The Real Heroes Are the Unsung Heroes
Mamacita says: Is there anyone else out there who can flip through a history book and wonder where everybody is?
So many unsung heroes. Too many.
Far too many genuinely important people get no mention whatsoever, or maybe just a brief mention, in passing. So many people who really ain’t all that get whole chapters dedicated to them; don’t even get me started on General Custer – the man was a complete and total loser.
But. . . where is Madame Walker? Where’s Denmark Vesey? Clara Barton? Laura Bridgeman? Maria Mitchell? Amelia Bloomer? (Guess what got named after her?) Where is Elizabeth Blackwell? Marie Curie? Ira Hayes? Thomas H. Perkins? Joseph Lister? Louis Pasteur? Yuri Gagarin? Frances Willard? Lucy Stone? Sojourner Truth? Nikola Tesla? Miep Gies? King Haakon VII of Norway? Laika? And so many more. . . .
Our children don’t know who these people are. Some of their parents don’t, either.
Most of the time, in any kind of drama, the most important participants are not the ones in the limelight. The most important participants are standing in the wings, or behind the curtains, actually DOING something. They understand that it’s the “DOING something” that’s important, not the”being seen in the vicinity of people who are doing something”.
These people are did things, awesome things, things that helped shape our lives today. Inspiring things. Brave things. But how many of you actually know who they were and what it was they did?
Erma Bombeck was right spot-on: “Don’t confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.
IT: The pronoun of desire and hanging out
College friends shaving-cream-bombed by the men’s dorm. We knew what “it” was, and we knew we had it.
Mamacita says: I wonder sometimes if one of the reasons some people age horribly and die, is because they have stopped hanging out with friends.
Of course, if they are REALLY old, they may have stopped hanging out with friends because there’s not that much to do in the cemetery.
But for people (naming no names) who are perhaps just beginning to be on the old side, whose friends are still (mostly) alive, it’s just as much fun to hang out with friends as it was years ago, when we all skipped last hour Chemistry to pile into someone’s blue Corvair and head out to the State Park to meet guys.
When my children were little, and it was purt nigh impossible to get away and hang out with friends (partly because it was purt nigh impossible to get away, and partly because they had small children also; living a hundred or a thousand miles away contributed to the level of difficulty. . . .) those few and far-between episodes of getting together quite possibly saved what little sanity I do have.
When we meet now, and yes, Virginia, we still meet once in a while, though not nearly often enough, the only thing that’s really changed, besides our faces, hair, bodies, and big purses, is the fact that we no longer have little children at home. Some of us have GRANDCHILDREN. Not me, though.
Ahem. Are my children reading this journal?
But the giggles, the nonsense, the silliness, the goofiness, the sheer love and devotion, are all still there in full force; possibly in fuller force than when we were younger.
Yes, definitely. Fuller force.
Maybe because, THEN, we knew what we had but didn’t fully understand that it could vanish in the wink of an eye. We were young, we were attractive, we knew it. And it would last forever. How could it not? And NOW, we know what we had and we know what we still have and we understand completely that yes, it could very well vanish in the wink of an eye, and that yes, some of it already has. We have mirrors. And even though we no longer have some of ‘it,’ we also know that, whatever ‘it’ was, we still have SOME of ‘it.’ And we aren’t afraid to use it, either.
No, not THAT kind of ‘it.’ Although, now that you mention ‘it’. . . . . . . . . . .
Those of you with small children: be sure you make time for your friends. “Hanging out” isn’t just for teenagers. You need it more than they do. Hire one of them, and go meet your friends for a few hours. Keep doing it until you are dead.
Your older children and possibly a husband who won’t be requiring any sex for a while, might make a comment about how “hanging out” means something entirely different on an older woman with, um, body image deficiency. Remind them all that they know where the food is kept, and that the sofa sleeps one person very comfortably indeed. And then leave.
Get out there and use ‘it.’
Readers may interpret “it” as they please. All answers are probably correct.
We Used To Know Who Lived Next Door
Mamacita says: Next door. Some people don’t even know who their next door neighbors are. We work during the day, and are so busy and tired at night that we no longer invite the neighbors to come over and sit on the porch with us. We live so close to other nice people, and we barely know them.
As a child, I knew who all our neighbors were. Most of them had kids my age or near it, and we played together all the time, inside each other’s houses and in everybody’s yard. Everybody’s mom was all of our moms. We seldom saw any dads, but it was a different era and most of the dads were at work.
We did know that every mom on the block would tattle to every other mom on the block if they saw any of us doing something we shouldn’t be doing. It kept us fairly well-behaved.
When neighborhoods had sidewalks, people used to walk on them. It was another way to meet the neighbors. As kids, we walked almost everywhere on those sidewalks. We walked to school. We walked to the store. We walked downtown. We walked to the library. It was inconceivable to expect a ride to any of these places. I mean, what in the WORLD.
My neighborhood has no sidewalks. People walk their dogs in the middle of the streets here. This is fine, because there is little traffic here, and dog-walking neighbors are usually friendly. I still don’t know their names, but we wave and exchange remarks about the weather.
There is only one house with little kids, and whoo boy, that family would not have lasted two weeks in my old neighborhood. So loud. So intensely, incredibly, unnecessarily loud. Screaming people.
But that’s my neighborhood today. Like most everything else, neighborhoods have changed.
The internet has given us a second chance to hang out with nice neighbors. Tired as we are, we can press a few buttons and have instant access to lots of wonderful people. Our internet neighbors are warm and friendly and we love them, as our parents loved the neighbors next door and across the street and down the block. They had time. We don’t. It’s a shame.
But late at night, after the kids are in bed, when all the actual neighbors are asleep, we can sit at our computers and talk with our internet neighbors, and catch up on their lives, and learn about their children and their jobs and their pets and their homes and their hobbies and interests. We help each other with our problems, and encourage each other. We sympathize, and we rejoice. Just like good neighbors do.
Nothing has really changed except the location of the neighbors. And on the internet, there are no barking dogs, screaming kids, vandals, blaring sirens, loud parties, or cranks. Well, there ARE, but we don’t have to notice them.
Unless we want to.
Yes, our internet neighbors are the finest kind. I love you all. I really do. You are real. I’m real. And if you lived near enough, I would loan you a cup of sugar any time of day or night.
