When I was a kid we listened to The Beach Boys. We envisioned ourselves as cool surfers, despite the fact that our local beach was nothing like the California beaches, we tried anyway.
The Beach Boys were hot stars and girls had crushes on them variously. In my gaggle of girls, it was a debate between Dennis and Brian – sometimes Mike Love. But when the hit “Caroline, No” came out, that was a game-changer for me. It was Brian I fixated on. Of course, this faded over time, but I still felt like he was an incredible influence on music from then on, despite the band itself going in and out of popularity.
Brian Wilson is a musical genius I followed not for his rock star typical groupie appeal, but for his inner poetic harmonic over the top genius. The guy behind it all – beginning at an early age, that sound – the lyrics – the haunting ones in some of those songs that are hidden gems – he was truly amazing in his life achievements.
It was also so sad to see him essentially destroyed by what is reportedly having taken one too many acid trips – a situation which I personally understood having had an extended family member who fell into the same fate – but never had the same care that Brian had. My cousin lived rough, and was finally saved by some really nice people so that he could live the rest of his days in some semblance of normalcy. Brian on the other hand lived under care from the time he began to struggle. Fortunately for him, he had those means of support that enabled this.
Susceptibility to developing schizophrenia conditions is still under study, although more is known now that was back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. It is however understood that it is not just one condition – it is more than one and the causes are still not well understood as to what triggers these conditions to just turn on or gradually come on. Drug use of psychedelics is one of those that was an early recognized trigger back in those decades.
The profiles of my cousin and Brian are similar – the abusive dad – the rebellion – drug abuse – and having studied psychology as a major in university, I know that those components go hand in hand in causing major issues down the road, especially with the father-son dynamic.
What is especially tragic is that both of these people had gifts that they shared with the world, but could not fulfill their full potential because of the handicaps imposed by abusive overzealous fathers who thought they knew better about everything and used a stick to make the point.
Fathers take note, mothers, too. You can really screw up things if you think you know everything and feel entitled to dominate. Look inside and figure out why that is. Insight is everything because hindsight is usually 20/20.
Back to Brian Wilson, it was especially sad to see him go. As long as he was still here, we knew he was still here. The passage of time and people with it is a constant reminder that we should live and love every day because tomorrow is not guaranteed.
Yesterday afternoon the announcement came that President Carter had passed into the gates of Heaven and we were all saddened, but in awe of what he accomplished in his 100 years-plus in his life on this planet.
Each day, Jimmy Carter worked to the best of his ability to SERVE others. He did hands on work. He taught. He worked with others to spur innovation and inspire solutions to cure dreadful diseases. He pulled people together to do good work. He lived as a true Christian doing what Jesus Christ taught that many “Christians” have totally missed and messed up.
Jimmy Carter epitomized working for the greater good. His wife, Rosalyn, at his side as long as she could be, shared in doing these same selfless acts – their embodied impact on planet Earth and its people have been widely received and deeply appreciated by those in need. With Habitat for Humanity, the Carters built houses for the homeless across the globe. They worked on disease eradication in Africa. They helped people in Asia and Africa and other continents, learn how to properly farm to get better yields from crops to improve the farming livelihood and impact positively local economies.
He was a civil rights advocate and activist. A broker of peace in the Middle East. A Nobel Laureate. His involvement in politics was brief in comparison to his decades long efforts to make change for the better. To make people aware of the dangers of the direction that political factions are having on human rights and existence especially the rights of women being primary to much of this – this was a large part of his crusade for the improvement of human rights and women’s rights in particular.
I was heartbroken when he stayed alive to cast his vote for what we hoped would be the first woman president of the United States. However, we will take his legacy and be inspired by what he did. The flags will fly at half-staff from yesterday through January 29th at least – to give a backdrop to the state of the nation as it faces four years of uncertainty. May we look upon his passing as a ray of hope that his influence will help inspire us to building a strategy and solutions to throttle and check once again the spread of fascism.
Rest in Peace, Mr. Carter. We will miss you. We hope to see you on the other side.
I have moved to different places to live so many times, I’ve lost count. I would need a spreadsheet to categorize how many places I have lived, when, and likely, there will be a few more before I leave the planet.
As I have gotten older, and wanted to see if places I have lived still look the same, I have gone into “Google Maps” and located the place my parents were living when I was born. We drove by this old house back in the fall of 2020, so that I could see if it was still there. It was. It was built just after WWII ended, and was a “GI” house – made in the tradition of using cinder-blocks on a slab, then putting the siding up – probably some insulation, and coated paper underneath… I remember it being light color. Likely, over the years, people have updated it and so it looks a bit different from what I remember.
In my earliest memory, from when we lived in this house, it was of my bedroom, and of the living room-dining room and kitchen. I sort of remember my parents’ room. I remember it had two bedrooms, and small-ish. Of course to little me, it was a lot larger than this picture shows, which is the actual size of the house.
This is the back yard. Another one of my earliest memories was going out back, to play in the water hose, which I did in the summer because it was West Texas and it was hot as hell. There was a frog, probably attracted to the water, and I guess I didn’t see it, but I stepped on it – squished it – and it bled – and I got very upset and started screaming and crying.
