Four Photos and the Stories They Tell

 Photographs from our younger years remind us of who we were way back when. Here are four of me. The first photo is from 1950 when I was 6 years old. Two are from 1960 and the last photo was taken in 1970 when I was 28 years old. Each of these photographs has a story to tell and seeing them again has taken me on a surprising and enlightening journey into my past.

  

        1950 6 YEARS OLD  In this photo I’m wearing a one-piece bathing suit, decorated with stylized fish swimming across my little belly which I am proudly sticking out just a bit. I’m barefoot and standing with my legs planted firmly on the ground. My arms are bent at the elbows, my hands are holding onto my waist. My hair is blunt cut to my neck, with straight bangs, and sets off my square shaped face. And then there is my smile, not a full smile, but it is a confident smile that crunches up my eyes and puffs out my cheeks.

The photo was taken when my family was in the “country” which is how we identified the place where we and other families rented dilapidated cabins for seven summers, from 1947 to 1953. The cabins were on Cross Lake in Wisconsin, just north of Antioch, Illinois. The lake which we called “little lake” was about 80 acres in size (the equivalent of 16 Chicago city blocks) and was one of the Chain of Lakes in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.

Looking at the photo, I know that six-year-old Betsy owned the world. I had no fears in the country at Cross Lake. There were lots of kids, some my age, some older, some younger and we children were free! The days were ours to fill with whatever we wanted. Most days we went swimming in the lake. Sometimes we collected tadpoles or rubbed our faces on the soft furry white fly-away seeds of the cattails in the swampy area adjacent to the lake. We rode our bikes on the unpaved roads outside the cabins and up and down the one very small hill in the community.

On some days I walked by myself in the field across from our cabin, through knee high grass taking in the sweet smell of clover. Other days I went with my older sister Susie, or on my own when I got older, by way of a country road to the town of Antioch, where there were two attractions: the white frame house that held the Antioch public library and another frame building that housed the general store. Days were hot and the library was cool and spacious.  As soon as I could read well enough, I devoured the Oz books (there were many), Black Beauty and other horse books in the series and of course the Nancy Drew mysteries.  

At Antioch’s general store, Susie and I bought paper dolls to add to our collection. On rainy days, we would play paper dolls on the double bed in our parents’ bedroom, making up stories about mothers, fathers and children, as long as the stories included many different scenarios requiring outfit changes.

1960 SIXTEEN YEARS OLD  I found two contrasting photos of me from 1960; both were taken by my father and I am standing in the living room of our brick bungalow on the north side of Chicago. The first photo was from my sweet sixteen party in May 1960. I have a fake formal smile on my face, and my hair has been fixed by the beauty shop lady. My bangs are plastered in place, the hair above my bangs is teased and the rest of it is pulled back into a twist. The whole hairdo is held in place by lots of hair spray. The photo is black and white but I remember the dress was green taffeta. It had wide lapels that came down to a v-point at the three-inch waist band. My bosom is modestly covered by a white linen dicky.  The dress has a straight skirt down to just below my knees and sleeves that come to just below my elbows. Two-inch heels finish off the look.

I’m standing stiffly in front of the tables my mother set up for the party. She coordinated the napkins, paper plates, and plant centerpieces with the green color of my dress. My eyes are alert behind the white cat glasses, but it seems that my expression conveys a tentativeness about the whole experience. Or it could be that I remember to this day how tentative I was about having the party.

In the second photograph from 1960, taken in the fall of that year, I am standing in front of our spinet piano with a somewhat open, half smile on my face. I’m wearing the same white cat shaped glasses. My bangs and my softly curled page boy haircut frame my face. When I was six my hair was straight as a stick, but in the intervening years my hair developed a bit of a wave and  in my normal life, I didn’t need any beauty shop lady to arrange it and spray it into shape.

The camera must have been angled slightly upward and I look taller than my full-grown height of 5 feet. I’m wearing a black sheath dress with a cowl collar and buttons down the front. The dress is cinched at the waist with a thin black belt, It fits me well and shows off my slim womanly body. I have on black two-inch heels and though I am posed, I look relaxed with the heel of my front foot meeting the middle of my back foot, like a very casual third position in ballet.

Comparing the two photos today, I am surprised and delighted at the transformation I went through in 1960 from a gussied up awkward sweet sixteen girl to a sophisticated confident young woman.

 

1972 TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD When I went to college in the mid 1960’s, I discovered blue jeans and t-shirts which have continued to this day to be my comfort clothes. In 1969 I married a guy who loved hiking and camping and in 1972 we bought some land in Wisconsin. We thought we would learn how to live off the land.  It never happened but we spent many weekends on our 9-acres of wooded heaven, camping and hiking and cooking our food on a Coleman camping stove. 

This photo shows me standing on the rock outcropping that was part of our little world, in jeans and hiking boots, wearing my artist/photographer husband’s well-worn paint splattered oversized khaki jacket.  My short hair is windblown. Let the wind do what it will, was what I thought in those days when we were out in the wilderness. I’m standing confidently, trusting that my hiking boots will keep me steady on the uneven rock. I have a small smile and a knowing look on my face. I was where I wanted to be; I had my whole life in front of me and it looked to be full of adventures. Indeed it was.

