30-year class reunion is a come as you ARE....TODAY.

Ready to take on the world!

This year, in fact at the end of this month, I will celebrate my (gasp) 30-year class reunion.  Now, before my fellow classmates on Facebook go on to bust my chops about "outing" them for our true ages I want to go on record as saying that I choose to embrace my age rather than lie about it.  I'm 48 & proud of it.  I count each and every year as another notch in the proverbial belt of life. I see every year on this earth as a a new experience and  a blessing.  Especially in light of the friends I've buried far too early.

Until last year, I was a Michigan resident my entire life and class reunions were a hop, skip and jump to a place to socialize with people who were in the trenches with me during my most formative years.  This year I will drive home 9 hours from Tennessee with my family to attend.  Yes, I'm coming home to eat turkey with my beloved family.

Mainly, though....it's about coming HOME and reflecting on the person I am now, compared to the person I was in 1981...when my skin was tighter, I weighed less and I had higher expectations about that big wide open world I was about to step into. 

Thirty years ago we were, all of us in our own ways, adventurers.  Playing it safe didn't yet occur to us. We didn't have mouths to feed, mortgages to pay or calories to count.  We were invincible.  We were immortal.  We didn't think about the fact that we would someday be saying final farewells to parents, siblings, or friends with whom we grew up.  We never expected we would someday be staring into a mirror and seeing...(another gasp) our OWN parents!

And while many classmates might be eating skinless white meat or skipping that extra slice of pumpkin pie as they frantically diet before the big "reveal" day, I will be enjoying my Thanksgiving meal and relishing who I am today, not dwelling on who I used to be and hiding who I've morphed into.  Several times throughout this past year I've reminded myself about the upcoming reunion and I've chastized myself for not working out more often in preparation of  "the big day."  Now, thankfully, that ship has sailed.  There are school functions to attend, dance classes, carpooling, dinners to be made, writing and other such passions that take up my precious time. Making healthy food choices these days is more about teaching my 6-year-old to eat healthfully rather than my own vanity. A nice long walk to clear my head & the occasional kickboxing session is about the best I can squeeze in.

There is something very liberating about this reunion, as opposed to my 10 or even my 20-year reunion. I now (finally)  realize that the people who matter most in my life will continue to love me as they did when I was that young whippersnap of a girl no matter who I am or what I look like and if not, well then, they never mattered to me in the first place. Ten years ago I was STILL an unmarried career woman.  I did not want my lifelong friends to see that maybe I wasn't 108 lbs anymore or notice any signs that I was approaching the dreaded 4-0.  Looking back now, I laugh at how scared I was of that approaching decade of my life. 

Now I realize that for me, my 40s were the most defining years of my life personally.  I married at 39, I had my daughter at nearly 42 and I am now a busy wife & school mom TRYING to turn my years of journalism and public relations into success as a freelance writer. 

Still....for many of my fellow classmates who started the marriage and /or parenting phase of their lives earlier, the 40s are a time of dealing with the same teenaged angst from their kids that they put their own parents through.  Others who chose different paths have had their own stuggles. Maybe they chose NOT to marry, which was perfectly fine. Some had great jobs and succeeded, others lost jobs, ended marriages or buried loved ones.  Others have fought back against major illnesses & won or are currently fighting them now.  At this point in my own life I've seen and experienced many of the same things.  The point is, we are fortunate to still be here at all.  Many of our classmates are already gone and will be there with us in spirit only. 

Time has a way of humbling us all.  Life has a way of beating us down and then every once in a while, something will lift us up again.  Seeing lifelong friends who knew me way back when is what personally lifts ME up and for this reason, I'm going back to the place where, both physically and emotionally, I believed life held so many promises.  It still does, only we are older now and with experience we often become jaded. 

For me, I have no reason to come as anyone other than the person that I am today. Do I miss my tighter skin, toned arms and sparking smile sans crow's feet?  Of course!  Do I miss that all enough to say I'm not going back there to see everyone because they'll judge me? HELL NO!  Because with age also comes confidence.  Will people say "wow, he's gone bald or gee, she's gained weight!" Sadly, yes.  We may not think so but we are ALL guilty of judging others, even if it's silently to ourselves. Will we, however, also say "...look how far we've come..."? Again....a resounding YES.   

Which is why I'm saying that while a lot of pressure seems to be placed on people to attend their 25th reunions sporting buffed bodies, fancy clothes, pictures of our perfect families and impressive business cards showing what we've DONE with our lives, the 30th is a chance for us to just come back together as we are today and reminisce (and dare I say laugh) at who we were in 1981.

If you've never attended a class reunion, I challenge you to do so.  You will be amazed at how differently you will be received by your classmates now as opposed to back in the day when you sat at the loner lunchroom table and tried to hide your braces and zits. 

I had one classmate say to me in no unceratin terms that he/she has "nothing to show for the last 30 years."  HUH?  How can any of us say such a thing?  Just being here matters!  We all thought we'd turn out differently, no matter WHAT we've done with our lives. And therein lies the beauty of seeing the friends with whom we started our life's journey, in the first place.

And to my fellow classmates from John Glenn High School, whom I'll see in a few short weeks even though I'm still trying to find the perfect little black dress...I say WELCOME HOME and I can't wait to see "y'all" over Thanksgiving weekend....party ON!!

Where Did Gramma's House Go?

The empty lot where my grandparents' home once stood

This used to be my playground

This used to be my childhood dream

This used to be the place I ran to

Whenever I was in need

Of a friend

Why did it have to end

-- Madonna

The last time I was in my native Michigan I found myself hearing this song from one of my all-time fave contemporary movies, A League of Our Own, playing in the back of my mind as I made the sad trip back to my grandparents' street in Detroit to see for myself if it was really true. Was my grandparents' home really gone?

Mom & her cousin relax on front lawn of the house on Sarena

Sadly, it was true. Gramma & Gramps' home on Sarena Street is no longer standing.  In fact, there was not even evidence a home ever sat on that little tiny piece of property.  I don't know where it went.  I don't know HOW it vanished.  Was it a fire?  Was it leveled because of how horribly corroded it looked last time I saw it?  That was in 2009, when my cousin Dave & I, feeling pangs of nostalgia for our happy childhoods, decided to drive by the old neighborhood.  We were horrified by what we found.  The once neat little white bungalow we knew and loved was now run down, the front door and windows boarded up, the siding shot up with bulletholes. The porch we grandkids all jumped off from was barely viewable because it was covered with overgrown bushes and weeds.

Gramps in front of his Detroit home in safer, happier times 

 My cousin Dave is this burly guy, a very smart, articulate teacher with a masters' degree.  He usually has something to say about most everything.  Not this day.  He stood there silently, looking like he wanted to cry.  He was speechless, as was I.  Finally we both found ourselves choked up. This was personal. Someone, or something....made our childhood just... disappear.
I couldn't just stand there ....ever the curious, I simply had to inch in closer, despite Dave's warnings that we don't know what might be in there....vermin...crack dealers, who knew what lurked inside the house we once knew so well?  So there I was in high-heeled sandals, trying to climb onto something to peer inside the window that was once my mother's bedroom.  I heard water running and for a moment I thought maybe someone still lived there.  Was I trespassing?  But no, it appeared maybe some irresponsible people now used the house we spent our childhoods in as a drug house....the lump in my throat was hard to swallow.

