I Like Escalators

They Walk Among Us

Love's Tragedy

I saw a dateish site the other day where a young girl was relating how her boyfriend's family disapproves of her, even after the two have been together for two years -- not because she has tatoos, has an unpleasant personality, steals, lies, or anything like that.  His family hates her because she is Japanese, while he and they are Chinese.  She cannot speak Chinese.  And then there is the historical fact of past wars between the two nations, which his family can not get beyond, even though they themselves were born after the last of those wars was fought.  Learned hatred passed from one generation to the next.

It is such a tragedy when these things happen.  Unfortunately it is all too common among all peoples of the world.  Tradition says you marry your own kind.  That hurts when you happen to be in love with someone who doesn't qualify in your family's eyes or the eyes of his family.  How many family relationships have suffered because a white married a black, or because an American veteran chose to marry a Vietnamese girl, or because a Catholic man chose to marry a Jewish girl, or a Muslim chose to marry a non-muslim?

The list is seemingly endless, and no matter how this particular poster's situation turns out, the boyfriend will suffer along with the girl.  She can threaten to leave him if he doesn't choose between her and his family, but that would be wrong and cause an irreparable rift between the two of them. 

On the other hand, she might tell him she's had enough and leave to avoid the constant emotional stress of the situation.  In that case, he will suffer the loss and heartbreak and will certainly blame his family for driving the two of them apart.  It will also give the family more ammunition to say, "See, we told you she wasn't the one for you." 

The two of them could talk the situation through between themselves, but that can have only one of two outcomes.  They might agree to separate, in which case both will suffer, while the family gloats over it's victory.  In the process, he may come to resent his family for driving the two of them apart, resulting in years of emotional stress for himself and his family as well as the girl herself.

But if the two of them eventually marry, he is put in the position of having to choose between the love of his life and turning his back on his family.  They may even refuse to attend the wedding.  He will blame them initially, but in time he may also come to blame her for the loss of his family.

Nobody wins in these relationships, unless both sides are completely alone in this world.  I think it is a real shame that the two of them allowed this relationship to go as far as it has without resolving the issue long ago.

How do you think this should be handled?

Thanksgiving Day Tradition As A Child

We never had family or friends over on Thanksgiving Day when I was growing up, but it was always a busy day around my house nonetheless.  My mother always a turkey, and it was my job to help with the dressing to stuff the bird with.  Those were the days when we didn't go to the store and buy a Stove Top Stuffing mix.  Oh no.  We started with two or three loaves of bread, manually tearing slices into thumb sized pieces until we had enough to fill the bird and some more besides, and we mixed our own spices to season it with.

While I for was doing that, my mother for her part would prepare a home made chicken soup from an old world german recipe she got from her mother.  When I say homemade, I mean homemade.  No cans here.  It started by boiling the chicken and then removing the meat from the bones.  Add some fresh vegetables and secret spices, and let it cook on the stove top slowly for four or five hours to really get the flavor right.

Just about the time she was putting the soup on the stove, I finishing up with the tearing of the bread.  At that point, my mother had a special old world mix of spices she used to season the torn bread, and once properly seasoned, the stuffing was put into the bird to overflowing, and into the oven it went.  Along with it went any extra stuffing that wouldn't fit into the bird -- in oven proof bowls of course -- and some sweet potatoes wrapped in tin foil.

About an hour before the bird was ready to come out of the oven, mom prepared something she called Armenian String Beans.  I don't remember too much about them except that tomatoes and onions figured into the mix.  No canned stuff here. Fresh beans were washed and hand cut, onions were hand peeled and diced onions, and the same for the tomatoes.  Some other ingredients too.  Boy that was good. 

She also prepared a special lemon sauce, made from the chicken soup that was still on the stove and simmering to keep it warm.  Sounds strange doesn't it.  A lemon flavored sauce, thickened to a creamy texture, coming from chicken soup of all things, though you wouldn't know it from the taste.  This sauce was used as a topping for a hugh bowl of rice.  I loved that sauce.  I think I have the recipe for it around here someplace.  While she was doing that, I was making the homemade dinner rolls, under her supervision of course.

And lets not forget the pumpkin pies.  Those she and I used to make the night before.  I made the pie shells, from scratch of course, preparing and rolling the dough, and shaping the shells in the metal pans she used, while mom created the filling from some pumpkins she had bought at the store and the spice mix her mother had taught her.

And what were my dad and my brother doing while my mom and I worked the kitchen?  Why silly, they were watching football of course.

Anyway, after five or six hours of work on Thanksgiving Day, we were ready to eat, usually around 3 or 4 in the afternoon.  And of course, we always had leftovers of everything for a week.  Ditto for Christmas.  I haven't had such great meals since I left home and struck out on my own.

So the real tradition in my home seems to have been that on the holidays, everything was homemade.  The cranberry sauce is about the only thing that actually came out of a can or a box on Thanksgiving, except maybe some flour and corn starch.

But that was then, and the meaning of holidays changes as you go from being a child to a kid, a teen to a young adult, to providing holiday magic for your own children, and to being a senior citizen.  Things always change, and as Mr. Spock would say, "Change is the essential process of all existence."

Maine Voters Reject Gay Marriage

With all the news focused on the political races in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York, few have noticed a ballot question in the State of Maine.  The question:  Did Maine voters want to repeal a law allowing same-sex marriage that had passed the Legislature and was signed by Democratic Gov. John Baldacci. 

By the end of the evening of voting, Maine voters did want the law repealed, and gays who had gathered for what they hoped would be a victory celebration went home near tears.

"I'm ready to start crying," said Cecelia Burnett, a 58-year-old massage therapist, walking out of the ballroom with her partner Ann Swanson at her side. "I don't understand what the fear is, why people are so afraid of this change.

"It hurts. It hurts personally," she said. "It's a personal rejection of us and our relationship, and I don't understand what the fear is."

I sympathize with gay people for the discrimination that they must endure, but on the issue of marriage, they are helping to bring this discrimination upon themselves.  The concept of Marriage is, and always has been, a religious one going back to man's earliest recorded history.  The State never became involved in the relationship between two individuals until it realized that it could charge a one-time tax (sell a marriage license) for recording the fact that two people wished to commit themselves to each other.  When gays demand the legal right of marriage, they are asking the State to remove the marriage concept from the Church and take it upon itself, with the hope that somehow this will put an end to discrimination. 

When gays demand that the word "marriage" be applied to a gay union, they are in fact demanding that churches recognize a gay union as valid in the eyes of God, and that the churches will not do.  But even if gays are ultimately successful in having their unions called a "marriage," that in itself will not stop the discrimination and fear.  They will still be avoided, shunned, whispered about, laughed at, become the brunt of foul and unsavory jokes, and yes, even attacked from time to time.

It is just as wrong for gays to force themselves upon the churches as discrimination against gays is, and that is why the concept of a Civil Union came into being.  A majority of States have some form of civil union, complete with all the legal rights normally granted to unions of opposite sex couples.  My advice to gays, therefore, is to accept the civil unions and the legal advantages associated with them and stop trying to impose themselves on the churches.