About the land: we purchased it from a farmer and it was only accessible by driving on an unpaved tractor road through his corn fields. The farmer expected, and so did we, that within a few years we would find the funds and get the permits to build our own road with direct access from an adjacent county road.

About our dream and our marriage: We lost interest in our dream of living off the land; ost likely we came to understand how impractical and expensive it would be to make that dream come true.  And we lost interest in each other; we had no idea how to do the hard work necessary to become a loving, caring and respectful married couple. We divorced and my former husband eventually ceded our 9 acres back to the farmer.

I had a fine time remembering the stories associated with these photos.

WHAT PHOTOS DO YOU HAVE? WHAT STORIES DO THEY TELL?

 

The Cars in My Life and the Lives of my Cars

In 2005 I bought a Toyota Prius Hybrid. The Pruis was the fifth car I owned. But the first car in my life was a Citroen which was my father's mid-life crises car. 

1960 Citroen My father had his Citroen imported from France through a friend and enjoyed it for a few years.  He taught me to drive with this car, which had a stick shift but no clutch. At age 16 I took my driver’s license test in the Citroen. I think the woman who took me out for the test drive was so taken with the strangeness of the car that she wasn’t paying attention to how I was drivving.  I got my license on the first try.

About all the other cars in my life  My marriages figure into their stories, so it might help you to know that I was married and divorced four times between the years of 1969 and 2003. I'm a slow learner in regards to marriage and it took me 34 years to realize marraige was not for me. 

1969 Dodge Dart Swinger When Dave and I got married in 1969 we bought a used Dodge Dart Swinger for $2000, money that I received as an inheritance on the death of my grandmother, Anna LeBrint. 

No automatic steering system. No air conditioning but the car had two small 8 x 8” doors, under the dashboard near the floor, one on the driver’s side and the other on the passenger’s side. You could open the doors and while driving fresh air would come in. When we divorced, Dave kept our two cats but we shared custody of the car.  We had it alternate weeks. I liked this arrangement because there was good public transportation in Lakeview where I lived. But parking spots were hard to find so I appreciated my car-free weeks.         

1975 Second Dodge Dart Swinger When I moved in with Bob in 1975, I gave Dave sole custody of our Dodge Dart Swinger.  Bob had a newer version of the “Swinger,” but he preferred taking public transportation. So the car was mine to use most of the time and responsibility for maintenance on the car was also mine. We married in 1979. When our marriage ended in 1983, I took the car with me. Bob hardly used it and reluctantly he signed ownership over to me.

 

Pontiac Grand Prix (NOT MY CAR) After my marriage to Bob ended, the old Swinger and I moved in with my friend Katie. Eventually we became romantically involved and would have married but gay marriage was not legal at the time. Katie had a baby blue Pontiac Grand Prix. A heavy car with rear wheel drive, like most American cars at the time. It was exceptionally hard to manage in Chicago’s snow but still. . . it was a sweet car with a smooth ride. On the highway all you had to do was put your foot lightly on the gas pedal and whoosh you were going fast. I got my first speeding ticket during one of the road trips we took in the Grand Prix, going 80 when the speed limit was 55. This was during the twenty-one years (1984-1995) when 55 mpg was set as the national speed limit in order to reduce gas consumption. Do you remember that time and the “high” price of gas: $1.31 in 1984 up from 50 cents in 1974? In 1995 Congress returned to the states the right to set their own speed limits.

 

But back to MY CARS, the cars I owned.

 

1985 White Toyota Tercel Wagon, with black trim  Love does strange things. In 1985, my lady love Katie agreed to sell the Grand Prix for a good price and buy a small inexpensive Honda CRX Hatchback. She gave me money so I could buy what turned out to be my favorite car, a very sharp looking 1985 Toyota Terel Wagon. I loved that car. Lots of room, 4-wheel drive, and a unique look. A friend said it looked like a sedan that had a square box with large windows placed where the car’s trunk should have been. Katie and I had unreconcilable differences and the Toyota and I moved out of Katie’s garage and her home. I kept the Tercel Wagon for eight years. 

Even though Toyotas had the reputation of being a reliable and problem free car that you could keep for many years and many miles, this was not so with mine. At seven years, the car started to rust. I sanded off the worst rust and covered the sanded areas with orange rust-resistance paint. My beautiful car looked like a zebra.  I was ok with that but at eight years and 100,000 miles it developed some electrical problems. The car would die any time I drove up one of the very tiny city of Chicago hills and the headlights, turn-signal, and windshield wipers were all on. My mechanics couldn’t find the problem so the car had to go. I gifted it to a young friend who took on the challenge of trying to fix it. I think he never succeeded.