On the drive away that day, I think I remember saying maybe we shouldn't have gone by....it certainly didn't make us feel nostalgic....just sickened and sad.  It forever skewed memories of my entire childhood.  The hundreds of nights I slept over my grandparents' house.  The trips to the little soda shop at the corner.  The scent of Gramma's lovely peonies all neatly lined up in the backyard. The railroad tracks just three doors down where Gramps & I used to wait for the trains to pass by every night from his covered porch.  All those lovely memories now forever tainted. 

Author Tom Wolfe said you can't go home again. I guess he was right. But now, as I stood there shooting pictures of the empty lot last July, fighting back tears once again....I realized a boarded up house was at least, still a tangible memory.  I could still envision what it once was.  Now, people who drive by that area will never know that once there was a  little white house that held a family of five, that grew into an extended family of grandparents, aunts and uncles and lively cousins who gathered at the hub of our big loud Italian existence for every holiday or many times, just because. 

Being a movie buff, please allow me to use a movie metaphor to adequately convey my sadness over Gramps & Gramm's "lost house."  In the 1990 Barry Levinson movie Avalon, main character Sam Krichinsky, an immigrant to America, is now near the end of his life and in a convalescent center.  During a visit from his grandson and great-grandson, it is brutally apparent he has lost most of his faculties.  Yet in a moment of clarity, Sam laments to his grandson that a few years ago he drove past his old neighborhood only to see that everything on the street had been modernized and nothing from the old neighborhood still existed.  He went on to say thank God he finally found a street sign so he knew he wasn't losing his mind.  For a moment there, he muses, he almost thought maybe he, too, never existed.  In the touching final scene, he tells his grandson and great grandson,

"If I knew things would no longer be, I would have tried to remember better."

I couldn't have said it better. 

Happy Father's Day to my Archie Bunker Dad

Daddy and me, ca. 1964

Daddy doing his favorite thing....chillin' out

By today's standards, I was lucky enough to have grown up in an All-American family. Call it a Leave it to Beaver family, or Brady Bunch minus the widowed parents and blended family. Or perhaps we were like the Keatons or the Huxtables. Regardless, we were a close-knit family. I grew up in a two parent household, with two-point-two kids, a cat and a stay at home mommy. Only thing missing was a white picket fence and believe me, we'd have had one if Mom wanted it. We lived in a modest ranch in middle-class America and thanks to having only one TV and three networks, all dominated by whatever my parents watched, my brother and I never knew if there were things we didn't have. 

My father didn't have the easiest of childhoods. The youngest child of seven children, Dad met with harsh reality at a very young age when his own father, my grandfather, died in a tragic house fire when Dad was only 10. He was in the house that cold December night. I cannot fathom the horror of seeing your father burn in a house fire. Dad's mother, some say, was never quite the same, at least not in those formative years when a boy needs his mother the most and Dad did his best to assure his kids had a happy childhood. We never wanted for much and that was all thanks to one man: The unsung hero who was my dad, determined to not give his own kids a sad or tough childhood.

There was one thing that separated my family from the Cleavers, the Bradys, the Huxtables or the Keatons.  My daddy was NONE of those dads.  He didn't come home carrying a briefcase,wearing a shirt and tie. He didn't play ball in the street with my brother or sit at tea parties with me. He most certainly didn't sit down calmly and talk things out with his kids to reason with us if we did something wrong.

Daddy could be tough when warranted and I'm glad he was....I now see my own toughness coming from him in my own parenting. Weird how that happens.   

Getting back to TV sitcom dads, versus MY dad.  Today, a mere month before he turns 70, my brother and I joke that Daddy is very much like Archie Bunker, both in his bark-worse-than-bite mannerisms and in his personal attachment to "his" chair.  Back when we were kids, though, picture a man with the tough, opinionated attitude of a young Archie Bunker, combined with the quick tempered but loving, vulnerable nature of The Honeymooners' Ralph Cramden and the good looks of Steve McQueen.  That was my daddy when I was a child.

OK so he wasn't that dad who took us fishing every Sunday, although we went on occasion.  He didn't like big crowds so we didn't go to every Tiger game every Sunday afternoon. But all major sports were and continue to be a huge part of daddy's life.  
Describing my dad is like describing an enigma.  First off, Daddy was your typical Detroiter, a blue-collar tool and die maker who worked his life in the automotive field yet drove older cars and lived simply.  He probably made more money than many of his white collar neighbors but he had a saying:  "People with money never talk about it." I subscribe to that saying to this very day.

With a razor-sharp wit and a penchant for the meaning and origin of words...if I wanted to know a word, his stock answer was to look it up.  To this day, Dad likes to mess with me, a writer who studied English and Journalism in college, by TRYING (I know he's reading this) to one-up me on my knowledge of  words...

Dad:  "[So and so] could be his Doppleganger...oh wait, I'll bet you don't know that word..."
Me: " Ummm,  Duh Dad, it means he could be his twin. "
Dad: OK, smart-ass, what's the origin of the word?  Did you know that Dopple in Latin means..." ...and on we go.  You get the picture. 

I get a thrill EVERY TIME we play these games.  We've been doing them since I was about 10.  From his mother, my grandmother, Dad developed a love of crosswords and word search games and I'm glad he did because perhaps this fostered my love of words and of writing.  Mom gave me many gifts, too numerous to list. Dad gave me many gifts as well, including a fighting spirit, a bluntness in speaking my mind and of course, my love of  words.  Yet with my dad, it's the unspoken things that as I grow older I find all the more special about the man I call Daddy.

Every mid-June I stress out over what to buy for the man who not only fathered and helped raise me but who gave me many life lessons along the way. What sports jersey, socks, tee shirt or book could ever compare with all he's given me?

It's harder because, and I know he will NOT be amused by this, he really doesn't have a lot of hobbies.  Dad is a pretty content man doing, well, basically, nothing remarkable.  Give him a pack of cigarettes, an ice cold beer and a movie of his choice and he'll sit in "his" chair and enjoy his flat screen TV. This used to really bother me, a person my husband likes to call a "tornado" in perpetual motion.  It's only now that I've come to accept Dad's way of life. Why?  Because A) he's spent his life working and he's earned this time to do NOTHING if he so chooses. and B) Because that's what makes Daddy happy!

I tell my husband, who has only known my dad for ten years, that Daddy wasn't always like this.  Really.  Not only did we take lovely drives to visit family and friends every weekend but we also enjoyed short trips to Wyandotte MI, where we would sometimes cook out on the hibachi and watch the Boblo boats come and go.
There were piggyback rides where I would yank on his right ear to go right and his left ear to go left. There were annual trips to Irish Hills, Frankenmuth, and as anyone living in Michigan knows, no summer is complete without a trip to God's Country, "up north." The Upper Penninsula.  Mackinac City, Tacqamenon Falls and the like.  (Note to my new neighbors of the south, that's the U.P. for short.)

