Carefully Taught

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!
(Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, “South Pacific,” 1949)

Don’t think that you must teach me to mistrust. I know enough about mistrust already. What didn’t come naturally to me—the human creature predisposed by my ancestral fear—life has taught me well. Even as a child, coming to understanding in the aftermath of the second world war and the cold war that followed on its heels, I knew to fear that which seemingly posed a threat—or so I was told. As I grew older, I learned to fear many things. I was putty in the hands of my nature and my Elders. I don’t think there was any particular malice in the lessons modeled and spoken outright, sometimes in hushed tones—tones reflecting shame in the lessons taught generation after generation. Before I knew better, at times I thought it was just part of growing up in the south. But I learned long ago that the south owned no special rights on intolerance, hate, and fear mongering. I come from German stock on my mother’s side, and though my ancestors left Europe just as the American War Between the States was ending, in my years of accountability, I have known the sadness that comes from realizing that the country of my heritage embraced man’s inhumanity to man so willingly. Fear begets hate begets loss.

Many would tell us that we live in troubling times. I respond, when has life not been troubling? And where does the trouble live and thrive, growing to unmanageable size—if we don’t choose to face our fear, if we don’t search our hearts. Some would argue that the god of their so-called faith is not the god of those whom they fear. They would make this claim failing to understand that god isn’t property. From where I stand, there is only one god, one spirit, one creator, and that power wants to live and thrive in each of us, regardless of the lowness and meanness any one of us embraces out of fear and anger and hate.

“We have met the enemy and he is us,” Walt Kelly had his cartoon figure Pogo say in 1970. In the late 40s through the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy sponsored the madness that destroyed lives with the scare of communism. How many of us have heard, “they’ll take us over without firing a shot.” Sadly, I remember that my own father and mother—a mother that I realized as I grew older was one of the most tolerant people I’ve known—believed soundly that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a “tool of the Communists”. Today, we don’t have to look far to read and hear from the fear mongers who have staked a claim for their destructive version of the truth. Any of us who spends time on the Internet has received the messages that travel, growing like cancer—messages based on misinformation, half-truths and lies. Any one of us is capable of changing the context and re-shaping what otherwise contains some kernel of the truth to serve our own sad, misguided fear. Any one of us is capable of hate. Hate is the greatest threat to our well-being—hate, the child of our egos. None of us has to look far to realize that—regardless of our faith tradition— dying to oneself means only one thing. We must let go of that which separates us. “Let there be peace on earth/And let it begin with me.” (Jill Jackson Miller and Sy Miller, 1955)

The prayer attributed to St Francis of Assisi (12th century) continues to say it so clearly.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Carefully Taught—Santa Fe New Mexico (November 11, 2009)
R. Harold Hollis

"That which God said to the rose, and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty/He said to my heart, and made it a hundred times more beautiful." Rumi

"In thee, my friend, I see God, and through you I feel His presence." The Science of the Mind, page 546

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospels, the same shall save it." Mark 8:35

Paying Attention

Asked to keep a record of acts of kindness for 29 days—why 29 I don’t recall because I missed that part of the instructions—I was energized by the possibilities. “Can I count my volunteer work at the Audubon Center?” I asked. “You can, but I would prefer that you don’t.” The point of the discipline is to notice and record the things you do for people without expecting anything in return. A former friend from years ago said to me once in a cynical and accusing voice, “the only reason you are nice to people is so they won’t be mean to you”, or something like that. I recall how I felt when he said it. I was saddened at the time and I shake my head now at the angriness that colored so much of this man’s life. “It can be something as simple as a smile,” she explained. Well, I smile at people I don’t know, day in and day out, and I guess I don’t expect anything in return. It’s sort of like walking down any street in small town Texas. You just say “Howdy!” as you pass people. I find myself doing this here in Santa Fe New Mexico as well, in spite of the occasional stare. Okay, so every one did not have the privilege of growing up in the state whose name in Caddoan Indian translates "friendly". Friendliness is in my fiber. Smiling and saying hello are not much of a challenge and definitely not a sacrifice.

