A Bus With a View

I have been a public bus rider for most of my life. When my sister Judy and I were children, our single mother owned no car. Indeed she never even learned to drive a car. While Mother was working at her job as a waitress, Judy and I would hop on a bus and go wherever we wanted--mainly downtown though. I remember our several summers spent on the Mississippi Coast when we rented either a small apartment or a small Airstream trailer on Highway 90 across the street from the beach. Mother said, "Just go outside and wait at the bus stop; a bus will come by in about twenty minutes." We did that to go to town and to go to church on Sundays at the now blown-away First Baptist Church in Gulfport. As a child, one would think that she would be fascinated by the sights outside the bus window such as the white sand beaches, the stately older homes dating back to the nineteenth century, the many piers, and the restaurants along the way. Not me--I was fascinated instead by the view of the people on the bus.

Our book club finishes our discussion today of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed. In her evaluation near the end of the non-fiction book, Barbara observes that the affluent simply don't ride public buses or subways. Instead they take a quick cab to whatever location they need or drive to it in their cars. I had reason in October to reflect upon the truth of Ehrenreich's statement.

My husband Garlan and I spent a month in Seattle back in the fall to see our daughter Kimberly and her family, both immediate and extended. We chose to ride the metro buses to go wherever we needed to go since our daughter was obviously quite busy with a full-time job at Microsoft as a product manager and an ever-growing and exploring toddler.

It took only a day or so of this routine before we made an observation about our view on the buses. The clientele could be categorized into three over-lapping categories: the elderly, the very poor, and the mentally and physically challenged. With their city-dispensed cards, they could ride the bus for a mere $.25 or $.50. Here's just a slight bit of what we observed in our month of riding public transportation:

A caregiver with her Ipod and her earphones in her ears to block out the repetitive sounds of her charge, a somewhat disheveled middle-aged woman who looked to be in her forties. Occasionally, the caregiver would shove her or speak cruel words of direction such as, "Quit that now; sit up and behave." We saw them on the same bus route several times, and the treatment was much the same.

A young man with dreadlocks and a cowboy hat who sat by me on one of the bus rides into downtown. During the fifteen minutes or so (he sat beside me), he told me he was bi-polar, had spent the night in a local shelter, but had to leave because he came close to "decking" one of the shelter's workers. Evidently, the young man had made a small joke about the worker's purple tie being like Barney's, and the joke almost led to a major altercation. He was on his way then to the waterfront piers.

While waiting at the bus stop on Third Street close to the Pacific Place mall and the West Lake Mall, we watched as a woman picked through the muddy soil where a city tree was planted in order to recover several cigarette butts to smoke.

The next day on KING 5 news we heard that in the exact location where we had been standing the day before a homeless man accosted another homeless man. The latter took out his gun and shot the man dead before an astonished crowd of onlookers. Evidently, The Seattle Post-Intelligencier reported the dead man had bi-polar also and was off his medication. The shooter had permission to carry a concealed weapon and was not charged in the incident.

Yes, I agree with the author of Nickel and Dimed. If the middle-class and above rode the public buses and subways more often, they would not talk about the "invisible poor" but be able to witness the plight of these folks more readily. Perhaps then, they could address the issue of poverty and the mentally and physically challenged more forcefully.

To Janis, George, and the Seekers

Several weeks back I watched a biography of Janis Joplin on the Biography Channel. Since my birth year approximates hers (she was born in 1943 and I in 1944), I began to realize that our lives were parallel to one another. The same is true of Beatle George Harrison, also born in 1943. As I have done some more reading on these two influential musicians, I have come to an awareness that both were seekers as well as non-conformists. I follow somewhat into that line of thinking also.