There were BBQs where Daddy would make HUGE yummy steaks, he started our neighborhood's first corn roast and there were annual invites to the backyard for his fireworks shows that drew everyone living on South Rickham Court.  With all due respect to the Kroll and Kanclerz families across the street, I personally believe MY daddy had the best lawn on the street.  At Halloween, we had the "spooky house" and at Christmastime, in the early years on Rickham, OURS was the original GRISWOLD house, where Daddy dutifully strung lights all over the house and on every bush and tree in the front of our home, including the gaslight. There were plenty of expletives, of course, but that was par for the course in the Fritz household, sorry to my Christian friends.  The year thieves stole our outdoor lights while we were away visiting family, my dad told the officer taking the report that this was it, he would no longer do a huge lights display. 

"I honestly wish you'd reconsider this," said the officer.  "It always looks so nice."

I could go on and on about the snippets of memories I have of my own father, but there is one more caveat: Daddy did all of this while working afternoons and nights. AND he worked SEVEN DAYS A WEEK. YET:  I do not recall a single choir concert, dance recital or play where my dad wasn't sitting in the audience.  Perhaps my brother had it harder. He played baseball and Daddy probably missed more of his games than my concerts because, well, there were more ballgames on the schedule.  But I remember times when Daddy surprised my brother by attending his games on the way to work.  Whenever possible, our father showed up when it counted.  That's what REAL daddies do, no matter how tired they are, no matter HOW dreadfully boring the event might appear to be, he was THERE. AND WE NOTICED. 
I noticed one other thing that sticks with me to this very day.  Dad's unwavering commitment to the people he loved.  Whether it was defending my brother in the Principal's office, writing a letter to the editor defending me after I won a local beauty pageant where my last name just happened to match the name of a city administrator we didn't even know, Dad stuck by the people he loved. My mother battled a lifelong disease and Dad married her anyway, knowing she might always have limited abilities.  My life-of-the-party dad could have bailed a long time ago but he didn't.  Sure, there were marital problems, we ALL have them.  Dad and mom had their share, which I won't get into.

Contrary to what today's experts might say, Dad and Mom argued IN FRONT OF THEIR KIDS.  (I'll pause so you can catch your breath after gasping in horror.) What did this teach my brother and me, two passionate hotheads today? It taught us that family members might fight tooth and nail.  We might say seemingly horrible things in anger.  But we say our piece, we work through our conflicts and we move on. We have each other's back and we love each other fiercely, afterward. Both my husband and my sister-in-law still seem somewhat shell-shocked by the infamous Fritz outbursts that continue to take place, on occasion.  I can only speak for my husband's family when I say they are polite almost to a fault and almost passive-aggressive if they are angry.  Not us.  Dad taught us by example that we get it off our chests. We will all die someday but one thing that won't kill a Fritz is an ulcer stemming from keeping our feelings hidden, to be sure.

I'd like to share ONE story of how much my daddy remained committed to his wife of 25+ years.  I graduated from college in 1986.  Until almost the day of college commencement, I did NOT want to walk the stage and receive my "fake" diploma, since I learned they mailed us our real sheepskins later on.  Why bother, I reasoned, because there were 2,000+ grads, and no one will even see me!  I already knew my mom would be unable to go because of all the stairs.  Back then, arenas were not required to have ramps for wheelchairs. 

Mom talked me into walking the stage because of all the blood sweat and tears I put into my studies, PLUS all the overtime Daddy worked to pay for my education. This was as much Dad's achievement as it was, mine and HE DESERVED TO SEE ME GRADUATE FROM COLLEGE. I dutifully ordered my cap and gown.   The morning of the commencement ceremony came around.  I came out of my bedroom draped in my cap and gown and here came Daddy, with a somber look on his face.

"Hon, I won't be able to come to your graduation today.  If your mom can't go, I just can't leave her here alone....it's already breaking her heart not to be able to enjoy this moment."
You see, Daddy knew if his wife was going to be sad, he couldn't leave her there like that all alone.  He was committed to staying home with her even at my expense because he knew this was what a husband does. I wasn't happy daddy wasn't attending, not back then anyway...because I simply didn't understand it AND because I didn't want to walk the stage in the first place!
Today, I get it.  Daddy stayed behind with Mom, giving me my wings and letting me have all the glory of graduating, something he never had the chance to do in his own life even though he had a very high IQ and could well have graduated at the top of his class.  Just as he drove the old beat up cars while I drove the newer ones HE bought me. Working all the OT he could so his family could have the niceties he didn't have as a child. Caring for his wife and kids, letting us go first. That WAS and STILL IS my dad. 
Daddy retired a few years ago. Now remarried to his wife Diane after my mom's death, with grown children out on their own, the world was, once again, his oyster.  What would he do now?  Go fishing?  Play Golf?  Travel?  His unspoken answer: Nothing we would find exciting.  But you see, I know my daddy is doing exactly what he wants to do.  On his own terms. And although I now live almost 700 miles away from him, he is no further away from my heart than he was when he lived only eight miles away. 

He is still as crotchety as Archie Bunker.  He still sits in that damned LAZY chair.  He probably drives his wife NUTS.  But his grand kids adore him, cranky spirit and all, because they can see, as we kids did, that beneath it all is a man with a HUGE, unselfish heart of gold and they love him for it.  And so do I.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy.  And to the man I married -- the SECOND best daddy (next to mine, of course) in the world: Someday, I hope OUR daughter will write about the man she now runs to greet at the door with stars in her eyes EVERY DAY.  Somehow, I believe she will have every reason to do so.
Happy Father's Day to ALL daddies who are still with us, as well as to those whom we remember in our hearts and who are looking down upon us with twinkles in their eyes. If you have your daddy, hug him extra tight this weekend.  If you don't....then God rest his soul and grant you peace on what will be a tough day for you.  But your dad, alive in presence or in spirit, is still your dad.  Moms may rock the cradles but dads rock the world!  I love you ALL.  Thanks for all you do to make our children's lives special! It goes by so fast but the memories you make live on forever. 

Daddy FINALLY walks me down the aisle, 2003

 

 

A cousin I barely knew inspires my patriotism and reminds me to honor war vets in a special way on Memorial Day.

I am married to a Canadian and even though he is now an American citizen, he can never really understand my patriotism on Memorial Day. Sorry to my Canadian in-laws but for we Americans, Memorial Day is a very important day, one that extends beyond BBQs and trips to the cottage for a long weekend. I proudly fly my flag on Memorial Day. I don’t care who is fighting, I don’t care where. It’s not political for me. I don’t like war, then again, no one does, really, but I support the troops no matter where they are deployed. Maybe it’s because American freedom is rooted in the blood of our land.  Our founders had to wage war just to come here and form the nation we've become today.  I have family members from both sides who served their country proudly both in times of war and peace. Most people my age do, I am not alone.

When I recently asked my husband where our flag was (we just moved into a new home) and he said he didn’t know, he became annoyed when I said I would run to the store to buy a new one to fly on Memorial Day.

