Category Archives: social commentary

The Voice of My Generation.

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The Chinese boy’s name was Doonk. Or, at least that’s how he pronounced it when I asked him who he was. And, he’d done everything humanly possible to make my take out buffet dinner as delectable, if gluten and soy free, as he could.

But, sometimes,  we’re just in the right place at the wrong time.

I brought my dinner home, alright. Got it all set up on the sofa, and turned on the TV.

There he was.

Catching the tail end of the finale of his live one at PBS’ Austin City Limits just a day or two before, I’d heard enough to know that James Taylor and his band of back up singers and musicians had been one of the all time best that series had ever known. The collective light in everybody’s eyes told that tale.

And, this night, the time on the clock said 7:06 p.m.; with my carefully selected repast laid out before me, I’d be able to enjoy nearly the whole hour of his concert! This was more than the old single girl had bargained for, on such a Sunday evening in early summer.

Eagerly, I dug in to my meal, glancing up every so often at the radiant face of the man who had clearly come out the other end of a life that had borne its depths with what could only be termed a riding high. Smiling broadly as he sang, segueing from one song to the next with that rare fluency that only comes with the perfect band, the perfect night, the perfect scene, the perfect moment…..he was the perfected artist. As attuned to him as if they were inside his head were the flush, back up vocals, a wailing sax, Jimmy Johnson’s solo bass, and the subtle drumming of Steve Gadd always just under the lead of his clean, smoothe tenor.

To the innocent, Taylor seemed uncontainably happy.

But, I’m old, now. Just old enough. Old enough to know most of the stories – about people, and places, and things. There’s rarely a newsbyte or a bit of sound that comes across the ticker that doesn’t, in some way, trigger an associated memory. My fascination with the pure joy emanating from Taylor’s face was informed. His was a story of triumph.

In the early years of his fame, James Taylor was our lead balladeer. When we were down, or troubled, or we just needed a helping hand, that song……..that song brought it all home, for us. We didn’t know until the next decade that his own life would rise to the heights and plummet to the pit of despair; he would come out to us, eventually, not as a spokesman, but as a confessor of sorts for the rest of the bi-polar community.

And so, as I sat over my Chinese take out, I soaked up James Taylor in his finest hour, feeling the celebratory relief of a life that had come up out of its own troubles, coasting in conquering mode.

But, as if to gently prod my sensibilities, my taste buds started talking back. How audacious of them, really, in the midst of a perfect sensory evening. What was that bitter residue that seemed to be saturating every mouthful of my banquet?

Choosing my buffet meal with alleged care for only protein sources and clean nutrition, one fleeting, personal moment of weakness had permitted two small squares of red jello to pile on before I’d closed the styrofoam container. These had, in the emerging summer heat, decided to melt. Liquified, this red stream had meandered under the whole dinner, soaking up the rice, the noodles, the cheesy potatoes, the shrimp; and, worst part was, this was the artificially sweetened variety. The whole meal had been tainted by an alien chemical; it tasted awful.

Now, everybody knows – at least, anybody who reads a nutritional report produced by health conscious experts – that artificial sweeteners are, in large part, toxic. There is a larger point, here.

My generation is in that rare place: still comparatively lucid, and able to connect vast amounts of information from the past to the present. We are in the decade of now or never, the one that nobody has to tell us is our moment. What’s important, here, is that we go beyond realizing and actually do something with it.

We can look back, while we still have perspective; we can look ahead, while we still have our health. We can make ourselves available to any and everyone who seeks to benefit from our various wisdoms, and we can do even more: we can change our course completely without any concern for the judgments of others. We can break brand new ground, with far more than the idealistic notions of our youth; we now have the freedom to make sound decisions born of  the vision that comes with the experience of knowing.

Had I been some twenty years younger, that melted red jello, that faux food would have ruined my entire evening. I would have brooded at the injustice of it all, maybe even written a letter to the restaurant owner berating his choice of dessert options.

But, James Taylor’s voice was still there, its beauty and clarity undiminished, to teach me everything I needed to know. There was a bigger picture, finally, even if I had needed almost a lifetime to see it. There would be another Sunday night, more Chinese take out to be had. Duke, as his name turned out to be, would greet me cheerily the next time, with added recognition.

And, there didn’t have to be any more melting jello embittering anything. We could all rejoice with the voice of our own, small triumphs.

