A Move Accompanied by Music

In late May 1967, the four friends whom I’d met at the Loretto Guild suggested that we find a house to rent. One of them worked at the University of Dayton and knew that during the summer months the University rented the houses in which students had lived during the school months. At the end of May we moved into the house pictured in last Thursday’s posting. We stayed there for three months. During that time I dated a little. By the end of the summer that had ended.

         In August one friend began to study the classified ads in the Dayton Daily News. She found a three-bedroom apartment at a “swingin’ singles” complex that boasted a swimming pool with a concrete surround furnished with deck chairs, tables with umbrellas, and hootenanny music.

         For that swingin’ singles’ pool I bought a two-piece swimsuit. It consisted of a top that was like the modern-day sports bras and a pair of shorts that came four or five inches down my thighs. The suit was modest, its pattern a smattering of tiny pink, blue, and yellow flowers with green leaves on a white background. It suited someone like myself who was still uncomfortable with having much flesh on display. The memory of seven yards of black serge lingered and my body missed the anonymity of the habit it had worn.

         Many days in September and October, after taking the electric trolley bus home from work, I’d don that swimming suit. Opening the door to the pool area, which a tall wooden fence enclosed on three sides, I’d first dip my toes to test the water's coldness then sit on the edge of the pool, making circles in the sun drenched water. Next, I’d enter the shallow end and sit in the water. But I didn’t know how to swim, so after a few minutes, I’d emerge from the pool and settle into a lounge chair, positioned in the shadows beneath the overhanging railed balconies of the second floor.

         There I’d read while humming the songs the local DJs were playing on the radios. When not engrossed in a novel, I’d raise my head and watch the bronzed men and nubile young women flirting with one another in the pool and dancing on the concrete area surrounding it.

         The local radio stations played records by many folk artists, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Glenn Yarborough, and Simon and Garfunkel among them. It was a time rich in music.

         One of those songs—written by Seeger in the 1950s and sung by Joan Baez in the mid-'60s—helped get me involved in the Vietnam War protest.

         Another, sung by Glenn Yarborough, appealed to the men around the pool but spoke to me also. I embraced the independence advocated in the song—the searching for what’s next in life. It became sort of an anthem of freedom for me.

        

         A third song, written and sung by Simon and Garfunkel, forced me to truly look at the world in which I lived. It helped me recognize the alienation around me and the desperate need to find meaning. It helped me understand that I wasn’t the only person lost and confused.         

         The music of 1967 and the following ten years or so is embedded in my psyche. Those songs of protest, young love, human need—of taking to the road and being open to change—helped form the woman I was to become. Just as the goodness of my mother and the prayer and dedication of the convent nuns had formed me.

         Slowly I was finding a life, but I needed help because mostly my mind was muddled. I still disliked myself intensely. So next week I hope to share with you what the second Dayton psychiatrist said to me. It was peace I was seeking and with him I found mostly questions to ask myself for a lifetime.

The 1944 Presidential Election Mishap

As I began third grade in the fall of 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was campaigning for a fourth term as president of the United States. Two events about that election remain with me: the yellow dog and the black, plastic dishpan.

During recess one day, a classmate shouted, “My daddy said you Democrats would vote for a yellow dog if he ran for president!”

After supper, I told my father, who was reading the newspaper, what Cecilia had said. Sure of his superior knowledge, I asked, “Daddy, would you vote for a yellow dog?”

He rose from his easy chair, placed his calloused hands on my shoulders, leaned down, and whispered, “You bet your bottom dollar I would, Dodo.”

“But, Daddy, why?”

“Because even a yellow dog would be better than a Republican!”

“Oh.”

That was my introduction to politics.

A few days later, on Tuesday, November 7, 1944, my mom got up extra early, hitched a ride with a neighbor to Courtney school, and served as an election judge. Before leaving, she made corn beef sandwiches, a salad, and cookies for Dad, my little brother, and me to eat for supper because the polls closed late and then she’d have to count the ballots.

One of my daily household chores was to wash the supper dishes while the rest of the family relaxed in the living room. We had no running water, so I’d take a bucket outside, pump it full at the well, lug the water inside, and heat it on the gas stove in a large kettle.

When the water boiled, Mom poured it over the dishes I’d placed in the thick, black, plastic dishpan on the counter along with Ivory dishwashing flakes.

After washing each dish, I’d place it in the porcelain sink. When it held a pile of clean dishes, I’d pour hot rinse water over them. We’d use the water, which drained into a bucket beneath the sink, to slop the pigs.

On that 1944 election night, I had a brilliant idea: Why heat the water in the kettle and then pour it into the plastic dishpan? Why not simply place the pan on the burner, pour the cold water in it, heat the water, and then wash the dishes! Great idea! Why hadn’t my mom thought of it before?          

So that’s just what I did.

As the water heated, I became absorbed in a storybook in the living room. Suddenly, Daddy shouted, “What’s burning?”

Black smoke billowed from the kitchen.

The smoke was as black as that in this photograph.

Daddy, my little brother, and I rushed through the dining room and into the kitchen. Water dripped down the front of the gas stove, puddling the floor. The plastic dishpan had collapsed on one side.

