Reporters’ Notebook

  Home => On Mixing Roux and Words

Links

• Home
• About Reporters' Notebook

Main Sections

• Florida Government
• Remembrances
• Sunday Best
• Commentary
• An Email From Charlie
• Notes From All Over
• Letters From Scotland
• Media
• A World of Books
• Jefferson Journal
• George Hanna
• Al Hutchison
• On Mixing Roux and Words
• Martin Dyckman

Most Recent Articles

• LIFE AT ANY STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT While Florida children await need, one more legislative day mired in the swamp of abortion.
• OF ETHICS, LAWS, TREES AND PINE TREE POLITICS Don’t use any of this to teach your grandchildren about respect for the law.
• NO PENSION CONTRACT, SAYS FLORIDA SUPREME COURT Dissent: "These governmental employees are not second class citizens but are entitled to the full protection of the law ."
• A FEW FOOTBALL EXPRESSIONS He’s gonna take it to the house and then split the uprights.
• THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION: A PORTRAIT OF CHRONIC SCOTOMA Sales are skyrocketing, so let’s fight for our sugardaddy gun manufacturers.

Editor’s note: This is another in a series of essays written by my wife, Ellen, in 1981, then filed away and forgotten. Until late last year, I had never seen them. It is my hope that they will serve as a catalyst for more personal essays by her from 2010 onward as long as she feels like writing. -Duane Bradford

By ELLEN BRADFORD

I got fired from this job I really liked. That was the time I learned about the word "depression". And I figured out why all the people in my parents’ generation spoke that word the way they did.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter if the depression is personal or world wide.

ELLEN

If it is severe enough it teaches strong lessons not soon forgotten.

"Depression" descended on me and kept me company for a long time -- a long enough time to teach me some very valuable things: that I was right about some things and wrong about others; that I could make do with much less than I thought I could; and that I was not too old to learn some important lessons.

Being without ’work’ meant a severely reduced income, so I learned to do without many ’things’. I learned to eat better because all the junk I had once had at my fingertips was no longer affordable. Changing from a big house to a small one meant less housework, so I could garden, and I liked it. Seeds cost a lot less than the canned and frozen vegetables, and I enjoyed the exercise. And, I didn’t need heels and pantyhose or skirts or new winter coats for work in the garden.

More importantly, I learned a lot of things about myself. One thing I hope I never forget is that I don’t always really feel what I think I am feeling. When engineers on the west coast, or automakers in Detroit, or miners in Appalachia are out of work, I used to think I knew how bad they must feel. I didn’t. When a friend lost the ability to do work he loved, I told him I knew how he felt, but I really didn’t. Now I do. And I hope I am never able to forget.

I found out I was gullible enough to be convinced that I am not worth much, when I know better -- and have proved it. I found out that I had better not take as fact someone else’s opinion of my own worth without getting at least one second opinion, and a little bit of realistic investigation into the validity of the opinion that makes me think I am not capable.

Like most adults, I liked to think I could judge a person’s real character as soon as I met him. I know better now. I know that people who appear strong-willed and principled can sometimes crumble under the least bit of pressure because there is no real foundation to their character. I am learning to watch more carefully for real character strengths and to be taken in less by appearances. I am being more cautious; trying to refrain from judging people until I can be sure I have a chance to see behind the mask too many people wear to make themselves look good when they are less than good; to make themselves look strong when they are really weak; to make themselves look important when they are truly very insignificant.

So many people in this world are really important, and let themselves appear less so. I want to be able to recognize them. So many people are strong and good -- but because they do not stand on top of the church steeple and shout how good and strong and important they are, we think they are not. I have been wrong. But I intend to be more watchful from now on. I have a bead on those quiet people who are not shouting.

God changed shape for me during those months, too. I have struggled to see God as something more than a kindly old gentleman who is sitting on a billowy white cloud and smiles when we do a good deed, and zaps us when we do a bad deed (or at least writes it down for future reference) -- and who, if we pray hard enough, will zap our enemies for us when they do something that displeases us.

It was a stunning blow to discover, in the midst of a crisis I hardly understood, that God was not going to pick me up and dust me off and set me on my feet again. I would have to do it myself. And that is the gift. I have been given the ability and the free will to pick myself up and dust myself off and get up and go again.

Me and Muhammad Ali.

  30-