My 45th college reunion is this weekend, and I finally unearthed the box of college memorabilia I stashed in my brother’s basement. My graduation yearbook is there, of course. Both degree certificates. And these three documents.

1957 – 1958: my golden year. I spent my freshman year socializing. Obviously I made grades good enough to get me into and through my sophomore and subsequent years — although I don’t think I cut back too much on the socializing. I just didn’t save anything to remember it by.

It is two days ago. I’m lying on a straw mat on the grass under a mosquito-netted child-sized cabana. My feet are sticking out from under the net, but the rest of me is in the shade. I’m watching the grass grow between my fingers. My grandson sits in the corner, his big-flapped sunhat askew, explaining the workings of the model construction trucks lined up between us. In the background the voices of my daughter and son-in-law merge with all of the muted sounds around me. They are putting in a fire pit, hauling huge rocks from the woods behind their house and working up the sweat that I’m avoiding.
This morning, even before I was out of my pajamas, Lex (that’s my grandson) had me decked out in a fireman’s hat and water goggles, marching around the house playing a toy clarinet. I wanted the flute, which I sort of can play, but he said the sounds I make hurt his ears. Later on, he wants to check out my car engine. I open the hood. “Where’s the dip stick?” he asks. “I don’t know,” I reply, because I dont; I always have my oil changed every three thousand miles, so I never bother to check my oil. “There is it,” he says, pointing to the dip stick. He’ll be four years old in July.
We play catch and chase each other, and I take lots and lots of video clips and photos. I sleep soundly and wake up early.
On the way back to the mountain, I listen to the three disks of 1950-60s music that one of my college class members sent me from which to choose a batch to play at our reunion next weekend. I didn’t really know many of the people who will be there; we ran in different circles at the time. But I’m getting to know them now, via email and the private weblog I set up for us to plan and share and get to know each other for the first time.
I loved my college years. I’m looking forward to reliving them, for one night, anyway. Endings are just new beginnings.

That’s my favorite little guy. My favorite little guy who will be four years old in July. The one person who can make me belly laugh.

An excerpt in The Guardian from Kurt Vonnegut’s new book, A Man Without a Country: A Memoir of Life in George W Bush’s America, ends with:

Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it all their own?

Somewhere in the middle is this gem:

How about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
And so on.
Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly George W Bush, Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld stuff.
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

And mostly I like his riff on this:

George W Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka Christians, and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or PPs, the medical term for smart, personable people who have no consciences.

Ah yes. PPs.

This is the good part: a corner of my garden, with the veggies growing in the background and the bird feeders on the window.

And this is one of the best parts, our own resident woodpecker looking at me looking at him.

And now on to the other corners of my world — full of shadows and other disturbing things.

No, I’m not referring to my previous post. I only said that I agreed with Bush that immigrants to this county who want to stay here should have to learn English and attain citizenship.
The lunacy to which I’m referring is the case Molly Ivins makes at Common Dreams for our current administration’s total cluelessness. (Hmm. “Common Dreams.” Isn’t that what Americans used to share?)
Ivins ends her piece at Common Dreams with this:
Both President Bush and Veep Cheney are still going around claiming if you cut taxes, your tax revenues increase. No, they don’t. Now we’re just in whackoville. It’s not true. Their own economists tell them it’s not true, but they go about claiming it is with the same desperate tenacity with which they clung to false tales of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. How pathetic.
Speaking of lunacy, the saddest report from Iraq is that American soldiers showing signs of psychological distress and depression are being kept on active duty, increasing the risk of suicide. The Hartford Courant reports that even soldiers who have already been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome are kept on duty. This has led to an increase in the suicide rate—22 soldiers in 2005. And as I have reported before, the military is unprepared to deal with the flood of head cases coming back from Iraq. How many ways can we mistreat our own soldiers, while the right makes an elaborate show of devotion to “the troops”?
The consistent pattern that runs through all these problems is the failure to distinguish fantasy from reality. Mexican immigrants keep crossing the border because they can get jobs here—and most of those jobs are provided by companies whose CEOs support George W. Bush. That’s where he can have an impact on the problem, should he choose to do so.
The $70-billion tax cut is part of a continuing right-wing fantasy going back to the Laffer curve. Of course, clinging to demonstrably false economic precepts is understandable when you benefit from them, but at some point reality does intervene.
As for the Iraq fantasy and those who pushed it on a reluctant country through lies, disinformation and bending intelligence—isn’t there a law against that?
Instead of sharing a common dream, we Americans are caught up in a partisan nightmare!

