This site contains a variety of short and longer poems, along with some essays and travel narratives. Some were written for a specific occasion or about a specific person or place. Others were intended to be more general and to have a longer shelf life. I hope an entry here or there may resonate with your experiences. Enjoy!
My First 4th of July Parade
The year 1959 marked the end of the “fabulous fifties.” Eisenhower was finishing his second term as president. In January, Alaska had become our 49th state. Hawaii was about to become our 50th. The previous July, our family had moved about a mile across our small town to a new, much larger house built by my residential contractor father. We loved the additional space. We were pretty sure we’d finally “arrived” in the middle class. In 1958, we’d missed participating in the July 4th celebrations in our new neighborhood by just a few days, though we’d observed as guests. In 1959 we’d get our first chances to take part in traditions centered on what we all called “the Hall,” next door to our new house. The neighborhood made a big local deal of its 4th of July celebrations.
I was twelve years old. I’d just finished elementary school. I looked vaguely like the girl in the iconic 1953 Norman Rockwell painting, “The Shiner”—I had braids and typically wore my clothes without much attention to fashion. (See https://www.thewadsworth.org/highlight-rockwell/) However, instead of a black eye, I had eyeglasses. Like the girl in the illustration, I tended to be bossy and was somewhat adventurous.
Since our move, I’d reveled in an abundance of nearby kids about my age, a welcome contrast to our prior neighborhood. What I knew then about our new surroundings was basic—a congenial, close knit community with mostly stay-at-home moms, lots of children, hardworking dads, a mix of older and newer houses.
The 4th festivities started with a morning of children’s games on the lawn belonging to my friend Ann Miller’s family. Mrs. Maier, nine-time mom, organized the activities. If it wasn’t rainy or too hot, Mr. Miller would give a bunch of us kids a hayride in a big wagon pulled behind his farm tractor. Rain or shine, the final game of the morning would be a “turtle derby,” for which we’d been“training” captured box turtles for weeks.
Once the games were over, it was time for our neighborhood parade, a back-and-forth route along a short stretch of two-lane road near the Hall. We’d all rush home to get into our costumes, assemble our small floats or decorated bikes, then line up behind whichever parent had been designated to lead us. My 1959 memory is that my mom decided that this year of “two new states” would be perfectly represented by two little red wagons with my 5-year-old twin brothers in them, each wagon decorated with an Alaskan or Hawaiian motif. A big cardboard plaque attached to the side of the wagon would give the relevant new state’s name. My 7-year-old sister and I would pull the wagons. We wore matching white blouses, blue skirts, and red hair ribbons.
The rest of the parade was mostly bicycles (manually powered), their spokes and handlebars threaded with red, white, and blue crepe paper. We probably had a Statue of Liberty, her flowing robe much too easy to trip over. The parade sometimes halted briefly if a younger child had a crying fit or a neighborhood dog wandered onto the road. I don’t remember if there were prizes. The main point was just to have fun. When I checked with my brothers for their memories of this particular parade, their recollections were hazy at best. One thought there’d been a bubble-topped police car at one end of the quarter mile parade route to divert cars while the parade was going on. He seemed to think there had been a decorated pony one year, but he wasn’t sure which year.
Over the years, children grew up, new families moved in, the number of participants waxed and waned, but there was always a parade. After a post-parade potluck picnic at the Hall, then an afternoon baseball contest between the married and unmarried men, families would return home. After dark, a few folks would set off sparklers in their yards. Others would watch the closest large-scale fireworks displays out screened back windows, safe from ravenous mosquitos. Since 1959, I’ve walked in other parades, but none quite so memorable as this first one long ago.
As the 1950’s receded, the bucolic Norman Rockwell images many associated with American life gave way to soberer pictures. By 1964, Rockwell had stopped publishing his illustrations in the era’s popular weekly, the Saturday Evening Post. Chafing at their editorial limitations, he instead placed his equally iconic “The Problem We All Live With” in Look magazine (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_We_All_Live_With). He’d painted a stylized image of first grader Ruby Bridges and the U.S. marshals who accompanied her as she integrated a formerly all-white elementary school in New Orleans in 1960.
