Tag Archives: school

Family Matters: Part Two – Garlic Cloves and Puffer Fish

11 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in America, family, management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

 

PicturesfromiPhoneChinaParisPrinceton 177There are many directions to go for the first sequel to “Family Matters: Part One.” That blog focused mainly on my family of origin, so one obvious place to go is to talk about my children and grandchildren. But I don’t really want to speak for them. After all, they can still talk back. My parents and grandparents cannot. But the real reason is that everyone should get to define themselves, at least to the extent that it’s possible. I think it is possible to a great extent, but not completely. Not everyone can become a pro athlete or a great musician even if they try really really hard. Luck and innate predispositions play a role in our fate.

Certainly, there are many “how to” books out there that would lead you to believe that the only thing that stands between you and owning the universe is your attitude. It isn’t a totally bad thing to imagine that you can do anything and have no limitations due to circumstances or your innate abilities and predispositions. It’s a fiction, of course. It’s a complete and utter fiction. If you spent the first five years of your life drinking lead tainted water, e.g., no amount of the proper “attitude” is going to undo the harm. But, for people whose main obstacle to a fulfilled life is self-doubt, it could provide a good antidote, or at the very least, a few good anecdotes that arise from a series of unfortunate incidents taking place from following such advice.

What I have in mind however, is something different; viz., trying to show how family situations tend to be continuous threads in a way that is analogous to the continuous genetic threads. For example, my grandmother used to tell “Old Pete” stories and ran a dramatic club. My mother became an English and Drama teacher. I have always loved acting and storytelling. Several of my kids and grandkids have also written originally and extensively. My mother’s brothers all were jokesters and storytellers. Her oldest brother Karl was a principal and then superintendent of schools. The middle boy, Bob, became a psychiatrist. The youngest, Paul, became a lawyer. The next generation included two psychologists, two lawyers, a neurosurgeon, a teacher. I could elaborate further but the point is that storytelling, art, psychology, and education as well as science and engineering are threads throughout this very local part of my family tree.

Before I go any further, however, I need to explain why I subtitled this, “Garlic Cloves and Puffer Fish.” As a side note, it’s good to remember that both garlic and puffer fish are our distant cousins. The same basic machinery that makes the cells of a garlic plant “work” and live and reproduce is what does all those same things in our cells. And our other, somewhat less distant cousin, the Puffer Fish has that same machinery in every one of its cells. Of course, beyond that we even have most of the same organs and types of symmetry as the Puffer (or any other) Fish. Now, I bring up our relation to these distant cousins because I would like to have you view what I am about to say about various people as being observational and not rendering value judgements. It would be silly to go out to a garlic plant and yell, “Why can’t you be more like a Puffer Fish?!  What’s wrong with you?!” It would be equally ridiculous, of course, to go snorkeling and when you encounter a Puffer Fish scream at it: “What are you doing out here in the ocean? Why can’t you be more like your cousin Garlic who at least makes wonderful tasting (to most) and health-giving nutrients? No, instead, you poison people! What’s wrong with you?”

IMG_6609

Now, when it comes to people, of course, it isn’t just their genes that determines behavior. The family, neighborhood, culture, religion, and physical environment that they grow up in determines, at least in large measure, who they become. Humans come in many varieties. This is both because, when it comes to our own life, we can actually make ourselves different in some ways on purpose (there is a grain of truth in the “positive thinking will win you the universe” genre) and secondly, when it comes to someone perceiving us, their own background and character will determine what they see in you. Similarly, your background will help determine what you see in others. If you think back on your own experience, you’ll see this is true. Anyway, among these many ways that people differ is how neatness-oriented they are. The hit TV series, The Odd Couple, featured two bachelors living together; one was an utter slob (Oscar) and the other was a neatnik (Felix). We all probably know people close to those extremes. We may even know two such people in our family as defined with a small circle to say your second cousins. I’m not trying to say one of these characteristics is better or worse than the other. But I would like to point out that each makes a lot of sense, under certain conditions.

Some years ago, I was watching a TV program about Alice Waters, a famous chef, restaurant owner, and author. She believes in such things as organic, locally grown ingredients. In any case, she happened to make this offhand comment that “it didn’t really matter if a little piece of the garlic skin clings to a clove” {at least in the context of the sauce they were making for a huge fish}. Anyway, I do most of the cooking in my house and I do try to remove the skin of garlic cloves. Most of the time, it’s fairly easy. But every once in a while I have encountered a clove of garlic that is as pathologically stubborn about giving up its skin as a corrupt politician is about giving up the illusion of sanctity. Even a garlic plant has its own personality, I suppose. On the scale of neatnik to slob, I would put myself near the middle. Of course, to anyone who thinks it’s good to be super neat, I will seem like a slob. And to anyone who thinks cleaning is just not worth the trouble, I may seem like a neatnik. Anyway, my point is that maybe there comes a point where you don’t generally have to be absolutely precise in cooking. And I would guess that this rings true with your experience as well. There are some cooks whose approach is very intuitive and, although they may follow a recipe, their measurements may not be totally accurate. And, then their are cooks who will follow directions extremely carefully. Generally speaking, it doesn’t make that much difference. I tend to prefer dishes such as mixed ginger/curry vegetables, burritos, or omelets. In these dishes, you can get away with a huge variation in proportions and specific ingredients. I give these dishes care and attention to detail, but all within very broad parameters.

