Mennonite Lore – Page 12 – Plain and Fancy

The Good Ole Summertime & the Simple Life

June 4, 2014June 4, 2014 marianbeaman29 Comments

“In the Good Old Summer Time” shares nostalgic space with another old, familiar tune of the season: “Summer time and the livin’ is easy.” Summertime for the Longenecker family may not have been easy in the 1950s what with tomato field hoeing, canning, freezing vegetables from the garden, but it was simple.

This is a pict-o-logue of summertime for me from 13 months to about age 13.

“Naked in a tub” would be a sensational caption for this photo were it not for the fact that I’m only 13 months old. Later I recognize that this glistening galvanized tub is also used for blanching sweet corn ears from the garden lot.

I'm sitting in high chair to the right at Metzler reunion picnic — I’m sitting in high chair to the right at Metzler reunion picnic

Reminiscent of Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe (yes, it’s a stretch) but in a far simpler, Mennonite style, the Metzlers on Mother’s side of the family gather for a Sunday summer picnic In Uncle Clyde’s meadow, large crates holding up the table. After dinner the children scatter, the women clean up, and the men take down the table. I won’t be surprised when one or two of my uncles might light up a cigar rolled from home-grown tobacco.

Uncle Leroy and Aunt Clara’s farm is the perfect place for a summer Sunday dinner on the lawn. Hefty barrels hold up this groaning board as we pass around the seven sweets and seven sours, every family bringing a dish to another Metzler reunion.

In Middletown with Daddy's cousin Janet Martin — In Middletown with Daddy’s cousin Janet Martin

I also have a turn visiting Uncle Frank Martin’s household, one of Grandma Longenecker’s younger brothers. Aunt Mattie braids my pig-tails every morning as I sit in her kitchen looking up at the tall ceilings. She plaits very slowly because she doesn’t have much experience with little-girl hair. Her girls, Joyce and Janet, are not plain and have naturally curly hair that hangs free. They both wear shoes with open toes, a detail not lost on me. Cousin Sammy likes to tease me, but his sister Janet takes me on walks around the block because their house is in town, Middletown, Pennsylvania, my first taste of life outside of the country.

After I reach school-age, summer is a time for the cousin exchange. My favorite summer visits are with Cousin Janet, of all the Metzler cousins the one closest in age to me. I am fascinated with her strawberry blond hair and lighter skin. All of my family have an olive complexion, dark hair. We play with fat, sticky strands of Cinderella hair on our dolls and make up stories upstairs in the small bedroom. Soon Mom will call us down to the kitchen for root-beer floats sipped with plastic straws probably saved from last summer.

The next time I go to Janet’s house for a week in summer, I fall off my bicycle onto the gravel, grinding sharp bits into the skin around my kneecap. Though the bruise starts to recover, I don’t bounce back from the tumble. In the day or two following, I have crying spells, so Aunt Jenny calls my parents. When they pick me up, I feel both embarrassed and relieved.

* * *

Tell us your summer vacation memories. We’re all ears.

Two Vignettes: Mom’s Green Stamps & E-town’s Rexall Drug Store

May 28, 2014May 28, 2014 marianbeaman38 Comments

“Mare – yun,” my mother calls (yells, actually), “It’s time to lick the green stamps again. The books are on top of the kitchen table.” Mom likes to interrupt my reading. To me time with my books is serious business but to her it’s play. Not working. Wasting time with books unless it’s homework, she thinks.

As I moisten the stamps with my tongue, the glue tastes gooey and sweet. Mom usually receives one Green Stamp in exchange for every dime spent at check-out. I fill the two or three green books until they are fat, each stuffed with 24 pages of unevenly gummed and incompletely perforated paper rectangles. Books of these items can be redeemed for gifts. Mother gets a catalog from the stamp company’s showroom, then matches the item she wants against its price in stamps, paying for it with stamps rather than with cash. She probably has something picked out already. I notice the cover on the ironing board has lots of scorch marks and is wearing thin, so I guess she’ll get an ironing-board cover with one of the books.

