Coda for Chris, Will, or the Oscars?

Last night's Oscar ceremony should have been remembered for the history-making movie CODA. 

Instead, it will be remembered for the poor behavior of two grown men who should know better but apparently don't.

CODA is the first Best Picture winner to be from a streaming service (Disney +), the first starring predominantly Deaf actors to win Best Picture, and the second Deaf actor, Troy Kotsur, to win an Academy Award. Kotsur won Best Supporting Actor. (The first Deaf actor to win an Academy Award was Marlee Matlin, who won Best Actress in 1986 for Children of a Lesser God.) CODA is an acronym for Child Of Deaf Adult. The movie tells the story of the one hearing member (played by Emilia Jones) of a Deaf family who attempts to help her family's fishing business. 

The headlines could and should be talking about how CODA can give its audience a look into the world of the Deaf and of the challenges the Deaf and CODA's face. They could and should be celebrating that a film with predominately Deaf actors could get made, could get the attention of the Academy, and could win Best Picture. 

Instead, regular media and social media are screaming about the altercation between Chris Rock and Will Smith.

Rock, on stage to present the award for Best Documentary, joked from the stage that Javier Bardem had the hardest job that night because both Bardem and his wife, Penelope Cruz, were both nominated for Oscars, and "if she loses, he can't win!" Bardem was nominated for Best Actor for his role in "Being the Ricardos," Cruz for Best Actress in "Parallel Mothers". 

The audience laughed, and Rock quipped that Bardem was "praying that Will Smith wins!" 

Then he said, "Jada, I love you. GI Jane II, can't wait to see it." 

For anyone unaware, Demi Moore, who starred in 1997's "GI Jane," sported a shaved head for the movie. 

Jada Pinkett Smith, who was at the Oscars sporting a bald head, didn't laugh along with the rest of the audience . . . which included her husband, Will Smith. 

Who laughed at first.

And then who, a few seconds later, came onstage and slapped Chris Rock.

The following exchange happened: (transcription is mine from this video, posted by Guardian News on YouTube.)

Rock:  "Oh wow.  Wow. Will Smith just smacked the [expletive] out of me."

(audience laughter)

Smith:  "Keep my wife's name out of your [expletive] mouth!"

Rock:  "Wow, dude."

Smith:  "Yes."

Rock:  "It was a GI Jane joke."

Smith:  "Keep my wife's name out of your [expletive] mouth!"

Rock:  "I'm going to, okay?  Oh -- oh, okay."

(audience goes silent at that point.)

Smith:  "That was the, uh, greatest night in the history of television."

(audience laughs).

Rock: "Okay."

I did not know until today that Jada Pinkett Smith has alopecia, an autoimmune disorder which causes a person's hair to fall out. She went public with it in 2018. That was the reason she was there at the Oscars with her bald head. While checking my facts for this blog entry, I saw her quote:  "Me and this alopecia are going to be friends." 

She is bald and beautiful.  (Me, I would probably be shopping for every wig I could find.)

Will Smith did win Best Actor for his role in "King Richard", the story of Venus and Serena Williams' rise to fame on the tennis court. He tearfully said that "love makes you do crazy things" in his acceptance speech, but offered no apology to Chris Rock.

Rock, as of this writing, has declined to press charges.

I'm sitting here, right now, trying to figure out what I can, or should, say to all of this. I stopped watching the Oscars several years ago, although I'm still curious about who won what. Several years ago, the theme of the Oscars was, "Let's go back to the movies!" I said in response: Hollywood, we'll go back to the movies when you give us decent movies to go back to! 

Hollywood has had its share of decent movies with great actors and actresses, writers, and story lines. 

But last night, we all got a glimpse of the ugliness that goes on behind the scenes.  

This isn't the first feud/fight between actors or actresses in Hollywood history.  It won't be the last. But if memory serves me correct, it's the first time such ugliness has spilled onto the stage on the night that Hollywood has picked to honor itself. 

And these are the people we're supposed to look to as role models? 

