Tues. March 8... a Big Day

This is an OLD essay, written March 8, 2011, that sat around as a draft.

Today is a big day for at least two reasons. First, it is the one-hundredth anniversary of a day Jessie, my mother, the old Suffragette, loved: International Women's Day. We discussed it at our poetry group last week, and everyone is writing a poem for the day, to be read next week. In the meantime, the great intellectual in the group, David, read us a story about a Russian woman who worked and fought in Paris for women's rights. David of course, as usual, knows more about Women's Day and the whole history of the fight for women's rights than any of the women in the group. But then, he undoubtedly knows more about anything that might come up than anyone, male or female in the group. So Jessie, be reassured... the day is becoming better known and better celebrated now, and women are slowly and surely, at least in the industrial world, becoming not only better educated and healthier, but also slowly moving up the pay scale toward men. Not equal yet in my lifetime, nor in Whitney's, but perhaps in my grandchildren's lifetime. Callie could make it... after all, in fourth grade she tested in the top two percentile of children in the country. You go, Callie and make us all proud!! Jess would love you.

Charlie Rose, as one would expect, has a program with three women discussing what is happening by and with women of the world. Tina Brown, who is now editor of Newsweek is one, the woman who formed Women 4 Women, Zaineb Salbi, another is Dina Powell, who does women's start-ups around the world, for Goldman Sachs. All of them talk about the fact that women MUST be allowed a place at the table to not only help a country build itself up well, but also in all war and peace negotiations. i.e. EQUALITY... or perhaps let us show YOU how to do it, as we can do it better.

Secondly, today is Mardi Gras down in New Orleans... and as Whitney is wont to tell me, in all of Louisiana, including her little town, where their third house is located. I hope they had better weather than they expected... well, at least no reports of hurricanes and the news photos showed millions of people celebrating in the streets of New Orleans. I was sure happy to see that. God knows they need the visitors. They are rather like us in S.F... they need the tourists to stay alive. We haven't had much 'tourist weather' lately and I hope our summer is better this year then it was last year. Spring has at least given us gorgeous flowering fruit trees and some very nice blossoms. Hope it bodes well for Summer and Fall. Actually, it matters to me little, as long as the sun shines on my lovely San Francisco. So now we have Lent. Does anyone observe Lent anymore? Ah, school days, when it was fish, fish, fish.

My God, I’m Old As Babar                   

A short message on my radio the other day threw me for a loop. The morning commentator was announcing all the events and birthdays of the day and finished up with “And Babar the Elephant is 80.” Recoiling in shock, I thought, good heavens, I read those books to my children. Weren’t they ‘old’ then? I wasn’t reading first editions, Babar was an institution, or so I thought. But no, he is in my generation.

Oh dear, am I older than god? And, am I to be constantly reminded of my age by these young people on the radio, on TV, everywhere, saying in amazement how very old everyone and everything that surrounds us is?

Sometimes it scares me when I look around and see all of the things that this generation takes for granted as having been here ‘forever.’ I can remember when there was one telephone in a home. Well, not even in every home. We had one that had a separate earpiece that hung on a hook at the left side of the tall, standing phone. We children did not use the phone, it was for adults, and my grandmother was afraid to use it. She was sure it brought only bad news.

We entertained ourselves with books (my family had a full library of them), board games, and ‘playing outside.’ Oh, we had a radio, a large one, but my mother considered most of the children’s programs to be a bit ‘low class’ so my sister and I did not listen to “Little Orphan Annie” or “Jack Armstrong, All American Boy.” However, I can still sing the theme songs of those programs, as I simply sat beneath the window of the house next door, where the children were allowed to listen to everything, and heard the programs. That was my ‘playing outside.’

Oh, we were allowed to listen to some radio programs. There was one that I suppose was considered the “Sesame Street” of its day, It was a pallid little show with nursery rhymes and I suppose proper children’s stories, but I can neither remember its name nor actual form, only the theme song, which rattles around in my head, da, da, ti, da/ti, da, da, ti da/ti, da, da, ti, da, ti, da da, followed by a lovely lady opening the show. Undoubtedly a “Miss” someone, as in the insipid children’s shows that were on TV during my daughter’s era of childhood. I did not allow her to watch them, she was sent to ‘play outside.’

