no_hypocrisy
no_hypocrisy's JournalTwo girls were born on this date in 1948.
They grew up just three miles apart in suburban New Jersey: one in Bergen County and the other in Passaic County.
One became the most popular senior in her high school. Captain of the cheerleading squad. Star of the HS plays. Glee Club. Straight A's. Went on to Indiana University Bloomington. Jane Pauley knew her. So did Kevin Kline.
The other became a chorus conductor at age 14. Studied piano since 7. Graduated from Mannes. Has had a career in professional music for more than half a century. Well known, respected, and admired. Music Director of a church.
The first girl is Angela Atwood, nee DeAngelis. You know her as one of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), the group that kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst in 1974. She had divorced her husband, Gary, and moved out to California with Bill and Emily Harris. She became radicalized as she volunteered to teach prison inmates how to read. She was the one who spent an inordinate amount of time, trying to radicalize Hearst. She would die with her "comrades" in a police shootout and fire three months after they kidnapped Hearst.
The second girl is my friend.
Both started out with so much promise for success in their lives. Almost identical socioeconomic environments. Same l'air du temps. Same culture until early adulthood.
Atwood is buried about 5 miles from where I live, not far from where she grew up, at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, the same cemetery as Fr. Mychal Judge, of 9-11. On one side of an obelisk is her nickname, "Angel". The only local person who will talk about Angela Atwood is a quiet middle-aged librarian who went to school with her.
One girl became diverted from her dreams and died young. The other girl is celebrating her 75th birthday right now.
What I miss around this time of year
The "office party" the doctors had for the staff.
We had a small office with three doctors and about 10 staff. I was lucky to be one of them b/c my father was one of the doctors and I worked at the office on and off for about 18 years.
We got dressed up and usually went to The Tuxedo Club, just over the border of NJ/NY.
No longer employer/employees, but rather comrades. Open bar! Fancy hot hors d'oeuvres on trays brought by waiters. Gourmet dishes for the Meal.
Lots of kidding, laughter. Exchange of gifts. (You blindly selected a name from a bag and bought a present.)
Most of the folks who attended have died and I miss them. I've never experienced anything like our office parties since then.
How to handle RW NJ's in your family
My brother was getting married. He waited until the last minute to tell our parents that he had converted to Sufiism (mystical Islam).
Our father had a fit at the rehearsal dinner and tried to turn the family against our brother. Mom was resentful. Our sister went along with our father b/c she was afraid of him.
I didn't have a problem b/c it was none of my business except when it came to attacking my brother.
Here is the dialogue between me and my father:
Dad: Did you see what your brother is wearing?
Me: Yeah, it's a necklace with an amulet.
Dad: What language is that?
Me: Arabic.
Dad: Do you know what it says?
Me: Yeah. It says "Allah".
Dad: (ill-disguised slow burn). And did you see that photograph in the foyer?
Me: Yeah.
Dad: Do you know what it is?
Me: Yeah, it's Mecca at night during the Haj.
Dad: Don't you think it's terrible?
Me: No, I don't.
Dad: Why not?
Me: Because you only have to go to the Haj once in your life. If you had to go every year, it would be "terrible".
New Topic
Dad: Don't you understand why I'm so upset?
Me: No. (I didn't want to get into it with our father . . . . )
Dad: What would you think of me if I joined the American Nazi Party?
Me: (thoughtfully) Gee Dad, I don't think they take Jews . . . . .
Dad: Never mind. What would you think of me if I joined the Ku Klux Klan?
Me: Three things: One, I'll always be your daughter. Two (big sigh . . . . ) You'll always be my father. And Three (get ready for it) Don't come looking for me to help you burn a cross.
And with that, Dad moved to the other side of the table.
Epilogue: My brother is married 22 years now. Dad is dead and to show that he loved us all the same, he disinherited all of us.
These were the comic books my father made me throw out in 1969
because he believed Readers' Digest or whatever about how comic books led to juvenile delinquency:
Superman
Batman
Archie comics
Binky
Dennis the Menace
No violence. Throwbacks to the Fifties. Superheroes. White bread.
My father never looked at what I was reading but just saw comic books and knew my mind was being polluted.
And no, I have not forgiven him for making me throw them away. I paid for them. They belonged to me.
Postscript: Dad struck again in 1972. He made me throw out the sheet music for Don MacLean's "American Pie." But this time, I waited for him to go to bed and retrieved it from the garbage. I still have it.
I'm glad for Tiffany Trump.
Hear me out please.
She has finally escaped the familial bonds of her biological father, Donald J. Trump. Until her wedding, Tiffany has been dependent and under the control of her father for financial survival. All she had to do was to follow his rules, his whims, his demands -- like her siblings. From the moment she was conceived. She knew better than to challenge and to cross her father. He would have cut her off without blinking.
I don't know if she married for love or money or both. But she married someone her father can't threaten because of his wealth. She is safe.
Why do I care? Because I was raised in a similar situation. When my sister married, I knew she was safe. Me, I stayed single and did continuous battle with our father who had plans for me. I defied each demand and suffered as a result. I was freed when he died. Sure, I was disinherited, but I was still free.
So, Tiffany, make the most of your life. You've earned it.
Some workers don't "get it".
I've been musing about my late father.
His ultimate and last career was a medical doctor. Nothing wrong with that. (My best guess is that he decided to find a vocation where he could always be the boss and would avoid the risk of termination by another. Small business owner as well as physician.)
And he was fair to his employees at his medical office (office manager, x-ray tech, lab tech, nurses, patient assistants).
But he exuded an attitude of privilege that reflected his general disdain for employees. Specifically I mean that he had no sympathy for unions, for strikes, for collective bargaining, organizing. To him, it was akin to socialism, even communism (if he even understood the difference).
