Category: Commentary

In school I learned that it was not appropriate to love objects. Only living persons or creatures are deserving of love according to my teachers. Things are only to be liked or enjoyed. I understand the reasoning behind such thinking but I have to admit that I truly loved my Tacoma truck. From the moment we drove it home in 2014 I knew that it was a beauty that would bring us joy for many years to come. I never imagined how much that Tacoma truck would become intimately tied to our lives. 

We had the truck fitted out to pull a trailer that we later purchased to use on vacations. For years we had slept in tents but as we aged our bones began to rebel and make it less and less easy to endure nights on the floor cuddled in sleeping bags or even an upgrade to lying on cots. I suppose that we saw the handwriting on the wall in one of our last ventures inside a tent when it began to bow under the raging of a terrible storm that lit up the inside of our haven allowing us to see the fear in each other’s eyes. When we walked out into the dawn of a new day we saw that all of the other tenters had wisely left the scene and somehow without saying so each of us knew that the time for tenting had passed. 

Soon our beautiful truck was pulling a fine trailer that was just the right size for two people. We went everywhere in comfort that we had never before known. Our truck guided us all the way to California like modern day pioneers. During Covid we managed to travel thousands of miles without having to interact with any humans  All the while our truck did all of the hard work with hardly a glitch. It seemed to be eternally magical as the years passed one after another. 

I was never one to care much about my mode of transportation. Over the years I drove clunkers and fairly reliable cars. The closest I came to having a love affair with an automobile was when I purchased a Honda CRV. It was a reddish maroon beauty with license plates that gave homage to my grandchildren and ended up being its name. GAMMY7 was a honey of a car, perfect for driving to work and even for hauling rugs and tables and other kinds of treasures that a woman finds and brings home. It was surely a good car but I gave it up in order to get that Tacoma. It seemed to be a fair trade even as I felt a bit of grief over losing Gammy 7.

Over twelve years and over 200,000 miles the Tacoma was still as vibrant as ever. I can honestly say that it was the best auto that I have ever driven. I felt incredibly safe behind the wheel, even when the weather was hazardous. We drove it all the way to Maine one summer even as it had begun to age. In many ways it was doing better than my husband and I were. Still it had a few flaws that were beginning to show its age. 

The back up camera was not nearly as good as it had once been. Now and again in really sunny weather it became almost useless. Once in awhile it fogged over. I would notice the bells and whistles of the newer cars that people owned and feel a bit sheepish that mine was way behind the technology. Still, I felt brave and confident in that truck. At least it was so until I backed into someone’s car in a crowded parking lot totally unaware that it was behind me. There was a major blind spot that I did not take into account until I heard the big bang of my metal on the door of another auto. 

The accident was minor and the Tacoma only suffered a tiny hole in one of the taillights. Our insurance took care of the unfortunate soul who endured the injury to his car. It should not have affected me so much save for a story that my grandfather often told. He was a wise man who taught me much about how to live a good life. When he was ninety years old he backed into a grocery cart in a parking lot without ever seeing that it was behind him. He decided then and there that he was too old to continue driving safely and so he gave away his car that very day and never again sat behind the wheel. 

I took his story to heart and began to wonder if I had somehow reached a point of being a danger to others. My younger brother and my sister-in-law had all but given up driving until they found a reliable self driving car that takes them around town. I found myself feeling uncertain when I backed out of any space. My anxiety would not go away, especially on days when the rear camera was blurred. I would crane my neck in a thousand directions taking forever just to back out from my driveway. So I began to rely more and more on just being a passenger in our truck. 

Eventually we went to check out hybrid cars from Toyota. We left the dealership with a plug in Prius that was top of the line when it came to cameras and safety features. At first it felt very small compared to the power that my sweet Tacoma had given me but before long I was enjoying the incredible views that literally told me where everyone else on the road was located. I enjoy the beeps and warnings that tell me when I am getting too close to any kind of object. Best of all I am able to do all of my usual errands without ever using even a gallon of gasoline. I won’t go as far as saying that I love this car the way I had a romance with the Tacoma but for now it is a pleasure to drive. 