The gifts are usually household items like a set of mixing bowls, an ironing-board cover or something big, as writer Phyllis Tickle describes when she traded her green stamps for her daughter Nora’s baby stroller:

Surprisingly cheap is usually just cheap in premium exchanges, I have found. It certainly was in this case. The thing was made of aluminum so light and thin that the frame itself could not have weighed in at a full pound. The whole stroller did not weigh in at two. The wheels were scarcely a half-inch wide and definitely not a quarter-inch thick.

The sides and back of the contraption were of a plasticized, loosely woven plaid fabric neither Sam [husband] nor I could identify. The result was a kind of sling-on-wheels that had grown less and less appealing to my maternal instincts as I had become more and more of a mother and less and less of a mother-to-be. However, we did have a stroller. Hmmmm . . . .

Later, she concedes though “those were the good old days when strollers were strollers and not miniature, padded tanks.” (294).

A shoppers’ rewards program for loyal customers, the Sperry and Hutchinson Company dates as far back as 1896. During the 1960s, the company issued three times as many green stamps as the U.S. Postal Service. After a series of recessions and the decreasing value of the stamps most house-wives didn’t think saving stamps was worth the trouble. However, green stamps still persist in popular culture. In A Hard Day’s Night (1964), starring the Beatles, John Lennon mentions Green Stamps when joking to Paul McCartney that he’ll get the best lawyer they can buy. In the hit “Speedy Gonzales” (1962) by Pat Boone, Mel Blanc sings the final words of the song in Speedy Gonzales’ voice, “Hey Rosita, come quick, down at the cantina they’re giving green stamps with tequila!”

* * *

Mother doesn’t drive to the Green Stamp showroom on her own to redeem her stamps because she doesn’t have a license. But there’s a Lancaster – Elizabethtown bus that goes right by our house along Old Route 230. She knows when to tell me to pull on the cord over-head that buzzes to tell the driver where to stop in town. We’ll go to the W. T. Grant store because it has most of what she needs. Our next stop is the Gladdell Shop with pretty dresses. In the window I see a sleek, lavender dress made of chiffon fabric on the mannikin. It’s pleated at the waist and has a belt with a rhinestone-studded buckle. I imagine jut how slithery and cool it would feel gliding over my skin. I would be instantly chic and stylish, not plain. But Mother is completely blind to the fancy frocks and heads for the lingerie department. A night-gown? Some hosiery? (She always orders a boring shade called “gun-metal.”) No, she has picked out a smocked, tricot bed jacket in blue with a bow to wear in the hospital over her gown when Mark is born and visitors appear.

The shopping trip gets even sweeter near the end. Mom will check her watch, so that we will have just enough time to go to the Rex-All Drug Store before the bus picks us up heading back east. Dr. Garber usually dispenses pills in little white envelopes from his office, so we are not interested in the pharmacy at the drug store.

Instead we head straight to the soda fountain which is as close to theatre as I’m going to get. Stepping inside the chrome rails that mark the fountain area off from the rest of the store, we sit on the red leatherette cushioned stools that spin. Fluorescent tubes of light above the fountain equipment advertise bubbly ice cream sodas with a straw. Above it like rays from the aurora borealis but stretched around the perimeter of the fountain area is a glow of bluish-purple lights illuminating the walls. Then I look up and see stars sparkling from the ceiling. I’m in heaven. Until the bus comes all too soon.

What story can you tell about green stamps or soda fountains?

Something you can add about a different memory from the 1950s or 60s?

Two Mennonite Nonagenarians: Mother Ruth & Aunt Cecilia

May 21, 2014May 21, 2014 marianbeaman41 Comments

Here is my mother’s family of four brothers and one sister in a farm meadow in the 1940s. They are children of Abram Hernley Metzler and Sadie Landis Metzler, a Mennonite family of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Standing in birth order are her brothers Landis, Leroy, Clyde, Abram, Jr., with my mother and her sister Verna. Two of her siblings died in their sixties, the others in their seventies. Only my mother is still alive at age 95.

When Mother turned 90 in 2008, her 94-year-old sister-in-law Cecilia Metzler, married to my Uncle Clyde, said to her: “Ninety’s nothing . . . . You have to live past that to make your mark these days.” (Then I saw a quick smile and heard an I-got-you-there chuckle.) Aunt Cecilia, who calls herself Cece now, has always been energetic and feisty, a farm wife and a pastor’s wife. Up until 2011, she has sent me Christmas cards – always the first week of December. And via her daughter Erma’s account, I would occasionally even get email messages from her.

