Someone please explain to me how I grew up surrounded by the men in my family and turned out the way I did? I mean seriously. I don't really understand it. My brother and I were raised in the same household with the same mother and father. He saw how our father was and we both experienced it. Then when our parents got divorced and my mom married my step dad he saw how different he was. We have both been there with our father when were the center of his world cause we were his kids and we have both been there when a woman came into the picture and we were pushed to the background of his world. We were both raised by a woman who needed a strong man in her life and was blessed to find one in our step dad. This same woman who when each of her children do something is ALWAYS on the sidelines of our life cheering us on, no matter what it was. Whether it was EVERY Friday night at football games for me ( I was in the band..woot) or when I went to college every Thursday night at those football games. Or out at the ballpark for baseball and softball for me and my brothers. She was there cheering us on and BRAGGING to other people about how talented her kids were. Or when my brother went to Iraq, she was there praying for him, loving him, worrying about him. While our father (not my stepdad) wasn't there for those football games or baseball/softball games cheering us on. But he was there when my brother went to Iraq cause that was honorable and something big to brag about.
This is not to bash my dad, but to vent some frustration I'm feeling right now and have been feeling a lot lately and I need a place to let off some steam. I love my dad, I just don't always like him. Same goes for my brother and even my mother. I love them all the time, but I don't always like them. (and I hope they can say the same for me cause I KNOW I do some stuff that they don't always like ;) )
Let me start with the root of my frustration and how this all began and is spreading like wild fire. So I had a birthday last month, turned the big 30!! (woo hoo!) Now I wasn't asking for any big presents cause I mean come on with this economy....anyway, I was just asking for some recognition that this was a big day for me, I mean 30 is a BIG milestone a BIG birthday and considering what happened on my 29th, I'm sorry but I expected at least the same on this one....(last year my dad did a birthday dinner for me with a cake and yeah presents). What do I get I ask you??? Flowers from my dad, tons of text messages, birthday dinner and a cake from my best friend and her family, an emerald tennis bracelet from my best friend. No birthday dinner from my dad (he said it was b/c he didn't have the money
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
The Help
The Help
In a previous post I wrote that I was reading The Help and that once I finished I would get back. Well guess what! I finished it. Once I past a certain point in the book I couldn’t seem to put it down. Even though the story is fiction (and the author makes a note in her own words at the end of the book to make it known to the reader) it could just as well be true. Anyone who has grown up in the South and studied the region has read about life in the 1950s and 1960s and how drastic things got. As I was reading the book I got angry and some of the things that she was writing about, not at the author, but at the fact that what she was writing was true. The fact that there really were conversations about white people getting diseases from their black help if they sat on the same toilet (that’s right I said toilet), the fact that different bathrooms were built so this wouldn’t happen just makes me depressed. I can’t imagine thinking those things or even acting on those things. But when I stop and think about that time period I am reminded how far as a city, state, and nation we have come and how far we have to go.
In the past movies and even books have portrayed the South as a backwards community that did not know what was going on in the “real” world and refused to progress with the speed of the rest of the country. Just because we’re slow and don’t do things at the speed the rest of the country thinks we should, doesn’t make us backwards. I once traveled to Memphis with the high school band and met a band from Minnesota and they asked us if we had air conditioning in Mississippi and if we wore shoes. I was shocked that this perception still existed in the 20th Century (it happened in 1998) and that people actually believed that we didn’t have air conditioning, but that’s Hollywood for you, painting an inaccurate picture. Yes it is EXTREMELY hot in Mississippi during the summer, but we have air conditioning and we wear shoes, maybe not at home but at least in public. We are a proud stubborn people, we have seen things that no one should have to see, we have experienced things that no one should have to experience and we brought it all on ourselves. There are some of us who refuse to let that part of our history die and refuse to believe that they were wrong. But that is not everyone in the South. We are an educated people and those of us educated choose to stay with the hopes of making it a better place to live for our children and their children. And yes there may be times when we southerners choose not to do things only b/c someone from the outside is telling us we need to do it. This isn’t being backwards but being prideful and having a natural reaction to someone from the outside telling us what we “need” to do. I mean how would you feel if someone told you that everything you believed was wrong and everything you had been taught your ENTIRE life was now wrong. The way you lived your life was wrong and backwards and you needed to fix it. I don’t think many people would take too kindly to this and I think they would have the same reaction. Yes things in the South were bad and needed to change in the 1950s and 1960s and yes many southerners needed to be told to change and have it pointed out to them that this needed to happen. What I guess I’m arguing is that, things have changed in the South. Sure there are many things that need to change but there are many things that need to change across the country. Hollywood pointing to the South like it’s the redheaded step child of the country needs to stop! Some of the most talented people have come from the South. Some of the most beautiful works of art, both in literature and paintings have come from the South.
