I laughed so hard reading your post on nobility and the we, the doddering masses, who strain to even remember our "nobler" days. I then realized, hey at 72-years young, I could be that guy laying on the gurney! Keep postin' and I'll keep reading. Wish you and yours a happy, healthy 2023.
That Van Morrison vinyl album is one that I have carted around the country for many years. Knowing that it rests with other albums in a safe place in my living room and gets to see the light of day from time to time and fill the space with memories gives me hope. The young woman with whom you spoke, no doubt, filled the space you shared with hope. Music and young have that in common. Just don't listen to Morrison's "TB Sheets"; it will burst any hope filled bubbles you may be entertaining.
This made me miss my mother, a reformer who wormed her way into a teaching job at the county jail, so she could help inmates obtain their GED certification while incarcerated. Now jiving to Van Morrison.
My background is security and my current status is old but still trying. Your brown-eyed girl column was timely and made me cry. I am three years your elder and your reminiscing is so on target and crying comes easier these days. It was timely because I was mulling a noble thought over when your column popped onto the screen in front of me. Let me explain.
On page 52 of the December 2022/January 2023 issue of the AARP Magazine is an article titled: "Texas Elder Murders". On page 4 of the same magazine, the editor in chief of the magazine commented on how tragically nothing has changed since AARP's "award winning investigation reported on the problems in senior care facilities in 2020. He mentions "AARP's fight against ageism" and ends with "you can seek our help at litigation@aarp.org". In my 83 years I have learned attempting to communicate with a word (litigation) instead of a person is like yelling help with your your mouth closed. I emailed offering my help but I am not holding my breath expecting a response.
The noble your brown eye girl column elbowed into is" AARP could use some of the money now being spent on lobbyists to fund a study and development of a set of best security practices for senior care facilities which could help local oversight agencies.
For my noble thought to gain traction, an actual person who cares enough to become committed needs to be identified. There possibly are some of those in the AARP organization but bureaucracies have a way of losing track of noble thoughts.
Yes, "Joy" would be an inclusive factor, but we need to go deeper in our doings. Joy is seen at the end of a long race, like a marathon or a 10K, and if you're a runner from a large family, you can see them jump with joy no matter when you raise your arms and pass the final tape. Joy, though appreciated, soon dissipates as even does a good marriage, except in spurts maybe. The emotion we need to consider in our better doings with others in need is taking off our blindness cloth. We made a huge and egregious mistake 40 years ago. As Garrison wisely reminds us: a mental health instituion was..."destroyed by my fellow liberals forty years ago as “deinstitutionalization,” the idea that rather than enormous hellholes, you put the inmates in small hellholes where we wouldn’t be so aware of them."
Well-said, but we can hardly not be aware of them today, most often wandering about, or in conflict with the police and worse. This is not a political issue and it's not soley an equality issue. These fellow humansin-need,, dealt bad cerebral and emotional cards in life, need far more help than avoiding samba dancing, nor no effective meds, nor no help to a better life.
Needs like this can be also caused by deep depression. Look at the suicides in the daily obits among our youth and also middle aged. We need to come up with a new, carin plan of care. One that puts in place treatments that actually help. Not in places like Rikers where it's made worse.
Let's find caring social workers, parents, friends and those who can actually help. Let's not end up with a police shoot-out caused by a "failure to communicate."
May Emily and her caring partners for better prison reform and street reform and Emergency Room reform get actual help for those in need. Let's hope both political parties, no matter our own, agree the answer isn't where it is now.
Let's reach out to the Emilys. Let's get them and other promising answer-finders the resources needed to make it happen.
But...if you challenge the forces of the Empire (as Emily clearly intends to do) you'll need a lot of passion to sustain you - there won't be any money in it, for sure. AND...if you get engaged in Latin Dance, you'll ALSO be passionate. My question: how much passion can one body endure, or produce, for that matter? Or maybe, as Einstein said of human ignorance, it's infinite?
Greetings! I am the one who wrote to you, wondering if you would do a benefit concert for us (you said, "Yes"), and I wanted to sing In the Garden with you, but you want to sing the harmony. Well, I haven't been back in touch with you as the time for a assembling a concert has NOT been opportune.