The next decade witnessed a series of political assassinations plus civil rights marches and protests. Other concerns were increasingly overshadowed by American involvement in a costly and destructive war in far-off Vietnam. By the end of the 1960’s, I’d finished high school, then college, and gotten married. I had my first full-time job, in Baltimore near a large steel mill. When I went to visit my parents in my former home town, I had trouble talking with them. Sometimes we all assiduously avoided politics, at other times we got increasingly frustrated about each other’s views.
Succeeding decades brought their own triumphs and traumas. On a personal level, I helped raise two children to adulthood, helped mitigate and largely avoid a potential “Y2K” computer software disaster as the century turned, survived a health crisis and the deaths of my parents, became a grandparent. Globally, U.S. military involvement in Vietnam ended, but was later followed by involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Iran. After the former Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990’s, many areas of Eastern Europe experienced a renewal of freer, more democratic forms of government. However, authoritarian regimes persisted in all the world’s regions. Authoritarian tendencies resurfaced in parts of Western Europe and here in the U.S.
Not long before she died, my history-buff mother self-published a history of Elkridge, Maryland, the small town where she’d lived most of her 80-plus years and raised us children. Elkridge, it turns out, was much older than I’d been aware of growing up. It traces its history back to the early 18th century. It first prospered as a tobacco port, becoming a town in 1734, before Baltimore even existed. A century later, the area I’d moved to in 1958 became an enclave of summer homes for wealthy Baltimore lawyers and their families, escaping the oppressive summer city heat. They conducted lawyerly, increasingly vehement debates about slavery, states’ rights, national government, democracy. Once the Civil War broke out, neighborly communication diminished. After the war, relations between Southern and Northern sympathizers were strained. The Hall, formally named “Elkridge Assembly Rooms,” was built starting in 1870 as part of an effort to reknit this local community torn by conflicting regional allegiances.
As the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2026, some of the triumphs and traumas of past periods are resurfacing. My Maryland sister-in-law informs me that the “Hall 4th” festivities will again take place this year. Its neighborhood parade may get photographed by parents and relatives, but is unlikely to make much of a splash on social media. Still, my hope is that the neighborliness embodied in such small, local celebrations will help us navigate some of the divides we can too easily fall prey to. Seeing each other face to face, sharing games, a small parade, a festive potluck, may be a partial antidote to an era when it’s easy to become inflamed by seemingly valid online arguments and highly selective choices of “facts.”
Though 1959 is long gone, “the Hall,” its 4th of July parade, and its legacy persist.
Reflecting
Sometimes glints of sunlight on a clear surface reflect images from
Monuments to two long-ago Presidents at either end of the pool:
The first was elected as our nation formed, the other as
It fractured, prompting battles and skirmishes by soldiers
From opposing sides, sometimes too nearby for comfort.
For those old enough to remember the 1960’s, or those who’ve
Seen the videos and heard the stories, ghosts of the hundreds
Of thousands of marchers persist, their songs about overcoming
Traumas from our checkered past still resounding across the water.
Echoes of a dream not yet fully realized rustle through the trees.
The pool was built during the 1920’s, just after the completion of
The Lincoln Memorial. Perched atop a marshland, it was filled
With over 6 million gallons of water. Over time, it gradually sank into its
Soft underlayment, cracking and eventually leaking so badly that
Half a million gallons of water disappeared each week. In the early 2000’s,
A multi-million dollar project shored it up, reduced leaks, and filtered
Its water, without eliminating algal blooms or the need for regular cleaning.
As we approach a milestone anniversary of our experiments in democracy,
The pool, after a quicker facelift, again suffers from algae and debris.
The trees still rustle, the sunlight still glints. We reflect on what may be needed
To shore up our civic life, to fulfill some of our unrealized collective dreams.
May the wisdom of a Washington or a Lincoln help guide our way forward.
Serendipitous Synergy
Our city has lately had more bad news than we’d like. A hate crime at an area mosque on Monday took five lives, including those of the perpetrators, two teen gunmen. It could have been much worse. Police arrived on the scene and secured the area quickly. A mosque security guard and two congregation members gave their lives while helping prevent a wider tragedy. Nearly 150 children at the affiliated school were first hidden via a lockdown protocol, then safely evacuated. Still, the tragedy shook a community already somewhat on edge because of active and pending military deployments in our Navy and Marine heavy town.
