Tag: United States Page 1 of 3

First the bell bottoms came back

On May 30, 2020

The crowd on Day 1 of the Woodstock Festival on August 15, 1969. Clayton Call/Redferns

Woodstock Music Festival – 1969

Back in the 60s, my baby boomer generation rode the interstate buses into the south to protest segregation in the southern states. My generation protested at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and were met with the use of extreme violence by the Chicago police force. My generation stood up and called out shady backroom politics. We demonstrated for clean water and clean air. We toppled a dishonest president. We ended an unjust war. We hailed the passing of Roe/Wade giving women the right to decide over their own bodies. We wore our bell bottoms and we changed the world. We thought we had fixed things.

The word Boomer seems to have become a bad word lately, connoting all kinds of unpleasant things about my generation. By now we have gotten old, and people have forgotten what we did.

I no longer live in New York, the city of my heart. I haven’t lived there for over 30 years. I view America from afar. When I meet someone new and we spend a bit of time exchanging the Cliff Notes of our lives, I usually summarize myself by saying “I’m an old hippy”. Perhaps this isn’t completely honest. Though I went around braless, I never lived in a commune. I didn’t practice free love and have sex with anyone who seemed interested. I attended a few peace marches but that was mainly because a boy I liked wanted to go. While I smoked pot on occasion I didn’t spend my days in a daze. I didn’t attend Woodstock. But I still feel I can nevertheless call myself an old hippy. That’s how I identified back then when I was young, wearing long flowered skirts and sandals (in the summer) and my hair a wild curly mass…for a short period of time. Life is usually lived in short periods of time. We are something for a while and then we evolve. Inside we stay who we are. It’s just our outside trappings that change. I gave up my patched bell bottomed jeans for mid-calf length flowy dresses that were replaced by broad-shouldered suits that became baggy-waist pants that turned into tunics over leggings. But I’m still me underneath.

I still love New York though I no longer belong there. I still love a good argument. I still believe people are fools, all of us, but we should at least be friendly and show consideration and respect. I still love science fiction and hate oysters. And while I believe in the equality of all human beings and their right to be able to live a decent life within a just system regardless of race or gender or social status or hairstyle or clothing choices, I still reserve the right to choose who I like and wish to be friends with. Though everybody is equal I have no desire to love everyone equally.

I read my electronic New York Times subscription from here in Stockholm. I read articles from CNN or the few stories I am allowed from the Washington Post without a paid subscription. I look at the things people share on Facebook and Twitter. And I get very scared. Black men get killed while jogging and a white woman threatens a black man with a bold-faced lie to the police about him endangering her. The only thing new about this is that they are being filmed, live as it is happening, like the reportage from the Vietnam war in the 60s and 70s. Synagogues are attacked. And churches. Men with military grade weaponry feel they have the right to threaten State capital buildings and the police just look on. Right wing fascists are rioting, burning buildings, reminding me of Kristallnacht in the 1930s, though this time it isn’t specifically aimed at only Jewish citizens. But the purpose is the same – to create havoc, to tumble society. Demonstrators are marching again, protesting injustice. And like at Kent State, the police are firing on them.

I read all this and it worries me, a lot. There is a vacuum in the place where the head of state of the USA should be. Instead there is a man totally unfit to be there, filled with anti everything that is good and decent and humane and sane. There is so much wrong with America now and once again it is all coming to the surface, into plain sight. My generation thought we fixed things. We had that hope at least. We obviously didn’t. Hans Rosling, the Swedish academic, believed that statistically the world was improving for the majority of people. But the things that are still wrong in the world can’t be fixed all in one fell swoop. Perhaps it is up to each generation to stand up and say “This is wrong” and demand change. Time to protest, time to demonstrate, time to march, time to stand up and be heard. Change for the better won’t be able to happen until the current administration is voted out and its enablers in the Republican Party are also voted out.

But right now, it’s the 60s all over again, baby. The struggle is here once more. Put your bell bottoms on and start getting on with it.

And just for a bit of memory and inspiration…My Generation by the Who.
Photo credit: The crowd on Day 1 of the Woodstock Festival on August 15, 1969.
Clayton Call/Redferns

My Mini High School Reunion

By Hilarie

On November 2, 2019

In Uncategorized

I graduated from high school fifty years ago! I find that hard to believe. It goes along with realizing that fifty years ago my generation went to Woodstock and fifty years ago human beings walked on the moon.

