Celebrating an Excellent and Productive Life -- Kevin McIlvoy's

Snapshots of the writer and his family flash on the screen in a theater where he sometimes read from his work.

The writer’s older son,  recalls falling asleep in a motel room the evening before his paternal grandfather’s funeral, as his father, the writer, sat hunched over a little desk working on the eulogy. When the writer’s son awakened at 2 a.m., the writer was still working, to make the words just right, “to give the performance he felt his father deserved.” Adds the son, “And now, 40 years later, I’m trying to speak at his memorial.”

I’m at a celebration of the life of Kevin McIlvoy, a brilliant and dedicated writer who was friend, colleague, and mentor to people who mattered to him, some of whom matter to me. “Mac” was also a loving husband and father, and one helluva writing teacher.

Mac wrote several fine novels and many poems and short stories. He arose at 5 a.m. to write. Afternoons, he wrote in coffee shops, listening to the conversations around him. He revised constantly. As a friend and colleague said, “He tortured the text until he got it to do what he needed it to.” He worked incessantly and took risks. (Novels narrated by a sixth-grader or an octogenarian stonemason and sometime thief?)

Kevin with our friend Don Kurtz

Mac gave back, too. Despite a writer’s need to hoard his/her time, Mac cared enough to be incredibly responsive to the work of students, not merely mouthing interest but displaying genuine appreciation with numerous perceptive comments and questions. “He truly engaged with students,” one former student said. Mac also edited Puerto del Sol, responding personally to everyone who submitted work. Wednesday mornings at the Munson Center, he taught writing to seniors. Earlier, in Chicago, he convinced the warden to let him teach writing to prisoners. He was such a dedicated father that on one camping trip, after he fell and broke three ribs, he stayed two more days in the wilderness, despite the pain, because his two sons were having so much fun.

Mac was instrumental in growing the NMSU writing program, and two other institutions here flourish because of his efforts. The Wednesday group became Southwest Writers, still meeting at Munson Center fourteen years after Mac left town. (Members have written more than two dozen books!) Mac chaired the Doña Ana Arts Council when it rescued, rehabilitated, and restored the Rio Grande Theater, now a performing arts venue owned by the City of Las Cruces.

He was a teacher in every moment, but also a lifelong student – an example for all of us.

Above all, Mac was a writer who deserves to be remembered and read.

As he said in 2021, “I remind myself that I want to live inside the sentences and not immediately start asking myself, ‘Where is this going?’ but to stay on the ground of the experience that the sentence is making sonically and then to discover by accident where this is going.” He also said, “Being uncertain, being vulnerable, is the best possible thing for me as an artist. I’ve come to believe it’s the best possible thing for anyone who presumes to make art, to place yourself in uncertainties, to be in over your head, to realize that the work is asking you to rise above your limitations.”

Amen, brother. Such words magnify my regret that I never met Mac.

But we have his words, his wonderful books!

                                                               -- 30 --

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 20 November 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website (or, at least, it will be) and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and on KTAL (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and be available on both stations’ websites. One obituary of Kevin McIlvoy can be found here.]

[McIlvoy is the author of the novels A Waltz (1981), The Fifth Station (1987), Little Peg (1991), Hyssop (1998), At the Gate of All Wonder (2018) and One Kind Favor (2021, plus a book of short stories, The Complete History of New Mexico (2005), and a collection of short-shorts and prose poems, 57 Octaves Below Middle C (2017). ]

[McIlvoy is the opposite of some writer who sells some books and gets trapped in trying to repeat the same formula, a mystery with recurring characters and scenes, a formula romance, a series of sequels. That, done well, can sell well and please readers who like it; but it’s a death-knell for the creative artist inside, who started all this for reasons deeper than money or fame. As he said, “I’ve always trusted incoherence above coherence.”

Consider the books: One is narrated by a sixth-grader (who barely made it out of 5h) and another by an 85-year-old mason and part-time thief. Little Peg’s protagonist is a woman who’s nearly to the point of being released from a psychiatric treatment center where she’s lived nearly a decade. Scattered through the book are Peg’s short stories, which explain, perhaps without justifying, her behavior.

