Oh, it's become way too fashionable and trite to have a bucket list, but I've never truly written one. I have a lot of things in my head, most of the time, that I plan on, or more often wish I had the opportunity to do. It won't take me long to fill up a short list, making up for the incredibly long blog I had last week (sorry about that, but it was so cathartic).
Here's what could pass for a rough draft bucket list:
1. Drive the PCH. I am a Welker, after all, and we love the challenge of a scenic road, any road, really. Having only been from LA down to San Diego, I feel like I missed out on a big part of what California is all about, especially from the northern part of the state. Slipping up that highway would be a one-time thing I could not pass up.
2. See Paris and Italy. The rest of Europe would be great, too, but I know the chances of that grow less and less likely with every passing year.
3. Publish some piece of work that I'm really proud of. Heck, just publishing anything should satisfy me----but no, I want it to be something I'm proud to have other people see. I don't really count the blogosphere, since this mostly is a lot of self-indulgent navel-gazing. (That's not something weird! It just means being way self-absorbed---guilty as charged.)
4. Live in some little dump in NYC for about 6 months or so, working a temp job or something small like ushering in one of the theaters, so I can have ample time to go to all the museums and historical sites during the day that I'd like to see. And this time, I want to be there in the spring!
5. Speaking of, I want to really experience those cherry blossoms in DC. I've not been there at all, and I'd need time to do it right, to see all the historical sites. I am eligible this year to compete for another Fund for Teachers grant, and I just may do it for this trip.
6. This is a huge bucket list item, and probably just as fantastical as the others here: to get off the majority of the medications I take. I don't resent them, but it's financially debilitating. I've gotten off some in the last few years, replaced a few with vitamins, but it would be sooo sweet to throw away the old-lady pill box forEVER.
7. Find some of my extended relatives from both sides of my family, from the Cherokee heritage and the Yates/McCoy/Brown families on Mom's side, and from my great-grandad John Welker, who came to OK in the 1889 land run after fighting in the Civil War.
8. Learn to eat realllly healthy and love it.
9. Provide something wonderful (God knows it won't be money, but it could still be fantastic) to each of my three nephews and three nieces.
10. Anonymously leave a $500 tip somewhere that the person truly needs it. Just being able to leave the tip is the bucket list item---but I crave the chance to make it count for someone who is down.
I could keep going for a long time on this, so there'll probably be another Bucket List on down the line. For tonight, though, I need sleep. More sleep----now that's a bucket list item I really need to get behind!
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Learning through the Ages
Funny, for a girl who always considered herself low-maintenance and absolutely allergic to vanity, my spirit pitched a wild-eyed fit over turning 49 this week. I'm a little ashamed to admit this to you, dear readers, because it goes against my often-stated belief that it's silly for women to be coy about their ages, that it's just a number. It was easy to say that when I looked younger than my years. Now? Well...... It's only through some self-recriminations, a few rebellious tears, and much quiet introspection that I realized this would be the time to reflect on what those years have brought me---where I was, and what I learned......at least as far as my advanced age would allow me to remember.
At 16, I first learned I could feel paralyzing, sickening fear when we spent that birthday driving up Pike's Peak. I literally had to lie down in the back seat because I was convinced we would plunge over the edge of the road that, in my memory, was little more than a cow path gouged out of the side of the biggest mountain I had ever seen---and we had seen mountains practically every summer of my life. A few days before, when I was still technically 15 with a learner's permit, Dad had made me drive through Denver expressway traffic, eight lanes crazy. That was gravy compared to the Peak. Several years later on Christmas Eve, with Dad driving us along the south rim of the Grand Canyon in a heavy snow, I felt the same panic, though I did and do trust Dad's driving above all others. It took another 14 years to learn what those moments were about.
When I was 18, I had the very romantic notion that if you cut me, I would bleed music---not the literal notes, of course, but the one thing that sustained me. Maybe it was true then. All I thought I would ever be was a singer, along the lines of Patsy Cline, since I couldn't be Pat Benatar. I had to make a choice: go for a music scholarship at OCU as our pastor encouraged me to do and chase that dream, or change the dream. Oh, I was so young and green; I had no faith in myself, so I changed my dream and toddled off to Rogers, where in just my first semester of my radio broadcasting degree, I found worlds more music I didn't know, and Dr. Eldon Hallum excised the Okie right out of my voice. In retrospect, I look at that 18th year as the broadest but quickest learning curve of my life.
