Looking Back - 1982
Eight years old and full of impressions
my best friend had two older brothers. the oldest was rude and muscular. the middle one was cute and quiet. i liked him much more. her mother and father looked so much alike that it confused me. they both wore glasses, had short brown hair, and wore flannel shirts and dark jeans. honestly! a woman with short hair....how odd it was to me.
date night for my parents was friday night. we'd watch the dukes of hazzard and the muppet show in the living room, while eating spagetti-o's and drinking milk.
our neighborhood was green and tidy and full of happy people. upper-middle-class families with new station wagons and swimming pools in the back yard. wall to wall carpeting and country club memberships.
we rode our bikes and hot wheels around the neighborhood from house to house. we had all the houses memorized and knew who was friendly and who wasn't. we'd meet outside on the corner after breakfast and play until we were starving again. mom kept homemade chocolate chip cookies in the round tupperware container on the counter, and those cookies held us until suppertime.
i had my friends convinced that in her spare time, my mom was Wonder Woman. i may have even believed it myself. nobody believed me, however, when i told them i had a unicorn in my back yard. nobody.
my favorite teacher was ms. polk. she was a large kind woman who proved to be a source of comfort during my parent's divorce. she asked me one day why i was friends with michelle jackson, who continually made me cry. i couldn't answer her.
i had a lot of unexpected fevers and stomach aches that year, because i didn't want to be at school. i wanted to be with my mom. the stomach aches were real, the fevers were caused by me holding the glass thermometer up to a light bulb in the nurse's office when she'd leave the room for a minute. i had very high fevers that year. mom always picked me up, with not much to say, except that i'd have to go to work with her for the rest of the day. i wanted nothing more.
we moved out of our nice brick house on the corner into a house we labeled "the bug house". the bugs were giant, and they crawled on the walls. the house had white siding and grass up to my knees. i found a corning ware bowl buried in the back yard weeds, and i considered it a bonus. the kids rode their bikes around, but they were meaner, rougher. i stayed mostly inside with mom and my brother.
dad moved into a sad apartment where he kept the tv on stupid football games and the lighting was awful. i hated it.
we stayed at our elementary school for one more year, but would transfer out of district when i was 10. that's when i got tougher.
my best friend had two older brothers. the oldest was rude and muscular. the middle one was cute and quiet. i liked him much more. her mother and father looked so much alike that it confused me. they both wore glasses, had short brown hair, and wore flannel shirts and dark jeans. honestly! a woman with short hair....how odd it was to me.
date night for my parents was friday night. we'd watch the dukes of hazzard and the muppet show in the living room, while eating spagetti-o's and drinking milk.
our neighborhood was green and tidy and full of happy people. upper-middle-class families with new station wagons and swimming pools in the back yard. wall to wall carpeting and country club memberships.
we rode our bikes and hot wheels around the neighborhood from house to house. we had all the houses memorized and knew who was friendly and who wasn't. we'd meet outside on the corner after breakfast and play until we were starving again. mom kept homemade chocolate chip cookies in the round tupperware container on the counter, and those cookies held us until suppertime.
i had my friends convinced that in her spare time, my mom was Wonder Woman. i may have even believed it myself. nobody believed me, however, when i told them i had a unicorn in my back yard. nobody.
my favorite teacher was ms. polk. she was a large kind woman who proved to be a source of comfort during my parent's divorce. she asked me one day why i was friends with michelle jackson, who continually made me cry. i couldn't answer her.
i had a lot of unexpected fevers and stomach aches that year, because i didn't want to be at school. i wanted to be with my mom. the stomach aches were real, the fevers were caused by me holding the glass thermometer up to a light bulb in the nurse's office when she'd leave the room for a minute. i had very high fevers that year. mom always picked me up, with not much to say, except that i'd have to go to work with her for the rest of the day. i wanted nothing more.
we moved out of our nice brick house on the corner into a house we labeled "the bug house". the bugs were giant, and they crawled on the walls. the house had white siding and grass up to my knees. i found a corning ware bowl buried in the back yard weeds, and i considered it a bonus. the kids rode their bikes around, but they were meaner, rougher. i stayed mostly inside with mom and my brother.
dad moved into a sad apartment where he kept the tv on stupid football games and the lighting was awful. i hated it.
we stayed at our elementary school for one more year, but would transfer out of district when i was 10. that's when i got tougher.
