Masters Tournament: Tradition That Needs to Change

The Masters was started by Clifford Roberts and amateur golfer Bobby Jones in 1932. Roberts' tradition insisted golfers use Augusta National Golf Club caddies, all of whom were African American until 1982. That tradition ended. Since 1982 players can employ their own caddy. A par 3, 9 hole course has hosted a family event since 1960. Players participating can use their children as caddies. The nonfamily tradition ended. In 1975 Lee Elders was the first African American to compete in The Masters, 15 years before Augusta National Golf Club admitted its first black member. In 1990, the all-white tradition ended. Martha Burk tried to protest the no women allowed event in 2002 and was blocked twice by courts denying her a permit to protest. I enjoy watching The Masters. It's pleasing to watch people at the height of their professional game competing. Yesterday we talked about women not being allowed to play. These conversations included my Dad telling my sister that it doesn't matter that Augusta National is a private club; women should be allowed to compete. And I wondered out loud how to change another no women allowed tradition. It is a private club, yes. It is a private club for men only. But The Masters Tournament is a sanctioned PGA event. The PGA is complicit by allowing a private no women allowed club to host one of its major competitions. Tradition is no reason for continuing gender discrimination practices. Golf is not a man's game. Why not host a women's Masters? Or have the event elsewhere? Tradition has been changed within The Masters, and at Augusta National Golf Club, in the past. Time to end the no women allowed tradition, not just in golf, or all sports, but anywhere we identify men only exclusion. We do this the same way men have kept women out. With money. Do not support any money-making venture that mandates no women allowed. Do not support the advertisers for no women allowed events. Do not buy golf equipment that encourages no women allowed traditions to continue. Do not support candidates for office, or club administrative positions, who support men only exclusivity. Change the channel. WNBA draft is April 16. LPGA schedule is in full swing. Start watching women professionals compete.

A Three Story Life: Grayscale

On this beautiful spring weekend, I cannot get myself out of the funk. Lowdown, hollow gut funk. Accumulative malaise. Scott is having an upbeat week. Dad maintains his usual life is a pain median line. All's well in the 'hood. But I've lost the color in my story. Depression is probably not catchy, but living in its weightiness long term is. For 7 years it has been my job to keep the mood elevated in the house. I haven't done a great job, but we kept going. I am unable to contribute right now. Every lift is harder than the last. I can act in a way that helps Dad deal with his issues of aging, and help keep Scott out of the way of Dad's mood, but I have trouble helping myself now. I'm down the blue scale to indigo, and the flight plan back up is missing. I know better than to read the news, or watch television because the news and television makes me scared and mad. Today I read about Walker in WI signing Act 219, reversing the equal pay law. Ron Christy on Hardball with Smerconish last night spouted the litany of Republican crud that the war on women the Republicans are waging across the country is a construct of the Democrats. And my gut gets hollower. The war on women perpetrated by drone Republicans doesn't impact my life as much as every tshirt put in the wash inside-out does, but it feels similar. It feels like progress is ephemeral and pointless. Tried to pay my car insurance yesterday. $12/month increase. And she warned about $30/year per driver Michigan mandated increase coming in May. I was so defeated by this I walked out. I actually said out loud I can't deal with this right now. I commented to Dad about it yesterday, and he got further depressed. My bad. Just now he said I want to help you out. He wants to give me $20 to buy a pair of sandals he just bought. It's a lovely thought, it's shoes, and I'm grateful for his offer, but it just made me sadder. I thanked him, demurred, and he said he doesn't want me to miss out on the sale. Sigh. My sadness must be terribly obvious, when Dad wants to help me cheer up. There are so many of us caregivers in the world, doing the best we're able, while we lose surety of our ability to do our best. We lose the essence of appreciation when we cannot appreciate ourselves. And we must appreciate us. To all the caregiving, weary, big-hearted women who wonder if there are good thoughts ever to be had again, I'm sending mighty good thoughts in your direction right now. Hold yourself tight, sisters. Hug yourself, pray, suck your thumb, cry, write a blog post, go to bed and pull the covers over your head, but find a way to heal for this moment. The next moment will take care of itself.

The Dogs Are Out

Fairytale Movie Princesses = Boomer Anxiety About Aging?!

