Hey kids ... ask questions, take chances

By JoAnne Young

Our kids will return to school in a couple of weeks, and many of them will be hoping for a fresh start after a year and a half of academic and personal challenges. Things are better than a year ago for many, but challenges remain.

 

Frequently at the close of school, especially for those graduating, we offer words of wisdom for young people as they move on. I think it may be even more appropriate to offer some of those words as they return in this time, as they see the adults around them still in turmoil over vaccinations, mask mandates, politics, racial issues, and how to educate kids about controversial topics.

 

Before most of today’s K-12 students were born, 18 years ago, I interviewed three smart young women, all seniors, about a research project they did at Lincoln High. The topic?  What attracts teenage boys to the girls they pick. This week, I found one of them, Jenn Rutt, now a data expert with a PhD. working in applied research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 

 

Her advice to students today: Be curious and inquisitive. When the three of them did their project in Jim Perry’s advanced psychology class they didn’t know yet they were interested in research. The project sparked and revealed that interest, at least for Jenn.

 

“That was our first toe in the water of researching something and exploring a concept and trying to figure out what made it tick,” she said. 

 

She believes a lot of young people are discouraged from asking questions, told to try to figure things out for themselves. 

 

“Don’t be afraid to ask questions,” she said. “Keep questioning everything. Otherwise, how are things going to change? How are you going to learn?”

 

That especially helps when the politics of the pandemic have been so divisive, for example. “How are you going to explore other ideas out there unless you ask questions?” 

 

Jenn also encouraged students to figure out a feasible pathway to pursue things they are interested in, inspired by or passionate about, knowing that they come from different backgrounds, with different privileges and barriers at play. 

 

“Make things happen when you can,” she said. 

 

She was a first-generation college student and didn’t have a lot of role models in the educational realm.

 

 Her path took her to two undergraduate colleges, then AmeriCorps VISTA, followed by a master’s degree through the School for International Training Graduate Institute, and a PhD. at UNL, where she worked and took advantage of tuition benefits.

 

“I didn’t have the easiest path, but I figured it out in a way that was feasible for me, because I was just passionate about it, interested, I wanted to learn more,” she said. 

 

As we all have learned in the past 18 months, strange and unexpected things can happen to affect your life and your learning. I have a friend at the Journal Star – reporter Chris Dunker -- who experienced a lot of those in his work and personal life. So I asked him for any wisdom he could pass on to students. 

 

“The first advice I would give any young person would be to stay young forever,” he said. “Barring a miracle of science, however, I would tell a younger version of me to wake up every day and strive to live in the moment, to appreciate the people in your life and to seize the opportunities and experiences that are out there.”

 

He was a sophomore in high school when 9/11 happened, and remembers watching the first tower fall live on television in – of all things – his second period U.S. history class. 

 

“We were all glued to these little TVs the rest of the day watching the planes knock those towers over again and again and again, feeling the world change in real-time.”

 

That afternoon, at cross country practice, he said, his coach tried to help the students make sense of what they had seen, even as he fumbled over the words.

 

“A lot of people died today, and I know it’s scary and sad,” Chris remembers him saying, “but we’re here, so all we can do today is get out there and run.”

 

At the time, it seemed insensitive, even offensive, Chris said. Hours earlier they had watched thousands of people die live on television, and this guy was telling them they should move forward like nothing had happened.  

 

“I suppose it took me until this last year, when we all underwent a series of traumatic events, once again experiencing so many of them in real time, to absorb what he was trying to say. Or, at least, to reconsider them with the benefits of time and perspective.

 

“As the world was coming apart at the seams in 2020, it became hard for me to enjoy the extra time I got to spend with my 3-year-old daughter who is growing up way too fast, or take full advantage of the quiet time with my wife before we became a family of 4, or even soak up the experiences of having a new baby.

 

“I was frustrated at the lack of progress we as a country and state were making against the coronavirus. I was terrified when I contracted it and my daughter started to get sick on the same day.” 

 

As he went about his job, he said, “I was enraged at being teargassed and tackled by law enforcement in my own city. I was devastated when I watched doctors and nurses remove a patient’s life support system.