“Why buy a new one, can’t we just wait until we find the old one?” was his response.

There is no way, I answered, that we will go this weekend without flying a flag on our new house. It’s MEMORIAL DAY. Perhaps a little more patience is needed on my part to remind my Canadian-born hubby about the blood upon which our country was founded, for the freedom we Americans now take for granted. For me, it’s also personal. I had a cousin who came home from Vietnam a different man.

His name was Terrence Fritz and he was my first cousin, an enlisted Naval soldier. I didn’t know him very well, because although he was my father’s nephew, my father was the youngest of seven siblings, so Cousin Terry was much older than me.

Like his father before him, Terry served in the Navy. His service was in Vietnam during the late 1960s and early 1970s. His dad, my Uncle Bob, served on the U.S.S. Hornet, yes the same ship bombed in WWII and he lived to tell about it.

Today, to support causes, a war, a disease, a person, we wear rubber bands in varying colors. Back then, we wore dog tags in support of those who went Missing in Action (MIA) during the Vietnam conflict.

Though I was  very small child, many things stand out for me from the days of Vietnam, mainly the newspapers, which used to publish the long lists of soldiers injured, MIA or worst of all, fatally wounded. These lists were posted on the front page. My mother would read the lists and comment if a last name sounded familiar.

“Brown, Oh I hope that’s not Carole's brother, he’s also from Dearborn….Beckett, oh I hope that’s not our neighbor’s son.”

As a little girl, even after I switched from Parochial to public school,  I remember praying for our soldiers in the classroom. We did so openly, without apology to anyone and surprisingly, unlike today, no parents called the school to complain or brought lawyers to school board meetings.

My earliest recollection of how much war can change a person was during a Christmas visit cousin Terry made to see my Grandmother, who by then lived with my Aunt Virge. We were all there, sitting around the Christmas tree, smiling and enjoying a family visit. Cousin Terry was quiet but he smiled a lot. Even as a child of 6, I could tell Terry’s smile was different. It was a fixed smile and he said very little, staring straight ahead, appearing oblivious to what was being said.

My father asked Terry about combat. Daddy was an Army man who stayed stateside and finished his service just as things in Vietnam heated up. He is still fiercely patriotic, something he instilled in my brother and me. Terry said a few things to Daddy about losing his best friend in his arms in combat. I sat and listened intently. After a few more words, Terry went back to staring straight ahead. He then leaned over to me, placed his hand on my thigh and asked me a question. I don’t recall what he asked but I do recall Daddy’s prompt reaction. Swiftly I was whisked into Aunt Virge’s kitchen where I was told Terry came back from the war “different” and that I shouldn’t let him touch me. Daddy said Terry was suffering from all he had seen in the war and that he was now taking “medication” that was not good for him. Translation: Terry was strung out on heroin.

While Terry finally came home from Vietnam for good in 1973, he was never the same. Daddy used to express concern about his nephew. A few years later, we all thought he was finally getting his life back on track. He popped in unannounced one Sunday in November, 1978, just in time for family dinner.

Mom made a pot roast and Terry was quite jovial. He asked me if I had a boyfriend. He teased my dad about needing a shotgun when I started to date. He was clean, he told my parents.... and he said he had a nice girlfriend he was going to introduce to us soon. As he looked around the table at my brother and me seated in Mom’s kitchen, I remember very clearly when Terry stood up to leave. He took a look around where we were all sitting, took a deep sigh and said:

"Yep. This is what I'M gonna have, Uncle Danny. I'm gonna get me a nice family and house like this."

He hugged us all and left us, leaving us with the belief that, unlike so many other sad families, we had were blessed with a happy ending to a terrible war.

One week later, mom picked me up from high school. I was all abuzz about my weekend filled with activities. Tonight's Pompon routine was finished for the game, my choir concert was Saturday night. Oh and I might hit the mall with besties on Sunday. My weekend was all set. With a grim look on her face, Mom told me I would instead be attending visitation for my Cousin Terry, who sadly, had taken his life in a hotel room.

Apparently, despite appearances, the grim realities of the war never really left Terry and it all had become too much for him to bear. Holding his best friend as his life slipped away. Dodging landmines and gunfire, the sounds of painful cries, the smell of death all around him, it all never really left him.  He seemed fine when last I saw him. We all wear masks that very few ever really see. We all bleed red and we all carry scars. Especially those who served our country, both living and dead.

Which leads me back to today. It's Memorial Day, once again. First proclaimed on May 5, 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the republic, Memorial Day was first observed on May 30, when flowers were placed at the graves of both Union AND confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. But make no mistake, it is not a day of division but of reconciliation. Living in the south, I see a new perspective to these days of honor.  Originally called Decoration Day, it was once a day when ladies in the south used to decorate the graves of our war dead before the civil war even ended. The need to honor our war dead morphed into the day of remembrance of those killed in our nation’s service it is today. We remember all the veterans of all the wars and we may not mourn so much as we praise them for their ultimate sacrifices.
As you're out and about, attending BBQs or headed to the nursery to buy your landscaping flowers, look around you because there are still so many of these men and women among us. You might never know what they've lived through.  They have families. They are our neighbors. They share fellowship with us. They laugh at our jokes. They attend ceremonies at Legion and VFW halls across the country. They visit the memorials. I’ve attended a few veterans’ funerals. Sadly, the men representing WWII and Korea are dying off quickly but there will always be newer, younger vets to step up and fill their places, because sadly, wars won’t stop.

When you look into the faces of a vet, pay close attention. You might notice that same distant look I remember seeing in my cousin Terry’s face…the hollow stares that remind us of the horrors of war we easily sweep under the carpet. It’s easy to hold our hands over our hearts while singing the national anthem but it’s not quite as easy to imagine what our soldiers have been through. It’s downright ugly and we’ve become a society that doesn’t want our children to know of such unspeakable horrors. Yet our children SHOULD know what the generations before them did to make sure they never live life under tyranny.  Let us NEVER forget what this day is really about. We owe a debt of gratitude to the families of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country. We cannot thank our war dead in person, yet even if someone died as far back as WWI or WWII, they still have offspring among us.

We have Veteran’s day to thank our living vets. But this weekend is about memorializing those who fought to the death for each and every one of us. Thanks to them, I can say what I want. I can disagree with our government openly if I feel the need to do so and not be put in prison. I can even burn our American flag if I so choose, even though I’d rather someone rip off my arm before I’d do such a heinous action. Why? Because I am a free woman living in a democracy that, while easily threatened, openly provoked and often hated by those NOT born here, is still the greatest country in the world, thanks to these men and women.

Please remember to thank a family member of a deceased veteran this weekend. If you live near one, stop by a veteran cemetery and lay some flowers. You don’t know the occupants of these headstone, but you know our country. And so did these men and women. They paid the price for YOUR life.

And to my cousin Terry: Although I never really knew you but as an adult, I admire and respect you and most of all, I thank you. Hopefully you are at rest now, with your navy buddies, enjoying a BBQ of your own with your fallen comrades. Do so knowing your little cousin will never forget your sacrifice. God Bless America.

Mom's last day...taking the long way home....