But, however, I appreciated your column today. I am now 66 and it brought me back to when I was 12 on the West Bank of Minneapolis. I am dong a lot of refleting (healthy I hope!) on my life and what is my call for the remaining time. I am aging out as the executive director of the Coffee Connection/Project Empower and working on the succession work--which requires a lot of $. BUT, my sister, Dr. Judie Bergfalk, who died in May 1975--the month I graduated from college, started the first free clinic on the West Bank in Mpls., in 1969. I was a precocious 12 year old who looked 18, but fortunately, not interested in things not healthy for me. But there was a guy, named Jude, who sang "Brown-eyed Girl" to me. Yes, I have brown eyes. That has stayed with me my whole life and I think it was a vote in confidence for my life journey. There was another guy, a Hell's Angel, named Grey Cat (grey hair and eyes), who carried a knife on his belt w/ 6 notches. He put the word out on the street that if any one touched Dr. Judie's little sister, there'd be aother notch. All when I was 12. That was an important summer for me.
It will be 12 years in August, that I stepped over the threshold of the Coffee Connection onto the street, when it occurred to me that I was carrying on the mission that my sister had done--working with those with addiction, trauma, and incarceration. It was a beautiful moment.
Thank you for bringing me back. Our nonprofit is called Life Listening Resources, because we help you listen to life (concept taken from Frederick Buechner, many years ago). Thank you for helping me listen to my life this morning.
Sagacity. As a kid thrown into the noble cause of Cub Scouts, and never left the program (Scoutmaster pushing 60), I grow weary defending the good over the bad or even ugly. I giggle at the thought of a patrol of burnt marshmallow eating Scout Leaders in a Latin dance class, but I will recommend it to be sure. Thanks GK!
The story about the special needs teenagers reminded me of a very intelligent girl I became friends with in the fourth grade. We were both overweight and occasionally ridiculed because of it. She was the only Jewish person in our class, so I imagine she was teased about that as well, but she had a positive attitude and never complained about it. She played the flute and I played the violin, so we were in the orchestra together. In the 6th grade orchestra, she started to have trouble controlling her fingers on the flute keys and after a few months she couldn't play anymore. She was later diagnosed with some kind of progressive neuromuscular disease and her condition slowly deteriorated. She had a beautiful singing voice though, and I always sat next to her in the junior high glee club so I could follow her.
We had different interests and were in different classes for the next few years, but in 10th grade we were both in the same honors chemistry class where she was my lab partner. She couldn't really do any of the necessary manipulations, but I didn't mind because I enjoyed doing everything myself and was happy to help her. After a month so she decided to withdraw from the class. She couldn't control her hands enough to write and take notes, and had to do all her writing on an electric typewriter using a pencil between her teeth. At that point she had some difficulty walking, but she ended up graduating near the top of the class shortly after her 17th birthday and happened to go to the same college as I did, Clark University. She was a geography major and I was a chemistry major, so we didn't have any of the same classes and lived in different dorms, but it was nice to see her now and then. She ended up graduating magna cum laude a semester early at age 20 and got a PhD in Medical Anthropology at the University of Michigan and had postdoctoral positions at Northwestern and UCSF. She has had a notable professional career, including teaching Disability Studies at several universities. She is now a widow living in California. I offered to help her by giving her rides from and to the airport for our 50th high school reunion several years ago, but she decided not to attend. I keep in touch with her on Facebook, but haven't seen her for more than 50 years. She has always been an inspiration to me and I often think of times when I heard people ridicule her. I always told them that she had been my friend since 4th grade and tried to explain her disability to them.
I also had some tears of joy after I gave 120 women prisoners at the Women's Penitentiary in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1975, classes in Transcendental Meditation, as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The relief those women experienced from diving deep within their own minds left them flabbergasted and happy. Emily needs to know about the great work TM continues to do in prisons (though she might already know.) She can see some of the moving testimonials from prisoners and prison officials here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzV55gus4NA After hearing what they have to say, I'm counting on Emily and other nobility-minded people to champion TM to relieve the stress in the hellhole prisons of the world.
“There must be joy” will carry me through at least today. I am grateful.
No one can spin a run on sentence as well as GK. ❤️
Good morning from Boston!
I laughed so hard reading your post on nobility and the we, the doddering masses, who strain to even remember our "nobler" days. I then realized, hey at 72-years young, I could be that guy laying on the gurney! Keep postin' and I'll keep reading. Wish you and yours a happy, healthy 2023.