This past July, a group of fellow former seniors from West Morris Regional High School in northern New Jersey attended our class’s 50th reunion. A reunion committee had spent almost a year planning the event and I admit to feeling a bit nostalgic as I kept getting planning updates. But I didn’t go. I rarely travel back to the States during Swedish summer – my husband and I have a country house that the only time we can be there is in the summer.

Only fifteen years ago, the majority of my classmates had become just dusty memories from an old yearbook. The last time I actually met – in person – anyone from my New Jersey school days, was 40 years ago when I attended our tenth reunion. But now, many of my former schoolmates are friends on Facebook and even though I haven’t met them in real life, I’ve seen pictures of their grandchildren.

A few years ago, I finally had the chance to unpack a load of books carted over here from New York City and never seen again in almost 30 years. My high school yearbooks were among them. Opening the books was a walk down memory lane. I discovered, much to my surprise, that my senior class had had an exchange student that year who came from Sweden! What a weird coincidence, I thought. I had not shared any classes with him so didn’t really know him. I had a vague memory of sitting in at a talk he gave about Stockholm with slides showing pictures of the city but that was all.

Britta Jacobsen was a high school friend who had Swedish parents, something I gave little thought to, even when she came into school wearing the most unusual clogs with perforated white leather tops that she got on a trip back to visit her parent’s homeland. Her mother and brother eventually moved back to Sweden – but to the Gothenburg area, not to Stockholm, so we have not had a chance to meet. As part of the reunion planning committee, she messaged me last year, asking if I could try to track down our former Swedish exchange student, Lars Göran Thambert. Luckily, he had a rather unusual name and I was able to locate him on LinkedIn. I wrote to him there, explaining who I was and about the reunion. He never wrote back and I let it drop. I did however send his LinkedIn info to the reunion committee and Wayne Myers also sent him a message. This message landed just when Lars was on one of his rare visits there. He wrote back to Wayne and eventually made a video about himself that was shown at the reunion. Lars also discovered my letter to him and answered me. We exchanged a few emails and decided to get in touch and meet for Swedish Fika in Stockholm after the summer. I told him I would let him judge for himself how good my Swedish had become after living here for over 30 years.

We planned a date in the middle of October at my favorite cafe here on Södermalm near where I live. I wondered how I would recognize him, a person I never knew all those years ago but I took another look at the video he made to get an idea of what he looked like today. We exchanged phone numbers and I figured if we couldn’t recognize each other we could call the other’s phone and listen to see who in the cafe’s phone was ringing. Modern times!

Its been along time since I’ve been on a blind date but I still remember that feeling of worrying if we would have anything to talk about. Lars had said in his video that he was an architect, so I figured conversation could flow no matter what. Back in high school, the two career paths I was considering were either Fashion Design or Architecture. I choose Fashion but after two years at Pratt, I switched to Commercial Art/Illustration. I had been scared of choosing architecture because I felt math and science were not really my thing. Once I got to Pratt, it turned out that many of the guys I became best friends with were from the architecture program anyway. And many of them told me that math and science were not their thing either. Go figure.

The day came and I sat myself down at a table in Vurma with my latte, a cardamon bulla and with my yearbook clearly visible.

This is how we looked in 1969

I recognized him immediately as he came in the door and gave a wave. He ordered a sandwich and we started talking. We started off by looking though the yearbook, pointing out people who we had been friends with and just reminiscing about life in NJ all those years ago. He is still in touch with the family that hosted him back then. I told him about Art School. He told me about the architectural projects he has worked on here in Stockholm, some of them quite large projects. We both have had our own companies and agreed we like being able to choose who and what we work with. I told him my story about how I landed here. He told about his grandchildren and I told how I am still trying to get my grown son to move into his new apartment. We discussed art and architecture and design. The almost 3 hours flew by. I had to finally go home to make dinner for my family and he was about to meet his daughter to go to see an exhibit of furniture design. We said good bye, agreeing to keep in touch.

I am so glad I met Lars. It was a lovely afternoon. But more than that, knowing that there is someone here in my adopted homeland who shares a part of my long distant past is somehow comforting. The world is a big place and when you are young you never know where your life will take you. For some people the journey is not very far while for others like myself you end up a long way from where you thought you would be. And that just proves that in spite of its size, the world can be a very small place indeed.

A Little Bit Extreme

By Hilarie

On October 18, 2016

In Uncategorized

When I was growing up my mother used to tell me “Eat your vegetables!”

