12/25/2018 0 Comments How My Stepson Owned ChristmasOne man’s trash is another man’s recovery button for family traditions.
A couple of weeks ago, one of my stepsons showed up at our house with a hand-wrapped gift for my husband. I was a little surprised, since he’s not at the age of earning his own money yet. I was thrilled to get a new blender from my oldest stepdaughter last year—who waitresses—and joked that it replaced a blender that was about as old as she was. So the present from The Blur, as I’ll call this stepson, went under the tree. Yesterday, when we opened gifts, my husband unwrapped the Blur Box to find a carefully handpainted Steelers logo on canvas, and….a Steelers sweatshirt. I wondered, how did a junior high kid foot the bill for NFL gear? Turns out he didn’t. On December 2, the Steelers suffered a heartbreaker of a loss to the LA Chargers. My husband, being the cool cucumber that he is, made his own charge out of our local Steelers bar, yanked off his Steelers sweatshirt, and threw it in a garbage can. Unbeknownst to me or his dad, The Blur fished the sweatshirt out of the trash can and obscured it under his own hoodie. By then, my husband had reneged on his vow to never watch the Steelers again, which was a relief to The Blur and I both, since he’s evangelized us into Steelers fans, and we really love our Steelers bar. I complimented The Blur on his ingenuity...and politely asked if the shirt had been washed. It hadn’t. But hey, easy fix. And I’m glad this kid knows the value of a dollar. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all--even those dad-gum Patriots. And for more on our fabulous local Steelers bar, follow me on Instagram @elenavalewahl .
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11/10/2018 0 Comments Radio Ga GaLast night, I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody with my husband and some of our kids, after our ten-year-old had begged for weeks. Some of you know I started out in screenwriting, and, as the filmmakers intended, I identified with Freddie Mercury on many levels: the search for acceptance in romantic relationships, the creative differences with his bandmates. But more than anything else, the high that Freddie got from making and performing resonated with me.
At eighteen, I had a crazy plan to major in biology and minor in music. I thought I could make a difference as a doctor for the underprivileged. But during my senior year of high school, when my Saturdays were filled with choir competitions, a minister from a church I didn’t attend talked to me about my future options. Elgin Emmons taught English at my small-town school as well as serving in the pulpit of a Methodist church, and I’ll never forget what he said about public education: “I can reach young people here who would never darken the door of a church.” So, teaching was a back-pocket option when I started college, despite the premed plans. Then, late in my first semester, the music department hosted visitors from the Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music. They joined our tiny Freshman Theory class to sing an acapella motet: If Ye Love Me, Keep My Commandments by Thomas Tallis. And my whole world shifted, because I literally felt like the music could levitate us into orbit. I thought, I have to plug people in to something this powerful. And I changed my major to music education. Freddie Mercury’s immigrant parents might have preferred to have a doctor or an engineer for a son. But Freddie plugged into the power and, through his performances, plugged millions of others in, too. Like everyone else, I absorbed the vignettes about the genesis of hits like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” and “We Are the Champions” with a smile. But in the closing scene, when Queen performed “Radio Ga Ga” at Live Aid, I could not sit still. I was there. Not literally--though the concert’s publicity was well within my Gen X memory. I was Freddie Mercury--the kid with the radio as her only friend. I didn’t have a CD player until high school graduation. I’d wait for hours for a favorite song to play on the radio and record it on a cassette tape--piracy before MP3s. Music is my drug of choice. I never needed chemicals to get high, just a favorite bass line or harmonic progression. I still plug into the power of radio. You’re giving someone else the power to choose the next song. You never know what dud--or gem--might play next. And despite my busted vocal cords and limited piano ability, what do I spend my days doing? Getting kids plugged into the power of music. It’s my privilege. They may favor different songs, but as long as they can plug in somehow, I’ve done my job. And it’s an irony--maybe not intentional--that Lady Gaga chose the stage name that she did, when her pushing of artistic boundaries has affected today’s youth in the same way as Freddie’s push influenced the 70s and 80s. By creating, we reflect the glory of our creator. I will never tire of going ga-ga with music. 