 

“I got caught up in the tragedy of things and lost sight of what was in front of me.”

 

Then, at some point late last year, he remembered what his coach had told them as the world had changed dramatically 20 years ago. “We’re here, so all we can do today is get out there and run.”

 

“Maybe,” he said, “looking back on that moment at practice through the lens of who I had become and what I had experienced last year gave me a new understanding of what he was trying to say. Or maybe I had always understood, but just needed a real downer of a year to remember it.”

 

Either way, he said, “I’ve made a more concerted effort to do the things I have a passion for more often with the people I love and care about.” 

 

I couldn’t have said it better than these two rock stars, and this literal rock star James Valentine (Maroon 5 and Southeast Class of ’96), who graciously offered these words for a story in 2003:

 

“Take chances,” he said. 

 

People he’s seen accomplish things reached outside their limits, took on things they didn’t think they’d be able to pull off. Even if they failed, they learned. 

 

Practice, study, train and go all out, he said. 

 

“And, oh yeah, treat yourself right. Buy new socks often. There’s nothing that feels like new socks.” 

 

Good advice for us all. 

How Did I Not Know That?

 By Marilyn Moore

Like many of you, I have read a lot over the past fifteen months, seventy-five books since March 2020.  Fiction, non-fiction, historical fiction, biographies.  Some memorable, some not so much.  But several times, I found myself asking as I was reading, “How did I not know that?”  Usually, I was reading about a period, or event, or character, in history about which I knew next to nothing.  I heard myself saying to myself, “But I studied history, and I’m a reader.  How did I not know that?”  

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate is an example.  She writes of the efforts of Hannie, a formerly enslaved young woman, trying to find her mother and her siblings in the years after the Civil War.  The story is based on the very real practice of formerly enslaved persons, attempting to find their family members (think parents, children, siblings, cousins) who had been sold or traded to other slaveholders.  And just let that phrase, “formerly enslaved persons, attempting to find their family members who had been sold or traded,” rest in your heart and mind for a moment….  A practice that developed among those who were searching for their families was to write to one of several newspapers that would publish the seeker’s story, and these stories would be read by ministers to their congregations (think black churches) throughout the south.  And sometimes, a hearer would recognize a name, and a connection would be made, and family members would be reunited.  How did I not know that families that had been violently and cruelly separated would work through newspapers and churches (interestingly enough, both protected by the first amendment) to attempt to find one another?  But I didn’t….

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson is another example.  In this well-researched and compelling story, Wilkerson introduces us to three African Americans who make their way out of the deep south in the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s, going north and west to Chicago, to New York, and to California.  All are “freed,” in that they are no longer enslaved, but all are still held in the tight and dangerous bonds of racial discrimination, Jim Crow laws, and complete lack of safety for themselves and without a future for their families.  So, they left…also a dangerous undertaking.  The stores told by Wilkerson are the stories of leaving the familiar and venturing forth to the unfamiliar, which was never easy.  And the north was not the paradise sought; racism and discrimination were present there, too.  Certainly I knew of the Great Migration, the movement north by African Americans in the years encompassing the Great Depression, World War II, and the early years of the Civil Rights movement, but I didn’t know the details, and I certainly had not thought about the impact on both north and south of that huge shift in population during those decades.  

And there are others… The horror stories of the Indian Schools in America, boarding schools where children of Native American parents were forcibly relocated and required to abandon all native and family traditions, including language, stories, religion, and their families. The influence  of Lady Clementine and Eleanor Roosevelt in their husbands' WWII leadership.  Hedy Lamarr,  Austrian Jewish immigrant to the US and known for her roles on stage and screen, who invented the means of secure radio communication between American ships in WWII.  Martha Gellhorn, the third wife of Ernest Hemingway, who became the leading woman war correspondent for decades, from WWII to the 1980’s.  All of them are stories I did not know.  Not surprisingly, they are stories of African Americans, indigenous people, and women….stories that have been ignored or dismissed  or diminished for centuries.  