 

1993 Red Ford Escort Wagon  After getting rid of the Toyota, I bought an Escort Wagon and eventually married again, hoping it would work out. (It didn’t.) My husband Evan and I lived in Albany Park near the Brown line and I worked at Illinois Masonic Hospital, also on the Brown line. In the late 1990s we had some major snow storms and I could let the car stay buried until I felt like shoveling it out. There isn’t much else to write about the Escort. It was a reliable car for eight years and then it wasn’t.  However, in 2005, I memorialized the story about a friend who bought my old beater-Escort after I decided to replace it. Here is the story

 

In The Balance.

It was 2005 and I had a twelve year old Ford Escort Wagon with 80,000 miles on it. I had a good payng professional job and was divorced with no kids.  My job required driving 300 miles or more a week and the Escort was having intermittent problems – to be expected due to its age and the 80K miles on it. 

 I decided to buy a new Toyota Prius and my friend Tanika was interested in buying the Escort “as is” for its $500 trade-in value.  Tanika had four children of her own and had recently taken in a nephew and a niece, so she and her husband were supporting six kids.

 I told Tanika that I was able to afford a new car because I had “no kids.”  She held out her arms as if they were a balance scale and moved them alternately up and down.  She said “Let me think” and as she moved one arm up and the other down, she said, “car, kids?    kids, car?”   She concluded “Yep, I’m happy buying your old car and keeping my kids.”

 Because I have no children, I have had the freedom to live life in a way that others who have the financial and parenting responsibilities of raising children don’t. In the balance, it has been a good life.

 

2005 Toyota Prius  The Prius got great gas mileage and was the car I needed on the job I had, working in the Outreach Laboratory department of NorthShore University Healthsystem. On my job I traveled regularly to the four hospitals in the system (Evanston, Highland Park, Skokie and Glenbrook) and to the many NorthShore phlebotomy labs in Chicago’s northern suburbs, and also to independent medical practices where I installed computers and trained staff on how to order their labs from NorthShore. I kept the car when I retired in 2011, but after 14 years and 140,000 miles, my trusty Prius was having difficulties. In and out of the shop too often. So it was time to replace it.

 Truth be told I never liked the lack of visibility through the Prius’ slanted/split back window, especially when driving at night since the 2-4” metal bar that split the top and bottom of the back window often prevented me from seeing headlights of cars driving behind me.

 

MY FINAL CAR 2020 Kia Soul (bought in 2022)  Surprisingly the Kia Soul looks , a bit like my favorite car, the Toyota Tercel Wagon! It has the same boxy style but the Kia has more height and is one foot shorter than the Pruis (14 feet vs 15). Compared to the Dodge Dart Swinger and the Pontiac Grand Prix (both 17 feet long), it is a shrimp of a car.

 Because it is one foot shorter than the most compact cars sold these daysm it is easier to find a parking spot in Chicago, and unlike the Prius, the Kia has a very large back window which makes night driving easier too. When I bought the Kia it had 39,000 miles on it. Four years later toay in 2026, it has only 50,000 miles on it. I mainly drive it around on short jaunts in the city and in nearby suburbs. I expect it to be my final car and that it will outlast me.

A last minute addition to the Citroen story  My sister Judy Jacobson found this family photo while we were reminiscing about the time when our father owned the Citroen. It is from 1966. I was 16 years old and I'm sitting with our dog Sandy on the sidewalk posing for the photo, while behind me at the curb is our father and the Citroen. 

So ends my brief story about The Cars in My Life and The Lives of my Cars. There are more stories to tell about my life and my cars and perhaps one day I will write more about us. But not today.

A Goofy Mistake Vermont 2023

 

It was Spring 2023 and I badly needed to go on a vacation adventure, after the Covid enforced home-time and several visits (as usual) to my sisters, Judy who lives in Baltimore and Sue who lives in Los Angeles.

On the Road Scholar website I found the trip, “Wildlife, Walking & Hiking in the Green Mountain State," scheduled for October. Looking at the photo next to the trip description, I thought October in Vermont, trees changing colors, what a perfect 2023 adventure. Home base, where we adventurers would stay, was the Gray Ghost Inn in West Dover. Vermont. The best way to get there from Chicago (other than driving) was to fly into the Albany New York Airport (ALB), which was 90 miles from Gray Ghost. Road Scholar recommended the Dover Valley Cab company for transportation to and from ALB.  When I called Valley Cab, Chris the driver/owner confirmed that he could pick me at ALB, drive me to West Dover, and take me back at the end of the trip on October 19.

On October 14, the first day of my Green Mountain adventure, I texted Chris to confirm my arrival time. He responded that he would be driving a black “gangster car,” and asked that I text him after I got to ALB. That I did and Chris showed up about ten minutes later, in a large black SUV with tinted windows and his company name tastefully displayed on the passenger side. Off we went to the Gray Ghost Inn. We chatted some and the two-hour travel time went by pleasantly. When we crossed the boundary from New York State into Vermont, most trees had lost their leaves! And the colors on the remaining trees were muted. I was mildly disappointed, but Chris explained that the leaves had turned a few weeks before, due to a very rainy summer and fall.

