Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI

** ** **

The easy answer is to proclaim that woman’s mission in life is to be a mother. Most women want to be mothers, but they were also trained for many other professions. Is is possible to be a good chemist and a good mother? Can a mother be in two places at the same time? What about the needs of the children? And what about the country’s need for talent of all kinds? If women were intended by nature to be mothers, why does nature also endow them with intellectual gifts equal to those of the men? And what right have men to ask their mates to deny their talents and devote themselves to housekeeping?

Some people have suggested that a woman should get a full education, then marry, raise her children, and after about ten years, go back to her career. The children would then be taken care of by some member of the family, or a maid. The chances of resuming her career after ten years, however, are not very good.

Perhaps the husbands of such women should stay home and raise the children. The husband as breadwinner is only a convention based on the assumption that he is the stronger of the two. In this age of technology we don’t need strong people; we need skilled people.

Perhaps there should be all-day schools that would take care of the children from 7am to 6pm.

Perhaps women should postpone going to college until after their children are old enough to be looked after by others.

Perhaps those college girls who feel very intensely about a life devoted to science or the arts should be encouraged not to get married at all.

At any rate, we have worked ourselves into a situation we did not anticipate when we proclaimed liberty and justice for all and built an educational system to promote it. Perhaps we did not truly believe that woman could become the equal of man. Well, she is, and, in many instances, superior. Man had better find a just way of giving her her due.

There are many fine mothers who want to stay at home but are forced by economic necessity to neglect their children and go out to work. Society should subsidize these women adequately and keep them at home. We cannot have Papa on the night shift and Mama on the day shift, leaving kids to shift for themselves.

There are also many mothers who use work as an excuse to get away from the responsibilities of home. They rationalize themselves into a job that will provide the “luxuries” they claim the children need. Most children would rather have the mother at home than any “luxury.” A key to the house is not a substitute for the welcome of a mother at the door. Unwarranted mother absenteeism is an unhealthy condition in the house.I am not talking about leaving the children with Grandma or some other competent and devoted person while the parents grab a few hours or days together. I do refer to chronic neglect in so-called “rich” homes where children of educated parents are being raised by semiliterate strangers. It does not make sense for an intelligent mother, presumably aware of the emotional, aesthetic, spiritual and physical needs of children to turn hers over to the care of a housekeeper. One of the most revealing comments was made by a youngster who, when his mother said, “Don’t tell me what to do. I know how to bring up children,” replied, “You do? Were you once a maid, Mom?”

** ** **

It’s unfortunate that in the half-century since this book was published, we seem to be no closer to resolving these issues. In many ways we’ve lost ground: instead of working together for a mutually beneficial solution, resentment and hostility seem to be mounting on all sides.

One thing I do take exception to is Mr. Levenson’s question, “If women were intended by nature to be mothers, why does nature also endow them with intellectual gifts equal to those of the men?” Is he suggesting that parenting isn’t an intellectual pursuit? That intelligence and wisdom and knowledge are wasted resources in the upbringing of the next generation of humanity? I don’t think that’s true AT ALL. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Another thing I’d like to add is that the father can make or break a mother’s sense of fulfillment and contentment in her role as homemaker. In my opinion, any man who gets his wife pregnant and then abandons her to her domestic fate while heedlessly continuing to enjoy freedom and recreation without her has earned himself a spot in the Special Hell. If both husband and wife aren’t ready to shift their priorities to accommodate the needs of children, then they should not become parents. Period. It’s not like the world is underpopulated, or needs more neglected children.

I could rant almost indefinitely on the subject, but this post is already too long. I’d enjoy hearing other people’s perspectives, though.

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

** ** **

For the college graduate, male, the world today offers great opportunities. For the college graduate, female, there are almost equal opportunities, and more than equal agonies. The problem becomes more acute each year as more and more women attempt to combine careers with matrimony only to find out that the problems of home and children fall to her. What happens to the right to self-fulfillment, which is as much hers as her husband’s? She was promised the world. She is a free, thinking, educated, emancipated woman, with a message to deliver. She is different from her mother, whose world was limited to the home. She is at home in the arts, music, literature, science and philosophy. She is, in fact, at home everywhere but at home. At the age of twenty-one, holding a diploma full of career promises in one hand and a marriage license full of romantic promises in the other, she is carried over the threshold — into the kitchen. This is the true “commencement.”

For a year or two everything works out fine for the young couple. They are both working. He picks up the newspaper; she picks up the TV dinner. There are quick fun meals, rich desserts, much talk about their respective jobs, and much honeymooning. This is the college dream come true.

Then comes the baby, and with it the explosion of the equal-rights principle. Motherhood is the one career for which she has had virtually no training. While the possibility of such an eventuality was vaguely mentioned in college, it was just one of those remote bridges to be crossed if and when she got to it.