So, instead of what could be a healthy discussion about the challenges of Deaf people and their hearing children, what could have been an opportunity for a man to speak of his beautiful wife, we're now seeing the back and forth of, "It was staged!" "Chris Rock was out of line!" "No, he's a comedian!" "People have to put up with jokes." "Can't people take a joke anymore?" "Will was a real man, he got right up there and defended his wife's honor!" "Will should have settled it outside with Chris after the show!" "Will should have apologized to Chris in his acceptance speech!" 

Maybe there will be a decent, healthy discussion about alopecia and the toll it takes on its sufferers.

Maybe, although I doubt it, there will be a decent, healthy discussion about how men should handle their anger in face of an insult, especially when it involves their wife or significant other. 

Maybe, there will be a decent, healthy discussion about the Deaf community and the challenges that Deaf and hearing members of the same family face. 

Forgive my cynicism, but I doubt it. Decent, healthy discussion went out the window about a decade ago and it's taken a steady downhill plunge since. 

Last night should have been about CODA.

Last night could have been about CODAs.

Instead, last night could have seen the coda of Chris Rock's career, Will Smith's career, and the Oscars as we know them.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Getting into trouble

Yesterday, I got into trouble.

Specifically, I went to the Georgia Capitol and got into trouble.

Even more specifically, I went to the Georgia Capitol and got into good trouble.

Yesterday, I attended a press conference at the Georgia Capitol. No, I did not get on the news and my phone is not blowing up with requests for interviews.

I went in support of a church friend and a fellow special needs parent, Philip Woody. Philip and his wife, Lisa, are the parents of Evan. Evan is 22, handsome, loves airplanes, basketball, and electronics . . .and also has a severe brain injury. He cannot be left unsupervised. He cannot speak, although there are ways he communicates. 

I also went because in the state of Georgia, at the moment, there are SEVEN THOUSAND people with disabilities on a waiting list for services. Those seven thousand people include Evan. They also include my son, who has autism. 

Last year, ONE HUNDRED of them were funded. Do the math. If you have 7000 people on a waiting list and only 100 people get funding every year . . . it would take SEVENTY YEARS for everyone on that list to be funded.

Georgia State Senator Sally Harrell wants to change that. Her bill, Senate Bill 208, proposes to fully fund that waiting list over the next five years. 

Philip has become more and more of an outspoken advocate for the disabled over the last few years. Yesterday, he spoke of being on the waiting list for services for ten years . . . and he added, "And we're tired."

I learned a few things I had not known.  For example, Evan has a caregiver, a very nice Hispanic woman. Know how much the state pays for service providers like Evan's caregiver.

Ten dollars an hour.

Know how much a dog walker can make?

Seventeen dollars an hour. 

That's right, apparently dogs are more important than our most vulnerable citizens. 

Lisa, Philip's wife, spoke of the stress of being a parent caregiver, and quoted a Georgia representative, Tommy Benton, as saying, people at home with an intellectually/developmentally disabled member are going to have to start doing more than they are doing. 

What more can these people do?

They either don't have caregivers for their children so a parent has to stay home; or if they have a caregiver, they run the risk of losing that caregiver to a better paying job. 

Parents take their disabled children to doctor's appointments, therapy appointments, they go to IEP meetings where goals are set and may or may not be met; they are on the phone with government agencies that may or may not get back with them (not because they don't care, but because their caseload is so heavy that it becomes impossible to juggle them all); or, they're finding out that they make too much money to qualify for services (even though their health insurance won't completely cover the condition their child has). They go to the hospital with their kids, sometimes in a life-or-death situation, scared out of their minds that maybe this is the time their child won't come home. And always, always, in the back of their minds, is, "What happens to my child when I die?  What happens if he/she outlives me? Who takes care of him/her?"

What more should these parents be doing? What more can these parents be doing?

Sally Harrell, the senator I mentioned earlier, spoke, and she said, "We are here. And after we leave, we will still be here." 

These parents, and caregivers, and others, are tired and angry. And yesterday, a group of them came to the Capitol to tell their stories. 

