My trip home was contemplative and eye opening. I noted the following: While the workers of the United States may be experiencing a recession, I do not believe that those who are 'large and in charge' are suffering at all. As most everyone knows, by now, I took the train home and as I was transported along, I saw cars and cars and cars full of goods being transported along the railways. And guess what? Quite a lot of them, Costco comes to mind, have loading and unloading instructions written in CHINESE! At least, I'm assuming it was loading and unloading instructions. I cannot think of what else would be written on the sides of box cars. Now, I am as big on world economic growth as the next semi educated person, but the thing is.....these goods have been bought from China, providing work for Chinese people while our own workers are running out of unemployment benefits??? This can't be right.
Some people blame our unions for this increasing imbalance, but I never did. My Uncle Worden, a very bright man, explained to me one time that wages and benefits for American workers were the last thing to rise in an economy. These things only went up, he said, after the owners had taken their profits. Given that, as I said, I never blamed unions. Of course, as time has gone by, I'd have to say that I have changed my opinion on that issue. When, after my little health care issue, I called my old union headquarters seeking support, I made the following discoveries: The full-time jobs that my cohorts and I were privileged to be able to work, complete with health benefits and pension plans no longer exist. They have all been outsourced to part-timers who work at a far, far lower hourly rate and have no benefits whatsoever. My former union leaders? They all have cushy state jobs working for the very bureau chiefs to whom they used to 'defend' and 'represent' us. I have to admit, some of the things that went down right before I retired seemed a little fishy to me, but I never, for a second they were selling us out for their own benefit. The thing is, the state budget is more bloated than ever. Since, the legislature is not replacing workers as they retire, where IS the money going?
However, back to my train trip: The next thing I noticed, as we rolled through acres and acres of what was, obviously, farm land, signs that read (and I paraphrase), 'So and So County Industrial Park'. Industrial Park????? Translation: Factory Farm, I'm thinking.
So, as I said, our citizen: our factory workers, our farmers, and the civil servants are suffering through a recession. Big Business, Big Unions and Big Government are doing fine, thank you very much.
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Monday, December 27, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Grandmother Britton
My Grandmother, Elsie Maude Jordan Britton, was born on December 4, 1888 in Missouri. When I was growing up, our family lived the closest to her, and therefore, my brothers , sister and I , spent a lot of time with her. Dressed up, with her hair tinted a lovely grayish blue, clad in one of her dressier dresses and wrapped in her fur stole , Grandmother was , at nearly six feet, quite an impressive woman. She was, also, just so darned eccentric! And did not have a clue that she was! Eccentric, I mean.
She would talk about my Aunt Susie in pitying, disapproving tones, the 'Poor Susie', voice. Truth be told, my Grandfather's sister, Susie, was odd. She lived over by Tulsa University in one half a duplex. Her cat, Wigiwoo, and her bantam hen, WeeWee lived with her. She also had a coop full of bantam hens out back, but WeeWee and Wigiwoo lived in. Once a year, Aunt Susie would paint her furniture in order to cover up the chicken poop. Not wash it off, just paint over it. One Christmas my Mother bought Aunt Susie a brand new slip. It was a Vanity Fair, and Mother had paid a full six dollars for it. Aunt Susie had used it to help Wigiwoo through a difficult labor and delivery. When my Mom saw that bloodied slip, she got so damned mad she nearly spit.
Yes, my Great Aunt Susie was a trifle off kilter. There is not much question about that. In fact, as I work my way through my entire family, anyone who follows my blog will note that my entire family is composed of distinctly individualistic people. But, if my Grandmother realized that she, too, had a few 'issues,' which I strongly doubt, she just did not care.
Grandmother had not driven anything since, as a new wife, she ran her Phaeton into a ditch and barely escaped with her life. For this reason, she utilized me for errands. I would hop on my bike with her grocery list or water bill payment and pedal off to do her business for her. My Uncle Dudley sent her a savings bond every month until the day she died, and the very second one would mature, my Grandmother would sign it and dispatch me to the bank to cash it She would, then, take the money and buy new china pieces that she would paint.
One day when I got in from school, the phone was ringing. This, of course, was before cell phones. We had one phone. It was attached to the wall of the dining room. I answered to find my Grandmother on the other line. She had an errand
"Sally, I need for you to do some business for me. Can you ride over?"