So I am pleased to see that a southern writer wrote about her state during a time she grew up and experienced it. I’m excited to see how the movie will turn out and to hear the actors take on the dreaded southern accent. (By the way just because we talk slow doesn’t mean we are slow, just means we enjoy talking and listening so we take our time). Kathryn Stockett is from Mississippi and will quickly admit that as soon as she was old enough she got out of Mississippi. She also writes that it is perfectly ok for her to speak ill of her mother (that being Mississippi) but she will gladly educate anyone else speaking ill of her mother (unless of course Mississippi is that person’s mother as well). And I have to say that I have done the same thing! I may hate many things about living in Mississippi but I LOVE this state. I love the people of this state, even if some of them still cling to the old ways, I love the feel of this state and I love knowing that when I pass someone on the street they are going to smile Hello to me and sometimes ask how I’m doing. You can’t get that anywhere else. Sure the weather is not something to brag about, one day its 60 degrees, the next it could be 80 and then 30 degrees. But you get used to it.
In The Help Kathryn Stockett tells the story of three brave women who choose to write a book about the lives of maids in Jackson, Mississippi. Brave because they decided to tell the story during the Civil Rights Movement when blacks were being beaten or killed and whites who helped were getting the same treatment. Brave because it was a new frontier, no one knew what happened between a maid and her missus and these women were about to tell this story. As I was reading it there was one character that I did not like and if I met her today there is no telling what I would say to her. This character’s name is Hilly and she is the know it all, she is in charge of the Jackson League and leads the women in the community. What Hilly says usually goes. We all know women like this, knew them when we were girls and knew them in college. I can’t stand this woman. There is a difference between being a leader and being a dictator. Hilly and women like her are dictators. They lead by placing fear of retribution into those they lead. No one wants to be ostracized, as one of the three women, Skeeter, finds out. Being on the outside was no fun for Skeeter and I think having her best friend Hilly(for they were best friends) do this to her, opened Skeeter’s eyes and motivated her to write the book faster. The Help takes on a subject that many people have thought about and maybe even written about but it tells a story from the point of view of the help and one woman who chose to step out of her character at the cost of her friendships and relationships. Mrs. Stockett does a great job of pointing out the things that needed to be changed in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s and of pointing out that things may appear different on the surface than they are beneath it.
I recommend this book to EVERYONE. Read it and go see the movie. It’s a fictional story about fictional people but the circumstances in this fiction could be and probably are true.
In a previous post I wrote that I was reading The Help and that once I finished I would get back. Well guess what! I finished it. Once I past a certain point in the book I couldn’t seem to put it down. Even though the story is fiction (and the author makes a note in her own words at the end of the book to make it known to the reader) it could just as well be true. Anyone who has grown up in the South and studied the region has read about life in the 1950s and 1960s and how drastic things got. As I was reading the book I got angry and some of the things that she was writing about, not at the author, but at the fact that what she was writing was true. The fact that there really were conversations about white people getting diseases from their black help if they sat on the same toilet (that’s right I said toilet), the fact that different bathrooms were built so this wouldn’t happen just makes me depressed. I can’t imagine thinking those things or even acting on those things. But when I stop and think about that time period I am reminded how far as a city, state, and nation we have come and how far we have to go.
