Tag: anniversary

D-Day; Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was just this FORCE, her speaking voice like music, her wisdom and compassion evident in every sentence.

dday.kn17825As D-Day approaches, all I can think about are 90-year-old men who saw awful things but sucked it up to get through the events, and then stoically never talked about them. That is until 50 or 60 or 70 years later – goaded by family members or in recognition of their own mortality, as at least 600 WWII vets die EVERY DAY in the US – they start telling their stories. And while unique, they are the same story, of friends, of an officer who died that day, of bodies they tripped over while trying to maintain their position.

And, almost inevitably, they cry. They weep for those comrades they still know by name 70 years after they perished, tears that they weren’t allowed to shed at the time because it wouldn’t have been “manly.”

In some ways, it reminds me of the Holocaust survivors who blocked out the horror they saw until much later. They say “war is hell” for a reason. And that was a conflict generally supported by the American public, something I must say I’ve never really experienced in my lifetime; either initially or subsequently, Americans have grown weary of the wars we fought.

So World War II becomes “the good war.” As though there is any such thing.

maya_angelouAll these people have written these great Maya Angelou stories and cited her quotes. And while I’ve read a lot of great tributes to her, I don’t have one and haven’t seen one, that exactly captures my feelings, though “Scandal” and “Grey’s Anatomy” showrunner Shonda Rhimes tweeting simply, “Maya” is pretty close.

I mean, I remember seeing the 1979 TV adaptation of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and only reading the book later. Or I could note seeing her in everything from Roots to Sesame Street to Touched by an Angel. Sometime recently, I even linked to her calypso singing. Unfortunately, I never met her, though I’m likely to have been as tongue-tied as Keef was.

But for me, she was just this FORCE, her speaking voice like music, her wisdom and compassion evident in every sentence. For decades she was like a grandmother talking, trying to relay important knowledge.

I bought for The Wife, probably for some occasion in early 2002 – Valentine’s Day or our anniversary – Hallmark tan/green pottery bowl with these Maya Angelou words inside: “Life is a glorious banquet, a limitless and delicious buffet.”

The morning Maya died, I was reading someone’s Facebook post, someone who was hoping that she would get better after she’d declined to attend some event in her honor. Then the Albany NBC-TV affiliate, WNYT, citing a station in Winston-Salem, NC reported her death. But still, I waited until other sources confirmed it – and her Wikipedia post quickly noted her in the past tense – before I could really believe it.

The Wife and the tax compromise

I wasn’t giving to charity because it was deductible, I was giving because I was called to do so.

1040sc_Page_1I’m playing cards (hearts) the day after my birthday, and someone mentioned preparing taxes. I noted that the Wife and I get someone else to do it for us. My friend did not understand. “It’s EASY with TurboTax” or some other software. I repeated that we outsource our tax prep because it was best for us to do so. My reaction was perceived as passionate, maybe even heated, although it did not feel that way to me. It was just what we do to ensure domestic tranquility.

For one thing, I don’t think doing the taxes is that simple, like this post I came across notes. By the time you’ve gathered all the papers necessary to plug into some tax software, most of the crappy work that needs to be calculated has already been done.

The first year we filed together was a nightmare for me and a real irritant for her. Here’s why: I had NEVER filled out an itemized tax form in my life. I had used Form 1040A, or, often Form 1040EZ, which is, as it suggests, easy.

The Wife, conversely, had a rental property that involved filling out a Schedule C for income gain or loss on a business.

She also calculated her charitable deductions, including the value of the non-cash donations. Not only could I not be bothered to do that in the past, but I also had a philosophical aversion to it. I wasn’t giving to charity because it was deductible, I was giving because I was called to do so. There are a couple of friends of mine who run a Catholic charity which is, pointedly, NOT a 501(c) tax-deductible charity under IRS law, and they expect people to donate based on their heart, not as a tax haven. NOW I do it because my spouse thinks it’s fiscally prudent, and despite my antipathy for doing so, we do.

Those first two years of filing taxes, which took FOREVER, we got slapped with penalties for underpaying somehow. After that, we got someone else to do the work. Actually at least one of THOSE years, we paid too little again, but we were only responsible for the amount, NOT the penalty and interest, which came out of the pockets of the accountant.

