Month: May 2025

Way back in nineteen sixty six I attended an English class at the University of St. Thomas with my high school mates. It was a recruitment effort that convinced several of my friends to apply for admission there. I was dead set on attending the University of Houston so I did not seek to attend the school even though they offered me a generous scholarship. Nonetheless, the visit there was quite memorable for two reasons. 

Firstly, we visited a professor in the music department who was the director of the choir. I have to admit that he was a rather charismatic fellow who made singing feel incredibly appealing even for someone like me who had no interest in using my ordinary voice to forge a future career. I vividly recall how energetic he was and how the students appeared to be very much enjoying their time with him. It would be many years later that I would hear about him again in a rather strange incident. 

He ended up leaving his post at St. Thomas and leading a rather strange cult that somehow believed that the group was destined to be picked up by alien beings who would take them on a spiritual tour of the universe. On an appointed day the members dressed in spacesuits and took enough sleep medication to kill themselves. They were supposed to then be transported to outer space for their journey beyond death but of course that never happened. 

I actually had a sense of why the individuals might have followed the leader who had once been a choir director. I had seen for myself how exciting he was but he still wasn’t magical enough for me to change my major and choice of university so I suppose that his pull was only minimally strong. Still, he managed to convince others to follow him into a rather ridiculous mass suicide. 

The other class that struck me even more and almost tempted me to apply for admission to the school was an English class in which the students and professor were discussing The Great Gatsby. I was incredibly well read by then thanks to my English teacher who required us to read and report on a book each week, but somehow the classic by F. Scott Fitzgerald had not found its way to my hands. 

After listening to the professor rhapsodizing about the brilliance of the book I literally rushed out to secure a copy and read it from beginning to end in a single sitting. It instantly became one of my all time favorite books, but in reading it at different junctures in my life I have reacted to the characters in many different ways depending on my level of intellectual growth. In spite of my own maturation and changing worldviews I found the story and characters more and more interesting over time. 

The Great Gatsby is celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of its publication in 1925 and it seems never to grow stale. If anything it continues to have more and more universal appeal as readers react to the themes of our humanity presented so beautifully in the story. It forces us to consider the nature of power and wealth, unrequited love, societies of haves and have nots, issues as modern as today’s news. Somehow Fitzgerald tapped into the physiological and sociological natures of our American story, creating a tragedy that speaks to us all. 

The Great Gatsby is Shakespearian and modern in its depiction of characters and situations. it easily translates to new generations of readers from one era to the next. It has spawned movies and plays and much discussion in the years since it first came to be. Artists have used their own creativity with visuals and music to suggest new interpretations of the story. Both the depth and the shallowness of the characters might be credibly applied to our present times of materialism, struggles between oligarchs and common folk pressing to be accepted as equals. I suppose the true nature of the story that Fitzgerald wrote expresses all of our longings and disappointments in our efforts to be seen and accepted. 

After the visit to St. Thomas I went on to major in English at the University of where I encountered first class professors but few of them were as outstanding as the one that I witnessed on that high school field trip that so inspired me. I’ve often thought of the English professore who introduced me the a classic that seems to only become better each time I read it. I have been grateful for the inspiration that he demonstrated. I ended up teaching mathematics because of my minor but I did my best to put a bit more excitement into my classes because of what I had seen on that day and how it made me feel. I realized that it only takes a single moment to make a difference in an individual’s life. Such a moment has stayed with me to this very day. 

Folklore has been around for all long as humans have walked on the earth. The Greeks attempted to explain how things work in the universe with elaborate myths about gods fighting with one another and with humanity. The world of folklore is filled with with fantasy but it is also much more than fairytales and fables. Those Aggie jokes that go viral in Texas are featured in other localities as silly stories about Swedes and Finns. With or without television or social media folklore thrives in the human experience. 

We’ve all heard about King Arthur and wondered if there was ever someone like him who actually existed. Was he in fact a good man who had a round table of advisors to help him to understand the needs of the citizens? Was he sent afloat on a fiery raft upon his death. Was the story of his strength in freeing Excalibur from a stone true or just a metaphor for his greatness? Was he himself an invention so wonderful that his fame spread from word of mouth? Such is the nature of folklore but it can also be so much more.

Oral history from common folk is another form of folklore. Unlike the words of historians that are carefully based on verifiable facts, the stories from common people about the events of their lives present a look at how people are thinking in a certain time and place. What they see as important provides a psychological peek into individuals and groups. Thier stories invariably provide themes and rationales for how they see things. 

The songs that we sing in a particular era are yet another type of folklore. Their lyrics imply evidence about what is important during a particular era. They provide a personal and poetic view of what is important to differing groups. While folk songs are notoriously filled with human concerns the same can be said of religious hymns, rap, country music and patriotic tunes. 