That Van Morrison vinyl album is one that I have carted around the country for many years. Knowing that it rests with other albums in a safe place in my living room and gets to see the light of day from time to time and fill the space with memories gives me hope. The young woman with whom you spoke, no doubt, filled the space you shared with hope. Music and young have that in common. Just don't listen to Morrison's "TB Sheets"; it will burst any hope filled bubbles you may be entertaining.
It's too bad how Van lost his mind the last few years. Seriously, it's tragic.
This made me miss my mother, a reformer who wormed her way into a teaching job at the county jail, so she could help inmates obtain their GED certification while incarcerated. Now jiving to Van Morrison.
Garrison.
My background is security and my current status is old but still trying. Your brown-eyed girl column was timely and made me cry. I am three years your elder and your reminiscing is so on target and crying comes easier these days. It was timely because I was mulling a noble thought over when your column popped onto the screen in front of me. Let me explain.
On page 52 of the December 2022/January 2023 issue of the AARP Magazine is an article titled: "Texas Elder Murders". On page 4 of the same magazine, the editor in chief of the magazine commented on how tragically nothing has changed since AARP's "award winning investigation reported on the problems in senior care facilities in 2020. He mentions "AARP's fight against ageism" and ends with "you can seek our help at litigation@aarp.org". In my 83 years I have learned attempting to communicate with a word (litigation) instead of a person is like yelling help with your your mouth closed. I emailed offering my help but I am not holding my breath expecting a response.
The noble your brown eye girl column elbowed into is" AARP could use some of the money now being spent on lobbyists to fund a study and development of a set of best security practices for senior care facilities which could help local oversight agencies.
For my noble thought to gain traction, an actual person who cares enough to become committed needs to be identified. There possibly are some of those in the AARP organization but bureaucracies have a way of losing track of noble thoughts.
Thanks for your regular uppers.
Yes, "Joy" would be an inclusive factor, but we need to go deeper in our doings. Joy is seen at the end of a long race, like a marathon or a 10K, and if you're a runner from a large family, you can see them jump with joy no matter when you raise your arms and pass the final tape. Joy, though appreciated, soon dissipates as even does a good marriage, except in spurts maybe. The emotion we need to consider in our better doings with others in need is taking off our blindness cloth. We made a huge and egregious mistake 40 years ago. As Garrison wisely reminds us: a mental health instituion was..."destroyed by my fellow liberals forty years ago as “deinstitutionalization,” the idea that rather than enormous hellholes, you put the inmates in small hellholes where we wouldn’t be so aware of them."
Well-said, but we can hardly not be aware of them today, most often wandering about, or in conflict with the police and worse. This is not a political issue and it's not soley an equality issue. These fellow humansin-need,, dealt bad cerebral and emotional cards in life, need far more help than avoiding samba dancing, nor no effective meds, nor no help to a better life.
Needs like this can be also caused by deep depression. Look at the suicides in the daily obits among our youth and also middle aged. We need to come up with a new, carin plan of care. One that puts in place treatments that actually help. Not in places like Rikers where it's made worse.
Let's find caring social workers, parents, friends and those who can actually help. Let's not end up with a police shoot-out caused by a "failure to communicate."
May Emily and her caring partners for better prison reform and street reform and Emergency Room reform get actual help for those in need. Let's hope both political parties, no matter our own, agree the answer isn't where it is now.
Let's reach out to the Emilys. Let's get them and other promising answer-finders the resources needed to make it happen.
GK is no more Father Time than an old man catches his taxi to get back his laptop face-time clock.
But...if you challenge the forces of the Empire (as Emily clearly intends to do) you'll need a lot of passion to sustain you - there won't be any money in it, for sure. AND...if you get engaged in Latin Dance, you'll ALSO be passionate. My question: how much passion can one body endure, or produce, for that matter? Or maybe, as Einstein said of human ignorance, it's infinite?
Good thoughts for a young idealist from an aging idealist ...
Greetings! I am the one who wrote to you, wondering if you would do a benefit concert for us (you said, "Yes"), and I wanted to sing In the Garden with you, but you want to sing the harmony. Well, I haven't been back in touch with you as the time for a assembling a concert has NOT been opportune.