Mom on her 50th birthday, 1991



Mom's graduation picture

April Showers bring May flowers. 

Except in our family, when April seems to bring funeral flowers....in 2000, it was my own mother.  Last year, it was my beloved Aunt Dot, Dad's older sister, with whom I spent every summer and holiday. Only last week, it was my mom's best friend, "Aunt" Chris. 

People always remember others' birthdays, but unless you've lost someone close you rarely remember the exact date of someone's death.

For me, with the passing of my own mother, April 19, 2000, I acknowledge TWO traumatic dates: the night she actually suffered her cardiac arrest right before my eyes on April 16 and the date we turned off life support three very looong days later. For the longest time following Mom's death, I wasn't sure which date she actually died.  A friend of mine at the fire station later told me Mom was written up in the report as DOA when paramedics arrived, but I was too shaken for the EMTs to tell me this at the time because I was alone, and since we had no DNR (she was only 58) they did their best to revive her as I stood in horror. 

I DO know the date of our final day together, which was April 15, the Saturday before Palm Sunday 2000, so instead of dwelling on the sadness I feel every April on my mother's "anniversary," I choose to remember that final day we shared, because as I grow older, it becomes more vivid to me, instead of more faint, something I find curious. Somehow I feel it was Mom's way of "being there" for me years down the road. Somehow she must've known she would be leaving soon.

My younger brother, Mark, had just returned from his honeymoon in Bermuda.  He married his wife Susie only two weeks earlier. Mom was dog-tired from the frantic pace of wedding planning because she had a lifelong battle with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and all the later health complications that came with that disease, so I thought little of her swelling joints. These flareups happened routinely with her.  She overdid it, that's all, I told myself.  

She'd had two episodes where she couldn't breathe twice that previous week. First time that had ever happened.  Maybe I should call 911, I asked?  ...No, she said, it'll pass. And that time, it did pass, as did the second.  Damn, I gotta get Mom to quit smoking, I told myself. 

Mom's last day on this earth was an unseasonably warm one and I finally got her to her doctor.  For ONCE in her life, she was actually ON TIME. I mention this because chronic tardiness was Mom's hallmark and guess who she handed THAT baton to??  (hanging head in shame....)

Her doc was equally concerned about the breathing attacks and set up a series of heart tests for the following week.  Who knew she'd be gone by then? But here's the part I like to remember... 

Usually, Mom, who by then rarely left the house and needed a wheelchair, never wanted to drive around and enjoy the sunny weather after an appointment. Let's take a drive, Mom, I told her, expecting her to say no, she was tired, not up to it, yadda yadda.  Then came the unexpected "Ya know what, yes, let's take the long way home today..." 

Pleasantly surprised, I asked where to and the first place she wanted to go was the "old neighborhood." She wanted to drive by her childhood home.  Gramps & Gramm were gone by then and Mom was feeling nostalgic.  As we drove the old route through southwest Detroit, years melted away as I got that excited feeling you get when you drive to Gramma & Grampa's place.  We stopped.  We stared. We reminisced, even though the little house on Sarena Street was, by now, quite run down. We were saddened by the state of Mom's old neighborhood as we pulled away.

From there, Mom said she wanted to visit her parents' graves.  So off we went to St. Hedwig's. It was there Mom said some prophetic things. 

"It's so peaceful here, isn't it," she asked?  I said it was kinda creepy.  "But really, look how pretty it looks in the spring, that's why they call it a resting place."  She wished she could get out and read those headstones.  So...dutiful daughter that I was, I got out & began walking among the graves, reading them one by one to Mom as she pointed out ones that interested her. I kept checking my cell phone.  The man I was dating was supposed to call.  I became irritated and Mom, in her usual manner, began to shell out her unsolicited wisdom. The "mom" speak that irritates the hell out of everyone.  "A watched pot never boils."  "Just ignore the phone, then he'll call," or her best line... "He's not good enough for you anyway."  

Still situated among the dead, we pondered on the sad short lives and marveled at the huge family plots.  We even ran into an old family friend visiting her parents' grave...talk about a small (creepy) world.   After a short visit with the friend, I told mom we should go.  That family friend would be at mom's viewing just a few days later.  But for some reason, Mom was hesitant...in hindsight, she seemed to be surveying the area. "I'd like to be buried near my parents. That is, if you can't afford a mausoleum." Laughing, I told her not to worry, I would be able to afford that by then, since she had years to think about that... and after all, I reasoned, she would die late, since she was late for everything else.

"I hope it rains when I die," she said out of the blue.  When asked why, Mom said "the thought of everyone out there having fun in the sun while I'm dead bothers me."  In true form, Mom was honest to a fault. But guess what?  It rained the next few days as we planned her funeral.  Mom died during Holy Week, so good luck trying to plan a Catholic burial at Eastertime, the holiest time of the Liturgical year. We had to wait till after Easter for her funeral and lived in Limbo for four more days. AND IT RAINED....for all those days, it seemed.

But I digress: back to that last day...Despite my usual multi-tasking nature, it was as if some calming influence urged me to enjoy this ride.  Inside my ever-racing mind, I had calls to return, work I brought home from the office that still wasn't finished and a visit with an old friend planned for later, so many things to DO!  Still, despite my enormous "to-do" list, I felt strangely unhurried that day.  On the way home from the cemetery, we stopped for, what else, a carton of cigarettes for Mom, and I picked up a bottle of her favorite wine.  Then I picked up dinner from Mom's favorite restaurant, Angelo's.

During the drive home, I even remember making Mom gasp as I abruptly crossed three lanes without using my turn signal to get to a gas station I noticed up ahead, selling gasoline for .99 cents per gallon. that's right, I repeat: .99 CENTS!!! (This was, after all, 11 years ago.)  I got quite the lecture from Mom about my risky driving.  "This isn't a racetrack, you know!"  Rolling my eyes, I did not realize this would be mom's last lecture to me. 

Oh, but she gave me some wonderful things to remember that afternoon, as well.  Once home, she lit up a cigarette and we sat at the kitchen table, poured a glass of wine and chatted, but not before I once again checked my phone and was increasingly angered by the nerve of some men! Turns out he had good reason but at the time, I was beyond angry at his seemingly thoughtless manners.

"He's not the one for you, anyway, so why do you even care?" she asked.  (He wasn't). "I'll know the right  man when I meet him." (Turns out she didn't have time to meet him.)  Then, almost chillingly, she turned her dark eyes to me, took a long puff off her cigarette and suddenly became serious.

 "Look, I know your brother marrying before you has you upset (I was already 36)  but I'm not worried about you. You will meet and marry the right man, and you'll do it very quickly." Before I could interject, she added,  "I never believed those long relationships of yours were THE ones, even though you did..."  (Once again, Mom was right.  I did meet my husband a year later and we were engaged within three months, so yes, while my "long romances" were lovely, they simply were NOT "the ones" for me). 