At 21, I found that I just could not make myself fall in love with someone, no matter how nice and hard-working he is, no matter how well he seems to fit into the world one comes from. It seems odd that it would take me so long to learn that lesson, but I was always both more and less mature than my peers, and I was just on the cusp of figuring out who I was, and having a really good time doing it. I was an RA in my senior year at NSU, and after three years of college when I was making excellent grades but floundering in purpose, I found I had an ability to, for lack of a better word, soothe others. My "girls," 30+ residents (some of whom I know will be reading this), instilled in me more love and purpose than I had felt for anything or anyone but my family. I couldn't have articulated it then, but I was learning that I might not even want what I had always assumed I would have at all costs: a family of my own. Even now, I tear up to admit that. But I was not willing to chain myself, and I saw so clearly that that was what marriage to that nice guy would be.
There is no conscious memory of what I was learning at 25, because I was ever so busy living. I had finished my Masters and was teaching part-time at NSU and working full-time in Housing, running the Leoser complex. My friends and work were so much that it felt overflowing. In retrospect, I've considered 25 the last year of my "childhood," so to speak, because it was the last year I was a true innocent, one who could believe in something good in everyone. I had walked into my first classroom at 22, shaking in my gray suit and black pumps, and owned it, knowing it was the stage I had been looking to perform on all my life. With two jobs and numerous past students on campus, I knew people everywhere I went and felt that I really had a comfortable place in that little world. Until that 26th year---another August, another school year, and the devil on campus. No matter how I try to write the next sentence, it can't convey it all. I was mesmerized by a mind-reading, guitar-playing snake oil salesman. More than 20 years later, I can call up memories so sweet that they can crumple me on the floor. And yet----and yet-----I cannot give up that heartbreak. I learned what I was capable of: love so deep I could swim in it. I learned what I was made of: that I was too strong to subjugate myself to someone who was not worthy to even set foot on the sacred land I was raised on. I learned what I wanted: to treasure and be treasured for good, true things, and not the illusions that we all practice conjuring for the world. It was a long, long way up out of that hole, but those realizations are worth it.
At 30, I was set free, almost literally. After returning from a year working in Austin, where I finished the school year at UT having panic attacks almost every night, I saw my doctor in Tahlequah. Within five minutes, she had solved my life's mystery: depression. Oh, I know how people react to that, but they can think or say what they want. The panic attacks beginning in my youth? The years I spent lying on the floor in the dark, smoking cigarettes and drinking wine and listening to blues music? The emotionless flat-affect that I maintained as often as possible, whether I wanted to scream, cry, dance, or sing? All characteristics that made sense as soon as I got medication. I never felt any shame about that lack of a chemical in my brain, and I learned to share that story if someone needed to hear it, to be encouraged that they, too, were "fixable." That summer was the year of the terrible Mississippi River floods in the farms of the Midwest, and I remember being shocked at myself watching the news and crying---I was never a crier at tragedies, feeling that if I cried I'd never stop. I realized that my medication allowed me to feel the grief of a situation without falling into a black hole of despair. That was all the convincing I needed after 30 years of keeping everything held back.
Beginning just after my 30th birthday, there were 5 full, busy years with my junior high kids at Roland when I learned that what was broken can be made whole again. Those sweet kids, with their trust and relative innocence, brought me so fully back to life that after a few years, I had to get back to my family and friends; I knew I was too isolated there. Newly 35, I found myself at Locust Grove, where I met challenges I hadn't found before. I had a few kids who couldn't read. The poverty level was greater than I had ever seen. I was working at night, teaching one NSU class in Tulsa and one in Tahlequah. That first semester, I worked 14 hours a day, 7 days a week....and I cried every single day. I missed my Roland babies and didn't know if I was up to dealing with kids who threw physical tantrums and screamed "F--- you!" before running out of class. But by then, I was forged steel, bent but not broken. I could face a crazy kid or two without flinching. When one of the kids had a seizure in class, and I knew what to do, their impression of me improved. I wasn't an outsider. I had no inkling, but I had found a home that I would come to love.
