generations – Don't Gel Too Soon

Aunts and Cousins: Great Memories and an Uncertain Future

Sunday night both boys, their wives and kids came for dinner. We won’t all be together for Thanksgiving; one son and his two kids will be with his wife and her family; we’ll be with our other daughter-in-law’s family. So Sunday was special, and it was a lovely evening.

Afterward, for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Thanksgivings when we were kids. It was always at our house: my parents, my mom’s sisters and their husbands, my grandmother and “the cousins.” There were 9 of us, six girls (I was the oldest) and three boys. My Aunt Bettie, her husband, two sons and a daughter lived in Cleveland; the rest of us were all local, so when the Cleveland Cousins showed up, it was a big deal.

There was a kids table of course. Nobody, not even bossy me, was in a hurry to move to the old folks’ territory. We were having too much fun. In addition to everything else (including games of “Murder” and “Sardines” and lots of running around outside) we planned and performed little dramas every year. I doubt they were very good, but everyone clapped and we had fun.

I wonder about so much now, though: the covert sisterly conversations in my parents’ bedroom, my grandmother (that’s her in the picture), whom I thought had gotten mean but was apparently losing her sight and trying to hide it, the lovely uncle and the wild one, and the impact of the Depression on the sisters and their men. There’s so much of that time that I’d love to see with my grown up eyes: about raising kids and being a grandparent of course, but even more, about what WWII and the Depression had done to them. After all, as I watch events unfold, it’s scary to think how close we are to leaving our kids and theirs to face similar harshness.

I wrote this about them back in 2007, when the last sister died:

In some ways, they were the lucky ones; all three sisters and my father and uncles — were able, on scholarships, to go to college. All three marriages, despite tensions and tough times, survived with a real friendship between spouses for most of their lives. Each had three children who were smart, interesting, and self-sufficient. Even so, the bounty of choices they gave to us was so much more than they had had themselves. The young women in this photograph, and their husbands, never had the luxury of dropping out of school to campaign for Eugene McCarthy or majoring in music or theater or spending years doing trauma medicine a couple of months a year to pay for a life of mountain climbing and exploration. There was no give, no leeway, in the lives of those whom the Depression and the war that ended it – had stamped forever.

I’d give anything to hear it all now. All of it.

I hope we, and our kids, have the guts to be as courageous — and tenacious, as they were.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Sisters and Aunts and Daughters and Nieces and Holidays

Thanksgiving always makes me think of the people who are missing.
By now that's almost an entire generation: my parents, aunts, uncles
and grandparents. We all came together at our house. As the oldest
cousin, I got to help in the kitchen and set the table. Sounds lame but
it felt very grownup. Not that that lasted for long. Over the years
we went from three to six to nine cousins, producing plays to perform
after dinner, playing Sardines and Murder, telling secrets and wreaking
civilized havoc.

My favorite memory, though, was time with the sisters: my mom and my aunts.
One lived nearby but the other came with her family from Cleveland so
when they were all together they wanted to talk. They'd sit in my
parents' room for ages; they let me hang around too. In a way, all of
us gathered on the bed those afternoons, and later in the kitchen after
dinner, washing dishes, is women passing along stories and traditions, preserving the wisdom of
the tribe.

I had no idea then of the value of those times. It
wasn't just being treated like "one of the girls," it was the sisterly
warmth, the laughter and sudden emotion, eye welling up, when one aunt
spoke of living so far from "home." Now, probably 50 years later, I
can see her leaning against the wall, her sisters looking toward her
with understanding sympathy. I can hear them talking about their
parents, my grandparents, one difficult, both disappointed with their
lives. For a little while, the burden of worry lifted a bit as they
shared it.

They were part of what is literally another world;
hats and gloves, scars from the Depression, government service during
World War II, an abiding sense of appropriateness. Like Betty Draper,
they left careers to stay "home with the kids." Their lives were so
different from ours, constrained and regulated — lives that many
daughters went to work to insure against.

