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How to Celebrate Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa is a holiday invented in 1966 by Ronald Karenga (founder of the Black Power group "Us Organization") through which black Americans can connect with their heritage and culture. It's celebrated from December 26 through January 1, with each of the seven days focusing on one of seven core values (Nguzo Saba). A candle is lit on each day, and on the last day, gifts are exchanged.

Since Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday, rather than a religious one, it can be celebrated alongside Christmas or Hanukkah, or on its own, although Karenga wished for it to be celebrated instead of Christmas and Hanukkah, as he felt these holidays were simply symbols of the dominant cultures in America.

The above is a direct quote, but the bolding is mine. And I repeat, I see no reason for my grandchildren to celebrate it in school. If teachers want to explain it, okay.

Christmas Sampler

Christmas is a'comin' and the geese are flying over my house every day, from the river to any quiet body of water. Some likely fly all the way to Lake Lowell, but I saw about 100 glide down onto the Park Center Pond yesterday.

They do not fly in tight Vs, as we have been led to believe, but there is no doubt an organization, with trade-offs, almost like relays, so the tired ones in front can slip to the back for a breather--less wind makes an easier flight--and with scouts on the outer edges of their formation.

They honk as they fly, calling out messages and instructions, I'm guessing.

* * *

In elementary school we sang Christmas Carols, had Christmas programs and plays every year, which I played the leading part in always. Can't help it; it's true.

All directed by Mrs. Schultz, our Jewish music teacher. Many Jewish children made up the list of my friends: Marilyn Kreitzman, Robert Fine, Martin Goldman, Alan Epstein, Ruthie Ashberg, and so on. We lived in the Ocean Park part of Santa Monica, a very Jewish place, but all of us sang the Christmas songs together in school.

One song that Mrs. Schultz taught us, in 1st grade, was

Christmas is a'comin' and the geese are gettin' fat.
Time to put a penny in an old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny, then a ha'penny will do.
If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you.

I gave no thought to what my Jewish friends were thinking. Most had Christmas in their homes, with trees and stockings hanging on the hearth. At least that is what I believed, pretty sure it's true. Hanukkah was mentioned, probably, but I do not recall.

I do not say that was right, just that it was.

Not so today. The high school program last week included Hanukkah songs, and Charlie's 1st grade program in Pennsylvania was about half and half, said his mom. I have no objection to that. I'm just glad we can still hear the Christmas songs in the school. I do think it is a bit much, however, to ask that my grandchildren "celebrate" Kwanza. That happens here at the elementary schools.

* * *

My friend Joan sent a cartoon today. Three boys sitting in the Principal's office, explaining the reason for their punishment.
Boy 1: I said the S H word.
Boy 2: I said the F word.
Boy 3: I said Christmas.

Funny, huh.

* * *

Last Saturday night I heard the Boise Philharmonic and the BP Master Chorale in performance of Handel's Messiah. I heard it last year, too, but this was a much better performance. Lola says thanks to Robert Franz, BP's conductor, who made them work hard in rehearsal.

I gave thanks for the performance and for that timeless oratorio (written, by the way, in 1741), that we can attend such programs publicly performed for our pleasure and inspiration. I gave thanks for Handel, for the inspiration he received as he worked on the music, which turned out to be glorious music, for Charles Jennens, who gathered the scriptures together to provide the perfect libretto, for the performers who, it seemed to me, sang from their hearts, and for Jesus Christ, the center of it all.

Conversion

My friend Jennifer, a tall striking blonde, married Dick, dark and curly headed, slightly shorter than she. Both were trying marriage a second time around. And they were fun to be around, mostly. He could be brittle and short with her, which I disliked.

But there was a lot of laughter, there was intelligent conversation, and there were shared beliefs.

And this post is less about them than their beliefs.

Dick was obviously a person of power and persuasion, because when I knew Jennifer before she married Dick, she was a Nazarene and a political liberal from Nampa. Dick is from Chicago, Jewish, calling himself a Jewish atheist. And he is a conservative.

After their marriage, Jennifer converted, which means she changed from one thing to a different thing. (Well, thing isn't quite the right word.) She became--in her thought, her "belief system," as she used to speak of it--a reflection of Dick. And it seemed the conversion was wholehearted.

