Bucking the Trend

I’ve developed a new pet peeve.

If you participate on any social media platform, you’ve, no doubt, come across posts with headlines that read something like this: 30 Things That Are Dating Your Kitchen. 5 Trends That Women Over 50 Should Not Follow. Stop Making These Fashion Mistakes Now!

 

The cultural guardians of good-taste rail against such concepts as “slut-shaming,” and “fat-shaming.” Well, I think I’ll become the advocate against “trend-shaming.”

I realize that those types of posts come from advertisers, but what I think really unnerves me is the subtle, subliminal message that we must conform or be outcast. If you now have granite counter tops in your kitchen, I hate to tell you, but by the wisdom of the trend watchers, you are passé and woefully out of touch. Darn, I just got my granite countertops in my kitchen four years ago, and now according to these terrorists of trends, I must rip them out to be on “on point.” Ah, no.

The irony of all these types of promotions is that they usually are interspersed among such insipid platitudes like: Dance Like No One Is Watching; Everyone is Beautiful in their Own Way, Blaze Your Own Trail.

Yeah, be your own kind of beautiful, but only if you follow our lead. 

I’m not against advertising, it serves a great purpose. It underwrites so many things in our lives from sports to even this publication. What I’m fed up with is the push for conformity in their quest for cash that annoys me.

This doesn’t happen exclusively on the internet. I remember about a decade ago watching an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show that featured a stylist, who critiqued audience members who volunteered to receive some fashion tips from him. After he told various women that their hairstyles weren’t right for their face shapes, or that the color the woman was wearing was draining her complexion, one woman stood under his critical eye.

He sized the woman up and sneered, “I see scuff marks on your shoes. That is a disgrace. It signals to me that you don’t care. Why, you are probably wearing underwear with holes in it.”

The poor woman seemed to shrivel under his criticism, and my heart ached for her. He humiliated her on national TV, and I wished someone could have shone a light on his soul because I bet it was quite shabby.

I guess what I’m saying is that while it’s nice to be trendy, fashionable, beautiful, and with-it, but that is not the most important thing in life. Being content and happy is, so don’t let anyone sell you that you are less because you don’t want more of what they’re trying to peddle to you.  

 

This article originally appeared in the October issue of Northern Connection magazine.

Roll With the Changes

On August 28, I was married 40 years. Looking back on the past four decades, I feel a bit like a late-night comedian. How long ago were you married? I was married so long ago that I had a band and not a deejay. I was married so long ago, that it was before videographers. I was married so long ago, no one rented limos. I was married so long ago, that Banns of Marriage were posted for three weeks in our church bulletin. I was married so long ago, that I didn’t have a wedding registry. I was married so long ago that if someone had suggested having your wedding at a farm the way people like to do now, people would have thought you were crazy. I was married so long ago that when a bride wore a white dress down the aisle, the gossips pondered whether the bride “was worthy” of that white dress.

Yes, things have changed a lot since 1982. Some things changed and are circling back. When we got married, mortgage rates were hovering around 15% and there was a recession. Unfortunately, it looks like we’re heading for a replay of that economy.

But I’ve changed too and so has my husband. I’m a different person from the 22-year-old bride saying my vows. Not just physically, that is obvious. With each passing decade, I’ve experienced life as a different person. My mom and dad have been married for nearly 64 years, and she’s often said that you are married to different people during your marriage.

Yes, there are stages of life. I’ve been a newlywed, a young mom, a college mom, empty nester, middle-aged, grandmother, etc. I’m considerably different from who I was forty years ago. I’d like to think I’ve improved and learned a lot along the way. When I got married, I never dreamed I’d have twins, live in such a lovely home, deal with the accidental death of my young brother-in-law, become a writer, and be able to travel as much as I’ve had. My husband has journeyed through all these phases of life with me and has gone through changes of his own.