What we forget is
that, even then, there was sisterhood. Maybe it wasn't as powerful and
certainly it wasn't as organized, but for me it still modeled a
solidarity, loyalty and love of the company of women that I still
cherish. And it's so exciting to see us all now, taking that example
along with the many farther afield, to enhance our larger community –
still a family of sisters – from one end of the Internet to – well – to
the whole wide world.

Cross-posted at BlogHer

Playing With the Big Boys: Bruce Springsteen’s New Drummer and the Rest of Us

Does the young drummer in this photo look familiar? He's definitely not Bruce's long-time drummer The Mighty Max Weinberg. He is, however, a Weinberg, Max's son Jay.. I learned about this from my own son, who IM'd

"Did you know that Max Weinberg's son is now the drummer for the E Street Band? It's a great story – little coverage. Seriously – he is 18 and no one has picked up that an ageless band now has an 18-year-old on drums."

He's right. It's a wonderful story, for many reasons. Just because it is, first of all. But also because all parents love it when their kids go into the family business; at least I think they do. That's not all, though. To be fair, Jay is only going to tour with them when his dad has to stay in LA to help launch the new Conan O'Brien Tonight Show. Even so, there's something lovely about Bruce calling and inviting him to join the band. Anyone who's ever watched a sound check or read about Bruce knows he's got high standards; this was NOT a sentimental decision. Jay can play the drums.

So why do I love this? A demonstration of that kind of trust by a national legend close to three times his age is pretty impressive. The idea of two generations on stage together as peers is an example of something that's been important to me for years: alliances across generations in all manner of venues.

I've been writing both here and on SVMoms about the tensions between Boomers and Millennials. There is a growing stress between us. Just a month ago I heard a young political social media genius – a serious one – mock the Boomers who claimed they helped to end the Vietnam War. "Dead soldiers ended the war, not you guys." he said with determination. Permutations of that attitude abound; although perhaps less so in families where parenting was respectful and strong and included a history of those times and a modest explanation of what we were trying to do.

President Obama, whose attitudes and capabilities I admire, tends to imply that it's time to ditch, at the least, a lot of the rhetoric and style of that time. I don't disagree. All that I want is for those of us in my generation and the younger people whose core values we share to be free to travel across the boundaries of style and execution to be allies and friends rather than adversaries. That kind of sharing emerges from respect in both directions, from engaging younger people more as peers than acoytes. That's what the Obama campaign did, and look what happened.

I've been fortunate, because of my relationship with my sons, because I've worked in the Internet world for ten years — so much with younger people, and because I am part of a community full of young families, to be able to do the same. But the divisions are growing for many of us, and they're sad.

So when Bruce, who has so often spoken for so many, crosses two-thirds of his life to, at 60+, add an 18-year-old drummer to his band, it's an example and a message for which I am grateful. No one who knows his music would ever think he would add a drummer to send a message; he takes his music, and his fans, too seriously for that. He is, however, reminding us all that, 18 or 80 – talent, music, dreams, ideas, faith or fun, the walls need not be so high. Whether it's campaigning for a candidate, working for women's rights, writing a poem, cooking a meal, building a house, growing tomatoes or making music, we are all pooer for the walls we build, and richer for the gifts we share.

Pete, Bruce, Beyonce and Obama: the Changing of the Guard

There they are: two of the cultural icons of my political life. Pete Seeger, close to 90, peer and colleague of Woody Guthrie, creator of We Shall Overcome and Turn Turn Turn, of Abiyoyo and Sam the Whaler, leader of The Almanac Singers and the Weavers. If there was a civil rights rally or a labor rally or an anti-war rally, he was there.

Beside him, Bruce Springsteen, a modern troubadour whose songs speak for many Americans whose opinions are never sought, whose voices are seldom heard.

As they stood together at the Lincoln Memorial in celebration of the Inauguration of Barack Obama, they represented, to me, all that I had believed and tried to help bring into being. To many, though, they were “the ultimate in subtly old-left populism.” Speaking about the concert early Sunday before it began, I kept talking about Bruce. A younger friend gently suggested that he was probably not the day’s headliner. That would be Beyonce Knowles, she said. I’m sure she’s right.