Probably the two that hit me most were 1) a woman who has other children besides her disabled son, who is now living in a group home in Tennessee. His sisters love their brother . . . and have had to partially sacrifice their childhood because of their brother's needs. They've had to keep an eye on their brother, probably have had time with their parents interrupted because "your brother needs . . .", and 2) a woman who had moved here from Michigan, with her son -- and who found that Georgia ranks FIFTY in services offered to the disabled. Her son wore a sign:  "Need Services? Don't Move Here!"

I listened to Philip, and to Lisa, and to Senator Harrell . . . and also to my pastor, who'd come to support Philip. In fact, in addition to Philip, Lisa, Evan, Don (our pastor), and myself, four other people from my church took time out of their day to come down and support these people. Two of them were on staff at my church. The other two are two of our elders. 

I listened. 

And then, when Philip asked if anyone else wanted to speak . . . well, I took advantage of my gift of spiritual blabbermouthing, stepped up to the podium, and told them about my son. 

I told them he was 23, autistic, and the reason he wasn't there was because, unlike many with disabilities, he was at work. And I pointed out that many people with disabilities can work and are willing to work. People complain about a labor shortage, there are "Now Hiring" signs up at so many places  . . . and here are a group of people who can and will work. 

I ended with, but even with all that, we won't be here forever. What happens when his father and I are gone? 

Don, our pastor, spoke about the moral imperative. I cannot remember everything he said (the one problem I had was the echo in the area which made it hard to hear what people were saying), but by the time he was done, I believe that several of the legislators who heard him left with sore toes because he stepped on them. 

A quote attributed to many, including Gandhi and Thomas Jefferson, runs along the lines of, the measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members. 

So, how do we treat the people like Evan? Like my son? Like the young lady I saw in a wheelchair who can't speak? Like the ones too often left to languish in group homes or other institutions? 

In the state of Georgia, we care a great deal about our athletic teams. Two of ours, the Atlanta Braves and the Georgia Bulldogs, won the World Series and the national title in college football, respectively. We treat them well, practically bow down and kiss Kirby Smart's feet, and throw parades for them when they win. 

What about those who will never be on an athletic team but who also carry the imago Dei -- the image of God?

That's why I got in trouble at the Capitol yesterday. 

That's why I got in good trouble at the Capitol yesterday. 

That's why we all got in good trouble at the Capitol yesterday.

For my son.

For Evan.

For the others like them. 

For their parents, their families, their caregivers. 

Jesus had a special heart for the children, for those who were on the margins of society. 

Isn't it time that the state of Georgia do the same thing?

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Searching for daffodils

 

Photo by Kavita Joshi Rai on Unsplash

Recently, I dealt with a bad bout of depression. I think it had a lot to do with the weather; it was wet, cold, cloudy, and gray. 

This week, I went to my doctor for my annual checkup, and she told me that she’d seen a daffodil in her front yard. 

I thought, “Daffodils? Cool!”

In Atlanta, where I live, the first harbingers of spring are daffodils, cherry trees, and forsythia. I start expecting daffodils around the end of February. So when I heard that my doctor had seen a daffodil in her yard, I decided it was time to start looking. 

On the way home, I glanced at a grouping of flowers at the base of a mailbox. Sure enough, they were daffodils! 

I’m smart enough to know that daffodils will not cure my depression. I take my meds and check in regularly with my counselor and psychiatrist. I also have a group of friends I confide in. 

But knowing that spring will come, knowing that the seasons will follow in order, and seeing those signs of each season coming — it helps. 

Next month will mark two years since the pandemic really hit for me. I date the beginning of the pandemic from March 13, 2020, when our governor declared a state of emergency and everything started shutting down. It was the day I took both my son and myself for haircuts and then went to Kroger. 

During those first few days, I walked in a park and I reminded myself, “Spring will come. Spring always comes. Even in a pandemic, spring will come.”

Today I am enjoying temperatures in the 60’s. By Sunday, we may have snow showers. Winter has not left us yet. Daffodils are only the first shots in the war on winter. 