IMG_6516

In at least one case, however, it is crucial to be a “neatnik” cook and that is in the preparation of the Puffer Fish. The Puffer Fish contains a highly potent neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin. Most of this toxin is in the liver, skin, and other internal organs. It is very easy if you are even the least bit sloppy — and we are not talking Oscararian sloppihood, just normal college guy sloppihood — to nick something and release the poison into the flesh making it potentially deadly. Under those circumstances, being a neatnik is vital. In some cases, expert chefs push a little further and allow a tiny bit of the toxin to bleed into the flesh which will cause a “high” in the eater, but not be fatal. Personally, I think I’ll stick with tuna. The point is that being extremely neat and careful can be a very good thing. Packing your parachute — good to be careful! Performing cataract surgery — be precise!

On the other hand, suppose that you are spear fishing or out gathering nuts. A “neatnik” might want to make sure every fish is skewered in exactly the same way. Except, perhaps for Puffer Fish, it doesn’t matter that much; the point is to catch the fish. Similarly, if you are gathering walnuts, there generally isn’t much point in arranging them by size. Suppose you are making a rock wall. You would do well to make sure it doesn’t fall down but the way to do that is by careful arrangement and filling in the cracks carefully with cement. An alternative approach is to insist that every rock is exactly the same. This would make building the wall much easier. On the other hand, it would be absurdly time consuming to search for rocks of precisely the same size. Other approaches are to have one group of people cut rocks to preset measures and then the job of building the walls is easier or to make artificial rocks called “bricks.” Under various circumstances, any of these methods will work just fine. In other circumstances, any of these approaches might fail. It isn’t quite so simple a matter as Disney and the Three Little Pigs would have you believe.

When it comes to recipes, whether for bricks or for soufflés, It is difficult to know ahead of time which aspects of the process require a Felixian attention to detail and which aspects are fine for a more Oscarian approach. And, just as there are situations that are particularly suitable and best done by Neatniks there are other situations particularly well suited to Slobs, this same principle holds true for every approach and personality trait that I can think of. So when I describe people in my more extended family, I am not trying to pass judgement on who is better than whom. You might imagine that there is an attempt on my part to make out someone as “bad” or “good” based on your own personality preferences. Similarly, it’s quite possible that I accidentally make one or the other kind of personality sound better based on my own preferences than they really are.

Although it is quite natural for people to express different preferences on the neatnik to slob dimension, it is often a source of tension, argument, fights, and in extreme cases, probably divorce and murder. Most often, when an “Oscar” does something annoyingly sloppy, (and which to Oscar is actually typically exactly nothing), Felix will not try to dialogue about the situation and negotiate a solution. Rather, Felix’s first move is more often to call out Oscar’s character as being deficient because he is such a slob. Immediately and quite predictably, Oscar’s defenses go up. His next move is to point out that Felix is insanely OCD. And thus, the problem moves from what is immediate, simple, and fixable to one that is long-term, complex, and unfixable. Oscar will never convince Felix to be like Oscar and Felix will not ever convince Oscar to be like Felix. In fact, for Felix to even expect Oscar to act Felixian is rather silly.

You have undoubtedly heard the expression that you “marry the family” as well as your own spouse. I found this unfathomably silly when I was younger, but now I see that in many ways it is true. For example, if your spouse has unresolved issues from their childhood, those can impact your relationship. If your spouse’s family is into crime or drugs or unnecessary drama, those will certainly impact you. These people will almost certainly interact with you and your kids so they will impact your lives directly and indirectly.

Keeping all this in mind, let’s tune into “Uncle Al.” Al worked at one point as a commercial artist. In such a position, being something of a “Felix” probably worked to his benefit. But not every situation calls for OCD. Al lived in one of two houses at the end of a dead end street. What would you do if you drove to the end of his narrow, dead end street? Well, one possible action would be to abandon your car at the end of the street and walk home to buy another car or just wait there until you were beamed up by aliens. Most people however, would instead go into one of the two driveways at the end of the street, turn their car around and drive back out the dead end street. Al didn’t like that. I suppose most of us might be mildly annoyed. But after all, what else could people do other than abandon their car or back out the entire length of the street? So, while most people might be a little annoyed at strangers using their driveway for a U-turn maneuver, Al was instead, very annoyed. So annoyed was Uncle Al that he paid to have five steel posts put into the end of his drive. Indeed, this completely prevented any stranger from using his driveway as a place to turn around. Chalk one up for Uncle Al.

steelposts

Now, you may have detected a slight flaw in Al’s plan. He could no longer use his driveway either. For that matter, he could no longer use his garage to house his car either. But to Al’s way of thinking, that was worth it because he had achieved his goal. The phrase, “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face” comes to mind.  At another point, several of my ex-brothers-in-laws went over to clean Uncle Al’s house. When they opened up the refrigerator, the shelves were all filled with the same thing. Can you guess what it was? No, you probably can’t. Every shelf was filled with tiny paper mini-ramekins. And in each of those tiny paper mini-ramekins was tartar sauce. Upon questioning, the story finally came out. Every Friday, Al went to a nearby diner where they had an “all you can eat fish” special. The fish came with tartar sauce. Uncle Al hated tartar sauce. But he had paid for the tartar sauce! So, when he left the restaurant, he took the tartar sauce with him each and every time.

