Time passes at a dizzying and accelerating rate as we grow old. At the Jack London Saloon in Glen Ellen I ran into Caterina Landry, a trustee on the Sonoma Valley School Board. We talked generally about high school curriculum and I mentioned the contrast between when I was in school in the 50’s and 60’s, and what my 40-something stepchildren told me they never learned in school. I revealed I would be 74 this year, Caterina said, “No Way.” I said, “Way.”
I vividly remember civil rights marches, Vietnam protests and my public and personal struggle for women’s rights, yet they seem far away, in the distant past. MLK and others before him said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In 1960’s high school, in the state of Minnesota, civics, U.S. and world history, and open discussions were not things our school administration thought of as controversial.
I remember discussions initiated by our teachers on economic and civil rights disparities caused by race and as the result of slavery. I remember a class where we studied and discussed the hanging of 38 Native Americans in 1862, in Mankato Minnesota, an aftermath of the Dakota Sioux Uprising of 1862. That conflict erupted when the Dakota, deprived of their land and facing starvation, attacked white settlers, killing hundreds. The Dakota were inevitably defeated and 303 were sentenced to die. President Abraham Lincoln asked to study trial transcripts of all, and pardoned 265. Because of this high school curriculum, and the hard work of many others, a 1912 monument to the hangings was removed in 1971 (amid protests), and today the Mankato Pow-wow and memorial rides honor the executed. Over many years I believed that the arc was bending toward justice.
Today I believe the arc has crashed and plummeted into a bottomless pit. As I see time passing for me, my selfish mind asks, how much time do I really have left on this earth? I may be in good health, I may live in a nice house and have financial security, but am I happy, am I at peace in today’s world? The answer comes back, no I am not happy, no I am not at peace. Each day I look at the maybe 20 years I have left on this earth, if I am lucky. My days and hours are now spent working to pull that thread of justice up and out of the bottomless pit created over the last 45 years, culminating in the reign of King Trump and his army of opportunists and idiots. Yes, it began slowly without the vitriol we hear today, but its root is a movement to whitewash real history and obliterate the rights we have fought so hard for.
Am I selfish? Is it self-centered to want to spend what remains of my life with the majority of my time spent on the joys of life. Yes, there are moments of joy when I see people turn out and stand up for equality, to inform and educate, to protect those who are being demonized, to fight for our planet and life itself. Still, there are countless hours spent working on my tiny part of hauling justice back up from the pit. Do I need more psychotherapy, like when I was younger and had to face issues like my dependence on drugs or my lack of self-esteem? Or do I slog on, trying to recruit the young to join those of us disparagingly called Old Hippies and Boomers?
Josette… you hit the nail on the head! I’m with you … thank you for taking the time in writing this article.