Like every other generation before it I belong to a generation that bemoans what has happened to young people, and what they are doing to themselves.
I was reminded of this story from my life when listening to witness at church this weekend. The man bearing witness was struck by how several impoverished girls in an orphanage shared the remaining half bottle of his soda pop with a total of 15 other children, so each could get a sip. I observed the same type of thing with the Native American children I sponsored. But listen to what happened in my own family, back in the not so good old 1970's.
My brother and wife with their young child, my niece, was visiting grandma's house, where I still had a room. My brother being much older than I, when he went to college I moved into his room, had his furniture and the little knick knacks that he left for me. For example, he had a beautiful little ceramic of a fawn (that I still treasure, though I've not seen it in many years, as all my stuff is locked up in storage out of my reach). On the desk I had a beer can that my brother had used as a pencil cup, and I used it the same. It was cool, being of a brand of beer, Jaguar I think, with decoration of the same skin pattern.
My niece was fairly well grown, a child, not a toddler by any means. I was showing her around my room. In order to give her a feeling for how our family (small as it was) passed down the few things we had (we were poor and all my mom's stuff was lost in World War II), when we got to the pencil cup I told her how it was her dad's.
I was shocked, and still remember, how that little head whipped around to look at me with, to my amazement, dislike! Without a word she ran into the other room, squealing, "Dad! Dad! Aunt C has YOUR CAN!" running as fast as she could to, yep, you guessed it, "tattle" on me. Even when my bro came into the room and fondly reminisced about the can, she just glared at me, thinking only that I had stolen her precious dad's can.
Now, you might think that was funny, but it was quite a jolt for two reasons. One is that this was the first time I met a child that did not understand older sibling handing down to younger sibling his no longer wanted stuff. See, she had fine new bought things all her life. (She would later tell her grandmother that she didn't like staying in her house because she did not have a TV in every room). So I saw the first example of that very worrying and shallow, grasping trend in children, children who are old enough to know better. Second I had a premonition of where this mindset would lead her. And true, now she hangs out with celebrity tattle tales ha.
Parents, parents, parents... you are the generation that my niece belongs to. What are you teaching your children? If you were born into the way my niece was, how much worse is your children's generation? The Bible and good parenting teaches moderation, grace, good manners, appreciation, and being honorable (not tattlers) for a reason: it is not only the righteous and just way to be, but it is the way to avoid many physical and spiritual pitfalls in life. It is not healthy nor is it fair to not object when your little prince or princess has their fanny buffed constantly so that they think everyone else has "their stuff," where no matter what they have legitimately, they resent what others have, as small as it is.
So I'm glad there are still generous children who share rather than tattle, though according to the witness I heard on Sunday, I guess they are in Mongolia!
Showing posts with label personal childhood story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal childhood story. Show all posts
Monday, March 22, 2010
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Thinking about an old time song
All of us, kids and adults, knew this song in the 1950's and would sing it.
For those of you who don't know, clover is normally three leaf but once in a while one has four leaves.
Here is a great picture of one:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Four-leaf_clover.jpg
One summer my mother sat on the ground in our back yard and searched through all the clover, one by one, to find four leaf clovers to press in a book and preserve for us kids. She found like four of them in all her searching!
I'M LOOKING OVER A FOUR-LEAF CLOVER
Art Mooney
Words by Mort Dixon, music by Harry Woods
Written in 1927 - popularized in 1948 by Art Mooney
For those of you who don't know, clover is normally three leaf but once in a while one has four leaves.
Here is a great picture of one:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Four-leaf_clover.jpg
One summer my mother sat on the ground in our back yard and searched through all the clover, one by one, to find four leaf clovers to press in a book and preserve for us kids. She found like four of them in all her searching!
I'M LOOKING OVER A FOUR-LEAF CLOVER
Art Mooney
Words by Mort Dixon, music by Harry Woods
Written in 1927 - popularized in 1948 by Art Mooney
I'm looking over a four-leaf clover
That I overlooked before.
One leaf is sunshine, the second is rain,
Third is the roses that grow in the lane.
No need explaining, the one remaining
Is somebody I adore.
I'm looking over a four-leaf clover
That I overlooked before
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Next charity from my Christmas idea list
I have just donated $75 online to the Salvation Army. This is in addition to my usual adding of change and dollar bills to their collection buckets.
Folks, in this time of economic crisis, never forget what a debt the USA owes to the Salvation Army. They are one of my favorite organizations and I can tell you this personal story of why.
My father had a good friend who was a co-worker, who was a child in the 1920's-1930's, during the time of the Great Depression. This friend would always support the Salvation Army because he told us how as a child he would stand in the soup line when they were destitute and his only food came from the Salvation Army: they absolutely saved his life. I, in turn, since hearing that story during my childhood, have never forgotten them for their generosity during our country's great need, and in particular to my father's friend and his family. My father's friend, by the way, was an Irish Catholic (even an altar boy) and in those days no one asked for "special interest group" identification when the way of Jesus Christ was walked by those who serve him by serving their neighbors. Further, in a time when there was scandal around many charities at disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Salvation Army, so far as I can tell, has maintained exemplary morals and ethics, and responsibility for the charitable treasure that is placed in their hands.
Media reports that donations to the Salvation Army is also at a low, due to the economic crisis. Those who can still donate, do not forget them. They are one of the ones that will see people through such times.
www.salvationarmyusa.org
Folks, in this time of economic crisis, never forget what a debt the USA owes to the Salvation Army. They are one of my favorite organizations and I can tell you this personal story of why.
My father had a good friend who was a co-worker, who was a child in the 1920's-1930's, during the time of the Great Depression. This friend would always support the Salvation Army because he told us how as a child he would stand in the soup line when they were destitute and his only food came from the Salvation Army: they absolutely saved his life. I, in turn, since hearing that story during my childhood, have never forgotten them for their generosity during our country's great need, and in particular to my father's friend and his family. My father's friend, by the way, was an Irish Catholic (even an altar boy) and in those days no one asked for "special interest group" identification when the way of Jesus Christ was walked by those who serve him by serving their neighbors. Further, in a time when there was scandal around many charities at disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Salvation Army, so far as I can tell, has maintained exemplary morals and ethics, and responsibility for the charitable treasure that is placed in their hands.
Media reports that donations to the Salvation Army is also at a low, due to the economic crisis. Those who can still donate, do not forget them. They are one of the ones that will see people through such times.
www.salvationarmyusa.org
Sunday, November 9, 2008
An inside perspective of Hitler's Germany (3)
I thought that since so many around the world are contemplating this anniversary of Kristallnacht that I would write about the rest of my mother's witness during World War II in Germany.