When I was growing up, we started every school day with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag and the Lord’s Prayer.
When I was growing up, we would watch with awe as NASA scientists built rockets that could send human beings to the moon.
When I was growing up, I learned about the Christian Crusades rampaging across Europe on their way to the Holy Land, while most of Islamic Spain and Portugal flourished in a golden age of science, medicine, trade, poetry and culture.
When I was growing up, people were marching for civil rights, for women’s rights, for equality for all people.

My mother’s idea of a correct dinner plate was one composed of 3 parts: there was a protein item such as beef, chicken or pork, there was some sort of starchy item such as rice or potatoes or macaroni, and there was some sort of veggie such as broccoli or asparagus or corn. We never had that all-American staple of the 1960s, the peas and carrots mix (with little pea-sized cubes of carrots) because I was allergic to the peas. My mom often served slightly unusual veggies like artichokes to keep me and my brother interested in them. But regardless of what type of veggie there was on my plate there were always the 2 other items there too. But today it’s not enough to eat veggies with every meal. You are encouraged to be extreme and you have to eat nothing but the veggies. You have to be Vegan and nothing that ever breathed oxygen should pass your lips.

The Pledge of Allegiance had no mention of God when first written, but it did by the time I was in school. The Lord’s Prayer, a specifically Christian prayer was not a part of my Jewish experience. Nevertheless, to me, as I recited it every morning with my Christian classmates, the prayer was just words, without any strong significant meaning. The words certainly didn’t interfere with my identity as a Jew. I got my identity from my home and family. The Founding Fathers had as one of their very fundamental principles, the idea of the separation of Church and State. They were educated men, these inventors of our country. They knew about the horrors that State-sponsored religion had visited on Europe in the past (mainly by the Christian Church) and they wisely wanted to avoid this. So if we really wanted to do as the founders wanted, there would be no prayers at all in the public schools. But today the Pledge and the Prayer have become a battleground between those who don’t want them in the public schools and those who insist they should be there. Prayer in school, mainly Christian prayers, seem to have become a rallying point between those who fanatically believe that America is a Christian country and everyone should be a Christian or at least participate in Christian prayer and those who believe that a Christian prayer in a school is an infringement on their own personal non-Christian rights. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists and everyone else who have an alternative belief should be forced to endure it. Once again, a plate with a variety of flavors, is being rejected by the extremists.

In the days when we watched men travel to the moon, scientists were respected. Real science was taught in school. Darwin’s ideas about evolution had long been proven as fact. Exploring all areas of the world for more knowledge about life was considered important. We believed that life could be made better for everybody though science. But today Science is considered suspect. Scientists too. Scientific knowledge is rejected in favor of unfounded belief. Evolution? A bunch of hooey! Climate Change? Just bunk! Moon landings? A big conspiracy. Vaccines? Don’t do it because they cause autism. Rape? Not a big deal because you can’t get pregnant from it since the body rejects rape pregnancies. I am just waiting for the flat earth people to start demanding that to be taught in schools.

These days the Dark Ages are long over. The Pope no longer exhorts his followers on organized rampages across Europe in the name of God. But instead, a fundamentalist version of Islam is on a holy war against the non-believers, intent on wiping out all who believe otherwise. Extremism at its finest. It doesn’t really matter who’s God is in charge when the extremists insist on deciding who is right and who is wrong. Everyone is sure to suffer.

The days of standing up for inclusion; for fighting for equal rights for women, for people of color, for the handicapped, for all minorities seem to be long over. Instead we have a presidential candidate who makes fun of the disabled, is vulgar and rude about women, who threatens to jail his opponent if he is elected. His followers at his rallies shout things like “Kill her.” or “Trump that bitch!” or “Build a wall — kill them all.” They threaten violence towards anyone in their midst who voices a dissenting opinion.The hatred for The Other has replaced the idea of equality for all which once ruled this land.

The world is definitely not like it used to be when I was growing up. And I’m not really sure about the reason for why this is. But now we are living in an age of extremism and I have to say that I am getting extremely fed up with it.

Its sooooo green

By Hilarie

On July 29, 2012

In Family, Life, Stavsnäs

It was almost 20 years ago when we first came out here to Stavsnäs, the country property my husband’s parents first bought, back in the early 50s.

