NanaSlo and Grandbaby Ella – Day One of Babysitting
(just before Mama Caroline got home from work)
please get home soon, Mama, the Nanas exhaust me
Stay tuned.
Category: photography
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OK, BOOMER? let’s see what you got first
Pretty will be the first to tell anyone that I am the world’s last to know anything about pop culture because I am not a twitterer, instagrammer, pinterester, redditer, or snapchatterer. I am not linked in, tik tokked, or tuned in or up on most days. I’m not passing judgment on any of these or the countless other social meda platforms nor am I necessarily proud of being uninformed although I remain stubbornly committed to Facebook regardless of whether anyone is bothering to influence my vote in the 2020 election. Just try. Please try. I will get you.
I do, however, continue to watch CBS Sunday Morning faithfully because it is one show that Pretty and I can enjoy together. (Remember she continues to boycott all real news programs since the 2016 elections but instead gets her news information from Twitter.) So yesterday Pretty half watched CBS Sunday Morning by herself until I straggled in from our bedroom in a semi-conscious state thirty minutes into the broadcast. Segments came and went as I ate leftover sweet potato casserole from Thanksgiving for breakfast before taking my morning meds.
I was shaken out of my television reverie by the Faith Salie commentary called OK, BOOMER in which she humorously described ok, boomer as a recent put down by the Gen Z (1995 – 2010) population of their aging Baby Boomer elders (1946 – 1961). Hm. What up, Gen Z?
Apparently we the Boomers are being blamed for “rising waters, disappearing species, crippling debt and crumbling democracies.” Whaat? That’s all our fault? Easy for you to say, 48-year-old Faith Salie (Gen X 1961 – 1981). Where were you guys when we were ruining climate change? Ho, ho, ho – and a merry old millenial (1981 – 1996) to you all for a holiday season free of guilt for any of the world’s most dangerous threats. The Boomers did it.
Anyhow, as my now deceased Greatest Generation friend Libby Levinson used to say whenever she was about to change the subject, Faith’s sally struck a nerve that I usually reserved for my free-floating anxiety over the current criminals in charge of the country. It was a bridge too far.
I can’t bear to be thought of as old and irrelevant, I ranted to Pretty who was quite familiar, of course, with the OK BOOMER memes. Then I got irritated with her for not feeling disrespected because she was, after all, one of those Bad Old Boomers herself. The only person who can ever make you feel disrespected is yourself, Pretty said. Oh, sure, I said. Go ahead and quote one of my favorite Eleanor Roosevelt quotes back to me. Sigh. I could feel the air being let out of my anger. That Pretty.
Today I sat in the pedi chair that belongs to the great pedicurist/philosopher Esther Isom who was responsible for the title of my last book: Four Ticket Ride. I couldn’t let the Ok, Boomer thing go so I was still raving about it from her chair which reminded me somewhat of a throne so I’m sure I had my proclamation tone in full force. I couldn’t believe Esther hadn’t heard of the funny haha put down from our children either, because she also was always in the cultural know, but she took it with a grain of salt.
Tell them let’s see what you got first, she said with a laugh. Of course we won’t be around to know how they’ll do, she continued, but they’ll learn life isn’t as simple as they think it is.
Point taken. I am not unaware of my generation’s shortcomings – we have been poor stewards of our planet, insensitive to the needs of the poor, squandered the earth’s resources to keep gasoline in our vehicles, failed at equality for people of color, elected corrupt public officials at every level of government – to name a few. I sadly recognize and confess my Baby Boomer sins.
But hey, we’ve been on the front lines marching against the Viet Nam War, opened up amazing opportunities for women in the work force and athletics, secured marriage equality for same sex couples, fought for civil rights; and worked, worked, worked to achieve the American Dream. We were competitive but with the spirit of a rugged individual. We were the original gangsters so… before you write me and my cohorts off as ancient and irrelevant, let’s see what you got first, kids.
In the meantime, show some respect.
Stay tuned.
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thanksgiving is relative
“The oak trees were alive with color in the midst of the evergreens. Bright red and yellow leaves catching the sunlight as Daddy and I walked through the brush. The smell of the pines was fresh and all around us. We didn’t speak, but this was when I felt most connected to my father. Nature was a bond that united us and the gift that he gave me. And not just in those East Texas woods. He envisioned the whole earth as my territory and set me on my path to discovery. In 1958, this was remarkable in a girl’s father…
To this day, Thanksgiving remains my favorite holiday. It seems less commercial than the others and struggles to hold its own before the onslaught of merchandising that we call Christmas. The dinners in the fancy restaurants and hotels and cafeterias never measure up to the feasts my grandmothers served their families.
Perhaps, though, it is the love and closeness of those family ties that leave the sights and sounds that last a lifetime.”