Mother too has always been strong and hardy all these years. She still lives alone but has watchful neighbors along with my brother Mark who checks in with her regularly. Her mind is still sharp though her hearing, which has always been in a category I’d call bionic, is failing now. When I asked her a few weeks ago, “Do you remember wearing Evening in Paris cologne?” She questioned me back, “Carrots, what do you mean carrots?” This from a woman who most of her life had to hold the telephone receiver away from her ear because the sound was too loud. Oh, my.

I call her often, but she says she likes to get something in the mail, a letter with a stamp on it, she hints. As if to demonstrate how it’s done, last week she sent me a short note with concern about a friend’s health along with a check for special vitamins I send to her. Yes, she still pays her own bills.

"Cecilia Do you really think we are going to live to be 100?" my mother might be asking. — “Cecilia, do you really think we are going to live to be 100?” my mother may be asking. (Photo: Mother’s 90th party at The Gathering Place, Mount Joy, PA.)

* * *

Recently, “60 Minutes” aired a show entitled Living to 90 and Beyond hosted by correspondent Lesley Stahl. The show featured interviews of some of the more than 1600 men and women who participated in a study named “90+” funded by the National Institute of Health. All of the data was collected in the 1980s from residents of a community south of Los Angeles called Leisure World, now re-named Laguna Woods. The study was launched to determine the secrets of longevity and perhaps find clues to preventing diseases like Alzheimer’s often associated with advancing age.

On air, the interviewees, all over 90, were shown undergoing physical testing: reflexes, pace of walking, how quickly they could sit down and stand up again. Their mental acuity was checked as well: Tell me today’s date, spell w-o-r-l-d backwards, remember these words (brown, shirt, charity) – I’ll ask you to repeat them to me in a minute. And so on.

Claudia Kawas, spokesperson for the NIH study, concluded with some statements that weren’t at all surprising. And some that were:

People who exercise definitely live longer than those who don’t.
Board games, socializing with friends, working in the garden enhance mental health.
Taking vitamins doesn’t seem to make much difference.
It’s not good to be skinny when you are old.
Drinking 1-3 cups of coffee seems to be beneficial.
One or two glasses of wine daily is recommended.

My Mother, almost 96, and Aunt Cecilia, now age 99, were part of the “Game Girls” crowd in their prime. They loved playing Uno, Skip-Bo, and Hand & Foot with friends. And they probably both still drink one or two cups of coffee with breakfast.

But rest assured, neither of these good, elderly Mennonite ladies ever imbibes a glass of wine with dinner.

* * *

Most of us know one or more friends or family members over 90. Does longevity run in your family?

Do you have a story about a nonagenarian you know?

Coming next: A visit with author Kathleen Pooler and introducing her new book!

Purple Passages and a Laugh: May 2014 Edition

May 14, 2014May 23, 2014 marianbeaman23 Comments

Miracles & Problems

Uncertainty & Faith

The opposite of doubt is not faith. It’s certainty. Faith based on certainty is no faith at all. Anne Lamott

Embrace the present. Uncertainty is no excuse for paralysis. Do not wait for good to happen for yourself in order to do good for others. Leymah Gbowee

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1 NIV

Tea and Books

You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me. C. S. Lewis

Mothers & Mother’s Day

This year has celebrated its 100th anniversary in America

Mother jivving to "Turn Your Radio on and Listen to the Music in the Air" — Mother jiving to “Turn Your Radio on and Listen to the Music in the Air” on my iPod

A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.

Honore de Balzac

I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars.

E. M. Forster

Roses and Love Life

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall. Eleanor Roosevelt

Laughter is carbonated holiness.
― Anne Lamott

* * *

Add a quote or comment on one you’ve read. Please do!

And you can be sure I’ll join the conversation.

(Coming next: “Where the Magic Happens” showcasing author Mary Gottschalk)

A Dozen Daughters: My Mother’s Other Family

May 10, 2014May 16, 2014 marianbeaman30 Comments

Longenecker family portrait circa 1961: Mark, Marian, Janice, Jean with parents

This is the family I grew up in: my parents Ray and Ruth with my two sisters and one brother. But after I left home and eventually married, my parents had more children. No, my mother was not a modern-day Sarah. She didn’t have babies in old age. But in their early sixties, Mother and Daddy “adopted” another set of children, about a dozen daughters in all, through an agency called New Life for Girls.

