The Bully

No era escapes life's lessons, which takes me to how frequently I find meaningful analogies from my childhood to apply to what disturbs me presently and how persistent are our human patterns regardless of the decade or our age.

In third grade Peter was one of my best friends. I met him through Marilyn, my other best friend. We all lived short bike rides from one another, an exhilarating down hill ride in one direction and a breathless bike push home. Peter was kind and gentle, thin, blue eyed, and hilarious. Our threesome was modified by witty and mannerly Marilyn, who to this day has the demeanor of a fine hostess.

At Hoover Elementary School the rules at last bell were, as today, designed to keep us in order with single file exits, classroom by classroom. Of the event I have never forgotten, on a spring afternoon high with promise -- bike rides, freshly baked cookies, sparkling scenery -- we filed out of our classrooms toward the front doors. Peter was in front of me. He would be next out the front door. Behind me was The Classroom Bully, an oversized, brash boy who had to be first, had to be noticed.

Suddenly The Bully pushed me from behind into Peter, who instinctually braced  himself, holding his arms straight out toward the doors. In milliseconds Peter crashed through the glass doors. In those days we didn't have safety glass. The glass shredded Peter's arms. I fell into him. The Bully stood back obediently holding the line.

"She pushed him!" Yelled The Bully.

I was jerked into the principal's office and held there. Trembling, I heard the siren of the ambulance. The sight of Peter's blood spurting and the shattered glass, the screams, the "She pushed  him!" collapsed into a fearful collage.

"Did you push, Peter?"  Asked Mr. Lyons, the principal.

"Yes,"  I murmured. For indeed I had. I was certain I had killed him.

My mother suddenly appeared and kneeled in front of me. "Diane, what happened?"

"Is Peter dead?" I sobbed.

"No, Sweetie. Peter has gone to the hospital. Doctors will fix him. He will be okay."

"Someone hit me from the back and I pushed Peter into the door."

Wise mothers learn to discern a truth from a lie. My mother had lots of experience with my fibs. She pulled me into her arms. "Peter will be okay. It's not your fault."

The Bully refused to confess even after other children and a teacher described the incident. Mr. Lyons reassured me over and over. "Peter will be okay."  But my kindly principal could not erase the sinking feeling of my being pushed from behind and accused, singled out and pulled into the principal's office to await my fate.

Peter was hospitalized for a week and at home for another week. When he returned to school he wore bandages on his arms.   I had agonized for days until I learned he had been released from hospital.  I knew I hadn't actually caused the incident but I'd been a party to it. Oddly, some part of me today says I was an accomplice, that being an unwitting accomplice doesn't fully exonerate a person. Our friendship was forever tainted thereafter, for my outsized sense of responsibility just would not fade.

To this day I have a visceral dislike of bullying behaviors, of brash, careless people willing to discard or harm others to maintain narcissistic supremacy.

Still, the adult me wants to know why The Bully was as he was and what happened to him.  Peter, I believe, matured successfully.  But what of The Bully whose name I forgot long ago, like pain.

Dishonesty as Disruption

When I was five years old. I told a whopper to my mother in order to save my own skin. I didn't wish to be a lesser person in her eyes so the whopper was absolutely necessary -- under the circumstances. 

The situation began honestly enough when I twisted a simple fact into an alternative one. In my kindergarten class when someone had a birthday, our teacher Mrs Alexander would ask, Does anyone have a birthday today?"  Up went Jimmy's eager hand, and then mine. Jimmy was turning six that day, one year to the date of his fifth birthday. I was however simply one day older. 

"Are you sure,?" asked Mrs Alexander, giving me a gracious out. 

Here was my big chance to bow out, to admit I was just kidding. Or confused. Or looking for attention. "Yes.  Today is my birthday.  I'm six. "  I almost convinced myself; if I could wish it, it could be true. 

So both Jimmy and I received 28 paper birthday cakes crayon colored by our classmates to take home. 

