Hyde Park on Hudson

Some people are calling this movie "The Day the King of England Ate a Hot Dog."  We saw it recently at our little gem of an art theater, the Enzian.

I think it's about two distinctly different things.  But first let me remind you how I feel about Eleanor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  I think, like most historians, that he was a great president.  I don't, personally, remember him but I remember Eleanor and she made a huge impression on me.  She was still writing her newspaper column and expressing her opinions long after FDR died.  Highly unusual for a woman at that point in our history.

OK, the first thing the movie is about is this so called "romantic" relationship Franklin (Bill Murray) has with his distant cousin, Daisy (Laura Linney.)  (As you know, Eleanor was also a distant cousin.  Her last name was Roosevelt before she married.)  I found the relationship between FDR and Daisy to be sad on many levels.  And a little bit disgusting.  It brings up the "character" issue that we never had to deal with in the old days because nobody knew that presidents had dalliances.  And, of course, nobody knew that FDR couldn't walk.

The other thing the movie is about is the weekend King George VI and his wife, Elizabeth, came to Hyde Park try to get FDR and therefor the country to get involved in the coming World War II.  At this time we were pretty much isolationists.  We didn't want to get involved.

By the way, King George VI was the stuttering king that the movie "The King's Speech" was about.  He was a reluctant king without much self confidence at the time.  He was also the father of Queen Elizabeth II.

So FDR, while entertaining the king and queen in his mother's house at Hyde Park for the weekend, along with his wife and two mistresses (that's FDR not the king,) manages, in very subtle ways, to help King George deal with his stuttering issues - and find a way to humanize the king's image in the eyes of the American public.

And that's why the King of England was served hot dogs.


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Football is Dangerous

By now, everybody's enjoyed their favorite bowl game.  As you know, I have a problem with football.  Fortunately for football, nobody cares.  I'm concerned about my young grandsons playing, I'm concerned about college players and I'm concerned about the pros.

It's a violent sport.

My husband, Ken, played football in high school and college.  I will admit it made him a better person.  But then, when he was in his fifties and needed abdominal surgery, there were big problems due to the massive amount of scar tissue in his belly.

It's a violent sport.  But nobody wants to hear about it.

Then the "Shouts & Murmurs" column in the January 7th issue of "The New Yorker" confirmed my feelings.   Jay Martel did a really funny parody of the top bowl games.  Below I've shared just one of them because he's teasing a team I like.  (Even though I have a problem with football!)

The...Catheter Cotton Bowl

    This may be the marquee bowl game, with the undefeated Texas State College of the Pacific Homicidal Maniacs setting their sights on the No. 1- ranked Tallahassee University Khmer Rouge.

 These two college programs consistently rise to the top of every major statistical category, including early-onset Alzheimer's, so expect a real donnybrook. 

The media-day disclosure that every player on the Maniacs, except for the placekicker, sustained a concussion last week - even though no game was scheduled - sharply raised the level of anticipation for this clash.  Look for the placekicker to get a concussion. 


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Regret

Yesterday I began leading a class based on the book, "The Gift of Years" by Joan Chittister.  We had a full house and a fantastic discussion.  This will be a six week lunch study discussing the positive things about getting older.

Yes, there are many positives.

Somebody in the class observed that, since it is such a positive book, why is the first chapter called "Regret."  Good question.  My take on it is that we have to deal with and put to bed our many regrets about the past.  We all have them but if we don't let them go we can't possibly move forward in a positive way.

For instance, those of us who are parents all know that we could have done it better.  I wrote the poem below in the 1970's when I had four little kids running and crawling around the house. I must have been feeling some pressure at the time.

INFORMATION I WISH I DIDN'T HAVE

Part of Adolf Hitler's
personality problem
was due to
poor potty training. 


***

Yesterday We Walked With Martin

In 1968 my husband, Ken, and I, along with our two preschool children, were living on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.  Ken was a student at Emory's Candler School of Theology and I was working in the development office at Emory, as well as taking a couple of classes.

What a busy time!  The civil rights movement had played a large part in our decision to give up our former, comfortable middle class lives and move in this direction.  Atlanta was the center of activity for civil rights at that time.

Then, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., while on a speaking trip to Memphis, was gunned down.   Immediately, Atlanta, Dr. King's home,  was "electric" with racial tension.  But, as his body was flown home and funeral plans were made - and, thanks to thousands of local volunteers and those who streamed in from all over the country -  the days that followed were peaceful.