Another blog for another time: just two months before my 40th birthday, Laura, my best friend of 17 years, lost her battle with cancer. I don't have a lot of memory of that year, except that I set about re-inventing myself, learning who I could be to keep from sinking from the wrenching grief. I changed almost everything about my physical world except my job. A year or two on the other side, I realized that the time Mom spent with us while Laura was ill changed our relationship forever; we are a lot more tender with each other than we used to be, and we also know the other's strengths. She began visiting me on her own, coming to stay for a weekend a couple of times a year. With her encouragement, I began looking for a new church, and found my favorite one I've ever attended, All Souls Unitarian. I learned that I really was satisfied with a few close friends and didn't need an admiring crowd, but that I had to be open to new experiences and people. I still struggle with that because I'm by nature pretty shy. It takes change to help me see the bigger world, and I never want to lose sight of that.
And so here I am, still learning at an age when we might think we should have a good grasp of our lives and the world----but the learning never stops. I'm learning fathoms as I turn into a complete political junkie. I can't puzzle out why people watch reality TV, but I'm learning that it keeps them from living real, authentic lives. I struggle every single ever-living day with taking care of myself, but I try, because (I'm learning....) I don't have to give birth to the six "babies" in my family in order to want to see how their lives turn out. I learn and learn and learn. I feel and cry and then learn some more. I write it out and hope I learn. With all that insight, how can I grieve about exchanging my youth for all this....life?
At 16, I first learned I could feel paralyzing, sickening fear when we spent that birthday driving up Pike's Peak. I literally had to lie down in the back seat because I was convinced we would plunge over the edge of the road that, in my memory, was little more than a cow path gouged out of the side of the biggest mountain I had ever seen---and we had seen mountains practically every summer of my life. A few days before, when I was still technically 15 with a learner's permit, Dad had made me drive through Denver expressway traffic, eight lanes crazy. That was gravy compared to the Peak. Several years later on Christmas Eve, with Dad driving us along the south rim of the Grand Canyon in a heavy snow, I felt the same panic, though I did and do trust Dad's driving above all others. It took another 14 years to learn what those moments were about.
When I was 18, I had the very romantic notion that if you cut me, I would bleed music---not the literal notes, of course, but the one thing that sustained me. Maybe it was true then. All I thought I would ever be was a singer, along the lines of Patsy Cline, since I couldn't be Pat Benatar. I had to make a choice: go for a music scholarship at OCU as our pastor encouraged me to do and chase that dream, or change the dream. Oh, I was so young and green; I had no faith in myself, so I changed my dream and toddled off to Rogers, where in just my first semester of my radio broadcasting degree, I found worlds more music I didn't know, and Dr. Eldon Hallum excised the Okie right out of my voice. In retrospect, I look at that 18th year as the broadest but quickest learning curve of my life.
At 21, I found that I just could not make myself fall in love with someone, no matter how nice and hard-working he is, no matter how well he seems to fit into the world one comes from. It seems odd that it would take me so long to learn that lesson, but I was always both more and less mature than my peers, and I was just on the cusp of figuring out who I was, and having a really good time doing it. I was an RA in my senior year at NSU, and after three years of college when I was making excellent grades but floundering in purpose, I found I had an ability to, for lack of a better word, soothe others. My "girls," 30+ residents (some of whom I know will be reading this), instilled in me more love and purpose than I had felt for anything or anyone but my family. I couldn't have articulated it then, but I was learning that I might not even want what I had always assumed I would have at all costs: a family of my own. Even now, I tear up to admit that. But I was not willing to chain myself, and I saw so clearly that that was what marriage to that nice guy would be.
There is no conscious memory of what I was learning at 25, because I was ever so busy living. I had finished my Masters and was teaching part-time at NSU and working full-time in Housing, running the Leoser complex. My friends and work were so much that it felt overflowing. In retrospect, I've considered 25 the last year of my "childhood," so to speak, because it was the last year I was a true innocent, one who could believe in something good in everyone. I had walked into my first classroom at 22, shaking in my gray suit and black pumps, and owned it, knowing it was the stage I had been looking to perform on all my life. With two jobs and numerous past students on campus, I knew people everywhere I went and felt that I really had a comfortable place in that little world. Until that 26th year---another August, another school year, and the devil on campus. No matter how I try to write the next sentence, it can't convey it all. I was mesmerized by a mind-reading, guitar-playing snake oil salesman. More than 20 years later, I can call up memories so sweet that they can crumple me on the floor. And yet----and yet-----I cannot give up that heartbreak. I learned what I was capable of: love so deep I could swim in it. I learned what I was made of: that I was too strong to subjugate myself to someone who was not worthy to even set foot on the sacred land I was raised on. I learned what I wanted: to treasure and be treasured for good, true things, and not the illusions that we all practice conjuring for the world. It was a long, long way up out of that hole, but those realizations are worth it.