The Gray Ghost Inn did not disappoint. The sprawling inn with a wide front porch was painted a bright yellow. Inside was a welcoming entrance area, with comfy chairs and a smiling innkeeper, who introduced herself as Cary and greeted me warmly. I looked forward to our 6:30pm Road Scholar get-to-know-you social hour followed by dinner. But when I gave Cary  my name and asked to register for the Road Scholar trip, she said that it wasn’t scheduled to start until October 15, and she didn't have a spare room for me that evening . . . and I wasn’t on the list of Road Scholar attendees for the program starting the next day.

Uh-Oh what was I to do?

Cary found me a room at the Big Bears Lodge, a half mile down the road and called Chris, who came back quickly and drove me the short distance to the Lodge. After I got settled, I looked at the Road Scholar itinerary that I had printed from the computer. It listed activities for Day 1, Day 2, through Day 6, but I couldn’t find the start and end dates listed anywhere. I signed into my Road Scholar online account and under upcoming trips, there it was “Your departure to Vermont is in a year” and as clear as could be the dates for my trip Oct 14 to Oct 19, 2024.

Oy. Not only did I arrive on the wrong day, I arrived in the wrong year!

After some panicky thoughts, I called Cary and told her about my problem. She said she would contact the Road Scholar Coordinator and see if they could get me into the 2023 group starting the next day, Sunday October 15. I called my sisters, each in turn, and wailed away. They listened and that helped a little bit. But what helped even more was Cary's call back when she told me that I could be added to the 2023 group and she would have a room at Gray Ghost for me on the next day, Sunday.

What a relief! and I wrote in my journal:

“A big mix-up on my part – I signed up for 2024 and here I am in Vermont but mostly it’s fixed and I won’t miss any hikes or walks. Just a half day walking around West Dover on Thursday afternoon and a farewell dinner that night (the 19^th) and breakfast (the 20^th).

Sunday around noon, I got a ride to Gray Ghost from the Road Scholar Coordinator Carina. I registered with Cary, and got settled in my room. I was tired from my previous day’s excitement, took a nap and then went down to the common living room. The rest of the group started trickling in and as we got to know each other, it seemed that I was the only one there for the walking/hiking trip; the other folks I met had come for a week of Bridge. I figured there were two groups and asked Carina how many were signed up for Walking/Hiking.

“Oh no,” she said, “This week is for Bridge-players only. You can stay and join them and we’ll work out a way to have the money you paid for your 2024 trip cover the cost. I’m sorry to tell you that you missed the Walking/Hiking group by a few weeks. They were here earlier in October.”

No no no!. How could this be? I’m not a bridge player and even if I was, I didn’t come to beautiful Vermont to sit inside for six days.

“It’s not an option for me,” I replied. In a kind gentle manner, Carina advised me to make arrangements to fly home the next day. I got on it quickly and fortunately, when I called United Airlines and pressed the number that the automated voice told me to press for transfers and cancellations, I got a real person who assured me that he would stay on the phone with me until my transaction was completed. Twenty minutes later, for the cost of $377, I received an email confirmation for my flight home on October 16 at 5pm. I called Chris and he was available to take me back to ALB in the morning.

What a relief, but not really, as I wrote in my journal:

“I want to be home. I don’t like all these complications but at least I get a little bit of the Road Scholar experience. But what about dinner today and breakfast tomorrow? And what will the Bridge people think of me?”

Cary, bless her heart, invited me to join the Bridge players for dinner that evening and for breakfast the next day. At dinner I sat with a very nice group, and explained my situation. A few suggested I consider staying for the week. I politely declined. After dinner, they went off for their first evening of Bridge and I went off to bed. At breakfast the next morning, when I once again explained why I was there and why I was leaving, Bruce, a Bridge-playing breakfast companion, said, “Betsy you just made a goofy mistake.”

A goofy mistake. Such a nice way of looking at this experience.  And on the plus side (and I always look for the positive in situations), I fell in love with Vermont and the Gray Ghost Inn, and I still have my 2024 Wildlife, Walking /Hiking trip to look forward to. Another positive: though it was too late to see the trees changing colors during my short stay in Vermont, the trees in Chicago started changing colors just as I got back. This year, they were glorious, as was the weather in the days after I got back, and I was able to get in some walking and hiking in Autumn 2023 here at home.

However, positive spin or not, I’m sad and disappointed about my mistake, and there now is one more thing my 79-year-old brain has to watch out for and double and triple check -- dates of upcoming trips. That is of course, in addition to trying to remember where I put my glasses and keys in my small one-bedroom condo, and confirming several times over dates and times of zoom gatherings I sign up for and these days, the many IRL (in real life) activities I am delighted to be able to I enjoy.

Talking Back to Myself: How I Learned to Sail and Soar

My dad sailed with his pals on Lake Michigan in the 1930s. I have the photos to prove it. 

I inherited his love for sailing and at ten years old, I was sailing alone / on my own in a small 13-foot sail boat. My dad taught me during the summers we spent at Cross Lake just north of Antioch, Illinois. He was a good teacher and the lake was little, but always he or my mom would be on the shore watching out for me.  I loved being on my own on the water, gliding along quietly, sailing and soaring with the wind.