Janis was a native of Port Arthur, Texas, and grew up like several of us in the early 1960's with a realization that segregation was not necessarily the best choice for society. Her support of African American issues alienated her from her classmates. When she had achieved great prominence in the latter part of the decade, she returned home for a high school reunion. Evidently, her parents were appalled by her dress and behavior and kept a very low profile during the event, even leaving town to avoid the publicity that followed Janis everywhere she went. I believe she wanted acceptance from her high school peers, but she never received it. She lived her life as a non-conformist and seeker, hooked on alcohol and heroin until her early death at age 27.

George likewise was a non-conformist and a seeker. His biography indicates that his school did not appreciate his choice to wear jeans to school and to have long hair in the early 1960's. George also often found it difficult to adapt to what he considered the rules and regulations of Christianity. He, therefore, became a seeker of other religious philosophies. His settled upon Hinduism since he felt it was large enough to accommodate a variety of ideas and thoughts. Since the Mantras, or religious chants, are musical, he was pulled further into the faith and its emphasis upon meditation.

Like Janis and George, in our parallel worlds, I have never accepted easily the tenets of my culture and faith without many questions. When I was 15, I was astonished to read the court trial papers of the murder of fourteen year old Emmett Till in the county in Mississippi in which I lived. I, like the rest of the country, realized these two defendants were guilty, yet like OJ Simpson, they were acquitted of a brutal crime. My subsequent brief conversation with one of the defendants' lawyers convinced me that I needed to seek a different journey, which would take me away from the prevalent voices of my state.

My journey away from my original church denomination of childhood has been longer, fully fought, and arduous. The first glimmer of it began, as a child of divorced parents in the early 1950's, as I watched my mother struggle, like George, with the rules and regulations of the faith. It began in the 1960's when my husband and I were college students. It has continued to the present. Could we ever find a faith that truly accepted with love and grace all races and all sinners? Could I, an avid seeker of truth, ever have a position of leadership in a church that told me every Sunday that I could not? Could our daughter be welcomed and accepted because she lived an openly gay life?

My struggle is especially problematic because all of the most wonderful times of my life were spent in that denomination. It was in that denomination that the church ministered to our family when we were in dire poverty during my parents' difficult marriage, it was the church in which I was baptized at the age of nine, it was there where I met my to be husband to be in 1962, it was there where I was the honoree of a traditional White Bible ceremony before my marriage, and it was there where my own children were baptized.

I still have no answers as I continue my search for truth, but unlike Janis and George, whose search led them to alcohol, drugs, or other religions, I stay within Christianity convinced that a benevolent God will show me the answer in His time.

City and Country Grandmothers

Our daughter-in-law, Carrie, had a birthday this week. A week before the event our eight year old granddaughter, Caitlyn, called me to tell me there was going to be a surprise party for her mother and that she would be planning all the details. She then listed off the items I was to bring: a snack, some nuts, a present, and a game like "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" to play. I did go ahead and bring everything she listed though I decided a thirty-eight year old might not enjoy the donkey game as much as an eight year old. I decided instead to bring a quotations game from Carrie's favorite movie Gone With the Wind. I even brought some lip gloss in four tiny containers that spelled LOVE as a prize for the winner, knowing Carrie would surely win it.
Checking signals with the other grandmother, Cappy, I discovered that Caitlyn had given her a different list of items to bring to the party: guacamole and chocolate chip cookies. On the afternoon of the party, Caitlyn told me by phone to come early so that I could help set the party up.

From someone who had just one birthday party in her life, my eleventh, because Mother had a new boyfriend who said he would pay to have a shared party with a friend who was born one day after me. It took place at the location that we used to call the Indian Mound. We had a picnic on a particular warm November day and then searched for arrowheads on the little hill that was somewhat of a small tourist attraction in Greenville, Mississippi, in the 1950's.

Carrie's birthday party was not the first time I have seen evidence in my granddaughter of many skills that I do not personally possess. In late summer, we had a family dinner with my sister Judy and her husband, Bobby, from Texas plus Caitlyn, her little brother Charlie, and her parents. When she arrived at the house, she immediately asked about the flower arrangement for the dining table. I told her I had none. She swiftly looked out the back door of the house, saw the still blooming rose bushes in the yard, asked for a vase, and soon put fresh flowers on the table. While she was in kindergarten, she won second prize in a regional art contest by painting a picture of a cow. Her other grandmother is an artist.