Because they entered my parents’ lives after I left home, I never felt jealous of them. They were simply unknown to me, mysterious. Oh, I did meet two of them, Gloria and Julie. They came to see my mother when she visited her first two grandsons born in Chicago in 2003. By then these girls both had grown children of their own.

Gloria’s Story

Gloria grew up in inner city Chicago with an alcoholic father who beat her mother and more than once tried to choke her with a dog chain. Her mother, single now with 8 children to feed, had to go to work. Alone in the world, Gloria turned to drugs and men, looking for love. She set her sights on rich men, men she hoped would take care of her. But the rich men were users, drug dealers or worse. Not surprisingly, Gloria became pregnant at age 14.

One day an evangelist named Brother Raymond, came into Gloria’s neighborhood. She responded to this kind man’s message of salvation and made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Though her heart had changed, Gloria’s life didn’t get any easier. Several times she slid back into her old ways and had more babies out of wed-lock. The hard times made her harder. She became tough as nails, always looking for a fight.

Finally, Brother Raymond suggested a way out. “There is an agency called New Life for Girls in Pennsylvania that might help you get your life on track. To enter their program though you would have to agree to their rules and stick by them. Also, your children would be staying in a separate facility.”

Gloria: “Oh no, I can’t be separated from my children!”

Brother Raymond: “Well, then we’ll try to find a host family for you, so that on weekends you can visit with them in a nice Christian home in the country.”

And that’s how my parents’ lives intersected with Gloria’s.

Weekends with the Longeneckers

Gloria was looking for an anchor and she found one in her weekend visits to the Longenecker family on Anchor Road near Elizabethtown. Pennsylvania. Most importantly, she could be with her children. Mother and Daddy would pick Gloria up at the train station with her four children who played with toys including the same marble-roller I played with as a child.

Gloria's grand-children playing with the same marble-roller we had as children: Demetri 12, Inani 13, and Samantha 10. — Gloria’s grand-children playing with the same marble-roller we had as children:
Demetri 12, Inani 13, and Samantha 10.

And she could enjoy Lancaster County abundance. “This is how life should be,” Gloria exclaims as she recalls some of her favorite things:

Going to Root’s Sale where fresh farm produce abounds.
Helping Mom make applesauce with her metal sieve and wooden mallet.
Turning the crank on the ice cream churn, always vanilla with Hershey’s chocolate syrup and peanut sprinkles.
Helping with quilting at Bossler’s Mennonite Church Sewing Circle.
Eating fresh corn on the cob – and fresh tomatoes out of the garden, both dripping juice.
Making tangy home-made root beer from Hires Root Beer Extract, the two-quart jars cooling on their sides in the cellar.
Having devotions with my parents on Sunday morning after which my dad would march over to the piano and bang out the melody to “Fill My Cup, Lord,” singing at the top of his lungs.
Following the Longenecker rules. And to the letter.

My brother Mark still lived at home when Gloria and her children visited, so she got some first-hand tips on getting children to obey. When Mark questioned Mother about why he had to get up and go to church Sunday morning, Mom would reply, “Because you’re in my house and that is the rule.”

But Gloria recalls Mother’s softer side when she tearfully called her at one point to break the news about yet another unplanned pregnancy: “She never criticized me; she stood by me, and said “’You just have to trust that God is still in control.’”

Gloria Araujo In kitchen with Mother (age 95) — Gloria Araujo in kitchen with Mother (age 95) April 2014

Gloria Today

Over the years, Gloria has told her own children and grand-children this same bold statement when they question her authority: “Because you’re in my house and that is the rule.” And she teaches her clients how to use firm discipline with their children in her role as a social worker at The First Baptist Church of Wheaton, Illinois, where she has recently been appointed deaconess.

“Now I work with many Cuban refugees, help them get into an apartment, find jobs and medical aid—set them on the right track. It feels so good to see lives changed,” she says.

