Remembering a very different kind of rebel on Mother's Day

 

On this Mother's Day, a holiday born in WV, I'm reposting this one about my mother, who passed in 2015. 

The recent decision to change the name of Charleston’s Stonewall Jackson Middle School made me think of my late mother. An alumna of the school, she died in 2015 at 90.

She was a rebel of the decidedly non-Confederate variety. And she would have been ecstatic over the change.

A daughter of the southern West Virginia coalfields, she was born in Beckley and spent her early years in Wyoming County. Her father worked in the mines when work was to be found, which wasn’t often in the 1920s and ’30s. Eventually, he caught a break and found a job at the Union Carbide plant. (Ironically, he’d wind up getting killed on the job before I was born. So it goes.)

He moved the family to Charleston. My mother attended St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, now St. Christopher’s. She graduated from Stonewall and was elected as homecoming queen or something to that effect.

While it lasted, the Carbide job made it possible for her to be the first of her family to attend college. She went to Ohio University in Athens, a place I still like.

That was a good thing. She’d wind up raising two sons and losing two more on a West Virginia teacher’s salary with no child support. My father, a World War II combat veteran in the Pacific Theater, had many charms and virtues, but domesticity didn’t make the cut. Today, he might have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

My mother taught junior high math for about 25 years in Milton, where she was something of an institution.

In “The Prince,” the Renaissance philosopher Machiavelli wrote that it was better for a leader to be feared than loved. In her teaching career, my mother somehow managed to hit the sweet spot. She was generally loved by two or so generations of students, but her temper was legendary.

Although she barely stood 5 feet, 2 inches after a stretch, there was a persistent legend across the years of her picking up a heavy school desk and throwing it across the room. In some versions, there was a student in the desk.

I wouldn’t swear to that. But it wouldn’t surprise me.

Her rebellions were multiple. She was hardcore on women’s rights. I still remember the time as a teenager when I was pontificating about abortion. She calmly said that if it were a safe and legal option, she would have gotten one in her last pregnancy, which didn’t end well. That pretty much shut me up on that subject.

She didn’t bat an eye when my late older brother came out as gay. She loved hanging out with his friends, a fun crew. At the risk of perpetuating a stereotype, both were mad about Broadway musicals, a gene which I apparently didn’t inherit.

She was a hardcore union member as well. In those days, the West Virginia Education Association was the only game in town, but I’m sure she would have been just as happy in the West Virginia Federation of Teachers. In the ’70s, she marched with hundreds of other teachers in Charleston for better pay.

One of my favorite memories of her was during the 1990 teacher strike. She had recently retired and was livid that Cabell County teachers didn’t join the walkout. (Some people started calling it “Scabell.”)

At the time, I was a year into my job with the American Friends Service Committee and had spent a lot of that trying to support United Mine Workers of America and their families during the Pittston strike.

As the smoke poured from her ears, she said, “Why don’t you get some of your union miner friends to come up and picket and shut down Cabell schools?”

I thought that was the best idea ever and got right on it. Alas, the teachers settled the strike and won a historic victory before we could pull that off.

Ahh, the ones that got away ...

She hated several things, one of which she called “narrowmindedness,” a catchall term for her that included racism, religious bigotry, homophobia, science-denying, disapproval of card playing, abstinence from wine and other offenses against humanity.

But if you really wanted her to go off, you just had to mention the Confederacy. She hated it with the vehemence of a Union soldier wounded in a bad place at the battle of Fredericksburg. She hated the bogus narrative of racist chivalry and the “Lost Cause.” She hated the idea of any aristocracy. She hated efforts to romanticize it. She pretty much hated everything about it.

Congratulations to those who fought the good fight for a long-needed change.

And if there is anything beyond this life, and if the dead are still interested in earthly things, somewhere someone I know is doing cartwheels.

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

A different kind of rebel

The recent decision to change the name of Charleston’s Stonewall Jackson Middle School made me think of my late mother. An alumna of the school, she died in 2015 at 90.

She was a rebel of the decidedly non-Confederate variety. And she would have been ecstatic over the change.

A daughter of the southern West Virginia coalfields, she was born in Beckley and spent her early years in Wyoming County. Her father worked in the mines when work was to be found, which wasn’t often in the 1920s and ’30s. Eventually, he caught a break and found a job at the Union Carbide plant. (Ironically, he’d wind up getting killed on the job before I was born. So it goes.)

He moved the family to Charleston. My mother attended St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, now St. Christopher’s. She graduated from Stonewall and was elected as homecoming queen or something to that effect.