The old sofa

One of the many things we found out here was a teak, outdoor sofa that was very much in need of love. One of the first summers here, in between my many other duties as a mother of a young child, I spent a lot of hours sanding and oiling that sofa. For many years now, it has been one of the main pieces of outdoor furniture we have out here. We would store it indoors during the winter and take it out again when we came out here the following spring. There it would be, first on the deck outside our little house and for the past 4 years on the deck outside the new big house. Each year it would sit, soaking up the rain and drying out in the sun and one year, when we didn’t get to put it inside, even withstanding the snow. But all those years of use had taken their toll. Our once lovely bench had turned grey and rough and no longer so pleasant to sit on. So, yestarday, I decided to spend some time fixing it up again. It didn’t take as much sanding as it did 20 some-odd years ago but the oiling took longer since the oil I had was old and needed to be applied very carefully. Now, it can once again sit on the deck, dark and smooth and warm to the touch.

It’s hard to believe that so much time has gone by since I first came out here – to the Swedish countryside. I have spent many hours sitting on that bench looking out at the growing things on our property. I believe my husband often felt guilty dragging his New York City wife out of the city, first on his sailboat and then later out to his childhood’s summer paradise. Those early years, on the sailboat, I kept up my standards. My nails were polished, I wore eye makeup and I didn’t go anywhere without my earrings. I have to admit that walking through spider webs when going ashore to tie up the boat was icky but I did it. Once the boat was anchored, I managed to crouch down on the rock cliffs next to the little grill we set up to grill on. Then, when Bevin came along, we switched from the boating life to livet på landet. There we spent our summers, in 25 square meters of house – with an outhouse to use instead of indoor plumbing. I washed dishes, outside, next to the house wall, sometimes in the sunshine and often in the rain. Wearing my first pair of green rubber boots, I used my new weed-wacker to force some semblance of civilization onto the growing things surrounding us. When the poop buckets got filled and needed to be switched I did that too. And when we were forced to compost our own poop, Håkan bought and assembled a latrine compost container and I emptied 6 poop barrels into it, garbed in old clothes, rubber boots and plastic gloves. I then washed out the empty barrels with the garden hose and left them to dry on the lawn in the sun. By now, I hardly even complain about it anymore, though of course it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t complain a little bit. I still need to go back once a week to the city, to our apartment, to wash clothes, to check mail and to wash my hair in a shower that the wind doesn’t blow through and where the warm water lasts long enough.

I sit on my bench and I look up at the tall tree tops, the birches, the oak, and the pines – I watch the way the leaves move in the wind. I listen to the sound they make as they move. I watch the birds as they fly by or as they peck at the ground, hopping around. Sometimes a deer comes by. I watch the few flowers we have planted as they open to the sun. My three ölandstok bushes have burst out into bloom just last week and that gives me pleasure to look at them. Proud that I planted them and glad that they still are alive.

Long ago, before Sweden, I was visiting my friend Tom and his wife Wally up at their country house in the Catskills. Their idea of a fun thing to do on a sunny afternoon was to pile everyone into their minivan – themselves in the front and me and the dogs on the back seat and then drive around on the county roads up there in the Catskill Mountains. Up and down and around we drove. Passing unkempt houses with 3 or 4 broken down cars on the front lawn. Sometimes small, quiet villages too. Looking down into deep valleys and up to tall tree covered mountains. The goal I think was to get to some cafe or something, eventually. After about two or three hours of this, sitting in the back, fighting for seat space with the dogs, I just had to complain. I asked them in the front seat, for certainly the upteenth time, “When are we going to get there?” meaning the cafe. And when they turned to me and asked me, “Whats the matter? Aren’t you enjoying this – looking out at the nature?” My response to that was, ” Weeeeell, its OK, but its just soooo green!” To this day, they have never let me forget that.

So now as I sit on my newly oiled bench, I look out at all the green around me. I have no makeup on. My fingernails are cut short and unpolished. I have a very unflattering pair of sweatpants on, a black tank top and a red cotton shirt with paint splashes on it and my feet are filthy. The city seems so far away. I hear its call but dimly. The wish to have nice shoes on and be dressed in a great summer dress, to have my face on and earrings too, while I walk along city streets looking in all the shop windows, is still there. There is definitely a part of me that misses that life. Perhaps the fact that as I walk along the city streets I’m now surrounded by a lot of 20- and 30-something girls who look so great in their summer clothes and I am now a 60-something old lady (though people tell me, a very well preserved 60-something) who just can’t compete with all those lovely young things, makes me less willing to want to be there.

With love

So now I’m content for the moment to sit on my 30-year-old rejuvenated bench and watch the eternally old and eternally new, ever changing face of Nature surrounding me.

While deep down inside me is still that memory of my New York-self, I no longer mind just sitting and looking out at all that green.