I moved to San Francisco at a rather advanced age and retired here. After retirement I volunteered at a senior center. My first assignment was teaching seniors to knit and crochet, as I had been a teacher of crafts most of my life. I had learned to use computers on my copywriting jobs in advertising in Chicago and owned the first Mac, a 128K, which I loved, so I naturally fell into the role of teacher of computing to seniors. There were no books on this, or rules, so I made up my own, writing the directions for turning on the computer and what to do next. We were using something called DOS, which probably means nothing to most people who will see this. It was a clunky Microsoft program, with very uncertain directions for use, which started with step three or four.

When I asked a young man from Microsoft why they were written without steps one, two and three, his answer was, “Well, everyone knows that.” I don’t think I ever got through to him that yes, all those engineers at Microsoft knew ‘that,’ but the rest of the world didn’t. That’s why I still own Macs, they always tell you steps one, two and three, with illustrations showing them, including where the ‘on’ switch is located.

Ah, I am so old I raise laughter in those younger than I when I tell them that I sat at a computer in the offices of SeniorNet surrounded by eager computer ‘geeks’ and in amazement typed a conversation with the president of New Zealand. I was ‘talking’ to that charming lady, on the computer, and not paying the phone company to do it. That was, I was talking to her until the line was broken, no doubt by a storm or some such, and we were left, still in a flurry of excitement, thrilled to have gotten through to New Zealand online. Now I chat with my friend Connie on Skype and think nothing of it.

She is always on Skype. I taught her how to use her computer -- over the phone, with me, the Mac expert in San Francisco, to her in Chicago. After a few lessons she asked me why the little arrow went up when she moved the mouse down and down when she moved the mouse up. I sat, confused for a moment, then asked where she had the cord to the mouse. Connie said she had it where the mouse’s tail should be, at the back. Such logic I had seldom seen... she was holding the mouse upside down. Well, it was just the way one would hold a real mouse, wasn’t it? Of course.

Connie is younger than I, as is almost everyone in the world. I did teach her the basics on the computer, as I have so many people, but she now outshines me. She went on to get a degree in computer usage, and teaches things like 3-D animation, etc. Things that are beyond my knowledge, as are many of the twenty-first century’s innovations. But then, when you are older than Babar, there have got to be a few things you don’t know about or understand.

Goodbye Steve

One does not have to use a last name to say goodbye to this American genius. Besides, we all called him Steve.  Now we have lost an American original... a great designer and creative genius who put his stamp on every techie move in two centuries.  We have lost a man whose ideas have circled the globe... who is known better in other countries than in his own... a man whose beautiful, intelligent products changed the life of this world. Nothing will ever be the same as it was when I was young... because of Steve Jobs. OK, I know life is not fair, but I just wish I could have given Steve my extra years to make he world a better place. We so desperately need genius like his at this time in our poor misbegotten country.

I am a writer. Steve Jobs changed my life. No more carbon paper, no more 'doing it all over,' no more whiteout. I worked in advertising, as a copywriter. We used mainframes and they were terrible. If more than four people worked on a mainframe at one time, the damned things slowed down to around 40wpm. For people like me, who typed 75wpm, it was disaster... to a VP in my office, it was hell. She threw the mainframe monitor into the hall, screamed obsceneties at the VP who bought the piece of trash and went downstairs and bought her own Mac in 1984. By 1986 every creative person in the agency had a Mac. The copywriters could cut and paste, change things around without redoing everything... and the artists, ah, every artist I have ever known... all fell in love with the Mac... so easy to work on... the perfect canvas for their work. Every creative person in advertising had a Mac in no time.