Hoover Elementary School was four blocks from my home. When Kindergarten ended at noon, Mrs Alexander released us into the hall with smiles and hugs. I avoided her eyes as I left class with the paper cakes heavy in my cloth tote bag.  I walked down the 20 plus steps to the school parking lot,  crossed the street to a sidewalk along a shaded avenue, dawdled alongside the ivy covered chain link fence securing the Whiteside family estate, and climbed  the 30 steps up to Alvarado Avenue. As my feet inevitably moved me closer to home, to lunch and my waiting mother, my mind was at work on an explanation about the paper cakes. 

If I slipped into the alley that ran behind our houses on Alvarado, I could dispose of the papers into a neighbor's trash can. I stopped at the first trash can and reached into the tote bag.  The papers clung to me like glue.  What if someone sees me and asks what I'm doing?  I'll keep them a little longer. At the next trash can, I thought again, a little longer. 

Torn between disposing of the paper cakes and fabricating a clever story for Mommy, I walked on, passing one trash can after another until I reached the back gate of our yard. 

One voice said, toss these cakes in the garbage right now!  Another voice said tell Mommy that everyone received 28 crayoned colored birthday cakes that day because Mrs Alexander didn't want anyone to be left out. 

What a happy, wishful thought!  Everyone with paper cakes. A perfect solution!  Into the yard, through the back door of the basement, up a flight of stairs to the kitchen, I went. 

There was my mother at the kitchen sink preparing lunch. Did I happily hand her the bag and say, Guess what happened today?!  No. I slipped off to my bedroom and set the bag down on my desk. 

"Where's your school bag?"

My tuna fish sandwich felt like cotton in my mouth. "Mmhh. I'm not sure."

By the time I'd finished my grapes, Mommy had discovered the school bag and the paper cakes. 

"What's this?"

"0h nothing.  Just color book cakes. That's what we did today. Color."

"Oh, how pretty. Look this one is chocolate!  Oh here's a nice strawberry cake. This must be lemon. And on she went. Through 28 cakes, admiring each one, but barely noticing mine. 

I was stuck at the table. 

"Who had a birthday?  Today isn't YOUR birthday "

Here goes, I thought. "Jimmy had a birthday, and Mrs Alexander said it would be nice if everybody had a birthday today so we all colored cakes."

"Everyone went home with this many cakes?"

"Uh huh."  

"All that coloring must have taken a long time."

"Uh huh."

"All morning?"

"May I be excused?"

"Well, how very thoughtful of Mrs. Alexander. You should save these cakes. They are all so nicely done."

Like a scarlet badge were those cakes hidden in my dark closet in a paper bag until I could safely dispose of them. 

Of course, in my heart I meant to say, we all need attention and because of that I ended up with a bag full of cakes that felt like hot ugly rocks. That was a fact which stuck in my throat. 

I didn't get off easily. I still remember the incident as if it were yesterday-- words stuck in my throat,  guilt in a bag in the closet. 

How Far?

The waterfall crashing and tumbling over the precipice shimmers in the night like polished silver.  Our shoes sink softly into the trail as we climb through the forest toward the silver light.  I feel the roots across the path underfoot, the rocks, the incline.  We are silent.  The night is not.  

What might be heard in the forest if the waterfall were silent?  I am not dull to the dangers.  A bear.  A sudden drop.  A limb in the face.  Does my companion fear these too but continues forward as I do?  The intrigue of wonderment encourages us.  We are, after all, together, not exactly alone.

If we don't think about where we are and why, we can absorb every sensation.  We can continue.  We can smell the pines and spruces, feel the tingle of moisture on our faces, hear the power in the falling water.  We can imagine the jagged journey of the river dropping into the valley.  We can trust our feet to carry us safely.

The water's thrashing, crushing sound reverberates against the stone walls. Our feet slip on slabs of granite.  Water rains down on us.  We shiver.

We have walked how far? How far away from our tent,  our camp stove, the children in their sleeping bags?  