We have an infestation of fairytale princesses in theaters, and more on the way. Snow White has three, and Sleeping Beauty is in the house, too. Mirror, Mirror plays Julia Roberts as the evil stepmother queen. Snow White and the Huntsman features Charlize Theron as the obsessed woman on the throne. I think we're getting these princesses and the wicked (but oh, so beautiful) stepmoms because there just aren't any women caped crusaders to follow the guys into the theater. Have we had enough of comic book heroes? Probably not. But since we have no equally famous and powerful women in that realm, we're stuck with fairytales. Fairytales have a beautiful princess who either sleeps, pricks her finger spinning, falls down running and is rescued by a bunch of short guys, or just hangs around waiting for a handsome prince to rescue her from whatever lowly existence she thinks she has. And an evil wicked nasty queen is just good fun, right? Well, not according to a Harvard professor quoted last week in an article by Linda Holmes about Snow White's recidivist film appearance. We're addressing aging women's anxiety about...aging, according to Maria Tatar, Harvard professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures. She chairs the mythology and folklore program, and Holmes claims she specializes in fairytales. Oy. I want to know what research supports such ludicrous speculation, and what the hell the article is playing at. None of these plots indicate pop culture connectivity of any kind. The queens want the young girls dead. The queens want to eat the princess's liver. The queens are murderous psychopaths, and this relates to women anxious about aging? Lest we all forget - again - boys with money who want more money decide which movies are made. Boys have no interest whatsoever in addressing boomer women's anxiety about getting older. This is not why these movies are getting made. What a load of...fairytales.

A Three Story Life: The Play

In a recent writing workshop, a woman suggested that A Three Story Life is a play. She saw it as a play immediately. It was an exciting concept. I'd like to write a play, have begun a couple over the years, or maybe I've recreated an existing one floating around in my semiconscious serially. When she said play, I saw the scenery for the song "Did You Hear About Kim?" from an Osborne High School production of Bye Bye Birdie, circa 1969. The darkened stage was set in cubicles, like a window box, spotlight bouncing from one singer to another. It was genius set design. I'm intimidated by the idea of formatting a play document. Being intimidated by minutiae is a lifelong stopper for me. But a play! I started one for my 50th birthday. I started one during April's Script Frenzy a few years ago. My brain is churning with ideas. And my brain is churning with stoppers. Which me will triumph this time? And who do I blame when the wrong one succeeds? 

Bianca's Baby Shower

Lawson James Williams has not made his debut in the world yet, and many people already love him. His mother, so young, so tender and compassionate, with her beautiful laugh and shining soul. His father. Grandmas and Grandpas in waiting. Great-grandparents. Great-aunts, great-uncles, uncles and aunts, cousins, second cousins. Lots of arms are longing to hold this little boy, dreaming of his life, hoping for his life. When his mother was a baby, I made her a dinosaur. When my friend Beckie's first-born wore a cast with dinosaurs on it, I made him a dinosaur wearing a tshirt that had a picture of Jacob on it. Jake wore dinosaurs; the dinosaur wore Jake. Today I finished making a dinosaur for Lawson. It was made with great and mighty intention - love, tears, dreams, worry and more love. The body is a sweatshirt someone I love and who loves me gave me. The tshirt is made from a shirt of my mother's that had a handpainted Betty Boop in a heart on the front. Right behind the heart on Lawson's dinosaur is the picture; my mother's gift to the great-grandson she will not meet, but loves, I know. The scales on the back are from my favorite tshirts that do not fit me anymore, but fit just fine where each is now. He's stuffed with favorite shirts to teach him that love will always cover him, that warmth and comfort are his to have. Socks so that he will know that whatever life may bring, he can stand on his own two feet. His initial is there so that he will learn his name, and that who he is, and will be, matters most of all. Every stitch in this dinosaur is sewn with love, with hope, and with joy. We can barely wait to meet you, Lawson James, and hug you welcome to the world.

It's My Job to Speak Against Hatred

We were raised to believe all people are equal. My mother spoke out to relatives who used words that were not allowed in our house. I did not find out until much later that she denied my father on this subject. It has taken years of caring talk to change Dad's false assumptions. He was raised with the easy, ignorant usage of epithets and superiority too common to simple working people. Some of my cousins have carried on this lazy prejudice, despite being more educated, despite presenting an inclusive face in their churches and communities. White people assume other white people are included in the hatred; a secret exclusive club. Although they whisper. Oh, yes, they whisper; courageous enough to hate, but not to be overheard. And they teach their children to look down on people not like them. Long ago, walking Beaner home from kindergarten, little Rachel running in circles, and Bianca in her stroller, another student's mother whispered something to me. The school was in a white neighborhood, so she felt an automatic kinship. She whispered in the presence of her two sons. And the next week she said another stupid thing. I struggled with what to say to her that did not include punching her, because punching is not a teaching tool, as my wiser sister has to remind me. So I said to her, "Shirley, not all people feel the way you do." I use that phrase now. It's soft and gives the speaker a chance to think clearly. It also serves to evaporate my rage at people who hate at leisure. It took decades to help my Dad understand that what his family taught him is not really how he feels, because I love him. George Zimmerman is a whisperer with no one who cared enough for him to turn him away from hatred. And Trayvon Martin is dead because no one spoke against hatred to George Zimmerman. It's my job to speak against hatred. And it is your job, too. If not for yourself, than for your children and grandchildren, and all children who, because we chose to be complicit with silence, risk their lives walking a neighborhood street.