Banning Brown Bear

A staple in the lives of the children who have grown up living or visiting in this house here in Meadows Place is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you see?" by Bill Martin Jr., illustrated by Eric Carle.  

So I read in the Huffington Post that this beloved children's book has been banned from time to time, as so many of my favorite books have been banned.

And I wondered why “Brown Bear”.

After all, an omniscient narrator asks a simple question:  “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?”

And Brown bear responds that he sees a red bird “looking at me.”

And the narrator asks the red bird who sees the blue horse who sees the green frog who sees the purple cat who sees the white dog who sees the black sheep who sees the gold fish who sees the teacher who sees the children who see the brown bear & the red bird & the blue horse & the green frog & the purple cat & the white dog & the black sheep & the teacher – all looking at “Me.”

I love this book – I love the memories of my mother reading it to my sons & nieces & nephew.

So I did a bit a research.

It seems that our Texas State of Board of Education, in its zeal to censor any provocative or creative thought provoking books for our children, mistook Bill Martin, Jr., the children’s author, for Bill Martin, the philosophy professor & author of “Ethical Marxism:  The Categorical Imperative of Liberation.”

I am still trying to make whatever connection the Board made between “Brown Bear” & Marxism.

And I am wondering, Texas State of Board of Education, what do YOU see?

Borders & the Abyss

My local Borders is closing.

 

It is where I go for solace, where I go to be alone.  

I buy a cup of coffee, I find a quiet corner & I read.  Sometimes I read a book I brought with me, sometimes I buy a book, sometimes I interview a book.

 

Sometimes I take my lap top & ear phones & write.  

It was my refuge from madness & the abyss.

I used to take the boys to the children’s programs & readings at Borders at the Fountains. 

 

The last time I was there, I wandered to the children’s section & saw kids lounging on the steps, reading & looking at picture books.  I saw children gathered around, listening to a story being read by a character from a popular series.

So I will have to explore my options – what did I do before there was a local Borders?

I hid out in a room or sat at a hammock between the trees Jack & Jean planted.  I went to a restaurant & monopolized a table after my meal was finished. But it did not feel the same – the escape requires books.

Or, I went to a library.  My favorite library is at Rice University.  It is quiet, it has soft chairs & couches & nooks for being alone or for meeting with fellow students or study groups.  

 The central library at U of H is too noisy, unless one finds a floor housing material not sought after by the masses.  The architectural library is a quiet place, a good place to escape madness & the abyss.

But I need something closer.  Which means a library.  I love libraries – some of my favorite & most interesting memories are of Houston’s downtown library. 

I will have to sneak in coffee.

I will have to remember a time without Borders or Barnes & Noble or Amazon.  

When I visited libraries & borrowed their books.  When their books opened up worlds & wonders & my imagination.

When I read books I did not own.  

 When escaping the madness & the abyss was not about a place or an environment, but about another book & something deep inside my soul.

Friendship & Claire’s Dilemma

So today, a really busy day for me at the gym, I went to the restroom, to the first stall, because it is the only adult sized commode in the Girls’ Restroom.  

When I emerged, my friends Cate & Claire (aged four, almost five, & six, respectively) were at the sinks.  Cate washing her hands with Claire watching.   

Claire & I had exchanged greetings earlier & her response to my question about her day at kindergarten was “Fine.” 

As I was washing my hands,  Cate greeted me & I commented that she had been asleep when she arrived.  We bantered a bit about naps & how much better one feels after them.

Then, as I was walking down the very short hall, I heard a voice say:

                    Miss Jaki?

It was Claire, whose day at kindergarten was fine.  So I asked:

                    Do you need something?

And then she began to talk about really happened at kindergarten that day.

                    Well, today a friend of mine at school said something really mean to me.

  

When I asked what her friend had said, she replied:

  

                 She whispered it, so the teacher couldn’t hear & she said that she did not want to be my friend.