As one who was present the last time “the torch was passed to a new generation;” as a strongly defined Baby Boomer, it’s painful to hear anchormen celebrate the fact that “there will never be another Baby Boom President.” It’ s not that I mind the fact of that; it’s just painful that it seems to be something to celebrate. So many of us have tried so to be productive agents of change, have spent our lives working either full or part of the time to see that our country offers more to the least powerful, demands quality education, justice and maybe, even peace. So to hear Joe Scarborough revel in the fact that “16 horrible years of baby boomer presidents is over” really hurts. All my adult life we’ve been tarred by the brush of the least attractive of us while the work of the rest of us went unnoticed. For most campaigns, as I’ve written before, we were the secret weapon of the right.

So as exciting as all this is, especially for one who has supported Obama for so long, it’s also bittersweet because I feel the shadow of the disdain in which so many of us are held. I really don’t know how to respond. If I were to try, it might be by offering some of the words to Si Kahn‘s They All Sang Bread and Roses. It’s better with the music, but it does the job.

They All Sang “Bread and Roses (Si Kahn, 1989,
1991)

The more I
study history,

The more I
seem to find

That in
every generation

There are
times just like that time

When folks
like you and me who thought

That they
were all alone

Within this
honored movement

Found a
home.

And ‘though
each generation fears

That it
will be the last,

Our
presence here is witness

To the
power of the past.

And just as
we have drawn our strength

From those
who now are gone,

Younger
hands will take our work

And carry
on.

Introducing Tuesday Tours: Random Worthy Blog Posts

Welcome to Tuesday Tours. There's so much good stuff out in the Blog Universe; we all have our blog readers filled with those we love. It's tough to keep up though, so until further notice, I'll be offering Tuesday tours of some of my own frequent favorites.

One of my favorite bloggers, Pundit Mom, offers posts at two ends of the spectrum as the week begins. Both are worth reading. The first: advice to the Obamas about the neighborhood around Sidwell Friends School. It's just fun. The second is a serious post with a serious question: When is it right to tell an airline official that a passenger is making you nervous
?

Concerned about what's going on in Israel? Check back daily at Writes Like She Talks, where Jill Zimon has her finger on what's up all over the Web. Here's a sample.

The wise Maria Niles is looking to figure out all those generation labels like X and Boomer and Millennial — and what they mean (and what the heck her own is.)

Also "generationally speaking," you know that all last year I wrote comparing 1968 and 2008. Well, Time Goes By columnist Saul Friedman has done me one (actually two) better, writing of lessons from his own iconic president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Obama's point of reference, Abraham Lincoln.

Beth Kanter is a legend. Rightfully so. So when she offers 52 ways for Non-profits to use social media efficiently as a New Year's gift to her readers, I'm figuring that at least some of them can help the rest of us too.

Two of my favorite moms have something special too: I'm late on this one, but Her Bad Mother's description of a willful three-year-old (it's long so wait until you have time) is priceless. Some kids are just strong strong little people.

Also, Woulda Coulda Shoulda's Mir Kamin celebrated her son's last single-digit birthday with a wonderful hymn to a newly-nine-year-old. She never misses, that one.

Finally, this one – because the happy family in the photo is mine.

MOURNING ENORMOUS LOSS: TISHA B’AV, THE TRAUMA OF MEMORY AND THE WISDOM OF JEWISH TRADITION

The lights were out; all that remained were small spotlights where the readers sat. It was a day of sorrow and mourning, so we spurned comfort and, as tradition dictates, sat on the floor. In front of the Sanctuary, the readings began: Eichah – Lamentations, the prophet Jeremiah’s horrifying account of an ancent time of soul-shattering misery. Reading it aloud is part of the holiday** but,
since I was newly observant, it was previously unknown to me, as was the
enormous impact of the dimly lit room and haunting content and trope of the reading. That first time, just three years ago, I didn’t have a clue what was coming — that night or the next morning, when the readings continued.

