Hello 2012

The year is a week old, and I’ve yet to post a blog.

What have I been doing? Everybody is busy during the holidays. I went to all the usual programs, including one at the First Baptist Church in Garland, where my friend Lois sings in the choir. Nice music, but I was put off by one segment where an angel appeared offering “peace” in this troubled World. The inference was that the only way to have peace of mind was to join the Baptist Church

I showed surprising restraint. I did NOT stand up and say, “I achieved peace of mind when I quit being a Baptist.” My New Year’s resolution is not to get upset when people do or say things with which I disagree. Old people need the comfort of their beliefs.

After Christmas my daughter Martha flew down from Chicago and spent a week with me. In the dining room, when I introduced her to residents at this retirement home, several said, “Don’t you want to move to Texas?”

Texans believe Texas is the best place on Earth. You can not convince them otherwise.

Martha politely said, “My job is in Chicago.”

I reminded her, “Also your husband and children.”

She likes living in Naperville, a pleasant Chicago suburb, and she has no desire to move to Texas. When I moved to Chicago as a bride, people told me repeatedly, “Aren’t you lucky to live in Chicago?” People always believe the place where they grew up is the best place in the World.

Texans accuse me of being “un-American” when I tell them my friends in Western Europe have a better quality of life than average people living in the U.S. They say, “Why do they all want to come here?” They are mistaken. Today’s immigrants come from Mexico, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia, not from England, France, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, all those “Socialist” countries which the politicians warn us against.

The only way to find out what life is like outside our own neighborhood is to get out and really talk to people who live in other places. I learned a lot in my travels. My goal for 2012 is to complete telling about traveling with David when he was 13 years old.

But first, I am detouring again, with several stories about other things I did not getting around to writing about in 2011. I wish this were a kinder, gentler World. Things are in a mess both at home and abroad. But there are good individuals everywhere. And when the situation seems impossible, how do we cope? By seeing the ridiculous side of situations and laughing.

Here’s to seeing the brighter side of life in 2012!