I arrived, she came to the door and handed me a nicely wrapped package. "I want you to ride this over to Doctor Sommers' office. Just hand it to the nurse." And then, she said the wrong words. 'Make sure you don't open it."
Well, I darned sure did open it. I drove over to Hamilton's Grocery store, pulled around back, out of view of her house (not that she would have looked. It never occurred to her that any of her grandchildren would behave in a disobedient manner). I , carefully pulled the tape loose and took a quick peek. Then, just as quickly, sealed it back up and pedaled down the street towards the Doctor's office. My grandmother was sending him a gift wrapped package of her stool sample. And, this is the thing that, in retrospect, just amazes me. .......it never, for one second, occurred to me that sending a ten year old off on her bike with a package of stool sample was not a normal thing to do. It was so 'not unusual' to me that I never even bothered to mention it to my parents.
So, as I said, I did not regard my Grandmother as a particularly impressive person. However, as I grew up, moved away and began to realize how she had lived her life, I became aware that she was quite daunting in very many ways. Born in Missouri, she was one of the first women to be granted a college degree from a Missouri college. Immediately upon graduation, she married a man who she barely knew and took off for Turley where she raised the two children he had from a previous marriage and gave birth to six more. When her husband died, shortly before I was born, she was appointed as the Postmistress of Turley, and I am not sure (geneaology and family history are my cousin, Sharol's speciality), but I think she may have been the first woman to be appointed to such a position. If she wasn't the first, she was one of the first.
She was a good Mother who reared eight socially responsible , good hearted people. Given that we lived in rural Oklahoma, it is amazing to me how socially and politically liberal her kids turned out to be. All of them, even the ones who voted Republican every now and then, were emphatically in favor of all of the freedoms: speech, religion, right to assemble, all of them. Her kids were exceedingly patriotic and loved this country with a passion. They differed, at times, on different policies, but their patriotism was never a question. Many of her descendants have fought for the United States, some, who could not support certain wars and were Conscientious Objectors, still served via the medical service.
Grandmother was a little torn on the women's rights issue. She believed that women should do whatever it was they wanted to do, as long as their husbands were properly looked after. I can still remember her chiding my Mother if she found out my Dad had eaten a bologna sandwich for lunch. 'A man who works deserves a hot lunch, Alene. I taught you that.' Of course, when my Grandfather had a farm, Grandmother cooked and fed not only my Grandad but all of the hired hands so she had no empathy for my Mother at all when Mother would say, 'Oh, he doesn't mind, and I was busy." "Whether he minds or not, is not the point. You should cook him a hot lunch."
When I married and told her I was going to start studying for my Master's, she was all for it, but also mentioned, "Don't forget to cook breakfast for your husband before you leave for work." Of course if she had lived long enough to see how THAT turned out,she would have told me to leave him a lot more quickly than I, actually, did. In that regard, she was , distinctly a feminist. It was the husband's duty to provide and care for his wife and family, and if he did not, Grandmother was one hundred percent in favor of showing him the door.
She had, in fact, supported my Great Aunt Velma when, upon discovering her husband was a 'rounder' (and does anyone really know what that term means?) Aunt Velma gave him the boot and proceeded to live out the rest of her life in happy singlehood. At that time, women were encouraged to 'make the best of a bad situation., ' but my Grandmother always said a woman was entitled to a good man. If she had not been lucky, as Grandmother felt herself to have been, a woman was perfectly justified in moving on.
So, in closing, my Grandmother Britton was quite a woman. Happy Birthday, Grandmother, and I'm sorry I told the story about the stool sample.
She would talk about my Aunt Susie in pitying, disapproving tones, the 'Poor Susie', voice. Truth be told, my Grandfather's sister, Susie, was odd. She lived over by Tulsa University in one half a duplex. Her cat, Wigiwoo, and her bantam hen, WeeWee lived with her. She also had a coop full of bantam hens out back, but WeeWee and Wigiwoo lived in. Once a year, Aunt Susie would paint her furniture in order to cover up the chicken poop. Not wash it off, just paint over it. One Christmas my Mother bought Aunt Susie a brand new slip. It was a Vanity Fair, and Mother had paid a full six dollars for it. Aunt Susie had used it to help Wigiwoo through a difficult labor and delivery. When my Mom saw that bloodied slip, she got so damned mad she nearly spit.
