I sent a birthday card, it’s been a long time, can’t remember when but it was a small card and I started a personal note in the blank fold on the inside facing page. When I realized there wasn’t space to finish I wrote smaller. Then I wrote in the margins until I finally had to unfold the card itself and write on the reverse side of the card. I think that is how memory works. When you fill it up after so many years, memories overlap and run together for lack of space. It’s like digging in a laundry basket, looking for the missing sock. Back when Radio Shack was the computer store and Tandy was the brand name, when you hit the run-button on a seemingly complicated task it would default to a blank screen with a flashing green cursor. In computer-speak that meant “I’m busy working on the task you just gave me. Don’t go away, I’ll get back to you when I have what you asked for.” After what seems to be sufficient time you question if it’s really working or stuck at a dead-end in a glitch.
I am part of a coffee klatch, six of us meet mid morning at a noisy shop twice a week. Needless to say we are all retired. One couple, married to each other but his 3rd go-round and her 5th; he was a petroleum engineer, spent years in the Meddle East and she a photographer, landlord and I don't know what else. She is the only one without a graduate degree, any college for that matter but belongs to Mensa International (High IQ Society). She never flaunts it but when prompted, she thinks college would have been a waste of time for her, work hard - work smart is all you need. He is an incredibly deep well of reliable knowledge, current events, politics, history, etc. like his wife, he will tactfully correct errors but doesn’t condescend; really a good guy. Another lady is retired, like the rest of us. Formerly am Editor for a suburban, Wisconsin news paper, she is fun, a good listener, good in conversation, divorced with an edgy dash of humor toward her former husband and men in general (but she forgives us) and hates bad grammar.
The man who recruited the rest of us to form a coffee klatch was curator at the State Museum of Natural History in another state. After his wife passed he did’t care for the big group we had belonged to for years and wanted to hang out with a small group of his closer friends, another really good guy. The rest of us still hang out with the big group's Friday meet-up but it makes us butterflies of the coffee klatch kingdom. Number #5 is a retired nurse (educator) happily divorced. She is well versed, listens closely and contributes if and when she thinks it adds to the morning’s business. I like her, think she is the catalyst for the group. Then there is me. An old biology teacher but I have nearly a quarter century of reinventing myself and wanderlust to factor into my profile since retiring and I don’t know really how they measure my identity. They miss me when I’m not there and I take that as a good omen.
I am part of a coffee klatch, six of us meet mid morning at a noisy shop twice a week. Needless to say we are all retired. One couple, married to each other but his 3rd go-round and her 5th; he was a petroleum engineer, spent years in the Meddle East and she a photographer, landlord and I don't know what else. She is the only one without a graduate degree, any college for that matter but belongs to Mensa International (High IQ Society). She never flaunts it but when prompted, she thinks college would have been a waste of time for her, work hard - work smart is all you need. He is an incredibly deep well of reliable knowledge, current events, politics, history, etc. like his wife, he will tactfully correct errors but doesn’t condescend; really a good guy. Another lady is retired, like the rest of us. Formerly am Editor for a suburban, Wisconsin news paper, she is fun, a good listener, good in conversation, divorced with an edgy dash of humor toward her former husband and men in general (but she forgives us) and hates bad grammar.
The man who recruited the rest of us to form a coffee klatch was curator at the State Museum of Natural History in another state. After his wife passed he did’t care for the big group we had belonged to for years and wanted to hang out with a small group of his closer friends, another really good guy. The rest of us still hang out with the big group's Friday meet-up but it makes us butterflies of the coffee klatch kingdom. Number #5 is a retired nurse (educator) happily divorced. She is well versed, listens closely and contributes if and when she thinks it adds to the morning’s business. I like her, think she is the catalyst for the group. Then there is me. An old biology teacher but I have nearly a quarter century of reinventing myself and wanderlust to factor into my profile since retiring and I don’t know really how they measure my identity. They miss me when I’m not there and I take that as a good omen.
Yesterday early evening we met at a small, local, authentic, Italian restaurant to break bread. It was half-price pizza night and I would have pizza. In making a distinction, I am the only one (I think) who feels more comfortable with paper napkins and one fork. My blue collar roots run deep and I notice when I’ve been bumped up the social ladder. My companions drank wine or beer and I instinctively stayed with water. On second thought with pizza, beer sounded good and I wanted to change my order. I was unfamiliar with their brands or style of beer and struggled with my order. When I do drink beer I order a Mexican brew. It was a no-brainer; they’re not going to stock Mexican beer in an upscale, Italian restaurant where everything on the menu is printed in Italian. In the moment I could not remember the name of my favorite beer. I couldn’t think of any Mexican beer by name. So my friends and the waitress helped me choose from the menu. When served I declined a glass in favor of the bottle. Of course, wine from a glass but beer would be from a bottle.