The mosque where the attack occurred is near a major freeway, so many of us know the location. An impromptu shrine has been set up to commemorate the victims. An online fundraiser has helped provide material aid for their families. A Tuesday evening vigil brought many in the community together to mourn and to call for a reduction in the hateful rhetoric that has helped provoke such events.
Contributing to the fundraiser and watching coverage of the Tuesday vigil helped ground me a little, yet as this week has unfolded, I’ve needed something more positive to focus on. A fortuitous combination of circumstances has provided a boost.
It starts with an area non-profit that works tirelessly to provide nutritious food to those in our area with unmet food needs. Since learning of its programs a couple of years ago, I’ve become a supporter and fan. I like their approach. Their small window sticker adorns our aging car: “Feed People, Not Landfills.” Using a whole combination of approaches and funding sources, Feeding San Diego is able to improve area nutrition while reducing area solid waste. They have a small staff and a whole army of regular or intermittent volunteers, including me.
Next came a near neighbor, whose mature lemon tree outdid itself in fruit this year. Early Monday, I’d noticed a wheelbarrow and a beach umbrella across our alley, with a hand lettered sign that I had to get closer to to read: “Please take some; bags included.” I gathered a few lemons for our family to use, but barely made a dent. When the wheelbarrow was still nearly full on Monday evening, I lugged a couple of 5-gallon buckets across the alley and “harvested” about half the remaining lemons. I thought I might have an outlet for extra lemons, but needed to check before I took even more.
I’d signed up to attend a volunteer appreciation breakfast on Tuesday morning at a nearby elementary school where I sometimes assist with semi-monthly food distributions. The school serves mostly military families whose pay is not always enough to cover all their needs. I knew the school’s outreach coordinator slightly and could check with her at the breakfast about whether a set of organically grown lemons would be a useful addition to the school year’s final food distribution on Wednesday. She said yes!
So, Tuesday evening I went back across the alley and filled multiple bags with nearly all the remaining lemons. This morning I checked with the volunteers who assemble food packets at the school—they’ll incorporate the lemons into this month’s produce, along with plums, pears, and avocados. A nice variety.
Our neighbor is thrilled that her lemons will not go to waste; I’m happy that I was able to connect a one-time source with appropriate recipients; the food distribution volunteers were happy to package the additional produce; some families will have extra fruit for the coming holiday weekend. A win-win-win-win?
Perhaps the old tag line needs revising: When life hands you lemons, share!
The Mixed Messages of May Day
When I’ve lived or traveled outside the U.S. on May 1, I’ve sometimes been exposed to celebrations, speeches, parades, or other activities in connection with May Day as “International Labor Day.”
As I began searching for the origin of this holiday, I came across multiple mentions of the “Haymarket Incident,” and/or the “Haymarket Massacre,” a series of demonstrations and events in support of an 8-hour work day, centered on Chicago in 1886. The events of early May, 1886 were part of a larger global movement of workers advocating, sometimes at considerable risk, for better working conditions and shorter work hours. In 1889, the “Second International,” a loose-knit network of socialist and workers’ rights groups, sought to establish May 1 as International Labor Day. A holiday on this date is currently recognized throughout much of Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The U.S., Canada, Australia, and a few other countries host their ”labor day” on a different date, perhaps to distance it from such “socialist” origins.
A different context for “May Day” is its use as an international distress signal. Per Wikipedia: “Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications. It is used to signal life-threatening emergencies, primarily by aviators, mariners, and emergency responders. It is shouted three times consecutively—‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday’—to signify grave danger, such as engine failure, fire, or sinking, requiring immediate assistance.” It seems plausible that the call originated with the French expression “m’aider” (help me) back in the 1920’s when the majority of air traffic flew between the airports of Paris and London; the term was easier to distinguish on staticky radio channels than the alternate expression “SOS.”
Starting as far back as Roman times, probably even earlier, spring festivals have been held around the beginning of May, continuing even through the medieval period we sometimes call the “Dark Ages.”