A huge aspect of folklore involves ways of explaining things that we do not understand or that we even fear. We have many stories of sightings of Elvis because he was beloved by his fans and his sudden death was shocking. People have an urge to think that he might possibly still be alive but laying low so that he can enjoy life in privacy. They want to believe that he is not gone forever.

There are hundreds of beliefs centering on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Some thought that he actually survived the attempt on his life but was reduced to a vegetative shell of himself. The story goes that his wife Jackie protected him until his actual death by marrying Aristotle Onassis and nursing Kennedy on a private island until he ultimately succumbed to a more natural death.

The number of hoaxes regarding who actually killed Kennedy are numerous and legendary. as well. Some blame Russians. Others seem certain that the Mafia was behind the killing. Then there are whispered tales about angry Cubans hatching the plot to murder Kennedy, including a more recent accusation that the father of Senator Ted Cruz was part of the conspiracy. 

Of late our immediate access to thousands of informational sites is fueling folklore like never before and spreading lies and misinformation that actually influence how people vote. There’s the story of blood drinking Democrats whose headquarters is in a pizza shop in New York City. While that might sound so far-fetched that nobody would believe it, we have witnessed people insisting that it is absolutely true and the attempting to kill the people behind this evil cabal. An even more dangerous hoax is that autism is caused by vaccines.

During the Covid pandemic folklore ratcheted up like never before. Story after story led many people to believe that good doctors were part of a plot to hurt them. Confidence in treatments and preventions waned with many souls believing that efforts to control the spread of the virus were simply political cudgels designed to destroy their freedom and enrich Big Pharma and the doctors who prescribe their products. 

There is so much folklore poisoning our ability to know what is true and what is false that it takes time to research ideas and stories that appear to be out of whack. We are being bombarded daily by charlatans who are using our fears to enrich themselves with power and wealth. Even inside our houses of worship folklore has found a steady supply of believers being told things that are hurtful and wrong. Good people who do not take the time to fact check the rumors of evils seem to be all around us. 

An important rule of thumb would be to be cautious about anything that we read or hear that somehow seems to be ridiculous. We might be tempted to think that people of foreign cultures might in fact be killing and then eating dogs, and cats but before launching into indignant anger we might want to do a bit of research to find out how factual such stories are. Then we need to chide the people who spread such lies and be a more reticent in automatically believing them when they utter the next big lie. 

Folklore can be fun and might even help us to laugh or the handle difficult situations but when such tales appear to be hearting certain groups or individuals we should be wary. Dracula was a story and so is the tale of famous people feasting on blood in a pizza shop. Just as we can find the folklore we also have the capacity to find the truth. We just have to be willing to think critically about what we are reading or hearing.

It is true that most people have good hearts and simply want to live each day of their lives as best they can. Generally speaking most people will adhere willingly to rules that make sense to them. They obey traffic lights and drive on the proper side of the road. They pay for items at a store rather than stealing what they want. They work as a community, understanding that if we are to live peacefully each of us must be conscious of our obligations to each other. 

Sadly there have always been aberrations in human behavior. For one reason or another we have thieves and murders, greedy businessmen and dictators. These are people who spurn the rules and take whatever they want for themselves, more often than not without any sense of guilt. We have never been completely able to understand their behavior. We wonder if they were born that way or developed criminal tendencies from life events that left them tainted. Perhaps they result from both nature and nurture. What ever the reasons they are outliers in society whose behaviors rock the safety and security of our mutual agreements to live in peace. 

All too often such people end up in charge of companies and nations. They manage to curb their ugly tendencies just enough to avoid punishment and to portray themselves as saviors for the rest of us. They bully their way to the top and then inflict their poisonous ideas on the rest of us. Once they are ensconced we either meekly follow their rules or have to rouse ourselves from the comfort of our routines to take back our freedoms. Thus we watch the repetitions of history that should have taught us to be wary, but often get past us because we were not paying attention to the warning signs. 

We humans are complex beings. We are only beginning to garner some understanding of how our brains work. We do not yet know exactly why some among us develop mental illnesses nor how to control and treat those illnesses in the ways that we heal hearts. Perhaps in a glorious future we will find the ways to stop mental illness by repairing the mechanisms that create havoc in an individual’s brain. Until then we will grapple with the diseases of the mind that inflict so much harm on both the individual with the illness and those with whom he or she interacts. 

Humans the world over are mostly moral people but sometimes we entangle our personal beliefs with what is truly right and just. We use religious beliefs to judge others and sometimes even attempt to encode our thinking into laws that everyone must follow. Given that the many religions of the world do not always intersect in the same ways, attempts to create a one size fits all version of societal beliefs always ends badly. History is littered with the bodies of individuals who were imprisoned or murdered because their faith did not conform to the beliefs of those in control. 

