An Orange, a Banana, and an Apple

                                            An Orange, a Banana, and an Apple

It would come as no surprise to all of us in our seventies that many of our relatives, now gone, experienced quite different gifts from what we receive now.

Take my mother, for instance.  For Christmas in a family of eventually eight kids, before the Depression, she received an orange for Christmas. As did her brothers and sisters.  One orange.  With much enthusiasm, she would say, “It was such a treat.” My grandfather, like some of Vance’s relatives in the book, Hillbilly Elegy, worked in the steel mill. Tough work but since he spoke several languages, he could explain to newly arrived immigrants from Europe what to do, so he ended up as foreman  

 My grandmother made almost all their clothes, my grandfather repaired all their shoes. They canned produce, smoked meats, had geese and a milk cow.  One orange at Christmas for each of them.

Shifting to my husband’s family, with grandparents growing up in the wilds of Canada, a treat for his mother at Christmas was one banana, cut into three for her and her two sisters.  Such a different world from Reading England where they lived in somewhat of a more civilized fashion among others rather than out on a prairie, alone, in a small house that I would call “a cabin.”  My husband’s grandfather was a wheelwright in England, and when cars came in, wagon wheels disappeared.  So on to the promised land of Canada and later the U.S. where he became a general mechanic and custodian in a department store.

And then we were talking to a neighbor, who grew up in the Philippines.  He could remember his grandfather getting an apple for the holidays, trying to explain the smell and taste of such an exotic fruit from abroad, perhaps from the U.S., to his grandchildren, who saw apples in stores everywhere. Hard for them to understand joy at such a present.  

So each gift was exotic, something from somewhere else that was special, unique, and cherished.  I hope that it is the same for all of us this Hanukkah and Christmas, that family, health, and time together are not taken for granted, and remain simply and exquisitely part of exotic future memories, like an orange, a banana, and an apple, as we grow older and maybe wiser.

J.D. Vance Hillbilly Elegy Netflix

I didn’t think that Hillbilly Elegy, being a long narrative about growing up in a holler, could turn into a film with immediacy, dialogue and action, but under the direction of Ron Howard, it did become a story that works on the big screen.  A grandmother (Glenn Close) wants her grandson , J.D. to become someone. J.D. without a father at home, an addicted mother, somehow manages to escape this world, get educated, and find a woman to love.  Still, it is a mournful elegy of a tough childhood and adolescence.  Having grown up in Appalachia, I could see some of my family and friends bump into the people in Hillbilly Elegy, and fit right in.  A story well-told with a message to all of us  about the importance of believing in oneself and becoming self-reliant and holding on to love for those in the past that made it possible.  Sometimes hard to find good stories that hold together in feature films these days. Thanks to Netflix for getting this one out to us.  I hope you find it, not delightful or fun of course, but important as a way of seeing the world through a different lens.  

 

The Vietnam Vet at the Gun Auction

   I am hiking with my good friend Mark. We are on the shorter five mile trail now cause we are older, while others, also older but able to jump over boulders in a single bound, buzz around us heading up Mathis. Because I am working on a manuscript about Vietnam that mentions M-l6's, and Mark is a Vietnam vet,  I asked him if he carried an M-l6. 

“No, he said, “not an M-16 but an M-14 as well as a reconditioned 45 from 1941 which by the way was before I was even born. “

We continued hiking up seven hundred feet on “the dinosaurs backbone.” named by Liza, another hiker.

“I had a shotgun,” Mark said.  So I asked him if he ever went hunting, thinking of living in Idaho and the pheasant and duck hunting that went on each fall. 

“No,” he said, “I shot clays, but not anymore. I sold my shotgun at an auction.”

The auction was held in a huge indoor space where people sat in metal chairs and waited for the auctioneer to start.  And he did.  His voice boomed out from a microphone. 

A blind man wearing a suit and dark glasses stood near the group, with the most interesting large dog, some kind of European breed, that sat, alert, next to him.
                                               
A young girl saw the blind man.  She went over to him, really to see this great big dog as big as she was.

In a medium loud voice, she said, “Mister Blind Man, can I pet your dog?”

“Yes,” he said, “That’s all right.”

She stroked the dog, enjoyed being close, her hand moving down the fur on his shoulder over and over.

“Mister Blind Man,” she said. “Have you ever seen what your dog looks like?  Her voice  so much louder now.

The bidders, the people in their chairs, turned to look at her.

“No I haven’t,” the blind man said.

“Well,” she said, “Let me tell you what he looks like.”

Her voice boomed out over the room.  More of the audience turned toward her.  The auctioneer went quiet.

“Your dog has four feet that look like little white booties,” she said, “and his fur is brown and black.  He has a black mouth and his ears are sticking up.  He has a big head and a big body ----

Silence in the whole auction.  The young girl stole the stage.  Her voice ricocheted around the enclosed space.

A woman came quickly over, put her arm around the young girl, apologized to the blind man and nodded in the direction of the auctioneer and the bidders.  The mother and young girl hurried off.  The auctioneer began again.  Later Mark’s shotgun was sold to the highest bidder. 

They say a story is only as true as you can make it.

From Italy to the U.S.A.

From Italy to the U.S.A.
                 
He was five years old
When he got off the steamship
To the pandemonium of Ellis Island.

His mother's arms
Let him go.

Hands passed papers
Over his head.

Noise flowed from the mouth
Of the man in uniform.

The boy shrank back,
Leaning against a stranger
Who spoke Italian
Because it sounded good
To him.