OTTER GUILT
Copyright Ruth Lampert January 2011 (rev)
In the fourth grade of Darwin Elementary School in Chicago, Ill, two movies (on reels; VCRs were in the distant future) played a significant role in my life. The first had something to do with weather – specifically, cold weather, a topic Chicagoans know about. There was a still shot of a bush, or maybe a small tree, its round shape with irregular protuberances completely covered with pristine snow. After the film the teacher, a slim young woman with wavy dark hair and smiling eyes, and the school principal, a tall, dignified young man dressed always in blue suit, white shirt, and striped tie who visited the class frequently, discussed the movie with us. The principal commented on the beauty of the snow-covered bush and asked, “Did that remind anyone of anything else?”
My hand shot up – I was so happy he had asked!
“Yes! It looks just like a kellyflower!”
The grownups smiled at each other, in the way of loving parents whose dear child has just made an especially adorable comment. “Isn’t she just the limit!” they seemed to be saying.
They are in love! I thought. They are going to get married and have a family of their own, just like in the movies! (the ones shown in the theaters, not the educational ones shown in school.)
“You mean ‘cauliflower,’ Ruth,” my hero said in his deep soft voice. (If Teacher wasn’t in love with him, I was.) “Yes, that is exactly what it looked like to me too!”
I had assumed the resemblance was obvious to everyone, just as
everyone I knew said “kellyflower.” But apparently he and I shared an imagination unmatched by the other students or even by Teacher.
Heady stuff for a smitten fourth grader…
The second movie that proved to be significant in my life was about otters.
I was enchanted by the sleek, darling, playful creatures. I wanted to join them in the ocean (which I too have loved all my life) and frolic and duck and dive and be warmed by the sun and the company of my playmates.
The principal wasn’t there that day, so I was unable to impress him. Teacher instructed us to write something about what we had seen, and I wrote a piece titled, straightforwardly, “The Otter.” I reported what I had seen on the screen and heard from the relentlessly cheerful narrator. I made no mention of the feeling of joyful kinship the film evoked; I was romantic but not entirely unrealistic, and understood that personal reactions were not what fourth grade essays were about.
Again, my writing talent was “reinforced,” as we say nowadays. Teacher smiled her lovely smile at me (I think I was a little in love with her, too) as she announced that my report was so good she was sending it to the school newspaper.
When the paper came out and I saw, in print, what all my world could see:
The Otter
By
Ruth Tauber
I was hooked. My words and my name in print! It was my first by-line, although I didn’t know that’s what it was called.
The only fly in this syrup of self-importance was a vague, nagging sense of guilt. After all, I had done nothing more than repeat what I had seen and heard, and that didn’t measure up to the kinds of stories I loved to read. Only later did I learn about journalism, and reviewing; at the time I felt vaguely that the story wasn’t really mine, that I hadn’t truly earned the credit. I wondered uneasily if I might be some kind of a fraud.
Since that time I’ve been on both sides of the therapy couch, where guilt is a juicy, ubiquitous topic. Freud considered its roots to be in sexual soil; maybe. My friend and colleague Cara Garcia once noted: “there are those childhood fantasies of wreaking wonderful, ghastly horrible revenge on enemies, including but not limited to younger siblings.”
Maybe it’s all true. Maybe my fourth grade guilt was just a manifestation of one or another or all of the guilt brought forward from early childhood.
And maybe there is another, existential guilt, one that is somehow linked to the creative impulse, a self-questioning that walks with the need to transform, as when I earned the principal’s praise by perceiving a snow-covered bush as a “kellyflower.” Just as these days, when I travel down Overland Avenue on my way to the neighborhood library, the carefully trimmed trees lining the street look to me so exactly like broccoli stalks that in my mind it is Broccoli Boulevard.
Another time I will explore the subject of The Foodie as Writer. For now, let’s fast-forward to high school where I am in the Journalism class (still secretly considering it inferior to “creative” writing) and working on the staff of the Von Steuben Journal, my sole extra-curricular activity. Also on staff is Albert Rosenthal, bright, funny, audacious, and, I assume, next in line to be Editor-in-Chief.
“Little Moron” jokes were all the rage at the time. (This genre of “stupidity is hilarious” was followed not so long ago by Polish and Blond jokes.) It was quite acceptable then to be funny about retardation, but not about anything having to do with body parts, functions, or desires.
