Cornerstones

My younger sister had a fight on her hands as a college freshman trying to declare a music education major. Pippi loves music, but she hates to be confined to one instrument. She has, over the past ten years, played eight different instruments, including glass bottles filled with water for a wind symphany. Our parents weren't happy about her plans. "What will you do besides teach? Focus on one instrument, or better yet, major in math."

When she finally won the argument and declared her major, I teased her about becoming a kind of Mr. Opus. "You'll inspire a student to new heights of musical talent and fame. You'll end up being interviewed by Rolling Stone. They'll ask you what your musical influence was as a child."

Pippi didn't laugh. She was quiet, tilting her head to one side as she seriously pondered my question. Finally, she shook her head. "Church music and the Beatles."

Church music and the Beatles. Pippi is a musician. Music is a part of her personal makeup. So Church music and the Beatles were a profound influence on more than just her music. They formed a cornerstone of her life.

I got to thinking about my own profound influences. What are my cornerstones? I’m a writer. Pippi has musical notes, I have words. Writers are my cornerstones. More specifically: "humor writers." Florence King and Erma Bombeck have both been relegated to the class of humor writer but they are much, much more. Classic American humor, yes. But also, thought provoking essayists who forced us to look at ourselves and shake our heads at the ridiculousness and lack of common sense.

I value the hippy and church music, just as Pippi does. I grew up in the same church, in the same home. The music itself was Pippi's cornerstone. But the lyrics meant more to me. I'm a social historian. They were a link to the social past. Moreover, I learned my politics from our parents' old albums.

We were raised in a liberal but sheltered home. My father subscribed to Ms. in the Seventies, until my mother claimed it was merely an excuse for upper class white advertisers exploiting middle class white women too busy proclaiming their independence to notice. My father is a minister of a liberal, inclusive Christian church. I learned feminism at my mother's knee. I was taught to serve others. I was taught to uplift people, to tear down barriers, and to always, always be polite.

I gloried in all this, accepting goodness and idealism as the only possible way to live, let alone behave...

And then I hit freshman year of high school and discovered Florence King and MTV's Daria almost simultaneously. Anyone who has ever picked up CONFESSIONS OF A FAILED SOUTHERN LADY will find something to laugh over, and something to cry over.

In her introduction to CONFESSIONS, Florence explains "The sweetening process that feminists call 'socialization' is simply a less intense version of what goes on in every Southern family. We call it 'rearing.' If the rearing is successful, it results in that perfection of femininity known as a lady. I was reared."

Never mind that I was the product of a liberal, 1970s era, third generation Californian marriage. Never mind that my father played at being a feminist, and my mother was feminist. I was socialized. My parents had socialized me. The realization struck me at fourteen. Why did it take so long? I honestly didn't know any better. For all their vaunted liberal teachings, my parents never introduced an opposing view. And I was too young and naive to expect one.

I felt an unbelievable sense of betrayal, which is ridiculous, of course. I was never abused or neglected. And my parents had done a good job. I was a fairly good, sunny, fairly responsible little girl. Was I lying to my parents? Did I experiment with pot or alcohol? Steal a car? No.

High school is supposed to be a time of growth and rebellion, anyway. I was torn between my deeply rooted idealism and a growing sense of cynicism. Like a pendulum, I swung between outraged feminist temper and bitter, conservative bile. I read everything I could get my hands on, forgoing the middle ground for anything radical or reactionary. I scorned any opposition as 'close minded and simple', without deep thought, merely on a whim and political feeling of the day.

But I forgot an important aspect of Florence King. For all her outrageousness and conservative bile, she’s a damn good writer. She knows how to tell a story, how to hook and resonate with her reader. She recognizes that humor humanizes both the subject and the narrator, and she uses humor to hammer home her point.

I didn’t get it. I laughed, sure, but all too often I laughed for the wrong reasons. I laughed with disdain. I laughed to see other people deconstructed or dismissed. I read so much, in an effort to broaden my outlook, telling myself I was seeing in shades of gray. But I was reacting with anger and scorn.

It took Erma Bombeck to explain: "If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it." Erma poked fun at the world while playing the universal wife and mother. She rubbed our shoulders when we cried, guilt tripped us when we forgot to pick up our socks, and jabbed us in the ribs when we were too full of hot air. She laughed at herself, her marriage, her home, her world. She slipped in the thought provoking tidbit like green peas in the casserole.

While laughing at the funny bits and tearing up at the sober parts with Erma, I rediscovered humanity.

I'm learning to balance. I'm learning to hope for the best from people, but to expect the worst. And I'm learning to laugh at the absurdities, where once I would become sick at heart. I've learned to keep quiet during political and philosophical arguments; to sit back and study the situation before running off at the mouth. I attend history classes now and shake my head in wonder. Can anyone really be that simplistic? Well, yes. I was, once. It might be more fun to see only in shades of black and white. But I'd miss the nuances without the gray.