McIlvoy combined devout Catholicism with an inquiring and creative mind. He named one novel The Fifth Station, after the station of the cross where Simon the Cyrenean briefly helps Jesus carry the cross. It concerns broken promises by three brothers who’ve grown up in an Illinois steel town one of whom lives as a hobo in New Mexico. Reviewers said his hobo friends were particularly vivid. Only when Luke decides to write the story of his youngest brother’s death does he begin regenerating his capacity to love and to trust – and to recover the grace that he (a basketball star as were his brothers) with which he had lived in youth. I’d love to ask McIlvoy over coffee about where helping others, Resurrection, and creative writing intersect in his mind. No chance now.

Hyssop is filled with moments of New Mexico Catholicism, with miracles and saints unquestioned.

In a complex love quadrangle Red loved both his wife Cecilia, 20-years dead now, and her best friend while Cecilia cared deeply for both Red and Red’s best friend, a Catholic priest Red considers a saint. Publisher’s Weekly raved that McIlvoy “has beautifully rendered the soft, Spanish-inflected rhythms of English as it is spoken on the border” in “a farming community where families are rooted for generations” in each other's histories. At the Celebration of Life, Mac’s other son, Colin Allen(?), read the dream sequence that ends Hyssop; it is both strong and sufficiently imaginative that other writers might envy it. (Confession: I wandered down to Coas a few days later and bought that and The Complete History of New Mexico (which Publishers Weekly called a “bizare, engaging collection” of stories that resembles “a series of jazz riffs”).]

[Anyway, this was a guy who enriched not only readers’ lives but the lives of his students, friends, and acquaintances; and who (believing, as he told his wife before they married, that he would not live a long life) lived fully, with creative work, family love, other projects, and plenty of fishing, hiking, tennis, and other recreation. I’m looking forward to the books.]

Taking a Deep Breath

If some typographical symbol meant, “taking a deep breath,” I’d start this column with it.

We just had a major election. Before jumping into state/local issues, let’s contemplate that.

We’re still deeply and acrimoniously divided. Gridlock and Disinformation will still characterize Congress and the Internet, respectively. (And Fox Gnus.) Mr. Trump still proposes to stay out of jail by running again for President. Mr. Putin still proposes to nuke someone if we don’t let him have his way.

But this was an amazing week: for the first time since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a sitting president’s party in his first mid-term lost few House seats and perhaps no Senators. (Truman and Clinton each lost 54 House and 10 Senate seats, Obama 63/6.)

What overcame history, Biden’s poor polling, and high inflation? Decent folks’ revulsion at Trump’s lawlessness and disregard for democracy? Seeing how pathetic his chosen senatorial candidates were? This election may prevent a second Trump presidency; but “Ron DeSanctimonious” isn’t Lincoln.

We may not know who controls the U.S. Senate until Georgia’s candidates meet in a runoff December 6. (Neither Raphael Warnock (49.6%) nor Herschel Walker (48.3%) exceeded 50% of the vote.)

I’d bet on Warnock. He led this time. Anti-Trump revulsion could hurt Trump’s hand-picked running back, who won’t have Brian Kemp blocking for him. Governor Kemp led the Republican ticket, beating Stacey Abrams, but some Kemp voters didn’t vote for Walker. Decent Republicans who came out to vote for Kemp and other Republicans might stay home December 6. Fundamentalist “pro-life” folks might reflect on the fact that Warnock is a respected pastor, while Walker has funded abortions. Even if Walker gets ¾ of the voters who preferred Libertarian Chase Oliver (hardly a given, since Oliver’s a gay ex-Dem!), the excitement for Warnock and the mixed feelings about Walker should give Warnock the prize, despite the runoff’s significance. (Georgia Dems won both 2020 runoffs.)

Meanwhile, congratulations to Gabe Vasquez! But Wednesday morning, eyeballing that 50%-50% Vasquez-Herrell split, I contemplated our system. However I feel about the candidates (I’ve liked and respected Gabe for many years; Yvette, whom I interviewed in 2018, seemed a pleasant person, but was too convinced that Donald Trump was good for the country), it seems sad that after all the work and passion (and dollars) result in a close call, one candidate is totally out in the cold.

A shout out to Gabe. DON’T let the national party lead you by the nose. Its support helped; but your sweat and eloquence won this. Take their advice as well-intended, but it ain’t written on no tablet from the mountain.