Which brings me to the photo at the beginning of this blog, Chimney Rock in the Nebraska panhandle, seen through the frame of a covered wagon.  Chimney Rock is known as the most famous landmark on the long journey taken by pioneers, as they traveled westward from somewhere in the eastern US.  And it was that….but the land on which Chimney Rock stands is so much more.  More than 38 million years in the making, geologically, home to large animals we would now call pre-historic.  And for some 10,000 years, before Europeans ever set foot on this land of the high plains, it was home to the native people, the Lakota, the Cheyenne, and the Arapahoe.  Then, in short order, came the trappers, the fur traders, the gold seekers, and the families moving west, along the Oregon and Mormon Trails. 

The story many of us in Nebraska heard was the story of those persons in covered wagons, moving west for a better life.  We heard about the dangers of the trail, the hardships of weather and disease and too much weight in the wagon and people who died and were buried in shallow graves along the way.  We heard about skirmishes, perhaps labeled as wars, with the Indian tribes.  (We probably did not hear about the systematic takeover of native lands and the destruction of generations of native life.). We appreciated the bravery of those who set forward, knowing the way would be difficult, but willing to take the risk.  And that is not a false story; indeed, it’s the story of many Nebraska families, including mine.  It’s just not the whole story. And it’s not the story of every family in Nebraska.  

In my fourth grade Nebraska history class I didn’t learn the stories of those who lived here much longer than Nebraska has been a state, and I didn’t learn the stories of their fate.  That has changed, and that’s a good thing.  Stories are now making their way into the heritage of Nebraska, including the story of Standing Bear, whose statue represents Nebraska in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol, and the story of Suzanne La Flesche Picotte, a member of the Omaha tribe in Nebraska and widely regarded as one of the earliest Native American physicians in the US, whose statue will soon be placed on Centennial Mall.  We are learning more of the tragic stories of the missing and murdered indigenous women, and we are learning of the poetry and the spirituality and the oneness with the creation that characterizes the life and culture of Nebraska's indigenous people. All of these add to the story, the complexity, of this place we call Nebraska…and demand that thoughtful people consider the implications of a bigger story than we first knew.  

“How did I not know that?”  Many reasons….I had never heard the story, or I heard a part of the story but not the whole story, or I heard but didn’t remember, or some combination of all of these.  What I know is that my understanding of the human condition and the human spirit is more complete as I know more of the stories.  And I’m compelled to seek the stories that have not been widely told, to listen to the voices that have not been heard, and to honor the stories, all the stories.  

The art of grief

By JoAnne Young

The grief that has been experienced in the past year and a half from covid deaths, from loss of jobs and pets and social contact could encircle the globe many times. 

 

I had my own losses. I chose to leave my job in January this year. It was the right time but, all the same, it was bad timing because of the pandemic. Two months later I lost my sister, the third member of my immediate family of four to die, leaving just me to house my family memories, to carry on in their stead. 

 

Statistics will tell you that for every death, an average of five people are left to grieve. With all due respect to statisticians, I think the average could be at least double that.

 

From covid deaths alone, that would mean 6.1 million people and counting in the United States  grieving in the past year and a half. In the state of Nebraska, 22,670. In Lancaster County, 2,410 in grief.

 

I heard a well-crafted line of dialogue on a TV show I was watching recently. 

 

“During a pandemic, shouldn’t all the other tragic crap take a break? … The body can only take so much.” 

 

One thing I have learned since my sister’s death is that grief, as painful as it is, is not pure pain. Woven in and around it are poignant moments. Meaningful remembrances. 

 

One of those happened for me in my basement a few weeks after my sister’s death, while I was cleaning up in a storage area. There on the floor, near nothing that I could see it would have tumbled from, lay a letter, a bit time worn but very readable. It was only two pages, back and front, not the entire letter and not signed, but I knew from the handwriting and content it was from her. 

 

It was decades old, written after I had told her I was pregnant with Carson, my oldest son. She told me that my pregnancy was terrific news, and that she had fought the urge to call our mother in Texas and tell her to call me, “afraid she would figure it out” before I could tell her myself. 