The earliest “May Day” I remember occurred in 1954, on Saturday, May 1. I was a first grader at our elementary school in a small town in Maryland. We were putting on a festive pageant, for which I’d been chosen as a “princess” to represent our class. I was one of a dozen or so members of our “May Court.” The festival would also include a May Pole dance, with classmates weaving patterns using ribbons draped from a central pole. There’d be lots of food booths, midway style games, and much silliness as we enjoyed a day outdoors, free from the strictures of weekday classwork.
For part of April, we princesses practiced walking at a stately measured pace down concrete stairs to the lower level of the school playground, then over to a slightly shady spot at the playground’s edge. For the actual festival, a recording of “Pomp and Circumstance” would play over the school’s public address system and we’d all be costumed in pastel colored taffeta gowns. The coronation of our “May Queen,” one of the sixth grade princesses, would be the culmination of the afternoon fair.
In 2026, the Women’s March in the U.S. is organizing a nationwide day of action on Friday, May 1 (May Day), encouraging a “No Work, No School, No Shopping” strike to protest against political and corporate power. Per their website: “We are taking collective action and demanding a nation that puts workers over billionaires.”
I’m conflicted about how to spend this year’s first of May—rising inflation, threats to workers’ rights, voting rights, civil rights, plus a tense international situation would all seem to call for some sort of protest. So, though my marching days are mostly over and my retiree’s impact on the paid workforce is minimal, I’ll abstain from purchases or housework on this year’s May 1. This Friday, I’ll not be part of a homemaker’s “second shift,” either. The “no housework” injunction will require some pre-planning plus extra chore work by my husband.
And because it is also true that early May in this hemisphere is often the loveliest time of the year, I’ll spend as much time as practical outdoors, enjoying the fresh greenness of springtime.
View of a Ship: U.S.S. Murtha and the Artemis II Retrieval
Over the weekend, many of us in the San Diego area got to rejoice vicariously in the successful retrieval of the four Artemis II astronauts and their space capsule by Navy divers and personnel of the U.S.S. John P. Murtha (LPD 26). Hundreds of hard-working sailors got to experience the retrieval in person.
Those of us with internet access could view a NASA feed of the descent of the space capsule and its splashdown off the southern California coast. Both the internet and local television channels covered some of the process of securing the capsule and then transferring astronauts and capsule to the Murtha.
It took a while after the 5:07 PDT April 10 Pacific Ocean landing of the Orion capsule to fully stabilize it, a while longer to transport first the astronauts and then the capsule to the nearby Murtha, where preliminary medical checks were done on the astronauts and the capsule was secured for transport back to San Diego. All went well despite stronger than expected ocean currents. The capsule will be inspected and then transferred to the Kennedy Space Center for further analysis.
Per the San Diego Union-Tribune’s lead article: “An imposing ship built to wage war docked in San Diego on Saturday morning in the name of peace and human exploration, delivering the capsule that Artemis II astronauts rode to a flawless landing a day earlier.”
Since moving to San Diego about five years ago, I’ve lived close to a large military housing complex, but know little of the lives of the naval personnel there. When I recently visited the U.S.S. Midway Museum in San Diego’s harbor, I got ample evidence of the confined, somewhat claustrophobic quarters of the floating village that constitutes a large ship. A few glimpses of an area naval base from a passing trolley, a brief “float by” of publicly accessible areas of San Diego’s harbor, have done little to dispel for me the mystery of how our Navy functions. So it was special to see a little of a naval operation in “real time.”
You could perhaps say that my relation with the U.S. Navy began a long time ago, even before I was born. My late father was stationed on the U.S.S. Cabot (CVL-28) in the Pacific theater during the latter part of World War II. It seems likely that he spent a little of his service in port in San Diego, but he rarely talked about his Navy time. All we, his children, got as evidence were a few pictures of his immediate crew and a favorite close-up photograph of him wearing his Navy whites and cap (covering the baldness that had come early to this unintended sailor). When I visited the Midway, I got to see a larger ship, but one of similar vintage to the one where Dad had served.
In 2026, getting to be a virtual witness to the services rendered by the crew of the Murtha was especially welcome. Amid all the turmoil and uncertainty of operations in the Middle East, it was reassuring to be witness to a more peaceable use of naval expertise.