 After I graduated college, at the age of twenty-two, I defied my parent and went solo to San Frsancisco to live and work, most likely inspired by the song California Dreaming – that was all I knew about that beautiful city. While there I sailed on Lake Merced in a one person Sunfish and also sailed a few times on the San Francisco Bay with a youth hostel group. At the end of one year, I returned to Chicago to find a mate, get married and become a responsible adult.

 Soon enough I married a fellow Chicagoan and we settled down. Now and then I’d meet someone who had been sailing on Lake Michigan, but in a strident internal voice, I told myself, Your time for solo adventures is over, and added apologetically, Sorry. You can’t go sailing.  I never questioned the voice. I wanted to be a “good wife,” in the best early 1970s sense: putting my husband’s wants and needs first, internalizing his unspoken message “You can’t go off on a solo adventure; it is would put our marriage in jeopardy.”

The marriage didn’t last and in the 1980’s I fell in love with a woman. We would have married if it had been legal. Still I wanted to be a good partner to Katy, wanted to please and support her, and my inner voice continued to warn me not to go on solo adventures.  Except once when against her expressed displeasure, I got up at the ungodly hour of 5am to take Tai Chi classes at the lake. My little assertion of independence felt like rebellion. You might be asking: wasn’t I already a feminist and rebellious, living with my ladylove? Bravery takes many forms and it took all the courage I could muster to take the classes, going against what I perceived as Katy's wishes. 

Katy and I were no longer together when I found information about Brooke Medicine Eagle’s “Singing the Sacred” camps in Montana. Attendance at the camps promised excitement, enchantment, a real adventure. Still my inner voice said, No. You can’t go. This time I talked back, Yes you can. You can go to this camp, on your own / alone. Remember, you did things like this years ago and you can do it now.

Twenty-two women attended the camp. We slept in tents and each day we were awakened by a camper who drummed outside our tents and sang:

Waken, Oh awaken, from your dreaming, birds are singing in the tree-tops…

Waken, Oh awaken, something’s coming, something beautiful for you…”

Our days were beautiful, full of singing and chanting, while we walked to our meals, when we were outside, on rainy days sitting in a circle in a Yurt, and once in a deep dark cave where our songs echoed against the walls and ceiling.  Sometimes we would sit in the tall grass and drum and sing for hours. In this photo I'm on the far right, playing on a big drum, with a short hair and sun glasses. Other times Brooke would share Native American teachings with us. 

Before camp ended, Brooke gave each of us a name to reflect our new selves. Mine was “Soars with the Drum Call.” Brook explained that I could “soar” beyond my life as it had been and the drum call would remind me to listen to my own heartbeat, to my own true self.

The name might have been inspired by our horseback riding experience. I had shared with the group my life-long fear of horses which went back to a summer at Cross Lake. I was nine or ten years old, small and short for my age. I had been lifted onto the back of a horse which seemed very high up and very scary. Right away, I asked to be taken off. My friends spent the afternoon horseback riding, while I waited in the car.  My camp sisters encouraged me to get back on the horse. I was still short and small; the horse was big and most likely someone had to help me get on up on the horse. I was uncomfortable in the saddle but it was lots of fun.

I got back on a horse in Montana. It was time to get back in a sailboat in Chicago. This time my inner voice said joyfully, Yes you can. You can go sailing.

I signed up for lessons at Burnham Harbor, just south of downtown Chicago. We would learn to crew with others, sailing on a 25/30 foot boat. Signing up for the lessons was easy. Getting to the lessons was hard. My inner self was freaking out, How will I find Burnham Harbor? Where will I park when I get there? I’ll get lost and be late and they will sail without me. I left home early, found the harbor easily in plenty of time for our first on-shore class.  I continued to freak out, worrying, Will I ever learn what to call things on the boat?  Will I be able to tie the knots?  I can’t tell which way the wind is blowing.  Will I be kicked out of class? I’m 55 years old and stupid compared to the youngsters in my class.

 I hadn’t even gotten on the boat yet! 

Over the course of the eight-week class, I learned some of sailing terms. I never learned how to tie knots and was never able to identify which way the wind was blowing but they let me on the boat anyway. The teachers were at once patient and impatient and never kicked me off the boats. And I learned to sail! Actually what I learned was to be part of the crew.

The next summer, I took more sailing lessons and got a little better at crewing and took part in some evening races on Lake Michigan.  We never won a race, but it didn’t matter. We sailed at sunset; all the boats had colorful spinnaker sails ballooning out, catching the wind, sparkling in the late afternoon golden sunlight. We were sailing. Soaring. I was in heaven! Later that same summer, I took private lessons on a Sunfish in Wilmette Harbor. During my fourth lesson, I sailed by myself, with the instructor nearby. But I was alone / on my own. Loving it!

I stopped sailing because of health problems, but kept soaring. In 2001 I went on my first trip out of the country by myself, to a Yoga retreat in Cancun, Mexico.  While there, I wrote in my journal: “Action starts with bravery. Bravery for me at this time is traveling to a new country by myself.  I’m scared but I do it.”

