The Best Advice: CALM DOWN PATSY

FROM MY MOTHER: Mom had a small 4” x 6” picture frame that contained a colored poster with the words “By the street of by-and-by one arrives at the house of never.” After mom's death, I got the framed poster and for years it had a prominent place among family pictures on a shelf in my house.

 These were words Mom and I took to heart and most times whatever we were thinking of doing, we would “Do it now” and not procrastinate. Good advice for me for many years.

But... now that I'm old and tired more often, I'm OK with putting things off. And sometimes I get to them and other times not. This is true even though I know my days are numbered and I know that if I don't do :whatever" now, it may never get done. I'm OK with that too.

FROM MY FATHER: Dad carried a small silver triangle with the words “This too shall pass” in his pocket for as long as I could remember. I don’t know what happened to the pocket piece but during his life, Dad showed it to me frequently.

These were not words for me to live by. Not at all. Never. I was born in 1944 and all my thinking life I knew about the Holocaust and about the Jews and others who were rounded up by Nazis and Jew-haters and for them the horrors would not pass. Their inevitable end was death.

 So much for Dad’s advice.

 However, I recently heard a Rabbi tell this story that involved Dad’s favorite saying. 

A powerful king asks his assembled wise men to find something that will make a happy person sad and a sad person happy. The wise men traveled the country far and wide. Finally, one came upon a peasant who told him to return to the king with these few words: “This too shall pass,” meaning when you are feeling happy or experiencing happy times, know it won’t last, and conversely when you are feeling sad or experiencing sad times know that also won’t last.

 “This too shall pass” is true under normal circumstances. But under major terrible irreversible circumstances, these words were and still are useless as words to live by.

Curiously Mom and Dad's favorite words to live by are opposite. From Dad, "Just wait it out, whatever bad circumstances happen. Things will change." From Mom, "Get going. Time is passing. Don't wait. If you don't do it now, you may never do it and you'll be sorry." But most curious of all, the best advice for me today came from an unusual source many years ago.

 

THE BEST ADVICE  

FROM 4-YEAR-OLD MARGRETTA

About forty years ago, my partner Cheryl and I were at dinner at the home of friends who had a four-year-old daughter named Margretta. 

The conversation was lively. All four of us were talking about this and that and suddenly Margretta interrupted us saying loudly and as forcefully as an insistent four-year-old can “CALM DOWN PATSY!” We looked at her and looked at each other and didn’t understand what she meant, so we continued talking. Again, Margretta said even more loudly “CALM DOWN PATSY!!” This time we stopped talking and all of a sudden it came to me that she was addressing me, meaning to say to me: “CALM DOWN BETSY!”

 I have been known to talk loudly and insistently and must have been annoying Margretta big time. I shared my insight with Cheryl and Margretta’s parents and we had a good laugh. Over the years I’ve told this story many times.

 But why, you might ask, today would I identify Margretta’s directive from so many years ago as the best advice? Today at age 78, if I do things that take too much energy, if I walk too fast for example, or try to do too many things at once, or maybe get too excited about this or that, I get out of breath and my heart feels like it is beating too hard. When this happens, I say to myself “Calm down Patsy” which amuses me greatly and reminds me that I must slow down and remember to breath. 

If I can, I will stop what I'm doing and sit down for a while and breathe, just breathe until I -- “PATSY” -- am able to calm down and resume what I was doing at a more reasonable pace. And I send thankful thoughts to forty-plus year old Margretta wherever she may be.

 

Rose "Fewkes," Leonard "Fooks" and me

 

My mother and father, of blessed memory, couldn't agree on how to pronounce their last name. It is spelled F-U-C-H-S. Mom called herself Rose Fewkes and Dad called himself Leonard Fooks. I pronounce our last name Fewkes.

One year while attending services at Beth Emet Synagogue (Evanston, IL), I announced that I was saying kaddish for my father Leonard Fooks. Bekki Kaplan, Beth Emet’s Executive Director, apologized to me, “I’m so sorry I’ve been saying your last name wrong all these years.” “Nope” I replied. “That’s how he pronounced it, so that’s how we pronounced his last name.”

My parents agreed to disagree about their last name. No problem there. But not on political issues. Dad was the rational one who could marshal arguments based on facts he got from Time Magazine and from the Chicago daily newspapers. Mom was the opposite. Not irrational rather she formed her opinions based on her heart and her life experiences. Dad vocally and angrily tried to get Mom to buy his arguments. Mom let him know that her views stood and his well-formed arguments didn’t convince her to change her way of thinking. Here’s one example of how their differences played out: Mom voted for the “senior” Mayor Richard J. Daley because he was personable, and she felt he took care of Chicagoans, like he was our benevolent uncle. Sometime during Richard J’s six terms in office, Dad ran for Alderman of Chicago’s 39^th ward as an Independent candidate in opposition to Daley’s Democratic machine. (Dad lost, of course.)

What about me? I learned from listening to their different views on politics that there was validity on both sides. The senior Mayor Daley was personable and took care of us White folks in Chicago, but Daley supported policies that kept our city segregated, kept services unequal and kept patronage strong. Still… the city functioned.

For better or worse I see both sides of the political divide, even today. I know that many Trump supporters and anti-vaxxers are ill-informed about some things; you may think about all things. But they are not stupid and I would never call them “a basket of deplorables,” as Hillary Clinton did. They are our fellow citizens and I believe that many of them have been hurting financially and have been scared for a long time. I believe that like you and like me, they want to ensure that their children will succeed financially and be able to afford a car, a house, and to have children of their own.

And I contend that many Americans believe the government doesn’t have their best interests at heart. Case in point, Congressmen and women who have good insurance, good pensions, etc. etc. and large “war” chests that keep them getting re-elected. Another case in point: who in their right mind understands why our so-called great democracy has the president chosen by electors, not by the popular vote?

Ask me in person to share my political views, or expect me to join you in your strong and vehement criticism of those others and I often I keep quiet. I don't want to debate you. I have my reasons for not getting involved in the discussions of who is right and who is wrong on major issues of today. Some are rational, Some are based on my heart and life experiences. But writing safely on my blog, I can tell you that my way of thinking, seeing both sides, is still with me even though it’s shaky these days  -- what with the Covid Delta variant and especially since the Supreme Court decision on September 20, 2021 to not hear the Texas Roe v. Wade case.

Mom called herself Fewkes. Dad called himself Fooks. They were OK with that difference. But how I wish they had learned to accept each other’s views, or at least listen respectfully.

That’s what I try to do.

About the photograph of my parents: As they grew older, they lost interest in their political disagreements, and instead were in total agreement about the national and international places they wanted to visit, including to Banff National Park, Canada in 1981.