All It Takes Is A Little Love

We are about to enter state testing season in Texas. The lead up to the big event is a year long process with teachers scurrying to teach all of the knowledge and skills that students will need to do well. In the meantime each school will have selected a testing coordinator who is responsible for the smooth functioning of the distribution of the tests, the environment on testing days, and the expedient return of the testing materials. 

As a coordinator I took part in multiple training sessions outlining my duties. No matter how many times I had been in charge of the process, I still had to attend several classes to be certain that the school was in perfect compliance with all of the rules. After that I had to hold training sessions for every teacher and adult who would be part of the event. There were no excuses for non-attendance. Every “t” had to be crossed and every “i” dotted. The message was quite clear that lack of strict security could result in loss of my certification as a teacher. 

Once the tests arrived from the state I had to pick them up from a central location chosen by the district or they were brought to the school under strict supervision. The tests had to be stored in a secure location that nobody was able access other than me and the principal. Leaving the door open when the tests were inside would lead to a slap on the wrist, or worse. Using a room without a lock might have resulted in even more dramatic consequences for the school and in particular for me. 

It took many hours to check the lists of students expected to take the tests and to pair them with properly numbered testing materials. There was no room for major mistakes on the testing day. Everything had to be prepared far in advance. Trained educators who would provide teachers with needed breaks had to be procured as well, a daunting task since every school in the state was grabbing up everyone who was qualified. 

It was not unusual for me to spend time at the school until ten or eleven at night in the run up to the testing. I had to plan for so many possible scenarios such as one of the trained teachers falling ill on testing day thus leaving a classroom without someone to administer the test. I always kept extra personnel on call to respond to such instances. I had to make provisions for children who got sick, arrived late or became a disciplinary problem. In spite of anticipating virtually every possible scenario something totally unexpected would happen and I had to have a viable plan to address the issue. 

Once the students completed the tests I had to take another inventory and be sure that identification numbers coincided with the proper test numbers. I would again burn the midnight oil making sure that everything was above board and properly handled. It was alway a great relief when I delivered the tests to the school district and got an “atta” girl for adhering to every rule and procedure. 

I outline this because I fully understood the seriousness of my duties. There was no wriggle room for glitches either minor or major. I knew that me and my teachers and my principal were being held to the highest standards and that lackadaisically botching any aspect of the process could lead to big trouble such as losing my ability to ever teach again in my state’s public schools. I was a stickler because I understood the importance of taking my job very seriously.

Thus I am stunned that members of the Trump cabinet were involved in a security breach that would have brought down fire and brimstone in a school much less in relation to plans for a military attack. it is unbelievable and unacceptable to create any kind of excuse for what happened. Lack of experience is not enough. These people were texting each other like teens planning to wrap a house in toilet paper. They were discussing their personal opinions about Europe in a chatty text that inadvertently included the chief editor of a national magazine who had no business whatsoever gaining access to that kind of information. The back and forth even included silly emojis, making the lack of professionalism seem even more horrific. These people were clowns attempting to do a very serious task and they failed miserably.

All of the individuals who took part in the clown show should at the very least be publicly chastised as should Donald Trump and the members of Congress who approved them. As citizens we should all be wondering how safe we are when the level of inexperience is so vast that all of us are stunned. Those who voted for Trump expected more of him and his cabinet. So far Trump washes his hands like Pontius Pilate and insists that he had nothing to do with any of it.

I beg to differ. Trump chose these people and he should have been privy to any discussions about bombing another nation. This is a very serious act that has been botched by a very unserious group of people. it is so much more than a glitch. As Americans we expect much better.  

As a teacher I often hung inspirational posters in my classroom. In my travels I purchased magnets to place on my refrigerator with sayings that struck me as being important ideas to remember. While such things sometimes border on being trite, they can also help to create a kind of moral vision or at least represent one’s beliefs. 

I never harped on the posters in my classroom. I put them on the walls and left it for my students to read or not. My magnets, on the other hand, are quite personal and so I look at them regularly to remind myself of the importance of thinking beyond my own needs. I have far too many quotes that guide me to present them all, but here are a few of my favorites. 

From Franklin Delano Roosevelt”

“Repetition does not transform lie into a truth”

“The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.”

“Rules are not necessarily sacred; principles are.”

The youth of today are our sole investment in tomorrow.”

From Eleanor Roosevelt:

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”

From John F. Kennedy:

“One person can make a difference and everyone should try.”

From Thoreau:

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.”

From Gandhi

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

From Pastor Martin Niemoller:

“First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

They they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

The they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.”

I am not a particularly courageous person but I would like to be. I write blogs that openly assert my political views, but in the back of my mind I am often quite frightened that I will lose the goodwill of friends or relatives who do not agree with me. I have to force myself to stand up for what I believe and all too often I water down what I really want to say even as I realize that nobody who disagrees with me reads my thoughts anymore. 

