The Great Walled Country

The story below is my Christmas gift to my readers.  It is a charming story, written long before the rise of feminism, and of course the language is somewhat stilted, but still delightful.  My wish for you is that in this time of turmoil, it will be a moment of peace and quiet.

In the Great Walled Country

Away at the northern end of the world, farther than men have ever gone with their ships or their sleds, and where most people suppose that there is nothing but ice and snow, is a land full of children, called The Great Walled Country.  This name is given because all around the country is a great wall, hundreds of feet thick and hundreds of feet high.  It is made of ice and never melts, winter or summer; and of course it is for this reason that more people have not discovered the place.

               The land, as I said, is filled with children, for nobody who lives there ever grows up.  The king and the queen, the princes and the courtiers, may be as old as you please, but they are children for all that.  They play a great deal of the time with dolls and tin soldiers, and every night at seven o’clock have a bowl of bread and milk and go to bed.  But they make excellent rulers, and the other children are well pleased with the government.

               There are all sorts of curious things about the way they live in The Great Walled Country, but this story is only of their Christmas season.  One can imagine what a fine thing their Christmas must be, so near the North Pole, with ice and snow everywhere, but this is not all.  Grandfather Christmas lives just on the north side of the country, so that his house leans against the great wall and would tip over if it were not for its support.  Grandfather Christmas is his name in The Great Walled Country; no doubt we should call him Santa Claus here.  At any rate, he is the same person, and, best of all the children in the world, he loves the children behind the great wall of ice.

               One very pleasant thing about having Grandfather Christmas for a neighbor is that in The Great Walled Country they never have to buy their Christmas presents.  Every year, on the day before Christmas, before he makes up his bundles for the rest of the world, Grandfather Christmas goes into a great forest of Christmas trees, that grows just back of the palace of the king of The Great Walled Country, and fills the trees with candy and books and toys and all sorts of good things.  So when night comes, all the children wrap up snugly, while the children in all other lands are waiting in their beds, and go to the forest to gather gifts for their friends.  Each one goes by himself, so that none of his friends can see what he has gathered; and no one ever thinks of such a thing as taking a present for himself.  The forest is so big that there is room for every one to wander about without meeting the people from whom he has secrets, and there are always enough nice things to go around.

               So Christmas time is a great holiday in that land.  They have been celebrating it in this way for hundreds of years, and since Grandfather Christmas does not seem to grow old any faster than the children, they will probably do so for hundreds of years to come.

               But there was once a time, so many years ago that they would have forgotten all about it if the story were not written in their Big Book and read to them every year, when the children in The Great Walled Country had a very strange Christmas.  There came a visitor to the land.  He was an old man, and was the first stranger for very many years that had succeeded in getting over the wall.  He looked so wise, and was so much interested in what he saw and heard, that the king invited him to the palace, and he was treated with every possible honor.

               When this old man had inquired about their Christmas celebration, and was told how they carried it on every year, he listened gravely, and then, looking wiser than ever, he said to the king:

               “That is all very well, but I should think that children who have Grandfather Christmas for a neighbor could find a better and easier way.  You tell me that you all go out on Christmas Eve to gather presents to give to one another the next morning.  Why take so much trouble, and act in such a round-about way?  Why not go out together, and every one get his own presents?  That would save the trouble of dividing them again, and every one would be better satisfied, for he could pick out just what he wanted for himself.  No one can tell what you want as well as you can.”

               This seemed to the king a very wise saying, and he called all his courtiers and counselors about him to hear it.  The wise stranger talked further about his plan, and when he had finished they all agreed that they had been very foolish never to have thought of this simple way of getting their Christmas gifts.

               “If we do this,” they said, “no one can ever complain of what he has, or wish that some one had taken more pains to find what he wanted.  We will make a proclamation, and always after this follow the new plan.”

               So the proclamation was made, and the plan seemed as wise to the children of the country as it had to the king and the counselors.  Every one had at some time been a little disappointed with his Christmas gifts; now there would be no danger of this.