In Retrospect

In a little green autograph book sitting on one of Mother’s living room end tables are listed all the names of the girls from New Life my parents have hosted. This April in her recent visit, Gloria noticed that her name was the first one to be signed in 1978, along with her sister Julie’s. After the signatures of 11-12 other girls, she signed the book again. “It’s only suitable that I sign the last page,” she says.

Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature:

the old things are passed away; behold, all things become new.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Motto of New Life for Girls

Fancy Dress Finds Plain Girl

May 7, 2014May 7, 2014 marianbeaman42 Comments

It’s spring concert time and I’m making my fingers fly fast over the strings of my violin pizzicato style, trying to keep up with the syncopated rhythms of The Typewriter Song.

Noah Klauss, the director of our Elizabethtown High School Orchestra, is a fan of Leroy Anderson pieces. Last year we played The Syncopated Clock, the sound of a swinging pendulum tick-tocking in our heads as we played the melody.

I am learning the music all right, but in the back of my mind I worry, “What am I going to wear to the concert?” The outfits I have are mostly home-made. A collar or buttons is the most exciting accessory on my blouses or dresses – no lace or plunging necklines for this Mennonite girl, the only plain girl in the orchestra. Obviously, unlike my friends, I don’t have a fancy gown hanging in my closet.

To the rescue: Aunt Ruthie, who out of the blue, gives me a call. Down over the hill I go to our second home, where she and Grandma Longenecker live. As I walk toward the dining room table, Ruthie pulls out part of a bolt of shimmery fabric flocked with swirling designs. I blink at the elegance. Woah!

Flocked fabric similar to actual material

She’s already cut out the pattern and I’m to help her stitch the pieces together. Call me Cinderella! I’m going to the ball with a tea-length gown, a fluffy confection beyond my wildest dreams. Even the pin-pricks at my fitting can’t puncture the feelings of fantasy enveloping me now. Thank God, I won’t stick out like a plain Jane after all.

Take away the buttons and lengthen the skirt, and you have my Spring Concert dress. — Snip off the buttons and lengthen the skirt – Voila! my Spring Concert dress.

Do my class-mates in the orchestra comment about my transformation? I don’t remember what anyone else said, if anything. But I do remember the crinkly sound of my gathered skirt as I sit down, violin in lap. And the brand new, starchy-sweet scent of my luscious frock as I pull the bow over the strings.

I'm the plain girl between two fluffy skirts on the left. — I’m the girl with glasses between two fluffy skirts on the left.

Is there an outfit that recalls special memories for you?

Tell your story here!

Secrets of My Report Card & Other Tall Tales

May 3, 2014May 2, 2014 marianbeaman28 Comments

My mother saved all my report cards. When I retrieved them from the attic, only grade 8 was missing. They are tall documents, sheathed in a coarse, brown envelope. And they speak for me as a student: mostly A’s with a smattering of Bs. Once I got a C- on a history final exam the year my brother Mark was born.

Aside from letter grades A – F (No S’s, N’s or U’s in the 1950s), there is a full page of my elementary school report card devoted to behavior, including attitude toward school work, recitation, and conduct. In second grade, Miss Longenecker checked the box for “Gives Up too Easily.” I was beyond surprised. I was stunned that my teacher who was also my aunt would think that I was a quitter. What made her think that, I wondered. Did I throw down my pencil when I couldn’t do arithmetic? Or start bawling? The next marking period, the box for “Shows improvement” was checked.

In 5^th grade negative check-marks showed up for my conduct. Imagining my teacher Mrs. Elsie Kilhefner would not notice or care, I whispered, earning the tick beside the box “Whispers too much.” The report cards following show I whispered constantly, every once in a while showing a tendency to reform my chatty ways.

Of the 23 ways behavior could be described on these old-fashioned report cards most were negative. Only three indicate something positive, one for each category: very commendable (attitude), very satisfactory (recitation), and very good (conduct). The adage “Children are to be seen and not heard” was prominent in the adult-centered society of the 50s. Not one teacher that I remember told us we were special and destined for greatness.

Since then American culture has leaned more toward the child-centered. In the 1970s my children Crista and Joel heard Mr. Rogers tell them on TV “You are my Friend, You are Special.”