I asked her how she responded & she said:  I cried.  

This is something I can understand – I remember the first time I learned, brutally, that someone I liked did not like me. 

Of course, I was 17, not 6. And I did not cry.

We talked at length, about the nature of friendship & why her friend would turn on her. 

 It was an amazing conversation – it finally came out that Claire had worked it out.

Her friend was best friends with another girl & Claire had made friends with the other girl & perhaps, Claire posited, that was the problem.

Six years old.

It occurred to me this evening, that there is a reason that God gave me sons.  I used to think it was revenge.  I now know that I would have lost my mind with daughters.

Boys are different.

Nick once had a friend who decided he was not a friend.  

Because Nick was a really big guy at an early age, I told him that because he was larger than the average bear, he could not pick on  a smaller kid.

 

This kid was smaller – he tormented Nick at school & in the neighborhood – I had meetings with the school.  The response was lukewarm.  I talked to the parents.  They were supportive, but the kid continued.

When the kid began to throw rocks into the spokes of Nick’s very fine new bicycle (gift from Daddy), I said:

                    This is the deal, Nick.  You are going to have to take him out – not on school grounds.  But the next time he does something, you are doing to have to beat him up.

As I write this, I am thinking, I tell Claire to wait it out & maybe her friend will change her mind.

But I told my son to beat the shit out of the kid tormenting him.

Days later, after I advised Nick, there was an incident in a public space.  The kid spit on him.   

(Who spits on another human being?????????????)   I have an obsession about spitting – I cannot stand it.  I once screamed at the Houston Livestock Rodeo when a schoolmate spit next to me.  It is just gross.  No doubt I passed it on to Nick.

But REALLY, who spits?

So Nick tackled that kid .  He did not do him grievous harm.  He just made his position clear.  There was never a problem after that.

So why was the answer so easy for Nick & not for Claire?

Sam I Am

So I watch him, this man Sam who is my youngest son.  My baby.

He is a fine specimen of a male.

So beautiful, in appearance & in his soul.

And always irritated with me.

In his defense, I have been a difficult & complicated mother.

But I have loved him from the beginnings of his existence.

From the moment his elder brother & I sat in an emergency room in DC,   

Nick next to me as I sat there bleeding.  Praying the baby that would be Sam would survive.

Nick leaning against me.  Talking to his brother.

Sam survived. 

He still does.  Magnificently.

In spite of me, in spite of his father’s absence.

The world needs old souls, souls like Sam. 

An Open Letter to Philip John Paul Gagan

Dear Philip,

Sometime during the spring & fall of 1989, we made a baby.  A son.

And now that son is about to turn 21. 

 

When he turned 18, he indicated that he would like to find you.  

So I researched.  While I did not find you (it seemed at the time that everything was listed in your wife’s name), I found your mother.

Whose response to my request that she contact you about your first born was less than enthusiastic.  Actually, your mother’s response was devastating.

I tried to explain that Sam’s birth had nothing to do with your marriage, predated it.  I tried to reassure her that I was not calling about money or names but because this incredible 18-year old had a right to confront you.  I tried to appeal to her as a grandmother – this was, after all, her first grandchild.

She refused.

Afterward, for a while, I wept.  

And then I thought, I am not sure that your family deserves Sam.  I never told him of his grandmother’s rejection. 

I know for certain that you have known for over twenty years that Sam was your son & you have done nothing.  NOTHING.

Through your attorney, you claimed that you could not be sure Sam was yours because you were traveling.  An interesting ascertain – I assure you I was faithful.  I had opportunities, perhaps I should have taken advantage of those opportunities. 

You, however, were not so monogamous.  Shortly after I gave birth, I received a call from a woman who told me that you had given her venereal warts & that if I wanted anything from you, I should go for it.  I laughed & told her that you had nothing except an iron that belonged to me.