At that moment, the flame beneath the burner sputtered, but the propane gas continued to feed it. The odor of rotten eggs filled the room.

Dad reached forward to turn off the burner. Then he lifted the misshapen black mess from the stove, opened the back door, and threw the glob out onto the stoop.

“Dodo, why did you do that?” he asked.

“It was simpler, Daddy. One step less.”

“Good thinking, but do you see what happened?”

“It melted.”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“That’s what plastic does. It melts.”

“Oh.”

“It’s good to think, Dodo,” Daddy said, “but sometimes you stop your thoughts too soon. Think longer thoughts. Okay?” he hugged me and that was that. We proceeded to open all the windows and drive the smoke out into the chilly November night by waving dishtowels through every room.

Afterward, I sopped up the water from the wooden floor and tried to think longer and longer thoughts. It tired my brain.

Postscript: To enjoy a story about dishwashing in the convent back in 1959, click here.

Yellow Labrador and kitchen stove photographs are from Wikipedia.

The smoke photograph if from freedigitalphotos.com.

Becoming Politicized

(Continued from Saturday . . . )

My involvement in the Vietnam War protest began, as I explained on Saturday, while having lunch in Coffman Center at the University of Minnesota in 1970. However, it was four years earlier, in the spring of 1966, that I first learned about the entry of US military personnel into Vietnam.

            Still in the convent and teaching high school students in Baileyville, Kansas, I met Sam, a young Quaker. He taught social studies and history; I, literature and journalism. Together we directed the seniors in three plays. During lulls in play practices Sam shared news of the wider world with me. He looked askance at how the convent didn’t permit nuns to learn the news of the day.

            It was Sam who explained the whole history of our escalating involvement in Vietnam. He spoke of France and its colonization of French Indochina and of the siege of Dienbienphu in 1954—the year I graduated from high school.

            Throughout the spring of 1966, I learned more. Sam spoke of the Vietnamese peasants, Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Cong, guerrilla warfare. He detailed how the U.S. first got involved as “special advisors.” He explained “containment” and the “Domino Theory” of John Foster Dulles.

            One afternoon after classes ended for the day, Sam used a map to point out the 17^th Parallel and the Gulf of Tonkin. He gave me a detailed history lesson: France leaving Vietnam in 1956; the use, by the US Air Force, of Agent Orange to defoliate the jungles so as to expose the Viet Cong; the arrival, in 1965, of the first US combat troops.

            By the time I left Baileyville in May 1966, I balked at our telling the Vietnamese people how they were to live or who was to govern them. By the following January, I was out of the convent and watching national news on television and reading editorials, newspapers, and news magazines.

            As the months passed, I observed, with great confusion, the unfolding story of Vietnam. What General Westmoreland, the politicians, and the president told the American people didn’t reflect what Sam had told me. An extremely intelligent man, he had a firm grasp of history.

            After leaving the convent, I’d checked his facts about French Indochina and its history in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. He’d been accurate in his portrayal of what had happened between France and the Vietnamese and how and why the United States got involved. 

            Slowly I realized that the president and Congress could and would lie to the American people. Or at least render the truth unclear and unintelligible to the citizens of our country. In today’s terminology, they’d “spin” the news.

            Soon I branched out to learn the differing views on the war. I did this by reading various magazines that were either right or left of our involvement. I quickly learned that what one read, what one watched on television, and what one listened to on radio was a strong influence on how one believed. To achieve a balanced view, I realized, a person had to examine both sides of any issue. That was a new thought for me. Up to then, I had simplistically believed that most issues or news stories had only one side.

            More and more I was becoming politicized. Still, I did little about my beliefs. Two friends I soon met did. I’ll introduce you to them in Saturday’s posting.

                                                (Continued on Saturday . . . )

Map from Wikipiki.           

Meeting Angels Unaware

(Continued from Tuesday . . . )

By the spring of 1970, I’d sat in a classroom and witnessed two students protesting with guns. I’d also written letters to all the Minneapolis department stores, urging them to use black mannequins in their window and aisle displays. As well, I’d written to the two major newspapers, encouraging them to establish a policy of asking those who bought ads in their papers to employ black models.

            Now I was ready to slip quietly back into studying for my graduate degree. However, events intervened. Sharing a simple meal with a stranger led to the next step I took in working for social justice.

            One early spring day, while I was eating lunch in Coffman Center at the University of Minnesota, a young man sat down next to me. At the time, I was thirty-four. He was probably all of twenty-two. He diffidently revealed that he was a vet, had been home from Vietnam only a few short weeks, and now wanted to get his education. He spoke hesitantly of his time in that far away place.

            The wariness on his face told me he wasn’t sure how I’d respond to his being a vet. He’d met, as had I, a number of young men and women on campus who stridently disliked those who’d gone to Vietnam to fight. These other young people mocked the returning vets for letting themselves be misled. They accused them of being too stupid to realize that the government and the military had lied to them.