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© Ruth Ann Scanzillo   6/18/16  All rights those of the author, in whole and/or in part, whose name appears above this line. Thank you for your respec. Bon Appetit.

littlebarefeetblog.com

 

 

 

 

Honor.

civic commentary, drama, family history, film reviews, gratitude, health and wellness, memorials, personal testimony, political commentary, social commentary, the power grid, tributes, WWII, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

[ formerly titled “Objection.”]

Dad never knew his parents. He heard about them both, from his Uncle Gabriel and Aunt Marietta in Springfield, Mass on the rare respite they’d give him from the foster home or the Walter E. Fernald School in Waverly. They’d tell him things – how his brute of a father sang opera that you could hear down the block, in between the storied rumors of his philandering….about his mother, being committed, speaking only Italian, with no defense….and, about his cousin, Jerry Marengi, who would go on to become a world famous Munchkin. These things we all, as his family, would carry forward in the form of his legend.

So, when Dad escaped the confines of his anonymity,  via the freight cars that carried him all the way to California from Boston, joining the US Army seemed almost logical. Free room and board, a hot meal (for which he’d panhandled so artfully as a self taught harmonica and bones man), a little physical agility, and he was in. In, to await deployment by the powers in place to submit him. No ties, no accountability; he was their easiest prey.

Fort Riley, Kansas was the first destination. Having had a few trumpet lessons in the Fernald school, he was ripe for lead bugle; each dawn and dusk, Private Anthony Scanzillo dutifully played Taps and Reveille on the horns the army gave him. Organizing, and then leading, a parade for the dignitaries on base earned him the rank of Corporal, which he held proudly until his death.

Dad, however, didn’t die in battle. Oh, no. He was one of the survivors.

In fact, when the war commenced, he being third fastest runner in his outfit they’d shipped him to Germany right off.

But, from that point, his always colorful stories were few; Dad would only speak in detail of the day he, as a member of the forward observing team of the 3rd armored, had to “infiltrate the enemy” at the Bulge. It was snowing, and he had a cough, and they had to shoot all the German prisoners on orders. But, they all lived through that hell and, in exchange for it, every infantryman received the Bronze Star.

Somewhere between enlisting and coming home the victor, there were less celebratory if more defining moments. There were the AWOLs. There was the all night guard duty. And, there was the guard house – where he’d frequently qualify, to all who would listen, his presence on Pearl Harbor Day, which was also his birthday. Dad’s role in all this emerged as a stand alone story; he wasn’t there for the medals.

I can’t remember what year it was. PBS was airing several mini-series, most of them documentaries, and the historian who stood out above the rest was Ken Burns. Ken Burns made his life work the chronicle of America, and he did it well. Never before seen footage, all the real thing, of everything from the jazz greats to, yes, American soldiers, in action.

Naturally, in the course of the Burns chronology of World War II, America’s most outstanding general received his own, multiple chapters. George S. Patton, the formidable, would be displayed in all his imposing force, with selected film clips in abundance.

One of these stopped me in my tracks.

I’ll never forget the evening. Probably dull of wit from a snacking binge, I had to be jolted awake by the scene. But, the image. The image was unmistakable.

Patton, Burns narrated, was always hard on his men. He never entertained the faint of heart, for any reason, chasing them down whenever he could. On one particular day, seems he’d found one: there, before our eyes, underscored by the unwitting Burns, was an army hospital, and one, lean, lone, raven haired soldier on a cot by the wall. The General loomed, raising his hand over this cowering young man, even in silent film barking forcefully at him to get up. The cameraman did not include the strike, but rumors were well circulated that this was part of the Patton package.

I recognized my father instantly.

No one knows when this happened. All anybody knew was Dad left the war a decorated forward observer, shell shocked, a victim of PTSD for the rest of his life. He could never tolerate fireworks (“screeming Meemies”) or sudden explosions of any kind, and would warn us repeatedly until his final years never, ever to come up behind him in the dark.

I wrote directly to Ken Burns, asking him to edit that segment from his series. The next time it aired, as God is my witness, actors portrayed that scene.

But, no actor could characterize my father as he was. Dad was a transparent innocent. He had none of the conventional role models, not a one. He was blessed with many gifts, one of them being the honest candor for which he was beloved by all. Dad was nobody’s victim.