Yes, my Great Aunt Susie was a trifle off kilter. There is not much question about that. In fact, as I work my way through my entire family, anyone who follows my blog will note that my entire family is composed of distinctly individualistic people. But, if my Grandmother realized that she, too, had a few 'issues,' which I strongly doubt, she just did not care.
Grandmother had not driven anything since, as a new wife, she ran her Phaeton into a ditch and barely escaped with her life. For this reason, she utilized me for errands. I would hop on my bike with her grocery list or water bill payment and pedal off to do her business for her. My Uncle Dudley sent her a savings bond every month until the day she died, and the very second one would mature, my Grandmother would sign it and dispatch me to the bank to cash it She would, then, take the money and buy new china pieces that she would paint.
One day when I got in from school, the phone was ringing. This, of course, was before cell phones. We had one phone. It was attached to the wall of the dining room. I answered to find my Grandmother on the other line. She had an errand
"Sally, I need for you to do some business for me. Can you ride over?"
I arrived, she came to the door and handed me a nicely wrapped package. "I want you to ride this over to Doctor Sommers' office. Just hand it to the nurse." And then, she said the wrong words. 'Make sure you don't open it."
Well, I darned sure did open it. I drove over to Hamilton's Grocery store, pulled around back, out of view of her house (not that she would have looked. It never occurred to her that any of her grandchildren would behave in a disobedient manner). I , carefully pulled the tape loose and took a quick peek. Then, just as quickly, sealed it back up and pedaled down the street towards the Doctor's office. My grandmother was sending him a gift wrapped package of her stool sample. And, this is the thing that, in retrospect, just amazes me. .......it never, for one second, occurred to me that sending a ten year old off on her bike with a package of stool sample was not a normal thing to do. It was so 'not unusual' to me that I never even bothered to mention it to my parents.
So, as I said, I did not regard my Grandmother as a particularly impressive person. However, as I grew up, moved away and began to realize how she had lived her life, I became aware that she was quite daunting in very many ways. Born in Missouri, she was one of the first women to be granted a college degree from a Missouri college. Immediately upon graduation, she married a man who she barely knew and took off for Turley where she raised the two children he had from a previous marriage and gave birth to six more. When her husband died, shortly before I was born, she was appointed as the Postmistress of Turley, and I am not sure (geneaology and family history are my cousin, Sharol's speciality), but I think she may have been the first woman to be appointed to such a position. If she wasn't the first, she was one of the first.
She was a good Mother who reared eight socially responsible , good hearted people. Given that we lived in rural Oklahoma, it is amazing to me how socially and politically liberal her kids turned out to be. All of them, even the ones who voted Republican every now and then, were emphatically in favor of all of the freedoms: speech, religion, right to assemble, all of them. Her kids were exceedingly patriotic and loved this country with a passion. They differed, at times, on different policies, but their patriotism was never a question. Many of her descendants have fought for the United States, some, who could not support certain wars and were Conscientious Objectors, still served via the medical service.
Grandmother was a little torn on the women's rights issue. She believed that women should do whatever it was they wanted to do, as long as their husbands were properly looked after. I can still remember her chiding my Mother if she found out my Dad had eaten a bologna sandwich for lunch. 'A man who works deserves a hot lunch, Alene. I taught you that.' Of course, when my Grandfather had a farm, Grandmother cooked and fed not only my Grandad but all of the hired hands so she had no empathy for my Mother at all when Mother would say, 'Oh, he doesn't mind, and I was busy." "Whether he minds or not, is not the point. You should cook him a hot lunch."
When I married and told her I was going to start studying for my Master's, she was all for it, but also mentioned, "Don't forget to cook breakfast for your husband before you leave for work." Of course if she had lived long enough to see how THAT turned out,she would have told me to leave him a lot more quickly than I, actually, did. In that regard, she was , distinctly a feminist. It was the husband's duty to provide and care for his wife and family, and if he did not, Grandmother was one hundred percent in favor of showing him the door.
She had, in fact, supported my Great Aunt Velma when, upon discovering her husband was a 'rounder' (and does anyone really know what that term means?) Aunt Velma gave him the boot and proceeded to live out the rest of her life in happy singlehood. At that time, women were encouraged to 'make the best of a bad situation., ' but my Grandmother always said a woman was entitled to a good man. If she had not been lucky, as Grandmother felt herself to have been, a woman was perfectly justified in moving on.
So, in closing, my Grandmother Britton was quite a woman. Happy Birthday, Grandmother, and I'm sorry I told the story about the stool sample.
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