But, even in the middle of a pandemic, even in the middle of a bout of depression, spring comes. 

This is why I go searching for daffodils in February. 

And why I always find them. 

Because they remind me that spring is coming. 

Like it always does.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

 

Pastor, go Locke your mouth up!

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

On January 23, 2022, Pastor Greg Locke, preacher at the Global Vision Bible Church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, abused both of those rights.

He preached a sermon, Desperate For Deliverance, that grabbed attention because of a comment he made about autism.

After reading a transcript of that comment, I was furious.

(Content warning: From here on out, I will be mentioning offensive comments related to both autism and mental illness; as well as some background information on Greg Locke. Please use appropriate self-care if you choose to read further.)

This is not the first time Locke has been in the news. In July of 2020, Locke stated his refusal to wear a mask, calling masks "gags."

In January, 2018, he announced his divorce from his wife Melissa. That August, the Christian Post wrote  that he'd married his church assistant.    

Locke claimed that she divorced him. The Pulpit and Pen blog paints a different picture, saying that she withdrew divorce papers she'd filed, and then Locke filed for divorce. 

Dee Parsons, writer at The Wartburg Watch blog, posted in 2020 about an angry encounter he had with a Dunkin Donuts employee when he refused to wear a mask inside. A YouTube video that went along with that blog entry has since been removed for violating YouTube's terms of service.

In order to determine the context of his "autism" comment, I found the YouTube video of that January 23 sermon. The comments on that particular video are turned off.

The sermon begins at 23:09 on the video. His main text is Jeremiah 8:11, the King James Version: "For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly."

From then on, he talks mostly about spirits, especially spirits of oppression. At 40:41, he refers to Isaiah 61:3, talks about swapping the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, and quips, "you don't need the pills, you need the Gos-pill."

Around 48:38, it becomes Locke's opinion that what we think of as being possessed by a demon, as in the movie The Exorcist, is not what the Bible teaches. He then explains that the word "possessed" isn't in the Bible in the Greek; rather, the Greek word actually means "demonized," and then says that yes, even Christians can be demonized. 

At 58:43, he begins the section that contains the comments about autism. I've transcribed the next few minutes from the YouTube video:  

"We know so few people, if any, that are totally surrendered.  Why? Because they've always got some tic about them. They've always got something about them they just can't get over. They have a compulsory about them. You know, if you'll study evil spirits, you'll find they compel you to do things that you would not normally do. Not even wicked things. Here's what we say.  Now don't get mad at me, I'm talking. We say things like this:  "Well, I've just got OCD."  You know why you do things that are out of the ordinary over and over and over and it ticks you off if it's not done?  Because you have a spirit of oppression, that's why. You ain't got OCD. I knew a chick that used to wash her hands every five minutes all day long when she was awake until she literally washed skin off of her hands.  Saved.  Loved God. Baptized.  Read the Bible. Went to church. Fasted. Prayed. You going to tell me that's natural?  That's supernatural oppression, is what that is, and she needs deliverance.

"And a lot of times, what we call stuff, it makes us feel better because it's the medical term, not the Bible term. Look. I'm telling you, this is real. We've been all over this, haven't we, baby? We've been studying it. Look.  Do not, do not jump up right now and rebuke me for what I'm about to say. But I've read the Bible too much to worry about what you think. Did you know that on three occasions -- we're going to go through all of them, not today, thank God.  On three occasions, kids were brought to Jesus, not of their own will or their own volition but by their parents, that had epileptic fits. Anger issues, outbursts of emotion. And because we've called it possession, parents refuse to deal with it. "Are you telling me my kid's possessed?" No, I'm telling you your kid could be demonized and attacked, but your doctor calls it autism.(emphasis mine, TAS) I don't care if you stand or not.  I don't care if you leave or not. I'm telling you, there is deliverance in the name of Jesus Christ for your children! And their children's children! There's deliverance in that! Ain't no such diagnosis in the Bible! Jesus cast out that oppressive spirit and the child was made whole that very hour, the Bible says! That very hour.  That's what the Bible says. Now, I'm just figuring all this stuff out so don't quote me on everything I'm saying. I'm just saying, quote me on everything I'm saying.  