This seems a little on the crazy side, but I would guess that almost everyone has sometimes taken something that they have access to even though they end up not using it. In fact, it’s a little odder and more selfish than that. We might even know when we take the items that it’s very unlikely we use them. For example, in the IBM cafeteria, I would often take an extra napkin. Why? Because on rare occasions, someone, possibly even me, would spill something and having an extra napkin that could be deployed jack-knife quick proved very handy.  But most of the time, these hypothetical emergencies failed to eventuate. Now, what to do with the extra napkin? I could put it in the trash, or since it was clean, put it in the recycling. To me, taking the time and effort to recycle is completely worth it. Not everyone does that. We can return to that later, but re-use (or in this case, first use) trumps recycling. So, I would take the napkins back to my office. I had one drawer in particular that ended up with a collection of napkins as well as tea bags, plastic forks, tiny packets of salt and pepper, and other food-related items. Small stuff. There were no stashes of candy bars or soda cans or deer carcasses.

However, this example of hoarding was not an idle and useless exercise in hoarding. When people in the lab had birthdays or other types of celebration, it actually turned out to be quite handy to have a nearby supply of napkins and plastic forks. When I thought about the design rationale for this procedure, I never thought to myself, “I paid for this dinner and there’s no rule against taking two napkins, so I want to keep what is mine.” In terms of explanation, my saving napkins and Uncle Al’s taking tartar sauce are light-years apart. But looked at in terms of situations and behavior, there are actually a lot of similarities. As already explained, all of us are closely related. Although Uncle Al was not “related” in the way that people generally use that word, our ancestors were common for billions of years. So, I would hypothesize, the behavior of keeping something that is not of immediate use but could be used in the future is one that is found broadly in the animal kingdom and in plants. We imagine that the desert plant that stores water in it’s thick leaves does not “think about it.” It seems pretty silly to think it thinks at all. But let’s expand the idea of how information is coded just a little. It wouldn’t make a difference if the rationale were written in Spanish or English or French would it? It wouldn’t matter if the design rationale were printed in 14 point Helvetica or 12 point Times New Roman. It wouldn’t matter whether it was coded in ascii or EBCDIC. So, why not extend the concept a little further. The “design rationale” for the plant’s behavior is coded in it’s DNA.  We may not be able to “read” this design rationale quite as readily as we could one printed in our native language. But that is basically a matter of convenience, not a matter of underlying truth. The plant does have a design rationale for being “greedy.”

When it comes to human behavior, of course, there are not only genetic determiners but also social ones. (Actually, this can be true of non-human animals as well). So, it isn’t just that people may have a genetic propensity for keeping extra items for future use; their particular culture has inculcated values and design rationals and ethics around greed, waste, generosity, and so forth. The design rationale that Al gave, I find too self-centered for my taste. My Mom was generous to a fault. And, when I say she was generous to a “fault” what I mean is that she was so generous that she would often give away the same item to several people. So, perhaps being overly generous can be a fault?

In any case, just as people come in all sizes and shapes, they come in all kinds of behavioral predispositions. These predispositions are probably weakly related to your immediate family both because of where you live, among other things. There is no one “right answer” as to which characteristics are “best” under all circumstances. Some may innately be predisposed to Felixism while others may become that way because of strict teachings by their parents and schools. Regardless of why Felix is a neatnik, Oscar is never going to convince him that he (Felix) should be like Oscar. That was true in paragraph ten and it is true in paragraph 17. One thing should be clear to both Felix and Oscar: if they can work together effectively, they will be able to solve a wider range of problems than they would working alone.

Creativity and diversity are always vital, but probably never more so than right this minute. Humanity has changed so much in every external way in the last two thousand years and most of that since the industrial revolution and most of that after the computer revolution. Change is not only rapid, it is rapidifying. Yes, I made that word up. That’s another symptom of the same thing. Change in media, language, meaning are all happening more and more rapidly. So, in times of such great change and such great uncertainty, it has always seemed to me to absolutely and vitally important to include every viewpoint on the problem that we possibly can.

If I am lying on the beach under a sunny sky, feeling healthy and happy, I don’t really need your advice much, at least not this second. Yes, I may not be as neat as you would like or I am far too neat but I don’t really care and it doesn’t matter. You be you, and I’ll be me.

On the other hand, if I am thrown into something beyond my comprehension, I would want to have as many eyes on the problem as possible. Of course, it feels more comfortable to surround yourself only with those who already agree with you rather than a highly diverse group. You won’t argue as much about what the problem is or about what “fairness” really means or even argue about the right process is for combining your insights. A diverse group can initially provide a slight “shell” of added awkwardness for some. In my experience, when people are focused on a situation or a problem, they get past that very quickly and every stage of the process is enhanced. There are more ideas generated, higher quality ideas, the evaluation of ideas is more robust; they generate more ways to fit ideas together. Not only is the output of the group improved. It is just plain more fun during the entire process. Perhaps a better term would be to say that it is more engaging. If someone has a slight accent, you need to listen more closely. If someone comes from a different background, not only do they provide a different way of looking at things or even solution; they also stretch your mind. It may not be as broadening as  traveling to another culture, but it is more than one step in that direction. An all-celery salad gets old fast.

IMG_6371

Beyond all that, it seems important to remember that these variations in human predisposition are not entirely new human inventions. Many species of plants and animals exhibit different “philosophies” or “strategies” for dealing with the same issues: getting food and water, finding a mate, reproducing, avoiding predators, etc. (Yes, plants do these things). What works for a plant in one climate will not do in another climate. Of course, it isn’t just the climate. It also depends on what other species are present, the nature of the soil, etc. Some plants, for instance, put time and energy into making flowers to attract bees, having the bees fertilize the flowers, grow the fertilized flower into a fruit that is both colorful and tasty. This means the fruit (e.g., wild strawberries or raspberries) are eaten by our cousins the rabbits and carried in many directions out from tree by the rabbits. The rabbits excrete the digested seeds which now find themselves in a tiny pre-fertilized plot. Come on!  How about a hand of applause? Do you see how many ducks have be lined up her for this plan to work?