Following is a poem I wrote years later about that amazing time.

Yesterday we walked with Martin.
It was raining very hard.
Hundreds, thousands pressed against us,
As we neared the fenced churchyard.

That morning I had fed my babies,
Dressed them, hugged them with thanksgiving
Then drove us all to our day places
(You know I have to make a living.)

They were all alone in Memphis,
When the awful moment came,
Martin laughing by the railing,
At the small Hotel Lorraine. 

People came from everywhere,
Needing rides and food and bed.
We scrambled to find safe places,
For them to lay their weary heads. 

Yesterday we walked with Martin.
It was raining very hard.
Bobby, Ethel, Harry led them,
But hundreds, thousands swarmed the yard. 

This morning we made Easter eggs,
For our preschool celebration.
We'll play and sing and clap our hands,
While waiting for the resurrection. 


***

Stubborn Nightmares, Persistent Dreams

In many churches across the country, but certainly not all, probably not even most,  yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday.

My minister invited Dr. Sharon Austin to be our guest preacher.  Sharon is a district superintendent in the  United Methodist Church.  This means she supervises a couple of hundred ministers.

She's also an African American woman with a PhD.  Watch out!

But that doesn't automatically make her the right person to preach on MLK, Jr. Sunday.  But how about this:  Before becoming a Methodist minister she was a Baptist preacher.  Where?  At Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.  This is where both Martin Luther Kings, senior and junior preached.

Sharon was great yesterday.  Sh spoke about Joseph in the Old Testament and MLK, Jr.  in the more recent past.  One of her themes was "dreams."  Both of these guys were famous for their dreams.

If you've read this blog for a while you know that I read MLK, Jr.'s "Dream Speech" every year at this time. I read it this morning.  It always inspires me.  It always makes me want to cry.

We've come a long way since 1963.  But we still have stubborn nightmares as well as persistent dreams.

Thank you, Sharon, for reminding us in such a powerful way.


***

Silver Linings Playbook

So....this movie is about a man and his dad, both bipolar, who are loving, loud, funny, smart, quick tempered, highly emotional, loyal and risk taking.  They're played by Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro.

Bradley Cooper's  love interest is played Jennifer Lawrence.  She became an overnight star in The Hunger Games.  She is terrific in this movie.  Her character, Tiffany, is crazy smart and crazy. Period.  Along with all the other bipolar attributes listed above.

To me, the movie is very funny, very sad and very real.  And, because it's real, very scary.

However, I would have changed the ending a bit.  They take a crazy (bipolar type) risk and it turns out well. Unfortunately, that's not reality.  For every super successful bipolar person (like Ted Turner) there are hundreds of folks who've lost everything due to their risk taking behaviors.

There is one thing that Cooper's character did that I thought made sense.  The day he arrived home from the hospital he read Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls."  After reading the ending he went berserk.

I remember. forty years ago, reading the book and feeling the same way.  I wanted to go berserk with that book's ending.  But I'm not bipolar so I just stuffed my feelings like us "normal" folks do.

Many of the people in this world who bring us color and light, beauty and art and out of the box thinking - are "different."

Many of them are loving, loud, funny, smart, quick tempered, highly emotional, loyal and risk taking.  This keeps the people around them exhausted and longing for peace and quiet.

So we  have to work at ways to find the "Silver Linings" in these relationships. That's what the folks in this movie are trying to do.


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You Have To Want To

When I worked as a consultant much of what I did had to do with helping folks be - and stay - motivated.  To be unmotivated doesn't mean you can't do something.  It means you don't want to.  Ergo....to be motivated means "you have to want to."

Example:  You can make your kids do their homework or you can motivate them to "want" to do it.  So, eventually they will be self motivated so you can drop out of the picture.  Hopefully, some time before grad school.

All this to say, since being sick during the holidays...I am unmotivated. 

I can work out at the gym...but I don't want to.

I can have dinner and see a movie with friends...but I don't want to. 

I can get up and enjoy the early morning hours...but I don't want to. 

I love the comic Sally Forth.  This morning's strip says it all.  It wasn't the visiting family that did me in.  It was the traveling with the flu. But I think I'm almost well because I (finally) Want To Want To.

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