I stopped there.

I'm offended on two points.  One, I have OCD. (Mine manifests itself by intrusive thoughts.) Two, my son is autistic.

So, Pastor Locke, you are telling me that those with the diagnosis of autism and those with the diagnosis of OCD only need deliverance from oppressive spirits and the "gos-pill"?

No, what you need are several hours' -- or days' -- worth of conversation with autistics, parents of autistics, and sufferers of OCD who have heard it all; that they are crazy, they should be ashamed of themselves for their thoughts and rituals, and that autistic children just have bad parents who don't discipline them.

Believe me, by the time you finish with those people -- or rather, by the time they finish with you -- you will be the one needing deliverance!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Happy New Year?

At the end of 2020, I stayed up until midnight just to make sure that 2020 went away.  I know that's superstitious, that a calendar is going to change whether I'm awake or asleep. But 2020 was one of those years where you wanted to make sure that it went away and never came back. 

However, today I read an alleged quote from the diary of Czar Nicholas II saying, "The year 1916 was cursed; 1917 will surely be better!" (I've done a quick Google search and can't verify that this was an actual quote from his diary.) But for those of you well-versed in history, 1917 was about as bad as you could get in Russia. That was the year of the Russian Revolution, and among its victims were the Czar and his family, who were deposed and placed under house arrest. They were all executed in 1918.

2020 seemed to be cursed with the arrival of COVID, racial unrest, and a hotly contested election. But at the end of 2020, we had a vaccine and we'd elected a new president. Surely 2021 would surely be better, right?

Riiiiight. 

2021 saw a riot at the US Capitol aimed at stopping Congress from certifying election results and placing Donald Trump back in power. It saw numerous dates when Donald Trump would be "reinstated" as president. I think Trump has given up on being "reinstated" and is now putting his energy into running for president again in 2024. 

Beginning in April, I heard so many reports of people getting shot that a day without a shooting was odd. 

Our country is pulling further and further apart.

And although there is a vaccine for COVID now, there's a sizable, vocal group of people refusing to take it in the name of "freedom". (This is different from those who cannot take it due to medical reasons.) 

COVID has proved to be a sneaky little virus.  It's mutated into versions from Alpha to, now, Omicron, (skipping Nu and Xi). Omicron is labeled as "mild", but if a "mild" version of COVID was anything like what I had in September, it is not something I want to go through again. Yes, I was vaccinated.  I had a breakthrough case. Both my son and I tested positive, and I'm convinced all of us were ill, even though my husband, through a mix-up, wasn't able to get the results of his first test and had to be tested again and tested negative. We are learning the Greek alphabet whether we want to or not.

We still have racial strife simmering beneath the surface, and Joe Biden has not proved to be the "problem solver" that everyone wanted. To be fair, Biden inherited a mess from his predecessor, and no one person can meet everyone's expectations. 

And the "I" word, "inflation" has entered the national discourse again, with the press screaming about "the highest inflation rates since the end of Carter's term and the beginning of Reagan's." (I notice that the press isn't commenting very much on the days in the 1970's of double-digit inflation and double-digit interest rates.) 

I'm not sure if this is a sign of the year to come, but yesterday, our church met solely online due to the sharp rise in COVID cases in GA. We plan to meet in person next week, but I will not be shocked if we end up going back to online church if COVID rates keep rising. 

And anyone who tells me that because I wear a mask and have gotten my shots that I am "living in fear," my answer is:   Taking precautions is NOT "living in fear". It is being prudent. Living by "faith, not fear" does NOT include putting God to the test. Remember, one of the temptations of Jesus was Satan telling him to jump off of the temple, because God would catch him.  Jesus' retort was that you should not put the Lord to the test! 

In November, mid-term elections will happen; and we here in Georgia are gearing up for what is predicted to be a contentious governor's race.

So will this be a happy new year?

Most of that is going to depend on my attitude, I admit. I am happily married, I have a son I am very proud of, we are able to pay our bills and we have friends. There are plenty of blessings I can count. 