After the Artemis crew’s return to Houston, I relished part of the brief speech delivered by astronaut Reid Wiseman as he posed with his teammates: “It’s a special thing to be a human and it’s a special thing to be on planet Earth.”
Amen.
Thousands Upon Thousands: No Kings 3/28/2026
A clear, warm day in San Diego.
A grandson offered a ride to the nearest trolley stop.
Fellow trolley passengers shifted positions so we could have seats.
Swarms of people converged on Waterfront Park–
All ages, incomes, ethnicities, many with hand-crafted signs.
Speeches, then moving together, or standing, or just sitting, taking it all in.
Two young men had positioned themselves in the shade of an old building,
Handing out cups of free lemonade to anyone parched enough to want some.
I treasure pictures I snapped with my phone, capturing memories to help cope
With any further travesties while we work to reanimate our democracy.
Modern “Mourning Wars”
Until recently, I had not heard the term “mourning war.” Then, this past winter, I read a history of the Americas that included perspectives of the indigenous tribes who populated the area prior to the arrival of European settlers. I came across the term “mourning war,” once practiced among the tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy in what is now the eastern U.S. and Canada. A local online history expanded on the practice, which had started out as a series of small-scale raids before large-scale contact with European settlers:
“[M]ore than [furs from adjoining tribes,] these Iroquois warriors sought prisoners, prospective adoptees, who could take the place of Iroquois people who had died in wars and from epidemic diseases. The members of the Five [Iroquois] Nations believed that the power of a lineage, a clan, a village or a community suffered for each individual lost. Iroquois peoples, as well, recognized that grief unassuaged could bring destruction. …The adoption of captives was one socially-sanctioned way to alleviate this grief. As a result, Iroquois raids on their neighbors took on the quality of a ‘mourning war.’”
Historian Daniel Richter has argued that the practice of mourning warfare escalated and changed as interactions with Europeans increased. Substantial numbers of native peoples were dying in epidemics of diseases such as measles and smallpox to which, in contrast with Europeans, they had no natural immunity:
“A dangerous spiral resulted: disease led to more frequent mourning wars fought with firearms that made these raids more dangerous; the need for guns and ammunition to fight these wars led to an increased demand for the [animal] pelts needed to trade for them; Iroquois hunters and warriors traveled farther and farther to acquire the furs necessary for this trade, provoking new wars with native peoples farther afield. And through it all the spiral of death continued, sucking the Five Nations into a destructive cycle of warfare and violence. …
[T]he Iroquois absorbed an enormous number of captives. French missionaries estimated that two-thirds of the people living in Iroquoia were adoptees. Even with these adoptees, Iroquois population continued to decline. The Iroquois suffered badly in this warfare, which could be horrifically violent.”
(https://chenussio.geneseo.sunycreate.cloud/overview-of-seneca-history/mourning-wars/)
It’s not clear that the many wars now going on around the world have the same explicit aims as Iroquois “mourning wars,” though earlier in the war in Ukraine there were allegations of Russian troops kidnapping Ukrainian children to help bolster an aging Russian population.
What is evident is that nearly all our current global conflicts are inflicting much higher civilian casualties than military ones. What is evident are the massive internal and cross-border refugee displacements occurring in increasing numbers of regions. What is evident is how much the global economy is being roiled by disruptions of shipping in various war zones.
As bombs, missiles, and drones continue to damage or destroy increasing numbers of lives and infrastructure in the Middle East and elsewhere, I am in mourning. If I’ve had qualms about a United States role as international police force, I have even greater qualms about the land of my birth joining the ranks of international bullies. I am angry. I do not yet fully know how to direct my anger to help minimize further damage. My only certainty is that escalating cycles of violence are not a viable answer.
Throughout human history, we have struggled with our countervailing impulses toward dominance and toward empathy. It is taking us much too long to learn the lesson that dominance always comes to an end. Empathy, too often considered “weak” in the shorter term, is one of the few ways yet discovered to promote the sharing of whatever finite resources are necessary for all to thrive. Empathy can help us learn to harness more broadly available resources such as sunlight. Empathy can also activate the nearly inexhaustible resources of mutual care and support.