At 30, I was set free, almost literally. After returning from a year working in Austin, where I finished the school year at UT having panic attacks almost every night, I saw my doctor in Tahlequah. Within five minutes, she had solved my life's mystery: depression. Oh, I know how people react to that, but they can think or say what they want. The panic attacks beginning in my youth? The years I spent lying on the floor in the dark, smoking cigarettes and drinking wine and listening to blues music? The emotionless flat-affect that I maintained as often as possible, whether I wanted to scream, cry, dance, or sing? All characteristics that made sense as soon as I got medication. I never felt any shame about that lack of a chemical in my brain, and I learned to share that story if someone needed to hear it, to be encouraged that they, too, were "fixable." That summer was the year of the terrible Mississippi River floods in the farms of the Midwest, and I remember being shocked at myself watching the news and crying---I was never a crier at tragedies, feeling that if I cried I'd never stop. I realized that my medication allowed me to feel the grief of a situation without falling into a black hole of despair. That was all the convincing I needed after 30 years of keeping everything held back.
Beginning just after my 30th birthday, there were 5 full, busy years with my junior high kids at Roland when I learned that what was broken can be made whole again. Those sweet kids, with their trust and relative innocence, brought me so fully back to life that after a few years, I had to get back to my family and friends; I knew I was too isolated there. Newly 35, I found myself at Locust Grove, where I met challenges I hadn't found before. I had a few kids who couldn't read. The poverty level was greater than I had ever seen. I was working at night, teaching one NSU class in Tulsa and one in Tahlequah. That first semester, I worked 14 hours a day, 7 days a week....and I cried every single day. I missed my Roland babies and didn't know if I was up to dealing with kids who threw physical tantrums and screamed "F--- you!" before running out of class. But by then, I was forged steel, bent but not broken. I could face a crazy kid or two without flinching. When one of the kids had a seizure in class, and I knew what to do, their impression of me improved. I wasn't an outsider. I had no inkling, but I had found a home that I would come to love.
Another blog for another time: just two months before my 40th birthday, Laura, my best friend of 17 years, lost her battle with cancer. I don't have a lot of memory of that year, except that I set about re-inventing myself, learning who I could be to keep from sinking from the wrenching grief. I changed almost everything about my physical world except my job. A year or two on the other side, I realized that the time Mom spent with us while Laura was ill changed our relationship forever; we are a lot more tender with each other than we used to be, and we also know the other's strengths. She began visiting me on her own, coming to stay for a weekend a couple of times a year. With her encouragement, I began looking for a new church, and found my favorite one I've ever attended, All Souls Unitarian. I learned that I really was satisfied with a few close friends and didn't need an admiring crowd, but that I had to be open to new experiences and people. I still struggle with that because I'm by nature pretty shy. It takes change to help me see the bigger world, and I never want to lose sight of that.
And so here I am, still learning at an age when we might think we should have a good grasp of our lives and the world----but the learning never stops. I'm learning fathoms as I turn into a complete political junkie. I can't puzzle out why people watch reality TV, but I'm learning that it keeps them from living real, authentic lives. I struggle every single ever-living day with taking care of myself, but I try, because (I'm learning....) I don't have to give birth to the six "babies" in my family in order to want to see how their lives turn out. I learn and learn and learn. I feel and cry and then learn some more. I write it out and hope I learn. With all that insight, how can I grieve about exchanging my youth for all this....life?
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Not Ready
It's time----oh, it's time. And I am not ready.
It's time for me to give up my state of natural existence: stay up till dawn, sleep until 11 or 12, and, for the most part, do what I want. It's time once again to get myself out of bed at 5:15 a.m. and out the door by 7, five days a week, with the day prepared and the gym bag packed. There will be no more Popsicles for breakfast (at noon) and what-ever-turns-up for a second meal. No, now it's back to starting the day with protein bars, protein shakes, fruit, or yogurt, with maybe a sausage biscuit thrown in there every couple of weeks. More protein for lunch, some peanut butter crackers or a salad, or even the school lunch if there are strawberries....or cake. Mmmm. NO! There must be less cake, and certainly less ice cream, which has acted as a substitute for more than one meal. Yes, it's time to let that go again.
But I'm not ready.