I have sometimes found myself wondering, with all of Caityn's talent for putting together a Martha Stewart party and house, how I can compete with the city grandmother's skills that Cailtyn has inherited. What will my legacy to Caitlyn be? After all, I am the country grandmother. Garlan and I have always had to watch our money very carefully. Our idea of a dream vacation in the 1970's was to put the children into our old car, attach our foldout camper, and go to Nashville for a week. We spent $140 for that trip. Through the years we have loved to participate in as many free activities as possible such as feeding the ducks on a lovely spring day at the park and checking out some books at the library, taking a short trip to see nineteenth century history in log cabins at the no-admission fee Harbor Village in Grove, Oklahoma, or hiking up the Yellow Rock trail in Devil's Den State Park and buying banana Popsicles when we returned.

The answer to my question is that Caityn will be a composite of both of us, Cappy and me. I can often see my own resemblance to the grandmother that raised me from age twelve through high school. We called her Mam. She never visited anyone without taking a gift from her kitchen; the most well-received was her famous Apricot Nectar Cake. She was faithful in visiting the shut-ins of the church and always took them a Home Life magazine to read for the month. I always accompanied her on these trips, and I hope I can continue the tradition with Caitlyn. The country grandmother gave her for Christmas a pink city apron from Williams Sonoma that has a crown on it and the word Princess. She will be a blend of both of us I am convinced and will always be our little shared princess.

Imagine

One of my favorite songs of all times is John Lennon's "Imagine." For me, I have always been a dreamer like John. It would certainly be great these days to "Imagine all the people / Living life in peace" with "No need for greed or hunger."

As I think about the hunger element of our world today, I often feel guilty about the massive amounts of food we Americans consume, and even throw away each day. The Today show has recently featured a series on the idea that 60 is the new 40. My, I wish it were true. Both my husband and I weighed far less in our 40's than we do today. Experts tell us that, if we eat just 50 calories more each day, we'll gain 5 extra pounds a year. Garlan and I have averaged l 1/2 or 2 1/2 pounds of weight gain per year since we married in 1965. Today, with all the emphasis on obesity in our society, we try hard to eat lots of salads, fruit, and soups. We also exercise from 3-5 times a week. I walk 2 to 2 1/2 miles five days a week, and he goes to physical therapy for his back and hip problem to ride a stationary bicycle and do other upper and lower body exercises. Yet, in spite of our efforts, the metabolism of the new 40 has still not set in for us.

I was reading a few weeks back in Joanna Seibert's book Healing Presence when I noticed one of the lines from a prayer in The Book of Common Prayer under "The Blessing of the Marriage": " . . . bring them to that table where your saints feast for ever in your heavenly home." I love to imagine the idea presented there, which is actually very similar to the image in Psalm 23 where God prepares a table for us and anoints our heads with oil. The idea is similar also to the one in Albert Brooks' comedy Defending Your Life in which Meryl Streep plays the character of Julia who can eat forever after death anything she wants and never gain weight. Both of the images are quite appealing to me.

The Great Divide

Our book study this week is discussing Barbara Ehrenreich's experience of working for Wal Mart in her non-fiction expose of the working poor. I have thought for several hours about what I wanted to share in the group in that our discussion first is to elicit each person's personal response to the literary selection of the week. My experience has been enriched somewhat because I have been exposed to both sides of the great divide in America; I am a representative of both the privileged and the poor.