 

“I just wish we didn’t live so far apart,” she wrote. “It would be so nice to live in the same town.” 

 

I lived in Omaha at the time. She lived in Virginia. 

 

She counseled me on morning sickness, telling me that eating six smaller meals a day was sometimes better than three. Told me to get plenty of rest.

 

“Try and enjoy your pregnancy,” she said. 

 

That letter reminded me that she was also the first person I had called months later when being a new mother got the better of me, and I needed someone to sit quietly while I sobbed into the phone and wondered how I could carry out this important and difficult task of mothering. 

 

She did all the right things a sister should do. 

 

I loved finding that letter, a perfect reminder of what we had shared as sisters. Those things are sometimes forgotten when you live far apart and you are busy with your own lives. 

 

Grieving is an art, I believe, and as many arts are, a lonely one. If we are going to do it right, we can’t push it away, put yellow caution tape around it and busy our minds with other tasks.  

 

So I determined this week that instead of waiting for those grief waves to wash over me when I least expect them, I will give my losses the time they are due, the place in my life they have earned. 

 

And for Jackie, I will sit with her memory, our memories, and continue to be her sister.  

 

Patriotism. Bravery.

by Mary Reiman

As I put the flag outside the front door on this 4th of July, I am again reminded of the sacrifices, bravery, and patriotism of so many.

This is my dad. 1942. He was 21, handsome, and a private in the army, stationed at Fort Knox. 

Dad didn't want to go to war. He wanted to farm. Work the soil, not drive a gas truck at night without lights through France, Germany and Austria. 

He was one of the lucky ones. A survivor of World War II. One who eventually did get to come home and farm. He saw it as patriotism. I see it as bravery.

One of my favorite photos of him was taken in 1988 when he was walking in the Milford Pioneer Days parade with his rifle over this shoulder. Walking behind the flag bearer at the front of the parade with the other veterans. Wearing his VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) hat. Beaming as he passed by me at the church corner.

It has been 25 years since he passed away from a heart attack. I still talk to him as I dig in the dirt of my tiny garden space. I still think about the questions we never asked about his time in the army. He never talked about it. It was his private journey, shared only with his battalion who traveled to Europe and back with him. Friends, all with interesting nicknames, we first met through black and white photographs. Hank. Red. Box Car. Side Car. Our vacations were few and far between. If we went anywhere, it was to see his army buddies and their families. 

As my sister and I continue through boxes of our family history, we have more questions. Why didn't we push him to tell us about the trip to Europe on the Queen Elizabeth? Where was he stationed in England and when did they land in France? How and when did they get the word that the war was over? Where were they on that day in 1945?  How did it feel to.....? What were you thinking when....? How did you keep going? 

Yes, we knew not to ask, but we saw him relive his journey through the 1960s television shows about World War II, like Combat, The Rat Patrol and Garrison's Gorillas. I saw the magnitude of the memory surface on his face and the tension build in his body as I watched each episode with him. 

What could possibly be more patriotic than serving your country? In 1942, that meant going overseas. There were no cellphones to stay in contact with family. No television newspeople riding along to report the conditions of the road, searching for land mines. No drones to show the terrain. No Google maps to show them the way.

I have loving memories of my dad and great photos of him on the tractor, on the farm, living the life he wanted to live. But I sure wish I could have gotten inside his head about his years in the service. I wish I could have massaged his heart. Both to prevent the heart attack and to help him heal from the pain of those war images.

And as I reflect on patriotism: It was hard to hear the participants of the January 6th insurrection on our U.S. Capitol espouse patriotism. It is hard to witness the voting of importance issues for our country be turned into a political moment with a split vote, therefore not helping anyone. Are any of our state senators willing to be brave and stand up and vote outside the party lines? It is hard to hear those loud fireworks that shake the house and not wonder why anyone believes that is a patriotic thing to do when there have been so many requests from former soldiers to not ignite them in our city. 

Thank you to all who have served and those currently serving our country. That's patriotism. That's bravery.

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