My grandfather, her father, had served in World War I, yet he was sent to work in a munitions factory in the south, in the Harz Mountains region. That was how it was in Germany, for no one had normal jobs, nor was retired. At any time as they became desperate for men they plucked boys and older men who were not in the military and sent them to work in factories. It was not only the enslaved who had to do this. So my grandfather had to leave his wife, their widowed daughter (my mom) and her infant son behind and go to work in that arms factory.
When Germany fell, the Allies had worked out which country's army would invade and occupy what area, and the right to enter Berlin was given to the Russians. This was understandable as the Russians had lost millions of people most cruelly in this conflict caused by Hitler. However, the civilian population of Berlin knew full well that the Russians would bestow the gift of cruelty on them in return for what the soldiers had done. So many people, especially women and children, who were pretty much all who were left, fled Berlin in advance of the Russians, especially as they heard the news that their worse fears were true. For example, they learned that some Russian soldiers would make civilians kneel in front of a table, extend their tongue, and the Russians would drive a nail through the tongue, nailing them to the table.
My grandmother refused to leave her house, even knowing this. She knew that they were also burning and looting, and just flat out refused to leave. Incredibly she survived by hiding where they did not find her. In those days attics were often reached by huge wood ladders. My grandmother climbed up the ladder to the attic and then somehow found incredible strength to pull the ladder up after her, hiding it in the attic with her, thus making it look like no one could have gone up to the attic (and with no ladder, no one thought to check). She lay silently as the Russians went through the house (they could of course have shot with their guns through the ceiling if they heard her, so she could not move or make any noise). They stripped just about all they could from the house, including the doorknobs off of the doors. But she was alive and that was what counted.
My mother, as a schoolgirl, had done a genealogy of our family as a school project, which was easy to do as all the churches had great church records of events and occupations. She was able to trace our family to the 14th century. Her uncle, who lived next door, panicked when hearing of the Russians coming and burned anything that made the family "look German." I mean, duh, who else would they be but Germans? But he thought the genealogy of simple carpenters, farmers, and small crafts people might look "patriotic" and he burned the entire thing, along with (wisely) the obligatory copy of "Mein Kampf" that just about everyone was expected to have. We really mourn the loss of that school work of my mother's because with the destruction of so many of Germany's churches, even if anyone had the heart to do it, we could not reconstruct even a fraction of it since, like I said, her uncle burned everything and we had really nothing left regarding the family, as modest as it was. He and his family survived too, but relations were never warm, even though they were neighbors.
My mother took her son and fled along with thousands of other women and children, all on foot, all heading south. She figured to walk to where her father was at the munitions factory. They were programmed by Hitler in the schools to think that the British and the American soldiers were "savages" and so they were afraid to encounter them, but had no choice, as the British were advancing from the south. When they met my mother said she and all of the others were astonished at the kindness of the British soldiers. They helped them with food and supplies, and when they could spare vehicles they would pack refugees in them and help them in their journey south. My mother said she would never forget their kindness. Nor will I.
Sometimes the refugees were able to jump onto coal trains, sitting in the coal. Needless to say people were tattered in their clothes, and impossible to keep clean. When I was young my mother never let me wear play clothes; I had to always dress nicely and never make a mess (and thus was incredibly restricted in play). Only once when I was an adult did she tell me that was not her just being obsessive, but it was because she could not bear to see children, as she did during the war, wearing torn and dirty clothes. She swore no child of hers would ever have to wear tattered or dirty clothes again, and boy, she meant it.
She was, as I explained, widowed in 1942, her police man husband who had been drafted into Hitler's Army being killed in Poland one week after his son had been born to my mom. In fact, he got the news in a letter from her, and he and three comrades were ambushed by partisans and killed on their way back from posting mail in reply to their loved ones. My mother got the official news that he had been killed, and then days later, she received his letter. He had been a devout Catholic, a farm boy, an altar boy. At least he died knowing that he had a son.
All that she had of him was his bayonet, and to quote her, "I must have been a little bit crazy during that time, because I took the bayonet with me, not for protection, but because I could not bear to lose the only thing I had left from him. I would have been shot on the spot if I had been found with it, but I kept it wrapped in cloth and it was not found." We still have it in our family and my brother has it.
She made it to the south and was reunited with her father, my grandfather. They stayed there for a while, her and the many other refugees, but all of them were in terror of worry about those who remained behind in Berlin, such as her mother, my grandmother. And so, yes, you guessed it, many refugees just could not stay in the south and wanted to go back to check on their loved ones. Remember, no one but the Allies had any way of having any news, and things were chaotic, so no mail system, certainly no telephones, the infrastructure of Germany was largely destroyed. So all the women worried and imagined about the fate of their loved ones in Berlin and other areas. So many of them turned around and started the trek back north.
Yes, they encountered the British again. To quote my mother, "They said to us, are you crazy? You have just walked hundreds of miles to escape Berlin and now you want to go back?" But yes, the women insisted, and again the British helped them with giving them rides whenever they could spare some capacity. My mother and her son, my brother, made it back and found her mother, my grandmother, alive and well in the house. Eventually my grandfather was able to return too.
When I visited Germany as a child for the first time in 1962, I saw the bomb shelter where my mother and my brother would run during air raids. She also showed me where she had slept in the house and one morning awoke to find shrapnel in her pillow.
During the war they sometimes learned the truth about the progress of the war and Germany's increasing number of defeats because someone had a precious radio, and they could hear the broadcast of the Allies. It was a death penalty to have a radio (for that very reason) in Hitler's Germany, so it was listened to by German civilians at great risk to their lives.
When the Americans arrived and took over the sector of Berlin where my family was, they all just about fainted at how nice the Americans were. Like I said, it sounds stupid now, but when they were youngsters under Hitler he had ordered the schools to teach that American and British soldiers were both savages and also hired savages. Needless to say it was a great relief to the surviving civilians that just like the British, the Americans were fine. The man who would become my father was an American paratrooper and he was stationed near where my grandparents lived, and so that is where he met my mother when she would walk with her son to get rations and milk. Everything was incredibly scarce, as you can imagine. My father was there only for under five months, I think, before being sent back to the USA to demobilize. He actually got a compassion leave because his father was ailing and dying, so my father missed the great victory parade of the paratroopers in New York City, as he was home with his dying father.