But after 2020 and 2021, the fact that 2022 is pronounced "2020-too" sounds rather ominous to me.   

Let's see if I'm wrong!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

From 12:55 p.m. to 2:26 p.m.

 At 12:55 p.m. on a Sunday, at Ralph and Ary Chitwood's house in Harlan, Kentucky, they and their three children were probably enjoying Sunday dinner. While seven-year-old Mary Alice and three-and-a-half year old Thelma could feed themselves, Ary was probably helping one-and-a-half year old Jack with his meal. 

With dinner finished, Ary -- maybe with help from Mary Alice -- cleared the table, washed and put away the dishes, and bundled up any leftovers she had. (Before doing all of that, I'm sure she cleaned up Jack and took off his bib.)

Meanwhile, Ralph flipped on the radio, settled into a chair, and read the Sunday paper, while Thelma played on the floor in the living room or maybe in the bedroom she shared with Mary Alice. 

If Mary Alice, Thelma, and Jack had gone outside to play, Ary no doubt would have reminded them to put on their coats, hats, and mittens because it was cold outside, and told the two older girls to "keep an eye on Jack!"

Finished with her chores, Ary settled into a chair in the living room with Ralph, maybe with mending or darning socks; or perhaps she read the paper when Ralph was finished. 

*****

In another part of Harlan County, Rosspoint, Mary Sergent and her five children were probably enjoying a Sunday dinner cooked by Mary with help from 15-year-old Ruth, her oldest and only daughter. The four boys -- Wallace, 12; Arlie, 11; Tony, 9; and Jerry, 2 -- probably chatted around the table. In the back of Mary's mind were thoughts of her husband John, who'd just been killed in an accident last month. Occasionally, either Mary or Ruth would give Jerry some help with feeding himself.  

After dinner, either Mary or Ruth or both would probably wash and put away dishes and store any leftovers (after cleaning up Jerry and taking off his bib.). 

The boys, full of energy as preteen boys are, would probably have yanked on coats, hats, and mittens and ran outside to run off their energy. Or perhaps some of them stayed inside, read the paper, and played the radio in the background. 

*****

Up in Reading, Pennsylvania, Irwin and Emma Rapp were also finishing Sunday dinner with their children, Alice, 13; Curtis, 9; Shirley, 7; and Sylvia; 3. In Alice's mind were the additional responsibilities she was taking on helping her father, a banker, who had a heart condition. He would die six months later. In Pennsylvania, snow might have already been on the ground that Sunday. Or perhaps it was waiting for Christmas. 

With dinner finished, and Emma -- and perhaps Alice and/or Curtis helping -- washed dishes and put away leftovers. Alice turned her attention to her father while Emma, or maybe Curtis, turned the radio on. 

****

Farther north, in Mount Olive, New Jersey, in the house of Frank and Mabel Seward, they were perhaps finishing Sunday dinner as well. On Frank's mind were the cows in the dairy farm he ran; how to keep them healthy and producing milk.  He was an immigrant from England and had built a life in his new country. Since their marriage, Frank and Mabel had had the challenge of running a farm and raising a family that eventually numbered six children, Rena, 27; Elizabeth, 25; Mildred, 22; Annabel, 20; Caroline, 17; Reginald, 15 and the only boy; and Vera, 11.  

Rena would have been 27 had she not died earlier that year.  Her absence at the dinner table surely left a hole that nothing could fill.  

Elizabeth and Mildred may have been married by then, perhaps cleaning up after their own Sunday dinners.  

Annabel, Caroline, Reginald, and Vera, after enjoying dinner, may have gone outside in the New Jersey cold. Or maybe they wanted to stay inside, where it was warm.  

One of them put the radio on.

****

From 12:55 p.m. to 2:26 p.m., they went about their tasks in blissful ignorance. They played. They did chores. They rested. They talked about the coming week, what they would need to do . . . and since Christmas was only 18 days away, they talked about "what are we going to do for Christmas?"