When I showed her a few wedding pictures I'd picked up from the local Photomat, (remember those?) Mom said she was glad I hadn't brought only the bright red lipstick for her to wear to Mark's wedding because she preferred nude lipsticks, even as I argued she should wear a more festive red for special occasions.  SIDEBAR: my dark-haired mom never liked bold colored lipstick and even after I'd given the undertaker that bright red lipstick as her final makeup, I peered into the coffin and gasped in horror during family hour to see that she was right...that bright red lipstick WAS too bright! I had to scramble to ask the undertaker to change her lipstick to a nude shade before open visitation, so typically, Mom won that battle, too. 


And finally, as we sat and pondered about how soon before my brother gave her a grandchild, Mom said 
"I don't care what it costs, promise me you'll put my granddaughter in dance someday. I was always sorry I didn't get you into dance earlier."  (Yep...you guessed it, my daughter started ballet at age 3 1/2...)

But wait.  What??  On that day, how could Mom even assume I'd even HAVE a daughter when I wasn't even sure I'd ever settle down and marry? 

That night, after visiting my friend, I checked back in on Mom and became annoyed because she hadn't touched an ounce of the dinner we'd picked up earlier.  I was angry and said she was wasting away to nothing.  She weighed less than 90 lbs at the time of her death. She chuckled.  "You will be a good mom, you're already acting like MY mother right now," she said as I carried away her plate in anger. 

Those were my mom's last "normal" words to me .... but today, mom's "prophesies" comfort me beyond all comfort.  I don't have the luxury of picking up the phone to ask my mom about anything. I can't ask her if I'm doing the right things or what she might do in certain situations.  But that's OK.  Mom said all she had to say that last day, whether we knew it or not, back then. 

She knew deep down that I'd get married, assuaging my fear of dying alone. Deep inside myself, I thought I was so pickky I'd wind up a bag lady with 6 cats.  Mom believed I'd someday be a good mom...I seriously thought I'd HATE being a mother to anyone but 4-legged creatures who don't talk back.

And her final gift to me was in that last day: learning to enjoy the little things.  I learned that the moments you don't think are so profound become PROFOUND, like taking the long way home and not worrying about rushing back to work on your "to-do" lists.  Like how being spontaneous and stopping here or there, just for the heck of it can be FUN.  I discovered more times than I care to mention that, in talking about everyday things with the people in our lives, we don't think those will be our last conversations with them, but sadly, sometimes, they are. If I've learned anything from an unexpected death, it is this:  as cliche as it sounds, tomorrow is NEVER promised...

My last day with my mother was a warm, sunny and yes, carefree day in April, and aside from the birth of my daughter and notwithstanding the pain of losing Mom in such an untimely manner, it turns out it was the  happiest, easiest day of my life.  For one last day, I was still her little girl. Thanks for the memories,my beloved best friend.  Rest in peace dear mom, till we meet again. 
 


Mommy & me, my first birthday party



April Fools are running the homeowner's aslylum!

My daughter, then age 3, and nephew, age 2 1/2, sure look annoying, don't they??

   A former news reporter and colleague, Mike Holfeld, with whom I worked in Detroit, first reported this story last week from Orlando, where he nows works. I know I'm not alone in my outrage over this story. The first part you read is copied directly to this blog from one of the numerous websites reporting this...the second part will be MY response. Thanks for informing me of this Mike!  To read Mike's blog, please click here: http://www.clickorlando.com/mikeholfeld/index.html

Homeowners Association Wants To Ban Kids From Playing Outside

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. -- A neighborhood homeowners association (HOA) in Volusia County is causing some controversy after it proposed banning kids from playing outside in their own yards. Officials at the Persimmon Place subdivision in Edgewater are pushing a measure to ban kids from outdoor playing in the community, unless they have an adult with them at all times. The proposal would also ban children from skateboarding, playing games like tag, or using loud toys. Parents in the community say they plan to fight against the plan.

 Rule number four of this proposal states that children will be under the direct control of adults at all times. "Children will not be allowed to run, play tag, or act boisterously on the association property." It also states there is no playing in "common areas" which includes parking lots, driveways and in front of the rear of units.

If the proposal passes, homeowners caught breaking the rules will have to pay a $100 fine.

"I think it's absurd, I mean how can you tell kids you can't play?", said resident Magee Pareja.

When I read this story it made me sad for the children living there but also so very happy I am a baby-boomer.  OK, so technically I am barely in that group, having literally been the last wave of babies born under President Kennedy, during the boom years between 1945 and 1964, but still...we had it made as kids, didn't we? 

We played outside.  We ran, we shrieked, we rode our scooters and jumped ropes, we rode bikes and bigwheels, we threw sticks & stones, we fell down and scraped our knees, we cried, we laughed, we blew off bottle rockets (OK that was my little brother, not me....) and yes....we were NOISY!!    

So...here's my own, not so nice response to those board members who believe kids should be kept indoors without adults, or at least to be QUIET while playing outdoors, namely, an uptight HOA that needs to remove the stick from within its own arse!

Dear members of the Volusia County Homeowners' Association:

So....suddenly you, within your tiny little sphere of power, have decided that kids who play outdoors and go a little crazy must be supervised and/or silenced. So it is voted upon, so it shall be.  Really? From which planet did you just fall?  Or better yet, who among you are able to say you had the pleasure of growing up in a world where KIDS could be ....just KIDS?? 

I'm guessing, without all the facts, which goes against all the journalistic ethics I learned in college, that at least a few of the myopic decision-makers behind this new proposed rule are either too old to remember the joy of kicking the can down the street as you walked to the corner store for penny candies. Or perhaps some of you younger members of this association were raised as a product of the "me" generation, meaning you can't be more than 27....so your mommy and daddy both worked like crazy to give you everything, which included anything to keep you busy AND silent.  (Think: Simon, Rubik's Cubes, NINTENDO...) and so... unless your nannies or other such caregivers played with you, your childhood memories probably include long and leisurely playdates with Mr. or Mrs. Pacman, Pong, Supermario Brothers or Frogger.  Am I right?

Even if I'm wrong, this is MY blog, and I can write whatever I wish...so you'll just have to let me rant...LOUDLY. (See Article I of the Bill of Rights...)  

And just to show I'm no "Old Fogey..."  I have a 6-year-old so no, just because I'm a late baby boomer does not mean I have forgotten what it's like to have loud kids running around me.  I am LIVING this right now. 

So let me give you a little picture (these days called a thumbnail) of what life as a kid was like for those in my age group...perhaps if more kids were encouraged to BE kids while they still ARE kids, many of our social issues regarding delinquent teens might well be lessened, although sadly, probably never completely eradicated. After all, if we can't play while we're kids, ya think we just "grow out" of such urges?  They become repressed until we are in grown-up bodies, yet we are still wanting our inner children to come out & play, only now, big kids play harder, and often, they play more dangerously.

We played, and boy, did we!  Before the breakfast dishes were cleared, we all heard the following phrases:

"What do you mean you're bored?  It's summertime! Go find something to do or I'll find something for you to do. Or, the infamous: "Get out there and play...and other than dinner, (when you hear the ice cream bells) you can stay out with your friends till the street lights come on."