            As he spoke, I remembered the two protesters with the guns shouting that poor whites and poor blacks were fighting the war. To judge by his lunch, this young man clearly didn’t have much money. Perhaps he was one of the poor who had fought in Vietnam. Fortunately he hadn’t died there, but had returned home—possibly to poverty.

            What a return. To scorn and taunts. 

            I knew that some soldiers in Vietnam had been drafted. Of these, surely some weren't impoverished. I didn’t understand the ins and outs of all this, but I did know that this young man had been denounced for, as he said, “fighting for my country.”

            As we talked, I got more and more angry. I remembered the students I’d taught in the inner city. Would the war still be raging when those seventh grade boys turned eighteen? Would the poor of that school then become the ones fighting and dying?

         Four realizations, perhaps simplistic ones, struck me:

·      The Washington, D.C., policy makers were the ones who’s embroiled our country in the war. They’d sent young men away to fight.

·      Those who wanted to protest the war needed to protest the system and the entrenched belief in the domino theory, not the young men who’d gone off to fight. The angry—and fearful—youths were turning their backs, not on the old men who sent the young to Vietnam, but on the soldiers and vets themselves. This was unjust and wrongheaded.
·       Many young American men felt the call of patriotism and wanted to fight for their country when they thought it needed defending. They were willing to risk life and limb because of their beliefs. We needed to honor that, not ridicule it.

·      Unfortunately, going to war was a way to get a college education for someone who didn’t have money for tuition. We needed to fight poverty, not the North Vietnamese.

            In letters to the campus newspaper and to politicians in Washington I expressed my uninformed views. I also discussed my thoughts with classmates. I knew that I had no firm grasp of political science or the history of Southeast Asia. To counter this, I began to read a variety of newspapers, listen to the evening news, study the history of Vietnam. Finally, however, I, too, began to protest. I’ll share that story with you on Tuesday.

                                                            (Continued on Tuesday . . . )

Afterword:

More and more as I work on these postings, I feel the call to write for publication. I have several manuscripts ready to polish. All I need is time to do so. Given this, I’ve decided to post just twice a week from now on. My two posting days will normally be Tuesday and Saturday. This will mean that all of you will have one less posting to read a week in your busy schedules. I bet you find yourself grateful for that! 
          I'm also going to cut back to just two hours a day of reading other blogs, commenting, and responding to the comments on my blog. I know that this will mean I will miss some captivating postings, but I find myself longing to get serious about writing books: paper and/or e. I so hope I won't neglect any of your fine blogs. I'll try not to.

Both photographs from “The Vietnam War” in Wikipedia.

           

Call Me "Stubborn"

Last Sunday, Manzanita posted for the first time in several weeks. She explained that she’d been sore at heart because of what was happening politically in the United States. I do not know whether she stands to the left or the right of where I feel comfortable politically. Nevertheless, I admire her courage in speaking out about the seemingly self-serving response of many congressional members to the big questions of our day. As I read her posting, I began to think of my own journey to the political philosophy I espouse today.

            My mother served as an election judge throughout my childhood. I took for granted that politics was important to my parents. Still, I entered the convent a political neophyte. I knew my family voted Democratic, but I didn’t know where they stood on particular issues.

            In the 1960 election, John Kennedy, a Catholic, ran against Richard Nixon. I was teaching in Omaha. As I remember, I lived with thirteen other nuns. On Tuesday, November 8, we donned our capes in preparation for the trip to the polls. The convent superior locked the door behind us and said, “Well, we’re ready. Fourteen votes for Kennedy!”            

            Immediately, I determined to vote for Nixon. Not because I liked him or even knew anything about him. After all, I wasn’t permitted to read the newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch television. No. I voted for Nixon out of pure stubbornness. No one was telling me how to think. My vow of obedience meant I obeyed my superior with regard to living the Holy Rule, but I was certain this vow did not apply to how I thought—or voted. Still, no political savvy here. Just, “You can’t tell me how to vote.”

Photo of John F. Kennedy from Wikipedia

            One other time in the convent I did something political out of pure stubbornness. In 1965, some states were beginning to consider legalizing abortion in cases involving incest or rape. At the time, I was teaching in Baileyville, Kansas. The superior there told me to write to our state representative as an anti-abortionist.

            I refused to do so. Once again, no one was going to tell me how to think. The fact is I’d never thought about abortion. The truth may be that I’d never even heard the word before. I can’t remember that I knew what it meant. I knew only that I wasn’t going to be told what to do politically. My parents hadn’t raised a conformist.

            Of course, I wasn’t pro-abortion. Who is really? And I didn’t know about being pro-choice as that word didn’t enter our lexicon until the early 1970s. No, there was no serious thought or discussion here. Simply my innate stubbornness. Later I realized that my uninformed decisions were simply that—uninformed. If I were to become politically active, I needed to read. Study. Research. Listen to views from every side.

            I wasn’t able to do this in the convent at that time, but when I left on Christmas Eve 1966, I was. And so I have become in some ways, a political junkie.

            On Saturday I’ll share with you my first foray into being an activist.

                                                                        (Continued on Saturday . . . )
PS: Today the blog McGuffy's Reader features photographs of Dulcy and a wonderful review of her book.