She is now trapped at home. He is out in the free world. She becomes jealous of his freedom. He comes home at 6pm to greet this prematurely old young lady, her dark hair highlighted with farina sprinkles, a strong-smelling kid on her arm, and anything but a Mona Lisa smile on her lips. She thinks, four years in college for this? He takes one look at her and he thinks, Oh, boy. What I married! and politely kisses her between the smudges. If she can afford full-time help she becomes jealous of the child’s natural affection for the mother-substitute. The child, naturally, has learned to love the hand that feeds it. The mother is afraid of losing the love of her child. She wants to be a mother. She also wants to have a career. Grandma had a saying about this dichotomy: “You can’t sit at two weddings with one fanny.”

Her job is more difficult than her husband’s. He has the greatest “out” in the world. He is making a living for the family. He can leave the scene of the crime every morning with the approval of the whole world. She cannot. She would trade places with him gladly, but she makes a noble attempt at homemaking, a career which, she hopes, will eventually provide the same satisfactions as the chemistry laboratory.

She gets down to the business of being an “enlightened” mother, of fulfilling the multiple roles expected of her: wife, mistress, and delightful companion in the evening: and, with the rising sun, chauffeur, shopper, interior decorator, crabgrass puller, den mother, PTA-er, bazaar chairlady. She appears to herself as a cubist painting of a mother and child: two heads, four eyes, three ears, four bosoms, one baby, mandolins, pots, pans, microscopes, diplomas and the death mask of a college girl.

Meanwhile, back at the lab, there’s her husband, the all-American boy, whose unmarried secretary looks like his wife used to. She’s pretty and young and calm. No kid has vomited onto her typewriter, and she has the freedom, time and availability that his wife has sacrificed — in the service of his home.

The frightened wife picks up the challenge. She’s got to look and behave like a seductive secretary. She colors her hair, lowers her neckline, heightens her heels, shortens her dresses, lengthens her eyelashes to re-entice her husband, whose sense is coming out with his hair. He thinks he has remained handsome, irresistible, the eternal Don Juan. The wife knows he’s behaving like an idiot, but she mercifully keeps the news from him.

The conflict in the mind and heart of the college-educated married woman is only one more aspect of the problem of individual fulfillment of one’s greatest gifts. To deny selfhood to a woman because she is married and a mother leads to profound unhappiness, a nagging sense of “might have been,” and too often a resentment against the husband and children who lured her away from her true mission in life. The tortuous division of loyalties inflicted upon this woman by our ambiguous promises of equality of opportunity for both sexes leads many women to the psychiatrist.

** ** **

More on this subject tomorrow.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Quick note: When this book was written, the polite term for a black person was “Negro.” That word has become politically incorrect, even offensive, but in context it’s obvious that the author meant it respectfully. Hopefully it will be accepted here in the spirit in which it was used, and give no offense.

** ** **

The founding fathers said: “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”

Christianity says: “The Lord make you to increase and abound in love toward one another and toward all men.”

Judaism says, “What thou thyself hatest, do to no man.”

Confucianism says, “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do unto others.”

Islam says, “Help one another in righteousness and piety.”

How, against this background of lofty principles to which all men pretend to subscribe, do we explain to our children the petty hatreds, slurs, restrictions and humiliations inflicted upon those singled out as “undesirables” by self-appointed “desirables?”

Of all obstacles to a human being’s growth to full stature prejudice is the worst. It destroys more individuals than war. It is hereditary, not in the blood stream, but in the stream of conversation within the home. Out of the mouths of babes come adult slanders, repeated word for word.

How do you go about explaining to your child the meaning of words like spick, dago, wop, sheen, kike, nigger, hunk, polack, shanty, mockie, hebe, chink, coon, greaser? You might refer him to some glossary where he will get nice, sterile definitions with all the pain removed, or you might refer him to a living victim with all the pain still in him.

What a horror it must be for a child to discover that his skin is the wrong color. How can he liberate himself from the despised skin? Of all disadvantages, this, the terrible disadvantage of color, was the one my brothers and I did not have to overcome. A child learns early in life that color hatred is not just skin deep. It goes clear through to the marrow of his self-esteem. Hate my skin, hate me. Often he comes to accept his oppressor’s judgement and ends up hating himself and his group. What an iniquity in a civilized world to burden a newborn child with the hatred of ages.

Society has no right to mislead any child by promising him rewards for good conduct which it will not deliver. If he is treated like the experimental guinea pig in the maze he will behave like the guinea pig. A reward, usually a piece of cheese, is placed at the end of the tricky passageway. The guinea pig will make hundreds of learning attempts until he finally finds the right road to the reward. However, if after he has succeeded in learning the right road, you remove the cheese, even a guinea pig can have a nervous breakdown or become violent. The child who makes every effort to learn the “right way,” who strains to achieve the reward only to find it cynically withdrawn at the last moment, will break down. If we offer a reward for virtue we must offer it without consideration of skin color, language or religion, or we will reap the reward of violence.

This aberration called prejudice is an ancient malady and no one is completely immune to it. Even those most often victimized by prejudice may nurture prejudices of their own, perpetuating the vicious cycle of unreasoning, sick hate: white against black, black against white, nation against nation, neighborhood against neighborhood, man against man.