In the past movies and even books have portrayed the South as a backwards community that did not know what was going on in the “real” world and refused to progress with the speed of the rest of the country. Just because we’re slow and don’t do things at the speed the rest of the country thinks we should, doesn’t make us backwards. I once traveled to Memphis with the high school band and met a band from Minnesota and they asked us if we had air conditioning in Mississippi and if we wore shoes. I was shocked that this perception still existed in the 20th Century (it happened in 1998) and that people actually believed that we didn’t have air conditioning, but that’s Hollywood for you, painting an inaccurate picture. Yes it is EXTREMELY hot in Mississippi during the summer, but we have air conditioning and we wear shoes, maybe not at home but at least in public. We are a proud stubborn people, we have seen things that no one should have to see, we have experienced things that no one should have to experience and we brought it all on ourselves. There are some of us who refuse to let that part of our history die and refuse to believe that they were wrong. But that is not everyone in the South. We are an educated people and those of us educated choose to stay with the hopes of making it a better place to live for our children and their children. And yes there may be times when we southerners choose not to do things only b/c someone from the outside is telling us we need to do it. This isn’t being backwards but being prideful and having a natural reaction to someone from the outside telling us what we “need” to do. I mean how would you feel if someone told you that everything you believed was wrong and everything you had been taught your ENTIRE life was now wrong. The way you lived your life was wrong and backwards and you needed to fix it. I don’t think many people would take too kindly to this and I think they would have the same reaction. Yes things in the South were bad and needed to change in the 1950s and 1960s and yes many southerners needed to be told to change and have it pointed out to them that this needed to happen. What I guess I’m arguing is that, things have changed in the South. Sure there are many things that need to change but there are many things that need to change across the country. Hollywood pointing to the South like it’s the redheaded step child of the country needs to stop! Some of the most talented people have come from the South. Some of the most beautiful works of art, both in literature and paintings have come from the South.
So I am pleased to see that a southern writer wrote about her state during a time she grew up and experienced it. I’m excited to see how the movie will turn out and to hear the actors take on the dreaded southern accent. (By the way just because we talk slow doesn’t mean we are slow, just means we enjoy talking and listening so we take our time). Kathryn Stockett is from Mississippi and will quickly admit that as soon as she was old enough she got out of Mississippi. She also writes that it is perfectly ok for her to speak ill of her mother (that being Mississippi) but she will gladly educate anyone else speaking ill of her mother (unless of course Mississippi is that person’s mother as well). And I have to say that I have done the same thing! I may hate many things about living in Mississippi but I LOVE this state. I love the people of this state, even if some of them still cling to the old ways, I love the feel of this state and I love knowing that when I pass someone on the street they are going to smile Hello to me and sometimes ask how I’m doing. You can’t get that anywhere else. Sure the weather is not something to brag about, one day its 60 degrees, the next it could be 80 and then 30 degrees. But you get used to it.
In The Help Kathryn Stockett tells the story of three brave women who choose to write a book about the lives of maids in Jackson, Mississippi. Brave because they decided to tell the story during the Civil Rights Movement when blacks were being beaten or killed and whites who helped were getting the same treatment. Brave because it was a new frontier, no one knew what happened between a maid and her missus and these women were about to tell this story. As I was reading it there was one character that I did not like and if I met her today there is no telling what I would say to her. This character’s name is Hilly and she is the know it all, she is in charge of the Jackson League and leads the women in the community. What Hilly says usually goes. We all know women like this, knew them when we were girls and knew them in college. I can’t stand this woman. There is a difference between being a leader and being a dictator. Hilly and women like her are dictators. They lead by placing fear of retribution into those they lead. No one wants to be ostracized, as one of the three women, Skeeter, finds out. Being on the outside was no fun for Skeeter and I think having her best friend Hilly(for they were best friends) do this to her, opened Skeeter’s eyes and motivated her to write the book faster. The Help takes on a subject that many people have thought about and maybe even written about but it tells a story from the point of view of the help and one woman who chose to step out of her character at the cost of her friendships and relationships. Mrs. Stockett does a great job of pointing out the things that needed to be changed in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s and of pointing out that things may appear different on the surface than they are beneath it.
I recommend this book to EVERYONE. Read it and go see the movie. It’s a fictional story about fictional people but the circumstances in this fiction could be and probably are true.
August 12, 2011
August 12, 2011
As I sit hear reading on CNN about the soldiers we lost on the deadliest day since the war in Afghanistan started, I’m struck by a realization. Some of those men were my age or close to my age and yet they seemed so much older than me. They have accomplished so much in their young lives and contributed more to the world than I would ever be able to. I mean how can I contribute more than a soldier who died in action on his way to rescue other soldiers each fighting for something that I believe in. Freedom. Seems like such a simple word and simple concept. Allow people the right to be well people, with some limitations. Yet every day we take that freedom for granted. Some of us even take for granted the very people who protect that freedom. Our military. I for one know that I couldn’t be in the military. I don’t like guns, not the guns are evil and guns kill people route. (Cause I know guns don’t kill people, people kill people) but just that guns make me nervous. So that and the fact that I’m not a really good runner solidify the fact that I couldn’t be in the military. My brother is in the military, my cousin is in the military, my grandfathers were in the military and my uncles and father are retired from the military. Granted it’s the National Guard, but hey, now a days, military is military. National Guardsmen are no longer just the weekend warriors they’ve been in the past.
