“It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.” —Molly Ivins
"I'm going to channel Idora." —John Tucker, November 10, 2024
One of my favorite writing exercises is called "I Remember." It's pretty easy. If you can write a grocery list you can do it. You simply jot down those two words and keep going. Put down every random thought that comes to you. Don’t censor, don’t judge, don’t edit. When you can’t think what to write next, just start again: “I remember.”
It doesn’t have to be good, or right, or smart, or pretty, or anything. It doesn’t even have to make sense. Just a random list. Like this:
I remember my father, the local obstetrician, standing on the stage of Chandler. I remember the rustling of paper, the smell of winter coats. Town meeting, perhaps? I remember Dr. Tucker talking into a microphone about the “population explosion” and birth control.
I remember a collection of birth-control devices dangling from the ceiling above our kitchen table after Daddy died. The mobile was made for his office by a Gifford nurse.
I remember the rows of white caps at his funeral. The nurses sat in the middle section and the family sat on the right.
I remember the snow, so white. I remember the sun, so bright. I remember the town closed the schools early that afternoon so that our friends and neighbors could help lay my dad to rest.
I remember my mother asking me to play the piano for my brother. I remember a recording of a Chopin prelude making its way to a Marine camp in Vietnam.
I remember Uncle Alan asking to “see” my new shoes. I remember his fingers running over the leather as I explained that they were two-toned, a crucial factor.
I remember how proud we were when Uncle Alan was elected by the people of Illinois to serve in something called the appellate court. I remember thinking “Justice is blind.” I remember stacks of legal documents in Braille.
I remember going to the Governor’s Ball the year the Dems made a comeback.
I remember an arch of swords and how I clung to the arm of my grampa, Vermont’s newly elected secretary of state. I remember how agonizing it was to be fourteen and gawky and to be stared at as flashbulbs popped.
I remember a book called the Population Bomb, a paperback, resting on a tabletop in the living room.
I remember books, so many books, stuffed on shelves and piled on tabletops all over my parents’ house. “The Feminine Mystique, “ “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” “Silent Spring,” “1984.” I remember my mother talking about these books with her sisters and friends. I remember the books being discussed around the family table. I remember thinking, “That’s what I want to do, write books.”
I remember the first issue of a new magazine called “Ms.”
I remember hearing about Bernie Sanders, Burlington’s new “socialist” mayor, and thinking, “Now, that’s interesting.”
I remember being in a hurry to grow up so that my friends and I could start a commune.
I remember Gail’s dad helping us to construct a teepee next to their house.
I remember going to college, a few miles away, and being terribly homesick.
I remember how my childhood ended in sorrow and confusion, my friends scattered, my family grieving, and not at all in the way I had imagined.
When you finish the “I Remember” exercise, take a look at what you’ve got. It may seem like a bunch of random thoughts, a jumble, but inevitably they contain a story, or several. Now is when you are allowed to judge, to edit, to make sense.
I kind of know what my list is about. It’s about being raised by parents who taught me, as well as they could, to prepare for the mess we are in today, the crises we are facing, this moment in time. We knew as children that everything you fought for and believed in could be snatched away, that it could all fall apart in an instant. Our home was safe and secure, our parents loving and protective, and yet the threat existed. It was in the newspapers, on television, in magazines and books.
A couple of days ago, I tagged my brother in a Facebook post about Henry Wallace. Wallace was the vice president who helped Roosevelt put together the New Deal that pulled America out of the Great Depression. He was dropped from the ticket in 1944 because the Dems were afraid his progressive ideas were too radical for a public spooked by Russian communism. In our family, he was viewed as a kind of savant.
When FDR died, Truman took over as president. The Dems lost both houses of Congress in the midterms. Wisconsin sent Joseph McCarthy to Washington. The New Deal was over.
Wallace had already warned Americans what would happen if we forgot the lessons of the New Deal. His warning, published by the New York Times in 1944, reads like a playbook for 2024.
As children, we not only read a lot of books, we also made a lot of music. When I asked my brother what he thought about Wallace's editorial, passages of which were included in a recent column by Robert Reich, John quoted our mother: “We could go with ‘life is a shit sandwich and every day is just another big bite,’ he wrote. "I’m going to channel Idora, who opined to me that the best thing that we do is make music. The worst is war. I’m watching Coldplay and Mumford and Sons. Idora and I won."
Photo: Idora with daughters Martha and Sara on the steps of Bethany Church the day of her daughter Ruth's wedding. I wore the same dress to the Governor's Ball. We had to let the hem down.