As soon as my father's mother and sisters learned that he had a German sweetheart they went to work. My father's youngest sister in particular started her own personal supply lines of packages to my mother with food, powdered milk and other essentials, including things for my brother, like comic books (which were an unimaginable treasure in the ruins of Germany for a child). She also always sent a can of coffee which was more valuable than any gold or money. Rather than drink it my mother sold it on the black market so that they could get money for clothes and other necessities. My mother adored the ground that my aunt walked upon, and she was known to be "an angel" (not in an occult way, but just the expression for one of those extraordinary people who change the world with their day to day kindness). My mother and brother did not leave Germany for another three years after the end of the war, for a number of reasons, to come to America and marry my father. It just about killed her parents, my grandparents, when they left. Remember, travel and communications was not like it was in more modern times, and so they were losing their one and only grandson. They did not see him for many years, until they were able to afford passage on an ocean liner to visit in America, in 1956. I was a toddler but I remember that visit very well, when I met my grandparents for the first (and best) time.
So that is information that I can share with you about "what it really was like" in a time that few can imagine. We used to love the old movie "I was a Male War Bride" (with Cary Grant, my favorite actor) because it contained some humorous look at the many marriages and emigrations that took place after the War.
My brother is one of the most likable guys you can imagine, never looking for trouble, but trouble found him when he was a German kid in American schools after the war. He assimilated quickly and post war anger died down, but for a few years he got called a Nazi and beaten up regularly. He used to come home beaten up and tell our mother that it was the result of football practice injuries. My mother was upset but believed him, not realizing until several years later that football practice did not occur every day year around, and usually did not result in black eyes! When I came along even though I had a slight accent picked up from my mother (which then got speech corrected in school) I had no real trouble at all. Just one day in third grade or so someone left a scrap of paper on my desk with "Nazi" written on it, but that was it. I think it was a kid who was "trying out" prejudice just once, if you know what I mean. But by the late 1950's there were plenty of German families and no one got worked up over it, understanding they were refugees, not perpetrators. But my brother did have a rough couple of years.
Oh, I just remembered another story. Once my mother's German husband took her to the firing range to let her fire his Lugar. She was absolutely knocked on her rear end by the kick back. So a gun totting super hero defending her family she definitely is not.
Ah yes, I just remembered another story to share. Right after the big attempt on Hitler's life my mother was in a Berlin hospital, suffering from either dysentery or cholera. She looked out the window and saw Hitler's people hunting down anyone they thought was part of the coup, shooting them right there in the street. To quote my mother "You see, communications was so bad that when the bomb went off, they thought they had succeeded, and that they had killed Hitler. And so the people in the underground came out of hiding, even telling that they had killed Hitler on the radio. And so they were out in the open, and I saw them being hunted down right from my hospital window."
Speaking of hospital, when her son, my brother, was born in 1942, there was no medicine or pain killers, all had been sent to the soldiers. She was told that old saw, and they actually meant it, to "Bite on a bullet." The birth was such a mess that they told her that she could not have children again, certainly not without an operation. And there was obviously some truth to it because she did not become pregnant again for many years, thinking that she could not. Thus when she became pregnant with me it was a total shock, much more for her than for my father!
My grandfather, her father, had served in World War I, yet he was sent to work in a munitions factory in the south, in the Harz Mountains region. That was how it was in Germany, for no one had normal jobs, nor was retired. At any time as they became desperate for men they plucked boys and older men who were not in the military and sent them to work in factories. It was not only the enslaved who had to do this. So my grandfather had to leave his wife, their widowed daughter (my mom) and her infant son behind and go to work in that arms factory.
When Germany fell, the Allies had worked out which country's army would invade and occupy what area, and the right to enter Berlin was given to the Russians. This was understandable as the Russians had lost millions of people most cruelly in this conflict caused by Hitler. However, the civilian population of Berlin knew full well that the Russians would bestow the gift of cruelty on them in return for what the soldiers had done. So many people, especially women and children, who were pretty much all who were left, fled Berlin in advance of the Russians, especially as they heard the news that their worse fears were true. For example, they learned that some Russian soldiers would make civilians kneel in front of a table, extend their tongue, and the Russians would drive a nail through the tongue, nailing them to the table.
My grandmother refused to leave her house, even knowing this. She knew that they were also burning and looting, and just flat out refused to leave. Incredibly she survived by hiding where they did not find her. In those days attics were often reached by huge wood ladders. My grandmother climbed up the ladder to the attic and then somehow found incredible strength to pull the ladder up after her, hiding it in the attic with her, thus making it look like no one could have gone up to the attic (and with no ladder, no one thought to check). She lay silently as the Russians went through the house (they could of course have shot with their guns through the ceiling if they heard her, so she could not move or make any noise). They stripped just about all they could from the house, including the doorknobs off of the doors. But she was alive and that was what counted.
My mother, as a schoolgirl, had done a genealogy of our family as a school project, which was easy to do as all the churches had great church records of events and occupations. She was able to trace our family to the 14th century. Her uncle, who lived next door, panicked when hearing of the Russians coming and burned anything that made the family "look German." I mean, duh, who else would they be but Germans? But he thought the genealogy of simple carpenters, farmers, and small crafts people might look "patriotic" and he burned the entire thing, along with (wisely) the obligatory copy of "Mein Kampf" that just about everyone was expected to have. We really mourn the loss of that school work of my mother's because with the destruction of so many of Germany's churches, even if anyone had the heart to do it, we could not reconstruct even a fraction of it since, like I said, her uncle burned everything and we had really nothing left regarding the family, as modest as it was. He and his family survived too, but relations were never warm, even though they were neighbors.
My mother took her son and fled along with thousands of other women and children, all on foot, all heading south. She figured to walk to where her father was at the munitions factory. They were programmed by Hitler in the schools to think that the British and the American soldiers were "savages" and so they were afraid to encounter them, but had no choice, as the British were advancing from the south. When they met my mother said she and all of the others were astonished at the kindness of the British soldiers. They helped them with food and supplies, and when they could spare vehicles they would pack refugees in them and help them in their journey south. My mother said she would never forget their kindness. Nor will I.
Sometimes the refugees were able to jump onto coal trains, sitting in the coal. Needless to say people were tattered in their clothes, and impossible to keep clean. When I was young my mother never let me wear play clothes; I had to always dress nicely and never make a mess (and thus was incredibly restricted in play). Only once when I was an adult did she tell me that was not her just being obsessive, but it was because she could not bear to see children, as she did during the war, wearing torn and dirty clothes. She swore no child of hers would ever have to wear tattered or dirty clothes again, and boy, she meant it.