I may have had a reputation for being a little off the wall, but this plan? This is my craziest idea on a combination of illegal drugs and then put through a cognitive blender. I worked in “Corporate America” for about 40 years. I worked for IT companies, but let’s imagine instead a company that made self-reproducing garden ornaments. The way they worked was that each ornament, after one year split in two. Anyway, they were making good money. Now, I go into the top management and say, “Hey, I have a great idea for how to have these ornaments reproduce. No more just splitting in two. Instead, each element will grow a little ornament on top of the ornament but brightly colored. This will undoubtedly attract some sort of something which will fertilize —- oh, wait, did I tell you about the whole “two sexes” deal? Anyway, we’ll then have a process for turning a fertilized element into a fruitling. The fruitling will be fortified with vitamins and sugar so that … um … something will come along and put this into its belly and carry it away into the neighbors yards where they will help build the first step of the new ornament. Give me funding for about 100 million years of experimentation and I can pretty much guarantee….” No, they would not fund a project like that. Evolution is a slow smart cookie. That tree of living things? That’s our tree. And that little teeny branch way over there? That includes Oscar and Felix and everyone else regardless of gender, age, race, religion, or hoardingness.  Does it really make sense for us to destroy the whole branch if we can’t go in exactly the direction we want? And what about how the decisions affect every other part of the tree? It is, after all, a family matter.

(The story above and many cousins like it are compiled now in a book available on Amazon: Tales from an American Childhood: Recollection and Revelation. I recount early experiences and then related them to contemporary issues and challenges in society).

Tales from an American Childhood

Family Matters: Part One

30 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in America, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

, ,

 

IMG_5452

 

———————————-

Perhaps you recall, as I do, that in the very earliest memories, parents are huge! My mother was huge and my dad was huge! Of course, they not only loomed gigantic physically, they also had a huge influence on me. That, I never thought about as a child, but we’ll return to influence later.

The other remarkable thing about my parents, in early memories, is how different they were from each other. My mother was soft, gentle, smooth-skinned with a soprano voice. My dad was completely different. He was even larger, but besides that, he was hard, physical, hairy and his voice boomed so loud I could feel as well as hear the vibrations. Needless to say, they smelled completely different and I generally saw them at different times of the day, or, more accurately, I saw my mother most of the day and my dad only for small segments on most days. They did different things, said different things, held me differently. There was no way as a child that I saw them as two different examples of a larger class of things called “people.” They were as different as night and oranges to me.

These differences were not just physical and perceptual. As I grew older, I also realized that the species of “Dad” and the species of “Mom” also behaved quite differently.  For example, I could generally count on my dad to remain calm and to get things done whereas in an emergency, my mother generally fell to pieces emotionally. No, come to think of it, she always fell to pieces.

When I was about five years old, my parents took me to a stranger’s house for one of their “Bridge Parties.” To me, “Bridge” was a complete mystery. I understood the concept of games; e.g., “Mother May I”, “Red Light Green Light”, “Pick Up Sticks”, “Checkers”, and (my personal favorite), “Red Rover, Red Rover.” In Red Rover, Red Rover, the opposing team formed a human chain by holding hands. Everyone on a team would chant in unison, “Red Rover, Red Rover, let Tommy come over.” (Tommy was my nick-name at the time). There were two really cool parts to this game in addition to the chanting. One, when it was your turn to make a human chain, you might get to hold hands with a pretty girl. Two, when you were called, you were allowed, indeed encouraged, to run as fast you could, and then SMASH right into the opposing team! That was fun. Honestly, I think I’d like to do that right now. But “Bridge?” The adults just took turns throwing cards on the table. Yet, they were generally screaming and laughing while playing this game. They seemed to be enjoying themselves but I had no idea why.

In any case, however much Mom and Dad enjoyed “Bridge Club”, I certainly didn’t. My parents took me into some random bedroom and said, “you will sleep in here.” Right. I’m five years old in a strange place and I am supposed to go to sleep while there is, basically, a mini-version of Woodstock going on about ten feet from my five year old (and therefore highly sensitive) ears. No, I’m not going to sleep. Even as a five year old, I knew that wasn’t happening. I’m not sure how my parents could have deluded themselves, but apparently they managed. Since sleep was out of the question, I needed to find some way to occupy myself.  What I can do? I’m going to explore the room!

I rather liked the room. It had wall to wall carpeting and dark, heavy, solid wood furniture. I padded about the room looking at this and that, but there wasn’t much to see really. This is what necessitated me to go to phase two of exploring the room; that is, looking under and in things. I looked under the bed, but it was just dusty. I knew it was a long shot that anyone else was trying to invent a new color and keeping the best results under the bed in little jars that had held maraschino cherries, but you never know. Well, actually, yes, eventually you do know. But I didn’t know then because I didn’t know that many people so I didn’t really know how many might be trying to invent new colors. Since then, I’ve met many people who do exactly that although not quite so literally as I was trying to do way back then. I have eleven grandchildren and every one of them is inventing new colors, each in their unique way.

My explorations of the bedroom bureau began very disappointingly. Drawer after drawer was filled with clothes. Sigh. Then, as they say, my eyes actually did become as big as saucers. Large saucers. Because lying right there atop some boring gray gaberdine pants was the coolest biggest gun I had ever seen! I liked my guns! In fact, one of my earliest memories was of a red plastic one. But now, as a “big boy”, I had metal guns. Even better, when I pulled the trigger, they went “BAM” “BAM” because of the caps. I liked my own guns all right, but this gun was way, way cooler. For one thing, it was all metal. Mine were partly plastic. And, the gun was shiny with a depth of its own — except for the handle which had a wonderful pebbled grain.