Shout outs to Shannon Reynolds and Suzie Kimble. Reynolds will continue on our county commission. Kimble will not join it. If our candidate forum had been a job interview, I’d have hired Mr. Reynolds; but I’d have kept Ms. Kimble’s resume for the next opening. They campaigned cordially, collegially, cooperatively, and reasonably, more interested in the business of governing than in taking ideological potshots at each other. Good riddance to Mr. Ronchetti, Dr. Oz, and a host of ambitious phonies. And congrats to Michele Lujan-Grisham and Raul Torrez; but please don’t trip over the constitution in your haste to jail people before trying them.

I hope now we relax for awhile, laugh more, enjoy our wonderful lives, and take time for facts regarding political matters.  I won't hold my breath, though.

                                                 – 30 --

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 13 November 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website (or, at least, it will be) and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and on KTAL (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and be available on both stations’ websites.]

[By the way, I’ll be doing a book-signing at Coas Books Saturday, 19 November, of my novel, The Moonlit Path. That’s 10 a.m. to noon, at 317 North Main Street. That’ll be a great chance to say hello, take a quick look at the book, and buy a copy if the spirit moves you.]

[I guess some of what I’ve been writing accords with what’s going on. More Republicans are particularly articulating their disenchantment with Mr. Trump. Bernie Sanders expressed a dichotomy pretty well in pointing out that while a second Trump Presidency (or even presidential campaign) would be disastrous for the nation, it would likely undermine national Republicans’ efforts to get elected. Trump should be toast; but, remember, folks thought that as the Republican primaries started in 2016, What got Trump through was that although most Republicans thought him a clown, and some saw him as a dangerous clown, the seven dwarfs (Cruz, Rubio, et al. – how many of their names can you recall now?) each let personal ambition blind him (or her) to the importance of unifying to prevent Mr. Trump from marching toward the nomination by “winning” primaries with 38% of the vote. This time, seems like others might shut up and let DeSantis run; but I’m not sure. DeSantis is no bargain. Some, like Pence have reasons to run against Trump or DeSantis. Others, like Hawley and perhaps even Cruz, may nourish illusions that they could win the 2024 nomination and 2024 election.]

[To speak plainly: I think Trump will announce a run; but he will stop short of mounting a serious campaign, but not because of Republican opposition. An extraneous force, possibly a criminal trial or conviction, possibly mental illness so glaring it can’t be annoyed, perhaps even one of the other debilitating things that often happen to fa, out-of-shape septuagenarians who don’t take care of themselves. Not saying I wish anything on him; but it’ll be an interesting couple of years.]

[Now, with Arizona and Nevada called for Democrats, the Georgia runoff will merely decide whether the Democrats control the Senate 51-49 or continue at 50-50, controlling the Senate because Vice-President Kamala Harris’s vote breaks ties. That should decrease total turnout. I’d guess it feels more important to Democrats than to Republicans, partly because of the mixed feelings Republicans have about Walker. There are large donors who are pretty embarrassed by his inexperience and the scandals he’s brought them, and if they’re not buying control of the Senate, why bother? Too, the belated rush to see and state that Donald Trump is bringing the party down by inserting losers into the Republican lineup won’t help people motivate themselves to traipse back to the polls for Herschel. Too, an astute African-American journalist points out that Blacks in Georgia don’t much care for Herschel – not because he’s allied with folks whose policies favor the rich, or with known racists, but because Walker (self-proclaimed “not that smart”) so clearly fits white folks’ old stereotype of people of color: plenty of brawn, no real intelligence, and an inexhaustible supply of prevarications.) Meanwhile, Defendants, inspired by gaining a seat Tuesday instead of losing two or three, won’t feel quite as significant a dwindling of energy. If I were betting on Warnock as on the San Francisco 49ers, I’ll bet we’d find Las Vegas had shifted the odds by now. [or moved the point-spread from Warnock -1 to giving Walked 3 or 4 points, as if the Chargers’ quarterback had tested positive Friday for COVID] Unless Dem overconfidence or deep love for Walker’s football accomplishments hurts the Dems; but likely we’ll see Barack Obama revisiting the state right after Thanksgiving.)

Eclipse of Democracy? Or Worse?

Tuesday feels critical for our nation.

In my childhood, elections were civilized affairs in which we decided whether Eisenhower or Stevenson, Kennedy or Nixon, or Truman or Dewey should lead us. There were some shared basic principles: democracy, respect, freedom, determination that our country survive and prosper, and confront external threats, yet try to extend a decent quality of life to everyone.

