke ended both his dreams and his life before I even entered this world. 

As a child I felt a kind of spiritual connection to the books that my grandfather had once read. I would run my fingers over the dusty tomes with a grand variety of titles. I was quite impressed with the idea that the man I had never met had devoured the contents of so many different genres. He must have indeed become a very learned man in spite of his lack of formal education. It did not surprise me at all to discover from my cousin that our grandfather had purchased and read a book every week which he enjoyed discussing with the eager lad who was his grandson. The titles suggest that he had a scientific bent as well as an interest in world history and politics. 

My mother often described listening to programs on the radio with her father and her siblings. She noted that Grandpa demanded silence during news broadcasts when the President addressed the nation. He kept up with global political movements and often lectured his children on the need to always be vigilant and protective of freedom. He also constantly worried about the political patterns that he saw unfolding in Europe and fretted over the human tendencies to ignore warning signs that things were amiss. He urged his children to watch situations carefully and learn from them.

I suppose that both my father and my two grandfathers inspired me to keep tabs on the past, the present and the future of the world. My teachers further ingrained the importance of carefully analyzing the unfolding of current events to make predictions about where the world was heading in the future. The ignorance and innocence that might have made life easier for me faded rather quickly when I followed their lead by voraciously reading more and more to determine truth. Sometimes the conclusions that I have reached have not been so happy and I have more and more understood why the grandfather that I never met had often cried about the condition of the world and its people. 

As we are poised for a year in which wars are raging, sabers are rattling and an important Presidential election will happen, I find myself fretting over what all of this will mean for the future. Like my grandfather I am keeping close tabs and even optimistically hoping that somehow we humans will join together to create a better future. I still believe that the goodness that is innate in all of us will ultimately triumph, but I worry about who will suffer as the human race gets its act together. There are so many reasons for concern.

We seem to be unable to agree on much of anything these days. We either believe that climate change is one of our  major issues or think that the whole concept is a political hoax. We are on the side of freedom, but we seem to have different definitions of what that actually is. We want guns to be heavily controlled or freely available. We think that January 6, 2020 was an insurrection designed to incite a coup or a peaceful protest over a stolen election. We are sorrowful over the massive loss of lives during the pandemic or we think it was never really anything more than a case of the flu. We want to hear the unvarnished facts of history or move beyond the mistakes of the past by ignoring our transgressions. We can’t even decide who is the victim and who is the invader in the wars being fought across the globe. Our inability to agree has led to a standstill in which nothing ever happens to alleviate problems until we explode into a state of tragedy. This is what keeps me awake at night. 

I really want 2024 to be a year of hope and peace and love. I know that we will never reach perfection but just seeing some signs of progress will help. It’s long past time for the people of the world to come together. History shows us that we never agree totally but there is room to consider all of our needs and desires. The dreams of my grandfather haunt me and give me hope. 

Throughout my lifetime there have been surprise attacks on the stability of my family. I suppose this is true for most people. Horrific things tend to happen without warning and I have had to learn how to adjust my course. At the same time good surprises also come, often at the very times when I feel as though my resilience is waning. After seventy five years of enduring both storms and sunny days I feel both battered and blessed. Often it is in the seemingly most insignificant moments that I find enormous helpings of sustaining joy. 

One evening I was sitting with my husband and father-in-law talking about this and that before preparing dinner. I was only half heartedly participating in the discussion. My mind was actually far away, thinking of of how I longed for the days of my childhood and the Friday night visits to my Grandmother Ulrich’s house. Somehow I found a way to weave my memories of her into the conversation. Before long my husband, Mike, was showing his father photos of my grandmother holding cups of the weak sugary coffee that she always offered to her guests. She was the quintessential hostess padding across the floor of her home in her bare feet and worn cotton dress with a welcoming expression on her face that said everything about her generosity and love. 

As Mike and I delightedly described gatherings at Grandma’s house one thought led to another until finally we had decided to hop into our truck and travel to her old neighborhood just east of downtown Houston.  On a whim we all wanted to view the tiny house that my grandfather had paid to be built one room at a time, the home where my mother and her seven siblings had grown up, the site of some of the most joyous moments of my life. We quickly gathered ourselves and jumped into the truck in pursuit of a random and unplanned adventure. 

Our short journey was like a mapping of my life as we left Pearland where we now live and headed down the beltway to southeast Houston where I pointed out the places that had once been so integral to my history. I had stories to go with landmark after landmark. There was Almeda Mall, St. Frances Cabrini, the church where I had worshipped and worked, my mother’s home, the site of the first house that Mike and I purchased, places where I had plied my skills as a teacher. It felt as though every square inch of the area through which we passed was home to sacred memories that reminded me of all the good people and good times that had dominated my life. It was impossible not to associate this place and that one with so much joy that I felt a kind of reverent gratitude for the people and places that had filled the hours and days and years leading to the present time. 

Before long we left the freeway and drove along Broadway Boulevard. We showed Mike’s dad apartment projects that we had found too expensive for our budget when we first married. I spoke of how much I had enjoyed working at St. Christopher Catholic School. We missed seeing the old Chuck Wagon where we bought the best hamburgers imaginable and the DPS building where I had nervously tested for my driver’s license. Driving on we saw the turn for my Aunt Valeria’s former home and pointed out the schools that had sat on the land even when our mothers were teenagers. We drove past the turning basin of the Houston Ship Channel and adjusted our course to head down Navigation Street where my mother once stood waving at President Franklin Roosevelt as he motored down the street. Finally we drove past the little house that had been the site of so many glorious childhood memories with my aunts and uncles and cousins.

Nowadays the house on North Adams Street is surrounded by businesses and industrial complexes. Only one other home has survived the march of change. There was a time when it was a quiet little refuge for sweet people who had lived there for all of their lives. Now they were gone, victims of progress and the changing use of land in the shadow of downtown. It was nice to see that the present day owners of my grandmother’s home were keeping the place in fairly good repair. It was painted a bright blue hue that made it look happy. There were plants and flowers indicating someone’s care. it reminded me of a favorite childhood book about a little house that ended up between two tall buildings in the middle of downtown. It made me smile to look at it and I wondered if the people living there had any idea of the remarkable joy that had been so much of the essence of the place. 

We had decided celebrate our little trip with dinner at a restaurant owned by one of Mike’s high school classmates. It is so close to the downtown area that it has become a favorite haunt of people who work there or attend ball games and concerts nearby. The area closest to down is enjoying a bit of gentrification but leaders with an historical bent are attempting to keep the essence and culture of the area intact. I thought of my mother’s stories of her father taking a bus to work at the Houston Packing Company which was once just down the street. It was the place where my grandfather spent most of his work life. 

After enjoying a delightful TexMex meal we ventured into downtown, passing by Minute Maid Park, the home of the Houston Astros. My grandfather lived in a rented room near that site of the ball park when he first arrived from Austria Hungary just before World War I. He worked on a farm in those early days, saving to send for his bride. I almost felt his spirit reminding me to work hard and be proud of my freedoms in this country. 

It was a wonderful evening that distracted me from the hardships of the world and reminded me of my heritage and the long arc of history from which I have come. I need to follow that pathway now and again to remember who I am and how much I have been loved. It was indeed a glorious evening more valuable to me than a journey to foreign places. Along that drive lay the so much of the story of my life and it was good.