…The violated minority can appeal for justice but the final solution of the problem will have to come from the oppressor. Basically, anti-Semitism is a Christian problem. The Negro problem must finally be solved by the white man. After all, who done it?

Shedding a prejudice is an agonizing experience. An illogical hatred nourished for hundreds of years for whatever reason — religious, economic, or political — finally becomes a mass mental disease. The white people of this country are predominately favorable to the Negro’s demands for equality, yet many cannot shed their prejudice. When they say “The Negro is not ready yet,” what they mean is “I am not ready yet.”

It will take longer to unravel the knots of hatred in the white man than it will to achieve equality for the Negro. I have heard white men of good will say, “I don’t want to hate him. I hate myself for hating him. I don’t know why I hate him.” One woman’s deep-rooted fear of the Negro came to this: “Who is she to hate me? I am somebody. When she becomes somebody I will be nobody. If she moves next door we all become nobody. We can’t all be somebody.”

I am concerned here primarily with the effect of prejudice on the chances of the newborn babe delivering his message to the world. What are the odds for a kid born with the unpopular skin of the century? How can we afford the possible loss of this child’s talents, one of which may lead to a cure for cancer, or perhaps even a cure for the greatest killer of them all — prejudice? What might happen to the world if for one generation we did not teach our children to hate?

Part I

Part II

Part III

** ** **

There are many kinds of intelligence. At the moment, academic intelligence is being honored far above vocational intelligence. Only when the teachers and parents will come to truly believe it will the child also believe that his talent, whatever it is, is good, that he will be respected for his labors, that a job well done in any field of human endeavor is truly an achievement, whether it is cerebral or manual. Tribute is long overdue the future tillers, toilers, makers and menders who will keep our physical environment from falling apart at the seams.

We owe an apology to the nonacademically-minded young man who is not college bound. How often do the newspapers print the pictures of vocational school graduates who have made the most of their mechanical gifts? In June of each year long columns appear in the newspapers listing the names of the Westinghouse, Merit, and other scholarship winners. Rarely are the achievements of the vocational school youngsters similarly publicized. Why no fanfare for the future plumbers, painters, bakers, mechanics? We are not fooling the kids. Is the mechanic, by implication, a less important human being than the scientist? We keep on asking, “Who is going to do the plumbing?” Certainly not any young man whose honest labor is not respected as much as that of the scientist.

The members of juvenile gangs come mostly from the ranks of the nonacademically-minded youngsters who resent their exclusion from places of honor reserved for the “smart kids.” In retaliation they create honor rolls of their own, social orders in which they can achieve positions of prestige. The very names of the street gangs indicate their hunger for status: the Dukes, the Kings, the Royal Ambassadors, the Princes, the Lords, the Barons.

** ** **

Debora here: This is something I feel strongly about. There’s been a general exodus in America from manual jobs to corporate “office jobs,” which has created its own set of problems. One, there aren’t enough good office jobs to go around, so a lot of young people are finding themselves buried in college debt with no employment prospects to show for it. Two, we’re running short of skilled laborers. Example: here in California the roads are absolute crap. Even freshly-laid asphalt is rough, bumpy and uneven. It’s like no one knows how to properly build a road anymore. We need to woo young Americans back into skilled trades before the infrastructure completely falls apart. Three, the lack of social respect for manual labor has led to an appalling decline in pay scales and benefits. People like to say, “We hire illegal immigrants to do the job that Americans won’t do,” but that’s not true at all. Most young Americans would be happy to take a manual labor job if it payed a living wage, offered reasonable benefits and didn’t treat its employees like disposable trash. Four, all these sedentary office jobs are wreaking holy hell on our collective health. As a nation we are overweight, under-exercised, depressed and discontent. Most of those miserable cubicle slaves would be astonished to learn how much happier they’d feel after a day of satisfying physical work that fits their particular talents. But they’ve been told that that kind of work is beneath them, and they believe it. And don’t even get me started on all the sweatshops in other countries manufacturing virtually every product that Americans use or wear, because it’s cheaper to enslave children and pollute countries with looser industrial regulations than it is to practice domestic environmental responsibility while giving workers safe conditions, fair pay, reasonable benefits and humane treatment.

I…seem to have hijacked Sam Levenson’s post, so I’ll stop here. More tomorrow.

Part I

Part II

** ** **

Once we have done everything to insure the child’s recognition of himself, we have to make clear to him the relationship between his self and the selves of others. The nature of the individual’s involvement with other individuals cannot be taught too early, since this involvement starts with the child’s first breath and does not end until his last.

In a society which believes in education for all, the ultimate objective becomes living with all, even with those you don’t like. Social justice should have nothing to do with personal likes and dislikes. The Scripture says “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” It does not say you have to like him, nor does it say “See footnote A regarding color, shape of nose, texture of hair, ethnic classification.”

…We make much of “toughening our youth.” They are tough enough. What they need is softening. Our education is heart-less. It is more important for the child’s first reader to say “Love, Dick, love” than “Jump, Dick, jump.”

