Tinsel

I wrote this last year, the day I took the Christmas tree down, just after I got word of a family tragedy some friends of ours had suffered. I was thinking about time and sorrow and loss . . . and hope and memory and love . . . and this little essay pretty much wrote itself. It's also on the "This I Believe" website, but friends said it would be easier to find here.

* * * *

Another monochromatic day in this perpetually grey January . . . I am lifting the tinsel from our Christmas tree, strand by silvery strand, when my husband looks up and asks what in the world I am doing. “It’s just tinsel,” he says, looking bewildered. “Cheapest thing on the tree. Pull it off and throw it away.” I smile at him, gather one more shiny thread, and fold it into the bag for next year.

As children, my brothers and I looked forward all year to the December day when we would decorate the Christmas tree. Passing boxes of ornaments hand-to-hand down the attic stairs, we unrolled each treasure from its protective nest of toilet paper and cotton batting and held it up to be admired: tiny glass birds from Germany to perch on the fragrant branches; candy-colored balls and twirling icicles; decades-worth of the embroidered curios our grandmother created every year; flame-shaped light bulbs, bright as new crayons; and – our favorite – the magical (and undoubtedly hazardous) glass candle-lights that bubbled enthusiastically after they warmed up. Then finally, when everything else was in place, shimmering strands of tinsel.

“One at a time,” my father instructed sternly. Bill, my tall brother, arranged the highest pieces, while I worked below him, handing off single strands to three-year-old Bob, who preferred to cram all of his tinsel onto one branch. We’d back away, squint, add another sparkling wisp, and another, until my father declared the tree to be perfect.

We were a little less affable when it was time to remove the tinsel after our Christmas spirit had faded. Bill grumbled because his friends were outside shooting baskets. I grumbled because I wanted to get back to the book I was reading. Bob, heeding his own drummer, snatched up matted clusters of tinsel in his chubby fingers, handing them to me to separate. But we were obedient children, and that tree, like all the others, was slowly, slowly cleared, strand by silvery strand.

As I stand here today, undoing the last shiny tangle, I am carried back to those precious January days we used to grumble about. My dad is gone now, buried on the Maine island he loved. Our handsome Bill died in a highway accident during college. Little Bob has become a world-renowned naturalist, designing tools and techniques to rescue entangled whales. I spent 30 years in classrooms, trying to make the world better, one child at a time. . .as my son Chris, an exceptional teacher, is doing now.

This I believe: every task, however simple, has value and consequence. I bought the tinsel in my hands for my son David’s first Christmas tree, more than 40 years ago. These fragile threads form an unbroken chain of memories for me. Now, for an hour every January, I hold my family’s history in my hand, packing it lovingly away one more time, strand by silvery strand.

A Graduation Speech

I worked at Winslow High School in Maine for a number of years and probably learned a great deal more than my students. It's a terrific school, full of dedicated teachers and incredible kids. One of my most delightful, exasperating, joyful, maddening, priceless, and unforgettable experiences was to be class advisor of Winslow's 1992 graduating class. My co-advisor was Bob Quirion (referred to as "Q" in the speech below), a bright, patient, and generous math teacher, who was the best partner I could ever have hoped for. The students in this class were unusually gifted, making them both exciting and frustrating to work with. Bob and I adored them. When graduation approached, they asked us to be their graduation speakers, an honor that touched us very deeply. I sweated over that speech. These kids were very special, and I wanted to say something special to them. This (which is about the 47th draft of the speech) is what I actually said to them. At the end of it, I'll tell you one more story.