They sang along with the Gaither tune: I am a Promise, I am a possibility. I am a promise with a capital “P” with one stanza that shouts: “You can climb the high mountain and cross the broad sea . . . .”

Cover: Gaither "I am a Promise" album — Cover: Gaither “I am a Promise” album

In 2012 David McCullough Jr. made a 12 3/4-minute speech to the graduating class of Wellesley High School in Massachusetts before a group of privileged, upper-class teens and their perceived-to-be “helicopter” parents. The speech went viral on YouTube. Entitled “You are Not Special,” McCullough argues that if everyone is special, then no one is.

Other rich points:

1. We have come to love our accolades more than our achievements.(Don’t go to Guatemala so you can impress admissions at Harvard or Yale. Go because you want to serve the people there.)

2. “Selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself.”

3. Climb the mountain so you can see the world, not so that world can see you.

YourTube screen capture — YouTube screen capture

In other words, through service to others, stand tall – like my report card from days of yore.

I’m always happy to see your thoughts here – thanks!

7 Things I Do that Remind Me of Home

April 30, 2014April 30, 2014 marianbeaman35 Comments

Over forty years ago I left Lancaster county and my Mennonite life. Though I have visited dozens of times since then, Jacksonville, Florida, has been my home. Nonetheless, every single day I notice myself repeating rituals that reveal the imprint of my early training.

1. Eat pickled eggs – Usually reserved for Sunday dinners and picnics, I eat them for breakfast almost daily now.

2.“Outen the light” – I don’t use that Pennsylvania Dutch expression any more, but when no one is in a room, I make sure the light switch is turned off. “Don’t burn a hole in the daylight” is a saying that has burned into my psyche.

3. Wash dishes – Mother never had a dishwasher, except her own hands. Though I’ve had a dishwasher most of my married life, I often wash dishes by hand: fine china, big kettles, forks. Sometimes warm, soapy water is soothing.

Daddy drying dishes - Only on Sundays after church! — Daddy drying dishes – Only on Sundays after church!

4. Re-use aluminum foil – I never use Reynolds Wrap only once. It is cleaned off, folded and stored for multiple uses. (But I don’t scrape the residue from the wrapper of a stick of butter anymore unless it’s a big hunk. )

5. Tidy up – After retiring from full-time teaching, I dismissed my cleaning lady, so cleaning the house is in my domain once again. Dusting is the bane of my life, but I can’t abide dirty floors. Mother’s house was cleaned stem to stern once a week on a Friday with deep cleaning heralding the spring and fall seasons.

6. Water the maiden-hair fern – Grandma Longenecker loved ferns. She loved the misty, floaty, lacy aesthetic of ferns. My sister Janice has kept alive some off-shoots of Grandma’s. Here’s my maiden-hair fern:

7. Go up and down stairs – The Longenecker home place has 2 floors and an attic. The staircase between them has 18 steps. When it was time for bed, Mother would say, “It’s time to go up the wooden hill!” Now at almost 96, she still uses her stairs, once in the morning and once at bed-time. Bowed with age into an L-shape she ascends, fiercely defending her independence.

Our tri-level has a pair of stairs, 7 steps each. Good for keeping those calf muscles in shape.

If you don’t know what to do, just take the first step. “To take the first step in faith, you don’t have to see the whole staircase.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Are any of these points similar to those in your life?

What can you add to the list from your own experience?

Fighting Spirit: Rhetoric, Rotten Rulers, and a Sex Strike

April 26, 2014April 26, 2014 marianbeaman24 Comments

Is a family graduation on your calendar this year?

As a faculty member at Florida State College at Jacksonville (then Florida Community College), I attended graduation every year in full regalia with hundreds of ecstatic grads, joyful families, and proud faculty and administration.

The Tawdry Tale

One year stands out though: 2001. State Representative X rose to the podium to deliver the commencement address and announced that his remarks would be short and to the point. Relieved, the audience sat back to enjoy a brief speech entitled A Short Guide to a Happy Life. Hmm . . . the title sounded familiar, I thought. Then he went on to tick off the main points: 1. Don’t confuse life with work. 2. Life is what happens when you are making other plans. 3. If you win the rat race, you are still a rat. . . . Then it dawned on me. I have heard this all before. In fact I’ve read it. Recently. In a book. In a book by Anna Quindlen with the same title. This man with an honorable title in high office is plagiarizing his speech, giving no credit to Quindlen or reference to her book. His whole speech. Boldly. Baldly. With no bones about honesty!