Despite mutterings about dead people voting in Chicago, Nixon did not conspire to overturn Kennedy’s victory, or pretend that, as vice-president, he could decline to certify the count. Jimmy Carter didn’t encourage mobs to break into the Capitol threatening to hang the vice-president and the Speaker. Had partisans done so, no politician would have had difficulty pronouncing such violence (or Carter’s encouragement) absolutely unacceptable.

This year we vote in a climate of violence: Arizona has armed patrols “observing” ballot depositories; a crazy guy threatening the Speaker of the House breaks into her home, cracks her 82-year-old husband’s skull with a hammer, and Donald Trump suggests “there’s something suspicious” about the victim(!) Here, Conservation Voters of New Mexico recently received a package with threats against a Democratic legislator, anti-Semitic symbols, and some chemical substance; and Trumpists are training “more active” poll-watchers. It’s not Belfast or Israel, but it’s not real healthy, either.

The partisan violence recalls that of the 1850s. We know where that led.

Meanwhile, after much angst and some primary battles, the Trump-influenced Republicans have nominated an exceptional collection of scurrilous halfwits. (I think so; and that’s a fair extrapolation of what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must think, to complain publicly about his party’s substandard candidates.) They all spout the “stolen election” nonsense. All genuflect to Trump. One even smiles while Trump says the candidate is kissing Trump’s ass. Herschel Walker, nominated solely for his long-ago football skills, is running on a “No abortions!” platform while women show receipts for abortions he urged and paid for. Mehmet Oz is a TV celebrity, like Kim Kardashian (or that guy in The Apprentice), with no more political experience or wisdom than she.

This bizarre collection is so unappealing that, even though the President’s party usually loses the mid-terms, and Biden has not been popular in the polls, it seemed likely voters might reject most of them. Inflation intervened.

Presidents have little control over inflation, and rarely deserve as much blame or credit as they get. Our inflation was recently at 8.2%, while inflation was higher in most European countries, from Italy’s 8.9% o 14.5% in the Netherlands. Moreover, despite common belief, inflation has historically been worse during Republican presidencies than Democratic ones.

The main factor in current high inflation is Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and the decision to oppose him. (Ironically, the fellow propping up the halfwits also has expressed great admiration for Putin.)

Seen clearly, the electoral battle is not merely between parties, but pits those who deeply want our country to maintain its democracy, and win elections through persuasion rather than violence or chicanery, against those for whom it’s more important to elect Donald Trump. (It’s more important that Michigan State upset Michigan than it is to keep the stadium from falling on us!) Will Republicans and other conservatives step up?

Friends say it’s just a cycle. But, after failing to overturn the 2020 election, Trumpists set in motion procedures in swing states to stack the deck in favor of such an effort in the future.

                                          – 30 – 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 6 November 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website (sub nom, “Bizarre National Slate of Electors,” and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and on KTAL (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and be available on both stations’ websites.]

[By the way, I’ll be doing a book-signing at Coas Books Saturday, 19 November, of my novel, The Moonlit Path. That’s 10 a.m. to noon, at 317 North Main Street. That’ll be a great chance to say hello, take a quick look at the book, and buy a copy if the spirit moves you.]

[We voted, Saturday. I felt glad to live in New Mexico. I do suspect that Republicans will emerge with a majority in the House and a much smaller majority in the U.S. Senate. I think John Fetterman’s stroke could end up deciding the course of the next few years’ history. Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Fetterman seems a genuinely beloved political leader where he’s from, and also more genuine than most experienced politicians are. He had a healthy lead over Mehmet Oz that likely would have survived the late rightward swing because of inflation. However, his stroke changed him and the race. While he may continue to recover, and may be capable of being a fine senator even now, a debate played to all his weaknesses. He couldn’t respond quickly and wittily to Oz’s attacks. Even if many of those were bullshit, the independent viewer didn’t know that, and didn’t learn it from Fetterman in the debate. It likely cost him the race.