               On Christmas Eve they always had a meeting at the palace, and sang carols until the time for going in the forest.  When the clock struck ten every one said, “I wish you a Merry Christmas!” to the person nearest him, and then they separated to go their ways into the forest.  On this particular night it seemed to the king that the music was not quite so merry as usual, and that when the children spoke to one another their eyes did not shine as gladly as he had noticed them in other years; but there could be no good reason for this, since every one was expecting a better time than usual.  So he thought no more of it.

               There was only one person at the palace that night who was not pleased with the new proclamation about the Christmas gifts.  This was a little boy named Inge, who lived not far from the palace with his sister.  Now his sister was a cripple, and had to sit all day looking out of the window from her chair; and Inge took care of her, and tried to make her life happy from morning till night.  He had always gone to the forest on Christmas Eve and returned with his arms and pockets loaded with pretty things for his sister, which would keep her amused all the coming year.  And although she was not able to go after presents for her brother, he did not mind that at all, especially as he had other friends who never forgot to divide their good things with him.

               But now, said Inge to himself, what would his sister do?  For the king had ordered that no one should gather any presents except for himself, or any more than he could carry away at once.  All of Inge’s friends were busy planning what they would pick for themselves, but the poor crippled child could not go a step toward the forest.  After thinking about it a long time, Inge decided that it would not be wrong if, instead of taking gifts for himself, he took them altogether for his sister.  This he would be very glad to do; for what did a boy who could run about and play in the snow care for presents, compared with a little girl who could only sit still and watch others having a good time?  Inge did not ask the advice of any one, for he was a little afraid others would tell him he must not do it; but he silently made up his mind not to obey the proclamation.

               And now the chimes had struck ten, and the children were making their way toward the forest, in starlight that was so bright that it almost showed their shadows on the sparkling snow.  As soon as they came to the edge of the forest, they separated, each one going by himself in the old way, though now there was really no reason why they should have secrets from one another.

               Ten minutes later, if you had been in the forest, you might have seen the children standing in dismay with tears on their faces, and exclaiming that there had never been such a Christmas Eve before.  For as they looked eagerly about them to the low-bending branches of the evergreen trees, they saw nothing hanging from them that could not be seen every day in the year.  High and low they searched, wandering farther into the forest than ever before, lest Grandfather Christmas might have chosen a new place this year for hanging his presents; but still no presents appeared.  The king called his counselors about him, and asked them if they knew whether anything of this kind had happened before, but they could tell him nothing.  So no one could guess whether Grandfather Christmas had forgotten them, or whether some dreadful accident had kept him away.

               As the children were trooping out of the forest, after hours of weary searching some of them came upon little Inge, who carried over his shoulder a bag that seemed to be full to overflowing.  When he saw them looking at him, he cried: “Are they not beautiful things?  I think Grandfather Christmas was never so good to us before!”

               “Why, what do you mean” cried the children.  “There are no presents in the forest.” 

               “No presents!” said Inge.  “I have my bag full of them.”  But he did not offer to show them, because he did not want the children to see that they were all for his little sister instead of for himself.

               Then the children begged him to tell them in what part of the forest he had found his presents, and he turned back and pointed them to the place where he had been.  “I left many more behind that I brought away,” he said.  “There they are!  I can see some of the things shining on the trees even from here.”

               But when the children followed his foot prints in the snow to the place where he had been, they still saw nothing on the trees, and thought that Inge must be walking in his sleep, and dreaming that he had found presents.  Perhaps he had filled his bag with the cones from the evergreen trees.

               On Christmas Day there was sadness all through The Great Walled Country.  But those who came to the house of Inge and his sister saw plenty of books and dolls and beautiful toys piled up about the little cripple’s chair;  and when they asked where these things came from, they were told, “Why, from the Christmas-tree forest.”  And they shook their heads, not knowing what it could mean.

               The king held a council in the palace, and appointed a committee of his most faithful courtiers to visit Grandfather Christmas, and see if they could find what was the matter.  In a day or two more the committee set out on their journey.  They had very hard work to climb the great wall of ice that lay between their country and the place where Grandfather Christmas lived, but at last they reached the top.  And when they came to the other side of the wall, they were looking down into the top of his chimney.  It was not hard to go down this chimney into the house, and when they reached the bottom of it, they found themselves in the very room where Grandfather Christmas lay sound asleep.