She was, as I explained, widowed in 1942, her police man husband who had been drafted into Hitler's Army being killed in Poland one week after his son had been born to my mom. In fact, he got the news in a letter from her, and he and three comrades were ambushed by partisans and killed on their way back from posting mail in reply to their loved ones. My mother got the official news that he had been killed, and then days later, she received his letter. He had been a devout Catholic, a farm boy, an altar boy. At least he died knowing that he had a son.
All that she had of him was his bayonet, and to quote her, "I must have been a little bit crazy during that time, because I took the bayonet with me, not for protection, but because I could not bear to lose the only thing I had left from him. I would have been shot on the spot if I had been found with it, but I kept it wrapped in cloth and it was not found." We still have it in our family and my brother has it.
She made it to the south and was reunited with her father, my grandfather. They stayed there for a while, her and the many other refugees, but all of them were in terror of worry about those who remained behind in Berlin, such as her mother, my grandmother. And so, yes, you guessed it, many refugees just could not stay in the south and wanted to go back to check on their loved ones. Remember, no one but the Allies had any way of having any news, and things were chaotic, so no mail system, certainly no telephones, the infrastructure of Germany was largely destroyed. So all the women worried and imagined about the fate of their loved ones in Berlin and other areas. So many of them turned around and started the trek back north.
Yes, they encountered the British again. To quote my mother, "They said to us, are you crazy? You have just walked hundreds of miles to escape Berlin and now you want to go back?" But yes, the women insisted, and again the British helped them with giving them rides whenever they could spare some capacity. My mother and her son, my brother, made it back and found her mother, my grandmother, alive and well in the house. Eventually my grandfather was able to return too.
When I visited Germany as a child for the first time in 1962, I saw the bomb shelter where my mother and my brother would run during air raids. She also showed me where she had slept in the house and one morning awoke to find shrapnel in her pillow.
During the war they sometimes learned the truth about the progress of the war and Germany's increasing number of defeats because someone had a precious radio, and they could hear the broadcast of the Allies. It was a death penalty to have a radio (for that very reason) in Hitler's Germany, so it was listened to by German civilians at great risk to their lives.
When the Americans arrived and took over the sector of Berlin where my family was, they all just about fainted at how nice the Americans were. Like I said, it sounds stupid now, but when they were youngsters under Hitler he had ordered the schools to teach that American and British soldiers were both savages and also hired savages. Needless to say it was a great relief to the surviving civilians that just like the British, the Americans were fine. The man who would become my father was an American paratrooper and he was stationed near where my grandparents lived, and so that is where he met my mother when she would walk with her son to get rations and milk. Everything was incredibly scarce, as you can imagine. My father was there only for under five months, I think, before being sent back to the USA to demobilize. He actually got a compassion leave because his father was ailing and dying, so my father missed the great victory parade of the paratroopers in New York City, as he was home with his dying father.
As soon as my father's mother and sisters learned that he had a German sweetheart they went to work. My father's youngest sister in particular started her own personal supply lines of packages to my mother with food, powdered milk and other essentials, including things for my brother, like comic books (which were an unimaginable treasure in the ruins of Germany for a child). She also always sent a can of coffee which was more valuable than any gold or money. Rather than drink it my mother sold it on the black market so that they could get money for clothes and other necessities. My mother adored the ground that my aunt walked upon, and she was known to be "an angel" (not in an occult way, but just the expression for one of those extraordinary people who change the world with their day to day kindness). My mother and brother did not leave Germany for another three years after the end of the war, for a number of reasons, to come to America and marry my father. It just about killed her parents, my grandparents, when they left. Remember, travel and communications was not like it was in more modern times, and so they were losing their one and only grandson. They did not see him for many years, until they were able to afford passage on an ocean liner to visit in America, in 1956. I was a toddler but I remember that visit very well, when I met my grandparents for the first (and best) time.
So that is information that I can share with you about "what it really was like" in a time that few can imagine. We used to love the old movie "I was a Male War Bride" (with Cary Grant, my favorite actor) because it contained some humorous look at the many marriages and emigrations that took place after the War.
My brother is one of the most likable guys you can imagine, never looking for trouble, but trouble found him when he was a German kid in American schools after the war. He assimilated quickly and post war anger died down, but for a few years he got called a Nazi and beaten up regularly. He used to come home beaten up and tell our mother that it was the result of football practice injuries. My mother was upset but believed him, not realizing until several years later that football practice did not occur every day year around, and usually did not result in black eyes! When I came along even though I had a slight accent picked up from my mother (which then got speech corrected in school) I had no real trouble at all. Just one day in third grade or so someone left a scrap of paper on my desk with "Nazi" written on it, but that was it. I think it was a kid who was "trying out" prejudice just once, if you know what I mean. But by the late 1950's there were plenty of German families and no one got worked up over it, understanding they were refugees, not perpetrators. But my brother did have a rough couple of years.
Oh, I just remembered another story. Once my mother's German husband took her to the firing range to let her fire his Lugar. She was absolutely knocked on her rear end by the kick back. So a gun totting super hero defending her family she definitely is not.
Ah yes, I just remembered another story to share. Right after the big attempt on Hitler's life my mother was in a Berlin hospital, suffering from either dysentery or cholera. She looked out the window and saw Hitler's people hunting down anyone they thought was part of the coup, shooting them right there in the street. To quote my mother "You see, communications was so bad that when the bomb went off, they thought they had succeeded, and that they had killed Hitler. And so the people in the underground came out of hiding, even telling that they had killed Hitler on the radio. And so they were out in the open, and I saw them being hunted down right from my hospital window."
Speaking of hospital, when her son, my brother, was born in 1942, there was no medicine or pain killers, all had been sent to the soldiers. She was told that old saw, and they actually meant it, to "Bite on a bullet." The birth was such a mess that they told her that she could not have children again, certainly not without an operation. And there was obviously some truth to it because she did not become pregnant again for many years, thinking that she could not. Thus when she became pregnant with me it was a total shock, much more for her than for my father!
Saturday, November 8, 2008
An inside perspective of Hitler's Germany (2)
Today is the anniversary of the two day rampage in Hitler's Germany known as Kristallnacht.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht
snip
Kristallnacht (IPA: [kr,ɪst.aɫ.n'ɒxt]; literally "Crystal night") or the Night of Broken Glass, was a pogrom in Nazi Germany on November 9–10, 1938. On a single night, 92 Jews were murdered and 25,000–30,000 were arrested and deported to concentration camps.[1][2] It is often called Novemberpogrom or Reichspogromnacht in German.
