paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- mcCarthy, the pledge and vietnam The last day of vacation. The manager from work called (from work on Sunday) and wanted me to call her, but didn�t say why. I am not going to interrupt my last day of not thinking about work without knowing why a Sunday night conversation is necessary. All the message says is that I was missed, a lot. This doesn�t surprise me because I do a whole bunch at the office and no one asked me to brief them on anything� nor did anyone take me up on my offer to brief them� they just kept on in their little worlds. I got in late. Today, I worked on my desk area. Before I had this job, I worked at home for an agency that is the nonprofit equivalent of a bibliography of bibliographies. Then I made a career change, moved everything out and did not really redo my space. Quinn and I rearranged all of the rooms in the upstairs and changed their uses. Our bedroom became the den, the study became our bedroom and the den became the study. Almost a year later, and I am just now getting around to finishing my half of the study. It has taken me 50 weeks, but today was the day. It took the entire day, but it is worth it. About a year ago, Quinn and I merged our books. This took a great deal of commitment because we even donated some of our duplicates � but not all. There are some books of which a girl needs her own copy. And there are also some books of which a girl needs two copies, such as Revolutionary Road. On the whole, we have different tastes in books, and tend to have varying categories. But over the years that has been changing. Which is why it becomes scary to have blended libraries. Actually, it was practicality and a lack of space that prompted the arrangement. We have book cases in every room, and they are full. Even our dining room, which we have turned into a library with a giant reading table in the middle. When we have dinner parties, it is fun to dine among the fiction and literature collection and in the presence of my Webster�s Third unabridged. It has its own stand and nearly every day I discover a word. Today I was unnerved to learn that our state governor signed into law an order that every student of a public institution is required to say the Pledge of Allegiance once a week. And I am going to quote a quote from Carnahan which appeared in an article in our local Pitch which has given me a weird feeling all day�."I remember the year Congress added the words under God to the pledge," she said. "It was 1954, the same year Mel and I were married. We used to sit in front of the old RCA watching the McCarthy hearings. I have such fond memories of that time," Carnahan added, "which is why I'm happy to announce that I've joined my old adversary John Ashcroft in a bipartisan effort to make sure that all Americans appreciate their freedom." (The article is by C.J. Janovy and is available online at www.pitch.com.) How does one have fond memories of the McCarthy hearings? My mind keeps coupling this with the way my father was drafted to Vietnam while my mother was five months pregnant with me and they were both in college. My grandmother, the first female attorney in our yayhoo state, took a case defending a young guy who was caught with a small amount of drugs back in the 60�s. The prosecutor wanted to make an example of the guy that was quite extreme. My grandmother won the case. Because she is a five-foot-one-dynamo, she also made the prosecutor look silly. As it turns out, he was the head of the draft board, and guess what? My father was drafted immediately. In the middle of the semester, at the end of my mother�s pregnancy, off he went to boot camp. My parents planned to run away to Canada, but couldn�t leave their families and their country, never to return, at nineteen. My father, who is extremely sensitive, came back from war unable to talk, to sleep, or to get an act together. Once my mother threw an entire canister vacuum cleaner at him and he only tapped his cigarette into the ashtray that he held in his hand and said, very calmly, ouch. I am not certain why these two thoughts are linked for me. I think it is because I am concerned about the power of state-mandated patriotism and times of war. 10:17 p.m. - 2002-07-14 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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