A friend of mine is dying. She is a veteran teacher-colleague of mine that is also a lifelong friend. Along with four others, we began our teaching careers at roughly the same time. We were young, fresh from the 60s and looking to teach social sciences classes in new and challenging ways.
Along with countless meetings, curriculum writing sessions, conferences, and Department get-togethers, there were times when we were all just there for each other for relationship issues, family emergencies, and all manner of difficulties adult life can offer.
I would like to visit this friend. But living about 700 miles away presents problems. But I can write and was urged to do just that. She likes cards. She would like to receive cards. I can do that.
About 2 weeks ago I sent a card. This morning I intended to do the same.
I looked at the "misty forest" portrayed on the front of the card. Staring at the blank page inside I experienced a rare feeling: not knowing what to say, or quite how to say it. These are difficult messages to write because it's hard not to be trite and it is crucial to be appropriate. But what is appropriate for writing to a person that is dying.
Some things are.
I began by telling her that I was aware that she is home and in hospice care. Then I simply told her that I'd been thinking a lot lately about the decades we taught side by side. I always knew that working with a genuinely collaborative group of people was rare and advantageous, but that now, looking back I can see things even clearer. I can appreciate that camaraderie for what it really is.
And what is that?
It is saying "although I am not near, I am with you now." And meaning it.
In his brilliant essay, "Jay Gatsby is a Man For Our Times," writer Adam Cohen makes a strong case for the timelessness of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. What's important here is how the American Dram is defined mostly by materialistic criteria. That is, financial success is valued as the pinnacle of the dream and achieving that success by any means necessary is the reality that sustains.
In fact, Cohen goes so far as to suggest that the green light at the end of Gatsby's dock functions as a sort of traffic signal indicating "Go, get on with it, move, act, the coast is clear. That's why the dream can become a nightmare for those who blindly go forward without heeding or caring about danger from blindly going all in. It is also why so many times things American tend to be over the top. There is no caution, no reflection, often no regard for consequences. Some would argue further that this over the top mentality is a sure sign of a culture in decline.
So it was with this in mind that I began to think about the revelation that the Houston Astros cheated in winning the 2019 World Series. Ironic that it comes 100 years after the famous Black Sox scandal from the 1919 series. Dramatic proof that that green light continues to shine bright.
So the Astros were stealing signs on the Dodger pitching staff. Somebody's conscious decision to break the rules had to impact the entire team. Did they want to win that bad that they had to devise an elaborate system to gain an illegal advantage? Apparently so. What's worse is that on some level they all decided this was OK and that they could live with themselves just fine. I can't wait to hear their explanations. That will be useful.
Of course, the fact that something so American as the World Series can be corrupted will hit hard. Not as hard in 2019 as in 1919, I suppose. Just look at the state of the union today. It seems only natural that in this era of "fake news" and the lack of civility that everything is vulnerable to the forces of corruption. That the American Dream (whatever you deem it to be) is powerful is clear.
I finally found some time to listen to Mo Rocca's wonderful new podcast called "Mobituaries." He's got a book out, too with the same title. Rocca comments on things that no longer exist, hence the name. He does a skillful job of giving these people and institutions that have disappeared from our lives their just due.
This particular show was on the disappearance of an American icon Lawrence Welk. Once the most popular show in television in the 50s and 60s, Welk was summarily dismissed by the ABC network but was wise enough to re-launch his program independently and continue to bring to a segment of the population everything they loved about him and his show. Sure Welk was a "square" and his show appealed and pandered to senior citizens, but he knew who he was and what his audience loved and in the end, he was as authentic as they come. He was also one of the wealthiest musicians of his era.
My father was a big Lawrence Welk fan so like many my age, I grew up with him and his cast of characters bubbling out their champagne music every Saturday night. As the 1950s gave way from innocence and apathy toward the social issues and realities of the 1960s Welk's polkas and small-town humor, wholesome music floundered. Tough times for old and young alike.
Unlike most folks, there was a little bit of Lawrence Welk's orchestra right in my neighborhood. In fact, it was right across the street.
One of my childhood friends was Jennifer Goodspeed. Her mother was Betsy Mills. Betsy had movie-star good looks and often wore pastel-colored evening gowns because she was a member of the Lawrence Welk orchestra. Don't remember too many women when you picture that band? You're right, there weren't many. But there was Betsy Mills, the harpist. Betsy played a large harp and ran her skilled fingers over those strings on many an arrangement. That harp sat in the living room of our friend Jennifer's house, where we would sneak a peak and on occasion pluck the strings or try to imitate those big sweeping swirls that Betsy did so well. Come Saturday afternoon, Betsy's husband Rupert would load the harp into the family station wagon and off to ABC studios they'd go. We'd see her on TV live that night.
The entire Mills family was show business inclined. Betsy's husband, Rupert, worked for CBS and helped to pioneer color TV. He had the first color set in the neighborhood and one evening our entire neighborhood piled into their living room to watch one of those early "spectaculars" with singing and dancing. I vividly recall seeing the lacy dresses the women wore in yellow, violet, sky blue and red for the first time. People filed through their living room, watching a few minutes then letting other neighbors have a turn.
Jennifer probably went into show business as well. She had her mom's good looks and a flair for the dramatic. She once organized all the neighborhood kids into a production of Peter Pan. I got to play Captain Hook, as I recall. She put us through our paces making us learn all the words to the songs. I still have mixed feelings about that music today. Oh but that harp. That wonderful harp. Even a kid who could play no instrument could make the sound of magic on that harp.