So I started my record a few days ago. The first day was easy. I had already decided to contact customer relations for the local Toyota dealer to thank them for the helpful man in service who knew immediately why my rear windshield wiper and defroster weren’t working. Within minutes of driving into the service bay, I was driving out, smiling as if someone had just handed me a hundred dollar bill. That same afternoon I had the opportunity to help my downstairs 80-something neighbor carry things in from her car.

Over the five days since we started our record keeping, some days have been a slam dunk. A couple of days on my calendar are blank. I can’t count going to the store for 10 beautiful oranges and organic celery to carry to a friend who has been shut in with the flu. Those are the kind of things you do for a friend, along with cooking and sharing meals with your partner because you are retired—every day of your life, he says smiling—and your partner isn’t. We get lots of opportunities to share the bounty with those we love. It’s remembering to do so with those of the chance encounter and especially with those that on any given day we don’t feel so bountiful. The other day I wondered aloud about mothers who prepare meals, clean house and do laundry, along with all the other things they do for their families. “But that’s expected,” our leader clarified. Wow, mother's labor doesn’t qualify for our 29-day exercise.

“Give until helps,” goes one slogan. How comforting to know that joy does not reside deep in our pockets, even though we know that sharing our treasure measures mightily in the quality of our lives. What I’m finding most interesting about our little game is reflecting on the days that are empty on my calendar. I know I did something generous on each of those days, but by the rules, I can’t count it. So I have to make a special effort, like letting three cars coming towards me turn left in front of me on a heavy-traffic Friday afternoon when I’m late for an appointment. Smiling at someone, holding the door open for someone, those are the no brainers. As I head out to run errands today, I’ll be paying attention to opportunity. My calendar is already blank for two out of five days, and according to the rules, a blank day resets the count to zero. I have to pay attention.

Paying Attention—Santa Fe, New Mexico (November 2, 2009)
R. Harold Hollis

Turn Around

From the Kabbalah..."First we receive the light, then we impart it. Thus we repair the world."

Robert Rabbin..."If not me, who? If not now, when?"

Mother Teresa..."If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

Deep in the Heart

Maybe the best thing to say is that you had to have been there. There’s no better proof to a small businessman plying a trade built around selling goods that no one has to have—that’s the art and antiques market. I keep reminding myself that I do this not so much for financial reward as for the love of treasure. Of course, investing in treasure necessarily reaches its limits, and then it’s time to pay the piper. And that’s what I did last week. As tough as it was, I give thanks—and after catching the Oprah show today (maybe more on this later), I especially give thanks that I am whole, able to walk without assistance (even though an injury to my left foot continues to aggravate me), in my right mind (mostly), and that the rains have come to Texas after a long, long, hot and dry summer. I reminded myself of this as my friend Jim and I waded through a driving rain—along with all of the other dealers loading out of the Round Top Antiques Fair—to load our trailer for the trip back to Leon County Texas. Earlier in the afternoon I had recounted for my dealer neighbor the last hard rain on a load out day I had been through at Round Top. That was another life, 20 plus years ago, and an experience that caused me to take stock seriously as I bit off and spit out the tiny piece of flesh hanging from my right index finger after I had slammed it in the trailer gate. I was soaked to the skin. I remember what I was wearing—a drab green long sleeve shirt that had been one of my favorites for a long time, Levis (of course), and a pair of boots. Things changed that afternoon, but they really didn’t. Ebb and flow, come and go, up and down, breathe, breathe, breathe. Yes, I give thanks.

Deep in the Heart—Normangee, Texas (October 7, 2009)
R. Harold Hollis

For My Birthday

September 16, 1943: An Update

In another year on my birthday, I might have thought about some object that I have been craving. On a trip to Denver at the end of July, I bought the Native American burl bowl with which I’ve been mildly obsessed for the last year or so. It was expensive, and I do love it. This too will pass. As I search my mind, I can’t think of anything that I feel I must have.

So, for my 66th birthday, I am happy just to have a few things that maybe we take for granted. Today, I’m celebrating by burning the brush pile in the cow trap to the east of my barn house—a pile that has been accumulating for the last year because of constant burn bans in these days of constant drought. The lovely, lovely rains that have visited us over the last several days have brought an end to the burn ban temporarily, at least.