This excerpt from the chapter Thanksgiving in the Piney Woods is from my first book Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing. I was so surprised when the book received a 2008 GCLS Literary Award – and thrilled, too.
my family on my grandparents’ front steps circa 1956
(I am seated on the bottom row in my flannel shirt and corduroy pants,
unsmiling, at my mother’s request for some strange reason)
Today is a different Thanksgiving in a different home in a different state in a different century, but I still believe in the love and closeness of family ties that bring the sights and sounds that last a lifetime. I know they have in my lifetime.
And now for Thanksgiving in 2019 we are beyond Thunder Dome thankful for the new family member we love to hold and hope she looks our way with smiles. Pretty is beside herself with our granddaughter Ella Elisabeth James, and so am I.
Ella loves her NanaT
Pretty and I wish all of you in cyberspace that love and closeness on this special day for thanksgiving.
Stay tuned.
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GIRL POWER: UNSCRIPTED AND UNSTOPPABLE -AND SOMETIMES NEEDING A BATH
Tomorrow is the International Day of the Girl Child with its 2019 theme Girl Power: Unscripted and Unstoppable.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says “We need to uphold the equal rights, voices, and influence of girls in our families, communities, and nations. Girls can be powerful agents of change, and nothing should keep them from participating fully in all areas of life.” Amen, brother.
Given the current state of political affairs in our nation with families divided, swept up into detention centers at our southern borders – living in horrendous conditions under a regime of daily terror – while across the big waters our nation abandons the friends who have been our major supporters in the war against ISIS, an abandonment that allows vicious attacks on these friends with a presumptive goal of ethnic cleansing…I say the openly corrupt men involved in these atrocities need to go. Our country needs new leadership and directions, and I believe it’s time for girl power.
Luckily for Pretty and me, we have a granddaughter who gives us hope for the future. And thankfully, we see women and men today who are working tirelessly to make sure our granddaughter’s voice will be heard as they engage in speaking truth to power.
Ella in her elephant hoodie
(baby girl born 10-01-2019)
All baby girls have to start somewhere. Today Ella had a bath given to her by a group of four women who once were girls: two grandmothers, her mother, one of her cousins – and a female hound who wanted to get in the fun.
Happiness is having her hair combed by her mother after the bad old bath!
Tomorrow make time to celebrate the girls and women who have the potential to be powerful agents of change. To quote Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the times have come to us.
Onward.
Stay tuned.
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will the circle be unbroken?
Will the circle be unbroken by and by, by and by.
There’s a better home a waiting in the sky, in the sky.
I stood between my grandmother and granddaddy during the hymn singing and, although they each held a hymnal with the words and music, we all knew the songs by heart. I had to know them from memory since I was so young I couldn’t read yet, but my grandparents could have definitely read the words. They had sung the songs so many times during their lives, though, they didn’t need them. My granddaddy sang the melody, and my grandmother sang harmony or what I later learned was the alto part I tried to imitate for the rest of my life.
…we sang the songs of childhood, hymns of faith that made us strong…
My daddy was the song leader in the Richards Baptist Church in the 1950s. The Richards Baptist Church was a small congregation of 50 – 60 members that met on Sunday mornings for Sunday School and worship services, Sunday nights for Training Union and another worship service, and on Wednesday nights for prayer meetings plus a business meeting one Wednesday night a month. My mother played either the black upright piano to the left of the small raised platform where the preacher and my daddy sat and stood up when they had something to say or she played the little pretend church organ to the right of the raised platform. I could barely see Mama even when I stood to sing from my seat with my grandmother and grandfather on one of the hard wooden pews toward the middle of the tiny sanctuary; I could always see and hear my daddy.
My maternal grandmother had a particular place she sat every Sunday morning during the worship service – a place down closer to the front of the church, but she always sat alone. My mother’s two brothers sat in different places every Sunday, but my Uncle Marion sat on the back row since he was late coming in from standing outside smoking that final cigarette. My Uncle Toby also sat by himself closer to the front but on the opposite side of the church from his mother.
One by one their seats were emptied, one by one they went away.
Now the family is parted, will it be complete one day?
My family members in that little Baptist Church are, indeed, gone. But the circle of life and family is definitely not broken for me. Hallelujah! There’s good news for the whole family when the circle is complete.
Drew with his daughter Ella as his mother NanaPretty smiles at them both
NanaSlow holds Ella as NanaPretty keeps smiling
When Ada R. Habershon penned the lyrics in 1907 to the song Will the Circle be Unbroken, she had no way of knowing what an iconic gospel and country music song this would become. From remote churches like mine in the piney woods of East Texas to the center stage of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee this song spoke to individuals and the masses. Her original lyrics changed through the years as different performers rewrote them, but the question remained the same.
Will the circle be unbroken by and by? Regardless of time or place, the answer is yes.
Stay tuned.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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