I got the same email from several people I know — not bloggers; just regular folk. The title of the email is “critical immigration overview.” As I always do, I slid over to www.snopes.com to find out if the info in the email, which quotes Dick Lamm, former Governor of Colorado, explaining the various ways America can be destroyed (by multiculturalism) is true. Lamm leads off his list by saying ” No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and that ‘An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.””
Actually snopes.com not only verifies that Lamm made those anti-multiculturalism statements, but also offers a revised version, provided by Lamm, himself.
Now, I did watch Dumbya’s address to the nation last night as he set out his proposals for trying to get the various problems caused by illegal immigration under control. I pretty much never listen to anything he has to say, but this is an issue that has so many implications for how we define this country that I forced myself to lend my ear.
I mean, we ARE a nation of immigrants. All four of my grandparents were born in Poland and came through Ellis Island. (I also have a relative or two [now deceased] who sneaked in through Canada — one, so I’m told, hanging on to the back of a boat.) They all became citizens, all paid their taxes, all learned to speak, read, and write in English. They assimilated and considered themselves true Americans, even while continuing to share their native language and religious and cultural traditions within the family — both blood and extended.
So, as I listened to Bush refer to immigrants being expected to learn the English language, I agreed with him. (Maybe for the first time agreeing with him on anything!)
And when I read Lamm’s list of ways to destroy America — all of which relate to “diversity,” I found myself re-thinking my usual radical/liberal view.
We might be a nation of immigrants, but until recent times, those immigrants uprooted themselves from their homelands and planted new roots in America. They did not keep themselves in separate cultural pots, refusing to become part of the root system implanted in America’s constitutional soil.
The concepts of a “tree of peace” and a “tree of life” are not new ones. It seems to me that that America needs to adopt (and adapt to) the metaphor of a tree, wherein to be an American, one must be rooted in American language and law, for that is the very earthy basis of this country. What flowers from those solid roots, and what feeds them as well, are the diversities of customs and cultures that all immigrants bring to the tree that is America.
I believe we need to expect immigrants to re-root themselves officially and legally in this country. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think that Bush’s initial take on that aspect of dealing with the overwhelming influx of immigrants is right on. But that’s only the beginning. Without giving prospective citizens free and easy avenues for learning how to read and write in basic Amrerican English, assimilation into the root system won’t work.
There is something to be said for “America for Americans” — and that includes wannabe Americans. But they hafta wannabe.
“Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free…” And I would add to that “…and eager to transplant their own roots into the system in which the American Constitutional Democracy continues to struggle to survive.”
Then, of course, once they get to be legal Americans, they’ll be free to bitch and complain and try to improve that system, just like the rest of us.

Over at Limerick Savant is the first “Limerick of All Mothers Marathon.”, featuring a diversity of writing as well as relationship styles. Take a break and go over there and read some original rhymes.

Some women take to mothering naturally. I had to work at it. And so I wasn’t the best mother in the world. I would have worked outside the home whether I had been a single mom or not. But because I was, mine were latchkey kids, with my daughter, beginning at age 12, taking care of her younger brother, age 5, after school. I left them some evenings to go out on dates. Oh, I did cook them healthy meals, and even cookies sometimes. I made their Halloween costumes and went to all parent events at their schools. My daughter took ballet lessons, belonged to 4H (but I got kicked out as Assistant Leader because I wouldn’t salute the flag during the Vietnam War) . I made my son a Dr. Who scarf and took him to Dr. Who fan events. I bought him lots of comic books and taught him how to throw a ball. But most of all, I think/hope I did for them what my mother was never able to do for me, — give them the freedom to become who they wanted to be — to explore, make mistakes, and search for their bliss. I think/hope that I always let them know that, as far as I was concerned, they were OK just the way they were/are. (Me and that dear now dead Mr. Rogers.) Not having had that affirmation from my mother still affects my relationship with her. I hope that my doing that right for them neutralizes all the wrong things I did as they were growing up.
So, you two (now adult) kids, here’s to you both. You keep me young, you keep me informed, you keep me honest, and, in many ways, you keep me vital. I’m so glad that I’m your mother.
So, in memory of those not-always-good ol’ days that you two managed to survive with flying colors, here you are, playing “air guitar and drums” — enjoyng each other’s company sometime in the 70s and bringing so much joy into my life.