Having seen the wonderful "1984 won't be like 1984 anymore" ad, in 1985 I got my hands on the tiny 128K Mac,  I taught myself to use it, then taught myself PageMaker 1.0. I put a twelve page newsletter on one little disc... well, after switching discs... swap, swap, swap... first the system went in (the 128K didn't HAVE a system), then the program... then the disc I’d work on. I learned by doing... from the great manuals Apple wrote, with pictures of where you were, and what you were doing. Thanks to Guy Kawasaki, the original Mac Evangalist and one of the greatest salesmen in the U.S., the people who wrote the programs learned to make manuals in the 'Mac Style' and I learned easily. I work now on my huge  iMac, the latest of a long series.

Steve was the computer person with good taste and a sense of what the next thing should be... always far ahead of the field, nothing he ever did was done without his impeccable good taste. One of the people eulogizing him said: "Every time you use a computer, a smartphone, an ipad, any of the copies or any piece of technological wizardry... you are using something with a little bit of Steve it it, whether it is an Apple product or from another company.” So I write on this lovely machine with a terrible lump in my throat and instant thought of the man who created it.

I weep as I write... I shall miss you Steve, for I felt you were part of my family. There will not be another great design genius with such good taste in my lifetime... nor in my children's or children's childrens. Good bye and bless you Steve for what you have given us. My heart goes out to Steve’s family and I hope his children inherit his great good mind.

Older Than God

So, I keep trying... one more year has gone by. Nothing on earth like having a birthday on a tragic day for the whole country. Do they sing happy songs on your b/d, so they say cheerful things... no, I get mainly, "Oh, poor you... oh, I'm so sorry... is it really your birthday, etc., etc." And I can't even find Comic whatever to type this in, and the purple isn't even as nice as the old purple and the b/d is over, and I forgot to write something, so here I am now, not doing very well... and it is already the 14th. At least THIS isn't a bad day... although of late all the days are kinda bad for our poor country. The TeaBaggers are going to be the death of all of us. Where on earth did they come from. I had no idea that his sad, beaten country had so many other stupid people like dubya. But then, I am so old that I remember when we learned something in school. For example: I, unlike Sarah Palin, learned about Paul Revere -- not that "he galloped through town warning the British, shooting off his guns and ringing his bell." I learned about him warning AGAINST the British... and that they were the enemy at the time of the revolutionary war, something Sarah probably never heard of. Or that, as Michele Bachman opined, the 'Founding Fathers' freed the slaves... that Thomas Jefferson, he was a great man and he freed the slaves. Sure Michele, whatever you say, yeah, he freed the slaves. What has happened to the educational system here?  Wish he had freed that.

When I took the Mensa test in Chicago back in the early sixties, the top 2% of people in this country had an IQ of 145 or higher; sadly, by the time I got out here and was working with SeniorNet, one of the men online informed me he was a member of Mensa, as he had an IQ of 138. That's a quick slip in the intelligence level of a country, and disturbs me immensely. Of course one could never imagine that either of the two 'girls' above as even vaguely intelligent. Both of them sound and act like someone who didn't do well in school, and one wonders if it is all talk that they actually went to college or university. Then, even more sadly, I watch Jay Leno and his "Jay Walking" segments, done not just 'on the street' but many of the segments done at colleges and universities in California. The people he asks questions of rarely can identify pictures of our Presidents or Vice Presidents, or answer simple questions one might ask of a child in grade school. We seem to be raising a whole generation of dolts and idiots, to join the previous generation (that of Palin and Bachman) of dolts and idiots... all of whom paid no attention in school.

I was enormously happy to chat with a taxi driver this week who told me that he asks for an absentee ballot so that he can sit down at the dining room table with his two boys, aged nine and eleven, so that he can go over all of the candidates and all of the bills on the ballots and discuss the pros and cons of everything there, and so teach the boys how to be good citizens. He and his wife, of course, have read to the boys since they were very young children. I am so pleased that I can say that about my own grandchildren. Their parents read to them, leading to their reading to themselves and the older girl reading to her two younger siblings. So, hopefully that generation will have at least five intelligent citizens. Oh, god, I surely hope so.