I didn't wonder about the politics. I mean, anyone can grow up politically, which I believe she finally did. But the religion. A life-long Nazarene becomes a Jewish atheist. How is this possible?

Well, she really loved Dick, and that answers a lot of questions. You know, what we do for love.

And, it turns out, she had given up her Nazarinity, if that's a word, long before she met Dick. For one thing, she liked to dance, and Nazarenes don't dance. She used to tell a joke about that, which in my sense of delicacy and propriety I will not include here, but which underscored the Nazarene disdain for dancing.

So, for a long time, she was Nazarene in name only. The big reason for her leaving her faith, she said, was her dad, the Nazarene minister. She hated him, found fault with his sermons because she hated his at-home behavior, particularly his treatment of her mother. Called him a hypocrite. Was occasionally cynical about other people's belief systems, knowing that many come up short in living what they claim to believe.

And I think to apologize for that, for not being all I ought to be. And I wonder if we who profess a faith are all hypocrites, saying one thing, living another. Some folks would say so.

But I say no. Not all of us. Unless being a flawed human being makes us so. I think being a hypocrite involves some willful deceit, and I don't think we're all willfully deceitful.

I thought of my dad as having no deceit in him, no guile. There was love at the heart of him. And yet I know he also fell short at times. He could lose his temper, for instance.

So can many of us. And we all do have our weaknesses and foibles. And we have our sins, having stepped off the narrow path. But most of the people I know are doing their best to get back on it or stay in the first place, and they steady themselves by their faith and their testimony of it.

That is, as far as I can tell. And it came to me the other day that I am really glad I don't have to judge other people. I just can't. The thing is, my real concern is with me and my attempts to live as I believe, which requires some effort, you know.

Oh my, Part today

So today I went to the big Hastings store, spent some time looking, and then was asked by a managerial type if she could help me.

"I hope so," I said.

She looked totally (as everyone says, as in totally) confident until I said I was looking for a CD of The Messiah.

Blank look.

Then she recovered and sent me to the information desk over in the CD/DVD section of the store.

A young man asked to help me, assuring me he knew everything there was to know about this section of the store.

"I'm looking for The Messiah."

"Isn't everyone," he said.

This was encouraging to me, but as he typed stuff into his computer for about five minutes and came up with nothing, I became worried. I said, "You do know what I'm talking about. Right?"

"I assume you're talking about the movie."

"No," I said quite patiently, "it's music, an oratorio, written in the 1700s. Now do you know what I'm talking about?"

"I don't even know what an oratorial is."

I explained quite patiently. "Oratorio. It's sacred music for orchestra, chorus, and solo voices. This one is about the birth (I left it at the birth) of Jesus, written by Handel."

"Oh, Handel."

"So you've heard of Handel's Messiah."

"No."

"Oh."

"But now I can look under Handel.

"I see. Well at least you didn't ask me if The Messiah was the name of an artist."

He said, "I was about to until you said Handel."


I do not make these things up. And, while they're all mildly amusing, they are also very troubling.

Oh my

I stopped in at my local Hastings--entertainment store: DVD, CD, books, etc.--looking for a good recording of The Messiah. I didn't hold out much hope but thought I could at least ask.

A young woman was putting CDs in slots, so I asked her, "Do you know everything here?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Good," I said, and went on, "do you have The Messiah?"

"Is that the name of an artist?" she asked.

Enough said.

What to make of these

Dr Burr: (Looking very closely at the left medial eyebrow on my face) You've been picking at that, haven't you.
Me: (Thinking, Wow, he didn't call me kid this time) No. (And that was the truth.)
Burr: Hmmm. (He looks again at my sizeable file.)
Me: (Silent.)
Burr: Oh, we did surgery on that, didn't we.
Me: Yes.
Burr: (Again looking at my files) Hmmm. (Then again at my eyebrow) Looks like it's coming back.
Me: (Silent but full of thought and dread.)
Burr: (Again looking at my files, saying nothing.)
Me: I don't want it to come back.
Burr: Oh, it won't.
Me: (Silent, but thinking, Huh?).