I have wondered for all of my life how good people were conned into believing in the world vision of Adolf Hitler. I have discussed such things with my daughters and my adult grandchildren, always naively believing that our democracy would protect us from authoritarian regimes. It never occurred to me that a politician repeating lies over and over again would fool the American people. I always thought that our system of government was ironclad and would protect the least among us from danger. What a fool I have been!

In only two months of the Trump presidency I have been stunned each and every day not just by his boldly unconstitutional actions but more so by the seeming complacency by so many of my fellow citizens. Perhaps some of them have been programmed to believe his lies or maybe they do not belong to the groups that are being attacked and do not see him as a threat to themselves. Worst of all is the possibility that they are unaware of the damage that he is inflicting on our nation and blithely insistent that this too shall pass. 

People like me have been spoiled by our freedoms. I have never endured subjugation or segregation like my fellow Black citizens and their ancestors. I have not had rocks thrown at me simply for being a hated immigrant like my mother did when she was a child. Nobody has knocked on my door in the middle of the night and sent me away without a hearing like is happening to individuals right now in my country. I have never been afraid of losing my freedoms until now when the man chosen to protect our Constitution is daring Congress and judges to stop him from flaunting the laws and seemingly getting away with destroying the separation of powers by seizing control of everything through executive orders. He is operating like a king or a dictator and little has been done to check and balance his total disregard for rules that were once sacred.

I know I have to keep protesting and resisting for the sake of the young and for the preservation of my country. I know that there are very good people who still do not seem to understand the danger we are in. They truly believe that Donald Trump wants to make our country great again, but I have no doubt that Trump is only interested in preserving his personal wealth and power. His changes will ultimately hurt many of the very people who voted for him along with innocents who are being used as pawns to stir up fears.

I must not be afraid nor should any of us. When we only fight for our own personal needs and look away when others are being hurt, we chip away at all that has ever been good about our nation. We must correct the lies and misinformation. We must demand that our Congress and our judiciary exercise their rights. We must move quickly before the destruction is so massive that there will be little left to save. We each must do something every single day even if it scares us.

Cruelty sets me off. I’ve only been the victim of it one time when I was in high school. I was able to ignore the insults by remembering my mother’s adage to “consider the source.” I was one of the top students in my class and the poor soul who did his best to raise my ire was not the brightest person. I was easy to just stare him down without so much as a reaction. 

My mother had told me about being harassed when she was a child walking to school. She was a child of immigrants from Eastern Europe and somehow she and her siblings were judged by members of her community to be “dirty and ignorant.” Mama said that she and her brothers and sisters simply dodged the rocks and the words being thrown and them and did their best to not allow the unfairness of it all to get to them. 

I suspect that my mother was fairly good at pretending that she was untouched by the snarling rudeness, but I always noticed a slight change in her facial expression whenever she retold the story of being the butt of prejudice. There was a sadness in her eyes rather than defiance. She reiterated the story often enough to make me believe that it was very difficult for her to understand what she had done to deserve the ugliness of it all.

There always seems to be a small minded group of people in every country, neighborhood, church and school. When I was in high school I knew that most of my classmates were very good and loving people. It was easy to ignore the one person who decided to take a shot at me because he was the exception rather than the rule. Only one other time did I see a repeat of his cruelty and that was on our senior trip to a dude ranch. 

We were having a glorious time when a group of boys decided that it would be funny to throw one of my friends into the swimming pool fully clothed. At first I even thought it was an innocent prank until my friend began screaming hysterically that she could not swim. They guys only laughed at her as they held her hands and feet and swing her back and forth over the deep end of the pool. By this time she was literally crying and begging for her life but they were not about to miss the humor of this moment over something as silly as being unable to swim. 

That’s when I interceded and demanded with the loudest and most authoritative voice that I was able to muster that they put her down. I think it startled them because I was generally a quiet little mouse. My sudden dominance confused them enough to move away from the pool and set her down on the ground. Trying to save face they laughed and made a few insulting comments about both me and my friend and left. 

I still remember holding my trembling friend as she sobbed for a much longer time than I would have expected She was devastated by what had happened and wanted to go home immediately but that was not possible. She did not enjoy another moment of our stay and even commented that the whole trip had been a total disaster and one of the worst moments of her life. Somehow those ruffians had broken her and none of my efforts were successful in cheering her up.

Most of the time cruelty begins as a silly effort to be admired. The person who resorts to bullying is often devoid of most redeeming qualities. Bullies are small minded people who believe that hurting someone else makes them seem strong and powerful, but most of us know that such is rarely the case. If we think about what has made them that way we generally realize that we feel sorry for them, the exact opposite of the kind of admiration that they are seeking. 