Waiting for our order is part of the experience. Our conversation touched on a mutual acquaintance, a politically active woman who recently complained about homeless people sleeping outside, demonstrating in public places. When the Supreme Court recently took up a case against sleeping outside in public she concluded it would criminalize being homeless. Her opinion did a 180 turn around. Then our discussion turned to how easy it would have been for any one of us to have ended up homeless, due to a single devastating event and random chance working against us, it could be us instead of them. Our Mensa Society member commented that our good fortune was remarkable.
I get hung up on particular social issues and responded, “Yes” I said, “but we had White Privilege on our side.” She thought about it, shook her head and said she didn’t think so, at least not on her part. I sensed by her tone and body language, she thought her ‘harder-smarter’ history had circumvented any white privilege she might have otherwise enjoyed. I remembered the same train of thought had been rebuffed: The very first white privilege we all experienced was probably the prenatal care our mother’s received while we were still in the womb. If one cares, the research is both compelling and easy to find. It’s not what comes to mind first when grappling with injustice but it certainly is real and it’s just one example. Opportunity in education, economics, health care, housing and cultural benefits simply exist more frequently and to greater extent for white people than people of color; significantly so. It is so integrated into the greater culture, so ubiquitous that we, the privileged, enjoy it as the norm without questioning its value or the cause. For one of us around that table to think we didn’t benefit from systematic, cultural bias was too much to digest. When the subject comes up we slip into a form of benign denial. In the U.S.A., culture demands we earn our keep. We must deserve any and all success that we experience; the Puritan Work Ethic. Even if the work ethic is buried in layers of hypocrisy, we still want to take credit for every good thing that falls our way. So we make believe our passive connection to white privilege does not apply.
The group really didn’t want to dig in that hole and no surprise, we moved on to a new topic. My pizza was just so-so but the beer was good. It made the pizza go down so much better. On my way to the car it came to me unannounced, the blinking green cursor on my subconscious monitor stopped blinking and from a deep synapse I was informed; “Corona; the Mexican beer you wanted me to remember is Corona.”
Waiting for our order is part of the experience. Our conversation touched on a mutual acquaintance, a politically active woman who recently complained about homeless people sleeping outside, demonstrating in public places. When the Supreme Court recently took up a case against sleeping outside in public she concluded it would criminalize being homeless. Her opinion did a 180 turn around. Then our discussion turned to how easy it would have been for any one of us to have ended up homeless, due to a single devastating event and random chance working against us, it could be us instead of them. Our Mensa Society member commented that our good fortune was remarkable.
I get hung up on particular social issues and responded, “Yes” I said, “but we had White Privilege on our side.” She thought about it, shook her head and said she didn’t think so, at least not on her part. I sensed by her tone and body language, she thought her ‘harder-smarter’ history had circumvented any white privilege she might have otherwise enjoyed. I remembered the same train of thought had been rebuffed: The very first white privilege we all experienced was probably the prenatal care our mother’s received while we were still in the womb. If one cares, the research is both compelling and easy to find. It’s not what comes to mind first when grappling with injustice but it certainly is real and it’s just one example. Opportunity in education, economics, health care, housing and cultural benefits simply exist more frequently and to greater extent for white people than people of color; significantly so. It is so integrated into the greater culture, so ubiquitous that we, the privileged, enjoy it as the norm without questioning its value or the cause. For one of us around that table to think we didn’t benefit from systematic, cultural bias was too much to digest. When the subject comes up we slip into a form of benign denial. In the U.S.A., culture demands we earn our keep. We must deserve any and all success that we experience; the Puritan Work Ethic. Even if the work ethic is buried in layers of hypocrisy, we still want to take credit for every good thing that falls our way. So we make believe our passive connection to white privilege does not apply.
The group really didn’t want to dig in that hole and no surprise, we moved on to a new topic. My pizza was just so-so but the beer was good. It made the pizza go down so much better. On my way to the car it came to me unannounced, the blinking green cursor on my subconscious monitor stopped blinking and from a deep synapse I was informed; “Corona; the Mexican beer you wanted me to remember is Corona.”
No comments:
Post a Comment