We definitely need laws and courts and even fair punishments for crimes but we must be cautious in using the personal beliefs of a few to outlaw those with which they do not agree. Why should it matter to us who a person loves and wants to marry so long as we are not forced to adhere to their beliefs? Why can’t we simply live and let live? There are much more important issues to consider. Why do we attempt to criminalize an individual who has quietly changed his or her identity from that which someone proclaimed at birth? We don’t have to be them or even embrace them, but we certainly should not be punishing them. I truly doubt that anyone would choose to go through the hell that they too often endure just to be contrary. Why can’t we simply accept and love them without judgement?

There are movements all over the world to place religions and religious beliefs at the heart of governments. When that happens there will always be losers who will either abandon their own personal beliefs or live in fear of being discovered. Why can’t those who are praying in Congress and claiming to be sent by God simply enjoy their faith quietly. Do they not understand that the most effective way to influence others is by the examples of behavior? 

I know people of many different religions and all of them hold moral values that iIadmire. I do not feel the need to convert the Jews that I know to Christianity. I have never believed that Muslims have chosen the wrong path. It does not matter to me that the generous and loving Buddhists that I know have beliefs that differ from my own. I am a Catholic but I know and love Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, and non denominational Christians. Jesus is at the core of our beliefs but from there the variations are many. I know agnostics and atheists who are more loving and kind than some who adhere to strict religious dictates. I prefer keeping religions out of public schools, out of our government. 

It is not up to me or anyone else to judge how people live unless they do something horrid and hurtful. I am fully against all efforts to force individuals to conform to certain sets of religious standards other than the obvious crimes of murder, theft, and violence. Beyond that let people be whoever they wish to be without argument or hate. Protect people’s freedoms but do not enact laws that make criminals out of those who choose to follow a different way of thinking and living. If we really think about it, it should make perfect sense. Then we can get back to working on the things that really matter like making sure that every person on the earth has food to eat and a safe place to stay. It really is as simple as that. 

I don’t think that I will ever forget the morning when I awoke to the news that an educational colleague of mine had lost his son in a road rage murder. The story was devastating and I would follow his plaintive posts on Facebook from that moment to this very day. 

I too had suffered a tragic loss when my thirty three year old father died suddenly from a car accident. The horror and pain of that moment is buried deep inside my soul so I felt that I understood the anguish that my friend was feeling. Still, his was the loss of a child whose life should have stretched out before him. It was difficult to comprehend how a parent would be able to come back from such an horrific tragedy. I would read his honest and heartbreaking commentaries in the days and weeks after the death of his son when his feelings were raw and filled with both grief and anger. I would learn from him. He is after all an educator who wanted us all to know how to how to speak about such an unspeakable act with grace and understanding. 

I am a religious person who had a habit of attempting to make sense of seemingly inexplicable loss with platitudes. I had all too often attributed some meaning to the loss of a loved one by suggesting that God takes people from us for various reasons meant to help us grow as people or even to honor the one who has died with a heavenly eternity. It never occurred to me how hurtful such comments might be to a father who had lost his teenage son in the flower of his life. My friend bravely explained why attributing death to some spiritual system of rewards and punishments was cruel. 

The bereaved father convinced me that insinuating that God was choosing one person over another to prove some point was insulting to both God and the persons who had lost a loved one. He went further to say that suggesting that God had blessed some of us in times of destruction but ignored or hurt others in the same situation was hurtful. Thus I began to measure my own responses to the tragic losses of people that I know with a new caution for their feelings. 

Only recently I heard an old man smile and claim that he must be one of God’s chosen people because he was stilling living when all of his peers had died. Because he was a rational man I told him what my friend had taught me and the old man nodded and admitted that maybe he was no more deserving of a perk from God than the innocent young boy who was gunned down by anger and evilness. 

I thought my my sixteen year old cousin who had charmed us with her gentleness, beauty and brilliance at a Christmas gathering long ago. Only weeks later she had died from a brain tumor that had never shown its presence in her body. I will cannot forget her funeral because she was the same age as my youngest brother. I loved her and could not imagine the painful grief of her mother, my aunt, who threw herself on her daughter’s casket in a state of hysteria. I cried uncontrollably over her loss and to this very day. I think of how my cousin would be seventy years old today if she had lived. I feel a deep sense of sorrow that she but never reached adulthood. I sometimes wonder what her life might have been. I find myself understanding the feelings of my friend who lost his son. I now measure my words when speaking to anyone who has endured the death of a loved one. I tell myself to stop talking and just start listening to how the person is feeling.