May the God of all faiths, by whatever name, help us to develop the wisdom to mourn more cleanly, and to extricate ourselves from the cycles of violence and “mourning wars” to which we still seem much too prone.
Three Remarkable Women
On this International Women’s Day, I want to honor three older women who have over the years become heroines of mine: Wangari Maathai, Doris “Granny D.” Haddock, and, most recently, Saalumarada Thimmakka. None are women I’ve met or know directly. One lived in Africa, another in North America, the third in Asia. Their lives of collaborative service continue to inspire me, even though they are no longer physically with us.
Wangari Maathai was born in Kenya in 1940. She pushed to get a good education, and along the way became an environmental and government reform activist. In 1977, she started the Greenbelt Movement, aimed at empowering rural women through planting and nurturing tree seedlings. Over time the movement grew and incorporated an effort toward more responsive, more transparent government at multiple levels. In 2004, Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work, the first African woman to receive this honor. In her acceptance speech, she highlighted work completed, but also work yet to be done:
“Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life support system.”
Maathai died in 2011, but the movement she started lives on. Its Greenbelt Movement website sets out several current interlocking goals: “[O]ur programs focus on reforestation, climate change adaptation and mitigation, water harvesting, gender-based advocacy, and creating sustainable livelihoods.”
Doris Haddock for much of her life was a low profile New England wife, mother, and shoe factory worker. Born in New Hampshire in 1910, she attended college in Massachusetts during the late 1920’s until her secret marriage to James Haddock, the love of her life, got her expelled (evidence of a double standard that has not yet totally disappeared). The couple settled in New Hampshire, where Jim found work as an electrical engineer. Once their children were launched, Doris became more active in local government. She continued attending weekly public affairs sessions where she’d made good friends. During the 1990’s, first Jim and then her best friend Elizabeth died. Doris became more and more disgusted with the oversized role of large campaign contributions in elections at all levels. She began doing some physical training while considering ways to publicize the need for reform.
On January 1, 1999, shortly before her 89th birthday, Doris set out from Pasadena, California on a cross-country walk to raise awareness of the need for campaign finance reform. Over 3,200 miles and 14 months later, she arrived in Washington, D.C., having met and talked with thousands of people during her trek and collected thousands of signatures calling for meaningful reform. She was later on hand in the gallery of the U.S. Senate in 2002 when a bipartisan campaign finance reform law gained passage there on a 60-40 vote.
In 2004, Haddock accepted a last minute request to run for a U.S. Senate seat against a popular incumbent. She did not win that contest, but she again raised important issues. Per an L.A. Times article shortly before the election:
“Out on the trail, Doris Haddock delivers this message: Nearly all evils born in Washington — lopsided tax policies, economic disparity, an ineffective healthcare system, even the war in Iraq — are caused by ‘career politicians who are funded by the special interests that they are supposed to be regulating.’”
Haddock lived to be 100. She died, physically frail but still spiritually robust, shortly after the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision “Citizens United” opened the floodgates to unlimited campaign contributions. Several local and national organizations continue the work she championed, using her name and likeness in their promotional materials.
Saalumarada Thimmakka was a childless illiterate Indian peasant woman who transformed the stigma of being unable to bear physical children into a verdant set of tree-lined oases in her impoverished part of India. She died in late 2025. In early 2026, her life and work were memorialized in a New York Times obituary. Ms. Thimmakka lived to be about 113 (records of her birth are inexact). Nearly 80 years ago, she and her husband started by planting 10 banyan tree saplings. After her husband’s death in the 1990’s, her efforts began to get expanded media attention. The scope of her tree planting increased. In 2019, she was awarded the Padma Shri medal, one of India’s highest civilian honors. Her adopted son continues her efforts, distributing thousands of saplings each year and organizing tree planting drives.
Ms. Maathai, Ms. Haddock, and Ms. Thimmakka remind me of three sometimes paradoxical truths:
1) Lasting change almost always requires sustained effort.
2) Even in the darkest periods, one person can make a positive difference, and
3) We are stronger together.
Happy International Women’s Day!