…We underestimate the ability of our children to understand mercy, sympathy, and generosity. Just as they can be taught that flowers are pretty and dresses are pretty, they can also be taught that behavior can be beautiful or ugly, sweet or sour, kind or unkind, just or unjust, tender or cruel. Self-expression includes what not to say as well as what to say, and what you say is more important than how well you say it. It is just as vital to approach the world with an open heart as with an open mind. Boys should not be taught that it is unmanly to cry. Men should not be ashamed to weep at injustice. When men will weep at the horrors of current history the world may become better. The world needs a good cry.

…Every lesson should end in a moral and should answer the question, “In what way, directly or indirectly, does this lesson make for better human beings, a better country, a better world?” The acquisition of facts and skills for their own sake is generally accepted as education. Knowledge can be destructive of all that the human race considers sacred. The soul needs education as much as the mind.

…What good does it do a young American to know the subjunctive if he feels no sympathetic pain for a foreign child of his own age who goes to bed hungry every night of his life? The travel posters on the classroom walls never showed such scenes. Who would travel three thousand miles to see a little girl with a twisted spine carrying her sickly little sister on her back? Let no child be called “educated” until he has seen and discussed the ugly pictures and made some moral commitment to the advancement of other human beings beside himself, a commitment not to be his brother’s keeper, but his brother’s brother.

The world has had its fill of educated brutes, “brilliant” men who have led great masses of people back to barbarism. I have seen as much personal cruelty among college professors as amongst illiterates. Personal inhumanity is not unusual in college departments which teach the “Humanities.” I learned this at the tender age of twenty-one when my own college elected me to the Spanish Honor Society, but dissuaded me from applying for a full-time teaching position because the department “policy” at that time was opposed to “inbreeding,” a policy which at that same time did not apply to qualified students of other faiths.

]]> http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/everything-but-money-part-iii-on-social-development/feed/ 0 dsilkotch coexist1 http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/everything-but-money-part-ii-on-finding-ones-voice/ http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/everything-but-money-part-ii-on-finding-ones-voice/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2012 23:12:58 +0000 Debora http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/?p=3527 Continue reading →]]> This is an excerpt from “Everything But Money” by Sam Levenson. Read Part I here.

** ** **

I regard overcrowded classrooms as a major menace to individuality. It is possible to educate masses but quite impossible to teach children in masses — especially little ones. I was involved in this futile procedure as a public-school teacher…I have seen the lifeless faces of children whose selves had never been revealed even to themselves, whose unique message will never be delivered. We should hold annual services at the grave of the Unknown Child to remind us of the millions of living children who never really come alive, whose souls remain in limbo in spite of our humanitarian declarations about the sanctity of the individual. Never to discover one’s self is never to be free. The road to personal freedom goes from cognition to self-cognition, to self-recognition, to the supreme joy of recognition by others.

A “class” is an arbitrary grouping of seemingly homogenous beings, no two of which are any more alike than two snowflakes. If it were possible to place children under a microscope, one would find the least of them inspiringly beautiful, distinctively designed. When we gather too many, flakes or children, the loveliness of individuality is lost and what we get is all white, the ultimate in neutrality.

There should be no more than fifteen children in any class. This is now being done for the “special” child. All children are special. They are not created equal. They are created different. There is hardly a child without some gift worth developing, some manifestation of his special being. All gifts are equally important. Each child’s contribution to the human race is to be celebrated with much rejoicing. It is the teacher’s duty to discover the seed of possibility in each child, to talent-scout the souls of little children, to insure to growth and fruition of what is best in this child, whether it is a talent for science, music, art, plumbing or gardening — to nurture his innate ability, to help him toward self-determination through a heightened awareness of his abilities by supplying educational hearing aids to amplify the inner voice for those who cannot hear it by themselves. His voice, once identified, becomes his purpose in life; this will be the voice that will speak his message. In an overcrowded class, as in any class, there is a good chance that only the loud voices will be heard.

In a society which claims to value individuality we have come to place so high a premium upon conformity in children that any deviant from the “norm” is promptly pounced upon as maladjusted. This, too, is a penalty imposed upon the exceptional child because of the large class. The child who feels, talks, thinks and behaves like all the rest is “doing fine.” Like the chameleon, he has learned to camouflage his identity to keep out of trouble. He presents no problem to the teacher. A good teacher should be disturbed when a child accepts everything in his environment, or even worse, becomes a hypocrite, junior grade, and feigns acceptance for fear of being declared an eccentric. The maladjusted child may be the true leader of his group. The fact that nobody follows him does not prove that he is wrong. No child should be declared maladjusted until we have given serious consideration to the possibility that we may be maladjusted, not he. He may be the one who is right, honest, sensitive, profound, and motivated by higher standards than the rest of us. Is it morally right to require adjustment to a society which is maladjusted? It is possible, even in a democracy, that the majority may be wrong. Inability to accept the status quo is not necessarily a sign of weakness. If the founding fathers of this country had all been well-adjusted we would still be a British colony.