I am very proud to be part of this ceremony. Graduation is a significant ritual – and a time in the life of a family that is both joyful . . . and miserable. Your parents and advisors are retiring tonight – more or less reluctantly – from a job we've held for a number of years, and we're all wondering where the time went. You graduates are about to find out that when you leave home the next time, you are really leaving. From now on you will always return as a visitor . . . because this rite of passage called "commencement" means you are truly leaving your childhood behind you . . . and beginning a new life.
There is an African proverb that says, "It takes a whole village to educate a child." [Please notice the date of this speech – I used this proverb four whole years before Hillary made it famous!] Your whole village came to watch you graduate tonight. All the people in this room are here because they care about you, and many of them have helped make you the fine individuals you have become. I hope all of you will find ways to say think you to those special people.
A few years ago, when my son David was about to graduate from high school, I was as anxious as your parents are tonight. Where had the time gone? Had I told him everything he needed to know? Was he really ready to go out on his own? That's how I feel about you. Did we teach you enough? Did we nag you enough? What did we leave out? So in my role as your advisor and Mom, I have put together ten final pieces of advice for you.
Advice Number 1, 2, and 3. Eat lots of fiber. Remember to pay your dues. [This was an in-joke. We had nagged the class all year long about paying their class dues.] Always wear clean underwear – you never know . . . .
Advice Number 4. Be conscientious about how you live. Don't waste anything, from time, to food, to the air you breathe. Get in the habit of recycling. One of the class mottos you considered said, "You don't inherit the earth from your ancestors – you borrow it from your children." Don't forget about that – it's important.
Advice Number 5. Don't expect quick solutions to complex problems. Nothing good is ever achieved without time and hard work. Try not to get stuck in the same old patterns – they may be temporarily soothing, but they aren't always the best answer. I'd like to tell you a little story about education.
When my son Christopher was a baby, and I wanted him to feed himself, I handed him the spoon, and he proceeded to pour strained carrots into his hair, and all over me and the floor and the high chair and the cat! And what did I say? I said, "Great job, Chris!" I didn't have him take notes. I didn't say, "Today we are going to learn to use the spoon. The spoon was invented in 1153 by Leonardo the Fat. Some of the famous people in history who have used the spoon are as follows . . . ." Nope, I didn't do it that way. I put the spoon in his hand and, while what happened next was truly a disaster, it was not a failure. I didn't put Christopher into the slow-eating group. I believed that, given enough time and practice, he would learn to do that task. And every time he got within half a mile of his mouth, I said, "Great job, Chris!"
What if we were always as enthusiastic about your progress as we were when you were sitting in high chairs eating strained carrots? How far might you have gone if you knew we believed in you every minute? That's the concept behind our new Renaissance program – to show you that we really do care what you do. If we expect you to believe in education, we know we have to believe in you – every single one of you, every single minute!
Sometimes we get stuck in old patterns, thinking there is only one way to solve a problem. See if you can solve this one, given two simple facts about crime in America – Fact 1: 60% of the people in American prisons are high school dropouts; Fact 2: we spend nearly four times as much money every year to keep a criminal in prison as we do to educate a child in our schools. Could we, in fact, be working at this problem from the wrong end? That leads me to . . .
Advice Number 6. Think! Be creative. Don't resist change – stay alert to possibility. Here's another fact: it costs $54 million to run the federal government . . . for 20 minutes! If you believe government can be more efficient or more effective, don't whine about it – get involved. You're the ones who will make the difference. And if you're really thinking, you might find some surprising ways to do that. In 1987, for example, American Air Lines cut $40,000 from its operating budget by eliminating one olive from each of the salads served in first class. How many olives can we cut from government spending to insure that all Americans live safe and healthy lives?
We've learned some hard lessons from the tragedies of Len Bias [a talented athlete who had recently died of a drug overdose] and Magic Johnson [who had just announced he was HIV-positive] and others. But drug abuse and AIDS aren't our only national problems. As many as one-fifth of America's children go to bed hungry at night. Did you know that infant mortality rates are higher in certain neighborhoods in Detroit and Washington, D.C., than they are in most Third World countries? And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Our country is facing some tough choices right now. Furthermore, the world is much too complex for us merely to think nationally any more – we have to learn to think globally, to care about every acre of forest and every hungry child in the whole world.
Education can give you the tools and the power to turn things around – to solve the problems of drug abuse, of AIDS, of poverty, of hunger, of peace on earth. Learn as much as you can, use your knowledge creatively, and believe that you can make a difference. And that should be a snap for you – because this room is full of people who believe in you already!
Advice Number 7. Be good. We've survived some tough times as a school this year. And in the various struggles, many of you discovered strength of character you didn't even know you had! Be big enough to admit your mistakes, and then move on. Don't underestimate your own ability to do the right thing: remember Eleanor Roosevelt’s words: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Now, I know you'd be terribly disappointed if I didn't give you at least one good guilt trip somewhere in all of this . . . so here it is. Mother Lauder's Advice Number 8. It's time to stop thinking you're the most important person in the world. I know that flies in the face of everything we've said to you for the last twelve years. A whole lot of talented and generous and loving people have dedicated their lives to your personal and educational growth. But now it's time to give something back. Your world will be very small if you're the only one in it. Don't think you're better than other people; don't wallow in self-pity. Reach out. Get involved. Pass on some of the kindness which people have shown to you. Volunteer –- you don't have to get paid for everything. If you feel the world owes you something, you've misunderstood everything we've been trying to tell you for the last twelve years.
Advice Number 9 – and this may be the most important of all – Respect Yourself. Take charge of your own life, and don't waste your time trying to fit in. Be the kind of person that other people want to model their lives after . . . and you don't get to be that way by following the crowd, or the line of least resistance. If you have to worry about getting caught, you're making the wrong decisions. Base your life choices on a morality that you have chosen carefully, and that you can live with proudly.
Number 10. Don't forget the people who love you. This room is full of them. Now, Q and I know we're not really your parents . . . but it still feels as if we are losing 130 children all at one time. It has been our joy and privilege to watch you grow up; you have surprised and delighted us so many times . . . we've been so proud of you! In a very deep and special way, you will always be our family. Be kind to each other.
Do you remember the Tin Woodsman? He didn't have a heart, and he wanted one so badly. But when it came time for him to say good-bye to someone he loved, he suddenly realized something he had never understood before: "Now I know I have a heart," he said, "because it's breaking." That's what mine is doing now.
Goodbye, Class of 1992. Thank you for a great ride! Now, life is calling: pick up your spoons. I know you'll do a Great Job! I love you.