And for my birthday, I am happy to have finally caught with my digital camera a butterfly, this one a Tiger Swallowtail, in my garden. Feeding on a bluish-purple Duranta, one of several happy bloomers in this erstwhile water-starved garden, following life-restoring rains, along with Maggie among the roses, Turk’s Cap, Hamelia, Salvias Greggii and Coccinea, Society Garlic, Althea, Rose Mallow, and Peruvian Pavonia—all celebrating, their faces surely smiling just for my special day.

I would wish for one more thing on my birthday, that my left foot, plagued with tendonitis since a May hiking incident at Big Tesuque in the mountains near my high desert home, would go ahead and get over itself. After several sessions of physical therapy, and now x-rays that showed nothing except a little arthritis resulting from age—okay, I’m 66 today—it’s still ouching day in and day out. Its complaints go naturally with a cranky back that wants a visit to the chiropractor. And I won’t go into the daily regimen of pills—although relatively light compared to some and yet my envy by comparison of a few others I know. I’m doing okay.

And today, my oldest sister, Joan, is taking our neighbors and me to the buffet at the Chinese restaurant in nearby Madisonville. How fortunate we are to have Asian on the table in a town of less than 5000 residents, a community that otherwise boasts at least five Tex-Mex eateries, yet to my knowledge, nothing that’s just plain old American. I guess the friend in Santa Fe who told me earlier in the summer that I have a sweet life was right on the money. Sisters who care about me and miss me when I’m away for most of the year, friends who call to say “Happy Birthday”, one from as far away as a South Carolina vacation, early autumn blooms and butterflies, a paid-for home that will always be here—“unless I burn it down today,” he considers, grinning. Life is good.

For My Birthday—Normangee, Texas (September 16, 2009)
R. Harold Hollis

We Keep Coming Back

So we keeping come back to the stuff we love, which isn’t always a good thing. In this instance, yes, it is a mighty good thing—at least, from where I sit. Yesterday afternoon the Hollis cousins of my generation gathered at Aunt Mary’s house in Houston on the two-month anniversary of her death. It was an afternoon where we were invited to preview the upcoming estate sale. Cousin Becky had already told me that Jean, who is not actually our blood relative, but who nonetheless has a close connection to Aunt Mary and to our family, had encountered Aunt Mary’s aura on recent visits to her home. “That doesn’t surprise me,” I said, sitting in my car outside the grocery store in the tiny Texas community I call home part of the year. I want to feel Aunt Mary’s presence, along with that of my mother and daddy and all the other family that I have loved, those who have defined and shaped my life. Jean smelled Aunt Mary. Not the Boucheron fragrance she loved, something I found out only after her death, but her very essence, something one could know only by hugging another often. Embedded in my memory are the many beautiful smells I associate with Aunt Mary and her home—room fragances from Neiman-Marcus, and what I always thought was her facial soap and cream. Maybe it was her Boucheron.

It’s interesting—what any of us have chosen to take as keepsakes from the William Woodrow “Frog” and Mary Louise Hollis Todd home. We all had an opportunity earlier to pick a few things before the estate sale began to take shape. Yesterday was our opportunity to buy early and to take our time doing so while we visited and ate the Hollis family chocolate cake, baked by my middle sister Sue. We’ve had that cake a lot lately—already three times this year when gathering on Sherwood Forest Street at the Todd’s rambling colonial built on over two acres on the outskirts of Houston some time in the 1950s. Unlike earlier times in the life of our family, that cake has taken a life of its on. It is the Hollis chocolate cake—attributed to our distant relative by marriage, Anna Mae Sowell—a recipe most likely from a Hershey’s chocolate box some time in the early part of the 20th century. Cousin Marilyn said yesterday that Aunt Mary used to put the butter and sugar icing called for in that recipe on brownies. Sue and I don’t remember Aunt Mary being all that interested in cooking, but for some reason, I do recall her making pecan pie for the holidays.