A Piece of Shocking News

Or perhaps: The End of the World As We Know It, Before 2012

I was stuck in an MRI machine most of the afternoon, so I didn't get the news on Steve until a friend called me to tell me about it (I got home at 8 and didn't even turn on the radio). I did finally see the news at 11pm and pretty much wept through it. This is a really sad day for me, as I did love Steve Jobs. I hated the old mainframes we had in advertising... in spite of the fact that I learned a lot about them, and taught a lot of people how to use the dreadful one we had at the ad agency where I worked. But the minute I got my hands on my first Mac (a 128K in 1985) I was in heaven. I taught myself to use the Macintosh, then taught myself to use PageMaker 1.0. The Apple people had the best instructions anyone ever wrote... and illustrations. I had to work on PCs as a volunteer teacher at a senior center, and the Microsoft instructions were the worst. They didn't have the good sense to start with "Turn the computer on" showing in an illustration where to do that, then give number 2 and 3. When I reported this to the people at M/S, I was told, "Well, everyone knows that!" No, my dears, everyone doesn't know the first three steps, the engineers do. Apple always wrote for people, not for engineers... and always showed you exactly how it would LOOK, with an illustration.

The computer has been such a wonderful thing for a writer (or an artist... every artist I know has a Mac, as does every musician, anyone creative). Being able to forget whiteout and never having to retype anything is wonderful. To think that I can write a poem, then change any word anywhere in that poem, or put the last two lines up at the top and change the sense... or stick in a few lines anywhere in a story or novel... even throw in a chapter in the middle of the book! And Steve made it not only simple, but beautiful. I agree completely with something a guy being interviewed about Steve leaving said, "Doesn't bother me, I've always owned Macs, I always will. I certainly wouldn't ever want to have a PC." I have noticed that people will change from a PC to a Mac, but one rarely or never sees a switch from a Mac to a PC.

I'll always remember what Steve said to a reporter who asked him what he thought of Microsoft. "Well," he said, "they are a good company... have lots of great engineers and software specialists... great bunch of people, they hire the best they can find. Only one big thing wrong with that company... they have absolutely NO taste." How true that was/is (Jeeze...remember the talking paperclip...ugh). Steve Jobs not only had great ideas and was an expert on finding people who had great ideas and knew how to work and innovate (a friend's son was the major developer of the MacBook and a brilliant kid), but he had a designer's eye and gathered people around him who knew good design, and gave every product a distinctive, beautiful look. I wish my friend Guy Kawasaki, who worked for Steve, would go back to Apple. He is another absolutely brilliant guy... and a great idea man. Be good for the company to have him back.

I was impressed that one of the major reporters said that there were three men who were standout people of our time when it came to business brilliance: Walt Disney, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs. I never could stand the first two, who were rabid republicans, conservatives and not very nice people... but I adored Steve Jobs, and he would be the first on my list of great men of my generation... I think I will have to think hard to mention a second. That brilliant Apple ad said it best, "1984 won't be 1984 anymore!!!"

I certainly wish Steve the best... and hope he feels better soon. He is my candidate for "Man of the Century," I do not think we will see a duplicate of him for a long, long time. To bad he couldn't have been persuaded to run the country, we probably wouldn't be in the mess we are in right now if he had.

Oh, My Poor Language

I guess I was a lucky child. My mother, Jessie, was a genius and an absolutely fascinating person. Perhaps not the greatest mother in the world, (more like having an Auntie Mame) but perfect for me. She was no Barbara Billingsley, or any of the often beloved ‘mother’ types, but she was a crazy, fun, interesting person, with four degrees and a mind as sharp as Bea Lilly’s, one that could stop you in your track.

Jess loved the English language. She read and spoke Old English. We heard “The Canterbury Tales” in the original, as well as Spenser’s “Faerie Queen,” before we were in school. She also spoke perfect modern English. We, her children, were expected to do the same, so she taught us two things that I find are not being taught these days, which is most unfortunate, they are so easy to learn.

First: Why are people suddenly using nothing but “a” and forgetting the other indefinite article, “an” before a vowel? Doesn’t “a apple” hit your ear as a terrible sound? Oh, I can say “a terrific tasting apple”... but “a apple,” ye gods, that hurts my ear. Say it... “AN apple” sounds so “right!” Or try, “I’m wearing a earring.” Does that strike you as a good sound? NO. I’m wearing AN earring, it’s shaped like A star.” OK?