Back to my original thought. Sorry got off track for a minute there. These men were in their 30’s, some younger than that. They were my age. Yet now they were gone and unable to achieve even more greatness. And what am I doing? Working an 8-5 job, visiting family and friends and making no difference in the world around me. I don’t recycle, I use a lot of air conditioning (hello Deep South here!!) and I drink a bottle of water a day during the work week. I’m not married and have no kids. So how can I go about making a difference in the world around me so that I at least feel like I’ve made an impact in the world, my country, my state or at the very least my hometown? That I don’t know. But I’m going to find a way to do it.
As I sit hear reading on CNN about the soldiers we lost on the deadliest day since the war in Afghanistan started, I’m struck by a realization. Some of those men were my age or close to my age and yet they seemed so much older than me. They have accomplished so much in their young lives and contributed more to the world than I would ever be able to. I mean how can I contribute more than a soldier who died in action on his way to rescue other soldiers each fighting for something that I believe in. Freedom. Seems like such a simple word and simple concept. Allow people the right to be well people, with some limitations. Yet every day we take that freedom for granted. Some of us even take for granted the very people who protect that freedom. Our military. I for one know that I couldn’t be in the military. I don’t like guns, not the guns are evil and guns kill people route. (Cause I know guns don’t kill people, people kill people) but just that guns make me nervous. So that and the fact that I’m not a really good runner solidify the fact that I couldn’t be in the military. My brother is in the military, my cousin is in the military, my grandfathers were in the military and my uncles and father are retired from the military. Granted it’s the National Guard, but hey, now a days, military is military. National Guardsmen are no longer just the weekend warriors they’ve been in the past.
Back to my original thought. Sorry got off track for a minute there. These men were in their 30’s, some younger than that. They were my age. Yet now they were gone and unable to achieve even more greatness. And what am I doing? Working an 8-5 job, visiting family and friends and making no difference in the world around me. I don’t recycle, I use a lot of air conditioning (hello Deep South here!!) and I drink a bottle of water a day during the work week. I’m not married and have no kids. So how can I go about making a difference in the world around me so that I at least feel like I’ve made an impact in the world, my country, my state or at the very least my hometown? That I don’t know. But I’m going to find a way to do it.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Remembering
With the 10 year anniversary of 9-11 fast approaching I can't help but remember where I was 10 years ago. Today. I mean I can vividly remember where I was and what I was doing 10 years ago! Which is big because I can barely remember what I'd did a year ago or sooner on some things. But I guess you could say that my life completely changed that day. Boone can know if their lives would have been different or the same. Noone can know what President Bush's presidency would have been like without that tragedy. We probably wouldn't be at war right now, but then maybe we would be at war. Because maybe something else would have happened had our state of awareness not been up.
What I do know is that it's a day that I'll never forget. I'll never forget what it felt like watching the towers fall and wondering where my dad was and if he was in one. I'll never forget being at Ole Miss and hearing about the student who passed out in the Union when they said which planes had crashed into the Twin Towers and she realized it was her father's plane. It may not always be at the front of my mind but it's there. And sometimes it feels like it happened just yesterday.
So as we approach this monumental anniversary let's not forget those who perished that day. Nor should we forget those who jumped up when duty called and fought and gave their lives for freedom. I know I won't.
Much love, CB :)
What I do know is that it's a day that I'll never forget. I'll never forget what it felt like watching the towers fall and wondering where my dad was and if he was in one. I'll never forget being at Ole Miss and hearing about the student who passed out in the Union when they said which planes had crashed into the Twin Towers and she realized it was her father's plane. It may not always be at the front of my mind but it's there. And sometimes it feels like it happened just yesterday.
So as we approach this monumental anniversary let's not forget those who perished that day. Nor should we forget those who jumped up when duty called and fought and gave their lives for freedom. I know I won't.
Much love, CB :)
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