So play, we did!  We actually used chalk and drew on sidewalks to play hopscotch. Bet that would make your HOA angry these days!  I'm sure concrete companies would picket your subdivision due to the cruelty kids inflict onto the sidewalks.

We "skipped rope," and sang little ditties matching the beats of our feet as they hit the ground. How annoying to our parents and their neighbors THAT must have been! We chased each other through the yards -- ours and other people's yards, as we shrieked  "Tag! You're IT!"  (I'm sure this is now somehow politically incorrect to someone....)

And here's something you might not know....boys stood in the middle of the street...(I'm waiting for you to catch your breaths)  and actually tossed balls called baseballs right at each other's gloves!  It was called playing "catch."  Sometimes they missed the ball and it went overhead, directly into Mrs. Cook's kitchen window. There were many a shattered window in my old neighborhood. And here's something you might not realize, but these boys were sooooo smart!  They actually knew they must step aside for oncoming cars....kids back then had a healthy respect for safety...I guess they now are missing this in their DNA, according to every newscast you see today.

Apparently, kids today, according to the current wave of helicopter parents and yes, experts, the media, et al., are too ignorant to know they can actually be hit by a car if they don't step out of the way!  Yes, unfortunate accidents happen every day and I'm not deliberately undermining those tragedies.  I'm simply stating the obvious: You hear any evidence of an oncoming car, you move or risk being mowed over. End of story. 

Worse than this...we WALKED down the street, to friends' houses, sometimes (gasp) more than six houses down.  We walked without  parents walking us to our destinations. As we did this, we kicked gross, used, open cans down the street . The best cans were metal and LOUD.  Sometimes we found more than one!  AND boy, that sound must've been ANNOYING to hear. The NERVE of kids making noises OUTSIDE, in the bright sunshine they're being asked to deprive themselves  of, now. 

Let me stop here to make a point. Sadly, I know we do not live in that world anymore, and it seriously is NOT safe to let kids walk even short distances because of the sickos who lurk around nearly every street corner.  But here's where OTHER people, parents and non-parents, alike, helped make it a safer world for our kids.  They would actually see and hear the kids and look out for those scary bogeymen we were warned against...and they stepped up and came to our aid if the need be...without a lawyer on hand or a camcorder to record it all and put it up on UTube. 

We kids were raised to respect other grown-ups, as well....if Mrs. O'Dell didn't like my tone of voice, she had MY mother's permission to call me out on it, lecture me and tell my folks what transpired, thank you very much!  So it was kinda like one big family in my neighborhood because everyone watched everyone elses' kids.

And here's something that might astonish some today: we rode bikes.... without helmets!  And we lived to tell you we did!  Now I am not going to discount the importance of bike safety and helmets because A) I have taken more than my share of tumbles and I'm happy to be able to write about them at all...) and B) I've seen a few nasty accidents and know of even a few adults with closed head injuries due to dangerous falls to the cement... I've even grimaced through a few falls of my own daughter, who hasn't yet mastered how to stop while gliding downhill. 

But to be given a ticket for taking a little slow ride around the block at 3 MPH?  AND for parents to be forced to wear them to be good examples??  SERIOUSLY????  WE PARENTS need to do as the children do?  Back in my day there were double standards...kids were kids, grown-ups were grown ups!  WHY?  Because I'm the mommy, that's why...and that would suffice. 

Oh, and one REALLY gross thing you need to know about your predecessors:  we ate dirt.  No seriously.  We made mud pies and sometimes we "sampled" them...and some REALLY brave kids ate ....bugs!   (not that I'm advocating that...)  but the point is, we all lived!

What I fear we cannot live with, however, is the threat to our children today, who are being told that simply playing outside is a no-no!  What about fresh air?  What about obesity?  Aren't kids already bombarded with wireless technology to the point they no longer even walk down streets?  Don't they already exceed our paid mobile phone minutes by texting each other so much they need not even get together at all?  And if they do decide to actually meet up face-to-face, someone's mom or dad now drives them three homes away to what we now call "play dates." 

These days, if  we parents are in a meeting and the kids have to be with us, when they become antsy, God forbid we should give them an actual bound, hard copy BOOK to read!  Instead, why not give them your iPad so they can play with all the pretty colorful apps! That's progress!

If homeowners associations continue to think the way the YOU think, it isn't the whales, the baby seals or even the rain forests we need to protect.... it's our childrens' rights to be children!  Shame on you for taking the joy out of childhood!  Meanwhile, I'll be outdoors listening to my daughter sing as she spins around in the backyard. And just to drive home my point even further, I'll encourage her to sing even louder!

Happily ever after? Maybe this time...

Call me crazy, since I'm certainly no school girl, but this time of year makes me .... lovesick.  Suddenly I'm more...amorous, I feel more hopeful about life, in general.  I find myself dashing out for the latest "pink" shade of lipstick and a new spring shoe makes me giddy.  This year, as I'm purging clothes & items before moving into our new home here in the Chattanooga mountains, I'm especially giddy. 

Take, for instance, the upcoming royal wedding....I'm absolutely excited  and I'm not even on the guest list!  Not to mention I'm old enough to be the future King of England's ...um...aunt?  :)  I wasn't on the guest list for Charles & Dianna's nuptials, either, but that certainly didn't stop me from throwing a royal-watching party for a few of my closest friends.

It was the summer of 1981, we girls were all abuzz about heading off to college.I had a sleepover so we could all sit up, do all the girly things teens do and then watch the wedding LIVE (there was no DVR back then.)  But as close to the precipice of adulthood as we were, that day, we were all transformed back into 5-year-olds as we watched Lady Di glide up the aisle to meet her prince and live happily ever after. Or so we thought that great day.  History would dictate, otherwise.  But since we were not psychics, we just sat back & dreamed about how lucky Lady Di was.  She was marrying a prince!  And there was a lovely gold & glass carriage and trumpets blaring her procession. I remember how we all sighed in awe of her beauty, her gown, the pomp and pageantry that accompanied that grand day in jolly old England. It was all I could do not to burst!

I smile now when I think about my group of girlfriends and me, all just unmarried gals on the verge of college,watching that wedding, which was soon followed by our own careers, weddings, babies, etc., but that day we were innocent girls who swooned over the notion of love and happily ever after...you know, the way it was read to all of us at story time as we lay in our little beds. 

Flash forward to a hot sunny evening in August, 1997, when I first heard Princess Di was wounded in an automobile accident.  Her boyfriend was already dead and we were all waiting for updates on the princess, herself.  She'll never be the same, I thought.  Her boyfriend died, she was with him, how could she live with that, I remember thinking to myself.  Then came the chilling announcement that Princess Dianna was also gone.  Unthinkable, how such a bright shining star could be snuffed out at once. 

Although 16 years had slipped by between my "wedding-watching" sleepover, I came home the next day to an answering machine jammed with messages from gals I hadn't heard from in years, living all over the state, but all forever linked to me through our mutual admiration of the royals and Princess Di, in particular.

