Archive | Musings

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Education in America

  The current crises in over racial education in primary school leave me without a response. The voices I hear speak the language of extremism on both sides, are irreconcilable, so will lead to nothing but name-calling. I think back on my own racial education; I don’t remember not knowing that the nation has always […]

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Sanitizing the Language

Readers should be warned that the following is written by a deaf-old-woman-writer who loves the language in all its dimensions. I’ve lived long enough to remember previous efforts to change attitudes by manipulating the language, and I urge political correctness proponents to look more carefully at the consequences of those previous attempts. I understand the […]

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Goodbye Bridget

    Our sixteen-year-old basenji, Bridget, died in her sleep last week, an event that fills us with both sadness and relief. Blind for the last three or four years, increasingly senile, with a sensitive stomach to boot, she took a lot of patience and a lot of care. She was the sixth of eleven […]

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The Two-faced Power of Place

    I’m realizing, as I cope with age and its disabilities, that a good part of the fear of growing old is loss of place—of being a part of something larger than myself—and the importance this plays in our identity. For many, especially women of my age, family remains the primary group, and in […]

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Hello Again

Please forgive the silence of my blog since the new year began. I celebrated Friday the 13th by breaking my leg. Some might say it’s an omen for the year, but I’m not in the mood to accept that. After a rude three-week introduction to the helplessness of old age, I’m now reclaiming my place […]

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Looking Back—Looking Ahead

As I sat down to write this last blog of 2022, I looked back at the blog I wrote at the beginning of the year. Here is the opening paragraph. I don’t know how to start this new year that feels already old. The usual resolutions seem irrelevant, the questions bewildering, the answers out of […]

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Now Comes the Test

Election 2022 is all but over. A few races are yet to be counted, and we don’t yet know the final count of the US Senate, but we have enough to see the road ahead. We are an evenly divided country with an evenly divided government, but the Democrats have escaped decimation. Will we have […]

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In Memoriam–Paula

In Memoriam     Paula Oct. 22, 1962-Jul. 23, 1982   Autumn is here. The air has cooled, the breeze turned brisk, the green world begun to color, the lethargy of summer transformed into the energy of expectation. It’s Paula’s month. Yesterday, her sister, Miriam, and I agreed that the air is full of her. […]

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It’s Time to Act: VOTE!

I was browsing through my blogs today, looking for topics and wondering why nothing seemed appropriate. Then I realized I’d committed the chief failing of my academic upbringing—analyzing causes when the time has come for action. So enough reflection. The upcoming election is more vital to the nation’s welfare than any in history. It’s time […]

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Take Back the Flag

One of the saddest developments of the national crisis is that we’ve come to identify the American flag with the far right, and assume that residents of houses flying the flag must be Trump supporters. It’s hardly new that the far right believes they are more American than liberals. Calling opponents “Un-American” was a favorite […]

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To My Fellow Midwesterners

    I’m a Midwesterner. It’s been a long time since I left, but I’m still a Chicagoan—from Carl Sandburg’s “Hog-butcher of the World” Chicago. The Chicago of my day was the rail center that brought the farm to market. Though I was born, raised, educated, and married there, my roots are in the small […]

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