But, however, I appreciated your column today. I am now 66 and it brought me back to when I was 12 on the West Bank of Minneapolis. I am dong a lot of refleting (healthy I hope!) on my life and what is my call for the remaining time. I am aging out as the executive director of the Coffee Connection/Project Empower and working on the succession work--which requires a lot of $. BUT, my sister, Dr. Judie Bergfalk, who died in May 1975--the month I graduated from college, started the first free clinic on the West Bank in Mpls., in 1969. I was a precocious 12 year old who looked 18, but fortunately, not interested in things not healthy for me. But there was a guy, named Jude, who sang "Brown-eyed Girl" to me. Yes, I have brown eyes. That has stayed with me my whole life and I think it was a vote in confidence for my life journey. There was another guy, a Hell's Angel, named Grey Cat (grey hair and eyes), who carried a knife on his belt w/ 6 notches. He put the word out on the street that if any one touched Dr. Judie's little sister, there'd be aother notch. All when I was 12. That was an important summer for me.
It will be 12 years in August, that I stepped over the threshold of the Coffee Connection onto the street, when it occurred to me that I was carrying on the mission that my sister had done--working with those with addiction, trauma, and incarceration. It was a beautiful moment.
Thank you for bringing me back. Our nonprofit is called Life Listening Resources, because we help you listen to life (concept taken from Frederick Buechner, many years ago). Thank you for helping me listen to my life this morning.
Peace, and health, and happiness to you
Joy Bergfalk
This is a great column, GK! You've still got it!
Made me cry too
Sagacity. As a kid thrown into the noble cause of Cub Scouts, and never left the program (Scoutmaster pushing 60), I grow weary defending the good over the bad or even ugly. I giggle at the thought of a patrol of burnt marshmallow eating Scout Leaders in a Latin dance class, but I will recommend it to be sure. Thanks GK!
The story about the special needs teenagers reminded me of a very intelligent girl I became friends with in the fourth grade. We were both overweight and occasionally ridiculed because of it. She was the only Jewish person in our class, so I imagine she was teased about that as well, but she had a positive attitude and never complained about it. She played the flute and I played the violin, so we were in the orchestra together. In the 6th grade orchestra, she started to have trouble controlling her fingers on the flute keys and after a few months she couldn't play anymore. She was later diagnosed with some kind of progressive neuromuscular disease and her condition slowly deteriorated. She had a beautiful singing voice though, and I always sat next to her in the junior high glee club so I could follow her.
We had different interests and were in different classes for the next few years, but in 10th grade we were both in the same honors chemistry class where she was my lab partner. She couldn't really do any of the necessary manipulations, but I didn't mind because I enjoyed doing everything myself and was happy to help her. After a month so she decided to withdraw from the class. She couldn't control her hands enough to write and take notes, and had to do all her writing on an electric typewriter using a pencil between her teeth. At that point she had some difficulty walking, but she ended up graduating near the top of the class shortly after her 17th birthday and happened to go to the same college as I did, Clark University. She was a geography major and I was a chemistry major, so we didn't have any of the same classes and lived in different dorms, but it was nice to see her now and then. She ended up graduating magna cum laude a semester early at age 20 and got a PhD in Medical Anthropology at the University of Michigan and had postdoctoral positions at Northwestern and UCSF. She has had a notable professional career, including teaching Disability Studies at several universities. She is now a widow living in California. I offered to help her by giving her rides from and to the airport for our 50th high school reunion several years ago, but she decided not to attend. I keep in touch with her on Facebook, but haven't seen her for more than 50 years. She has always been an inspiration to me and I often think of times when I heard people ridicule her. I always told them that she had been my friend since 4th grade and tried to explain her disability to them.
Great story. I was afraid it would end in your friend’s early death.
No - she is still OK at almost age 73. She lives in an assisted living facility in California where she is on the board of directors.
Thanks for the tears, GK.
I also had some tears of joy after I gave 120 women prisoners at the Women's Penitentiary in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1975, classes in Transcendental Meditation, as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The relief those women experienced from diving deep within their own minds left them flabbergasted and happy. Emily needs to know about the great work TM continues to do in prisons (though she might already know.) She can see some of the moving testimonials from prisoners and prison officials here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzV55gus4NA After hearing what they have to say, I'm counting on Emily and other nobility-minded people to champion TM to relieve the stress in the hellhole prisons of the world.
You should write your own obituary – without the date and cause of death – to make sure it is accurate.