Years passed before I saw those same guys again and little had changed in their lives. They were still boasting and thumping their chests even as the rest of us saw through their bravado. I learned that several of my classmates had endured their angry antics and most of the time people reacted the way that I had in not giving them the attention for which they were starved. Still, I wondered how sad it must be to be them. When the only popularity card we have to play is cruelty or hate we are quite empty.

I worry of late because cruelty has become a national pastime with our president leading the way. When he disagrees with a woman he insults her looks, her intelligence, her accomplishments. It’s well known that he called his airline pilot brother, “ a cab driver in the sky.” He makes it a sport to belittle people and describe minorities with vile words aimed mostly to make himself feel more superior. In another time he would have been shunned from polite society but somehow we live in an age where his crudeness is viewed as a sign of great strength. 

We’ve seen this kind of story before and it rarely ends well. Persecuting innocent people only goes so far in satiating the lust for acceptance. Sticks and stones break bones but words can feel more murderous. Sooner or later everyone has enough because they realize that he does those things only for himself not to make life better for others. Ultimately there is never enough cruelty for such a person and there is no longer a good reason to ignore the destruction that he is creating. the majority of good folks demand that he stop. It’s how it has always worked. When we have had enough the bullies are shunned just as they should be and that includes even the seemingly most powerful ones. It’s their own cruelty that ultimately makes them vulnerable.

“Every storm runs out of rain.” —-Maya Angelou

My life has been littered with terrible storms. Some of them brought rain and others were storms of great personal loss. There were storms that changed the direction of my life. In every instance I felt overwhelmed and frightened to the point of feeling as though I had lost all control over my destiny. In those moments it was difficult to believe that one day the sun would shine again and that I would soon embrace happiness with intense joy. 

I suppose that each of us endure such storms. Where I live fifty miles from the Gulf Coast dangerous storms have been recurrent events that devastate the lives of those who bear the brunt of wind and unrelenting rain. These times have been incredibly frightening but for the most part the impact of their damage has been relatively mild for me. Nonetheless I understand the serendipity of such things and wonder if it is only a matter of time before my home and sense of security will one day bear the brunt of the winds and the floods that return with great regularity. 

In life we each face moments that require great courage and a willingness to believe that we will survive no matter how horrific the damage may be. As a child I navigated through a state of depression after the death of my father. Somehow he continued to inspire me even in his absence. He had chided me shortly before he died, insisting that I had a future that would be wonderful as long as I gave my all to learning and working hard. Somehow that message would resonate with me for all of my life. I got past my sorrow by striving to be the kind of person that my father had believed me to be. I found strength that I did not know I had. I saw that he understood me better than I understood myself. His voice and encouragement would take me through storm after storm with a growing sense of my abilities to overcome whatever challenged me. 

When my mother first became ill with bipolar disorder I felt overwhelmed. The woman who had been our family’s heroine was broken. I was not yet twenty one years old and I had no experience with mental illness. I had no idea what to do and neither did the adults whose help I attempted to enlist. They were as frightened by my mother’s state of mind as I was. With nobody to rely on other than myself I took a deep breath and became an adult overnight. As I navigated through the next forty years I would find the courage and the wisdom to keep my mother as well as possible. Even the storms of her illness would break now and again into moments of sunshine and great joy. 

In 2017, I watched Houston and surrounding areas literally go under water when five days of incessant rain pounded the city. The damage was so severe and so stunning that I wondered if the place that I have known and loved would finally be doomed. Instead I saw the courage and the generosity of the citizens rebuild what had seemingly been forever destroyed. The storm brought out the best in us just as it did for a during the Covid 19 pandemic, at least for a time. 

The world still has so many problems. There are wars that have brought more destruction and death. There are fires that have burned people’s dreams and sense of security. Hurricanes have destroyed traditions and comforts. Drought and famine have left people starving for food and kindness. As decent and moral human beings rushing in to save lives is an instinctive behavior. When the most horrible things happen we do what is needed, ignoring the cost in dollars and cents. We empathize and rebuild without compensation and as we do such things we provide the will to continue to those who have suffered inestimable loss. We become the sunshine after the storm. 

I’m feeling shaky in this moment. We have a “mad king” upending lives and creating uncertainty in the United States and across the globe. He is as destructive as a storm. He is playing with lives like a little boy rearranging the miniature figures of a toy battlefield. Sadly, the people he is affecting are quite real and for them and those of us watching in horror his lack of concern for either the intended or unintended consequences of his actions are falling into pits of despair. His haphazard decisions have been as frightening as a raging hurricane toppling buildings and pushing rushing water into the walls of our homes. 