With my new Prius I feel that I am doing something good for the planet while also saving money. It is comfortable and fun to drive even as I have to once again get used to being bullied by folks in huge trucks who don’t want to follow the speed limits in my neighborhood. They never dared ride my back bumper and shoot me the bird when I was in my truck. I suppose that they view a Prius as a wimpy kind of automobile but I am laughing inside as I stand my ground and imagine how expensive their gasoline bills are while I will drive for a long time without ever having to fill my tank. The joke is on them.

I have not yet named the Prius. Nothing has yet come to mind other than maybe “Athena.” My grandkids called the truck Taco Mama which seemed to be just right. Gammy7 was my Honda calling card. Maybe I’ll have a contest to find a suitable moniker for my new ride. Until then I will smile each time I blow past a service station and avoid any parking lot crashes with my cameras and beepers keeping me in line. Here’s to new adventures!

I don’t remember exactly when I first heard the story of the boy who cried wolf. I do recall getting the gist of that message rather quickly. I understood that if you lie too often you probably won’t be believed when you finally tell the truth. I’ve done my best to be honest and so most people who know me trust me to do right by them. Maybe that story of long ago along with my Catholic school upbringing taught me the importance of honesty. 

I do not understand people who chronically lie but I know that they exist. I have mostly been able to avoid such folks but now and again I get burned. I’ve had some students disappoint me when I learned that they had been stealing or cheating or speaking untruths. Being burned like that feels all too personal and leads to distrust. 

I don’t necessarily drive liars out of my life but I am always wary of accepting their words as truth. The loss of trust tarnishes relationships even when we are able to forgive someone for his or her trespasses. Once the lies become habitual we no longer believe most of what the liar says. We feel cheated with every word.

One of the most remarkable situations that I have ever observed in my decades on this earth is the reality that the man chosen by over seventy million voters to serve as our president lies with almost every word he utters. Donald Trump’s boasts are never credible. He has been so dishonest for the whole of his life that it is almost impossible to accept anything that he says as the truth. For me that is the crux of why I have never been able to support him. Sadly even if he were to suddenly become totally honest I would have doubts as to the veracity of what he says. He has broken his relationship with the American people with bald faced untruths that are so obvious that I cannot even imagine why anyone would believe him.

I suppose that the reflecting pool fiasco is the perfect example of Trump’s propensity for lying and a bit of cheating as well. There was nothing innately wrong with wanting to improve the beauty of the reflecting pool but Donald wanted to cut corners, do things without the common sense practices of getting bids from different contractors and taking advice from people who are experts at doing such things. Instead he gave the deal to a man who builds swimming pools and happens to be a Mar-a-Lago neighbor and heavy supporter. What could possibly have gone wrong?

As it happened the whole deal was undertaken without thought of whether or not it would be done correctly. The job was rushed, thrown together, bound to fail from the beginning. It did not help that Trump inspected the work not from the side of the pool but from inside an incredibly heavy car that drove over the epoxied area only days after it had been applied. Not only did he take such a joy ride but he was accompanied by a number of cars no doubt filled with secret service men and a few cronies. 

Of course we know what happened next. As soon as the pool was filled with water the algae that had been the rationale for the repair began to appear once again. Not even doses of hydrogen peroxide were potent enough to rid the water of the green slime. Then the blue epoxy began to break away from the bottom and float to the top, indicating that something about the installation had failed. 

Trump being Trump was not able to admit that his attempt to repair that reflecting pool had gone awry so as so often happens with him he created the big lie that vandals had damaged the pool. Before his story ended it became the accusation that left wing enemies of the United States had created a three hundred fifty foot slash at the bottom of the pool. 

Of course there was no proof of such a thing, no videos of the culprits, no witnesses who watched the damage happening. In Trump world all we are supposed to heed is his word only but time and again we have learned that his word is more often than not a lie. And so it was with the reflecting pool but not before he had laid blame on others including a former olympiad. He refused to speak the truth even when the pool was drained showing that nobody had created the damaging slash that he still claims. The many million dollar fix that was never approved by Congress or the American people was simply a poorly executed attempt done by someone who most likely did not know what he was doing. 

Trump will never accept that the scenarios he creates in his own mind are simply not true. He has lied so much in his eighty years on this earth that he does not seem to know the difference between truth and falsehood. Little that comes from his mouth can be trusted because there is so much evidence that he creates his own reality to cushion himself for ever admitting responsibility for anything that goes wrong. 