               It was hard enough to waken him, for he always slept one hundred days after his Christmas work was over, and it was only by turning the hands of the clock around two hundred times that the committee could do anything.  When the clock had struck twelve times two hundred hours, Grandfather Christmas thought it was time for his nap to be over, and he sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes.

               “Oh, sir!” cried the prince who was in charge of the committee. “we have come from the king of The Great Walled Country, who has sent us to ask why you forgot us this Christmas, and left no presents in the forest.”

               “No presents!” said Grandfather Christmas.  “I never forget anything.  The presents were there.  You did not see them, that’s all.”

               But the children told him that they had searched long and carefully, and in the whole forest there had not been found a thing that could be called a Christmas gift.

               “Indeed!” said Grandfather Christmas.  “And did little Inge, the boy with the crippled sister, find none?”

               Then the committee was silent, for they had heard of the gifts at Inge’s house, and did not know what to say about them.

               “You had better go home,” said Grandfather Christmas, who now began to realize that he had been awakened too soon, “and let me finish my nap.  The presents were there, but they were never intended for children who were looking only for themselves.  I am not surprised that you could not see them.  Remember that not everything that wise travelers tell you is wise.”  And he turned over and went to sleep again.

               The committee returned silently to The Great Walled Country, and told the king what they had heard.  The king did not tell all the children of the land what Grandfather Christmas had said, but, when the next December came, he made another proclamation, bidding every one to seek gifts for others, in the old way, in the Christmas-tree forest.  So that is what they have been doing ever since; and in order that they many not forget what happened, in case any one should ever ask for another change, they have read to them every year from their Big Book the story of the time when they had no Christmas gifts. 

Raymond MacDonald Alden

From the book, Why the Chimes Rang

Bobbs-Merrill Company, Publishers, Indianapolis

Copywrited 1906, 1908, 1924

Michigan and Connecticut

Ah!  Today I was going to write about what is going on in Michigan with Governor Rick Snyder jamming through union-busting legislature turning Michigan in a “right-to-work” state.  And if that isn’t a misnomer I’ve never seen one.  As some wit dubbed it, the “right-to-work for less” law.  On top of that, Snyder and the Michigan legislature are expanding their right to dissolve local governments the Governor deems to be in financial straits and for him to appoint a “manager” to oversee their finances, and to take the “appropriate” steps to rectify the situation.  Bull pucky!!  As a former local elected official, I find this about as totalitarian as one can get.  The people elect these officials.  If the people don’t like what the officials are doing they can vote them out of office.  The state has no business dissolving a local elected body!!

But I can write very little today.  My husband and I lost a child, and although it was many years ago, when something like the shooting in Connecticut occurs, the old tapes begin to replay.  So forgive the shortness of this posting, and contact your state officials to reinstate the ban on assault weapons, and guns that have multi-bullet clips.  That would be an excellent first step to stop this insanity. 

The Emergency Room on Election Day?

The emergency room on election day?  Why was I there?  As a patient!  Read on.

This election was really nerve racking for me.  The reasons for it were things that happened both before, during, and after the Republican Primary season, and all of the debates.  I’ll list them, not in any order because I didn’t take notes for one thing as to which came first, but these are what are in my memory.

One of the first events that really impressed me was when Rick Perry acknowledged that Texas had more executions than any other state, and the audience cheered.  Death is a good thing for ‘those people’.  Whoever they are, but then, they’re not us.

We had the audience who booed the gay soldier who had called in from either Iraq or Afghanistan to ask what the candidate’s opinion was on the military policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”.  This was a young man who was putting his life in danger to protect that audience, and they booed the fact that he acknowledged he was gay. 

We had Mitt Romney stating he would eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, regardless of the fact that the organization receives no federal funding for the 3% of its clients who have abortions, while the rest of the services are for women’s health, like cancer screening.  For the first time in my life I donated to Planned Parenthood I was so angry.

Who could forget Romney’s infamous talk to a group of his peers, discussing how different the 47% were from them.  And how much less as humans the 47% are.

Arizona passed their infamous 1070 law that allowed law enforcement to stop anyone who had committed any transgression, no matter how small, and ask them for their “papers”, making Hispanics or anyone who is darker into someone not like “us”.