6/18/2018 0 Comments ODThey say the current drug epidemic touches everyone. I’ve put drug use in my work--albeit on the fringes, as a pastime of side characters, or a backstory for dysfunction. But perhaps the way I write about chemical dependency is shifting. Yesterday, I had the distinct displeasure of attending my first overdose funeral. Forgive me if this post seems like vaguebooking. As writers, we don’t have permission to tell everyone’s story, so I’m omitting a lot. But here’s what I can share. I didn’t know the deceased, but I knew his mother. And the pain on the face of this otherwise cheerful woman is indescribable. “I don’t know how to go on.” She then described a cycle of getting clean and relapsing that went on for several years. Behind the coiffed hair and mascara, her anguish was sharp. We try to share the burden, but we can’t. An uncle had given a remembrance--mostly humorous stories, with a note of “if only.” After the service, I debated talking to said uncle. Too weird? Too intrusive? I cocked my head to the side, more shy than I normally am. I complimented him on the eulogy, then admitted the real reason for my interest. Someone close to me is using. “The only advice I can give is this. You really can’t help them until they’re ready for help.” And I nod. I’ve heard this before. And I am powerless. I studied the faces of those in attendance, wondering who was an addiction bystander, powerless to help, and who was using right alongside the deceased. I prayed for a wakeup call amid the tattoos, squirmy babies, pressed dress clothes, and ankle monitors, knowing that drug abuse is not a respecter of persons, and that anyone around me could be the recipient of my plea. All I can do is pray--knowing that thanks to the gift of free will, even the man upstairs can’t tie the hands of the addict. Four weeks ago, I met ‘Sally’ at church. She told a hopeful story--her daughter was a year and a half clean, after a prolonged battle that included jail time and sleeping rough. Two weeks ago, I felt especially frustrated by the addict in my life, and wanted to confide in Sally--but could find her nowhere. Last week, she waved, but didn’t have time to talk. Today, a young woman helped me restock the coffee station. She didn’t mention much about her life--just that her mom also helped serve the coffee. I asked her name. “Sally.” I smiled. She didn’t know how much I knew about her. Nor did she know she was a light at the end of my tunnel. Later on, I saw a post on the social media page for our homeowners’ association. One neighbor, pleading with us to help another, one of the most active people in our neighborhood group. His wife needs rehab. He needs a $6,000 deductible, paid up front. A GoFundMe’s been started. This is suburbia. This is America. I sympathized with addicts. I had compassion for people in their inner circle. But it’s a different ballgame now. Happy ending? 10/8/2017 0 Comments AztecsWe are Aztecs. We have a society that’s advanced, admirable. We have systems to feed our people, engineering to build jaw-dropping structures, arts and culture--yet we’re clinging to human sacrifice. I can’t think of another metaphor for the mass shootings whose numbers of dead continue to escalate. The altar at which we spill the blood of our citizens is the “right to bear arms,” which currently supersedes the right to health care, an education, food, or life itself. We are told it’s a sacrifice we have to make for that great American cause called freedom. We are told law-abiding citizens need guns to use on the criminals. Who’s next? It could be you. You, who felt like an action movie star upon purchasing that AK-47, could find your own firearm pointed at your head, with someone else’s hands on the trigger. You can call me liberal, or a snowflake--but only if you enjoy saying what’s untrue. I am a Kentucky native raised in a gun culture. I learned to shoot clay pigeons at summer camp; my father taught me how to line up a pistol’s sights. Guns are of high interest to kids, including my own son, who owns a locked-up BB pistol. They appear in the novels I write. In my family, gun owners outnumber those without. But at least two family members I’ve spoken with refuse to join the NRA; they’re not buying into their agenda. Sadly, our lawmakers are. And in this case, it’s the Republicans who are complicit. They receive huge campaign donations from the NRA, so they have to appease. Dirty money. I’m a moderate who’s probably voted for more Republicans than Democrats—but the Republicans are directly responsible for this problem. Biased journalistic sources are also complicit. It’s the false belief, fueled by biased news outlets, that any candidate other than the furthest to the right will “take our guns.” Some even believe that the Las Vegas massacre was an inside job—perpetrated by the government for legislation they deem unnecessary. Unnecessary. When one person took out fifty-nine. I know what the Second Amendment says. It promises the “right to bear arms.” It does not state that gun ownership cannot be regulated in any way. The drafters of said Amendment lived in a world where a smoothbore musket took thirty seconds to load—on a good day. If a madman ran out on a crowd with intent to kill, the number of lives taken would be limited by his ability to reload, and the ability of the crowd to bum rush him. The founding fathers could not have anticipated high rises, surveillance cameras, semiautomatics and bump stocks. It seems to me that the character of violence has changed in this country. I watched the local and national news from a very young age, and I was aware of shootings, war, and terrorism. But in a piece I wrote a year ago, I noted that the Columbine massacre of 1999 had a greater effect on me, at age 22, than other national tragedies combined. And here is another area where the media is complicit--our fame-driven culture that spurs people to acts of violence for the notoriety. Our 24/7 news networks opine on why he did it, and the image of the perp lives on. The Las Vegas shooter (name intentionally omitted) does not fit the profile of someone “disadvantaged” enough to off dozens of complete strangers. For that reason, prevention in the mental