Squaring Off

 ”Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

- Anonymous

Several years ago when I was working at the newspaper in Booneville, I wrote a story about an Episcopal priest friend of mine in Corinth.

The day after the story’s publication, I received a call from a woman who asked if I were an Episcopalian.

“Yes, ma’am,” I told her.

“Well, you people are strange,” she said. “And except for you, we don’t have any in Booneville. We didn’t let the Catholics in here until just a few years ago.”

A threat? I wasn’t sure. I decided, however, not to genuflect in public, just in case.

I wanted to tell her that in the big picture, we’re all fellow strugglers and that if we’d concentrate more on our similarities than on our differences, well, what a wonderful world it could be.

*** 

Today is Palm Sunday. It’s the day that commemorates the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem days before his crucifixion. In the Gospel of John, it’s mentioned that palm branches were scattered along the pathway into the city, a custom of honor.

I love Palm Sunday. When I was a kid, I was sort of embarrassed by us Episopalians and our Palm Sunday behavior. The Baptists passing by on their way to church stared at us unmercifully as we processed with our palms.

A shy child who abhored attention, I was mortified one particular Palm Sunday, thanks to the antics of my buddy Betsy.

We were about 13, Betsy and I, and the older of the five youngsters in the choir at All Saints, Grenada.

When the palms to be used in our procession from the parish house to the church were blessed by the priest, our choir director and organist instructed us on proper palm etiquette.

“Hold them still as you walk down the aisle. Don’t stick them in anyone’s eyes or nose. Don’t pretend they’re swords.”

Once we entered the church and started toward the choir loft, Mrs. Page’s palm pontifications flew right out the stained glass windows , for Betsy anyway.

Passing her parents’ pew, she whacked her brother on the head with her palm branch. As she pulled the palm back to her shoulder, the tip touched the taper decorating the pew.

Betsy and her smoldering palm left a snaking trail of smoke that hovered above the heads of the congregation as each member tried to stifle laughter.

Just as we got to our seats, an acolyte saved the day when he grabbed Betsy’s now-flaming palm and stomped out the fire.

At the end of the service, the blessed palms were turned in. They would be burned later, the ashes used for the following year’s Ash Wednesday services.

All, that is, except for one.

Betsy’s prematurely parched palm.

“Good morning, dear. What would you like for breakfast?”

- Nancy Hughes

Those words were uttered at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Monday, April 2, 1956, by an actress named Helen Wagner.

Initially a 15-minute TV “serial”, it has evolved into 30 minutes and later a full hour, and today celebrates 50 long years of much more than just love in the afternoon.

There’ve been marriages, divorces, births, deaths and all manner of madness and mayhem on “As The World Turns,” the longest running daytime serial in history.

And today I offer this bold admission: For all of those 50 years, some member of my family has tuned in. Yes, even I.

My involvement began innocently enough. Truth be told, I’m sure I can place the blame squarely on my paternal grandmother.

She told me many times through the years that I watched the world turn from behind the bars of my crib in the Criss family home on College Street in Grenada.

As I grew older I realized my mother had also been sucked in to the tragic and triumphant tales of the Hughes family. If pressed, she too could probably blame my grandmother, her mother-in-law, for getting her hooked.

One long-ago late afternoon my mother met my father at the door as he arrived home from work with this piece of news: “Bob has gone blind.”

Well, it took dear old dad several good moments to recover after my mother realized her mistake and explained, “Oh, not your brother Bob, but Bob Hughes on the story.”

The story. That’s what it’s been called in the Criss family, lo these many years.

I knew it was truly a family addiction when my mother told me not to tell anyone but she was taping “As The World Turns” daily for the chief financial officer of a large integrated poultry operation.

That would be her husband, my father.

He’d come home every afternoon, fix a martini, sit in his recliner and tune in to his “story.”

Through the years, the folks who’ve populated the mythical Oakdale, Illinois on the story have been talked about by members of my family like they were, well, members of my family.

When I was teaching, I sometimes visit my grandparents during spring break. We sit in front of the TV and watch the story.
“You been watching this?” my grandmother would ask me.

“No, ma’am, I’m in school while the story’s on.”

Then she’d proceed to bring me up to speed on the saga that’s launched some mighty large careers in it’s 50 years of storytelling.
No matter how long it had been since I’d watched, catching up was always possible.

While other daytime serials were launching far-fetched, alien-infested story lines, my family’s story of choice continued dealing with humanity. Sure, it’s gotten a bit whacky, a bit whiny at times in it’s five decades.

But so, too, sometimes is life.

As long as the world’s turning, who needs reality TV?

“Don’t laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find a face of his own.”

- Logan Pearsall Smith

Last Monday I took the afternoon off to spend time with my sister and my niece visiting from Huntsville, Ala.

We had lunch and then went shopping. At the mall.

Now, mall manager Jeff Snyder’s one of my favorite folks, but I must confess, spending time in a busy mall is not my idea of a good time.

And shopping? I deplore it. I’ll spend hours browsing in a book or music store, but beyond that, I’d just as soon stay home with my dog.

Nevertheless, Bailey Cook needed some new clothes, an Easter dress, perhaps.

And so I caved in and entered - The Mall.

In the children’s department of our first stop, I pointed to several adorable outfits that would have been perfect Easter frocks for my 8-year-old niece.