We had Todd Akin and his “legitimate rape” comments, and Richard Murdock and his comments that pregnancy after rape was something God intended.  Then of course there were Rush Limbaugh’s horrible attacks on Sandra Fluke, and Romney’s spineless comments regarding those attacks. 

There was the transvaginal probe (I never in my youth thought I would ever write something like that) discussion, and the two women State Senators who mentioned the word vagina in whatever state legislature that was and were silenced and forbidden to speak in the chambers because of their “offensive” language.

This was not all in the past.  Currently the GOP controlled House of Representatives is refusing to pass the Violence Against Women Act because it contains provisions that also protect Native American women and women who may be in this country illegally.  What?  They don’t need protection as well as white women?

Sometime ago a good friend of mine told me that my mind “crochets” connections between events that others often don’t see.  In this case I was crocheting connections between all of the articles I had read on what describes an authoritarian, or totalitarian, government, and what these events meant to me.  What I was hearing was either an accidental or intentional marginalizing of “the other”.  That is, people who were different in color or culture from white people, or women who did not “behave” the way white men thought they should act.  This last I find very distressing since it is the way I was raised.  Nice girls didn’t speak, dress, act outside the generally accepted norms set down by the leaders of our culture, who were by definition, male.

I could see in this election a frightening drift toward an authoritarian, or totalitarian, form of government where workers (unions), women, people of color were of little or no value other than what they could provide to the elite of the country.  The population was being divided into “makers or takers” societal slots.  If one received any government assistance because of need, then one was a “taker”, and to be denigrated.  If one received subsidies from the government for one’s business that is deemed to be the way things should be.  Of course, no one mentioned that profits produced by these subsidies found their way into the pockets of the business people.  After all, they worked hard for those profits!  The workers were expected to work hard as well, but that was their lot in life.  Not to worry about them.

For my birthday this year, I received a little book from someone who teaches Holocaust studies at a community college.  The book is a compilation of thoughts from people who survived the camps, and the first and second generations to follow them.  There are historical comments as well.  The title is, “We Are What We Remember”, compiled by Konrad Gorg.  (In German, there is an umlaut over the ‘o’.)  On page 64 is a comment by Harald Welzer.  His citation is in German, so if you want to know what it is, look him up.  The title of his comment is ‘shifting baselines’.

The Nazi era provides an insight

From which one can learn something about the process

in which people choose inhumanity willingly,

indifferently or reluctantly.

The emergence of such a process is not a specifically German phenomenon.

There have been other genocides after the Holocaust

and their starting point is always a ‘categorical distinction between human groups.’

Such distinctions, however, do not remain abstract,

but were regularly translated into a social practice,

in which one considers it to be self-evident

that for different groups exist different laws and standards of conduct

and where in the end it is even morally valid to humiliate others,

deprive them of their rights, rob, deport and finally murder them.

Thereby it is certainly a difference,

if I change to the other side of the street

when I meet a Jewish friend in order to avoid an embarrassing situation,

or move into the beautiful apartment of a Jewish family

who had earlier been forcefully expelled,

or if I order the death of a man by signing a medical form,

or whether I design the ovens of the crematorium,

or whether I as a member of one of the Reserve-Bataillons,

murder Jewish women and children.

All these are qualitatively different stages,

which vary in difficulty to cross over into the next stage.

But I fear that these are ultimately a continuum

at which the starting point is something seemingly innocuous,

and which the end point is marked by destruction.

For most people it is important only that they have managed the first steps

to enable them to step over into the last.

The perfidy, however, is that to the vast majority,

when crossing from the first stage, the last still appears quite intolerable;

while there seems to be good reason to take just the first not-so-grievous step,

this is perhaps just a little offence

against an already fragile inner conviction,

against a morally uncomfortable feeling,

but this is the moment in which the decision for inhumanity

has already been made. 

(the term ‘shifting baselines’ in social psychology describes the following phenomenon: in many people insidious changes in the social reality dislocates their perception step by step and at the same time their associated moral evaluation) 

Fortunately for me, my trip to the ER was only for anxiety.  All the symptoms disappeared when it was announced that the American people had rejected dividing us among ourselves. 

 

 

 

Wow! What a Thanksgiving We Had!!