It's time for shuffle-ball-change, do your best number with a smile on your face and some panache to sell the program. No, there's no cynicism in that---it's just the art of the sale. Time to sell some young people on a good diet of strong nouns and verbs, a mental exercise regimen of American literary development. Time to charm them into developing character and good study habits and respect and individualism. And while I'm at it, I've got to take time to transition these goals from criterion-referenced standards to the new Common Core, from memorization to synthesis---with kids who don't believe it needs to be written if it can't be said in 140 characters and a hashtag.
Whoa----I'm not, VERY NOT, ready.
It's time to ease up on the lifeline that my family is to me. I have to be prepared for the fact that my parents won't be in the state much of the next 8 months. This year, not seeing them from January until April was discombobulating, as though I had misplaced a talisman that gave me courage for the days, weakening my spirits. No doubt, I should be ready for more of the same this fall and winter. Since I'll be gone from home 12-13 hours a day, there will no longer be time and chance for my sister and me to call each other whenever the urge hits us; I know that I'll lose many thoughts that I'll want to share with her, just for the joy of hearing her laugh or for commiseration on the indignity of the world. It's much too close to losing my best friend all over again; Sheri has filled that role more than either of us probably ever thought she would, and I am so grateful. And---oh, be strong---I must give up being able to spend as much time as I want with her baby Allie, my niece and god-daughter, just days short of a year old and changing every day. It's time to remember that, almost always, I'm very happy alone in my quiet, calm household.
Today, though, I'm not ready.
There are so many things it's time to put aside: having unlimited time to run errands, being able to time my shopping and travel to miss traffic, seeing doctors (so many doctors) without missing any work, sitting at the computer and following link after link to political junkie posts on the internet, for HOURS that pass like minutes. It goes without saying I'll give up reading time, but also time for movies, visits with friends, house-cleaning and -purging binges, and travel, if there were money. And if I'm honest, I'll hate to give up being able to watch marathons of Law & Order Criminal Intent and SVU whenever I want.
I don't think I need to tell you---I'm not ready.
But I willingly went back to preparing my room three weeks ago. I switched teacher desks, finding things I'd forgotten, notes and cards from my kids and my peers, drawings and doo-dads they'd leave me. I carefully moved to a protected spot in my new desk the big pink candy Valentine heart that read "Marry me, " below which Michael Giesecke printed perfectly "...or else" before passing it to me, gosh, it must be 10 or 12 years ago. I laughed and teared up over letters from Whitney Taylor, Ashlyn Million, and Courtney Carrino. I bought supplies, more than I wanted, as always. I updated our department curriculum. New ideas began to worm themselves into my thoughts: student blogs! community book club! Scholastic magazine! (All right, nothing there is really new, just not something I've used before.) I met with new teachers, started sending emails, read education blogs, whined about state budget cuts on Facebook, and stirred up enough dust in my classroom to bring on my usual August sinus infection. Then today, as I helped the new senior English teacher set up student computers in her room, along came a crowd of my boys from last year, tumbling in the room, hollering my name and laughing and joking, and I fell right in, as though they were my kids....as indeed they are....and I started in with their jokes as though we had only passed a weekend. They were there to get some attention and scope out their new English teacher. For me, it was a little different sort of interaction, like winding a watch that has fallen a little behind but is still capable of keeping good time, the right time.
Ah, so there: I think, perhaps......I'm ready.
It's time for me to give up my state of natural existence: stay up till dawn, sleep until 11 or 12, and, for the most part, do what I want. It's time once again to get myself out of bed at 5:15 a.m. and out the door by 7, five days a week, with the day prepared and the gym bag packed. There will be no more Popsicles for breakfast (at noon) and what-ever-turns-up for a second meal. No, now it's back to starting the day with protein bars, protein shakes, fruit, or yogurt, with maybe a sausage biscuit thrown in there every couple of weeks. More protein for lunch, some peanut butter crackers or a salad, or even the school lunch if there are strawberries....or cake. Mmmm. NO! There must be less cake, and certainly less ice cream, which has acted as a substitute for more than one meal. Yes, it's time to let that go again.
But I'm not ready.
It's time for shuffle-ball-change, do your best number with a smile on your face and some panache to sell the program. No, there's no cynicism in that---it's just the art of the sale. Time to sell some young people on a good diet of strong nouns and verbs, a mental exercise regimen of American literary development. Time to charm them into developing character and good study habits and respect and individualism. And while I'm at it, I've got to take time to transition these goals from criterion-referenced standards to the new Common Core, from memorization to synthesis---with kids who don't believe it needs to be written if it can't be said in 140 characters and a hashtag.