The Nazis coordinated an attack on Jewish people and their property in Germany and German-controlled lands as a part of Führer Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic policy.[3]
On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old German Jew enraged by his family's expulsion from Germany[citation needed], walked into the German Embassy in Paris and fired five shots at a junior diplomat, Ernst vom Rath. Two days later, the diplomat died and Germany was in the grip of skillfully orchestrated[citation needed] anti-Jewish violence. In the early hours of November 10, coordinated destruction broke out in cities, towns and villages throughout the Third Reich.
The consequences of this violence were disastrous for the Jews of the Third Reich. In a single night, Kristallnacht saw the destruction of more than 200 synagogues and the ransacking of thousands of Jewish businesses and homes. It marked the beginning of the systematic eradication of a people who could trace their ancestry in Germany to Ancient Rome and served as a prelude to the Holocaust that was to follow.[4][5]
***
I thought you all might be interested in reading about how my mother witnessed in person this event.
My mother was born in a suburb of Berlin in 1922, and so she was only a month shy of being sixteen years old when this occurred. She had graduated from the standard schooling at the time and was taking a trolley car into Berlin to attend what was called "business school" for young ladies. What they meant by this was that young ladies who would become shop keepers went to this school to learn how to wrap packages for customers, keep a shop inventory and ledger, and basically be a clerk in a small shop.
As my mother took a trolley car into Berlin each day, it passed through what was a Jewish neighborhood, where there were Jewish shops, residences and synagogues. She and the other passengers of the trolley car looked out the window in astonishment, seeing the store front windows of the shops and residences smashed in, the glass lying in shards in front, and the synagogues also damaged and destroyed. She says they just stared in astonishment. When they reported to their school, the schoolmaster, a man, called them all together. He said, "Girls, you may have noticed some strange things on the way here. For your safety I am telling you to say nothing about this at all. Do not talk about it to anyone." She said he was visibly scared for his and their safety. And so the schoolgirls all said nothing and went on with their classwork. She said it was terrifying, but when nothing else happened that was visible to them after that, things calmed down so far as she could tell.
While we are on the subject, here is what my mother experienced about whether "average Germans 'knew' what was going on with the Holocaust." After the event of Kristallnacht, like I said, nothing else seemed to happen. But of course people wondered what had happened to the Jews, both those who disappeared that night, and later as the persecutions took place. The people of Germany were told that the Jews were being "resettled" to land outside of Germany. Now, my mother explained that Berlin was a kind of "cosmopolitan" and sophisticated city, even though my mom was from poor farmer/carpenter upbringing, everyone thought of themselves as being not easy to fool and somewhat worldly. So they did, at least these people in her neighborhood of Berlin, believe that the Jews were being relocated.
But some years later the rumors started. She said that yes, they started hearing that there were incredible stories of concentration camps and massacres. But they were only rumors because as everyone later learned, most of the camps were outside of Germany, so there were few German witnesses (despite what one sees of Germans working at the camps). Only rumors got back to the average people such as my mother and her parents in Berlin. And here is where their "sophistication" worked against them. They just flat out could not believe it. They thought that these were just crazy rumors of the type that spring up during war. My grandfather was a World War I veteran, so he knew how bad things happened, but also how rumors spread like wildfire during war. So my mother said that sure, don't let any German tell you that they didn't hear the rumors, but on the other hand, most Germans thought they were insane rumors.
Here is one of the most fascinating parts of my mother's witness. She grew up close friends with a Jewish boy. So he was a teenager like her when these events took place. He and his family, who were "half Jewish" (one parent was Jewish and one was not) actually lived in Berlin throughout the war and escaped deportation and death. How did they do it? They were able to pay off an SS agent who documented them as being not Jewish on the basis of the half of the family that was not Jewish. These were not rich people by any means, they were one of the estimated 100 Jews who were able to stay in Berlin through means such as these (paying off and laying low because they had a fortunate connection) or through outright hiding. There's an out of print book on this subject but he's not in it. So my mother was in a position to know as much or a bit more than the average Berliner since she maintained contact with this young Jewish man. In fact, she was widowed in 1942, at the age of 19, and she continued to see her Jewish friend with a somewhat romantic mindset throughout the war, to the horror of her parents, my grandparents. Why were they horrified? Not from prejudice but incredible fear because after all, here she was maintaining contact with this Jewish young friend right in Berlin, under the noses of the authorities. But they all made it through the war.
My mother had a son, my half brother, born in 1942. So my dad, an American paratrooper, had his first sight of the woman who would become my mom as she walked with her toddler son to the store to find milk and rations in 1945, when Berlin had fallen to the Russians, and then was occupied by the Americans. They fell in love and married. But let me tell you that the young Jewish man not only survived the entire war in Berlin, but he also emigrated to America and lived in New York City, where he either owned or worked at a bar. I met him in 1962 after my father had died, and he was a great and kind man.
While I understand people's criticism of the average German, I won't hear anything on that subject about my mother. For a woman, let me tell you she has brass balls. She stood by her Jewish friend as he hid in Berlin while the Nazis were marching all around. And I'm not exaggerating. My mother told me that during public displays that all the citizens had to leave their schools and shops and cheer when the Nazi bigwigs held a rally or marched by. She saw Hitler, Goering and all those maniacs from only a few yards away on at least one occasion. She also had to be one of the "dancing maidens" at the Olympics, back in 1936 when Jesse Owens made us all proud and Hitler mad, ha, yes, she was there. So I will not hear anything bad about her as she showed more loyalty and courage toward her Jewish friend than anyone I can think of in much less dire circumstances today.
Likewise, my childhood best friend, an American girl born of German parents, told me about her parents' experience in the south of Germany, in the area known as Bavaria. The people in the village risked torture and death by the Nazis because they would recover and hide pilots who survived when their airplanes were downed. Sometimes they would have to row out in boats and fish them out of lakes, and then hide them and get care for their injuries, all in great haste before the local German military arrived. So these people were also the unsung righteous heroes who did the best that they could to save English and American wounded or downed fighters.
Anyway, that is an example of how kids and adults today need to learn about history from people who were actually there and who can explain what it was like. I have a bit more about her story regarding how she had to flee the advance of the Russian army, and they wrecked vengence on all Germans they found, and how my grandmother evaded the Russians and was untouched. But I'll save that for another posting sometime!