At 2:26 p.m., during a football game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants, with the announcer pattering and the crowd cheering, the sound stopped, quickly replaced with, "We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this important bulletin from United Press."

Over the sound, the audience -- probably mostly men -- groaned at the interruption. Who wants their football game interrupted?

Then the words:  "Flash. Washington. The White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor."

Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Five words that changed everything.

It was 7:55 a.m., 80 years ago today, when those first bombs dropped. 

In the four places I just described, it was 12:55 p.m.

The news broke an hour and a half later. 

For an hour and a half, husbands, wives, mothers, and children from the four families I just described did all of the things I just described, not knowing that five words were about to drop and upend their entire lives. 

Bombs dropped and exploded, men shot back, ships sank, trapping men inside, fires started, people panicked . . . and those four families had no idea.  Not until a football game was interrupted, not until the radio started buzzing with variants on those five words:  Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

In the days that followed, new words became part of their vocabulary:  Ration points. Ration cards. Draft. Enlistment. Blue stars and gold stars in windows. V-mail. Recycling. 

And one person in those four families, Reginald -- who then began using his middle name of Frank -- was drafted and became a calibration technician; the person who made sure that the instruments in the airplanes the Army Air Corps depended on worked.

Why did I choose to focus on those four particular families?

Irwin and Emma Rapp were the parents of my mother-in-law, Alice.

Frank and Mabel Seward were the parents of my father-in-law, Frank.

Ralph and Ary Chitwood were the parents of my mother, Thelma.

Mary Sergent was the mother of my father, Tony. 

 The parents were the members of the Greatest Generation, as Tom Brokaw called them.  The children were the members of the Silent Generation.  Both of them "bucked up" and did what had to be done. Whether it be following the draft, as Reginald Frank did; whether it be producing food, as Frank Seward did; or growing a Victory Garden, as all of these families probably did.  

They all learned to do without because of a greater cause. They learned the meaning of sacrifice. 

Our parents and grandparents rarely talked about the Depression and the war. They didn't talk about the sacrifices they made; or if they did, it was in the tone of, "this was what we had to do, and we did it".

Today, if Pearl Harbor were attacked, it would not take an hour-and-a-half to learn about it. It would probably only take a minute-and-a-half, and we'd see the "breaking news" alert on our smartphones or TVs. We wouldn't have the bliss of ignorance my parents and grandparents did.

Eighty years ago, our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents heard five words that upended their world. Like 9/11 for my generation and my son's generation, you can see the before/after, the abrupt dividing point in history where you can't go back to the way things were before.   

Eighty years later, how would we react? 

Would we take the lessons learned from the Greatest and Silent Generation and do what we needed to do?

Or, as I fear we Boomers, Xers, and Millenials are doing, would we object and complain that "my freedom" and "my rights" are the most important thing?

Would we come together?

Or would we fall apart?

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Four days apart

Rachel and I are the same age, except that I am four days older. 

By coincidence, her father got a job on my birthday — and just in time, because he needed money to help support this second daughter.

Like me, she’s the youngest of two girls, and she probably grew up squabbling with her big sister. 

All similarities end there.

Unlike me, she didn’t spend the first six weeks of her life in an incubator. 

Unlike me, she was not born in the Appalachian Mountains.

And unlike me, she would never know her father.  

Because today, 58 years ago, her father was murdered.

Ever since I learned that Rachel and I were about the same age, I’ve wondered about her; I’ve wondered about the twists and turns of fate that landed her where she was and me where I am. 

Why this obsession with a woman named Rachel, born four days after me?

Well, the main reason lies with her full name:  Audrey Marina Rachel Oswald.

If that last name sounds familiar, it should. 

Her father, Lee Harvey Oswald, 58 years ago, on November 22, 1963, pointed a rifle out a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository, pulled the trigger three times, and murdered President John F. Kennedy. He also seriously wounded Texas Governor John Connally. 

Two days later, a man named Jack Ruby wormed his way into a supposedly secure police garage, pulled a .38 Colt revolver, and shot Lee Oswald in the abdomen. Despite the efforts of doctors at Parkland Memorial Hospital (ironically, the same hospital that treated Kennedy), Oswald died an hour and a half later. 