Accompanied by a 25 hour fast, this all takes place on the holiday of Tisha B’Av – the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, to commemorate the multiple horrors believed to have taken place on that day.*

This is a lot of sadness (and foreboding of more to come) to have
taken place on the same date. So it’s fair to observe a period of
mourning and remembrance. What happened to me, though, was that the
language of mourning is so fierce, so hideous, and in some ways, so
applicable to what we see happening around us now, that it is almost
unbearable to listen to. And so, the first time I heard it, I fled in
the middle and went across the hall into the childcare room. My sweet,
ridiculously smart friend Aliza, with her
infant daughter and unable to join the prayers, was off to the side
praying on her own. In tears, so troubled that I was trembling, I
interrupted her prayers, something I would never do otherwise, and
demanded to know why it was necessary for us to listen to this. And to
know we’d be doomed to do so every summer. In her quiet way, she
replied that perhaps once a year isn’t too often to recall these
fearsome times in our history.

At the time, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but now, I’m,
shocked to discover that I look forward to this annual observance,
which
comes this weekend. Why? I guess after three years some of the shock
has worn off. Of course there’s more: as usual when I listen to Aliza,
I’ve had to think harder. One thing I’ve realized is that this day,
ignored by most Jews, is a kind of anchor — keeping us in place,
connecting us, those who came before, and those who will follow.

I can’t trace my family past my grandparents on either side; all my
grandparents and their siblings came here years before the Holocaust
and any records of their ancestors were lost or destroyed as the Nazis
decimated Europe. That they were Jewish, though, is irrefutable. Now
I find that, although I can’t share their stories and traditions, we do
share a history. I realize as I am writing this that moments which
commemorate that common history are not just religious, but also family
connections. Our mourning on the 9th of Av honors not just God’s
anger, which led Him to allow the destruction of the Temples, and not
just the martyrdom of so many, but also each individual, unknown person
whose DNA is mixed with mine.

I had often
protested that we need to honor that which we value as the positive
attributes of the Jewish experience, not just the martyrdoms that
remind us of our history of suffering, but also the joy and pride
our tradition offers. What I’ve realized is that we can’t forget..
There’s much to be learned by what’s
come before and by acknowledging our connection to it. And this deeply
moving, haunting and humbling tradition is connected to each of us
right
now, this minute.

* With thanks to the OU Tisha B’Av website :

In the time of Moses, the "sin of the spies" whom he sent out
to evaluate the situation in the soon-to-be conquered Canaan and who
returned with horror stories that questioned God’s power to protect the
Jews and caused Him to decree that none from the generation who went
out of Egypt would be permitted to go into Israel.
The destruction of the first Temple under Nebuchadnezzar. (587 BCE – 3338 in the Hebrew calendar)
The destruction of the second Temple under Titus. (70 CE – 3895 in the Hebrew calendar)
The Romans conquered Betar, the last fortress of the Bar Kochba
rebellion and Hadrian turned Jerusalem into a Roman city. (135 CE –
3895 in the Hebrew calendar)
King Edward I signed the edict that expelled all Jews from England (1290 CE – 5050 in the Hebrew calendar)
Jews expelled from Spain because of King Ferdinand’s decree (1492 CE — 5252 in the Hebrew calendar)
The last Jews left Vienna under expulsion orders there. (1670)
World War I began (1914 CE — 5674 in the Hebrew calendar)
Himmler presented the plan for the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish
problem" to the Nazi party. (1940 — 5700 in the Hebrew calendar)
Nazis began deporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. (1942 CE — 5702 in the Hebrew calendar)

** Also, interestingly, quoted in Christian prayers for Zimbabwe,

MASH NOTE TO MOM-101 – YET ANOTHER PERFECT POST

The woman in the picture just posted one of the loveliest meditations on family I’ve read. Since I write them frequently, I’m almost envious, but since it’s Liz that’s not possible. Read it. I promise my next post will NOT be about somebody else’s post. This was just too good to keep quiet about.