God, in the wisdom mankind will never understand, spared Dad’s life – his, along with so many others, a fact for which the man himself always gave his Creator the glory. I like to think that Dad was protected because of his honesty. There is a fearlessness in such truth.

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© Ruth Ann Scanzillo   5/30/16    All rights, in whole, in part, in word, and in letter, the sole property of the author, whose name appears above this line. Thank you for your respect.

littlebarefeetblog.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Name It.

arts education, Christian fundamentalism, classical music, humor, musicians, performance, psychology, sectarian Fundamentalism, social behavior, social commentary, sociology, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

 

Last evening. Yet another Friday night.

The debut of a university chamber orchestra.  A big band.  And, “The Music Man”, in concert.

Having failed to mark not one, but all three really worthy performance events on her calendar, she’d found herself in the kitchen – occupied with the contents of a voluminous, stale smelling cardboard box overflowing with charity collectors, mail order catalogs, medical documents, and receipts, material to which she would affectionately refer in disclaimer to visitors as her “household flammables”.  And, emanating from the laptop, mounted on a chair to her left: Tara Brach’s podcast, Awakening Your Fearless Heart.

The latter being the primary intention, this belated sorting was a manifestation of necessary yang to Tara Brach’s yin; and, on this night, she’d forsaken a majority of her colleagues’ live musical offerings to position herself at home, as mediator.

Her house was a load, a prohibitively inhospitable space cyclically overtaken by stuff which could ignite in a heartbeat. These people who had long since graduated to online banking, online mailing, and online purchasing had left her in the awe of their wake. She was a pack rat, the residue of a generation doomed to save.

As she sat, self-righteously separating out the home improvement brochures from their neighboring Harvard health letters she attuned to Tara, who was underscoring these efforts with measured, modulated monikers for successful triumph over human failing.

Be Mindful. Be Present. Name the feeling; know the Fear. Call it out.

She knew what to call it.

You don’t begin life in the shadow of a much older sibling who happens to be male, the only daughter of two parents with diametrically opposed needs (inheriting the lion’s share of their strengths and weaknesses ) without learning to expect equal parts indoctrination, condemnation, and exploitation.

She knew fear. Knew it viscerally, in the cinematic mind inherited from her father, colored by the surefire flames of Hell and the rapturous hope of the heavenlies. She knew it in the sectarian dogma to which her mother had dutifully ascribed, pinning and then initiating her headlong into the warm fellowship of jealousy, envy, gossip, and slander. After all, if “come out from among them, and be ye separate, touching not the unclean thing” was the dicta, then surely all those found either haplessly or willfully just outside of the gate were of all things most contaminated and worthy of immediate rejection.

Decades hence, she would be the master of branding. She would know, in a millisecond, which sin-laden emotion drove any action – in both herself and, formidably, others. She’d learned at the feet of the Sunday School teacher, and the Gospel preacher, and the demons that left prints on all their glass houses. Tara Brach’s multi-headed gargoyle deities would have nothing on her scary story.

But, the guru of inherent good would not be moved – not by anyone’s notions of self-defeat. Brach, too, sat, presiding at a podium, smiling out across the unseen throng of attending participants and, in tones barely penetrating, gently gathered them all into direct self-confrontation.

She wasn’t at all sure she’d wanted a fight, that night. Trauma wasn’t something to be addressed in adherence to some syllabus. You didn’t relive its destabilizing pain in a conference room, or even a warmly lit kitchen. Only God as Infinite Wisdom would have known the protective power in a box of junk mail on any other evening.

Her recognition came in a flood. She allowed it. Inspecting, she both identified and then freely detached.

Anger at being displaced in musical collaborations was supplanted by her own creative efforts. Fear of being left out was diffused by the comforting company of her imagination. In short, by being present in the moment, recognizing her primary motivations, allowing their validity, inspecting them for corrupting influences, and finally submitting to the greater consciousness, she was liberated. Liberated, to clean the kitchen on a night when half the population was sitting in somebody else’s audience.

But, missing “The Music Man” ?

Regret. Transcending even guilt.

Ye Gods.

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© Ruth Ann Scanzillo   5/14/16   All rights those of the author, whose name appears above this line. Thank you for your respect. Good night, my Someone.

littlebarefeetblog.com