I hope that you have found these reminiscences interesting and useful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht
snip
Kristallnacht (IPA: [kr,ɪst.aɫ.n'ɒxt]; literally "Crystal night") or the Night of Broken Glass, was a pogrom in Nazi Germany on November 9–10, 1938. On a single night, 92 Jews were murdered and 25,000–30,000 were arrested and deported to concentration camps.[1][2] It is often called Novemberpogrom or Reichspogromnacht in German.
The Nazis coordinated an attack on Jewish people and their property in Germany and German-controlled lands as a part of Führer Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic policy.[3]
On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old German Jew enraged by his family's expulsion from Germany[citation needed], walked into the German Embassy in Paris and fired five shots at a junior diplomat, Ernst vom Rath. Two days later, the diplomat died and Germany was in the grip of skillfully orchestrated[citation needed] anti-Jewish violence. In the early hours of November 10, coordinated destruction broke out in cities, towns and villages throughout the Third Reich.
The consequences of this violence were disastrous for the Jews of the Third Reich. In a single night, Kristallnacht saw the destruction of more than 200 synagogues and the ransacking of thousands of Jewish businesses and homes. It marked the beginning of the systematic eradication of a people who could trace their ancestry in Germany to Ancient Rome and served as a prelude to the Holocaust that was to follow.[4][5]
***
I thought you all might be interested in reading about how my mother witnessed in person this event.
My mother was born in a suburb of Berlin in 1922, and so she was only a month shy of being sixteen years old when this occurred. She had graduated from the standard schooling at the time and was taking a trolley car into Berlin to attend what was called "business school" for young ladies. What they meant by this was that young ladies who would become shop keepers went to this school to learn how to wrap packages for customers, keep a shop inventory and ledger, and basically be a clerk in a small shop.
As my mother took a trolley car into Berlin each day, it passed through what was a Jewish neighborhood, where there were Jewish shops, residences and synagogues. She and the other passengers of the trolley car looked out the window in astonishment, seeing the store front windows of the shops and residences smashed in, the glass lying in shards in front, and the synagogues also damaged and destroyed. She says they just stared in astonishment. When they reported to their school, the schoolmaster, a man, called them all together. He said, "Girls, you may have noticed some strange things on the way here. For your safety I am telling you to say nothing about this at all. Do not talk about it to anyone." She said he was visibly scared for his and their safety. And so the schoolgirls all said nothing and went on with their classwork. She said it was terrifying, but when nothing else happened that was visible to them after that, things calmed down so far as she could tell.
While we are on the subject, here is what my mother experienced about whether "average Germans 'knew' what was going on with the Holocaust." After the event of Kristallnacht, like I said, nothing else seemed to happen. But of course people wondered what had happened to the Jews, both those who disappeared that night, and later as the persecutions took place. The people of Germany were told that the Jews were being "resettled" to land outside of Germany. Now, my mother explained that Berlin was a kind of "cosmopolitan" and sophisticated city, even though my mom was from poor farmer/carpenter upbringing, everyone thought of themselves as being not easy to fool and somewhat worldly. So they did, at least these people in her neighborhood of Berlin, believe that the Jews were being relocated.
But some years later the rumors started. She said that yes, they started hearing that there were incredible stories of concentration camps and massacres. But they were only rumors because as everyone later learned, most of the camps were outside of Germany, so there were few German witnesses (despite what one sees of Germans working at the camps). Only rumors got back to the average people such as my mother and her parents in Berlin. And here is where their "sophistication" worked against them. They just flat out could not believe it. They thought that these were just crazy rumors of the type that spring up during war. My grandfather was a World War I veteran, so he knew how bad things happened, but also how rumors spread like wildfire during war. So my mother said that sure, don't let any German tell you that they didn't hear the rumors, but on the other hand, most Germans thought they were insane rumors.
Here is one of the most fascinating parts of my mother's witness. She grew up close friends with a Jewish boy. So he was a teenager like her when these events took place. He and his family, who were "half Jewish" (one parent was Jewish and one was not) actually lived in Berlin throughout the war and escaped deportation and death. How did they do it? They were able to pay off an SS agent who documented them as being not Jewish on the basis of the half of the family that was not Jewish. These were not rich people by any means, they were one of the estimated 100 Jews who were able to stay in Berlin through means such as these (paying off and laying low because they had a fortunate connection) or through outright hiding. There's an out of print book on this subject but he's not in it. So my mother was in a position to know as much or a bit more than the average Berliner since she maintained contact with this young Jewish man. In fact, she was widowed in 1942, at the age of 19, and she continued to see her Jewish friend with a somewhat romantic mindset throughout the war, to the horror of her parents, my grandparents. Why were they horrified? Not from prejudice but incredible fear because after all, here she was maintaining contact with this Jewish young friend right in Berlin, under the noses of the authorities. But they all made it through the war.
My mother had a son, my half brother, born in 1942. So my dad, an American paratrooper, had his first sight of the woman who would become my mom as she walked with her toddler son to the store to find milk and rations in 1945, when Berlin had fallen to the Russians, and then was occupied by the Americans. They fell in love and married. But let me tell you that the young Jewish man not only survived the entire war in Berlin, but he also emigrated to America and lived in New York City, where he either owned or worked at a bar. I met him in 1962 after my father had died, and he was a great and kind man.
While I understand people's criticism of the average German, I won't hear anything on that subject about my mother. For a woman, let me tell you she has brass balls. She stood by her Jewish friend as he hid in Berlin while the Nazis were marching all around. And I'm not exaggerating. My mother told me that during public displays that all the citizens had to leave their schools and shops and cheer when the Nazi bigwigs held a rally or marched by. She saw Hitler, Goering and all those maniacs from only a few yards away on at least one occasion. She also had to be one of the "dancing maidens" at the Olympics, back in 1936 when Jesse Owens made us all proud and Hitler mad, ha, yes, she was there. So I will not hear anything bad about her as she showed more loyalty and courage toward her Jewish friend than anyone I can think of in much less dire circumstances today.
Likewise, my childhood best friend, an American girl born of German parents, told me about her parents' experience in the south of Germany, in the area known as Bavaria. The people in the village risked torture and death by the Nazis because they would recover and hide pilots who survived when their airplanes were downed. Sometimes they would have to row out in boats and fish them out of lakes, and then hide them and get care for their injuries, all in great haste before the local German military arrived. So these people were also the unsung righteous heroes who did the best that they could to save English and American wounded or downed fighters.
Anyway, that is an example of how kids and adults today need to learn about history from people who were actually there and who can explain what it was like. I have a bit more about her story regarding how she had to flee the advance of the Russian army, and they wrecked vengence on all Germans they found, and how my grandmother evaded the Russians and was untouched. But I'll save that for another posting sometime!