WEDDINGS, WITCHES AND JEWISH LIFE

Weddings are life markers – milestones on a singular journey. Every time, just like today, the two whose lives are joined know that their wedding is the most meaningful, the most special, of all. Every time, just like today, their family and friends smile and sigh, nod knowingly or watch in wonder. Most times, just like today, there is feasting and dancing, laughing and crying, present and past.

The couple in this picture are grownups with jobs, a just-completed dissertation and a real sense of wonder that they found one another and managed to make their way to this day. They planned the wedding, designed the exquisite chuppah (wedding canopy) that has been part of Jewish marriage for centuries, and worked to make the day special in every way (they succeeded.)

This is the third wedding I’ve attended this year and the third traditional observant Jewish wedding ever. That’s very unusual for someone my age but we’re blessed with friends who have made us part of their extended family and asked us to share these blessed days with them. Today, for the third time in a year I watched a groom led to his bride by a swarm of singing, dancing men; I’ve watched him lower the veil over the face of the woman he now knew for sure was his beloved. (Jacob was duped and married the wrong sister; at least 600 years old, this tradition evokes that story and acknowledges its power.) When I first learned of it it sounded barbaric to me. Men taking possession of property, I thought. Check out the goods.

Somehow though, in the years I’ve spent moving toward an observant life, it’s come to mean something quite different: a reverent bow to the centrality of a sound life partnership – not for everyone but certainly for those who choose to marry. Marriage is not just the economic and legal partnership so often described in political conversation, it’s an ancient entity with real resonance and a gigantic role in the preservation of a humane, loving and sometimes sacred society. It requires tradition carried on; it requires the presence of ceremony and ritual to link it to the couples of past generations.

On my favorite guilty pleasure, Charmed, rituals of birth and marriage are attended not only by those who share the lives and loves of the Halliwell sisters (yeah they’re witches and their story spent 8 TV seasons enchanting us all) but also by those who came before. They summon, "through space and time" all members of "the Halliwell line." Surrounded by these transluscent figures of past generations, today’s Halliwells celebrate marriages and new arrivals. Those fully and those ephemerally present conclude together "blessed be."

What does this have to do with Jewish weddings — or any other terrestrial weddings for that matter? A lot. Eight years on the air, the longest running show with female leads, it dealt often with travel through time and space and dominions never imagined. But when really important events arose, all the magic was supplanted by a single, simple spell that basically –well — brought the family together. For them it was across ghostly generations…it was a show about witches after all. But that really is what weddings do, and in my limited experience, the weddings of observant Jews are events with special power because they consider a wedding the "creation of a home" where Jewish life will be lived and celebrated. "Home" is represented by the wedding canopy, or "chuppah" under which the bride and groom marry, surrounded by loved ones of prior and subsequent generation: grandparents and parents, aunts and brothers, sisters and nephews.

This particular chuppah was built from branches rescued from a clearing near Boston and covered by a tablecloth that had belonged to the bride’s grandmother, who had died the year before. My husband’s and mine was covered by the prayer shawls of our grandfathers – mine near death and too frail to attend, his gone just a couple of years before. Again, instinctively, we, like this bride, sought connections over time.

I"m not saying this well but what I think is that we’re hardwired to want to be part of something "larger than ourselves" and faith and family are that something. For observant Jews, these connections are manifested throughout the ceremony and the traditions surrounding it. That timeless ritual and all that surrounds it bring the gift of place and meaning – the reminder that as we celebrate a marriage we join the circle once more, honoring all that has been given us and accepting the responsibility to pass it on.

A PICTURE WORTH 1000 WORDS BUT HERE ARE SOME WORDS ANYWAY

They’re all gone now – my mom and my aunts. Here they are at the wedding of Barbara, the youngest, who died this week. My mom, Jeanne, the oldest, gone since 1998, is the one on the right – that’s my dad next to her. On the left side of the photo is Bettie, and my Uncle Jim.