* * *

Sunday I was admiring someone's hair and said to the person seated next to me, "I wish I had hair like that, so beautiful, and so much of it."

She said, "Your hair is (did she say?) beautiful."

I said a half-hearted thank you and felt sorry about the half-heartedness of it.

She said, "We do the best with what we were given." It was kind of a little lecture just for me. And she repeated it.

I felt a bit ashamed. Actually hung my head.

I thought about it most of the day and figured I needed to repent and take her words to heart . . . until I remembered this one thing. SHE HAD HER NOSE "FIXED."

You Probably Know This Already

I have done some reading up on Higgs Boson and bosonic mechanism in particle physics. Because it is in the news today. Physicists are hoping to see Higgs soon, meaning any day. Higgs is also known as the "God particle." It is a sub-atomic particle, of course.

In short,
Wait, it isn't short. Let me quote:

Higgs Boson is a key component of the "Standard Model" - the all-encompassing theory developed by physicists of how the cosmos as we know it works at its basic level of particles and forces.

But until now, in the four decades since it was first posited, no one has convincingly claimed to have glimpsed the Higgs Boson, let alone proved that it actually exists.

At an eagerly awaited briefing on Tuesday at the CERN research centre near Geneva, two independent teams of "Higgs Hunters" were widely expected to suggest they were fairly confident they had spotted it.

But not confident enough, in the physics world of ultra-precision where certainty has to be measured at nothing less than 100 percent, to announce "a discovery."

In the jargon, this level is described as 5 sigma, which would exclude the possibility that the results recorded by the ATLAS and CMS teams at CERN - the 21-nation European Organisation for Nuclear Research - are a fluke.

Not the end of the story, but the end of the quote.

You can thank me later.

School Lunch, Part 4

In high school, lunch time was still a social occasion, though the actual food we ate seemed to have regained some importance, probably because we were mature people with discriminating taste.

Of course, there were certain places on campus where the important people gathered to eat. And, of course, I gathered there.

Only Geeks ate in the cafeteria, even if it was underground and called The Vike’s Inn, and it should go without saying, but it won’t, that in the three years of high school I never knew what they served in that place.

Trading food has tradition behind it, but I did not like to do it, not ever, knowing that the worst my mother fixed was better than what anybody else had. But in high school, everyone wanted my sandwich when my mom sent avocado and bacon on her homemade whole wheat bread. In elementary school such a sandwich, especially on whole wheat bread, would have laid me open to ridicule, but in high school it gave me status. I was proud to share, even if I ended up with bologna.

Oh, and I would not be caught dead with a lunch pail then. Might as well wear pink and green together and paint a target on my butt.

Okay. On my back.

Under the Darkening Moon

We went out to Eisenman Road at 5:45 a.m. to watch the lunar eclipse. That's where Janice said we would see it best.

We did see it, and we did freeze our little selves, too.

But there is much more life and many more lights out there than either of us knew about. Bright lights. Trucking places, Shopko's distribution center, Brasher's Auto Auction, WES--whatever that is--and others, not to mention the Outlet Mall lighted brightly.

We went down the road a couple of times, then out Gowen. Lots of lights out there, too.

Back to Eisenman, where we backed up a short sloping driveway, parked, and where Janice got out all of her scopes and cameras and settled in.

I thought it was private property; I had walked up, seen the address by the door and the mailbox by the door.

When the dogs began barking, I told Janice I was pretty sure we were on private property. She said, "No. It's the storage office."

"Well," said I, quoting, "then, Who let the dogs out?"

"Don't worry," she said. "They're fenced in." Apparently Janice doesn't know the song.

I got back in the car. I was freezing anyway.

Janice is hard of hearing, you know, and did not put her hearing aids in this morning, so she didn't hear the woman at first. And because she was bending over with her face in her scope, she didn't see her either.

That woman was not happy and not nice. She made clear we were on private property and she needed us to leave. Janice's apology fell on, as they say, deaf ears. Sorry, Janice.

"I need you to pack up all your equipment and get out of here." And that was the nice part.

We left.