While it lasted, the Carbide job made it possible for her to be the first of her family to attend college. She went to Ohio University in Athens, a place I still like.

That was a good thing. She’d wind up raising two sons and losing two more on a West Virginia teacher’s salary with no child support. My father, a World War II combat veteran in the Pacific Theater, had many charms and virtues, but domesticity didn’t make the cut. Today, he might have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

My mother taught junior high math for about 25 years in Milton, where she was something of an institution.

In “The Prince,” the Renaissance philosopher Machiavelli wrote that it was better for a leader to be feared than loved. In her teaching career, my mother somehow managed to hit the sweet spot. She was generally loved by two or so generations of students, but her temper was legendary.

Although she barely stood 5 feet, 2 inches after a stretch, there was a persistent legend across the years of her picking up a heavy school desk and throwing it across the room. In some versions, there was a student in the desk.

I wouldn’t swear to that. But it wouldn’t surprise me.

Her rebellions were multiple. She was hardcore on women’s rights. I still remember the time as a teenager when I was pontificating about abortion. She calmly said that if it were a safe and legal option, she would have gotten one in her last pregnancy, which didn’t end well. That pretty much shut me up on that subject.


She didn’t bat an eye when my late older brother came out as gay. She loved hanging out with his friends, a fun crew. At the risk of perpetuating a stereotype, both were mad about Broadway musicals, a gene which I apparently didn’t inherit.

She was a hardcore union member as well. In those days, the West Virginia Education Association was the only game in town, but I’m sure she would have been just as happy in the West Virginia Federation of Teachers. In the ’70s, she marched with hundreds of other teachers in Charleston for better pay.

One of my favorite memories of her was during the 1990 teacher strike. She had recently retired and was livid that Cabell County teachers didn’t join the walkout. (Some people started calling it “Scabell.”)

At the time, I was a year into my job with the American Friends Service Committee and had spent a lot of that trying to support United Mine Workers of America and their families during the Pittston strike.

As the smoke poured from her ears, she said, “Why don’t you get some of your union miner friends to come up and picket and shut down Cabell schools?”

I thought that was the best idea ever and got right on it. Alas, the teachers settled the strike and won a historic victory before we could pull that off.

Ahh, the ones that got away ...

She hated several things, one of which she called “narrowmindedness,” a catchall term for her that included racism, religious bigotry, homophobia, science-denying, disapproval of card playing, abstinence from wine and other offenses against humanity.

But if you really wanted her to go off, you just had to mention the Confederacy. She hated it with the vehemence of a Union soldier wounded in a bad place at the battle of Fredericksburg. She hated the bogus narrative of racist chivalry and the “Lost Cause.” She hated the idea of any aristocracy. She hated efforts to romanticize it. She pretty much hated everything about it.

Congratulations to those who fought the good fight for a long-needed change.

And if there is anything beyond this life, and if the dead are still interested in earthly things, somewhere someone I know is doing cartwheels.

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Cultural literacy

The young Jackie Chan getting whacked by Bruce Lee. Image by way of wikipedia.

OK, enough of trivialities about policy, politics and public life. It's time to talk about something important, to wit, passing on the cultural heritage of humanity to the next generation. I did my part earlier this week when I introduced my grandson to one of the pinnacles of cinematic history.

(Previously, we explored other masterpieces like Wayne's World and Blazing Saddles.)

Yes, of course, I am talking about Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon. Where else, after all, can one find such nuanced and complex characters as Bolo and Han? Or such immortal lines as "Boards don't hit back"? Or get the feel of the early 70s coolness vibe?

The classic also provides an opportunity to practice math skills by counting the guys Bruce whacks in the movie, (one of whom was the neophyte Jackie Chan). My grandson lost count but estimates it to be around 100.

It's an honor and a privilege to pass on the Great Tradition. When he's old enough to fully understand The Big Lebowski, my work will be done.

(But seriously, while diligently researching this blog post...OK, after a quick glance at Wikipedia....I read that some scholars have argued that decolonization and decoloniality are the progressive political subtexts of Bruce Lee's movies. There's a teaser here. So there.)

Late on a Mother's Day...

...It has occurred to me that this is my first Mother's Day without a living mother. Mine passed at age 90 in early January. I am not one to put private sentiments on public display but I will say this: her life was quiet but good and touched many people and her passing was like that of a sweet candle that finally burned out.

I'm glad that I was there when she drew her last breath as she was there when I drew my first. I feel honored to have received my life from her. From her, I received the greatest gift: that of tenacity. I have long felt that my active life was the complement of her quiet life.