…This country abounds in college graduates who have not yet found themselves, bewildered young men and women who wander from campus to campus in search of a “major,” not yet aware of the fact that the real major is one’s self.

Too many people end up earning a living, very often an excellent one, at work they do not love, work that bears little relation to their talents, or at best, does not “interfere” too much with their private lives. The world is full of these unhappy successfuls: doctors who should have been artists, and vice versa; dentists who should have been shoemakers, and vice versa; lawyers who should have been drummers, and vice versa. All are vocational misfits and malcontents who during their schooling were either separated from their talents or never were introduced to them. Ideally, a man should have only one regret about his work — that it ends. He should hate death primarily because it leaves his work unfinished. We are a hobby-happy country because so many men do not find joy in their work. They are split personalities living out lives not truly their own. They will never be at peace with themselves.

]]> http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/everything-but-money-part-ii-on-finding-ones-voice/feed/ 0 dsilkotch Snowflake-vector-material-22 http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/everything-but-money-part-i/ http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/everything-but-money-part-i/#comments Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:14:21 +0000 Debora http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/?p=3516 Continue reading →]]> I’m reading an amazing non-fiction book right now. It’s called “Everything But Money,” by Sam Levenson, and it was first published in 1949. The edition I’m holding is the fourteenth printing, published in 1966, and it contains mentions of events as recent as 1965, so it must have been updated as it was reprinted.

The book is in four parts. In Part 1 the author (who was born in 1911) describes his childhood in the poorest slums of Brooklyn, NY. His parents were Jewish immigrants, I think from Russia or thereabouts, and they had eight kids altogether while barely managing to stave off starvation under conditions of the most abject poverty. Although “abject” might not be the right word: his parents never saw a lack of money as any kind of excuse to fail in life, and they put a great deal of effort into their children’s education and moral guidance. The author grew up in a family that was financially destitute but very rich in love and support. Because of this, he and his seven siblings all overcame the poverty of their childhood and became successful in their adult lives.

In Part 2 the author talks about how different the experience of family life and parenting his own children is in the environment of middle class affluence and national prosperity of the 1950′s and ’60′s. He wonders if in some ways the benefits of “the good life” are actually detrimental to the healthy development of the younger generations. He talks about the ways in which society is failing those generations. By modern (2012) standards, the America he lives in sounds impossibly sane and prosperous, a sad reminder of how far we’ve fallen since those post-WWII glory days. It leaves the reader with the wistful sense that if more people had thought the way he did things might have gotten better instead of worse.

Part 3 is basically a personal monologue describing the author’s own outlook on society in general and parenting in particular. I don’t know what Part 4 is about, because I haven’t gotten there yet. But Part 3 keeps blowing my mind in the best possible way. I’d like to share some excerpts from it here, over the next few days, because I think in these modern times those philosophies and values are more relevant than ever.

So here’s my first offering:

I believe that each newborn child arrives on earth with a message to deliver to mankind. Clenched in his little fist is some particle of yet unrevealed truth, some missing clue, which may solve the enigma of man’s destiny. He has a limited amount of time to fulfill his mission and he will never get a second chance — nor will we. He may be our last hope. He must be treated as top sacred.

In a cosmos in which all things appear to have a meaning, what is his meaning? We who are older and presumably wiser must find the key to unlock the secret he carries within himself. The lock cannot be forced. Our mission is to exercise the kind of loving care which will prompt the child to open his fist and offer up his truth, his individuality, the irreducible atom of his self. We must provide the kind of environment in which the child will joyfully deliver his message through complete self-fulfillment.

When he is born we give him a public name. This provides only tentative identification until he finds his own true name, his potential at birth so completely realized that he and his work and his name become one. To have lived without having “made a name for himself” is virtually to have died at birth. We cannot allow him to be born a VIP and to die anonymously, often ignominiously. We cannot afford the loss of a single soul. We have already lost too many.

** ** **

I’ll post more as I get the chance. Meanwhile, the book is currently out of print but you can read it online here for free.

]]> http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/everything-but-money-part-i/feed/ 0 dsilkotch EBM http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/our-grand-adventure-part-iii/ http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/our-grand-adventure-part-iii/#comments Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:16:48 +0000 Debora http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/?p=3478 Continue reading →]]> Part I

Part II

**************************

Monday’s hike was my favorite part of the whole trip: we travelled west from the Village along the Rim Trail to a spot called Hermit’s Rest about 7 miles away. Some of the group opted to take the shuttle, which ran on a separate road not far from the trail and stopped at eight big overlook points along the rim before stopping at Hermit’s Rest and looping back to the Village. There were ten of us that chose to walk, and it was a fun group. The trail was pretty and the views were amazing; it was just a great hike.

We ended up taking a shuttle the last three miles or so to Hermit’s rest, where we found an old (built in 1904) structure that had been converted into a gift shop and snack bar. Underneath all the modern clutter the primitive design was wonderful.

And now it was afternoon, and the one thing no one wanted to do was risk missing the train back to Williams, so we caught a shuttle back to the Village. The kids and I collected our carry-on stuff from the Lodge and then walked along the Rim Trail back toward the depot. We’d given ourselves plenty of time, so we stopped for ice cream along the way.