Wow!  What a Thanksgiving we had!! 

Although I pride myself on not being superstitious, the fact that we were going to have 13 for dinner sort of sat in the back of my head.  I even counted our delightful 3 year old great granddaughter as an adult (after all she would be seated at the table with us), but still 13.  My niece and her husband were coming up from Los Angeles and called to let us know when they left Glendale, CA.  Everyone else was here when they arrived, but behind them came a Volkswagen.  We all drive Suburu’s or Honda’s, and who was this Volkswagen?  Much to our delightful surprise our daughter and son-in-law from Tucson, AZ, had driven to our niece’s house Wednesday, and on up Thursday morning.  Not only were we thrilled to see them, but it made 15 for dinner!  It was the first time in years that all four of our daughters were here at the same time. 

I had prepared and stuffed the turkey, and all else was sort of pot-luck, except the mashed potatoes and gravy.  Our two great granddaughters, one 10 and one 3, were to make the mashed potatoes, so of course the 3 year old had to stand on a three-step stool to get her high enough to reach the sink so she could help peel the potatoes.  Their mom cut up the potatoes, added the water and salt and put the potatoes on the stove.  A son-in-law helped drain the water out later, but from then on the 10 year old mashed them by hand, added the right amount of milk and butter, and they couldn’t have been better.   

The only small catastrophe came early on when our friend pulled on the end of our ancient oak table to pull it out for the leaf, and the lip under the edge came off in his hands.  The poor fellow had the most horrified look on his face, but we assured him it was glued on in the first place, so could be re-glued with not much of a problem.  We all got around the table with enough room.  The other guests did not come in for dinner.  That was the 8 dogs, one cat, and two parrots that came with the group.  The cat and 3 dogs are ours – the rest were visiting.   

We repeated the whole thing on Saturday with a birthday party for one of our daughters.  Two from Thanksgiving weren’t here, but my nephew and his wife came and brought some terrific apples from their place further up the canyon.  We are still noshing on them.  We had the 8 dogs, 1 cat and 2 parrots.  Everyone left for home after the party, though we got some pictures.  There was much laughing at both parties, good conversations although we avoided the topic of politics and the election when one much loved son-in-law who is quite conservative was around.  It’s amazing how fast one can switch topics! 

All in all, a great party time, and we had much to be grateful for.  Most of the family is basically healthy (colds and stuff don’t count), gainfully employed or in school, or both. 

 

 

Very Short Blog!

This is wishing that you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving.  This is a very short blog this time because we have a house full of family, and tomorrow almost all of our family will be here.  Even the ones from out of state, who really gave us a great surprise.  Although I treasure all of those in whatever country read this, and for whatever reason, I’m sure you know that family comes first.  We treasure all of ours.  Until next week, then.

A Sex Scandal? How Nice!

What a relief to have a sex scandal to concentrate on.  After this past election a good sex scandal almost seems quaint.  After all, the only person Petraeus lied to was his wife.  During the campaign, the GOP seemed intent on lying to the entire country.  It reminded me of an old not so nice comment of mine:  “When a Democrat screws someone, it is usually only one person at a time.  When a Republican does it, it is the whole damn country.”  Does this mean Petraeus is a Democrat? 

So, you can imagine my horror this morning to notice a couple of articles asking whether it will be Clinton (Hilary) and Palin for President in 1916.  Let the voting machines at least cool off from this election before jumping ahead 3 years. That is when the primary elections will be so even if the general election is in four years we will be bombarded starting much earlier. 

Actually, in our house we missed all of that TV advertising.  We live so far out in the country we have a satellite dish, and the programs we watched were pretty ad free.  Of course the pundits would run a particularly offensive ad so we would know what they were commenting on, but usually it was never more than one every hour, unless the ad was so egregious that more than one pundit discussed it. 

The big other whoop-de-do of the day is Bhengazi, with John McCain doing most of the whooping.  He has forgotten, either deliberately or otherwise, that it was Congress that turned down the budget request from the State Department for more funding for security at foreign consulates and embassies.  Whether the host nation provides security or not, the US needs to make sure that the sites are secure.  Anyway, this whooping is so obviously politically motivated to make trouble for President Obama that I wonder that McCain’s colleagues and family don’t take him aside and tell him to cool it.  He is slowly losing the respect that many of us have had for him for years.   