I hope that you have found these reminiscences interesting and useful.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Tips to encourage healthy vegetables eating
When I was a kid, I watched the "Popeye" cartoons. Popeye, a cartoon sailor, got great strength to do good and fight evil when he ate a can of spinach. Well, so as a pre-school girl, probably when I was around four years old, I asked my mom to get some spinach. Amazed she bought fresh spinach, cooked it into a hot green goo, and served it to me. As you can imagine I took one bite and said, "Yuck." It was many years before I ate spinach again! She was very annoyed (though not as much as usual) that she had bought a huge bag of spinach and gone through all the preparing and cooking (this was in the 1950's when things still took a lot of time to prepare). This is one reason why I became a very cautious eater and was not "adventurous" in trying out new foods. It's another difference between older generations and the new. When we were growing up mothers who cooked had to spend hours preparing things that people today just pop purchased from the store into the microwave. So people were more cautious about requesting food that they might not like (especially if dad got ticked off at spending his hard earned money on something "new" and mom had to do all the preparation and cooking). So there is a reason that older generations were more cautious in things that younger generations take for granted, and it's not because we were too dumb or lacked sophisticated taste!
Fast forward decades and I am a busy commuter in Manhattan. I'm in Penn Station and starved, so I look for a slice of pizza, but all they have left is spinach pizza. I buy one and to my amazement find I loved it. I reconnected with spinach and now will select it for a variety of dishes. The same with mushrooms. I really disliked them in my youth (partly because of the way they were prepared) and again, I was introduced to them via pizza topping and eventually use and enjoy them in all forms.
Parents need to remember this and be creative in adding vegetables to favorite foods while children are young. Do not introduce vegetables to them as goo or lumps of "healthy but not tasty." Adults develop a taste for vegetables, but children need help with continuity from when they are babies and will eat pureed vegetables, through the solid food stage, and yes, most definitely, as children and teenagers.
So be sure to add spinach, mushrooms, squash slices and other good vegetables to favorite foods from the very beginning so that kids develop a liking for their combined flavors. Spinach sauteed in olive oil and spooned onto pizza is a healthy way to get both spinach and olive oil into a pizza lover's dietary intake.
The second tip is to add cheese. Just about everyone loves cheese. Some years ago a cheese industry advert correctly showed that kids love even "healthy foods like vegetables" when they are topped with cheese. Also, real cheese (not pseudo cheese product) is a valuable source of daily and nutrients, especially as kids AND adults do not drink enough milk. So you can cultivate a liking for vegetables as a side dish for your children by slicing or shredding cheese over the prepared vegetable. Mozzarella in particular enhances the flavor of vegetables for children.
Fast forward decades and I am a busy commuter in Manhattan. I'm in Penn Station and starved, so I look for a slice of pizza, but all they have left is spinach pizza. I buy one and to my amazement find I loved it. I reconnected with spinach and now will select it for a variety of dishes. The same with mushrooms. I really disliked them in my youth (partly because of the way they were prepared) and again, I was introduced to them via pizza topping and eventually use and enjoy them in all forms.
Parents need to remember this and be creative in adding vegetables to favorite foods while children are young. Do not introduce vegetables to them as goo or lumps of "healthy but not tasty." Adults develop a taste for vegetables, but children need help with continuity from when they are babies and will eat pureed vegetables, through the solid food stage, and yes, most definitely, as children and teenagers.
So be sure to add spinach, mushrooms, squash slices and other good vegetables to favorite foods from the very beginning so that kids develop a liking for their combined flavors. Spinach sauteed in olive oil and spooned onto pizza is a healthy way to get both spinach and olive oil into a pizza lover's dietary intake.
The second tip is to add cheese. Just about everyone loves cheese. Some years ago a cheese industry advert correctly showed that kids love even "healthy foods like vegetables" when they are topped with cheese. Also, real cheese (not pseudo cheese product) is a valuable source of daily and nutrients, especially as kids AND adults do not drink enough milk. So you can cultivate a liking for vegetables as a side dish for your children by slicing or shredding cheese over the prepared vegetable. Mozzarella in particular enhances the flavor of vegetables for children.
Monday, June 23, 2008
A fun hobby and pastime for children
When I was growing up in the 1950's and early 1960's, several of my friends and I developed a really fun hobby that we called "The Trading Post." We got the idea from watching Westerns that portrayed how much early commerce consisted of trading, rather than the use of gold or money. Also, my brother was a collector of baseball cards, and there is a great tradition of trading of baseball cards among young collectors.
We used candy boxes, especially the two layer ones that opened so that the upper and lower levels could be viewed, and then filled them with cool stuff that we enjoyed collecting. For example, being girls, we had pretty buttons, jewelry, charms, the toys you get from gum ball machines, special art supplies that were hard to get (like a small tube of glitter or rubber stamps), ribbons, cool bottle caps, marbles, tokens from board games, such as dice, small toys or tiny plastic animal figures, rocks and crystals and so forth. We would then "open the trading post" during recess at school, or when we played after school, and traded for items we liked from each other's collections. Parents got involved because we'd try to think of cool things to add to our collections. For example, one of us wanted to get sawdust from her dad's wood working shop and color it in batches of different colors (think of it as a poor girl's sand art supply). Since we were all working class poor it was also a way that someone could get a hold of something special, such as a scrap piece of pink satin or pretty lace.
It was amazing fun and since it didn't involve money, just good hearted bargaining, it is a great activity for kids to learn how to barter and how to acquire without it being all about money. I still have stored away in my belongings items that I used to have in my trading post. For example, there used to be a handheld game that had sliding numbered tiles. My friend had a few of them and I traded to get the one that had my birthday number on it; I still have that one!
It's also a way that kids learn that even if they lose interest in certain toys that they have that they can trade with another kid who might really want that toy. Being more of the arts and crafts kind of kids we stuck with small decorative items for the most part, things that could fit in the large size candy box (like a Whitman's). I think the largest things we traded were what we called Nick dolls, which were popular then (they are the long haired troll dolls, ha).
Anyway, I thought I'd share this personal recollection with you because it was an enormously fun and positive thing for us young kids to do and you parents might want to try it as yet another alternative to TV, video games, charge card mentality etc. It also tends to promote a hobby and collecting spirit in kids at a young age. Best of luck and enjoy!