I don’t think the next couple of years will be pretty. I hope my friends are right that U.S. national politics may still be cyclical in the foreseeable future. Certainly the harsh, sometimes hate-filled actions of Republican national leaders have generated and will generate much opposition; but the rigged [by the imbalance between voters’ power in electing our senate and by the similar imbalance caused by the electoral college] system is being further rigged by Republican state leaders in swing states, and perhaps ultimately by the far right “U.S. Supreme Court,” such that popular sentiment may not matter nearly as much as it should.]

Launching The Moonlit Path

On Amazon (and, soon, Coas) an odd book has become available. Odd because, in our hustling, bustling cyberworld, it purports to be the 1914 journal of a 32-year-old woman, a serious painter and gardener, in Oakland, California. Odd because my name’s on it. Let’s say Katherine Willard wrote it through this old curmudgeon a century later.

There are zillions of books on Amazon; but, naturally, this one amazes me.

Is this how loving mothers feel – simply amazed that such a being could have originated inside them? I read Katherine’s words and they are not mine. Yet I wrote them.

Some scenes in the novel borrow heavily from actual events of the time, but many of Katherine’s thoughts were created by a wind that swept up and fused together memories, thoughts, overheard conversations, scraps of research, and dreams. That might sound mystical, but I can’t describe it more precisely. I don’t understand it well enough. Like some medium, I sat in a chair, waiting, and Katherine spoke through me.

Of course, it’s not that easy. I also spent long hours in the Library of Congress, and read each issue of the Oakland Enquirer from 1914. Writing dialogue set in 2020, we know many of the likely subjects, the appropriate words and slang, and what usually goes with what. (Loving the 2^nd Amendment may not mean you like the 9^th. A 23^rd Century writer might guess 21^st Century citizens praising “the sanctity of life” would oppose capital punishment.) Time has buried much of 1914. And I felt a loony commitment to accuracy.

I’m fond of Katherine. I felt that her voice should be heard, or that she wanted to be heard, by folks living more than a century later. I have no grandiose expectations. The book does not follow the conventional plot arc. The most dramatic events lie undreamed-of until early autumn. Many readers will have no interest. Some will quickly become bored. Others will linger to listen to Katherine’s voice and enjoy the window she provides into a long-gone time. A few will love the book.

It’s not for everyone. What I hope I have done is let a very real person, embedded in a time, a gender, and an art that are not mine, gradually reveal herself to us – and to herself. (A warning: people in the novel use words none of us today would. Their attitudes are what they were.)

I began this story decades ago. I wrote a first draft, and rather liked the writing. I liked Katherine. I felt that the quirky way I’d let her in allowed an especially real and vivid portrait to emerge. But, I put her aside. I didn’t think her story would sell; and I was certain agents and publishers would say, No, thank you!” (Much later, a friend’s agent wrote of the book in glowing terms, but added that she couldn’t see how to sell it in today’s market.)

When my spouse came into my life, she read it and liked it. I picked it up again. Then I joined a productive writing group, and she urged me to show the others Katherine’s journal. Their enthusiasm helped motivate me to press on.

So here, long delayed, is Katherine’s story. Like most parents, I’m keenly aware of how I might have done better. But I’m kind of in awe of Katherine, who, for better or worse, can now speak for herself.

                                                              – 30 --

 

 [The above column appeared Sunday, 30 October 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and on KTAL (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and be available on both station’s websites.]

[The Moonlit Path is available on-line, as well as at Moonbow Book Nook and, soon, at Coas on Main; and I’m scheduled to do a book-signing at Coas on Saturday, 19 November. (If you do read it and like it, please take a moment to post a review on Amazon, if you can.)]

 

An Exclusionary Wind is Blowing - Again!

Just as some stranger’s cancer diagnosis is less devastating than your own, reading how the Hindu right has tightened its censorship noose on Bollywood hurts less than contemplating the current rightwing efforts to limit how much historical truth we admit about our own society.

India seems obvious. Of course the Indian caste system and its persistence have hurt and angered folks relegated to lower castes; and while Gandhi and Nehru sought an India where Moslems, Hindus, Christians, and others flourished, ethnic prejudices and violence between Hindus and Moslems destroyed trust, making their dream a tough sell.

There’s always tension between artists and the State. Artists are committed to what they create, and what they learn from what they create, not to jamming their characters into some Fascist, Socialist, or Christian ideology. Fictional characters may be the writer’s creations, but if s/he is any good, they then live and grow somewhat independently, often surprising their creator. Fictional characters crammed into ideological boxes die quickly, as did the fireflies I placed in Mason jars, despite numerous breathing holes in the metal lids.