So, if we are ever-changing, how do you make a commitment to love and live with someone until death? I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and as an old married lady, I’d like to share some thoughts. When we were getting married, it was required that we go through marriage classes to get married in our church. During one of those classes, the instructor posed this question: What is the goal of marriage? We had to write down our answers in a notebook and I wrote down. “To be happy.”

I was wrong. The instructor informed us that the goal of marriage is unity. There are times in marriage when you will not be happy, sometimes due to circumstances beyond your control like sickness, misfortune, or death, and even then, you must remain united.

How do you remain united when you are both changing? I believe we’ve been able to live and love for so many years together because at my core and my husband’s, we’ve never changed. We’ve been anchored together through our beliefs, goals, convictions and in general outlook on life. We have always believed in God and have adhered to certain morals, and we’ve believed in each other. We’ve been united at the deepest level no matter what has happened. It is because of our being united that we’ve been able to enjoy the happiness that I though marriage should be when I wrote those words way back when. 

 

This column originally appeared in the September edition of Northern Connection magazine.

A Foul Story

 

It was the summer of 1981, and my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, had a college friend from Philadelphia come to town for the Pirates-Phillies game. We had great seats for the night game at Three Rivers, about 20 rows back on the first base side. I was a big baseball fan back then and knew I had to pay attention as we could easily get hit with a line drive foul ball. Sitting in the row in front of us, were several nuns from the convent at St. Benedict Academy, where I had attended high school. I had none of them as teachers, so they didn’t know me. I just recognized their faces.

Garry Maddox of the Phillies came up to bat and fouled off a high fly ball in our direction. I had already stated that if a foul came our way, I was going to duck as I had no chance of snagging a ball with all the tall men sitting around me.

When Maddox’s ball sailed our way, everyone in our section jumped out of their seats to try to catch it while I ducked and covered like I was awaiting a nuclear blast. I heard the thud of the ball hitting something and spring somewhere as people clamored and shouted, “Where did it go?” Fans scrambled around the stands searching for the coveted foul ball.

As I stared at the floor, hands over head, the ball rolled under the nun’s seat in front of me. My first thought was from that little angel, I should let the nuns get it. Then that little devil on my other shoulder said, “the Lord helps those who helps themselves,” and I reached down and scooped up the foul ball. I stood up with the ball in hand like I was the Statue of Liberty holding her torch and said rather sheepishly, “I got it!”

People around me cheered for me, patted me on the back, and men in the stands that I didn’t even know wanted to shake my hand, treating me like I was some kind of hero, like I’d snagged a blistering line drive instead of picking up a ball that had rolled to me.

I was glad I got the ball, but it was from a Philly, so I wasn’t as thrilled as if I’d caught one off a Pirate bat. I stashed the ball in my cedar chest, and over the last 40 some years, I’d take it out every now and then and show it to my kids to impress them that their mom “caught” a foul ball. I’d tell them that it was from Garry Maddox, known as the Secretary of Defense for the Phillies, and on cue my husband would chime in with, “You know what they said about Garry Maddox, ‘Two-thirds of the earth is covered by water, the other one-third by Garry Maddox.’”

 

This past Memorial Day I learned something else about Garry Maddox. The American Thinker had an article written by Will O’Toole, who talked about MLB players who served in Vietnam. Unlike World War II, where most eligible young men, including many MLB players, served their country, the Vietnam War was not like that. Most MLB players didn’t serve their country—but Garry Maddox did. One of nine children, he enlisted at 19 and served in Vietnam until his father suffered several heart attacks and Maddox applied for a hardship discharge to help support his family. He then pursued his MLB career.

I was treated like a hero for picking up a fly foul ball, but until this year, neither I nor my husband knew that Maddox was a Vietnam veteran who selflessly served his country and who should have received more recognition for his heroic sacrifice.

However, you can be sure of one thing and that is the next time I pull out that foul ball and tell the story of how I got it, I’m going to tell people that it was off the bat of Garry Maddox, a great baseball player and an even greater hero.

 

This article originally appeared in the July issue of Northern Connection magazine.