Luke had been wanting to look inside the Hopi House (like Hermit’s Rest it was built in 1904, designed by Mary Colter and eventually converted into a gift shop) ever since we’d arrived in the Village, so we stopped there next and had a look around. It was two stories high and crammed full of shiny merchandise, but the structure itself looked like a house I could see myself living in. It reminded me of my grandfather’s simple and beautiful hand-built shack, but with more fireplaces.

And then it was time to head down to the train depot…

…and settle in for the ride back to Williams.

We saw deer and elk from the train, but I wasn’t quick enough with my camera to catch them.

At one point we were overtaken and boarded by armed bandits.

They did a bit of comedy schtick that was pretty funny even to a cantankerous old fart like myself. The three of them came down the aisle demanding “money, jewels and prized possessions” from random passengers, mostly focusing on kids. When the first guy got to me and Luke, my boy dramatically turned his pockets inside-out to demonstrate his possessionless condition. While I was still laughing at that, the big gunman moved to the seats behind us, and I heard him suddenly exclaim in genuine surprise and bafflement, “She hissed at me!” I looked back and saw Elizabeth clutching her beloved picture of Espio to her chest and looking like the first robber that tried to lay a hand on her “prized possession” might lose it at the wrist. The bandit moved on without another word, and I didn’t blame him.

Sometime after the train robbers had left the car, Fiddle Guy returned. He told all the same jokes and played all the same bits of music as he had on Sunday, and they were still lame.

We rolled into the Williams Depot around 5:45pm, bought an obligatory Grand Canyon Railway Christmas ornament and a tee-shirt, and loaded up the Saturn for the long drive home.

I made one big mistake on this outing, and that was not printing out the driving instructions in BOTH directions. I didn’t think about it until we were already in Arizona, and then I figured it wouldn’t really matter because I could just follow my printed instructions except in reverse. The trouble was that without actual exit names and numbers, it wasn’t as simple as it seemed. Specifically, it turns out that there is more than one way to get from I-40W to US-95S, and I managed to take the wrong one. By the time I’d realized my mistake I figured I might as well just keep going, since I knew I had to be on the 95 eventually anyway. The worrisome thing was, there was no sign of civilization for miles and miles and the AZ/CA border did not appear to be anywhere near where we’d left it on our way to Williams. I confess, I was beginning to quietly freak out a little. But Luke and Elizabeth responded to the situation with a combination of stoic acceptance and cheerful sense of adventure, and pretty soon we were making jokes about finally making it across the Arizona border only to find ourselves in New Mexico. If I have to be lost in the middle of nowhere, my kids are the people I want to be lost with.

Eventually we reached a town, and I stopped at a gas station to fill up and find out where the hell we were in relation to the border. So that’s when I found out that my poor choice of exits had brought us to Lake Havasu, well north of where we should have been, but that staying on the 95 was still our best bet. We eventually crossed the border in Parker and got back to Anza without any further incidents. The next day I google-mapped our detour and learned that I’d inadvertently added about 150 miles to our journey home. The baffling part was that it didn’t really take us that much longer at all. We left Williams at about 6:30 Monday afternoon and were home by 1am Tuesday morning, so about 6.5 hours. According to Google it should have taken over nine hours to travel home the way we did. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.

[EDIT: And now that I've had more sleep and checked the route again, ACCURATELY this time, I see that my improvised route only added about 15 miles to the trip. That would explain why it didn't take us much longer. Whew.]

We slept like dead people, but surprisingly had no trouble getting up the next morning and getting the kids off to school. As eventful and sleepless as our outing had been, it left us more energized than exhausted.

I’ll say it again: the Grand Canyon is amazing. It really is one of the great wonders of the natural world, something everyone should see at least once. The kids haven’t stopped talking about it since we got back.

Still…it’s good to be home.

]]> http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/our-grand-adventure-part-iii/feed/ 4 dsilkotch DSCF7467 DSCF7491 DSCF7433 DSCF7499 DSCF7539 DSCF7506 DSCF7557 DSCF7523 DSCF7561 DSCF7568 DSCF7581 DSCF7587 DSCF7616 DSCF7646 DSCF7653 http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/our-grand-adventure-part-ii/ http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/our-grand-adventure-part-ii/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:15:28 +0000 Debora http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/?p=3454 Continue reading →]]> Read Part I Here

The South Rim of the Grand Canyon is at 7000ft elevation. The weather was as perfect as it possibly could have been for hiking, but the thinner atmosphere meant that temps dropped below freezing at night and then warmed back up when the sun rose. It was strong, high-altitude sunshine, so even though the official high said 60º in the shade, it felt like 75º in direct sunlight. Wearing layers was key. That first day at the Canyon was when I realized that early October is a much better time time to visit than December: we would have been freezing our behinds off if we’d stuck to the original plan!

Sunday afternoon we met up with the other group members that wanted to hike along the Rim Trail east of the Village. Despite the altitude and not having slept much for the past two nights, the kids and I were bouncy with energy and eager to keep moving.