Standing guard over this journalistic purity is the English teacher and Journal advisor, Miss Cummings: small, round, grey-hair-in-a-bun, a nice lady, a good teacher, whose small sharp eyes could catch any hint of impropriety before it got into print.
Except for this joke which Albert manages to sneak in:
“Did you hear about the depressed little moron who got his face slapped for feeling low?”
Miss Cumming is furious. Albert is in her office for a long time, and emerges looking chastened until he is out of her range and gives a big wink to his followers.
I understand that it was because of this incident that Albert is passed over as Editor-in-Chief. That position goes to me, an honor tarnished by the old otter-guilt: of course I had been chosen by default and not by true merit.
Flash forward again. I have traveled from California to Chicago to attend the 50-year class reunion. Some people are total strangers to me, but I recognize Albert at once by his impish expression. We do the reunion things (laugh, hug, do you have kids? grandkids?) and I tell him I’ve always felt a little guilty about becoming Journal Editor when he really deserved it and was passed over because of the prevailing puritanical standards.
He gives me a puzzled look.
“What are you talking about? Everyone knew you were going to be the next Editor. You were the obvious and best choice. I was funny, but I wasn’t Editor material. You were. ”
I was?
Shades of deMaupassant’s “The Necklace.”
Writing has helped me to work it all through, and I am ready now for that shining moment when some prestigious prize is bestowed upon me. Poised and gracious, I will deliver an acceptance speech of rare brevity and honesty. I’ll simply say,
“I worked hard for this and I deserve it. Thank you for noticing.”
Friday, October 29, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Great Bedroom Hoax
The Great Bedroom Hoax
By Ruth Lampert
Copyright July 2010
Growing up during the depression years in Chicago, it was not unusual for one or two family members to have as their sleeping place a “roll-away” bed - when not in use for sleeping it folded in half and was covered with a shawl - or a couch , in the living or dining room.
When I was about eight years old my family of 5 moved into a nice 2 bedroom apartment. (how we got to that residence after originating in Chicago, then moving to Los Angeles, then to Long Beach, then back to Chicago and a couple of temporary dwellings, is quite another story.)
My parents slept in the big bedroom, and my sister Francine, as a teenager and the oldest child, had the privilege of being granted her own room. Who made the following decision I am not sure, but Bob (then about 12) and I (about 8) were told that he would sleep in the dining room on a “roll-away” and I would have the living room couch. (Where, you wonder did we keep our clothes and stuff? I wonder too – no doubt some in one closet, some in another, some in the dining room buffet drawers -- maybe some in a box under someone’s bed? I’ll have to research that.)
“Boy, do I feel sorry for you” Bob announced, after checking out the living and dining rooms.
“Why?” I asked, ready as always to believe anything he told me.
“Because,” he replied in his best solicitous big brother voice, “the living room is really a terrible place to sleep. The dining room, now, that’s the place anyone would want. Am I lucky they are letting me sleep there. Right next to the kitchen…a terrific lamp for reading…and a big table to sit at if you can’t sleep. Boy, am I lucky!”
And so on and so on, until I found myself pleading with him to change and let me have the dining room. I don’t know what I promised him in return, I’m sure I put on my most pathetic little girl voice, and sorrowful mistreated face, but after much pleading on my part and much protesting of “no way, you think I’m nuts?” on his part, he gave in.
“O.K., o.k., stop crying, you can have the dining room, I’ll be all right in the living room….I’m older, and a boy, so I guess I have to make some sacrifices……”
I thanked him and thanked him, promised I would do something wonderful for him some day. As I took my blanket and pillow into the dining room and he took his in to the living room, he called to me gleefully,
“Thanks a lot, I wanted the living room all along, it is super, wow, look at that big window, and it’s so cool and quiet, away from the kitchen,….” the list of advantages went on and on.
I had been had, in true little sister tradition. I have to add that in all important ways, and up to this very moment, Bob has been a generous and loving brother. We’re both elderly now, but I swear, I’ll get back at him for that yet.
Or maybe not. Actually the dining room was fine, and I did enjoy lining my dolls up on the big table at night and pretending that the chandelier was a magic lamp.
So I guess, now that we are both older and hopefully wiser, I can honestly say,
“Bob, I forgive you.”