Whoa----I'm not, VERY NOT, ready.
It's time to ease up on the lifeline that my family is to me. I have to be prepared for the fact that my parents won't be in the state much of the next 8 months. This year, not seeing them from January until April was discombobulating, as though I had misplaced a talisman that gave me courage for the days, weakening my spirits. No doubt, I should be ready for more of the same this fall and winter. Since I'll be gone from home 12-13 hours a day, there will no longer be time and chance for my sister and me to call each other whenever the urge hits us; I know that I'll lose many thoughts that I'll want to share with her, just for the joy of hearing her laugh or for commiseration on the indignity of the world. It's much too close to losing my best friend all over again; Sheri has filled that role more than either of us probably ever thought she would, and I am so grateful. And---oh, be strong---I must give up being able to spend as much time as I want with her baby Allie, my niece and god-daughter, just days short of a year old and changing every day. It's time to remember that, almost always, I'm very happy alone in my quiet, calm household.
Today, though, I'm not ready.
There are so many things it's time to put aside: having unlimited time to run errands, being able to time my shopping and travel to miss traffic, seeing doctors (so many doctors) without missing any work, sitting at the computer and following link after link to political junkie posts on the internet, for HOURS that pass like minutes. It goes without saying I'll give up reading time, but also time for movies, visits with friends, house-cleaning and -purging binges, and travel, if there were money. And if I'm honest, I'll hate to give up being able to watch marathons of Law & Order Criminal Intent and SVU whenever I want.
I don't think I need to tell you---I'm not ready.
But I willingly went back to preparing my room three weeks ago. I switched teacher desks, finding things I'd forgotten, notes and cards from my kids and my peers, drawings and doo-dads they'd leave me. I carefully moved to a protected spot in my new desk the big pink candy Valentine heart that read "Marry me, " below which Michael Giesecke printed perfectly "...or else" before passing it to me, gosh, it must be 10 or 12 years ago. I laughed and teared up over letters from Whitney Taylor, Ashlyn Million, and Courtney Carrino. I bought supplies, more than I wanted, as always. I updated our department curriculum. New ideas began to worm themselves into my thoughts: student blogs! community book club! Scholastic magazine! (All right, nothing there is really new, just not something I've used before.) I met with new teachers, started sending emails, read education blogs, whined about state budget cuts on Facebook, and stirred up enough dust in my classroom to bring on my usual August sinus infection. Then today, as I helped the new senior English teacher set up student computers in her room, along came a crowd of my boys from last year, tumbling in the room, hollering my name and laughing and joking, and I fell right in, as though they were my kids....as indeed they are....and I started in with their jokes as though we had only passed a weekend. They were there to get some attention and scope out their new English teacher. For me, it was a little different sort of interaction, like winding a watch that has fallen a little behind but is still capable of keeping good time, the right time.
Ah, so there: I think, perhaps......I'm ready.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
A Short Letter to Dan
Dear Mr. Dan Cathy:
Gosh, it's been a busy couple of weeks, hasn't it? Of course, being the COO of a company like Chick-fil-A, pulling down $4 billion a year in profits, must always keep you hopping. With that much business at stake, it stands to reason that once in a while, there will be some decisions or statements made that one might wish to rescind. I humbly submit that you made one big fat whopping one here recently.
Oh, I have no objection to your opinion on the "Biblical" definition of marriage. You were asked straight-out about it, in a Christian media interview---I'm sure that you felt you HAD to make such a statement or risk being called on the carpet by some far right listeners. Such is the divisive nature of the American cultural landscape these days. No doubt about it: it was not a good situation to be in. Nevertheless, there you were. And THAT is the mistake you made.
I cannot fathom what it must be like to run your family empire; I have enough to worry about just keeping my own little life on track. However, I come from a family of small business owners, and as a result, I can't remember a time when I wasn't on notice that anyone who traded with us could note what I said or did and see it as a reflection of my parents' business practice. No, it wasn't an over-inflated sense of self-importance that led me to this understanding; it's what I was taught. We weren't to talk politics, money, or religion to anyone, because we lived in a tiny community where the majority of the residents traded at our agribusiness. To make pronouncements on what was "right" or "wrong" in our opinions would run the risk of offending our customers, who were also our friends and neighbors. Besides, who were we to pass judgement? This standard was so pervasive in our lives that we didn't even discuss politics in our home, other than an odd comment here and there about county commissioners, the most hot-seat position to be had in rural government.