Once Elizabeth got past her initial amazement at the sheer enormity of the thing, she quickly transitioned to finding places where there was no railing or barrier between the trail and the abyss, and then finding a rocky outcropping to stand on where a fall would mean certain death, and then going out and standing on it, thusly:

I still haven’t decided whether I’m a bad parent for allowing this, or a good parent for encouraging her to live life to the fullest. Twenty years from now I’ll know which one it was, I suppose.

Luke found the Canyon actively intimidating. He was fine as long as there was a nice sturdy railing or wall between himself and the drop, but he wanted nothing to do with the unshielded outcroppings. I actually have very few pictures of Luke near the rim, and in the ones I do have he’s either on the safe side of a railing or wall (and if the wall is too low he still looks uncomfortable)…

…or there’s no barrier and I have a casual death grip on him to keep him in the photo.

Anyway. After the hike on Sunday we checked into our rooms to clean up for dinner. The group had reservations in the Arizona Room at Bright Angel Lodge, but it (and every other restaurant in the Village) was so crowded that we ended up waiting for an hour in the bitterly cold dark before our table was ready. The food was good though, and the portions were so huge that the kids and I took half our meals back to our room with us and had them for breakfast the next morning. And as we walked back to Maswik Lodge that night a small herd of deer walked fearlessly past us to graze on the Bright Angel lawns. I wish I’d had my camera with me, but I hadn’t brought it to the restaurant.

Again, some of us were ready for bed earlier than others. The kids and I were sound asleep by the time our roommate returned. This time I was so tired that I woke up briefly when she came in and immediately went back to sleep. But at some point after that she actually woke me up on purpose to ask me something. I was so groggy I barely remember it, but (as I learned the next morning) apparently she had become separated from the people she was walking back to the Lodge with, and while she was alone she had come across an elk, and the experience had unnerved her, and she felt the need to recenter herself with some Buddhist chants, and APPARENTLY I told her that would be fine. So, yeah. Chanting. In the wee hours of the morning. Even Elizabeth couldn’t sleep through that. It seemed to go on for hours, although it was probably more like thirty minutes. When she finally stopped and went to bed I fell asleep so fast that I never even heard the snoring, but apparently Luke wasn’t so fortunate: once again he didn’t get much sleep.

To describe Luke as “surly” the next morning would be a considerable understatement. As ordered, he did not say anything to our roommate, but once we were away from her and out with the group members who were hiking with us that day he complained bitterly about every little thing, and the unfairness of life in general. For the first hour or so he was just not much fun to be around.

But. Monday’s hike turned out to be insanely fun. We were following the Rim Trail to the west this time, which was woodsier and less populated, and led to a series of breathtaking vistas. Even poor sleep-deprived Luke eventually recovered his good spirits in the evergreen-scented air, and he fell in with a younger boy from our group who also liked to keep a healthy distance from steep drops. They kept each other company, while Elizabeth and I spent the day terrifying each other by walking out onto increasing dangerous rocky outcroppings.

The West Rim Trail also offered wonderful views of the Village.

And this is getting pretty long, so I think I’ll stop here and continue tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Read Part III Here

]]> http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/our-grand-adventure-part-ii/feed/ 0 dsilkotch DSCF7382 DSCF7388 DSCF7392 DSCF7397 DSCF7371 DSCF7384 DSCF7514 DSCF7476 DSCF7436 DSCF7483 DSCF7457 DSCF7493 http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/our-grand-adventure-part-i/ http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/our-grand-adventure-part-i/#comments Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:52:21 +0000 Debora http://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/?p=3435 Continue reading →]]> This week the kids and I got to cross two more items off our bucket list: traveling somewhere by train…

…and seeing the Grand Canyon.

When we first started talking about this trip, we’d planned to do it sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The kids would be out of school, the garden would be in low-maintenance mode, and it wouldn’t be too hot to hike the Rim. I mentioned the idea to another mom in my hiking group, and she must have mentioned it to others, because pretty soon it had become an official group outing. This was awesome, for several reasons. One, I’m realistic about the risks of a single mom and two kids traveling by themselves, and a group feels safer. Two, it’s more fun to hike with other people. And the biggest reason, the lady who organized the trip did such an amazing job of planning and finding discounts, that we ended up doing WAY more fun stuff than the kids and I had originally planned, for hundreds of dollars less than our basic plan would have cost! It was unbelievable how inexpensive and FUN this trip was. The only downside was that the trip was scheduled for October rather than December, which actually turned out to be an upside, as we realized later.

We left Anza on Saturday morning. Most of the group were carpooling from the Temecula or Hemet areas, or taking Amtrak from Riverside CA to Williams AZ, but it made more sense for the kids and I to drive straight from Anza to Williams via Palm Springs, rather than detouring in the opposite direction to follow the others.