Then I went crazy & called my mother & Sam’s pediatrician & had Sam tested.  We were clear, but how dare you expose your son to that without telling me?

If Sam does meet you one day, I think he will have a lot of questions.

I hope he punches the hell out of you.  Believe me, he can do it.  If not him, then his brother & his uncles & his aunts & his cousins.  All of whom have taken up the slack left by your absence.  We will not go into Sam’s extended family.

I would so enjoy that.

Bottom line, Sam is so much better than you could ever hope to be.  An amazing, beautiful, old soul.  

In my opinion, a better man for your absence.

That assessment, however, is up to Sam.

If you are an honorable man, you should try & contact him.  He may tell you to go to hell.

 

Or not.

Jaki

Conservatives, Liberals, Jack & Jaki

I have written before about my relationship with my father Jack & politics.  It is a recurring theme in my life.

But a recent discussion on Facebook caused me to review that experience & share it again.

My father Jack was a passionate Republican.

His father, John Simpson Alexander Ettinger, was a passionate Democrat.

What I want to write about is that this passionate supportive of Republican/Conservative thought was a mentor for a passionate supporter of Democratic/Liberal thought.

I grew up watching every Republican  & every Democratic convention from the time I could write.  From Kennedy / Nixon.  One of the few times I could stay up past my bedtime those days.    

We watched with bated breath, believing that the final outcome of each nominee depended on the vote.  We did not believe in certainties or done deals when it came to the nomination of either party’s candidate for the Presidency of the United States.

In elementary & middle school, no one asked me if I was  a Democrat or Republican, if I was politically liberal or conservative.

But in high school, something happened.  An awareness of Vietnam.

A friend lost her brother.  Shortly before he was due to come back home to marry his fiancé.

My perspective changed.  I began to listen more to people opposed to the war.

I turned 18 the year the right to vote was granted to 18-year olds, who previously could be drafted & fight & die in a war without the right to vote.

As many of you know, one evening my father Jack asked me for whom I would vote in the 1972 election.  I told him that I was voting for McGovern-Shriver & he looked at me in dismay.

This man, who had never told me how to think, who had sat with me watching all those conventions, looked at me in dismay.

Then he told me that was the most stupid thing he had ever had heard out of my otherwise intelligent mouth & threw his plate of spaghetti across the room in what I can only interpret as frustration.

We really never did discuss politics again.  Something that grieves me to this day.

He knew my views.  I knew his views.  And we respected the difference.  He never disparaged my choice but we did not exchange ideas & those views

What I regret is that either of us did not know how to talk to one another about those differences.

Without throwing, or fearing the flight of a plate of spaghetti.

I would take the throwing, the flight of the plate, just to talk to him again.

And ask him what the hell was he thinking,

 

Really ? Really, Meadows Place?

So today I go out to the mailbox & retrieve the one offering, the City of Meadows Place (Your Place for Life) March 1011 City Newsletter.

The mayor’s column focused on the new “Current marquee Message”.  And there was another paragraph about a paint project designed to keep us all up to code.

I will ignore reporting about the “Did You Know” column the mayor started writing when he was just a councilman.   Mostly to tell everyone what his sons were accomplishing.  Still included one of his sons at the end in this latest column.

Then I turned to page four & the “Code Enforcement” column.

It seems that here in Meadows Place, we need to adhere to certain codes about our mailboxes.

The author quotes Section 304.3 of some city code – Premises Identification.

I am thinking of everything that has happened in this house, since 1971.  How the paramedics arrived when my father was suffering cardiac arrest, how the fire department arrived when I thought the house would burn down because the oven caught on fire, how the police arrived when Sam called 911 because his brother Nick was having a severe reaction to an asthma medication.

Amazing how the people we need arrived outside of Premises Identification.

So, with everything that is going on in the world, in Wisconsin, in our state, in our area, in our country, Meadows Place is worried about Premises Identification.

Rebel that I am, are you serious Meadows Place ?

Really?