By Ruth Lampert
Copyright July 2010
Growing up during the depression years in Chicago, it was not unusual for one or two family members to have as their sleeping place a “roll-away” bed - when not in use for sleeping it folded in half and was covered with a shawl - or a couch , in the living or dining room.
When I was about eight years old my family of 5 moved into a nice 2 bedroom apartment. (how we got to that residence after originating in Chicago, then moving to Los Angeles, then to Long Beach, then back to Chicago and a couple of temporary dwellings, is quite another story.)
My parents slept in the big bedroom, and my sister Francine, as a teenager and the oldest child, had the privilege of being granted her own room. Who made the following decision I am not sure, but Bob (then about 12) and I (about 8) were told that he would sleep in the dining room on a “roll-away” and I would have the living room couch. (Where, you wonder did we keep our clothes and stuff? I wonder too – no doubt some in one closet, some in another, some in the dining room buffet drawers -- maybe some in a box under someone’s bed? I’ll have to research that.)
“Boy, do I feel sorry for you” Bob announced, after checking out the living and dining rooms.
“Why?” I asked, ready as always to believe anything he told me.
“Because,” he replied in his best solicitous big brother voice, “the living room is really a terrible place to sleep. The dining room, now, that’s the place anyone would want. Am I lucky they are letting me sleep there. Right next to the kitchen…a terrific lamp for reading…and a big table to sit at if you can’t sleep. Boy, am I lucky!”
And so on and so on, until I found myself pleading with him to change and let me have the dining room. I don’t know what I promised him in return, I’m sure I put on my most pathetic little girl voice, and sorrowful mistreated face, but after much pleading on my part and much protesting of “no way, you think I’m nuts?” on his part, he gave in.
“O.K., o.k., stop crying, you can have the dining room, I’ll be all right in the living room….I’m older, and a boy, so I guess I have to make some sacrifices……”
I thanked him and thanked him, promised I would do something wonderful for him some day. As I took my blanket and pillow into the dining room and he took his in to the living room, he called to me gleefully,
“Thanks a lot, I wanted the living room all along, it is super, wow, look at that big window, and it’s so cool and quiet, away from the kitchen,….” the list of advantages went on and on.
I had been had, in true little sister tradition. I have to add that in all important ways, and up to this very moment, Bob has been a generous and loving brother. We’re both elderly now, but I swear, I’ll get back at him for that yet.
Or maybe not. Actually the dining room was fine, and I did enjoy lining my dolls up on the big table at night and pretending that the chandelier was a magic lamp.
So I guess, now that we are both older and hopefully wiser, I can honestly say,
“Bob, I forgive you.”
Friday, September 17, 2010
Who Knew?
by Ruth Lampert
Copyright date 9/26/08
reposted 9/17/10
I'm Jewish, all right. I have a Jewish heart, a Jewish sense of humor, Jewish taste buds, and Jewish guilt. But I was raised in a tradition of "secular Judaism" in which these traits flourished in a climate devoid of formal Jewish education or religious practice. The only thing I knew about "kosher" was the connotation in the saying "that doesn't sound kosher to me," and a vague image of bearded, skull- capped men who didn't eat pork.
My father -- a kind and deeply moral man -- was philosophically opposed to organized religion. He probably would not have approved of the summer camp I went to the year after he died, when I was 10.
We called it "Camp Chi," pronounced "shy," although today I wonder if it wasn’t the Hebrew word “Chai,” meaning “life.” Be that as it may, the director’s name was definitely “Mother Seiman." As I think about it now that sounds more Catholic than Jewish, but Mother Seiman she was. I paid very little attention to her until the evening of My Sin.
Camp life was O.K. -- I liked the songs, and can still sing all the words to "I'm a hayseed, I'm full of seaweed..." and "Do your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro" and "Be kind to your web-footed friends, for a duck may be somebody's mother" -- but in a lot of ways it was dumb.
For example, cabins rotated the task of setting tables for the evening meal. On my Eve of Transgression I hurried to the dining room hoping no one would notice that I was a little late (I had probably been lying on my cot day-dreaming, as usual) and the other girls were hard at it, pushing and shoving as they grabbed utensils from a large wooden box which, if I thought about it at all, I probably assumed had formerly served some other storage or packaging use, since printed on the side in big bold letters was the word "MILK." Probably the little individual milk cartons had been delivered in it, I may have thought.
