HAVING TOO MUCH ON ONE'S PLATE

I have always loved to have projects.  The more, the merrier I have always said.  Now having put that statement out on the table, I am speculating that I’m behind on my blogging because 1) I am slowing down of old age (possible!), 2) I’m deliberately dilly-dallying (not so!), 3) I’m finished blogging (never!) or 4) I have too much on my plate (I think maybe so!) 

I love everything I’m doing in a day (walking, reading, working on the Poly Reunion, knitting), and have a list of projects I need to do (sorting some photos, finishing some genealogy research, getting some winter hats made for homeless people).  The days are not long enough to accomplish everything that needs doing.  I need to get a few things off the plate, I think.

But I do have some odd and assorted comments, observations and ruminations I need to get off my chest, thus at least removing them from the plate.   

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I am a bit distressed by what has happened to Paula Deen.  I am not particularly a fan of hers; in fact, I am always a bit leary about being around those people who talk with the deepest of the southern drawls.  I have no way of knowing if they are going to turn out to be full of, at the most, “hate” of black people or at the least, full of all the old vituperative words which they think are  still okay because they don’t “mean” anything.

That is my prejudice and I understand that all southerners do not fall into that category, but I cannot stand to be around people who think that way.  I cannot change their way of thinking, but I will remove myself from their lives the minute that terrible language starts.  Back to Paula Deen.  Until such time as any residue of hate comes out of her mouth on her shows, I have to assume that she is meeting the terms of her contract and is still giving us an entertaining look at food and food preparation.  To end an association because she, in the past, admitted to using racially-laden words is not right.  I am sorry that this has happened to her. 

During my years in going to various kids’ camps sponsored by community organizations – and we’re talking here about the years 1945 to 1953 - we were taught many camp songs.  Most were rounds and we would sing them with gusto.  It wasn’t until the 1960s, during the years of the awakening national awareness of our country’s terrible racial injustices, that I realized what we had been singing in those old long-past camp songs.  I am too embarrassed here to even mention their names.  But the words were racist, the sentiments were awful, and I can’t in a million years think of why we were ever taught them in the first place.  But as a sign of the times, I think the adults involved really weren’t even aware of them being anything other than a song comparable to any other round or campfire song.  That is hard to understand from this point in time.  What we sang then was wrong, and I am, in retrospect, totally appalled.  But I don’t want to and won’t carry around that burden for the rest of my life.  And whatever it was that Paula Deen said that was so very bad then, until I know otherwise that deep down in her soul she’s learned that it was wrong regardless of whether or not it was ingrained in the old southern culture, I’d just as soon she didn’t carry that burden around at this point in her life either.

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On a lighter note, I have often thought how much my mother influenced my thinking.  Mom and Dad each had a role in patterning my life.  I picked up from my dad issues like boss-employee relations and expectations, the role of a husband in the family life, and the idea of citizens’  responsibilities to the community, and the acts of charity.  My mother’s influences were entirely of a different nature.  I saw her sit down at a typewriter every day and “write.”  When it came time in my schooling to start picking out “electives” it was my mom who suggested I take typing and that I start in journalism classes. But some of what she gave me were of no particular value yet I have experienced many times as I was growing up – things she said to me that I remember at various times:  if you eat the crusts of your bread, you will have curly hair; if you pull all your hair back off your forehead, you will look like a peeled onion; and your kitchen and back porch will always look clean if you have white, instead of colored, appliances!

Mom was right.  My sister, who hated the crusts of bread and refused to eat them, had straight hair, and yep, I loved the crust and got the curly hair!  I DO look like a peeled onion if I don’t wear some kind of bangs and of course have always loved that sleek look and long straight hair that I will never ever have; and it took until the 1960s for me to give in to colored appliances, the first being an avocado washer and dryer for the back porch! 

I wonder what nonsense I passed on to my kids?  I wonder if they will ever remind me of any of my little homilies, which secondary dictionary meaning is this:  a tedious moralizing discourse.  Ah, me.

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I am still walking each morning and enjoying it greatly.  I just added an Elton John album of favorites to my iPod and have discovered his music is wonderful to walk to.  His beat and my feet work well together.  On Sundays I walk to music from “Love Song”, an album and a music group that came out of Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel in Orange County in the 1960s.  It’s not particularly good walking music but it’s good for the parched soul.  I’m now on an iTunes hunt for a nice Latin jazz album – something that falls between the lovely sounds of Cal Tjader, Stan Getz et al of the ‘50s and today’s Latin jazz, in which saxophones can blow the earbuds right out of my ears.  I’m listening to the styles of various iTune albums and have yet to find one that fits the bill.  I know it is there somewhere but it’s just going to take some fun time to find it.

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So that’s it today.