At a class reunion ten years later, I discovered that several of these precious young people -- now moms and dads themselves, and doctors and artists and teachers and scientists and college professors and even a state legislator -- were carrying folded up, battered, grimy copies of this speech in their wallets. Yes, this is why teachers keep coming back, day after day!

My favorite moment in that reunion came from a conversation with Jasa Porciello, a brilliant, beautiful young woman who spends every day making the world a kinder, more tolerant place. She told us about her job in an inner-city Philadelphia child development center, where her students worked very hard at their lessons in order to earn a badge that said . . . "Great job, Chris!"

Exposing Jim Crow

The first African American to serve in the Tennessee General Assembly was Sampson Keeble, elected to a two-year term beginning in 1873. During the following term, to which Keeble was not re-elected, the state legislature passed the first of Tennessee's so-called "Jim Crow" laws, permitting discrimination in railroad trains, restaurants, and other public facilities. The bill as enacted was written imprecisely enough that it did not draw the critical attention of the U.S. Congress, whose Reconstruction laws restricted this type of injustice. However, House Bill 527 as originally submitted made sponsor R. P. Cole's objectives perfectly clear -- he intended to ban blacks from using any public facilities enjoyed by whites.

As the bill moved through the state legislature, passing both its first and second readings, it was referred to the Judiciary Committee for their recommendations and approval. The committee members removed all specific references to African Americans (including ludicrous and malicious references to the kink of the hair, bodily contours and odors, and descendance from "canibals"), while admittedly supporting the author's intent in every way. They reworded the bill, crafting its final, ambiguous language and submitted it to the General Assembly, where it received final approval and passed into law, as Chapter 130, Acts of Tennessee, 1875.

More information about the bill and about the first black legislators in Tennessee can be found on the Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA) website. The following links will beam you to some of the most interesting sections of the site:

http://www.state.tn.us/tsla/
(This is the main page of the TSLA website, with links to many of the features the Tennessee State Library and Archives has made available online.)

http://www.state.tn.us/tsla/exhibits/blackhistory/index.htm
(This is the main page of "This Honorable Body: African American Legislators in 19th Century Tennessee," with links to the other sections of this exhibit. Be sure to turn the sound on -- you will hear a song by the Fisk Jubilee singers on this page.)

http://www.state.tn.us/tsla/exhibits/blackhistory/bios/boyd.htm
(Scroll down this biography page to the last paragraph, where you will find a direct link to a PDF file of a recent transcription of Chapter 130.)

http://www.state.tn.us/tsla/exhibits/blackhistory/timelines/timeline.htm
(On the first page of the timeline is a link in the upper right corner to a PDF file of a much more complete timeline, which includes the transcribed texts of many of the documents mentioned, including the Emancipation Proclamation; the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments; the Wade-Davis bill; the Civil Rights acts of 1866 and 1875; and Chapter 130, along with many more.)

http://www.state.tn.us/tsla/exhibits/blackhistory/resources.htm
(This page gives you access to a down-loadable PowerPoint presentation about the first African American legislators in Tennessee.)

http://tsla-teva.state.tn.us/
(While you're on the TSLA website, don't miss this exciting new feature. TeVA, the Tennessee Virtual Archive, is TSLA's rapidly-growing online digital collection, featuring historical documents, maps, photographs, and much more. TeVA can make valuable historical materials available to teachers, students, and researchers who cannot easily make the trip to Nashville to visit the library. We expect that this site will continue to grow for many years, making more and more primary resources available to the public.)