Rachel was 35 days old, probably just beginning to smile, and mostly unaware of the drama around her. 

In March, 1995,  Texas Monthly wrote an article on this daughter of Lee Harvey Oswald. The article told about the life she’d led as a child and young woman. Rachel, in 1995, was working as a waitress to pay her way through nursing school.

Rachel was seven when her mother told her and her older sister, June, that Kenneth Porter, the man they knew as their father, was not their biological father.  Their biological father was Lee Oswald and “he had been accused of killing the president of the United States.” 

That, Rachel realized, was why her school bus sometimes got followed by the news, why some people shot at their mailbox, why sometimes kids asked her if her daddy shot the President. But at home, Rachel said, “we were just trying to be a normal family.” They didn’t really talk about what had happened. 

In the town she grew up in, Rockwell, Texas, everyone knew Rachel’s mother. They were “of interest to people” and “for the most part, people were nice, but they were always whispering things.” 

Despite the assertions of a 1982 tabloid article that claimed that the Oswald kids didn’t have “dogs or dates”, Rachel, as a teenager, was healthy and active, involved in gymnastics and ballet, made good grades, was a varsity cheerleader, and was even voted “most popular student” by her classmates.

She wondered, when do I tell a date about Lee? On the first date? The second? The third? She said, “What it boils down to is that every time I meet someone—every person at a party, every customer I wait on, every classmate, every teacher, every would-be friend—I ask myself, Do they know who I am? Are they looking at me that way because of me or because I’m the daughter of Lee Harvey Oswald?”

Her opinion on the JFK assassination? “Lee was this 24-year-old guy . . . that got himself in over his head . . . I don’t know who else was involved, but clearly it was too big of a deal for one twenty-four-year-old kid to do by himself.” She continued, “There are just too many loose ends for it all to be dumped on my father. . . I’m sorry for my father’s pain, but basically I just want it to be over, one way or another, especially by the time I have kids.”

She described herself as a regular person who drove a beat up car, who had a bachelor’s degree in natural sciences, but that there were still people “who refuse to believe that I could be normal.  That’s what I hope my kids will never have to go through.”

Rachel did graduate from nursing school and found a job. 

Keith Kachtick, the writer of the Texas Monthly article, called Rachel “the daughter of a presidential assassin, an attractive and healthy woman who apparently wanted nothing more from life than to be a good nurse. If it is true that poetry is the silence between words, then there is something genuinely poetic about the life Rachel Oswald is quietly living between the headlines.”

I am four days older than this woman. Call it fate, coincidence, whatever you will . . . but just suppose I had been the one born October 20, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, and she had been the one born on October 16 in Harlan, Kentucky? 

Suppose my father was Lee Oswald, the man who killed Kennedy? 

Suppose her father was a small-town teacher? 

Suppose my mother had to explain who my father was? 

And suppose I had to grow up in that shadow, wondering if the people who knew me, or knew my name — was it about me, the person I am; or it is about my father? Do they want a relationship with me because they like me, they are attracted to me, they think I’m nice, cool, etc . . . or do they just want a link with an infamous historical personage? 

Would I, as Audrey Marina Rachel Oswald did, forge a path for myself, working to have a successful career?

Or perhaps would I have tried to capitalize on whatever fame I could get from the last name of “Oswald”? 

Would Rachel have decided to become a nurse, or possibly found another career?

I didn’t find any other information about Rachel after that 1995 article, which tells me that she’s mostly succeeded in living the normal life that she wanted. If she is still a nurse at 58, I hope that career is successful for her . . . and I wonder, too, how she has handled this pandemic. Does she suffer from burnout and exhaustion, like so many of our medical professionals have and do? 

Two women, born four days apart, who have never met, probably never will meet, who share nothing in common but a birth month and year . . . and it makes me wonder, had our circumstances and positions been reversed, who would we be, what would our lives be like, and what would the world be like? 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.