It is a very sad state of affairs that many Americans have gone from enshrining honesty in our children to openly supporting a man who is such an obvious prevaricator. I suppose that P. T. Barnum was right that gullible people are all around us. Trump uses those “suckers” every single day knowing that while many of us are on to his dishonesty many others are willing to look away. That is a problem for us all. 

I was once a tall girl, five feet six and one half inches. As I have grown older I have lost much of that height and now stand at five feet four inches. The funny thing is that my feet are still the large size that meshes with my taller physique but my hands have also been rather tiny and out of proportion with my long arms and legs. 

Not only were my hands small but they seemed to always appear to be older than the rest of my body. Only now has the rest of me caught up to the wrinkles and worn look of my hands so admittedly I was somewhat embarrassed by my stubby fingers for much of my life. It was not until someone grabbed them one day and proclaimed that she loved how my hands spoke of someone who had truly experienced life. 

Of course I was stunned by her pronouncement and wondered what she meant by her praise. She explained that my hands appeared to be accustomed to doing hard work, caring for the world around me. She saw them as emblematic of determination and a willingness to engage in laborious tasks that needed to be done. 

I was flabbergasted by her words but left with a feeling of accomplishment that made me smile. The truth is that my hands have often taken part in hard labors that left dirt under my broken nails and scratches on my palms. My hands have been up to my wrists in mud and dirt. They have turned red from scrubbing a dirty surface. I have used them to apply pressure on a wound so that someone would not bleed out. They have been spotted with paint and stained with the ink that I used to write papers and answer questions on exams. In fact my hands have only rarely been pampered because I constantly use them to get things done but also to hold or hug someone who is grieving or hurting. My hands have endured as much living as my eyes and they are reminders of the hard work that I have asked them to do. So I truly appreciated that comment from the observant person who provided me with a much better way of assessing the appearance of my hands. 

I say this because we live in a world that can be rather superficial when it comes to judging people. We glance at someone and almost instantly decide if we think he or she is beautiful based solely on values the we have created in our minds for deciding the person’s relative worth. We do this even as we know that it is an incomplete method. As the people of the world pass us we take note of them in quick succession often missing the most beautiful among them. 

I was at a party sitting across from a woman that I barely knew. Her appearance did not instantly stand out to me. She wore no makeup and lines and wrinkles and dark areas under her eyes were quite visible but the more she told me about herself the more I understood how incredible she was. As her story continued to unfold her appearance changed in my eyes. I saw a beauty in her countenance that had not been so apparent at first. I could see that her entire focus was outside of herself. She was genuine and honest and no amount of makeup or fakery would have made her more beautiful than she already was. I realized why she had so many friends at the party and why their faces lit up just talking with her. I saw her smile and instantly change the composition of her face and so I blurted out that I thought she was beautiful. 

She stuttered in embarrassment for a moment and even laughed at the very idea but then her husband who had been silently listening to her just as I had been spoke up and thanked me for seeing in her what he had seen for all of their married life. Then she humbly smiled and showed her gratitude to both of us. 

I still think of that moment because it was a watershed for me. I realized that true beauty lies in a person’s heart and when it is there it transforms the individual’s appearance in our eyes. We no longer see the superficial aspects of beauty but only the ones that matter. So too might we learn the reverse when someone with lovely physical aspects spews hatefulness the countenance takes on a foul and foreboding appearance. We see only their ugliness and feel repelled. 

There are truly good people all around us who have hearts of gold. All too often we gush over those with glamorous physical features but never take the time to mention the immeasurable beauty of an unvarnished and humble soul. Think of how much better and more meaningful our society would be if we began to celebrate goodness over superficialities. Not all beauties are without gentle hearts. Some are lovely inside and out but far too many receive kudos simply for have slim figures, great hair and perfect facial features. Then we learn that they are also empty inside. 

It is said that beauty is as beauty does and it certainly seems so to me. Even the fairytales warn us to look inside hearts and souls to find the truth of a person. When we take time to look deeper we see the true loveliness of a person and we envision them that way forevermore. Beautiful souls need to hear how lovely they are in our eyes.