My father was a worker twice, perhaps three times, in his life before medical school. He was a chemist at a cement factory. He was an usher in a movie theater (where he say "Gone With The Wind" about 40 times). If you count the Army, that's three times. (As to the latter, he decided that being a grunt Private was not for him and hastened promotions to get out of that status.)
Having the experience of holding a job vicariously to the whim of one's employer, not making enough money to survive, making one's life dependent on one's employment, I can't understand how a person can turn his/her back on his/her experience and resent when one's former peers request then demand better working conditions, more security, more money for a decent lifestyle.
I can understand how Bush Jr., TFG, Trump Jr., Ivanka, Eric, etc. have their extraordinary sense of privilege. They were born into it and know no other way of life.
But my father, I just don't get it.
A good day in court yesterday
I represented a client pro bono (free). His wife kidnapped his three children and concealed them from him for almost nine months.
She sued for emergent temporary custody, claiming falsely domestic violence and alcohol abuse on his part. And got a protective order against him.
Yesterday we went to court. Armed with a police report from June. His wife was arrested for being heavily intoxicated in a public park while their children played. Endangerment of the welfare of a child.
Let's say, the wife was more agreeable to dropping the application for emergent temporary full custody, barring my client from his kids for at least two years. And dropping the protective order.
And my client got immediate access to his three minor children after court.
There's a realistic joint custody order in place.
While we can't give him back the almost nine months without his children, my client got justice yesterday.
Why I Am A Loner
I learned from a very early age (2+ years) that I couldn't depend upon my parents. My father had a busy medical practice. My mother was overwhelmed with being a doctor's wife, a mother with another infant, and the housekeeper of a 14 room house.
I couldn't depend upon my teachers. In nursery school, my "teachers" allowed my fellow toddlers to hurl wooden blocks at me and at each other. In Kindergarten, my teacher kept floating theories why I should be left back for another year. My first grade teacher had a temper and shook me until my teeth rattled.
I couldn't depend upon my classmates. They were relatively silly, opting to change themselves to be popular and this was way before high school. And in high school, I was independent and didn't fit into the 3-4 cliques.
Immediately after graduating college, I backpacked through the UK and Europe, by myself of course. 13 weeks. I met people and had more flexibility where I wanted to go when I was solo.
When I had graduated college and graduate schools, I found employment but I also found I was smarter than my employers -- and they didn't like that.
I like being independent, autonomous. I am alone and like it that way. I am in no way lonely. Sometimes, I merely tolerate the company of others.
It's Father's Day. My father is dead and I don't miss him at all.
He was cruel to me almost as a quest. He tried to break me through punishment, criticism, manipulation of my relationship with my siblings, minimalizing my graduations (3), and trying to hold us out as a happy, perfect family.
I'm not happy that he's dead. I'm just relieved to be free of all that emotional tumult and future threats.
My mother tricked my father into sending me to an independent all women's college.
Sweet Briar.
Actually, both parents wouldn't let me apply to any other genre. I applied to Randolph Macon Women's College, Beaver College, Gaucher College. And I got into all of them.
1975. I was a senior at a public high school in suburban New Jersey. B-plus average. Impressive SAT scores.
My father had issues with control as far as allowing me to make my own decisions. It was oppressive and onerous. I hated it.
I got into Beaver first and I had the delusion that I could at least choose where I'd attend college out the small selection I was given.
Nope. Dad wanted to wait to see if Sweet Briar and/or Randolph Macon accepted me. They did. OK. I still chose Beaver simply because it was in metropolitan Philadelphia instead in the middle of Virginia, where the other colleges were located. Dad nixed Beaver, told me it was my "back-up" school.
I chose Sweet Briar as it was a pretty campus, it was 15 miles closer to home (honestly), and someone I really didn't like from high school was going to attend Randolph Macon.
The very first course I attended at Sweet Briar was Logic. It totally opened my mind with its mathematical analysis of arguments, proof, process of validity of facts. Each subsequent course I took, my intelligence increased, my critical thinking improved, my collection of principles and facts grew. I became independent through knowledge. This was the purpose of liberal arts.
You're asking, "How did your mother 'trick' your father?"
My mother attended Barnard and had a similar experience. She understood the family situation where my father was desperately trying to direct my life. Mom wanted me to escape her fate of a marriage with little or no independence. She was as oppressed as I was in our family. And she couldn't help me by advocating for me -- except to make the case that I should go to an "exclusive, all-girl college" -- to find a suitable husband. That's right. Not that she believed her premise, but Dad would believe that.
My father was a shameless social climber and was concerned about me both marrying the "wrong sort" and not enhancing his social climbing. By following Mom's premise that I could marry well at an exclusive all-girl's college, I'd be rubbing shoulders with girls from exclusive private schools, debutantes, etc. and meeting visiting male students from the equivalent background. And maybe, just maybe, the college could turn me into a "Lady".
I know, I know. It was 1975. Feminism had not yet hit its stride, especially in our household and Sweet Briar.
Mom knew my only escape was independence, being able to think for myself, support myself, etc. until I could find a like-minded partner. Obviously THAT premise wasn't the one to use on Dad. So she fell back on the 1950's marriage argument. And it worked.
I graduated. I went to get a Master's and a Juris Doctor. I never married and never missed getting married.
Honestly, I initially resented being sent to a school where I believed I would have to wear starched-white shirts and white gloves to pour tea on Sundays. Instead, I met some very interesting young women with intellect and spirit. Yes, there were the debutantes, who were marking time at Sweet Briar, waiting to get married. I even learned to make friends with them.
But my character and opportunities developed as a result of my mother doing me the biggest favor in my life.
P.S. Dad never caught on that he put me on a trajectory to autonomy and independence.
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