The weather was autumn-brisk, and this was our holiday trip after all, so we blasted Christmas music the whole way there. Trans-Siberian Orchestra makes the miles fly past, and the drive felt shorter than the six or so hours it took. We arrived at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel around 4pm, checked into our room, met our roommate (sharing rooms was part of the package) and then explored the grounds. We found a heated indoor swimming pool and a jacuzzi, and wished we’d brought our swimsuits. Then we found a gym, stocked with a dozen different kinds of workout and weightlifting equipment. We had it mostly to ourselves, so the kids had to try every single step-trainer, spinner, cross-trainer, weight press and treadmill in the place.

At 6:00 we met with the rest of the group for dinner. One of the really cool things about this outing was that nearly everything was covered by the incredibly low package price that we’d already paid, including dinner Saturday night and breakfast Sunday morning at the Railway Hotel Restaurant. It was buffet style, so no shortage of food. After dinner the whole group relaxed in front of the fire in the beautiful lobby, and discussed hiking plans for Sunday and Monday.

Brief tangent: the furniture in the hotel lobby was enormous. When I sat on one of the sofas there I felt like a child. Luke and Elizabeth looked like toddlers.

That fireplace in the photo is HUGE, but it looks normal-sized next to that giant furniture.

Anyway, so we planned our itineraries. Some of us really wanted to get out there and hike the trails, others preferred to make use of the shuttle tours, and some were looking forward to just relaxing and socializing in the Village. There were something like 23 of us altogether, so a bit of organizing was needed to make sure everyone had the experience they wanted.

Once all of that was settled, most of the group went out to enjoy the Williams nightlife. The kids and I headed back to our room, relaxed for a while and were asleep by ten, because we are party animals that way.

Alas, our roommate stumbled in very late (or early, really), puttered around noisily for what seemed like forever, and then finally went to sleep — and began snoring at such an impressive volume that all our hopes of sleep were shattered. Well, Elizabeth managed to doze off, but Luke and I buried our heads under pillows and blankets to no avail. I think I finally managed a fitful sleep sometime after four, because when the alarm went off at six it did wake me up. Luke apparently had the same thought, because he sat up and said in a surprised voice, “Wow, I DID fall asleep!”

One thing about Luke: if he feels that someone is in need of chastising, he ain’t shy. Until we’d gotten dressed and left the room I had to constantly shush him, because he fully intended to give our roommate a lengthy piece of his mind. Once we’d checked our luggage and were heading to breakfast, I was able to explain to him that some people stay up later than others, and some people snore, and it’s just the luck of the draw when it comes to matching up roommates, and she wasn’t trying to keep us awake on purpose, and under no circumstances was he allowed to scold her. He accepted that, though not particularly gracefully, and then we went to the restaurant and comforted ourselves with orange juice and eggs and sausage and fajitas and biscuits and gravy and muffins and pastries and yogurt and frittatas and toast.

After breakfast we gathered up our carry-on belongings and headed over to the train depot. Once there we were treated to the obligatory goofy Western shootout show.

Luke thought it was hilarious. Elizabeth thought it was amusing. I am a cantankerous old fart and was glad when it was over.

Then we boarded the train, and we were off to the Canyon! It took about two hours and 15 minutes to get there, and the scenery was wonderful.

We saw a herd of antelope in a meadow; there was wildlife everywhere. Near the end of the ride a guy came to our car with a fiddle and entertained us with corny jokes.

Being a cantankerous old fart, I enjoyed that about as much as I’d enjoyed the Old West show. Sorry Fiddle Guy, but your jokes are lame. Make funny jokes and I will like you.

Once we arrived at the Grand Canyon Depot on the South Rim, we caught a shuttle to Maswik Lodge, where we would be spending Sunday night. It was too early to check into our room, but our checked luggage had already arrived there and we were able to drop off some of our carry-on stuff for safekeeping. Then the kids and I walked up to the Rim to get our first look at the main attraction.

Technically, it wasn’t the first time I’d seen the Grand Canyon. My parents had taken me there a few times as a kid, so I had a vague memory of it. And to be honest, I was a little concerned that Luke and Elizabeth would be too jaded by the wonders of modern technology to be impressed by a canyon, however grand.

So we walked up to the Rim, and there it was, stark and colorful and impossibly vast.

It’s so big that you can only can only see parts of it at a time. As long as it took us to drive from Anza CA to Williams AZ, that’s how long it would take if you were to drive from the South Rim around to the North Rim.

I said, “Wow.”

The kids didn’t say anything for a long time.

We walked along the rim trail for a while, killing time until it was time to rejoin the group. I could see that the kids were not unimpressed — quite the opposite — but they seemed to be having trouble finding the right words to describe the sheer enormity of the thing.

Elizabeth finally found a comfortable context in technology. “It looks fake,” she decided. “Like a painted backdrop.”

“CGI maybe,” I nodded. “It’s gotta be special effects.”

“Yeah.”

Luke took longer to put his reaction into words. I think it was a couple of hours later; he’d been unusually quiet since his first glimpse into the abyss. “There is NO WAY,” he suddenly burst out, “that Paul Bunyon could have made that by dragging his axe along the ground. I don’t care HOW big he was.”

*****************************

Read Part II Here.

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