My dopey cabin-mates were all crowded around it in a frenzy of gathering spoons and knives and forks, and I wondered, in my sensible way, why some of them didn't just avoid the crush by taking utensils from the nearby box labeled "MEAT"- - probably brisket had been delivered in that one. I took what I needed from it, finished my share of the tables in short order, and slipped back to my cabin, my cot, and my interrupted day-dream.
Halfway through dinner -- which I didn't think much of, mostly just cheese-filled blintzes -- the door flew open and Mother Seiman stormed in from the staff dining room. Face blazing with fury, voice strident with rage, she bellowed something about having "just learned of this blasphemy... someone with a twisted sense of humor...I expect a confession by morning or everyone in the offending cabin will be punished...bla bla bla."
What the heck was she yammering on about, I wondered? Oh well, grownups were strange, and besides, I wasn't feeling too well. My throat was sore, and my head ached.
The next morning I was in the infirmary. I stayed there until Mother (mine, not Seiman) picked me up and drove me home where Doc Kraut said I had a strep throat and was I a lucky young lady that a new wonder drug called "sulpha" was available for just such cases.
So much for Camp Chi and Mother Seiman and her inexplicable temper tantrum. Growing up I became exposed to more traditional Jews and learned, among other things, about dietary laws, including the injunction against mixing milk and meat at the same meal.
Those boxes. MEAT. MILK. The tantrum became all too explicable.
I never have kept kosher. I do scrupulously observe a personal dietary law, which mandates eating lox, bagels, and cream cheese every Sunday morning at a deli.
I espouse the spirit of Reform Judaism described by the late humanistic Rabbi Leslie Freund, whose father was an orthodox Rabbi. Leslie recalled the day he realized he really didn't believe the words he was chanting, but, he said, “I still loved the music."
That metaphor continues to inform my spiritual life. So it is that on the coming Yom Kippur I will sit, as I do every year, with fellow Jews and examine my conscience. Have I been complacent? arrogant? unkind? self-righteous? etc. etc.
I know that getting strep throat was not punishment for my childhood sin of ignorance at Camp Chi, and no God I can imagine would expect me to ask forgiveness. Still, I offer up a little apology to Mother Seiman, and if a Higher Power hears me, hey...
Couldn't hurt.
by Ruth Lampert
Copyright date 9/26/08
reposted 9/17/10
I'm Jewish, all right. I have a Jewish heart, a Jewish sense of humor, Jewish taste buds, and Jewish guilt. But I was raised in a tradition of "secular Judaism" in which these traits flourished in a climate devoid of formal Jewish education or religious practice. The only thing I knew about "kosher" was the connotation in the saying "that doesn't sound kosher to me," and a vague image of bearded, skull- capped men who didn't eat pork.
My father -- a kind and deeply moral man -- was philosophically opposed to organized religion. He probably would not have approved of the summer camp I went to the year after he died, when I was 10.
We called it "Camp Chi," pronounced "shy," although today I wonder if it wasn’t the Hebrew word “Chai,” meaning “life.” Be that as it may, the director’s name was definitely “Mother Seiman." As I think about it now that sounds more Catholic than Jewish, but Mother Seiman she was. I paid very little attention to her until the evening of My Sin.
Camp life was O.K. -- I liked the songs, and can still sing all the words to "I'm a hayseed, I'm full of seaweed..." and "Do your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro" and "Be kind to your web-footed friends, for a duck may be somebody's mother" -- but in a lot of ways it was dumb.
For example, cabins rotated the task of setting tables for the evening meal. On my Eve of Transgression I hurried to the dining room hoping no one would notice that I was a little late (I had probably been lying on my cot day-dreaming, as usual) and the other girls were hard at it, pushing and shoving as they grabbed utensils from a large wooden box which, if I thought about it at all, I probably assumed had formerly served some other storage or packaging use, since printed on the side in big bold letters was the word "MILK." Probably the little individual milk cartons had been delivered in it, I may have thought.
My dopey cabin-mates were all crowded around it in a frenzy of gathering spoons and knives and forks, and I wondered, in my sensible way, why some of them didn't just avoid the crush by taking utensils from the nearby box labeled "MEAT"- - probably brisket had been delivered in that one. I took what I needed from it, finished my share of the tables in short order, and slipped back to my cabin, my cot, and my interrupted day-dream.