 

handgun

I could have enjoyed looking at that black gun (similar to, but not identical to the one above) for an hour. But, of course, I had to pick it up. Well, if the look of that gun had been exquisite, and it was, the feel of the gun thrilled me, filled me with uncertain terrors never felt before — to quote Mr. Poe. But alongside the terror was admiration that quickly blossomed into love. The object that constituted the gun seemed so beautifully and solidly built. Had I ever before held something that heavy and dense? I don’t think so.

I knew that my parents had told me to stay in the room and go to sleep. But they were the two people I loved most in the universe. How could I keep the discovery of something this cool, go unshared? I had to let them find out just how cool this gun was. I probably also thought that no little credit would be coming my way for being the discoverer of this marvelous instrument. (Somehow, it never once crossed my mind that the people who owned the house probably already knew about this gun). I definitely thought of it as my discovery, and so it was, in a way. And, if I were never going to get any credit from Grandpa for inventing a new color, at least I would have this great accomplishment forever written into my plus column.

Out into the living room full of laughing, screaming adults somehow getting pleasure out of “Bridge” I tottered, slightly off balance from the weight of the gun, though I was able to hold it one hand, just the way the cowboys and policemen did. “Look what I found.” Now, listening to  the memory of how I said it, I realize it probably was getting credit for my discovery rather than sharing it that most motivated me. Ah, well. Live and learn, as they say. I expected to gain some credit for my discovery and some appreciation for the gun, but I never expected the eruption of adult action and concern and panic and fear and anger and utter surprise. They provided such a sensory overload that my memory is like a loud noise and a great white light. Not only did I receive no plaudits for my wonderful discovery, I definitely had done something unspeakably wrong. (I later discovered that the gun had been loaded with the safety off). But at the time, I felt only bewildered disappointment. However, the one thing I do recall through the white noise was that Dad remained calm and managed to take the gun from me without my trying it out on him for fun. Meanwhile, Mom was being her usual “hysterical in an emergency” self.

At the time, I did not think that my mother was “typical” of all women nor did I think that she was “atypical.” It’s just that I knew this about my mother, but my mother formed one edge or point on  the growing conceptual map of people. And, everything that was true about her was all there together in her own rather large corner of my mind: soft, smooth, soprano, hysterical, gentle, slightly hard of hearing, illogical, loving, beautiful, and fun. Her body positively writhed when she found something funny. Early on, I tried to learn how to cause one of those paroxysms of laughter. Dad, on the other hand, could be counted on in a crisis. He was also hard and hairy and loud and undemonstrative. When, he laughed, most of the time, it was “UH!” That’s it! One sort of half snort, half laugh. I do that too sometimes. On the other hand, I also go into a full out writhe with laughter as well. I am part Mom; part Dad just like most of us with respect to our parents.

My parents had two different professions as well. Dad was an engineer. He was very logical; yes, even as a very young kid I saw this. Mom was an English and Drama teacher. Years later, at CHI in Atlanta, talking with Doug Engelbart, I discovered his parents had the same combination. As an adult, I can imagine that their professions not only seemed to be choices that sprung from their native talents, but that the professions, in turn, helped cement these traits in place.

I met other family members at a young age and each of them was quite different as well. My mother’s mother, Ada was smart, soft, and she told me “Old Pete” stories. We listened to radio programs together such as “The Lone Ranger”, “Roy Rogers”, “Hop-along Cassidy”, and “Tom Corbett and the Space Cadets.” Grandma was the Superintendent of Sunday School at the Methodist church we went to. She also founded the Firestone Park Dramatic Club and ran it for decades. Meetings were held at my grandparents’ house and the women (all the members were women) read plays. This turned out to be a cool deal for me because, as a little kid, whenever someone didn’t show up, I filled in because my memory was so good, that even without trying, I knew all the parts. Grandma also had to take “iron shots” because she was anemic. The best thing though was that she baked peanut butter cookies and when she made a pie, she made butter, sugar, and cinnamon roll-ups!

Her obituary from the Akron Beacon Journal begins this way: “Ada Weimer: Founder Of Drama Club Mrs. Ada P. Weimer, 78, founder of the Firestone Park Dramatic Club and its director for 30 years, died at Edwin Shaw Hospital Wednesday after a six-month illness. Born in Akron, Mrs. Weimer, 1384 Grant St., attended Greensburg High School and Heidelberg College. For many years, she was a Sunday school superintendent at Firestone Park Methodist Church, of which she was a member.” Apart from that, it lists her three sons and daughter whom she “left behind.” No mention of her peanut butter cookies though. Occasionally, after much begging, she would also make popcorn “from scratch” in a kettle. Not mentioned. She also spent a lot of time canning for the extensive “root cellar” my grandparents had in their basement. Not mentioned. Sometimes, she would walk with me up Grant Street to meet Grandpa at the bus stop. On the way, she never failed to scowl at the “beer joint” up the street where the overwhelming odor of beer and alcohol would flood out onto the street. Not mentioned. On rainy days, Grandma would take out two large shoe boxes that contained her extensive post card collection. Each had a photo, or more rarely, a cartoon, on one side and a hand-written or hand-printed note on the other side. They had come from many US states and from many countries around the world. The foreign ones also had interesting stamps to ponder with miniature scenes or portraits or animals from far-away places. I found all of it fascinating: the varieties of handwriting, the stamps, the pictures, the addresses. I would often ask her who these people were and what their comments meant. Usually, she would answer, but occasionally she wouldn’t. The newspaper was silent on the whole matter. Not one single post card was cited.