Second: It is SO EASY to “get” how to use “I” and “we,” but so few people know how to do it these days. Jessie taught us at a very early age, and I don’t believe I have ever misused either one. All you have to do is leave OUT the other person in your sentence, and you will be able to HEAR which one to use. Here are some examples (one a direct mistake by poor old President Eisenhower, who had misguided handlers teaching him how to speak English badly:

They taught him to say: “Thank you for all the presents you sent to Mamie and I.” Now say that without ‘Mamie’.. “Thank you for all the presents you sent to I” Doesn’t that sound silly? So, how about the correct way: “Thank you for all the presents you sent to Mamie and ME.

It is really all right to say “me,” when it is proper. You would never say, “Give it to I,” would you? You would say “George and I went to the game.” Again, say it without the OTHER person, “...I went to the game.” You know you wouldn’t say, “...me went to the game.” See how simple it is, just leave out the other and say it in your mind... you’ll get the right word. And, for god’s sake, DO NOT say “Me and George went to the game. The polite way is to always mention the other person first and you will get it. Now another: “If you had left it to George and me, it would have been done.” Say it without George and you will see it is correct: “If you had left it to ME it would have been done. (NOT, “If you had left it to I....”) There is one that very few people get right, but again, if you listen to what you are saying, you just may notice the correct usage.

What is the answer to, “Who’s there?” It is not, “It’s me,” although that has pretty much become the answer. It is, “It is I.” Think about it... “I am here,” is another way of saying it, or “Here I am.”

So, the easiest way to figure out whether to use “i” or “me” in a sentence is to just say the sentence without the other person... and you should get your answer immediately. So, if you will please excuse me, I shall stop nattering on about English usage and go and correct a few library books, written by people who somehow never learned the simplest and easiest ways to use the English language (and they didn’t learn to use English in ESL classes, so they have no excuses).

Lost Again......

So I must start over... and it was so good. But only I shall know this. Behind me 'Downton Abby' is playing, a new "Upstairs Downstairs" replaying over this summer. I believe this is the end. Rebellion, rebellion. What a lovely time for it to come... for now is the time we need another revolution in this country. A revolution against the fools in Congress... the dreadful so called 'tea party' ruled by people who have no idea why this country was founded, or by whom (oh sure, Jefferson freed the slaves) and have never read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, I am sure. Ah, my poor old ancestors are spinning in their graves back in New England. For this they fought and died in the revolution and every other war in our 'run-by-the-men' past. I fear we are too often 'run' by cheney types who do so love rounding up the children and sending them to be killed. Each time I read the PNAC writing I am sick that the people of this country could be so ignorant that they would vote in a patsy chosen by men who worked to ruin the country for their own power-mad schemes. Now those same people, with no idea why we are a country, or what we originally stood for, are backing these ignorant tea party people, who have no more intelligence than they do, and certainly do not know much about running a country. And so, we begin to sink into the morass, becoming more and more like the third world countries, run by greedy dictators. More and more we have two class of people: the very rich and the poor, so many now the poverty stricken, homeless and starving. I suppose my two children are among the very few left in the 'middle class' although they may be only a few paychecks from joining me in the lap of poverty. Ah, what greed has done to my blessed country. Perhaps we will all move up to Canada, to my daughter's house there and a better life. Or, perhaps they will move to the Netherlands, as I wanted to a very long time ago. A possibility, for this country has little to offer these days. England does not seem to be much better. Oh god... where to hide? Any place without the Wallmart children, cheney and bush (all the rich-white-trash bush family and friends). Oh, is there anyone who can save my once beautiful, once happy beloved country.

So here's a prayer I sent to a friend... a prayer for my poor (literally) country:

OK, god... you are supposed to be so great... how about you wipe out all of the U.S. Congress, and send us a bunch of really good angels to rewrite the rules, so that the people who are in Congress from now on are on Social Security, have worked at real jobs and are planning on going back to them... and while you are at it, make sure the people are half from minorities and a good divide between men and women. That's my atheist prayer for the day.