Other than trying not to fall off a non-existent “fiscal cliff” (non-existent because it is something the Republicans manipulated into existence), a sex scandal involving the highest intelligence officer in the nation, starting the 1916 Presidential race already, another Republican made scandal involving the incidents in Benghazi, there is not too much to write about. 

For my readers in the United States, I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That Supercilious Syrupy-Sweet Smirk No More!

That condescending smirk on Romney’s face whenever he was literally forced to listen to someone he considered, well, not quite what the person ought to be was most unbearable.  The other person could be a female, black man even if he was the President of the United States, a female reporter for sure, or a female debate moderator, and on and on.  That smirk epitomized everything that was offensive in the Republican platform this election season.  It let the rest of us know that unless we belonged to that group of white people who were affluent we were, well, just not quite, well, you know.  And when Romney was to be elected, those of us who were not quite, you know, would be put back in our places and let the real Americans, the white male affluent Americans, take back their country.  After all, they are the makers as opposed to the rest of us who are the takers. 

The night after the election results were announced, I couldn’t really sleep very well.  As I lay there, I let my thoughts roam over some of the events of my life that occurred during the time the Republicans wanted to take us back to.  In the 1930’s I remember my parents arguing over whether my mother ought to be giving sandwiches to the “homeless bums” who came by.  My father thought not.  My husband remembers his parents arguing over the fact that his mother had purchased a bunch of ribbons for $.10 from a woman who had come by the house and claimed she was hungry.  His father thought not. Ten cents in those days was a lot of money.  Or my own non-understanding of why my brother and I had to eat meat and vegetables every night when my parents got to eat chili beans.   

Or later when I was about 10 years old we moved to what was then the country.  The school we attended had a rather large Hispanic population, and the Hispanic kids accepted me with no problems.  I didn’t quite measure up to the white kids expectations.  One Mexican girl in particular and I became sort of friends.  After WWII was over, I learned that her brother’s wife had died shortly after childbirth from peritonitis from a burst appendix.  The brother had taken her to the hospital, but she had been sent home with the admonition that of course she had abdominal pain.  She had just had a baby.  After her death, the brother had given up his fight against undulant fever (which one can get from raw milk) that he had gotten in the service of his country, and he gave up his fight to create a small business with a tractor he had purchased so that he could plow the orchards of the smaller orange growers.  The white farmers thought he was getting above himself, and wanted to be a “white man”.  He died in about 6 months from the fever and grief. 

After I graduated from college in San Jose, California, I immediately went to work for the welfare department.  A job for which I was singularly unprepared.  I had been there a couple of months when a young Mexican couple – a brother and sister – came in to see me.  She had several knife scars on her abdomen where her husband had stabbed her.  They had gone to the police, but the police would do nothing about it because, after all, they were Mexican.  The visit to me was the last resort.  The brother told me that if I could do nothing he would have to kill the husband.  In what I thought was a perfectly reasonable thought, I explained that since they had come to me, if he did kill the husband I would have to say it was pre-meditated murder, and he would either get the death penalty or prison for life, and his wife and children would be deprived of his presence.  So that night the un-married brother killed the husband.  On the advice of a lawyer I quit my job, and moved back to my home town.  I had already met my soon-to-be husband, so that was not a problem.  I followed the case, and the brother received a sentence of 10 years, which, under the circumstances I felt was just.  I didn’t talk about this for some 30 years, needless to say.   

Or after Bill and I were married, and our landlady, who was also a friend, came to our apartment in tears.  Her niece had foolishly walked home from high school alone one evening.  She was snatched by some young men and brutally raped.  Nothing was done because by being by herself at dusk, “she was asking for it”.  Needless to say, her life would never be the same.  At that time, there were no rape counseling centers, or anything else, because it was almost always the girl or woman’s fault.  She was asking for it by the way she walked, or talked or dressed. 

I could go on and tell more stories, but I think you get the idea why I am so thrilled that I never have to see, hear or write about the person, the politics or the policies or the philosophies behind that supercilious syrupy-sweet smirk.