As the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer says, "May light perpetual shine upon her."

Two deaths

I had unexpected news of two deaths today. One was in the extended family that will no doubt have many rippling effects. He was a good man who was like another father to my children and another grandfather to my grandchild. A Vietnam veteran, a Democrat and a quiet decent man from southern West Virginia respected by all who knew him.

The other was that of the great Latin American author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez is best known for his style of magical realism, which he believed only told the truth about the Caribbean world. I've often thought that the truth about Appalachia could best be told that way as well. I am in awe of his One Hundred Years of Solitude, which recounts the creation and dissolution of an entire world.  In my dreams, I'd write a book about this place as baroque and layered as his. But only in my dreams. Who but Marquez would begin a novel thus:

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

It kind of makes you wonder what kind of random thoughts will float through our heads when we face our own (metaphorical, one hopes) firing squad.

I am not fluent in Latin, alas,  but  I like the sound of some phrases I know. Like this one, which wishes that the dead may rest in peace: Requiescat in pace.

At times like these, I love the words of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, in which I was steeped from my infancy: "Give to the departed eternal rest. Let light perpetual shine upon them."

Shodan

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for a personal announcement: my daughter earned her shodan (first degree black belt) in karate this weekend. It occurred to me that I got mine the same year she was born.

She's been around it her whole life but for some reason got seriously into it a few years back. A lot of people approach it as a sport or fitness activity, but I recommended she approach it in a traditional way, as a serious fighting art and classical budo or martial way. She did, applying fiercely the admonition of Shotokan karate master Gichin Funakoshi, who had this to say about practice:

Be deadly serious in your training. Your opponent must always be present in your mind, whether you sit or stand or walk or raise your arms. Should you in combat strike a karate blow, you must have no doubt whatsoever that the one blow decides everything. If you have made an error, you will be the one who falls. You must always be prepared for such an eventuality.

She brought that serious attitude to her form or kata practice, prearranged solo exercises in which one executes techniques in multiple directions against imagined opponents. She also proved to be quite a predator in kumite or sparring. In practice, she would only spar with toughest and best she could find, duking it out with black belt men who outweighed her by half or more.

When she did compete, she generally dominated the ring, often kicking her opponents out of it. She once said that I seemed prouder of her when she did that than when she got her doctorate. For the record, that isn't necessarily true. But it might be.

WHAT HE SAID. Here's Paul Krugman on the ruling class hissy fit over the Occupy Wall Street movement.

THE POLITICS OF OCCUPATION. Here's Robert Reich on the Wall Street protesters and the Democratic party.

THEY'VE GOT BEN AND JERRY'S anyway.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

On the other hand

I think this is a bad deal on the debt ceiling, assuming it goes through. On the positive side, I taught the grandkid how to ride a bike without training wheels today.

Life lesson: generally speaking, while many things are pretty awful, most times not everything is all bad all the time. This isn't a matter of any mercy on our behalf on the part of the cosmos, the evidence for which is pretty underwhelming. It's just statistics and probability.

Passing from nature to eternity

A death in the family just happened, a favorite aunt who made it nearly to age 90 before coming down with pneumonia. Her husband, who served in the Navy during World War II, preceded her in death.

I always liked that side of the family and enjoyed visiting them as a kid, including all the cousins. They lived in the BIG city of Columbus three hours distant, a place of almost unimaginable magnitude to someone growing up in my part of West Virginia. I always stayed in their basement, which incidentally used to have a well-stocked bar which I may or may not have been known to raid.

Columbus also had these places called malls, unheard of in WV at the time, where, if I played my cards right, I might be able to get a karate book. It also had a certain hamburger chain famous for their small sized burgers, a kind of nutritional crack upon which I still feed whenever I can.

I have many fond memories of her and her family. I wish her well on her journey and send my best to those who remain.

I was told that one of the last things she said was that she had seen her father and mother, who passed decades ago. Her husband, a day before his death, saw his deceased brother. It makes you wonder.

ANOTHER LOSS. From Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo, here's a moving profile of one of the miners who died in Massey's Upper Big Branch mine disaster.

TWO SIDES. It looks like the US Senate moved fast on the unemployment/tax cut deal. Here are two opposing takes on the deal and the dealer. Most groups that I trust on this issue hate the high end tax cuts but support the unemployment extension and are hoping the House makes a better deal.

WELL OFF, but empathy-impaired.

MY STARS. Here's a look at America's cult of the celebrity.

ME ME ME. Here's a look at narcissism.