An observation about the eclipsed moon. You can see its roundness better than at any other time. It looked just like a ball and like it might fall at any second. Fascinated me. I took many pictures. Haven't looked to see if any might be satisfactory.

I am glad I went. I loved the moon. And I always like an adventure, especially if I'm only watching it from inside a car.

School Lunch, Part 3

In Jr high lunch was a social thing, in the cafeteria or out, and mostly I ate out. What I ate I don’t know, whatever my mother fixed. What we did, I’m not sure of either, beyond sitting and talking. We certainly didn’t run out to a playground, too grown up for that. All I remember about lunch is that every day someone was not speaking to someone, and I never figured out why or how they kept it all straight.

No. Lunch was not the Jr high issue. Showers were. Daily, after PE, overseen by the teachers. Whoever designed those showers was a sex pervert. That is what I might have said if I had the nerve to say such a thing to a teacher in 1952.

Here’s how it worked:

You left your clothes at your locker, wrapped—ha!—in a very small, thin towel, then waited in line to run through the shower. The teacher checked off your name and watched you as you stepped in, removed your towel, held it over your head and ran—but not too fast—ten feet or so between weak streams of water coming from both sides of the tiled-in corridor. At the end of the ten feet you turned right, turned right again and came back the other side, put your towel on, stepped out, and dripped all the way back to your locker.

If you didn’t look wet enough, the teacher would send you back through.

Nobody ever looked up while in the shower because it was likely some boy had climbed up the outside walls of the gym and was peering in an open window.

Everybody took showers. Every day. And I’m pretty sure everyone hated it and tried to get out of it. There were only two ways of doing that.

“I can’t take a shower today, Mrs. Nibley. I’m having my period.” I hated to announce it, but it would get me excused for three or four days.

“Okay, Alyce,” (my school name).

Then in three weeks. “I can’t take a shower today, Mrs. Nibley. I’m having my period.”

This time I was lying, of course.

“So soon, Alyce?”

“Uh, yes. It came early.” So, they really do keep track. I wouldn’t be able to use that one again for a month.

Or “Mrs. Nibley, I can’t take a shower today. I still have athlete’s foot.” Lying again.

“What are you putting on it, Alyce?” Miss Cooper chimed in.

“Uh, campho-phenique.” Still lying. Campho-phenique, the little green bottle of smelly stuff Mama put on Sterling’s cold sores. It would probably work on athlete’s foot.

“Oh that will never do,” Miss Cooper clucked. “You have to use . . .” whatever she said.

The next day my athlete’s foot had cleared up on its own, as if by magic, and I was back in the shower line.

School Lunch, Part 2

Inside the cafeteria, there was almost the same order that persisted in the classroom. We could talk and mess around a little, but we weren’t supposed to raise our voices. One day Neal Treadwell stood behind me in line and told me to look down inside my blouse and spell attic. Dumb me. I did it. A T T I C. Neal laughed out loud while I turned red. I think he was born knowing stuff like that. Of course, I couldn’t slug him or even yell at him, or I’d get in trouble.

I didn’t always eat in the cafeteria. Sometimes I brought my lunch from home in the standard brown paper bag, my sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper with my mother’s neat way of folding the paper and twisting the ends.

I remember wanting a lunch pail, the kind with the round lid and thermos that some of the other kids had. I never got one like that, and if I had one at all, which I don’t remember, it wasn’t the kind I wanted. Not quite. You never got quite what you wanted. I think our parents lived by a code. “Don’t ever get your kids exactly what they ask for. It’s good for their character.”

In sixth grade I worked as cashier in the cafeteria, so I got to know the cooks. They called me Bette because I looked like Bette Davis, which they said was a good thing. Sometimes I went to the other side of the cafeteria and worked at the window, selling ice cream cups with their flat wooden spoons. Five cents for ice cream or a fudgesicle or a bag of peanuts or milk in a carton.

That whole year I got my lunch free, which was also a good thing. I could eat early, no on-duty teacher watching. And I gladly gave up recess for the prestige of being cashier. It meant I was smart. It also allowed me to engage in small talk with teachers, which made me feel smart and was more fun than volleyball or four square.