My sense of justice on high alert, I set out to right the wrong. No, to expose the guilty. I contact the campus president in charge of graduation. Yes, she will check up on my suspicion and she does follow through. There are more emails and phone calls, which in the end boil down to the critical question: Where is the audio recording of that address? Alas, it is never un-earthed. We are told the recording mechanism failed (?) and thus no incriminating evidence is available. Sadly, just my words remain which have now fallen. Flat. On deaf ears.

* * *

My own college graduation is a distant memory. When I graduated from Eastern Mennonite College with a degree in English, I was still a plain girl, but with a B. A. degree in English education. I don’t remember at all who spoke at the commencement address or what the topic was, but I am sure there was an emphasis on service to others, demonstrating peace while upholding justice, still strong tenets of my alma mater, now Eastern Mennonite University.

The Nobel Laureate

Tomorrow another graduation occurs. On Sunday, April 27, 2014 an honorable woman, Leymah Gbowee, co-winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize and a 2007 EMU alumna, will give the 96^th annual commencement address at Eastern Mennonite University. Gbowee was the focus of a documentary “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” which demonstrates how women, both Christian and Muslim confronted then-Liberian President Charles Taylor “with a demand for peace and end a bloody 14-year-old civil war.” Her genius: Gbowee rallied women, all dressed in white from various ethnic groups to lock arms, protest, and over time literally pray the ruthless rebels, including the President, into retreat. They even staged a sex strike which her book describes in more detail. In 2007 Leymah Gbowee received a Master of Arts in Conflict Transformation from the Center for Justice and Peace-building at EMU, also her alma mater. No doubt in her graduation speech she will make reference to her book: Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War.

But I can assure you—she has plagiarized neither her book nor her speech!

* * *

When have you become outspoken against an injustice? What were the results?

Have you heard of Leymah Gbowee? Anyone else you know with her qualities?

Happy Birthday, Will!

April 23, 2014April 23, 2014 marianbeaman25 Comments

News Flash!

To mark Shakespeare’s 450^th birthday, “the Royal Shakespeare Company is spearheading a three year Jubilee, between 2014 and 2016, that will involve theatre performances, events and live streaming cinema around the world.”

* * * * *

Florida State College students: Of course they're discussing Shakespeare! — Florida State College students: Of course they’re discussing Shakespeare!

It’s April 23 in my college class of English Lit students. Each has brought in a can of Coke, Dr. Pepper or bottled water. I bring cupcakes—chocolate and vanilla for the party.

Reputedly, April 23, 1564 is the birthday of William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon. It is also the date of his death in 1616, but we are celebrating his life, especially the writing of his gushy love sonnets (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) and his play, King Lear, which we have just read with all that fussing about a father’s will, sister sniping, revenge and murder. The body count is always high in Shakespeare’s tragedies.

A fixture at every birthday party, Shakespeare wore a bow today. — A fixture at every birthday party, Shakespeare wears a bow today.

Until I was out of high school, I did not realize that my Mennonite Mom was referring to Shakespeare’s line “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another” (Hamlet) when she chided me for wearing makeup. “I’m happy with the face God gave me,” she would retort.

And Grandma Longenecker probably wasn’t aware she was quoting from Midsummer NIght’s Dream either when she tried to comfort me with the words of Lysander: “The course of true love never did run smooth” over my break-up with David, a boyfriend in college. And of various presidents, Truman, Eisenhower, or Kennedy, she would quote from Shakespeare’s Henry IV: “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” I can still hear her cracking the “C” in crown.

Other quotes you may know:

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
If music be the food of love, play on.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
O, had I but followed the arts!
‘Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
This above all; to thine own self be true.

What special sayings do you remember from your childhood?

What quotes by Shakespeare can you add to the list?

I love it when you comment!

Please check it out: My writer friend, Traci Carver, teacher at Valwood School, a college prep high school in Valdosta, GA, posted on her blog a creative classroom s cene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet featuring foam pool noodles and Twitter hashtags. Creative and memorable!

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