health and criminal justice systems becomes an ever-more-distant proposition. Violence has existed since the dawn of humankind, but some violences are more closely linked to personal grievances. Let’s unpack a meme posted by a Facebook friend: I’m an urban educator, so of course I agree that smaller-scale gun violence is a big issue. But I don’t fully agree that the media doesn’t talk about it. I’ve certainly heard about it on my news outlets. True--criminals in Chicago don’t follow the gun laws. True--many of those killed in Chicago are black, and the media usually places a higher value on white deaths than minority ones--and that says a lot about this country. But most of the shootings in Chicago are drug-related. Sadly, many victims are innocent people caught in the crossfire. This is a tragedy on its own. However, there’s a trajectory of human conflict to which these shootings can be traced--narcotics networks, gang turf wars, domestic disputes, and the heightened sense of fight-or-flight experienced by many in a poverty culture. It does not justify death; it doesn’t soothe those left behind. But it’s at least in line with the fabric of human history, traceable to Cain killing Abel over jealousy. What disturbs about our mass shootings is that there’s no trajectory of human conflict. They occur for reasons even more sinister: the thrill of shooting or the fame of being a murderer. And herein lies gun control. If we instituted some common-sense restrictions on guns--like maintaining the silencer ban, improving weapons screening in public places, barring bump stocks, and running background checks--we wouldn’t circumvent every shooting. But we would make it more difficult to kill so many people at a time. As of this writing, Australia’s had only one mass shooting in 21 years. After the last one, they banded together to create new gun laws and enforcement measures. They’ve reduced not only massacres, but also interpersonal-conflict shootings like the ones in Chicago, and suicides by gunshot. Guns are still owned and used--but mostly on hunting land and shooting ranges. They decided that keeping their citizens alive was more important than feeling like an action hero. In my preteen years, a favorite pulpy tome was Aztec by the late Gary Jennings. He painted that culture as a twin of ancient Rome--full of lust and excess. Thirty years later, I remember the terror of a young Aztec girl being forced off a platform to her death. Her society tolerated a system that ripped the life from her hands. Only the temple guards had an active role in her death. But her neighbors looked the other way. No disrespect to the Aztecs, or the Romans, but their societies no longer exist. If we can do something about mass shootings--however imperfect the solution--then shouldn’t we? 8/28/2017 0 Comments Statue ShadowsI love free speech, and I love freedom of the press--but the way it manifests in social media is only feeding the political polarization of this country. We speak our mind in memes: "Everyone's too easily offended these days!" "History's being destroyed!" While there are times these sentiments are true, it really shows respect for others to try to understand the issues at hand. My close friend, journalist Feoshia H. Davis, had to work under the nose of a Confederate "war hero" as a newbie reporter. Please read her case for the relocation of Jefferson Davis' statue.
Feoshia Davis: Tradition permeates Frankfort, but it’s time for Jefferson Davis’ statue to go to a museum 7/23/2017 2 Comments Rabbit on the TruckI’m back at my writing desk after a week at the county fair--my youngest son’s first year as a 4H participant. After a beautiful time of celebrating youth achievement and animal husbandry, a jarring image brought me to tears last night: rabbit, grasped by the ears and thrown headlong into a truck.
Another 4H mom asked me if I’d seen “the truck,” and her tone told the whole story. She described how the truck came for market rabbits--the ones raised and sold for meat--and how disturbed her daughter was by the rough handling of them. “They even took a Mini Lop, a show rabbit, just ‘cause the owners didn’t want it anymore.” I thanked her for warning me, grateful the truck was long gone and the boy had run ahead. You see, one of those “meat rabbits” had played an important role in his competition. My son started rabbitry with one animal, an adorable black Netherland Dwarf. “Jason” is normally cooperative, but the heat and stress of the fair had gotten to him. He’d nipped at me on the first day, and when my youngest reached into the cage to remove him for the competition, Jason chomped on the cuff of his white Oxford shirt. He wailed. I pulled up his sleeve and hollered, “No blood! You’re OK!” But the boy was still hysterical. Just before this happened, a tall teen from the Junior Fair Board had offered to help my son with showmanship, where 4Hers flip their rabbits over to exhibit their animal’s underside--a sort of vet exam from very young hands. Now, this same teen volunteered to help get Jason out of the cage, and showed my son, again, how to carry the wily beast tucked in, with the eyes hidden. As they walked to the show table, my only hope was that my son would get through the competition. I stood behind the line, and a ball of black fluff bounded down the table’s green turf. Houdini had escaped. The tall teen approached me. “I’m gonna let him use one of my rabbits.” I nodded. A meat rabbit--a completely different breed--but docile. I sweated behind the red line, the line that forces 4H children to perform without parental help. My little boy, so