Today, although I am old enough to know that not all fairy-tales have happy endings, I don't know anyone who isn't rooting for William & Kate to make it, long term.  I know I was among those who were most unhappy with Camilla Parker Bowles' part in the whole Charles-Di-Camilla triangle scandal, but there is one thing some might not have stopped to think about...Charles loved Camillia long before he married Dianna.  He simply wasn't ready to marry her before she married her first husband, Anthony and by then, the clock, in royal terms, anyway, was a-ticking.  So he married his princess as was his duty, but his true love for Camilla never stopped, as much as even I  hate to admit this.  So although Dianna's death was a tragic ending, one I'm sure (or at least I hope) Charles never wished for, he did, in the end, get his "happily ever after," despite how many hearts were broken in the process.

So this April 29, as my 6-year-old daughter and I pretend to be proper Brits, sipping tea and eating crumpets (or Oreos) and  watching William and Kate take their vows and ride off into the sunset, I can only hope that because there was no pressure on this young and vibrant couple, who appear to have already sewn their royal oats, and because they waited until they were mature enough to handle the responsiblilites of royal duties (do they really have any, anymore?) maybe this time, there really will be a happily-ever-after storybook ending after all, one in which any little girl can really believe. 

Give me liberty or give me death, just keep my Facebook account!

Anyone from my era well remembers learning the most famous speeches of our founding fathers. Today marks the 236th anniversary of one of those speeches, famously uttered by  five-term governor of Virginia Patrick Henry who ended a speech opposing taxation without representation (Which began with The Stamp Act) by telling fellow colonists to "Give me liberty or give me death."  

Widely known as a symbol of American struggle for liberty, Henry protested British tyranny and served in the Continental Congress. He was the most vocal voice in opposition of The Stamp Act, passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. Don't know about the Stamp Act? Google it and tomorrow, ask any history teacher. Although the actual cost of the Stamp Act was relatively small, Henry and his supporters were most outraged by the standard it appeared to set for future taxation without representation.
My main focus today is not about taxes, but rather, the very last line in Mr. Patrick's speech that has my mind percolating today.  Here was a man who publicy declared that he would rather die than have his liberties taken away. Far too many soldiers or war casualties including uninvolved civilians have already paid the ultimate sacrifice in the name of freedom in this and many other countries.  Ironically, today is also the anniversary of Adolph Hitler coming into power in Germany. How's that for irony?

To boil this down further, I'm thinking about the chains we ALL have, which enslave us to ourselves.  The word "liberty" need not always be associated with national democracy.  It is also a word about those things from which we need to be liberated.  Some are tangible things: fancy homes or cars, a closet full of clothing or a colorful pair of shoes for every outfit. How many of our kids have so many toys we moms can secretly "steal" a few and donate them without our wee ones ever noticing?  How many men have season tickets, X-boxes, gadgets for their Weber grills, the best lawnmowers on the block or golf clubs they polish with pride?

Other attachments are intangible and to me, these are the most dangerous enslavements with which we live.  How many of us have inner demons, such as addictions or anger?  What about our pride?  Our fears?  Our passionate love affairs with someone or with those who choose not to love us back, bringing out yet another fear...loneliness? Our greed or petty jealousies?  Aren't we all really crying out in the depths of our souls to liberate ourselves from SOMETHING?  And in denying ourselves this type of liberty, even if it's not physical death, aren't we spiritually killing our inner psyches?

Right now, as I'm packing for the 2nd move in 6 months, I am in desperate need of my own liberty:  I'm crying out to liberate myself from my sentimental attachment to all things representing my past.  My grandmother's little address book, in which nearly every name is no longer relevant, as these people are long gone.  My mom's old makeup bag, which still carries her scent. My dad's valentine's day card to me from 1973.  My daughter's first drawing.  MY first drawing ( long kept locked away in a hope chest.)

Many people to whom I've whined about how difficult it is for me to prepare for this move have a refreshing way to look at this:  It is a great time to PURGE.  And yet for me, it is hard to pack up and move into new surroundings without bringing my past life along with me. I am chained to my own nostalgic baggage.  Tossing Mom's old makeup bag is, to me, like reliving mom's death, and somehow, losing her all over again.  Purging unearths in me an inner fear that in letting go of these things, I am losing a part of who I used to be.  Perhaps it's a fear that someday I may not remember them at all.  Or maybe I'm fearful that, like some of my dearest friends' parents or grandparents suffering from memory loss or dementia, I may NEED these things to REMIND me of who I was all those years ago. 

For many, having a child later in life is a blessing (it is for me!)  It can also cause us to have a rational fear about how that child might see us in the future.  I have a six year old who someday might not know that her mommy used to do cool things in high school and college because I either won't remember I did them or I won't have anything to prove I actually did them.

I know people who carry grudges with friend or family members.  These grudges go back so far they can't even remember how they started.  Now these people fear it's too late to dredge it all up and  risk their pride to reach out to the people to whom they no longer speak.  So they're attached to fears and pride.  (And to angry grudges that no longer make sense.)

People ask me how I am able to remain friendly with former loves from my past.  Here is where I am blessed.  I do not carry grudges, I do not, nor does my husband, feel I am committing anything wrong by remaining in contact with them because I've evolved from who I was when I was with them, romantically. Here is where I LOVE Facebook.  I do not see it as some vast conspiracy from the government to "know" everything about me.  Newsflash: They already do.  (OK, I'll give my friends and family a moment to flush water on their faces and stand back up after fainting...because YOU KNOW how passionate I am about politics...) 

With Facebook, it not only allows me to stay in touch wth my family and friends on a daily basis from back home in Michigan but I am reconnecting with childhood friends, as well. I've caught up with former teachers I adored while growing up. With former co-workers, college friends and career colleagues. With relatives who aren't even on my Christmas card list because it's been too long to fathom since we've last seen each other.  And yes, I am friends with former boyfriends.  Why not?  I'm not carrying  torches for these men who are now husbands and fathers.  I hope that to them, I am a person who taught them as much about their relationships and interactions as they once taught me.  I have been given the gift from God to see each and every person from my past as someone who was there for a reason or a season (look it up....this is one of my favorite poems.)

Perhaps Facebook is the very vehicle through which I can make it easier to purge some tangible objects.  Just knowing I have "friends" from my past who remember "the me I used to be." I love looking on the pages of other friends who, like me, will copy and download old pictures, poems, drawings, things from their past. You see, I am not alone in my attempt to hang on to my past.  As long as, 25 years from now, I don't wind up looking like Delta Dawn wearing a faded rose from years gone by...it's worth a try.   :)

So today, I challenge you all to liberate yourselves from something...anything you feel is keeping you from being the YOU that you want to be, ultimately.  Take 20 minutes to call or look up someone with whom you've lost contact; donate that designer bag you paid way too much for that no longer goes with anything in your wardrobe -- perhaps another woman who cannot afford such a luxury might be thrilled to find it at a thrift shop.  Give the guy next door pushing a 20-year-old lawnmower some of your "tools" from the garage.  Ask someone for help with an addiction with which you struggle.

Just LIBERATE YOURSELF!  I certainly will be doing my darndest to liberate MY "stuff"  as box up "stuff" from our apartment before moving into our new home and I know for certain that Patrick Henry would be proud, knowing his words were not uttered in vain.