I'm 77 years old now. And my heart beats steadily for which I am most grateful. And my inner voice still speaks to me, these days softly and graciously saying, At your age it's perfectly ok to stroll along the lake  front with friends and enjoy watching the sail boats. 

The Africans, My Summer 1965 Vacation

A young man came rushing into the auditorium and onto the podium. He wasn’t expected. Prior to his arrival, the audience was busy chatting and there was a happy buzz in the room. The man stood tall and dignified and interrupted our chatter, saying loudly in a heavily accented voice, “I am Enzokee Naidoo and I am here to talk to you about my homeland, the apartheid country of South Africa.” He stopped to make sure he had our attention. He had it. We were spellbound by the authority this man conveyed. We knew that what he was about to say was something we had to hear.

It was summer 1965 and I was at a conference in Vapnagaard, a small town not far from Copenhagen, Denmark. I was 20 years old and had recently received a small inheritance of $2500. At the same time, I found a brochure about a conference in Scandinavia, with the purpose of fostering international understanding by bringing together people from many countries. My $2500 would cover the cost of airfare plus conference tuition. I decided to go, but this was my first trip out of the U.S. and it took a lot of courage make this decision. My hopes were modest: to make some friends and to have some adventures.

We were 35 men and women of all ages, from the U.S., Norway, Denmark and Sweden, Pakistan, and England, and there was one young man from Nigeria who was my same age. His name was Jim and like me, he was shy and a bit star-struck by the others who seemed to be worldly-wise and socially adept. We both hung back and observed more than we participated.

Some conference participants posing for pictures
In the center: Jim from Nigeria and Mr. Meinke, the Conference Leader

This evening like all others at the conference, the group had gathered at 7 p.m. sharp. Previous evenings we had listened to lectures on a variety of subjects by course participants and a few evenings we heard talks by our conference leader Mr. Meinke about his special interests: Soren Kierkegaard, Nordic folk-schools, Danish farm cooperatives, and international understanding. Other evenings we had recitals by local Danish musicians. Nothing terribly captivating and we always hoped the lectures or musical entertainment would end quickly so we could go out into the warm summer evenings and sing songs and do folkdances from our various countries.  Even Jim and I got into it as we all messed up the words to the songs in the different languages and clumsily tried to learn the dance steps. It was very funny and evoked lots of laughter from everyone. 

This evening, we never got out into the summer night. After Enzokee Naidoo got our full attention, his words spilled out in a rush. “Dr. Meinke asked that I talk to you. And I agreed though I don’t have much time. I must talk to you who come from all over the world about the situation of the Blacks in South Africa.”

We were hypnotized, almost holding our breath listening to this man, to his words. He continued, “The situation is horrible and one of these days it will explode into violence.  We Black South Africans are getting better housing and education and rising materially, but we are strictly limited as to the height to which we can rise. And this combination of improvements with limitations is too much for us to endure.” He told us of the measures taken by the Whites to ensure that the Blacks would stay in their place. Sadly, with anger in his voice he said, “I cannot return to my homeland of South Africa. If I return, I will be taken prisoner for my stand against apartheid.”

Enzokee was slowing down and Mr. Smith, a school teacher from the U.S, took the opportunity to ask, “Why can’t the Blacks in South Africa attempt non-violence in their struggle against oppression?” 

Enzokee was in a hurry to leave but he gave Mr. Smith a pitying look and replied, “How can you know what the situation is like?  How can you know all the attempts we made that failed?  How can you judge when you sit here nice and secure?”

After our speaker left, it was as if an electrical charge had run through his audience. Many got out of their seats, talking all at once, talking over each other, some suggesting solutions to the problems of the Blacks in South Africa. Some crying, some making angry accusations at others whom they didn’t agree with. Jim and I sat quietly, observing. This was all new information to me; I was naïve and uninformed. Shockingly I was only vaguely aware of racial problems and the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. and knew nothing of apartheid in South Africa.

Thinking back, I’m sure that Jim must have had thoughts, opinions, and reactions to Enzokee’s talk and how it related to life and politics in the newly independent country of Nigeria. However, no one took any notice of Jim or asked him to speak. Today I wonder: Was this our version of White privilege? Did we even know of the concept of White privilege in 1965?

The flurry of conversations continued around Jim and me, and got louder more out of control until finally Mrs. Johanson, a Dane of about forty, climbed on a chair and said authoritatively in clear English with her lilting Danish accent, “Sit down and be quiet. One person talk at a time.”

Mr. Keystone from England took the floor and talked for close to an hour, telling us about the year he spent in South Africa as a reporter for a London newspaper. We were quiet. We were listening and we took in, as best we could, the last sentence of his talk, “The solutions you’re proposing for a peaceful settlement, or for slow progress, they won’t work. The White apartheid government is entrenched. It is as Enzokee said, ‘There will be a battle to bring down apartheid, we just don’t know when’.”

Mr. Keystone had succeeded in calming the group down slightly. At some point Jim left to go to bed but some of us – me included – stayed together past midnight. The others were talking, trying to adjust their thinking. I remained quiet, trying to take it all in. In truth I had no idea what to do with all the information and opinions and strong emotions swirling around me.