The Wife and I are celebrating 15 years of marriage today, and one of the reasons is that we found a way not to make ourselves crazy each April.

Blogging revolution #9

I try to let the blogging go, but then the heart will want what it wants.

9-page-headerNine years of blogging, every day; nine trips around the sun. This is remarkable, or remarkably crazy; the line between the two is paper-thin. There were weeks this past year when I could write only one or two posts. It was almost never out of a lack of content ideas, but rather a lack of time. Then there’d be an outpouring, usually at 4 a.m., when my mind was swimming with the thoughts I wanted to write.

It’s rather like the pushmi-pullyu of Doctor Doolittle, described in Wikipedia as a “‘gazelle-unicorn cross’ which has two heads (one of each) at opposite ends of its body. When it tries to move, both heads try to go in opposite directions.” I just recalled that I had a little plastic pushmi-pullyu when I was in high school, for some obscure reason.

Sometimes I try to let the blogging go, but then the heart will want what it wants. I want/need to communicate, and I feel rather cranky when I have things I want to write but can’t seem to find the opportunity. So the subconscious wakes me in the middle of the night. Regular morning blogging is SO much better for my sleep patterns.

I’ll attempt one more year of daily blogging, and, as I noted last year, I’ll stop. I think I will. Maybe I’ll repost some things I wrote in my first year when no one was reading my blog anyway once or twice a week. Or not. We shall see. But stopping altogether is not an option, and in any case, that’s still 12 months away.

Oh, if you see a typo, feel free to mention it. There was a piece I wrote about the word tittynope last month. Even had a graphic of the word. And yet I typed tittymouse, undoubtedly affected by the word titmouse; fortunately, I caught it before it published. On the other hand, I might get all colloquial sometimes: “And I done so well in high school math” made sense to me, in the context.

Anyway, the obvious from the Beatles white album.

That damn song about ancestors

My parents are gone and have joined my ancestors, and there is no one else in an earlier generation in my lineage.

Les.Trudy
Right after I got back to Albany, after my mother’s funeral in February 2011 in Charlotte, NC, I attended the church service of my current congregation. It was Black History Month, and I had helped organize the events but did not participate much in them. I’m standing in the congregation, rather than singing in the choir when we got to do Lift Every Voice and Sing.

I’m singing it, as I’ve done dozens of times in the past. We get to the lyrics:
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last

And I start sobbing uncontrollably. Don’t know if anyone, except The Wife, noticed, but I was unable to sing anymore.

I’m reminded of this because it’s always the last song we perform at my church in Black History Month, and I am still unable to get through the song without crying at some point, and that had not been an issue before 2011. I think it’s that “adult orphan” thing, that my parents are gone and have joined my ancestors, that there is no one else in an earlier generation in my lineage – my parents were both only children – and somehow I’ve become the eldest member of my tiny little tribe on earth, the children and grandchildren of Les and Trudy Green, who were married March 12, 1950, in Binghamton, NY.

LISTEN to Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Mom’s grave marker

It seems like yesterday, and a long time ago, that Mom died.


As I have mentioned, my mother is buried at Salisbury National Cemetery in Salisbury, North Carolina; the place has an interesting history. My father had died in August 2000, and it was a great stress for the family to figure out the logistics. But when my mom died three years ago today, the situation was considerably easier; since Dad was cremated, Mom was likewise.

What I did not know is that they don’t just take my father’s marker and add my mom’s information. Instead, they made a new marker altogether, with my dad’s data on one side, and my mom’s on the other.

My sister Marcia, who lives in North Carolina, went to Salisbury on Veterans Day 2013 and took this picture. Since I haven’t actually been to NC since my mother’s funeral, this is the first time I’ve “seen” the headstone.

Mom’s mother was named Gertrude, and she wasn’t too fond of it, though she was not one to complain too much. Her first cousins knew her as Gertie, but all the time I could remember, she preferred Trudy.

My sister Leslie sang Wind Beneath My Wings at my father’s funeral, dedicated to my mother, and reprised it at mom’s funeral.

It seems like yesterday, and a long time ago, that Mom died. I suppose that is irrational, but there it is.

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