The look on Bailey’s face said it all: “Aunt Lee Lee, you’ve got to be kidding.

Where’s your fashion sense?”

Well, Bailey, I guess I have none. As long as someone’s selling blue jeans, sweat shirts and tennis shoes, I’ll be a happy soul.

Not so, my niece. She is, dare I say, a frou-frou girl.

Before I could get over Bailey’s pooh-poohing my Easter dress choice, she’d moved on.

She was grabbing clothes off the rack at warped speed.

At one point her mama called time and a mother/daughter conference was held behind a rack laden with clothes decorated with lots of beads and lots of bling. And like Manilow’s Lola at the “Copacabana,” there were a lot of dresses and tops “cut down to there.”

I’m not sure what went on between the two, but I think my sister reminded her daughter that she’s not yet a teenager.

Did I say my niece is 8?

In the dressing room, I had to admit the outfits, those that had received her mama’s seal of approval, looked cuter on Bailey than they had on the rack.

“You know, don’t you, that boys are going to really like her?” I asked my sister, though the question was rhetorical.

She grimaced and let me know she was not yet ready to even think about that.

Later in the mall as we tried to decide what kind of cookies we wanted, Bailey was jumping around being silly. Getting on my nerves. Acting her age.

And suddenly I felt much better.

“I regard labels as prejudices.”

  - Anton Chekhov

Someone said that in a history class years ago. At the time, I paid little attention.

After all, we humans tend to label each other all the time in one way or another: She’s blonde; he’s Baptist; she’s straight; he’s gay; she’s lazy; he’s a workaholic; he’s fat; she’s too thin.

Or how about that twosome that, these days, has become downright nasty: She’s conservative; he’s liberal?

If you haven’t leveled labels - fairly or not - on others, raise your hand.

I confess - I’m often guilty of slinging labels as productively as some folks sling hash.

Most of the time, I mean no harm.

Labels are just words, it’s true. But the way folks say those words, well, that’s where the danger can lurk.

My friend and co-worker Emily Le Coz was in downtown Thursday, just doing her job.

She was asking folks if they were familiar with the Major Thoroughfare Program. That’s it, plain and simple.

As she approached one man, her world was suddenly rocked by his unexpected response.

She identified herself, told him she’s a writer at the Daily Journal and proceeded to ask her question.

Now, if he was in a hurry or simply didn’t wish to be bothered, all he had to do was tell Emily so. She’d have said thanks and moved on to someone else.

What she endured instead was pretty much a verbal attack on this place where we work, as well as those of us who practice our profession under the Journal banner.

Oh, he answered the question. No. He’s not familiar with the Major Thoroughfare Program.

But he didn’t stop there.

“I don’t take the Daily Journal. I don’t like the Daily Journal. You are liberal and biased, and you don’t deserve to have that God message under the title.”

“You don’t serve God.”

Now, there’s the rub. Most of what he said was just horribly rude. His mama must not have taught him any better.

But here’s my question. When was the decision made as to which label got to claim God while the other was God-less? And who made that decision?

And would God really condone such behavior as witnessed by folks at the Post Office on Thursday?

I’m reminded of the bumper sticker on a friend’s car that reads: “God is not a Republican or a Democrat.”

Nor is God a liberal or a conservative.

God’s God. And shame on any of us who try to claim sole ownership of God for our own meanspirited purposes. For our own labels.

After all, labels are for cans, not people.

“Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.”

  - Buddha

I had a call early last week from Capitol Hill.

It wasn’t the president or vice president. It was someone infinitely more important.

It was my friend Fred Pagan.

Fred and I first met more than two decades ago when he was an eighth-grader and I was his teacher.

He’d moved from Michigan to Biloxi to live with his aunt and uncle. He didn,t sound like a Southern boy; nor did he sound like the sort whoÕd grown up on Back Bay.

He was deemed different and thus became a target for fast-flying food in the cafeteria. So, he started spending his lunch hour in my classroom, where we did a lot of talking about family. And about life.

As with many of my students, I kept up with Fred as he moved on up to the high school.

And I practically popped with pride when he was accepted as a page for Sen. Thad Cochran when he was 16 and a junior.

When the senator asked Fred to stay on another year, he did, completing his high school studies through correspondence from the University of Southern Mississippi.

“I never went to college,” my 39 year-old friend and former student reminded me last week. “The senator offered me such an amazing opportunity.”

From page to intern, and eventually to office manager for Sen. Cochran’s personal office, Fred continued his stay in the nation’s capital.

And then a year ago when the senator became chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, well, he took Fred with him.

Now his office is in the capitol building, where he catches glimpses of leaders from a number of nations.

When we talked, he rattled off a lengthy and impressive list of all his responsibilities. “But, primarily I’m there to help the Senator, to make his life as easy as possible,” Fred told me.
A typical day? “Never. Sometimes it’s slow, but other days there’s so much to do I hardly know where to begin.”

I think it’s safe to say Fred’s sort of grown up working for Sen. Cochran. He’s taken a hiatus or two, but always returned to Washington. And to the senator’s office.

“It’s like family here,” he said. “A lot of people don’t like their jobs. I love mine. I’ve just been very, very fortunate.”

Suddenly the laughter of this successful young man flowed over the phone lines, reminding me of the eighth-grader he once was.

“I guess I’m the page that never went home.”