There was no laughing or dancing or singing outside that night.

In the days that followed, our normal life at the course continued, touring during the day, lectures or music at night. My expectations of having an adventure at the conference were met. As far returning home changed by Enzokee Naidoo or any of the others I met, sadly or perhaps to be expected, it didn’t happen. Before my summer adventure in Scandinavia, I was apolitical and back in the U.S. I returned to my normal way of being: head in the sand, still apolitical. But I was primed for my next adventure, which happened in 1966 after college graduation when I moved to San Francisco. That is another story for another time.

---

The First Republic of Nigeria was formed in October 1963, barely two years before the conference. In January1966 a military coup deposed the government of the Nigerian First Republic. In July 1966 there was a counter-military coup followed by years of unrest and inter-religious wars.

On April 27, 1994 apartheid ended in South Africa after several years of negotiations between the governing National Party and the African National Congress. 

POSTSCRIPT:   This story had been published on the website Kaleidoscopewojo.com which unfortunately no longer has a presence on the web. I am most grateful that the folks who hosted the site accepted my story and I am sad for the loss of  access to the many creative and beautiful and meaningful stories that appeared on Kaleidoscopewojo.

1966 San Francisco Working Girl Among the Hippies

Perhaps the Mamas and Papas song California Dreamin’ gave me the idea to leave Chicago and head to San Francisco, after I graduated college in March 1966. Or it might have been the taste of freedom that I got during my 1965 solo trip to an international course in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

I did no research and no pre-planning. I had some money to cover expenses for a few months, but I had no job lined up and knew no one who lived in San Francisco. I didn’t know about the hippies and flower children who were flocking to San Francisco. This wasn’t surprising. During my college years 1962 to 1966, I paid no attention to the “outside world.” In fact, I wasn’t even aware of -- and I don’t remember to this day – where I was and how I felt when JFK was assassinated (on November 22, 1963).

My parents were dismayed and worried about my going alone to a new city and they demanded that I write them weekly once I got there. In 1966, long distance telephone calls were expensive and considered a luxury so requiring that I call regularly was not an option. My mother visited me once and decided I was doing OK.

Unlike the hippies, I was a working girl, earning a living at a series of 9 to 5 jobs. I had three clerical jobs in one year; they were easy to find and easy to leave. I moved three times in that same year, from a rooming house in Pacific Height to an apartment with pot-smoking roommates in Haight Ashbury and then to a studio apartment on 7th Avenue, just south of Golden Gate Park. 

I had a wild time in my own way. But certainly not as wild as the hippies I wrote about in this January 4, 1967 letter to my parents. At the time, I had a clerical job with the American Red Cross and was making plans to find an adult profession, either in social work or as a teacher.

Hi Mom and Dad:

You asked about the hippies of San Francisco, the gypsy beatniks who abound in this city. I used to live in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, on Cole Street with a few roommates. One of the reasons I moved from there was that I didn’t like the run down condition of the neighborhood due to so many unemployed kids who crowded into apartments and hung around on the streets.

Last weekend, I spent a few hours at a festival of sorts in a long grassy strip between Haight Ashbury and the Golden Gate Park. There were some folk-rock groups and some weird musical groups playing far out instruments, and throngs of people milling around. There was a group of Hell’s Angels, and they were fascinating as were the hippies. These kids, most are in their late teens and early 20’s, are a modern day version of gypsies, with their weird dress (ranging from rags to vintage clothes from the 1920’s and earlier) and their raggedy kids, and their uninhibited ways. Many are on pot (marijuana) much of the time and LSD is widely circulated. When I lived in Haight Ashbury, I felt threatened by the hippy life style. They seem to live from day to day in a way I couldn’t stand, because I need security.

I admire their freedom though. They improve on a lot of petty things that the well-fed middle-class in the U.S. is obsessed with. In some ways, I want to be like them – to be part of that cult.

My job plans are taking form. I’ve applied for a welfare job. If it comes by next September, I’ll take that job and see what I think of “social work.” If I don’t get the welfare job, I will go to San Francisco State and work on my elementary school teaching credential.

Had a New Year’s party with Peter, who is a grad student at State, working on his master’s degree in set design. He is very creative in the use of wild unusual materials. We had a good punch and everyone got high, though no one got drunk or sick. Most of the people I invited didn’t show up, so it was mainly Peter’s drama friends. But it was fun, and I never lacked (for) someone interesting to talk to. A college classmate of mine was up from San Diego State, where he is studying biology, and he came to the party. He was very “out of it.” I think he is not used to mixing with offbeat characters. I knew no one except Peter, my college classmate and a friend from Cole Street, but I drank enough punch and I suppose I’m quite outgoing when the choice of people looks interesting.

I can’t say it enough, I’m so proud of you both and of our family, for we are all interesting people who don’t stagnate, that’s for sure.

Love, Betsy

P.S. Got your annual New Year’s letter (pictured below). I didn’t like it because at the moment I’m not “planning for a social work career,” as you indicated, and somehow the whole thing seemed braggy (sic) and very smug. We have reason to be smug about our successes, but it makes the possibility of setbacks, which always come, very hard.