Far enough.  

Led by our senses, we have tasted the air, skirted stiff pine boughs, and reached the edge of the silvery cascade.  

Midnight marks more than the turn of one day to another.  In four hours the sun will change the night scene from mystery to reality, and convert it to memory.  

We turn and retrace some facsimile of our previous trail.  Back to the children, to the campground, to the road that leads to the highway in the valley, to home and all else.

There is a godly balance between from where and whom we come, to where we may go, and to when and whom we must return -- and what we may carry with us.

The Swirl

Yesterday I received a letter from a life long friend who said she followed my blog but had noticed my posts were further and further apart.  It's true I haven't been posting to my blog.  Not because I'm painting more.  Not because I don't have anything to say.  If anything, I have too much to say.

When I was teaching, I had a reliable sphere of influence.  As a mother, as a grandmother, as a wife, as a friend, as a member of The Presbyterian Church on State Street, I have felt useful and often influential.  

As I age, I realize my actions and words might be less influential than I would wish.  I no longer have the physical or emotional resources to take in a refugee family, as I once did.  I no longer can lead discussions about Elie Wiesel's Night or J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for The Barbarians.  I do not have as a disciplinary resource the alternative learning center, time out, or "give me the car keys."

Instead my resources have become more subtle. I ask myself which businesses reflect reasonable ethics, which entertainers support human rights, which voices advocate for objectivity, which leaders adhere to the Beatitudes.  Everyday, suddenly I'm hyper alert to common choices.

Which movie will we watch?  What will we save our money toward?  To whom will we make charitable contributions? 

What doesn't work?  Ranting to the dog and my husband.  I did that last night, my hands waving like a maniacal orchestra conductor sitting on a sofa.  A long stem glass of red wine rested on the lamp table near my right hand.  During a climatic flourish of indignation, amid the apogee of symphonic verbiage, my right hand swept the long stem glass into the air, broadcasting swirls of Cabernet Sauvignon into the air, across white and blue plaid sofa cushions, onto the creamy carpet, against the white walls, finally to dribble down the sides of the coffee table.  

Suddenly thrown into action, my husband and I leaped up, running for towels and our Bissell Little Green.  Ollie the dog, our curious audience, cocked his head, disappointed I hadn't sent a bowl of popcorn flying instead.  We missed the last twenty minutes of the PBS Newshour.

It's humbling to realize the limited extent of private orchestrations of exasperation, the helplessness of protest, the frustration of moral rectitude, especially when the available lesson is a glass of red wine swirling across the room.  

Ultimately I'm left with the Beatitudes.  I'm accountable to Someone other than myself.  I am encouraged to confess, not to accuse or blame; seek value in all people; advocate for objectivity of truth and love available to all.  It's the least and the most I can do here from my now clean sofa.  Indeed, I am telling you the truth.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/10/13/pope-francis-you-cant-defend-christianity-by-being-against-refugees-and-other-religions/

The Unfinished Statement

Rain fell steadily in the Walmart parking lot as my friend and I pulled into a space in lane 4. We were grocery shopping for 25 families from our church's angel tree list, something we have done now for four years with money set aside by our church deacons.

In the first year, our dietitian friend who oversees meals for a nursing home said she believed the food would cost $1000.  We intended to spend only $700. To compare prices, we started at Sam's, chased over to Kroger's, breezed through Walmart, and finished up at Aldi's. All this took a few hours. Even then we didn't finish in a day. But we did feed 22 families for $750.

This year is our fourth year to grocery shop for angel families. No longer rookies, last week on Tuesday morning we drove directly to Walmart where we stacked 25 cans of green beans and 25 cans of corn into our carts, checked the price of sweet potatoes and spiral hams, then selected bags of Cuties.  Our next stop: Aldi's for 25 three pound bags of sweet potatoes and 25 cans of pineapple chunks.

