{"id":1605,"date":"2019-07-16T18:09:13","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T18:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2bgreener.com\/?p=1605"},"modified":"2022-08-27T15:46:29","modified_gmt":"2022-08-27T19:46:29","slug":"campfires-stories-and-saving-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2bgreener.com\/?p=1605","title":{"rendered":"Campfires, Stories, and Saving the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

This past July 4th weekend we were with our amazing friends in NJ, playing in boats, drinking…drinks, eating excellent homemade food, and relaxing near a campfire as the sun went down and stars (and fireworks) played above and around the lake.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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And we talked. A lot. And we listened. A lot.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

At one point someone brought up transgender and their discomfort with people identifying their preferred pronoun, expressing great confusion and resistance to why this happens. \u201cAren\u2019t they just wanting attention? We all can be whoever we are so why make a fuss, an announcement?\u201d I won\u2019t go into the whole discussion as it was many layered, it ebbed and flowed, it got heated, frustrating, and it got personal at several points. I will say it was always respectful, curious, and enlightening. And we left the fire and the discourse with thanks and hugs. No one won and no one lost. Actually, I take that back. We all won as I truly believe we all learned something about the issue, each other, and\/or ourselves.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There were several years near the end of my mother\u2019s life when I tried to connect with her and hear some of stories about her childhood. I figured as she was born in 1929, a depression baby, she had experiences magnificent and debilitating, and I wanted to hear about them.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When I was younger I certainly heard an occasional funny family tale when there were late-night, congenial gatherings. A recognition on her part that she disliked hand made clothes because everything she ever had was hand made in the years of the depression. Some cute, romantic stories about my mom and dad and how she chased him until he caught her. Whispers of something about my grandmother being accused of poisoning her dad? And something about a very phallic wooden carved torch that was gifted each Christmas and often caused mass hilarity. Little detail, and I wanted to know more.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I wanted to know more about the experience of the 1938 hurricane along the CT and RI coast. Was my grandmother really a bootlegger, smuggling illegal bathtub-gin in her veggie basket to market and neighbors when she was 8 years old? I wanted to know more about why we have a stand up Edison phonograph and many slate records, and is it true my great uncle worked for Edison, and is it true there is more to that story. (Intrigue? Danger? Spying?)\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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By not engaging in free-form, friendly, challenging conversations we are losing our ability to function as a democratic society.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

But she resisted talking about her life. I gave her a tape recorder. I tried to bring up things to discuss. I made very little traction before alzheimer’s took the memories… I got no \u201cdeeper\u201d stories. No stories about illness. None about hardship. None about the war. None about McCarthyism, or about the severe anxiety as my brother waited to be drafted to the Vietnam war…<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We are losing.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n