We used candy boxes, especially the two layer ones that opened so that the upper and lower levels could be viewed, and then filled them with cool stuff that we enjoyed collecting. For example, being girls, we had pretty buttons, jewelry, charms, the toys you get from gum ball machines, special art supplies that were hard to get (like a small tube of glitter or rubber stamps), ribbons, cool bottle caps, marbles, tokens from board games, such as dice, small toys or tiny plastic animal figures, rocks and crystals and so forth. We would then "open the trading post" during recess at school, or when we played after school, and traded for items we liked from each other's collections. Parents got involved because we'd try to think of cool things to add to our collections. For example, one of us wanted to get sawdust from her dad's wood working shop and color it in batches of different colors (think of it as a poor girl's sand art supply). Since we were all working class poor it was also a way that someone could get a hold of something special, such as a scrap piece of pink satin or pretty lace.
It was amazing fun and since it didn't involve money, just good hearted bargaining, it is a great activity for kids to learn how to barter and how to acquire without it being all about money. I still have stored away in my belongings items that I used to have in my trading post. For example, there used to be a handheld game that had sliding numbered tiles. My friend had a few of them and I traded to get the one that had my birthday number on it; I still have that one!
It's also a way that kids learn that even if they lose interest in certain toys that they have that they can trade with another kid who might really want that toy. Being more of the arts and crafts kind of kids we stuck with small decorative items for the most part, things that could fit in the large size candy box (like a Whitman's). I think the largest things we traded were what we called Nick dolls, which were popular then (they are the long haired troll dolls, ha).
Anyway, I thought I'd share this personal recollection with you because it was an enormously fun and positive thing for us young kids to do and you parents might want to try it as yet another alternative to TV, video games, charge card mentality etc. It also tends to promote a hobby and collecting spirit in kids at a young age. Best of luck and enjoy!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Champion pony euthanized
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/28/sports/OLY-EQU-Theodore-OConnor.php
***
I rode a pony only once. It was when I was a little girl in Germany, visiting my grandparents. I was sad because my father had died. They knew someone with a pony and I could sit on the pony and have my picture taken to cheer me up. She was a black pony named Sabina. Those pictures are still in the family album. How nice to know someone was that kind to a little girl whose father had died.
***
I rode a pony only once. It was when I was a little girl in Germany, visiting my grandparents. I was sad because my father had died. They knew someone with a pony and I could sit on the pony and have my picture taken to cheer me up. She was a black pony named Sabina. Those pictures are still in the family album. How nice to know someone was that kind to a little girl whose father had died.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Sharing an art story from my childhood
When I was in elementary school, I would guess around the age of seven or eight, I was sitting in my art class with my classmates. To put it in context this would have been in the very early 1960's. The art lesson was just to draw whatever we felt like. So I was drawing rocket ships, since I was very interested in the space program and exploration of space. (I've explained in previous blog postings that I had a teenage neighbor who was an amateur astronomer and very generous in his sharing his interest with me when I was very small). The teacher, a woman, would walk around glancing down at what each child was drawing.
To my horror she grabbed my drawing and said to the whole class. "Look at this! A GIRL is drawing rocket ships! Why aren't YOU BOYS drawing rocket ships?" I'll never forget the stricken looks on the boys' faces. What an ignorant bitch! Just because I was drawing rockets she de-balled these poor boys who were probably happily drawing cars, boats, dogs, farms (we were in a rural area after all) and that was perfectly fine.
Now many of you younger readers might think she was an early "women's libber" and that this is a good thing, but you'd be wrong. If she was for women's rights she would have quietly coached each child to draw what they wanted to, whether "traditional" or "not." She'd not have pounced on me because my "doing my thing" would have been good and natural, would it not? And she used my drawing not as an encouragement to the girls (though I'd ask, why disturb what people are naturally drawing anyway) but as a castrating weapon toward the boys. She probably did more to put boys off of art on that day than anything.
As a therapist who has used art in counseling I learned that many people have horrible art experiences of over criticism as children and therefore become stuck at around the ages of 8 to 10 in their ability. But there was a special disagreeable twist to how this bitch used my leisurely activity to make undeserving children feel bad. I've often thought back to this and other experiences and also recognize that these were early signs of some people's very destructive and unhealthy personal obsession toward me and even my most innocent activities. That's the problem with projecting warped beliefs onto others, because you then use your sacred job to abuse the development of others. What was shocking then I now see everywhere, institutionalized.
How much worse this would have been if the Holy Spirit had not guided me in every action since I was the smallest baby. I remained very conservative in my interests and activities (when I took up a few hang gliding lessons at the age of 40 people who knew me just about fainted, and it had taken a lot of urging from my previous best friend to even try that out). It's sickening to think about how people glommed onto my every move as a message and example to warp and distort the lives of other children and adults. A lot of dirty water over the dam.
To my horror she grabbed my drawing and said to the whole class. "Look at this! A GIRL is drawing rocket ships! Why aren't YOU BOYS drawing rocket ships?" I'll never forget the stricken looks on the boys' faces. What an ignorant bitch! Just because I was drawing rockets she de-balled these poor boys who were probably happily drawing cars, boats, dogs, farms (we were in a rural area after all) and that was perfectly fine.
Now many of you younger readers might think she was an early "women's libber" and that this is a good thing, but you'd be wrong. If she was for women's rights she would have quietly coached each child to draw what they wanted to, whether "traditional" or "not." She'd not have pounced on me because my "doing my thing" would have been good and natural, would it not? And she used my drawing not as an encouragement to the girls (though I'd ask, why disturb what people are naturally drawing anyway) but as a castrating weapon toward the boys. She probably did more to put boys off of art on that day than anything.
As a therapist who has used art in counseling I learned that many people have horrible art experiences of over criticism as children and therefore become stuck at around the ages of 8 to 10 in their ability. But there was a special disagreeable twist to how this bitch used my leisurely activity to make undeserving children feel bad. I've often thought back to this and other experiences and also recognize that these were early signs of some people's very destructive and unhealthy personal obsession toward me and even my most innocent activities. That's the problem with projecting warped beliefs onto others, because you then use your sacred job to abuse the development of others. What was shocking then I now see everywhere, institutionalized.
How much worse this would have been if the Holy Spirit had not guided me in every action since I was the smallest baby. I remained very conservative in my interests and activities (when I took up a few hang gliding lessons at the age of 40 people who knew me just about fainted, and it had taken a lot of urging from my previous best friend to even try that out). It's sickening to think about how people glommed onto my every move as a message and example to warp and distort the lives of other children and adults. A lot of dirty water over the dam.
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