How can the Fuchses fail or have rough times? Kind of inhuman picture of us.

Achievements reported in the Fuchses 1967 annual New Year's Letter:

Susan - eldest daughter: Married to a doctor, home-maker, new mother.

Betsy - planning Social Work career.

Rose - mother: back to college (at age 60), all A's so far.

Len - father: nominated to Chicago Board of Education, moved to larger office.

Judy - youngest daughter: National Merit Finalist. Freshman at Cornell (University). 

Great Grandfather Henry and charming wife Bea (step great-grand mother).

The P.S. in my letter foreshadowed my setbacks in trying to find a profession suitable for a woman college graduate in the 1960’s.  At the time, there were only two: social work and teaching.

In spring 1967, without much thought or planning, just like when I made my decision to go to San Francisco, it came to me that it was time to return home to Chicago. I was frustrated with the routine job at the American Red Cross and with my boss who gave me what I considered “make work.” I felt like I couldn’t continue working at The Red Cross and stay sane. 

I didn’t have the patience to wait until September to learn about the Welfare job.

And I missed the seasons.

And I missed my parents. 

I got a job as a recreation/social worker at Chicago State “Mental” Hospital and took teacher certification classes at night. But I didn’t have the maturity to keep the Chicago State Hospital job and couldn’t control the seventh graders in during four weeks of student teaching. So for me social work and teaching were out and instead, I took a nice safe job as an office clerk. Nothing for Mom and Dad to brag about in their next New Year’s Letter.

Eventually, with loads of on-the job training and the help and support and encouragement of great bosses and work-colleagues, I found a profession that suited me in the field of System Analysis/Information Systems. By then, my parents were retired and traveling the world and were grandparents, so they had other things to report in their New Year’s Letters and they no longer needed to report on my career. Or maybe they didn’t because they never could figure out what I did as a Systems Analyst/I.S. Support Technician. 

Like a Circus Parade

January 5, 2014

Bea and I are sitting on the couch in her living room, in our pajamas, looking out of the big plate glass window at the snow coming down.  As usual she has her Android and I have my tablet and we are both on Facebook. 

She posts this picture with a comment:

“Welcome to the south suburbs winter wonderland. I saw a snow mobile going east on one of the larger roads. I'm lucky a neighbor blew out my sidewalk. Hopefully, I'll make contact with a snow removal guy tomorrow! I'm sure not going anywhere today.”

I add a comment on her Facebook timeline::

 “Sitting across from you seeing the same thing. LOL”

And we giggle.  

We share pictures and stories about the Chicago snow storm that our friends are posting on Facebook and the time goes by, and the snow keeps piling up.

But underneath our lazy amusement and Facebook fun, we worry – when will we get plowed out and we are restless – we want to take a walk in the beautiful snow.  It’s Chicago. It's winter and the snow is deep on sidewalks and streets and the temperature outside including what they call “real feel” these days is 30-40 degrees below zero.  Schools are closed. We know we must stay in.

I’m staying with Bea for a week as she recovers from major laparoscopic surgery.  Our cars are snug in her two-car garage, which is unfortunately at the end of a long driveway.  We have plenty of food, we are enjoying each other’s company, and it is very beautiful outside.  It’s only one day of snow and cold, but we are already tired of being snowbound.

January 6, 2014

Bea gets the name of a snow plow outfit and calls them.  Nope. They are not taking any new customers.  She mentions that she is recovering from very recent major surgery and they take pity on her and soon we see a big snow plow truck and three men at her house, ready to tackle the snow.

It is just like a circus parade coming down the street.  Something is happening!

Bea has recovered amazingly well and is able to be up and about, moving more slowly than usual.  We are so excited about the snow plow that we are on the move, from the front of Bea’s  house to the back, looking and snapping pictures out of the front window, the side windows along the driveway, and the back window by the garage. Back and forth, again and again we go, reporting to each other on the progress.

 “The two guys are shoveling in the back.” 

“The truck with the plow is going down the driveway.” 

“Now it is backing up!” 

“See how they are piling up the snow.”

“You can see the pavement.” 

We marvel at how coordinated the guy in the truck is with the two guys shoveling.  They each do their part; they know what they are doing and never get into each other’s way. 

Finally they are done. The driveway is clear, the sidewalks in back and front and the stairs are shoveled.  After Bea gives the guys a generous tip, we fall down on the couch and of course we post our pictures of the guys and their truck and the plow on Facebook .

Bea adds this comment with her pictures ”Found a wonderful snow removal company! What a marvelous job! Whew!”

My pictures are slightly different and I include this comment “Rescued by great team. Great relief. But still staying inside today”.

We are out of breath from the excitement of it all and we are exhausted.  We no longer have to go anywhere on this cold snowy day.  We are satisfied that we had our own version of the circus parade coming through town.

Beatrice Friend, of blessed memory, died on January 6, 2016.  She was a loving and wise friend, the sister of my heart, and this story is posted as a reminder of how full of life she was and of how many wonderful memories we made together.