After the second weekend in December hams go on sale with a limit of two per customer.  Last year we took liberties with the limit.  Nancy bought two hams, then Russell, then Herb, then Nancy, then Russell.  We were stretching the standard of obedience to feed the disadvantaged, while getting a steady work out between parked cars and the meat department. This year Meijer's waived the limit, bulk packaging hams for us.

Since not all our families can appreciate pork, we purchase turkey as needed.  Sensitivity to diverse religious preferences is a new discipline for us. And a good one.  Love, after all, isn't about pork or turkey.

However, all this creative shopping isn't the whole story.

As we were leaving Walmart, an exit clerk reviewed our receipt tape and counted each can and bag in our two carts.  The woman wore a scowl as if she had a headache.  Stress seemed to radiate from her.  Her every move seemed fatigued.  Counting was an effort.

Marking the receipt with an initial, the woman said, "I'm glad there are churches."

We looked at her.  The statement seemed unfinished.

"I mean churches do good things.  But nobody goes (to church)."

Later at Aldi's a cheerful check out clerk glanced at our bags.  "How many do you have?"  Our answer,   "Twenty-five," was sufficient.  Nothing unusual about 25 bags of sweet potatoes.

Think about it:  Two women checking us out; one with burdens unknown to us who hoped for goodness and charity but didn't think many people intentionally tried it; the other apparently unscarred by misfortune who happily acknowledged our ordinary shopping mission.  This is what people do: pull names off angel trees and go shopping.

These people are our community, their lives mixing with ours, our choices affecting theirs:  Our privileges sometimes achieved on the backs of others;  Our charity the necessary act in an unkind, selfish world.  Our well being is formed from intentional acts of love, even when we do not exactly know people.

Peace and joy result from receiving and giving love.  The Walmart clerk checking our cart wasn't referencing a theological issue; she was hoping for more.

Christmas 2016

Don't Write Me In

Please don't write me in!  I am totally unfit for the office of president of anything, even though I demonstrated grace and leadership as president of my college living organization before I was twenty-one, an unsought privilege deferred to me because I said "yes" when others said "no way!" 

My carpet of disqualifying baggage would have never survived oppositional scrutiny.  My private self must generally remain PRIVATE, my public self, public as in friendly, socially conscious, caring, restrained, one motto being "do no harm," another being "if you must, do it mercifully."

My early history might generate initial empathy:  poverty stricken father builds successful company in San Francisco; my mother dies in United Airlines crash when I'm thirteen; mentors guide me through respected private university.  A middle class upbringing where I'm required to do chores and earn money.  

From there it's all downhill, nothing remarkable and much of it suspicious.

I opposed the Vietnam war even though, because my husband was an Air Force officer, we bought groceries with his government paycheck and lived in free housing on a SAC base, B52's flying overhead day and night, the very same B-52s outfitted for dropping napalm on villages..., the very same villages appearing on CBS news at 6 with screaming children and women running from flames.

And that was the extent of my political activism -- grumbling at the news and voting for candidates who usually lost elections.  

My understanding of the economy is limited to how far I can stretch a monthly budget.   My trade policies revolve around what's on the supermarket shelves and how much cash is in our bank account.  I've paid off a mortgage three times, borrowing to send children to college and maintain an ordinary house in middle America.

My foreign and domestic policies might be considered naive and intentionally "global."  I hosted Cambodian refugees and exchange students.  I supported clean water projects in Guatemala, framed Habitat for Humanity houses, and helped shelter homeless people.  

I am an educator, a member of NEA, not the NRA.  I once marched in the state capitol for improved teacher salaries and rejoiced when the recommendations of the Pritchard committee were approved by the legislature, expensive measures that required equity in district funding, lower class sizes, facilities improvements, and, yes, increased teacher pay.  

As parent and grandparent, I cannot use my children to promote my causes, or ME.

As a Presbyterian, I am part of a statistical minority, representing less than 1% of the population self-identifying as a member of Presbyterian USA, a progressive Christian denomination.  My life experience is seated in faith in God and the practice of Christian service and worship, quietly without apology or question.  Loving others yields civilized cooperation.  Forgiveness and forbearance brings peace and honor.  