serious, described his own rabbit and identified the breed of the loaner rabbit. I snapped pictures of him talking to the judge, and sitting on the bench after, his face etched with stress. When awards were announced, I kept my phone out for pictures, hopes sub-basement low. Seventh place, sixth, fifth, fourth, third, and second--my son’s name. Second? There has never been a parent so excited for second! And the flash started popping. Later, the judge approached me. “He answered every question correctly.” Which he could not have done without the loaner rabbit. No one “shows” at the fair without a creature in his hands. The next day, my son pushed his fingers through the unmarked cage of the meat rabbits. He wasn’t sure if the rabbit he was petting was the one he’d shown. “Do rabbits go to heaven, Mom? Will this rabbit go to heaven after it gets eaten?” I nodded, touched by my little St. Francis’ heart for animals. The tall teen smiled, bemused. Toward the end of the fair, my youngest briefly mentioned “rescuing” the rabbit he had shown. But he didn’t mention it a second time. Acquiring an animal shouldn’t be done on an impulse. He was sad that the rabbits were being raised for meat, but I explained--again--that the burgers and chicken nuggets that we eat were once creatures too. We respect vegetarians, but we’re not in that camp. Yesterday, I phoned my grandmother, age eighty-eight. She shared her fond memories of eating rabbit-both in her home country of Germany, and after moving to Appalachia with my Pappy. But she refrains from sharing these memories with my son. In my writing, I explore undertold stories. Perhaps one of these undertold stories is that of rural kids and their unique relationship with animals. Creatures great and small play multiple roles in our lives. I explored this concept in my novel CIRCUS. Where is the line between use and misuse of an animal? How can we do it in a way that preserves dignity for all parties? I once read that some Native American hunters thanked an animal before taking its life for materials and meat. I don’t think the rabbit truck crew went to that much trouble. But in my heart, I am thanking the rabbit whose last act was allowing a nervous nine-year-old to poke and prod him. We can’t always prevent the truck from doing what it’s paid to do. But we can celebrate the compassion that our children learn from working with creatures great and small. 7/9/2017 3 Comments "White Trash"I’m not a big fan of the policing of words. Certainly, I eschew slurs of all stripes. Other words inhabit a gray area--they originated with one culture, but have become part of the larger conversation, and there’s much debate over who may use which word. But the phrase in my crosshairs today is one that many white people--and some minority folks--toss around. They do it without thinking about what it really means. They do it without considering how it judges and dehumanizes.
White trash. If anyone’s ever called me this, it’s not been in my earshot. But I meet a few of the checkboxes. I’m from Kentucky, and I slip in and out of a Southern accent. My legal address was once in a trailer park. My family’s been party to substance abuse. Both my parents and I divorced and remarried, and the last name of my sons differs from mine. But even if other qualifiers make me exempt from the “white trash” label, this isn’t about me. It’s about the judgment inherent in the phrase--both words of it. A human being is not “trash” because their quantity of tattoos or partners is unacceptable to you. Nor is “trash” made with housekeeping habits, grammar, or profanity use. If you disagree with their choices, fine--but know their choices are usually a product of their environment, and they’re probably already aware of the consequences. Calling someone trash does not improve their situation. It lessens yours because they cease to be human to you. Let’s look at the qualifier “white.” If you label certain white people as “white trash,” the inference is that nonwhites are always trash. “But that’s not what I meant.” Read between the lines. Inherent in the idea of “white trash” is the concept of people on a ranking ladder, and the implication that those with brown skin are always on a lower rung. Or, that they should be. I can’t stomach that. “But if I say white trash, people know what I’m talking about.” Why does everyone need a label? And who put you in charge of the label machine? Many of the students I teach in Cincinnati’s Price Hill neighborhood are urban Appalachians--children and grandchildren of mountain people who crossed the river, looking for work. Their culture differs from that of mainstream America. I’m a cultural hybrid. There are times I identify with my students, and there are times I struggle to understand them. But it’s pretty hard to reach and teach people that you see as “trash,” or the product of “trash.” During my first year of teaching, a veteran teacher stopped by my room after dismissal and fumed, “I got a s---- bunch of kids.” I blinked, trying to contain my shock--but it was a valuable lesson for me. My 22-year-old self noted that her class’ behavior failed to improve during the year. As we thinketh in our hearts, so are they….in our eyes. If your goal in life is putting a foot on the head of others to lift yourself up--by all means, keep using the phrase “white trash.” But if you hope to make a contribution, treat people as people and keep the trash in the can. |
Elena Vale WahlI blogged much more when my kids were small. Hoping my quality supplants quantity. Archives
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