Comments
The Bethlehem Steel Shipyard in San Francisco was sold. I finished my MS from USC's ISSM extension campus in Sunnyvale. I transferred to Baltimore's Sparrows Point Yard, one of only two employees retained by the company. A portion of an inheritance passed through my mother from the sale of my grandparents farm in Iowa to my uncle and proportioned down again to me and my siblings gave me the down payment for a new house in the northern Baltimore suburbs (sans unicorn in backyard). I sit in that same house today, typing. My oldest son was born. I began becoming a parent.
My neighbor's dad believed in "living off the land". His back yard was filled with apricot and cherry trees, vegetable beds, and chicken coops. Every weekend he's take my best friend Aaron and me hunting or fishing.
I lived a childhood out of the eighteenth century. I'm ashamed that I didn't pass that all on down to my own kids. There's a lot to be said for true self-sufficiency.
Thirdly, he is an “autourgos” — “a manual labourer” The word “autourgos’ refers to someone who works his own land. The word denotes specific social category — neither the great land-owner nor the peasant, but the landowner who lives and works with his own hands on his own estate, occasionally with the help of a few servants or slaves. Such landowners — who spent most of their time working the fields and supervising the work of their servants — were highly praised by Xenophon in his Oeconomicus. What is most interesting in Orestes is that Euripides emphasizes the political competence of such landowners by mentioning three aspects of their character.
The first is that they are always willing to march to war and fight for the city, which they do better than anyone else. Of course, Euripides does not give any rational explanation of why this should be so; but if we refer to Xenophon’sOeconomicus where the autourgos is depicted, there are a number of reasons given. A major explanation is that the landowner who works his own land is, naturally, very interested in the defense and protection of the lands of the country — unlike the shopkeepers and the people living in the city who do not own their own land, and hence do not care as much if the enemy pillages the countryside. But those who work as farmers simply cannot tolerate the thought that the enemy might ravage the farms, burn the crops, kill the flocks and herds, and so on; and hence they make good fighters.
Secondly, the autourgos is able “to come to grips in argument” i.e., is able to use language to propose good advice for the city. As Xenophon explains, such landowners are used to giving orders to their servants, and making decisions about what must be done in various circumstances. So not only are they good soldiers, they also make good leaders. Hence when they do speak to the ekklésia, they do not use thorubos; but what they say is important, reasonable, and constitutes good advice.
In addition, the last orator is a man of moral integrity: “a man of blameless principle and integrity”.
A final point about the autourgos is this: whereas the previous speaker wanted Electra and Orestes to be put to death by stoning, not only does this landowner call for Orestes’ acquittal, he believes Orestes should be “honored with crowns” for what he has done. To understand the significance of the autourgos’ statement, we need to realize that what is at issue in Orestes’ trial for the Athenian audience — living in the midst of the Peloponnesian war — is the question of war or peace: will the decision concerning Orestes be an aggressive one that will institute the continuation of hostilities, as in war, or will the decision institute peace? The autourgos’ proposal of an acquittal symbolizes the will for peace. But he also states that Orestes should be crowned for killing Clytemnestra “since no man would leave his home, and arm himself, and march to war, if wives left there in trust could be seduced by stay-at-homes, and brave men cuckolded”. We must remember that Agamemnon was murdered by Aegisthus just after he returned home from the Trojan War; for while he was fighting the enemy away from home, Clytemnestra was living in adultery with Aegisthus.
My grandma had a fruit orchard, and Papaw grew all the vegetables we could possibly eat. They also had chickens and milk cows. Those were magical days.
now I heat up a frozen pizza for supper. womp womp.
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And then you started the REAL adventure! I used to think that living a life full of travel and adventure would be a roller coaster lifestyle...but parenting has proven to be the REAL thrill ride. :p
Anyway, it's a process, and I'm getting better.
what do you mean by this? I've four years to either make it, or surrender."
Two of my three children still live in the local area... so if grandkids were to "arrive", we'd both have something "purposeful" to fill the time with. Four cats and two dogs aren't cutting it.
My daughter in Nashville's too busy lawyering... and seems to have few romantic interests at present.
They actually love it when I go camping because I'm not home to nag them. I usually go alone so it's a win win.
Grandkids... I'm too selfish for that just yet.