As a faculty member for twenty-two years at John Brown University, I have been privileged to attend women's leadership conferences at Greystone Estates in Rogers, Arkansas--just a few miles from the Wal Mart company headquarters. The house is currently owned by the Don Soderquist family. Don was chairman of the Board of Trustees at John Brown for many years and retired several years ago as CEO of the company. The sumptuous house and executive conference center sits on Beaver Lake surrounded by many tree-covered acres. Inside, one finds a number of bedrooms accompanied by luxurious bathrooms. The meeting area often occurs in a gigantic cathedral ceiling living room with a stone fireplace and a view of the swimming pool. The house, built in the 70's, even boasts a bomb shelter with an escape route in a national or personal emergency of some type. I have eaten several catered gourmet meals there and even (here I show my lower class background) slipped into my purse upon departure a single bar of the unopened goat milk spa soap from the bathroom.

My other experience with the company, other than as a rare consumer of its products, comes from our daughter's two temporary jobs there. It was 1992 when Garlan and I drove out to Los Angeles to move our daughter home to Arkansas. She had been a graduate student at the University of Southern California majoring in film and literature. She was simply burned out after reaching the "all but dissertation" stage of her Ph.D. She wanted time to evaluate her life and her direction. When she arrived home, she interviewed for several jobs only to be told she was way over-qualified for the positions and likely would not stay long if hired. As a result of being unable to find professional work, she turned to a temporary job agency. One of her first jobs was to work at the Wal Mart headquarters retrieving computer disks for those who needed them at any given time. Since the area she worked in was like a warehouse, the workers were provided skates to increase their productivity as they dashed madly around to locate the desired disks. Her second job was with Sam's Club where she spent hours doing telemarketing for the auto club part of the company. I don't remember her salary since the job agency received the largest majority of it, but I am sure she made the required minimum wage.

Having lived in Northwest Arkansas for the past thirty-four years, I believe most people there have a love-hate relationship with the company. On the one hand, we feel tremendous pride that one of our own in one of the poorest states in the union, Sam Walton, was able to "make it big" as we say in the South. On the other hand, practically everyone has his or her own personal story to share about relatives or others being on welfare because of the thirty hour workweek (just below the legal requirement to provide company benefits like health coverage, 401 K's, and so on). We also worry about the mom and pop stores in the almost empty small downtowns because of their inability to compete with price and product.

What is the answer to the great economic divide in our country, not just Wal Mart employees, of course, but countless others throughout our country? Will we continue, as the privileged middle class, to enjoy the fruit of our labor for just ourselves and our families while we continue to ignore the inability of the working poor to provide for their families?

Useful Lives

Our satellite system recently dropped Court TV in favor of the Biography Channel. In spite of many ads urging outraged viewers to call or write in to complain, the system has kept the Biography Channel. I have always been interested in this form of reality. Even as a child of nine, my favorite genre when Judy and I went to the library in Greenville, Mississippi, was biography or autobiography. Now we speak more of memoir, indicating in the new term perhaps a realization that all might not exactly be reality but heavily dependent upon the author's memory of the happenings. In any event, I paused last week to see the last twenty minutes or so of Vivian Leigh's life on the Biography Channel. I was especially interested in one of her last roles before her early death at age fifty-three of tuberculosis.

The role I am writing about is in the movie Ship of Fools in which she plays a disillusioned middle-aged woman. She speaks with her fellow character on the ship's deck and basically says words like these: "I wanted to live a useful life, and I wanted to be loved." I've been thinking about those lines since then. The writers of the film seem to have gotten down a couple of the basic life events that make us happy as we reflect upon our legacies in the twilight years.

The answer to the second question is perhaps the easier of the two for me to answer. I met my husband Garlan when I was a mere seventeen year old just out of high school. He had me, not exactly at hello, but when he asked me for two dates--one for Friday and then one for Saturday as well--the first time we met. I quickly discovered him to be quite generous, spending a lot of his extra money on flowers, gifts, movies, and restaurants for me. I also realized he was a rock of a man, which I greatly needed in my life after being deserted by my father at age four or so. He was also older and wiser it seemed to me, being all of five years older than I. After three years of dating, we married almost forty-two years ago. While life has had many surprises for us through the years, I can honestly say that he has loved me.