Another memory is of me being with my Dad, around his workshop – the building to the left in the photo above – he always gave me blocks of wood to play with, probably so I would not get in his way or get hurt. There were lots of loud noises coming from his wood working tools in the workshop. He was a maker.
Dad’s workshop – what’s left of itVery little me with my Dad. I didn’t get into much trouble back then.I was a Daddy’s girl – and in this shot, I’m not sure who was taking the picture, but Dad looks dubious…
I am pretty sure I was a “mostly happy” kid until I we moved and I left my safety net – my grandparents
I remember spending a lot of time parked at my grandparents’ house. I loved being with my grandmother. She taught me how to do a lot of things like cooking, baking, sewing, and playing cards and other games. She was from Kentucky, and carried many traditions from her home state such as recipes and her idea of decorum and etiquette. She had been to “finishing school” after high school graduation, which was in Boston. Her dad was a merchant of “fine goods”. He passed away when my Mom was a little kid.
However, my great-grandmother, remarkably, I do remember, as she came to live with my grandparents, and did until she passed away, when I was almost two. She was kind to me, and seemed just very fragile and old, which actually, she wasn’t that old – but maybe since she had health issues, it just seemed that way. I was just turning two years old when she died. It’s amazing to me that I have memories of that time.
My great-grandmother, Mom, me, and my grandmother when I was about one-and-a-half years old
I remember sitting with her outside in my grandparents’ back yard, swinging in a hammock. That was one of my favorite things to do at my grandparents’ house when I was small. Where they lived in west Texas, it was pretty dry and
Back at our house, I usually played by myself. I was an only child, so if we didn’t have one of my Mom’s friends with their kids at our house, it was me, myself and I. I remember that I had an “imaginary friend” that came into my life pretty early – maybe age three or four. Her name was Minnie. Later, another one came into Minnie’s life – Mannie. Minnie and Mannie. They were always up to something that got ME into trouble. Only children with imaginations like mine generally need imaginary friends to share the blame for mischief!
I also remember deciding one day that I was going to school. I got my crayons, and coloring book, and got myself ready to walk out the front door. My Mom said, “Where are YOU going?” I said , “to school”. She said, “NO YOU ARE NOT!”, and seemed somehow offended. That surprised and upset me. Each day, I saw kids that looked about my age, walking by on the way to school. We lived just a short distance away. In my mind, I must have thought that all it took was for me to get my clothes on, grab my crayons and coloring book, and go out the door to join them.
So, because Mom was upset and I was crying by then, she got sort of shouty and we got into sort of an argumentative exchange whereby at the end of it I got a whack on the behind and got sent to my room. I look back on that and think, “why was my mom angered by me doing that?” Maybe she thought I was slipping out the door. Maybe it scared her somehow. Maybe she felt a loss of control. Who knows?
When my kids did things like this, normally, I had to hold in my giggles. I think I would have burst out laughing and thought it was really funny and cute, if one of my kids did that – but with my Mom, you could never predict how she would react. Mom was kind of unpredictable, and kind of scary at times.
Mom holding me in front of my grandparent’s side entrance in their wonderful back yard
It was, for me a bit confusing, living with her, not knowing if she would be nice, or mean – and not knowing what I was doing to cause her to be one way or the other. I am still not too sure, looking back, if she felt like I was cramping her style. She was very social, and was working part-time – and likely, me being there at home with her was holding her back or something. She eventually enrolled me in “Miss Harvey’s” which was a pre-school-kindergarten kind of class. I think that I was four by then.
I remember just ahead of one of my birthday parties, Mom was scurrying around trying to get ready to have people over, including some of the kids that were her friends’ kids that got invited – kids I played with occasionally. I was so excited about the party that I barfed, right in the middle of the kitchen floor! Well, Mom got mad. She spanked me and sent me to my room to wait until the party started. I remember feeling confused, and crying a lot, and my face got all stingy.
I remember that when my grandmother got there, she came in my room and hugged me, and took me in the bathroom and put a cold wet washcloth on my face. To this day whenever I need to “de-puff” my eyes, or face, or make a headache feel better, I put a cold wet washcloth on it – and remember my grandmother. She always had some way of making things okay.
We moved out of that house to another house just before I started first grade. We next lived in my grandparents house, because they decided to move back to New Mexico. That was the beginning of my next chapter. I loved living at my grandparents house because it had all these cool places to play and great trees to climb. That one, shown below, was at the time, to me, a really big house. It probably isn’t that large, but it had a great yard and lots of space in the house to play and get into trouble!
Tree I climbed when I was a little kid.Now the yard is fenced across what used to be open – that was a great yard and place to play when I was little and later on, a place to take a nap in the hammock or read a book in the shade, when I visited my grandparents before they moved away from this place.
Moving to the big city almost two days drive away was quite the change. My Mom had to adjust to a new set of friends. She also had to figure out how to get around and navigate the city. My Dad worked downtown, and it took him almost an hour to get from our house to his work. It was definitely different from the small town in west Texas where I was born and we had been living since then. My Mom and Dad met there and got married there. My Mom was actually born there, which was interesting. My grandparents moved in and out of that town several times in their lives. Clearly, they loved it and felt it was their anchor in Texas.
I think about change and how as we move through life, every day has small changes, and then there are some big changes that happen, some unexpectedly.