Grandma was affectionate as was her sister Mary, but their sister Emma took the cake. She was forever pawing, fawning, making a fuss, telling me nursery rhymes, hugging, kissing, etc. All three of these women were somewhat overweight and typically wore loose print dresses. I tend to think of my grandmother mainly wearing white, or off-white dresses with small flowers printed on them. Mary, on the other hand, the largest of the three, tended to wear dark blue dresses with white flowers. Emma typically wore brown or yellow dresses but made up for it with bright red lipstick and lots of make up. That entire branch of the family held family reunions every year. Much later, I met a cousin of Mom’s that had grown up with her family for a time.  He eventually became a psychology professor at an Ivy League School. Although I met numerous distant uncles and cousins over the years, I don’t much recall any of these more distant relatives. Grandma’s mother had come from Wales. My Grandpa painted a picture of the Welsh cottage that she was born in. It was beautiful and set in beautiful country but quite modest in size.

Now, speaking of Grandpa, he was as different and distinct from Grandma as Mom was from Dad. Grandpa smelled of pipe tobacco and although he too, like Dad, seldom laughed very demonstrably, he always seemed to have a twinkle in his grey eyes. Grandpa was extremely smart and knew about everything; or so it seemed at the time. Besides that, he was multi-talented. He worked as an engineer, but he was also an artist of some note. He was also an accomplished musician. Best of all, from my perspective, he was an excellent teacher. When we went out to the garden to pick corn on the cob, he taught me something about plants, soil or gardening. Einstein died when I was almost ten years old. Grandpa showed me the item about it in the Akron Beacon Journal and then proceeded to tell me about Einstein’s work (in elementary terms). He subscribed to “Sky and Telescope” as well as “The Atlantic” and “Scientific American” and the magazine of the American Museum of Natural History. He would point out particular articles to me and then discuss them with me or explain something in more detail.

No need to point out and describe every single person in my family. The main point is that each of these people seemed very very different from the others. Much later, I can see many “family resemblances” in terms of skills, interests, psychology and physical characteristics. But as a child, I perceived none of that. It never even occurred to me that we all needed to breathe or had two arms and two legs. If someone had asked me, I could have answered correctly, of course, but the similarities among these people never crossed my mind. Every week, I listened as The Lone Ranger and Tonto found someone in trouble, tracked down the bad guys, shot a gun out of their hand and rode away. After they were gone, the beneficiaries of their bravery would remark that they didn’t know the true identity of The Lone Ranger, but he had left behind a single silver bullet. In retrospect, these stories were quite formulaic. But at the time, every story was just a different story. And so it was with folks in my family. They were different. They were individuals. Beyond that, they collectively made up the space of possible individuals.

As childhood continued, of course, that people-space continued to grow. New people often revealed, not just that people could be more extreme on existing dimensions such as age, size, or how much they laughed, but they forced me to consider and construct entirely new dimensions as well. People, it turned out, came in different colors; they spoke with different accents. In fact, they spoke in entirely different languages! When I was about three and a half, Mom, Dad and I all left for Portugal. My Mom told me later that I was frustrated that a bunch of Greek sailors could not communicate with me. I don’t recall this. But I do recall a little of learning to speak Portuguese although to me, it was not “learning to speak a different language.” It was just that I encountered people who spoke differently and I learned to communicate with them. Some people don’t laugh much while others laugh quite a lot. Similarly, some people spoke the way I was used to and others spoke some entirely different way. It never occurred to me, as a child, that they spoke an entirely different language and certainly not that they spoke that strange other way because of their own family and their own country. If asked, I imagine that I might have answered that they chose to speak Portuguese rather than English. But mainly, it just was. I didn’t consider why people were fat or skinny; why they spoke with an accent or not; why some people were male and some female; why some were old and some were young. Each person was simply and completely the way they were. They went about their business and as I interacted with them they punched at the edges of the net of my ideas about what people were like. Each person punched outwards in their own direction and the space of people grew larger and larger and larger.

I guess not everyone reacts that same way. It now seems to me, as an adult, that some people only expand their space of people a little ways from the points laid down by their first family and friends. When someone is too different, they are not really part of the whole human condition, but instead, are assigned to some other category such as “old person” or “toddler” or “professional athlete” or “foreigner” or “cripple” or “gay.” For some, each category requires special treatment different from all the rest. If, for instance, a “professional athlete” assaults or rapes someone, that might be okay because there are special rules for such folks. If, on the other hand, a “foreigner” assaults or rapes someone, they should at least be put in prison and quite possibly killed.

Indeed, even my own family gave some hints that this was the way to think about people. You had to be careful with grandparents because they were “old” and could be easily injured or broken into small pieces. When my cousin threw a xylophone across the room and hit me in the head, no punishment was forthcoming because he was “just a little kid” and “didn’t know any better.” When I went to the hospital, people did not seem to be treated as people but rather as “patients” or perhaps as “pneumonia” or “burn victim” or “appendicitis.” Given names were rarely used. Although, even as an adult, I see that there are commonalities in the way doctors need to treat patients with particular diseases, it seems to me that there are also often important differences as well.

One way that people differ quite a bit is how they treat and categorize other people. To me, every new individual I meet still seems quite different although the differences I see now are not nearly so gigantic as the differences that I saw as a child. It might be similar to the way in which both our house and my grandparents’ houses seemed gigantic in that there were so many separate places or regions to the house.