Flawed to the core, I am vulnerable to criticism by my dearest people. When upset, I hurl magazines and other things I won't confess.  I once backed into a tree when I lost my temper after  stomping off and forgetting to disengage the car from reverse.    Except for occasional fits, I am notably boring, more like Carol Burnett material than SNL.  

When physically stressed,  my body shuts down. Sometimes I pass out.  One moment, wobble legged, ten minutes later, joking and upright.

Oops, almost forgot, I am a woman.  It's not my fault, but there it is.  I am touchy about this fact.  Can't stand to be patronized.  I expect respect.  I have boundaries.  

My hypocrisies stem from a concerted effort to praise my Lord, usually tell the truth, live in peace, honor my financial obligations, and sleep well at night.  

And so I am speaking out.  Do NOT write me in on the ballot.  I am completely unqualified for public office.

Even the Children Behaved

On July 20, 2016, the Republican National Convention entered its second day.  Ted Cruz took the podium and told listeners they should "vote their conscience."  A friend escorted his wife Heidi from the convention hall when the delegate mood and chants reached a fevered pitch.  

Now history, with recorded delegate chants of "Hang Hillary" and characterizations of American disfunction, the Republican National Convention invites (perchance incites) comparative review.

On July 22 in a critical commentary of Donald Trump's "rhetorical infamy" and unpatriotic convention speech, John Podhoretz objected to Trump's portrayal of American life:  The America Donald Trump portrayed is a horrible place, awash in barbarity, crime, disorder, decay, deceit, rigging, cheating, exploitation. It is very nearly beyond salvation, in such dire straits that a man who was having a wonderful time in business felt called upon to serve as "your voice" because "only I can fix it" the problem.*

On July 20, 2016, Southwest Airlines experienced a 24 hour nationwide system outage that stretched and staggered for five days. While allusions to lynching and direct assertions of violence reverberated in Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena, disappointed and anxious passengers waited patiently in line at Southwest Airlines check in counters and gates for information regarding the status of their flights.  

This comparison between the moods and attitudes at the overheated GOP convention and Nashville airport's Southwest passenger service counters and gates provides instructive insight into the reactions of normal people living in real time, under duress, confused and frustrated, but still managing to restrain themselves from shouting, chanting insults, making unreasonable demands, or misrepresenting circumstances -- not that some people didn't get angry or faint or fuss. Online you can find complaints -- but for the most part, I can testify to patience, honesty, humor, and forbearance.

On July 20 my husband and I arrived at the Nashville airport two hours prior to our 3:25 Southwest flight to Denver. The passenger check in lines snaked ominously into the lobby area.  At first the line moved normally but then suddenly stopped.  The kiosk computers went blank.  The customer service reps' faces took on that expression one gets when you've expected sugar but got salt instead.  My watch read 1:51.  

At 2:14, we were still standing at the same spot where we'd been 23 minutes prior.  Passengers mostly stood quietly waiting for information or movement.  A woman behind me fussed to a stranger who kindly gave her a polite ear without agreement.  A man going to China with seven bags apologized for his stack of bags.  An athletic black man in expensive shoes asserted loudly to no one in particular that he had to be in Tampa that night.  People quietly moved a few inches away from him. No one assured him, no one put him down, no one joined him in a group howl.

A diminutive customer service supervisor stood up on the steel baggage shelf. "Everyone listen! We are experiencing a nationwide system shutdown. We cannot check you in electronically."  No one shouted, cried, or protested.  

The supervisor then began sorting groups.  "If you are going to Houston or Tampa and have a boarding pass, please move over to that wall."  Passengers politely moved aside to allow that group to exit to the wall.  "If you have a boarding pass and need to check bags, move to this side so we can process your bags."  The man going to China grabbed four of his seven bags.  We stood guard over his other bags.  