We feel frightened and unmoored in this moment. We are drowning in our powerlessness and yet deep down inside we are confident that we somehow have the resources to set things right. Perhaps we cannot wait for the rain to stop. We have to protect each other in the moment. We must become the heroes arriving in boats to carry our fellow Americans out of danger. 

In such times as this I hear my father’s voice speaking to my soul. I know that he has been preparing me for this for all of my life. He has shown me again and again how resilient and capable I am. I smile and understand my assignment. I will not hide and fold. With all of the millions of heroes in this world I know that together we will lasso the sun and bring it back to quell the storm.  

In the long ago of my youth I recall one of my teachers urging us to be careful about marrying outside of our economic status. Since I wasn’t even sure what my economic status was back then I thought his idea was rather ridiculous. After all I was able to attend a private school with a scholarship that seem to make me equal to my peers. The fact that we wore uniforms made my equality with them even more easy. As far as I remember I never knew much one way or another about the wealth or want of my classmates. It was not something that ever found its way onto my radar beyond what I thought was the most inappropriate bit of advice from that teacher. 

I met my husband at a birthday party for one of my cousins. The two of them had been friends from the time that they were boys. They had grown up in the same neighborhood and attended some of the same schools. As far as I knew there was very little difference between my life and that of my future husband other than the fact that he purchased his clothing at a very exclusive and expensive store while I found mine on sale at lower end retail establishments. 

An uncle who had been friends with my husband’s parents kept assuring me that I would live a life of luxury once I married. He somehow believed that my future husband was in line for immense wealth, at least as measured by the low middle class standards of most of my relations. Of course I was madly in love with the man who would become my husband and none of that mattered to me other than to assure me that we were not going to starve. In truth I had little concept of what it meant to be wealthy so my expectations were quite low and I certainly did not recall the admonition from my teacher to be careful about elevating my status too quickly. 

As it turned out all of the stories of trust funds and inheritances designed to turn my husband into a country squire were pure fiction. It worked for me because I had learned all of my mother’s tricks of the trade for living well on a sometimes less than adequate income. I applied her magic to my meager pay as a teacher’s aide and my husband’s earnings as a teaching assistant. We had little or nothing but still managed to live like kings as far as I was concerned. 

We had a nice apartment and owned the old car that my husband’s grandmother had given to him. We ate a lot of beans and soup but we never went hungry. Mike, my husband, got work in the summers as an electrician’s helper with his Uncle Bob. Those were glory days with good pay and lots of overtime. We were able to save enough to get Mike through college until he was finally working for one of the big banks downtown. 

We had made it own our own with a bit of help now again from our mothers who always seemed to have bags of groceries to give us when we came to visit or a ten dollar bill presented with the advice to “have fun.” Mike also had an uncle who plied us with shrimp, oysters, melons and not a few twenty dollar bills when we went to visit him at his house on Matagorda Bay. In between all of the generous adults in our live we made our way to independence and a very nice life. Somehow I never saw the so called imbalance between the life of my family and that of Mike’s. It has only been since Mike’s father came to live with us that I have realized just how different things had been for the two of us before we met. 

Mike’s dad grew up during the Great Depression in Puerto Rico. His father was a doctor and the members of this family were leaders in the small town where he lived. He relates stories of getting train sets and little cars that he could ride in for Christmas in a time when my mother received a nickel for the occasion. He talks of being at the top of his society and not having much interaction with those who lived down below. His life was so incredibly different from either of my parents that I found myself feeling a bit of awe at the disparities between my ancestors and his. 

I had never before realized the extent to which my father-in-law and I were so economically different. Sometimes during conversations in which he described his past I found myself feeling uncomfortable. and wondering if I reminded him of the souls that lived at the lower end of his society. For the first time in my life I realized what my teacher had been trying to tell us. I realized that my father-in-law struggled to understand the wide gulf between my childhood and his. I began to squirm at his mention of wealthy and powerful people and feel a bit unseen. Then it dawned on me that I was just as proud of who I am and where I have been as my father-in-law is of his story. We are equals sitting at the same table breaking bread. There is no mountain between us and anyone who imposes one is wrong. 

Our economic backgrounds no more define us that any other superficial criteria. The true worth of each person does not lie in money or the number of toys that they own. Some of the wealthiest people in the world are poor in spirit compared to the man who works two jobs to keep his family from hunger. My father-in-law and I have learned this from sharing our histories. Anyone can be born into wealth but it takes a remarkable individual to move up from the bottom. That guy mowing lawns on Saturday after working all week long so that his children may go to college is someone more admirable than the oligarch whose only goal is to become ever more powerful. Our economic status does not define us nor does it preclude any of us from living with and loving each other. 

My teacher was wrong. It is only when we apply false measures to judge one another that there are problems living together. When we strive to truly see and respect the worth of each and every person and then share our own good fortune with those who need a helping everyone wins.