Halfway through dinner -- which I didn't think much of, mostly just cheese-filled blintzes -- the door flew open and Mother Seiman stormed in from the staff dining room. Face blazing with fury, voice strident with rage, she bellowed something about having "just learned of this blasphemy... someone with a twisted sense of humor...I expect a confession by morning or everyone in the offending cabin will be punished...bla bla bla."
What the heck was she yammering on about, I wondered? Oh well, grownups were strange, and besides, I wasn't feeling too well. My throat was sore, and my head ached.
The next morning I was in the infirmary. I stayed there until Mother (mine, not Seiman) picked me up and drove me home where Doc Kraut said I had a strep throat and was I a lucky young lady that a new wonder drug called "sulpha" was available for just such cases.
So much for Camp Chi and Mother Seiman and her inexplicable temper tantrum. Growing up I became exposed to more traditional Jews and learned, among other things, about dietary laws, including the injunction against mixing milk and meat at the same meal.
Those boxes. MEAT. MILK. The tantrum became all too explicable.
I never have kept kosher. I do scrupulously observe a personal dietary law, which mandates eating lox, bagels, and cream cheese every Sunday morning at a deli.
I espouse the spirit of Reform Judaism described by the late humanistic Rabbi Leslie Freund, whose father was an orthodox Rabbi. Leslie recalled the day he realized he really didn't believe the words he was chanting, but, he said, “I still loved the music."
That metaphor continues to inform my spiritual life. So it is that on the coming Yom Kippur I will sit, as I do every year, with fellow Jews and examine my conscience. Have I been complacent? arrogant? unkind? self-righteous? etc. etc.
I know that getting strep throat was not punishment for my childhood sin of ignorance at Camp Chi, and no God I can imagine would expect me to ask forgiveness. Still, I offer up a little apology to Mother Seiman, and if a Higher Power hears me, hey...
Couldn't hurt.
Friday, September 3, 2010
THANKS, BETTY
(or, “The Last Ism”)
First in a series of “The Owl and the Elephant”
By
Ruth Lampert
Copyright Ruth Lampert September 2010
…and thanks also to the rest of you “old timers” who have come upon the scene just in time for this blog. You, Betty White, and many like you, are bringing down walls of prejudice, this time against “ageism.” I can remember (I’m sure some of you can too, and now it’s o.k. to admit it) when newspapers and other media pictorially portrayed various minorities in physically insulting ways. Political cartoonists especially employed grotesquely big noses, huge mops of then-unfashionably frizzy hair, gruesomely thick lips, etc to depict the various minorities which I am sure you can match to the racial/ethnic stereotypes. And while unattractive _ physical characteristics (think big ears) are still employed, they are ethnically neutral. *
It is still true that we elderly are often mocked in ways that go beyond the “hey where’s your sense of humor” rationale.’ Seinfeld is over, but repeats abound; on a recent one, Jerry’s parents move to a retirement facility where an election of officers is being conducted. The residents are uniformly portrayed as ludicrously stupid. It can be said in defense that everyone on the show is portrayed as ridiculous, but by no means are they all unattractive. On another episode the principals volunteer to “cheer” lonely old people – again, the recipients of care are without exception foolish, mean, and ugly.
Compare this with “Frazier,” also currently on repeats, in which the elderly father has foibles and eccentricities and sometimes he is right and sometimes wrong - - as are all the other characters. Case in point: “being funny” is not the same as “being made fun of.”
Stereotypically, if not mean-spiritedly, just about everywhere grandmothers are linked with grandchildren and cookies. Lord knows I adore my grandchildren and great-grandchildren (I told you I was old) and my long, loving relationship with cookies is widely celebrated, but as you can see I am also involved in other activities, as are most of my grandma buddies. We even sometimes talk about men – is that hilarious or what?
Which segues me nicely to the bright, talented, pretty, energetic, “new”comedy star, Betty White. They don’t come much funnier at any age, and I predict (remember, you heard it here first, unless you already heard it somewhere else) that we will soon see many other geriatric stars, new and recycled, in the entertainment firmament.
\
As in a recent Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times which featured a long article about 84-year-old Mel Brooks who “has a new star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame” following 15 months on Broadway with “The New Mel Books Musical Young Frankenstein, ” and a film retrospective at the Egyptian Theatre.