In the next blog, I examine further implications of family matters.

——————————————

(The story above and many cousins like it are compiled now in a book available on Amazon: Tales from an American Childhood: Recollection and Revelation. I recount early experiences and then related them to contemporary issues and challenges in society).

Tales from an American Childhood

Author Page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/truthtable

Nancy the Nurse

13 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by in psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

img_5044

Our second grade teacher at David Hill Elementary School loved contests. She had contests on naming classical pieces of music that she played on a phonograph. I won. She had contests for knowing facts about the world and about the USA. I won. She had contests on spelling. I won. She had contests for math facts but I did not win. Why? Because even though I knew all the answers, she didn’t call on me so often as she did some of the girls in the class and one of them won. At the time, I thought this wildly unfair though looking back on it, she might have been trying to encourage some of the others not to give up. She had a reading contest. I won.

And, unlike any of the other contests, the person who won the reading contest would receive a prize from her. That prize consisted of choosing whatever Golden Book we wanted. Golden Books, for those who do not recall, were small books for kids, each bound on the edge with gold. Well, it probably wasn’t actually gold, but it was gold in color. The front and back covers were also rimmed with a gold pattern. So, right off the bat, Golden Books were pretty cool! Each Golden Book also featured, on the back cover, a list of every Golden Book!  What a clever marketing ploy. Anyway, after I won the reading contest, she handed me a Golden Book so I could pick my title from the back cover. I scanned the list very carefully. One and only one came with merchandise! Yes, Nancy the Nurse, the index promised, came with real band-aids!

In order to understand the appeal of this feature, you need to understand where my family lived. Our family’s small one-story two bedroom house sat on a busy street.  Most of the block contained other small, one-story two bedroom houses like ours although they differed in the color of the roof and the siding. Our house was white with green trim. However, as luck would have it, at the very end of my block were three vacant lots! These were not mere fields of weeds or turned up dirt clods like most of the vacant lots in the area. Huge trees! Grape vines! A few dirt paths criss-crossed this forest, this wilderness, this jungle. It was Eden. Only better because our Eden lacked any adult supervision.

And therein lay both the beauty and the danger. At the end of the block, in those ancient verdant stands of oak and beech, we lived or died by our own wits every day. Well. Every day until our parents called us in for supper when it got dark. But meanwhile, we needed to fend for ourselves and prepare for every emergency.

So, a book — that is one thing. But a book that came with *real bandaids*! That meant that I could construct an emergency medical kit for our wilderness adventures! So, of course, I chose as my prize, Nancy the Nurse!  

My teacher, Miss Hall, looked at me for a moment, paused, and then quietly suggested, “I think you probably mean Tommy the Doctor.” She slid her gnarly finger down to show me the title. Well, Tommy the Doctor did sound pretty cool. Indeed, my own nickname had once been “Tommy.” However, there was nothing in the description of Tommy the Doctor that gave even the slightest hint of real bandaids so I said, “No, thanks. I’ll take Nancy the Nurse.

My teacher, Miss Hall, paused, raised her voice just a tad and asked, “How about this one? Mike the Mechanic.”  Clever the way her voice reminded me of victorious trumpets when she mentioned the name. Still, again, there was nothing there about the book being accompanied by a toolkit or indeed even a bandaid. So, again, I repeated, “No, thanks I’ll just take Nancy the Nurse.” Miss Hall made a few more increasingly desperate attempts but all to no avail. I was puzzled by all of this. She had made it very clear that the winner would be able to chose any Golden Book.  At last, she grew weary of the game as had I and she took a different tack.  “Well, I will have to check with your parents.” And so she did. To their credit, my parents had no qualms at all about my choosing Nancy the Nurse. 

Soon the book came. I do not recall, but I am guessing that I did read the book. I read most everything I could get my hands on. But I recall nothing about the book. It did really come with bandaids however, and I found an old lunch pail to hold my emergency wilderness kit. However, as anyone knows, an emergency survival wilderness kit needs more than bandaids. For example, a method of remote emergency communication could prove vital. Kids back then did not have cell phones; mainly because they had not yet been invented. So, I needed another method. Something brightly colored would be good. In TV shows and movies, someone in danger often shot off a flare gun. Sadly, my parents did not own a flare gun. However, what they did have was a typewriter. And that typewriter had a ribbon with dark black on one half of the strip and a bright red on the other.

My parents never used the typewriter. And they had been very supportive of part one of my plan for the emergency kit; namely, the bandaids. I had no inkling they would be any less thrilled by my appropriation of the typewriter ribbon. And, sure enough the very first day, I had reason to use it. One of the kids found a gigantic caterpillar. I had already shown everyone my “flare” and explained its use. I removed the ribbon from my kit holder, took the ribbon cartridge in my right hand and gave a *tremendous* underhand throw. Sure enough, the red and black ribbon deployed beautifully, rocketing sky high. Maybe none of the other kids were looking and maybe as a consequence I had to yell to them to come see the caterpillar but that misses the point. The point is, it had worked. I carefully would the ribbon back up for another emergency.

I can’t recall how long life continued in this idyllic condition, but somewhere along the line, to my great surprise, my parents claimed an interest in using the typewriter. This, in turn, proved difficult precisely because there was no ribbon. They seemed perturbed to learn that the ribbon was intact, but meanwhile, rather than just sitting in the typewriter doing nothing for weeks, I had used it on multiple occasions to send emergency flares into the sky.