The long days of the Covid 19 pandemic still linger in my memory. I had read about the nineteen eighteen world wide pandemic in great detail. One book that impressed me read like a detective story with dedicated scientists determined to understand the cause of that horrific illness that killed millions across the globe. It was not until years later that they developed a better understanding of what happened then and were able to develop medications that would save the world from ever again enduring that strain of illness. I was so fascinated with what had  happened then that I followed the daily news about the Covid 19 virus with a sense of awe when that illness was overtaking the world.

My husband had already endured a stroke and a heart attack so the two of us decided to lay low until more information about Covid and how to treat it became available. We were both retired so we were able to stay in our home and watch the world around us struggling to operate. We ordered masks and had our groceries delivered to our door. We took many voluntary precautions because I sensed that doctors and scientists across the globe were using and sharing their knowledge even as evidence taught them to change directions as new information became available. 

I relied on advice from my primary care physician and a niece who is a doctor. I tuned in to the daily press conferences that featured Dr. Fauci and other medical experts. I knew that we would all have to adjust to whatever the best science was suggesting that we must do. At the same time I watched the amazing mathematical result of an exponential function raising the number of sick and dying to unbelievable highs. My instinct told me that we probably did not even have completely accurate accountings because many people quietly became sick and never informed a doctor. They suffered with the virus for a time and then got well. Some of those fortunate souls began to compare the virus to having a cold or the flu without acknowledging that for some people the same illness produced death. I chose caution over the hubris of believing that my husband and I would be okay even if we caught the virus. 

We made the best of the situation while still worrying about family members like my father-in-law and his wife who were approaching their nineties with several medical issues that made them quite vulnerable. We helped them survive during that time, showing them how to order groceries to be delivered to their home and visiting them masked up to be certain that they had whatever they needed. 

The times were lonely but we made the best of them. When we were finally vaccinated I cried tears of relief and from that moment forward I followed my doctor’s advice to get additional vaccinations every six months. Because of our caution neither of us came down with the virus and we were able to continue caring for members of the family who had to go into total isolation to be safe. 

All the while Dr. Fauci gave me a sense of hope. I admired his courage in shunning politics to deliver what he believed was the truth at each phase of that time. I knew that my own doctors were delivering the same information to me. They felt that caution was the best reaction until we fully understood the nature of the virus. We were all part of a worldwide event that demonstrated our sameness as humans. For a time we worked together for the good of all until our president, Donald Trump, began to politicize the catastrophic event. He started to deliver junk science to the population to make himself look better. He threw Dr. Fauci under the bus all for his own glory. Then he lost the presidential election and demonstrated his fury by inciting a riot on January 6, 2021. Since that time he has twisted truth to a breaking point and now we have had to watched Dr. Fauci being threatened and accused of being a vile criminal. It boggles my mind. 

At this moment in time the United States of America is troubled. Our president is on a vengeance tour that leads him to act like a spoiled child breaking everything he encounters. When he destroys one area he goes after another to divert attention to the mess that he is making of everything that he touches. His entire second term as president has been a total failure and so he covers his mistakes by accusing others of unreal crimes. 

We are now involved in a war that was unnecessary that nobody wanted with no way out. We have watched in horror as the smooth running of our federal government has been destroyed. We see our president raging out of control while nothing that he does brings back the kind of glory that he seeks. So he turns to the tried and true distractions that he hopes will fools us into believing that he is a victim of misunderstanding. Hopefully few of us will be fooled. 

I will stand by Dr. Fauci until the day I die. His public record of service to this nation speaks to his devotion to the health of all Americans. Like any good doctor he tells us the truth even when it is hard to hear. He did his best to lead us through the pandemic even as our president was working against him time and again. Somehow he kept his calm presence and refused to be bullied into doing and saying what was not good for the people. He is an American hero and it is a travesty that he is being drug through the mud. I feel ashamed that some in our nation are so ungrateful for his service. I hope he knows that most of us hold him in high esteem. We understand what is really happening and how he is being used as a pawn. Our hope is that one day the ignorance and vindictiveness will stop.