Yesterday, Revere Ware pots, along with a large assortment of utensils and pans, had spilled out of the kitchen cabinets and drawers. The pantry stood open, emptied of the Arabia of Finland dishes—blue laurel bands with flowers—and the pressed glass tumblers, only four remaining after all these years. Her German stainless from Houston’s famed Sakowitz is already a gift to me from the estate. I bought service for eight “on time” from Scarborough’s Department Store in Austin in the early 70s because it reminded me of my elegant Aunt Mary. It made me feel special too. How odd, stainless flatware making someone feel special. Of the gifts from the estate that I picked, that stainless is beyond value. “Sterling?” someone asked when I told of what I had selected as one of my gifts. “No, just stainless,” I say. The classic English rattail pattern, called Murray Hill, although still produced in China for the German company, isn’t the same. But then, what is?

While I was aware of what others were selecting to buy yesterday, on this family day—my two sisters focused on old Christmas tree ornaments—I roamed through the house, unable to make sense of the chaos. This was no longer a home. Every table surface was burdened with china, glass and metal. The only remaining bed was piled high with stacks of stuff. Aunt Mary’s washbowl set that had adorned the hallway bathroom for all the years I could remember had been removed to the dining room. I was seeing things that I didn’t remember and lots of evidence that all Aunt Mary’s treasure did not glitter. Closets and drawers had been turned inside out to reveal all the life that had simply been stowed away. And there was no Boucheron, no lovely soap or face cream to soften the harshness of this home-no-longer-Aunt Mary’s-home on this hot, sticky September afternoon in Houston, Texas. I wasn’t sad really. I just knew that, once again, everything had changed. Something mighty important had left Sherwood Forest Street, in spite of the affection we shared on this afternoon.

As I dug through a display case of jewelry, I wondered aloud if Uncle Frog hadn’t had a ranger-style western belt buckle set. Then I saw a silver set with tiny garnets set in the gold floral decoration. It was marked “Sterling Mexico”. Later, half buried among the odds and ends on top of the oak chest of drawers in their bedroom, there lay his tooled belt, silver and gold ranger belt buckle and tip, tarnished and worn. Yes, I wanted this. And I wanted his game warden badge—this one from 40 years ago a copper shield overlaid with pot metal and adorned with the shape of Texas and a typical star, the engraving fading into the background. I remembered Mother and Daddy commenting that Uncle Frog was “a dollar a year man”, a term it turns out for men who in times of war perform government work not quite for free. And I remember gatherings where one of Uncle Frog’s best friends who actually was a game warden was present with his wife. He wasn’t my blood uncle, and I wouldn’t have guessed that I would care, but then life is full of surprises.

We were there to buy, if we found something we wanted, and though a comment or two suggested an attitude different from mine, I was happy to pay for these treasures. After all, it was a choice. I was happy to pay, especially knowing that I had already been gifted beyond any expectation from the life and hard work of my aunt and uncle. I had no expectations. I would have taken home lots more, like the two packs of soft cotton bandanas, red, marked $3 and $2.50. But where do you stop, and where do you start? Beyond the very personal things that had belonged to this uncle of no blood kin, I had also bought from Aunt Mary’s antique treasures three things that I can with good conscience offer for sale in a business that likely never would have been born had it not been for the love of treasure mining that I inherited from Daddy and Aunt Mary. Theirs knew boundaries, however.

How suiting that I live in a barn here in Texas. Barns are for storing, and one day all barns are emptied. So too for this barn. But for now, I stow and I sort and I offer for sale a couple of times a year significant pieces of treasure. Much of what remains after each offering has a little less value. People who are genuinely interested in buying these days want most to buy the very best. A worn belt buckle on a tooled belt too small for most men and so used up as to have little practical use left in it—well, not so much something to sell. But then, it’s not for sale anyway. In my mind, I keep coming back to things I left behind yesterday—the Arabia of Finland dishes and the four remaining pressed glass tumblers. The silver flatware was stolen long ago, along with other keepsakes, while my aunt and uncle were away at their house on the bay. Most of the best glass and china were chosen as gifts by cousins shortly after Aunt Mary’s death two months ago. But it wouldn’t have mattered to me anyway. I value most the everyday dishes, and the old tumblers Aunt Mary would have bought on one of her treasure hunting outings. Maybe I was even with her. I don’t remember. It’s all stuff, and it’s all in motion, just like we are. Lucky we are to hold treasure in our hands when the treasure that matters most now must be counted in our hearts.

We Keep Coming Back—Normangee, Texas (September 14, 2009)
R. Harold Hollis