Posted in Uncategorized, holidays, Spiritual musings
Tagged campaign finance reform, Doris "Granny D." Haddock, environmental education, Granny D., Greenbelt Movement, International Women's Day, lasting change, so that humanity stops threatening its life support system, social movements, Wangari Maathai
Be Kind / Practice Kindness
February is Heart Month and Black History Month,
Host to Groundhog Day, Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine’s Day,
Presidents’ Day, plus, in 2026, a confluence of cultural holidays:
Chinese New Year, Mardi Gras, and the first day of Ramadan,
All of which occur on February 17. Perhaps providentially, the day
Has also been branded “Random Acts of Kindness Day.”
Lately the world does not seem kind.
Wide-ranging verbal attacks can distort and depress.
Yet through the ages, a plethora of prophets and
Seers have preached kindness:
The surest way to lift your own mood, they advise, is
To do something kind for someone else.
While meandering along neighborhood sidewalks
Near my current home, I came across a recently painted
Mural on the steps leading to an area middle school.
Fashioned by a local Girl Scout troop, it reminds us all:
“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
The placement of the axiom seems especially apt–
Lots of us during middle school try to
Stoke our still-fragile egos by demeaning others.
The sentiments of the Scouts are laudable, but
I have a minor quibble with their choice of words–
Despite decades of life since middle school,
Whenever I’m smarting from a perceived snub or injustice,
I still find it very difficult to be genuinely kind.
My aging self has not yet fully absorbed
The discipline of kindness. It may take me until
The great hereafter, if even then, to become uniformly kind.
In the meantime, it’s worthwhile for me to practice kindness
Especially on “Random Acts of Kindness Day.”
Stony the Road…
This MLK weekend, I didn’t feel much like celebrating. It seemed as if much of the civil rights progress of the past half century and more was being erased as quickly as our national executive could flourish his sharpie and sign yet another exclusionary and/or incendiary executive order.
Still, I wanted to show solidarity with the activists and citizens who for years have been calling our country to live up to its ideals, so I got a ride to downtown San Diego to walk in Sunday’s MLK 5K. There were a lot of other walkers and runners, most more fit than I was. I figured I could probably go the distance, if somewhat slowly.
It was a gorgeous day—sunny, with a light breeze and pleasant temperatures. Along the way, I got to hear snippets of conversations among those who also took a slower pace. The atmosphere was congenial, most of us opting to enjoy the walk and the weather more than just stewing about the sorry state of our republic. Someone probably “won” the race, but all of us got some worthwhile exercise in a friendly environment.
Later, I stayed for part of the annual parade that’s been held in San Diego for many years, beginning even before the MLK holiday was enacted nationally. Some of the groups marching were predominantly black, but many were mixed, with high school and college bands, various professional associations, and contingents from area employers. Most of the early groups were generally apolitical. I enjoyed the colors, the festive mood, a few of the gift items thrown from passing floats. Before I left, some more militant marching groups appeared—I took a picture of a set of local activists whose banner intrigued me.
What combination of tactics could work best to slow or reverse our slide into increasingly authoritarian rule, I wondered? I wished I were a better writer, able to craft a rallying cry that would re-inspire me and others. Then I remembered a poem written during a previous dark time for the disinherited, James Weldon Johnson’s 1900 “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
A black friend had delved deeper into the words to this three verse civil rights poem during a workshop nearly thirty years ago on building the beloved community. The first verse stresses harmony and rejoicing, a needed uplift for the students at the segregated black school in Florida where Johnson was then principal. But the poem doesn’t sugar coat either the realities of prior slavery or the challenges of the Jim Crow era then unfolding. Its second verse lays it all out:
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died,
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.
Johnson’s brother Rosamond crafted music to go with the poem. A school chorus first performed it at a school ceremony later that year. A generation later, the hymn was adopted as an official anthem of the NAACP. The song has become an enduring symbol of the struggle for civil rights—its mandate expanding to include equal rights for all.
There’s a lot more work to be done before the ideals expressed in our nation’s founding documents are fully realized. The work will not get done solely with marches or protests, though they may help. Sometimes the road ahead will be stony, but gentle perseverance can get us to a better place again. We’ve been working at perfecting our union for 250 years—with luck and fortitude, we’ll have a better nation and a better, more peaceful world before the next 250 years are done. Then, we will truly be able to lift every voice.
Jinny's Occasional Poems 