I often think about the people who paved the way in the past for my eventual introduction into this world. It is humbling to consider the thousands of years of history that took place in many different places before I uttered my first cries of life as a newborn. The ancestors that I have found are so much more than names on a register and yet I have so little information about how their lives unfolded. I have no photos or even paintings to visualize how they looked. They were simply members of a society of people who scratched out a living for a time on this earth and then became forgotten save for their names on registers that survived the centuries. 

My paternal great grandparents came along at the time before the Civil War. Photographs of common folk were popular by then and so I have a picture of my great grandmother. Unfortunately nobody seems to have a likeness of my great grandfather even though he was a man of many important duties. He served as a lieutenant in the Union army during the Civil War. Later he joined the fraternal organization of the Grand Army of the Republic. He even became the Justice of Peace in Scott County Arkansas but there is no photo of him to be found. Surely he posed in front of a camera at one time or another but along the way any photo of him became lost. 

My grandmother rescued the mustering papers that were his when he left the Union army. She urged me to care for them when I was still a child. My mother kept them safe until I was old enough to understand my responsibility to preserve them. I have since learned from a cousin that there is a big folder filled with information about my grandfather in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. I suppose that I need to plan a trip there perhaps with one of my daughters or a grandchild to see what we may find inside that paperwork that will surely unlock many of the mysteries of his life. 

I think about him often and realize that he never got to see my father, Jack, his grandson who most decidedly would have made him proud. Descendants of John WS Smith have done well at least in the branch from his daughter Minnie Bell. There are engineers, doctors, teachers, musicians, mathematicians, accountants, firefighters, nurses and some working to be lawyers. I think he might have enjoyed knowing that the future of his family would turn out to be so productive but at the same time he appeared to be a very private and humble man who was not inclined to bring attention to himself. 

I belong to a group of distant cousins and such who all descended from John WS Smith’s parents Austin Boley Smith and Biddy Anne Fitzsimmons. They had many children so there are an incredible number of people who share my DNA that I have never met. My father died young so I never got around to asking him or his mother about our extended family. I knew a few names like Aunt Katie and Aunt Clara. I even met some folks in California that were somehow related to my father. I was too young at the time to pay much attention to that sort of thing. The people are just fleeting memories of individuals who did not mean much to me at the time. I lost the link to them when my father died and his mother followed him only a few years later. 

I once spent a pleasant afternoon with one of my paternal cousins named Vickie who lives in New Mexico. She has spent a lifetime tracking down information on the extended family but until she met me her search more or less ended with the death of my father. She had as many questions for me and as I had for her. She gave me photos of my grandmother when she was young and one of my great grandmother. She told me where my great grandparents were buried and revealed their connections to Texas and Arkansas. 

The only family stories that my grandmother told me centered around health issues. She mentioned that members of her family often drank vinegar and pickle juice. She insisted that everyone in the family died from gut troubles. Given that she herself died from colon cancer I took her words to heart. When I made my first visit to a gastroenterologist I told him what she had said and he nodded with a smile. I eventually learned that a folk remedy for the heartburn that plagues me is vinegar or other acidic sources that somehow quell the GERD that plagues some folks like me.

I am the very image of my cousin from the Smith family and I see much of myself in my grandmother. As a matter of fact my mother often frowned at the idea that I more closely resembled Minnie Bell than her. I’ve learned that how I appear often depends on who is assessing me. I have a bit of both sides of the family but seem to lean a bit more toward those Smiths. 

My Smith ancestors were common people who came to America from England before our revolution. They settled in Virginia and when the fight for independence began they offered their services to the patriots. While my ancestors seemed to land on the right side of history I know little more about them. Nobody was wealthy enough to own slaves as far as I can tell. They were generally simple people just striving to make it from one day to the next. It was not until my father’s generation that they became more educated but somehow it seems that John WS Smith had leadership skills that vaulted him into roles that foretold the success of his present day descendants. 

My people came for opportunity and things certainly worked out well for my branch at least. I feel a sense of history and pride in my background that makes me understand my own responsibilities in keeping our nation moving forward and staying free. The Smiths were here 250 years ago and their legacy keeps those of us who are living in the present aware of our duty to assure that the United States continues to be a haven for those longing for the chance to create better lives. I honor the work of John WS Smith each time I speak for what I believe is right and just.