The answer to the second question is a little dicier for me. When Garlan and I went to the University of Mississippi as young married students in the late 1960's, we both chose a career path that would limit our future earning potential greatly. He chose city management as a major, and I chose English Education. He served twenty-six years in middle management at a non-profit hospital, and I have taught over thirty-five years in non-profit schools and colleges. We both had some other odd jobs in the private sector during our college years. I would say that in our combined sixty or so work years in the non-profit sector we have not been wildly successful in terms of salary. Compared to the rest of the world, however, we were able to live middle-class lives.

Have our lives been useful again is the question? I have to believe that they have. We through the years have devoted ourselves to various volunteer activities that have given us some feeling of usefulness. These include Sunday School teaching, ushering in church, hosting backyard Bible clubs, working for the AIDS victims in the area as well as the homeless and those in poverty, working for the hospital auxiliary, and serving on various community boards such as the Area Heath Education Center.

As Christians we also think frequently of Jesus' commands: to love God and to love others. These four criteria, including being loved and being useful, do seem to represent a way to happiness, not necessarily to worldly success.

The Search for Quanyae

I called my granddaughter Caitlyn a few weeks before Christmas to ask if she would like to go shopping for a one year old whose name was Quanyae. I had recently been to the mall and impulsively picked up an cardboard angel from the Salvation Army display. On the card were sizes of clothes and shoes as well as toys his family thought he might like. Our daughter Kimberly has done this type of shopping in the past and has recommended it for me as well. I left the display with instructions on how to return the purchased items and by what date.

Caitlyn's first response to my question was, "He doesn't sound American to me," to which I countered, "Well, he probably is an American. He could be that he is African-American or perhaps Asian-American." "O.K., I'll do it," she replied.

When I arrived to pick her up that Saturday morning, both she and her three year old brother were dressed for the shopping event. Caitlyn put her arms around her brother's shoulders, looked intently into his face, and said, "Charlie, we are going shopping for a less fortunate little boy."

"Why we want to do that?" was his only response, but he looked forward anyway to going to Target and getting a Coke and some popcorn. As I pushed Charlie around in the store, he insisted on holding the Angel card while Caitlyn carefully looked for the most she could get for our budgeted money. Like most children would want, the first stop was in the toy department where both Caitlyn and Charlie quickly agreed upon a Red Rider tricycle for Quanyae. Next was the clothes department where we chose a sweater, shirt, and vest combination plus an outdoor jacket. The final stop was back to the toy section to round out our purchase with a couple of small cuddly toys. "He can sleep with this one," Caitlyn said as she held up a small stuffed animal that sang some bedtime lullabies.

After the prerequisite purchases at the snack counter, the grandchildren were too full to go out to eat the promised lunch. I suppose it's too early to know whether this experience, or the one recently at St. Francis house, will have the desired effect on them. I just know that a similar experience was important for me as a child.

One Christmas when I was eight or nine, Mother announced we were not going to have our usual small Christmas (we got just socks and underwear usually anyway and perhaps a $1 box of chocoate-covered cherries, so I cannot say I sacrificed much to forgo it). Instead we would take her tips from the tithe jar, and we would buy Christmas for a needy family. I am sure she was also thinking about the Christmas when Second Baptist Church members brought by groceries and a few toys for Judy and me. I do remember my excitement at the doll house they brought me. I also remember the excitement of the several stair-step, tow-headed children in the little house as their mother opened the door to us on a cool Mississippi delta night.

How do we encourage altruism in our grandchildren, especially if they are privileged? I do not have the answers, but I suppose it is true that it is usually passed down from one generation to the next. Caityn's other set of grandparents serve on a variety of community and college boards and help others in that very positive way. Caitlyn was anxious to talk to me on the phone last week when I called. She said, "Mom B, in my freewriting today at school, I wrote that I was going to have a New Year's resolution to think about myself less and others more." I hope she will, and I hope when Quanyae is an adult he will also be in a position to think of others.