Patty Rabbit was a girl in my grade school with dark hair and thick glasses. We talked about ideas and enjoyed each other's company. I wish I could have kept her as a lifelong friend but my mother told me to stay away from her because her parents were Communists.
I vividly remember her house even tho I was only there a couple times. It had dark cedar planks on the outside and the walls inside were lined with books. I had never seen so many books. Our house was modern with beige furniture and beige walls that were so important to the good housekeepers in the 1950's. My mother spent hours deciding on just the right color of beige. The pillows were the only splash of color in the living room. She really loved interior decorating she told me today at 93 and I can't fault her for that. She grew up poor and drab in a small house in Indiana and really felt special in her beige house.
However she told me not to go the the Rabbit's house because the PTA had announced that they were Communists. I find this shocking today but it seemed just part of the culture in those times. My mother was very concerned with reputation and I never thought of disobeying her. Patty Rabbit and I lost touch and now I miss her.
It wasn't until later that I questioned this thing called 'reputation'. Who exactly was I trying to impress? I thought surely there must be people who were a little different and possibly they would have other ideas than the norm. If I had a bad reputation with one group maybe I would just have to switch groups. That started me on a path that led to many twists and questions about what is good and bad behavior. I don't take my mother's word for much anymore. I choose my own friends.
What is interesting tho is that my father thought Communism was a valid concept. He liked the idea of everyone being treated equally. He knew enough to keep these thoughts to himself but I remember him laughingly talking about the way communism seemed so fair. He and my mom even traveled to Russia and I am so glad he got to see that part of the world. He loved the clean streets and the safe environment. All the trouble makers were locked up with very little crime. He liked that.
Isn't it funny how we grow up thru so many conflicting ideas and perceptions and only when we look back on moments of our life do we see patterns and marvel at who we have become and why?
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Brianne Calypso
SagCap
Brazen Princess
Elizabeth Priddy
Doug Socks
Painting The Stars
Salon.com
Comments
rated with hugs
HUGGGGGGGG
DEATH TO THE RICH!
Compare that to what you found 50 years ago.
America is changing...
He died in the mid 60's and his will distributed his sizeable savings and the deed to an oil well in Oklahoma equally to every person he was related to. I took my share and bought a reel to reel tape recorder.
Chamberlain compromised at Munich. Not all compromise is good. I know a District Attorney who persuades Public Defenders to compromise and get innocent kids to plea guilty to crimes they didn't commit, in order to not risk jail time. Scared kids, poor, do this so as to not risk a trial, which they think is scary and aggressive (chances are, they would win, though, because there is no evidence against them that either the judge or jury would believe).
That said, the PD compromises, the Defendent compromises and he winds up getting a criminal record that precludes him from getting a job, social benefits, food stamps or a student loan. All because of a RAW COMPROMISE or a RAW DEAL.
Not all compromise is good. Sometimes its an easy, comfy way out, when a just-fight is what's needed.
Bread was never scarce, and was actually very abundant, under Kruschev.
Lezlie
“From each according to his ability and to each according to their need” – do you really understand what these words meant in the former Soviet Union? Let me explain them to you – they meant that everyone, who was able to survive that great time where “The Soviets had a much better standard of living than the US from 1945 to 1977, if you include things other than dishwashers and color tvs”, as Ernesto Che Guevara said, were equal in misery that their rulers enforced on them. Enforced by killing 50 millions of Russian, rot them in concentration (oh, excuse me, in working) camps, put small kids in the orphanages where most of them died of hunger (but who cared – they were children of state enemies), raped women, tortured innocent people the way your little brains would not even imagine, kept everyone on a short leash by making them spy on each other because that was the only way to survive.
Of course we had a much better standard of living – we stayed in endless lines for everything – starting from a piece of smelling sausage to a bag of rotten potatoes. We lived in communal apartments where sometimes ten or more families shared one kitchen and one bathroom. If we had just two or three families living in the same apartment, we considered ourselves lucky. Our salaries were so great that to be able to buy a winter coat for a child, we had somehow to put aside every penny we earned in a month. A pair of winter boots (and I am talking about Leningrad where winter boots were a necessity) costs at least a month-and- a half of our earnings and we were lucky when we were able to buy these boots made in some “great” countries, like Poland, or East Germany - the ones that were available were not wearable – they were made on Soviet factories. We waked up angry, we went to bed angry. But we knew that we lived in the best country in the world – because, of course, in the United States people were dying on the streets of hunger, and we, as again Ernesto Che Guevara said, had abundance of bread. “Bread was never scarce, and was actually very abundant, under Kruschev.” I wish you, Che, to live in that country and to eat that bread as much as your little heart desires. Sorry I missed the day of your resurrection – otherwise, I’d do my best to be there and kill you with my own hands again, killer you.