"Don't worry about missing your flight.  No planes are flying.  All Southwest flights are grounded until the system comes back online."

After a few minutes, a customer service agent spotted in my husband's shirt pocket our bar coded security passes which looked like boarding passes.  "Sir! Do you have a boarding pass?"  The agent insisted that we check our bags and move to security and get our boarding passes at our gate.  So we moved forward as one of the privileged number released to security and flight gates.

At the baggage counter the agent looked at Herb.  "Are you okay, Sir?"  Herb looked pale and disconnected.  At pre-check the TSA agent asked, "Are you okay, Sir?"  We moved steadily forward through Security and toward a bench.  

I thought, We should leave NOW!  But Herb said, "We should find our gate."  However, we and others couldn't locate our flight gate numbers. The electronic boards were scrambled.

Suddenly the intercom came alive.  "Listen to announcements carefully.  If you hear your destination, proceed directly to your gate to board!"  

Joining the confused hoards, I trolled the concourse for our gate while Herb rested.  Joining a long line at gate 7, I saw two men dressed in black standing outside the queue.  As people left the line, the men in black would ask them what they had learned.  "No one knows anything. They say, 'We don't know.  I'm sorry.' "  I was lucky, the Southwest rep knew our gate number: 25.  "Get your boarding pass there."  

The two men in black sipped cold cups of beer.  "What did you learn?"

"Gate number."

 These two had smartly decided not to wait in line but to interview people as they left the line and assess the situation based on people's answers.  Smiling and jostling his companion, I heard one say to the other," "See?!  Come on. Let's go get another beer."  

We did finally find our gate.  Our boarded flight was parked at the jetway. An agent handed a paper to a trainee who wrote our names on a blank paper boarding pass.  His hand froze above the second line.  "What do I write here?"  

The supervisor next to him glanced at him but was busy trying to fill out a paper manifest while  answering a young woman about her baggage.

"Can I get my bags back?  I want to leave."  

The customer reps looked helplessly at her.  "Ma'am, it will take hours to locate your bags.  It's best to leave them. You can pick them up at your destination when you rebook your flight."

"I don't need to go now. I just want to leave."

And that is exactly what the woman did, leave her bags and walk out, which is approximately what happened to us: our bags flew without us while we used Uber to escape the airport.   We rebooked when the system came online two days later and finally regained possession of our bags at midnight in Denver four days later.

Throughout the situation, Southwest employees were polite, always sorry.   Customers, albeit frustrated and stressed, shared tables, made jokes, offered advice.  It was as if we had arrived within a shared surreality where people wished to reassure one another, where patience was our oxygen and resignation our energy.  

"Here, share this table with me," said a man at the wine bar."

"Does anyone know how to write a manifest?" asked the gate clerk.

"Did you understand that announcement?" Was it Kansas City?"

Southwest CEO Gary Kelly on October 21 said the airline's priority was to get the system back up and to restore service.  "We're worried about the financial impact of this, but what is far more concerning is the inconvenience we caused our customers."

We received a generous rebooking discount and 50% off our next two bookings.  Not exactly what I'd call rigging, exploitation, or deceit.

Later, when I read the news about the GOP convention, I was struck by its anger, the voice of fear.  Where has this come from? I thought.  I had just left an airport crawling with disappointed people, families postponing vacations, business people missing conferences, individuals missing weddings and funerals.  Adults didn't shout or curse, insist or demand.  They regrouped, adjusted, rebooked.  Even the children behaved.

As a companion flyer in the seat across from us, four days later said as we waited an hour on the Tarmac for our continually delayed flight to finally depart for Denver, "Isn't this wonderful that you and I have had this chance to chat?!"

______

Donald Trump's GOP convention speech was a 'deeply unpatriotic act'. Commentary by John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine, a columnist for the New York Post and a contributing editor for the Weekly Standard. Friday, 22 Jul 2016 | 11:18 AM ET.  CNBC.