Tennessee's Astonishing 19th Century African American Legislators

Few people know that, between 1872 and 1897, fourteen African American men, most of them former slaves, were elected to the Tennessee General Assembly. Five of them were lawyers, one representing Ida B. Wells in her famous lawsuit against a railroad company, another taking a landmark case to the U.S. Supreme Court. One put himself through college (Fisk University) by teaching in the summertime in a schoolhouse he built with his own hands. Three others earned prestigious Peabody Scholarships to attend college in Nashville (two at Fisk, and one at Roger Williams University, where he later taught); two others studied at Oberlin College in Ohio.
One of these individuals was nominated to be Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, receiving 32 of the 93 votes cast. Several served as city councilors or court magistrates in Memphis, Chattanooga, and Nashville. One had already served as a state representative in North Carolina before moving to Tennessee. By any standards, these were remarkable men.
But their successes were short-lived. Although elected to a second legislative term, David F. Rivers never served it -- racial violence in his home county forced him to give up his election in order to ensure the safety of his family. Samuel A. McElwee had to flee attacking night riders and saw his election stolen from him when many votes were changed; he never returned to his home. When Styles L. Hutchins' law office was set on fire, he left the state forever. Most of the former legislators found themselves living in reduced circumstances or having to leave Tennessee in order to practice their professions. Rivers became the pastor of a large church in Washington, D.C., serving until his death in 1941; McElwee and Hutchins both moved to Illinois in order to be able to practice law in safety. Many others moved to other states, as well. One former legislator ended his life as an elevator operator; several were never heard from again.
After Reconstruction, the infamous Jim Crow laws systematically stripped black voters of their rights, until African Americans had virtually no political power. It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – 100 years after the end of the Civil War – that state-sanctioned voter discrimination officially came to an end. After the end of the 45th General Assembly in March of 1887, Tennessee would not seat another African American in its legislature until 1965.

If you want to learn more about these fourteen remarkable legislators and their work in the Tennessee General Assembly, visit the TSLA exhibit: "This Honorable Body: African American Legislators in 19th Century Tennessee" online at
http://www.state.tn.us/tsla/exhibits/blackhistory/index.htm

The Joys of TEL

One of the great wonders of the Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA) is the Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL), which can be accessed from the main page of the TSLA website: http://www.state.tn.us/tsla/. Poking around for just a few minutes this morning, I located several articles on sheep's milk (very trendy in Europe for making feta cheese), as well as directions for making a drop spindle, the simple tool by which lots of people first learn to spin wool, by using a pencil and a potato (that's pretty simple, all right!) or a dowel rod and a CD.

The joys of TEL include the following wonders:

• you can choose either abstracts or full-text articles as you search;
• you can select a PDF version of many articles, so you can look at the photos and diagrams as you read;
• you can search through a huge list of magazines, academic journals, reference lists, newspapers, and multimedia sources;
• and (most delightful of all) TEL gives you the correct citation for the article, in MLA style and a couple of others, and then will export that information to several types of third-party software!

Lazy Kate's bizarre observation of the day: If you were just learning to speak English, wouldn't you expect "wool" to rhyme with "tool"?

Hunh? Lazy Kates and Niddy Noddies?

Lazy Kates, Niddy Noddies, and Swifts are tools used by handspinners to make their work simpler. A Lazy Kate is essentially an arrangement of dowels on which you can place your bobbins when you are making two-ply or three-ply yarn. (My spinning wheel has one built right into the base.) The yarn slips off each bobbin at a uniform rate so you can create a smooth, even ply.

A Niddy Noddy is used to collect a skein of yarn right off the spinning wheel. It is nothing more than a wooden rod with another piece set perpendicular to it at each end; the two perpendiculars are then set at right angles to each other. (This might be a little hard to picture, even though it is a very simple tool. You may want to Google these terms so you can see what each gadget looks like.) This arrangement allows you to wrap the yarn around it from point to point without tangling your arm up in the middle of it! Spinners in earlier days used to sing a niddy-noddy song with lots of verses so they could tell when they had wrapped enough yarn to make a full skein.

A Swift is an elegant contraption used for winding a skein of yarn into a ball. Do you remember sitting for endless afternoons with your arms out in front of you, holding a skein of yarn while your mom rolled miles of yarn into a ball and grumbled at you to sit still? The Swift does that for you (except for the grumbling!). It's a beautiful apparatus that opens out into something that looks like a giant wooden snowflake and spins slowly as you pull the yarn off it, making a satisfying swishing hum while preventing those pesky tangles. So much of handspinning is wonderfully relaxing. In fact, few things in life are more peaceful than sitting at your wheel on a snowy afternoon, your foot on the wooden pedal, the batt slipping through your fingers strand by strand as the new, soft yarn fills the bobbin, and colorful birds gather at the feeder outside your window. Ahhh . . .