Epic fail on the latter, but a Higher Power isn't finished with me yet. ;)
It wasn't much better when I was a teenager. With a shot gun displayed in the corner of the entry, my father would ask my dates, "You DO know how to tell time, right?" My mother would perch above the front porch when my dates would bring me home, and right when that goodnight kiss was about to be planted on my lips, you'd hear a voice piercing somewhere within the moonlight and romantic night air: "I SEE you." If I didn't come home by curfew, my dad would go out (no matter what time of night), in his welding truck, and search for me (and my brother, who was usually my "Loki"-in crime). Embarrassment was a weapon my parents used often. It worked.
I also remember doing the dishes, and my mother inspecting the dishes for any spots or caked-on food. If I even had one dish that had either, she would take what I thought were "clean" dishes, and throw them back into the sink, run another sink full of hot dishwater, and I had to wash the entire batch of dishes again. Same thing with ironing. She'd stack up a pile of bed sheets and pillowcases and have me iron the entire stack. My own logic was, "What the...? Who is going to even see whether there's a wrinkle in bedsheets and pillowcases?" Nevertheless, I spent many hours ironing and correctly folding both bedsheets and pillowcases. I never understood what I thought were useless, stupid lessons...until I became an adult.
As products of the Depression Era, my parents taught me everything they knew, and handed down to me - from the generations before them - time-tested truths needed to survive in an unforgiving world. I remember sitting at the knee of my Aunt Wanda, learning how to crochet. Do I crochet now? Hell, no (God bless her soul). But the time spent with an amazing woman who poured her favorite teas out of a whistling tea pot, and told me stories of our family's past has never left my heart and mind? PRICELESS! My mother would also have me spend days with my grandmother, who taught me to cook and sew...it was those moments when I knew why my mom's stew, chili, casseroles and homemade jerky tasted so good. I remember when I sewed my first skirt. I remember when I crocheted my first pot-holder (a feat to be commended as my Aunt Wanda's beautiful afghans would cascade down over her legs, all the while musing over my pitiful rendition of what might be called a potholder). I remember why my parents told me that it takes work for everything to work. I remember why it felt so very good to finally have a day off from a hard day's work. I remember why my parent's standards were so high for me.
I had parents who cared, which, I realize is a very rare thing these days. One of my very favorite lessons my parents taught me? Anything worth doing is worth doing right...the first time.
America seems to have been ignoring the wisdom of the ages, has had this unrealistic logic that today's media, sales and marketing to the masses will cure the ills of the economy. Let me tell you about "ills". My parents didn't call the doctor when I had an illness. They let me sweat it out; they wanted me to fight it. My parents didn't care "what people thought", they ignored them. My parents were staunch Republicans, but did that matter? No. Because, at the end of the day...my mother's dying days...everything she taught me was brought back, loud and clear. Fight. Because our government did not do things right the first time. Because those who are jaded and dulled to corporate media's ears do not care enough to know when the first time even existed. Because we live in a world so closed and jaded to the global one, you go. You see the world for what it is.
My mother, on her first dying bed, asked me what it was like to scuba dive. I told her that it is a world beyond what you could imagine, as I tried to explain a nudibranch and the eyes of a barracuda. She asked me to describe what the Mayan temples were like. She asked me to tell her what I've seen in the world, what I've learned. I told her that there are amazing places out there. She wanted to travel; she wanted to see what I saw. This woman...who saw nothing but her own oasis in the plains of Wyoming...asked me what the world is like.
Now I have a grand-daughter. She just turned four years old on July 19th. It seems like yesterday when I was changing her diapers, blowing bubbles in the backyard, falling into an afternoon nap to Sponge Bob Square Pants or a Disney princess movie. She is growing up in Sutter Creek, and I want her to love and enjoy everything that her hometown, family and friends bring to her world. I have a vested interest in Amador County, not just because I used to live there, presently work there and because of Amador Community News. It has everything to do with my grand-daughter. I want her to grow up in a community that will get their educational issues sorted out fast (and that means MUSIC). It means that I want my grand-daughter to understand the importance of family legacy, based upon HISTORY. It means that I want my grand-daughter to think for herself and make the world a better place based upon SCIENCE and EXPLORATION. It means that I want my grand-daughter to decide for herself where her tender SPIRITUALITY lies. It means that I want her to know who she is in a world far away from her grandma, who still perks tea on a 60's vintage stovetop.
So Amador County powers that be...clean your rooms. It's a pigsty. And quit crying about budget cuts and whatnot...or I'll give you something to cry about.
Carol Harper
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