Salman Rushdie is an extreme example; but Fyodor Dostoyevsky was nearly executed by the Russian Czar. Pasternak and Solzhenitzn were jailed by the Russian Communists. The U.S. jailed and harassed Howard Fast and the Hollywood Ten.

Many passionate Hindu nationalists, believing India should be for Hindus, push Indian filmmakers and writers to portray military heroics in Hindu India’s history, rather than examining the personal costs and challenges of ethnic hatreds and the caste system. They feel India is under attack. Whether or not they like the caste system, they do not want it held up to the light (or movie screen), washing India’s dirty laundry very publicly.

MAGA Republicans (like McCarthy and the House Unamerican Activities Committee before them) promote their idea of American Exceptionalism. Whatever they believe about the sprawling and appalling institution of slavery, or the pervasive discrimination it engendered, they’d prefer writers and filmmakers choose subjects reflecting the U.S.’s special greatness. Some deny historical racism, or doubt current racism causes problems, and they sure don’t want frank exploration of it.

Bollywood is frightened, as Hollywood was frightened in the 1950s. And may be again.

Teachers are frightened in Florida and Texas. Teaching history accurately (likely never the reality in our elementary schools, which stressed U.S. heroism) could cross some line in new laws. Racism is a reality. It has frequently dominated our history. But, like sex, it’s not to be discussed in public schools. (Doctors and psychologists are also frightened in those states. Outlawing abortion makes treating a pregnant woman’s cancer dicey. Treatment might affect the sacred Fetus. Helping a kid whose inner self and outer physical characteristics don’t match, could land you in jail!)

The U.S. is turning ugly again. When I was born, it was a wonderful place for many; but women and “Negroes” were kept in their respective places. A country that increasingly tolerated, and even valued, diverse ideas, colors, creativity, and genders was a gradual luxury. (For which many of us had fought, when young.) What a shock the current ugly turn must be for someone younger, who assumes fairness, tolerance, and justice matter! (Reminds me of realizing at 18 that our beloved country was fighting a war the world saw was as unjust and foolish as . . . Putin’s.)

Is this another cycle we’ll outgrow, or is it midnight for decency and democracy?

                                             – 30 --

 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 23 October 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and on KTAL (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/) and be available on both station’s websites.]

[I’m not sure I like the column. It’s right about stuff, but a little muddled in its organization. Started trying to use the Indian push for a solely Hindu India with the MAGA push for a solely Christian [only as they define that] U.S. (That latter is perhaps a slight exaggeration; but we’re suddenly somewhat more unwelcoming to anyone who doesn’t fit the mold or doesn’t live by their definitions of Christianity and humanity: draconian abortion laws, draconian laws regarding gender, Don’t Talk about Racism, Don’t Talk about Gay, take a harder line on immigration, etc., much of which (exclusionary ethnic policies, anyway) is a wave tumbling through much of the world.)

Then the column turned toward more of a lament that our country, which was peaceful and prosperous but exclusionary during my youth (I mention women and Blacks kept in their place, but try joining a country club if you were Jewish in 1948. (See the film, Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), for further information.) And you didn’t see a whole lot of Italians in white-collar positions, as I recall. Or a lot of Chinese or Indians. Let alone “Indians.”)

I wanted to do too many things in one column, include reminding folks that the phase of greater tolerance and openness, though it lasted decades, was perhaps a phase, not the march of progress, and certainly an anomaly compared to 1919-20, 1947-1958, and much of our national existence.

But what the hell? I can be muddled now and then. I’m extremely old, and was experiencing a mild case of COVID-19 when I wrote the column. Probably still am.

btw:

on Amazon [the moonlit path by peter goodman , or soon at Coas, there’s an odd novel called The Moonlit Path available.

Odd because it purports to be the journal of a 32-year-old woman living in Oakland, California, in 1914. (It’s not for everyone, but some folks love it.)

Odd too because I seem to have written it. Or Katherine Willard wrote it through me. Or something.

It’s a fairly detailed window into a vanished time in our country.  (A vainished time with some sweetness to it, for some, but even more frankly exclusionary!)  And Katherine’s a pensive, pleasant, perceptive tourguide.

About which, more later, as I think Holden used to say.