My friend has indeed used his sorrow and anger to become an advocate for people who endure the violence of criminals. His talents as an historian and educator have made him a spokesperson for victims. He now fights for laws that keep dangerous people off of our streets and in the prisons where they belong. He has focused on positive ways of dealing with the death of his son but neither he nor I believe that his story is simply the result of some vast eternal plan. 

None of us know when our lives will end. To believe that living a long life is a sign that we are somehow more worthy than others sounds ridiculous when we set it next to the reality of children dying or even young men like my father never getting the opportunity to see his children become adults. Each of us is a treasure to someone and our deaths leave those who love us bereft no matter how young or old we may be. 

I still struggle to know what to say or how to act with someone who has experienced a loss. I try to measure my words and mostly just allow that person to be however they wish to be in that moment. I simply want them to know that I love them and and that I will be available for them if they need me. I have learned to acknowledge their feelings without attempting to gloss them over with words that will not help. My friend has taught me that. 

Many years ago a neighbor called and asked me if I would be willing to watch her mother-in-law while she ran some important errands. I had nothing on my calendar so I immediately volunteered to help her out. In truth I had not even known that she was caring for an elderly relative. She lived on another street in my subdivision and we mostly interacted at school events. 

I had wondered why I did not see her out and about more often but thought little about what her situation may have been because she was always upbeat and never complained about being bound to her home. I saw helping her out as a way to let her know that I would like to see more of her. I really enjoyed that times that I was around her and wanted to move our sometimes acquaintance to the level of friendship. I eagerly drove to her home to sit with her loved one in the hopes that it would seal our relationship. 

When I arrived she was a bit harried and very unlike the happy go lucky woman that I had always encountered. She introduced me to her mother-in-law who was a sweet looking lady in a wheelchair. She thanked me over and over again for coming on short notice and explained that she normally had to plan very carefully to find the time and resources that would allow her to leave her home. I told her that I was eager to help and to think nothing of my very small sacrifice.

I never knew what she had to do on that day and I never wanted to ask about it. She was gone for around three hours and by the time she returned I was more than ready to leave. Her mother-in-law required a great deal of attention, making request after request that began to wear me out as the minutes turned into hours. I found myself constantly looking at the clock and noting mentally that it was harder watching the old woman than sitting with an infant or young child. The lady had so many needs that had to be instantly met and i became more and more anxious as I worried about what I would do if I had to lift her out of her wheelchair or if a medical emergency arose. 

I found myself stealing glances at my watch and gazing out the window hoping to see my neighbor returning to her home. When she finally arrived I felt an instant sense of relief. I noticed that the short outing had transformed her from the angst ridden women I had seen earlier to the relaxed and optimistic person that I had always known. She offered her thanks over and over again and finally admitted that she had taken more time than she actually needed because she was enjoying the freedom from constant confinement in her home. 

She told me that she had hit a wall earlier in the day and had an urge to run away from her duties. She told me that she had been caring for her mother-in-law for over four years and at times her tasks seemed endless. She mentioned that there were moments when she was filled with negative emotions that frightened her. She was anxious, depressed and angry. She confided that getting away for even a few hours made her duties more bearable. 

I urged her to remember to call me anytime that she needed to get away and asked her if she had others who might help. She remarked that things were often better in the evenings when her children and husband came home. They would assume many of the tasks that she performed while they were absent, but in truth the whole family was exhausted and in need of a long vacation from the sacrifices they had been making for years. 

My neighbor never called for my help again. He mother-in-law had a stroke not long after I had sat with her. It became too difficult for my friend continue caring for the olde woman. The mother-in-law spent her last days in a nursing home and my neighbor was suddenly constantly on the go spreading joy with a boisterous laugh that I knew reflected the panacea that she had needed. 

Since that moment I have had great admiration and empathy for anyone caring for an elderly or disabled family member. I no longer assume that everything is okay for such caretakers even if they walk around with smiles pasted on their faces. I witnessed my neighbor’s emotional outburst in a moment when she was unable to maintain her facade of strength. i understood that daily confinement even with a pleasant person is difficult. I began to look at those responsible for the well being of family members with different eyes. I knew the toll that their sacrifices were taking on them. Again and again I witnessed individuals pushing themselves to keep going even in the face of exhaustion. I knew that I had to do something to make their tasks just a bit easier.

We would all do well to be supportive of anyone who is bearing the brunt of responsibility with an elderly or sick person. No matter how strong they appear to be they will always be grateful for any help we can offer. It’s important that we do not leave them to handle the load alone. Sometimes all they require to keep going is a few hours just to be away from it all or even a moment to vent the poisons that are cluttering their minds. The phone call we make to them may be all that they have been needing. It’s important that they know that they are not forgotten and alone.