Other fields are sure to come forward with recognition of the on-going accomplishments of “oldsters.” (Sports stars maybe not so much) Scientists, statespersons, musicians, authors, even blog-writers, will be lauded in paeans, likely to begin: “At an age when most of his/her contemporaries are dozing off at inopportune moments (blogger’s note: o.k. so what?) he/she is busily engaged in…..”
Of course it is not just the famous who can and should be portrayed in an “equal opportunity” manner. Simply by not having the white-haired extras doing stereotypical activities, any more than African American women are no long portrayed mostly as maids, the point is made.
A caveat: hopefully this movement will not go to a place where all older people MUST be portrayed as healthy, active, accomplished, etc. It’s got to be o.k. to age as nature intended, to be frail and diminished in so many ways; I do not believe the intention was for the process to be ludicrous or demeaning.
So pay attention to what I am saying, just as if I were a wise elder.
* An aside: why do we refer to Barack Obama as “black,” when he is actually bi-racial? #
First in a series of “The Owl and the Elephant”
By
Ruth Lampert
Copyright Ruth Lampert September 2010
…and thanks also to the rest of you “old timers” who have come upon the scene just in time for this blog. You, Betty White, and many like you, are bringing down walls of prejudice, this time against “ageism.” I can remember (I’m sure some of you can too, and now it’s o.k. to admit it) when newspapers and other media pictorially portrayed various minorities in physically insulting ways. Political cartoonists especially employed grotesquely big noses, huge mops of then-unfashionably frizzy hair, gruesomely thick lips, etc to depict the various minorities which I am sure you can match to the racial/ethnic stereotypes. And while unattractive _ physical characteristics (think big ears) are still employed, they are ethnically neutral. *
It is still true that we elderly are often mocked in ways that go beyond the “hey where’s your sense of humor” rationale.’ Seinfeld is over, but repeats abound; on a recent one, Jerry’s parents move to a retirement facility where an election of officers is being conducted. The residents are uniformly portrayed as ludicrously stupid. It can be said in defense that everyone on the show is portrayed as ridiculous, but by no means are they all unattractive. On another episode the principals volunteer to “cheer” lonely old people – again, the recipients of care are without exception foolish, mean, and ugly.
Compare this with “Frazier,” also currently on repeats, in which the elderly father has foibles and eccentricities and sometimes he is right and sometimes wrong - - as are all the other characters. Case in point: “being funny” is not the same as “being made fun of.”
Stereotypically, if not mean-spiritedly, just about everywhere grandmothers are linked with grandchildren and cookies. Lord knows I adore my grandchildren and great-grandchildren (I told you I was old) and my long, loving relationship with cookies is widely celebrated, but as you can see I am also involved in other activities, as are most of my grandma buddies. We even sometimes talk about men – is that hilarious or what?
Which segues me nicely to the bright, talented, pretty, energetic, “new”comedy star, Betty White. They don’t come much funnier at any age, and I predict (remember, you heard it here first, unless you already heard it somewhere else) that we will soon see many other geriatric stars, new and recycled, in the entertainment firmament.
\
As in a recent Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times which featured a long article about 84-year-old Mel Brooks who “has a new star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame” following 15 months on Broadway with “The New Mel Books Musical Young Frankenstein, ” and a film retrospective at the Egyptian Theatre.
Other fields are sure to come forward with recognition of the on-going accomplishments of “oldsters.” (Sports stars maybe not so much) Scientists, statespersons, musicians, authors, even blog-writers, will be lauded in paeans, likely to begin: “At an age when most of his/her contemporaries are dozing off at inopportune moments (blogger’s note: o.k. so what?) he/she is busily engaged in…..”
Of course it is not just the famous who can and should be portrayed in an “equal opportunity” manner. Simply by not having the white-haired extras doing stereotypical activities, any more than African American women are no long portrayed mostly as maids, the point is made.
A caveat: hopefully this movement will not go to a place where all older people MUST be portrayed as healthy, active, accomplished, etc. It’s got to be o.k. to age as nature intended, to be frail and diminished in so many ways; I do not believe the intention was for the process to be ludicrous or demeaning.
So pay attention to what I am saying, just as if I were a wise elder.
* An aside: why do we refer to Barack Obama as “black,” when he is actually bi-racial? #
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