I suppose, by adult standards, none of the emergencies really “counted” because we were never really hurt, or lost, or attacked by wild beasts, but my point was that if any of those things had happened, we were prepared. Thanks to me. But thanks is not what I got. What I got was incredulity. What I got was yelling. What I got was a spanking. What I got was a lecture about not taking things that don’t belong to you, at least without asking.

The problem was that in my parents’ minds, the use of the typewriter ribbon was the typewriter, pure and simple. They had what I now know is called “functional fixedness.” They failed to see that a typewriter ribbon can serve as a typewriter ribbon when needed, but meanwhile can also be used as an excellent flare gun. They seemed to have a similar problem regarding the siding on the house. Yes, it could be used to form a wall that kept warm air in but it could also be used as a partner in a ball game if no-one else was around.

On the other hand, sometimes my parents teamed up with innovation. They didn’t seem to have any problem with my using old cardboard boxes and paper towel rolls to make castles or the use of short Lincoln Logs as soldiers. Using marbles as soldiers caused no problems. Using sticks and stones to make homes for toy dinosaurs was okay too. So, I’m not sure “functional fixedness” precisely named their problem. I think our main difference was that I saw things primarily in terms of their uses. Well — especially, my uses. Sure, the typewriter ribbon might be an important part of a typewriter, but if no-one ever used the typewriter and therefore never used the ribbon, why not let it become more useful by being an emergency flare gun?  If no-one ever actually wore the diamond ring in my mother’s jewelry box, why not give it to my girlfriend at school instead? My mother found out and marched up to school to demand the ring back, quite rightly pointing out that the ring had not been mine to give away.

Many years later, I discovered that the ring in question was an engagement ring from my mother’s first husband. My mother and dad fell in love in college. But when World War Two came to America, my dad lied about his age and volunteered. My mother was both angry and heart-broken. She married another older man who hadn’t volunteered to go off and fight a war. Yet, in life’s inimical and ironic ways, he was almost immediately drafted and went off to fight the Nazis himself. One day she had Army Officers appear on the doorstep to inform her of his death. Meanwhile, my dad was having his own trials and tribulations. He received a Purple Heart for a shrapnel wound in his shoulder but went back into combat. He and his squad were again shelled and my dad’s lower leg was shattered. His buddy was severely wounded and they were under fire so my dad hobbled them to safety further injuring his shattered leg. His fighting days were over and he shipped back to the USA where he and my mother were reunited. She still kept the ring as a remembrance but never wore it because, after all, she was now married to my dad.

At the time when my dad volunteered to go into the Army, he, like most Americans, only knew that we had been attacked at Pearl Harbor and that we were now at war with Germany, Italy, and Japan. Although people were certainly aware of Hitler’s rhetoric against Jews and his “White Supremacist” non-sense, the full horrors of the concentration camps and pogroms were not revealed until later. Even with all the alt-right propaganda panderings of Goebbels, the German leaders may have still have been ashamed to let the world know precisely what they were doing. It might seem difficult to believe that the German people didn’t know. However, we must remember that one of Hitler’s first moves was to eliminate the free press and put a “Minister of Information” as one of his top aides. Rather than having his second in command someone who actually knew how to make Germany more productive and wealthier, his primary  job was to make it seem as though this was happening, that Germany was winning the war, etc. and that any small remaining problems were due to a lack of patriotism and the “Jewish Problem.”

Of course, I didn’t know any of this in the second grade. All I knew was that to be fully effective in our corner jungle, we would have to have a medical kit and a flare. And, I suppose when my dad was under fire in North Africa and in Italy, his unit did have medical kits and flare guns and a lot more beside. But it wasn’t enough to prevent hot shrapnel from flying through the air and maiming and killing people. And, I honestly don’t know at this juncture what can help keep people safe from the clouds of hate that threaten to hurl us back into a second Dark Ages.

You don’t need a medical degree to know that some wounds cannot be staunched with bandaids. Flare guns, we definitely don’t need. Signs and signals aplenty like bombs bursting in air overhead shot out into the night sky for months and months. But people apparently dismissed them as normal atmospheric disturbances. So that now, after the dictatorial excesses of the late 1930’s and early 1940’s led to so many millions of deaths — German, Japanese, Italian, Russian, Canadian, French, English, American and others from virtually every continent, now we stand poised to do it all again. We are ready to beat every last one of our plowshares into swords. We are sick of science and making progress on disease and understanding the earth and exploring space. Instead, we want to wallow and wade in the wickedness of self-righteous bigotry. We are ready to fray the fabric of America. Something precious has been given away. And it wasn’t even ours to give away. It belonged to the heroes of other eras. And, unlike the diamond ring, this stolen gift will not be easily retrieved.

Of course, you might want to stock up an extra supply of bandaids. I doubt it will help much, but it can’t hurt. The jungle now will not be filled with oak trees and grape vines. And it won’t just be a few vacant lots of the end of the block. Vacant lots will waste away on every block as society unravels. Even the lots with massive iron-barred mansions will only populated by the vacant-eyed. Diamond rings will all have been confiscated as gifts for a chosen few.

Well, what about “Nancy the Nurse”? Well, Nancy earned her M.D. and became head of surgery at a prestigious University teaching hospital. But when it came right down to having her perform life-saving operations, the patients opted instead for Timmy the Technician. It turned out that Timmy didn’t actually have any technical or medical expertise. But he was big and brash and beige. Patients may die but no-one will be sued for wrongful death. Indeed, every death all along that long, loveless lane will be deemed as a righteous death. After all, every righteous death shall become just another … brick …  in … the … wall.

Author Page on Amazon