I would have assumed that you had been raised somewhat the same, before recent events proved differently. I've eaten at your restaurants for years with full knowledge that your corporate foundation is influenced by your beliefs in a couple of positive ways: your excellent customer service and your admirable decision to close on Sundays. Those policies quite adequately reflect your mission statement "to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A," both customers and employees. Obviously, it has worked very well, considering the growth of your company.
So why, WHY was it required for you to be interviewed regarding your personal values? Did you lose sight of your customers---ALL your customers---when you had that opportunity to pronounce "God's judgement on our nation"? It's perfectly within your rights to drink the Kool-Aid, Mr. Cathy. But you can no more choose the lifestyle of your customers (and all other citizens) than you can choose from your menu and order for them----and that's what you're doing if you make public statements about your personal values and link them to your corporate values. Citizens United be darned: if you want to stay in business, a corporation doesn't have a voice or values outside of their business mission.
I'm a heterosexual liberal Christian, and I've neither picketed, banned, nor patronized Chick-fil-A since all this took place. I'm not sure what I'll do in the future, but I do know that until the fervor dies down, I won't go near it. There must be millions more out there like me, and we all affect your bottom line. In your corporate interest, maybe you could re-think your statements more carefully from here. After all, Jesus loves chicken.....AND homosexuals. Don't you agree?
Sincerely,
Cathy (that lady who only orders nuggets, Polynesian sauce, and diet lemonade)
Gosh, it's been a busy couple of weeks, hasn't it? Of course, being the COO of a company like Chick-fil-A, pulling down $4 billion a year in profits, must always keep you hopping. With that much business at stake, it stands to reason that once in a while, there will be some decisions or statements made that one might wish to rescind. I humbly submit that you made one big fat whopping one here recently.
Oh, I have no objection to your opinion on the "Biblical" definition of marriage. You were asked straight-out about it, in a Christian media interview---I'm sure that you felt you HAD to make such a statement or risk being called on the carpet by some far right listeners. Such is the divisive nature of the American cultural landscape these days. No doubt about it: it was not a good situation to be in. Nevertheless, there you were. And THAT is the mistake you made.
I cannot fathom what it must be like to run your family empire; I have enough to worry about just keeping my own little life on track. However, I come from a family of small business owners, and as a result, I can't remember a time when I wasn't on notice that anyone who traded with us could note what I said or did and see it as a reflection of my parents' business practice. No, it wasn't an over-inflated sense of self-importance that led me to this understanding; it's what I was taught. We weren't to talk politics, money, or religion to anyone, because we lived in a tiny community where the majority of the residents traded at our agribusiness. To make pronouncements on what was "right" or "wrong" in our opinions would run the risk of offending our customers, who were also our friends and neighbors. Besides, who were we to pass judgement? This standard was so pervasive in our lives that we didn't even discuss politics in our home, other than an odd comment here and there about county commissioners, the most hot-seat position to be had in rural government.
I would have assumed that you had been raised somewhat the same, before recent events proved differently. I've eaten at your restaurants for years with full knowledge that your corporate foundation is influenced by your beliefs in a couple of positive ways: your excellent customer service and your admirable decision to close on Sundays. Those policies quite adequately reflect your mission statement "to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A," both customers and employees. Obviously, it has worked very well, considering the growth of your company.
So why, WHY was it required for you to be interviewed regarding your personal values? Did you lose sight of your customers---ALL your customers---when you had that opportunity to pronounce "God's judgement on our nation"? It's perfectly within your rights to drink the Kool-Aid, Mr. Cathy. But you can no more choose the lifestyle of your customers (and all other citizens) than you can choose from your menu and order for them----and that's what you're doing if you make public statements about your personal values and link them to your corporate values. Citizens United be darned: if you want to stay in business, a corporation doesn't have a voice or values outside of their business mission.
I'm a heterosexual liberal Christian, and I've neither picketed, banned, nor patronized Chick-fil-A since all this took place. I'm not sure what I'll do in the future, but I do know that until the fervor dies down, I won't go near it. There must be millions more out there like me, and we all affect your bottom line. In your corporate interest, maybe you could re-think your statements more carefully from here. After all, Jesus loves chicken.....AND homosexuals. Don't you agree?
Sincerely,
Cathy (that lady who only orders nuggets, Polynesian sauce, and diet lemonade)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)