Growing up in the Depression, they were wartime girls – my mom worked for the Office of Price Administration — the agency that controlled prices and tried to prevent gouging and war profiteering. She met my dad there – his hearing loss prevented him from active military duty so he fought unscrupulous businessmen instead. Bettie was in the WAVES. Barb, the youngest, came of age closer to the war’s end; her husband Bob was a Ranger, decorated several times.

The Depression had been hard on them. My grandfather was unable to bring in much. It was so traumatic that once, when Bettie started to talk about putting cardboard in their shoes to cover the holes, my mother cut her off. We were in a car, the three of us, and Bettie was just kind of spinning yarns. But to my mother she was raising things better left alone. I have always understood that these three sisters – so lovely and happy here — went through plenty. I also understood that they were not alone; no one their age was untouched by the Depression and the war.

I’ve come to realize over the years that my parents’ Depression experiences had a profound effect on me. Not only did I read menus from the price to the item – and check dangling price tags before examining clothing on a rack. That was the obvious stuff I inherited. Beyond it though was a sense of sadness for them all. My mother, who was an artist, got a scholarship in education, so she because a teacher. My father, who wanted to be an architect, got a scholarship to law school so he became a lawyer. My Uncle Bob was to be a veterinarian but his wartime injuries impaired his movement too much for him to be able to lift the animals so his dream died too. That was just how it was.

In some ways, they were the lucky ones; all three sisters and my father and uncles — were able, on scholarships, to go to college. All three marriages, despite tensions and tough times, survived with a real friendship between spouses for most of their lives. Each had three children who were smart, interesting, and self-sufficient. Even so, the bounty of choices they gave to us was so much more than they had had themselves. The young women in this photograph, and their husbands, never had the luxury of dropping out of school to campaign for Eugene McCarthy or majoring in music or theater or spending years doing trauma medicine a couple of months a year to pay for a life of mountain climbing and exploration. There was no give, no leeway, in the lives of those whom the Depression and the war that ended it – had stamped forever.

None of that shows here, of course. It’s a wedding. There’s no hint of all the scars the Depression had left on them, no hint of the loved ones and friends lost to World War II, no indication of the profound pain of watching a father who couldn’t support them and a mother who was permanently enraged. Nope. This was a wedding day and a lovely one at that. Tonight – well tonight I’m thinking of what it must have been like as the third sister, the baby sister, married. Who, I wonder, was missing – lost to the war. Who, I wonder, were the absent friends lost to the jolt of economic inequality when their parents retained a steady income and my grandparents could not. What are the stories my sisters and cousins and I will never know?

When we cleaned out my mom’s apartment I found the strangest thing: the Phi Beta Kappa key of the husband of one of my mother’s best childhood friends — a woman whose first husband had died early in the war. Why did my mother have it instead of her? What, if anything, had been between them when they were young? To me, the key is a symbol of all that was never said – the reserve of this brave and noble generation who didn’t want us to know how tough it really was. One picture and so many random thoughts — probably self-indulgently cobbled together here.

I’m writing this at the beach — the ocean slamming against the shore just steps away. This little barrier island on the Jersey shore has been a family destination since I was little –well more than 50 years — so I’m probably more available for all this nostalgia as memories rise up unfiltered on the sidewalks and sand dunes and ice cream parlors. But that’s not all it is; these thoughts are never very far away and when my sister sent this photo tonight many rose to the surface. I so wish I had asked more questions and said more often “You guys were great, so brave, so remarkable.”At my mothe’s funeral I said something to an old friend of hers about their role as “the Greatest Generation.” He laughed. “We weren’t great Cindy. We just did what we had to do. If you have to, so will you.”

Look at this photo and think of all that touched these young women and their families. If, as they did, we faced more than a decade of economic and political upheaval, wiould we be as strong, as determined?

So long girls. I know we always loved you, but appreciate all you were and all you never got to be? No we didn’t do that. At least not enough.