Kay Keppler's Blog, page 7

The day I sang with Pete Seeger

A long time ago, when I was an aspiring journalist, the Newspaper Guild, the union for writers and editors, was on strike against the daily newspaper in the town where I lived. A lot of newspaper unions, like unions everywhere, were losing ground in those days. If these editors and reporters lost the strike, they’d lose their jobs, and then if they wanted to keep working on newspapers, they’d have to move somewhere else. Where their future would be just as shaky.

The strike hung on through the winter. The cold often exceeded -20 degrees. Walking a picket line in that kind of weather isn’t just miserable; it can be life threatening. Because many of my friends and acquaintances wanted to be hired into those good jobs, too, we wanted that union to survive. And to help out the strikers, we often walked the picket line that winter to show our support.

The shift changed at 6am, so it was important to be out there when scabs drove through the gates for the morning shift. And one day when I got out there at 6am, standing in wind so cold I thought my teeth would shatter, there was Pete Seeger. He took off his gloves and played his banjo and sang a song. I think it was “This Land Is Your Land,” but I wouldn’t swear to it. We all knew it, and we all sang along.

Pete Seeger died today. When I looked at the photo tribute The New York Times posted, I noted how many times he’s standing on a stage with other people, highlighting and sharing their stories. That’s the way I’ll remember him, too. Standing outside on that freezing road, singing his heart out with a bunch of people who needed his voice.

Remembering our Roots

Today I was talking to a friend about how all the TV shows these days are reruns. Are they waiting for the Olympics? Sweeps month? Out of ideas? Or scripts? Or just cheap? What?

TV legends are born

Then I came home and googled around for fun, and learned that on this date 37 years ago, a TV legend began: The first installment of the TV miniseries Roots, starring LeVar Burton and based on Alex Haley’s novel, aired.

The TV miniseries was, of course, based on a book that Haley wrote after he retired from his Coast Guard service. Dropping out of college at age 17 after two years (he’d graduated high school at age 15), Haley signed up in 1939 and made the Coast Guard a career. He was a highly decorated veteran: he received the American Defense Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal, National Defense Service Medal and an honorary degree from the Coast Guard Academy. A Coast Guard Cutter was also named in his honor: the USCGC Alex Haley.

The genesis of story

Haley wrote short stories while still in the service, and he became a freelance writer after his retirement. He wrote a hugely successful set of interviews with prominent African Americans before he decided to write Roots. He wanted to tell the story of his ancestors’ journey from Africa to America as slaves, and then their rise from slavery to freedom. He researched for 10 years on three continents. He visited his ancestral village, Juffure, Gambia, and listened to a tribal historian recount how Kunta Kinte, Haley’s ancestor and the protagonist of his book, was captured and sold into slavery.

Even so, Haley despaired that he could ever capture the essence of his story. He once said, “What right had I to be sitting in a carpeted, high-rise apartment writing about what it was like in the hold of a slave ship?” In an attempt to answer this question, he sailed from Liberia to America and spent his nights lying on a board in the hold of the ship in nothing but his underwear.

Book and TV miniseries made history

Doubleday published Roots—part novel, part historical account—in 1976. The book caused a national sensation and was published in more than two dozen foreign countries. More than 1.5 million copies were published in hard cover, and more than 4 million copies of the Dell paperback edition were sold. It won the Pulitzer Prize.

The television miniseries, first broadcast on January 23, 1977, still ranks among the 100 highest-rated programs. According to Nielsen Media Research, its eight episodes reached average audiences that ranged from 28.8 million households to 36.3 million households. Thirty-seven American cities declared January 23-30, the week the program aired, “Roots Week.” Television historian Les Brown wrote that the mini-series “emptied theaters, filled bars, caused social events to be canceled, and was the talk of the nation during the eight consecutive nights it played on ABC.”

Impact today

Haley died of a heart attack on February 10, 1992, at the age of 70. Today, he’s credited with inspiring a nationwide interest in genealogy and contributing to the easing of racial tensions in America. Time magazine called The Autobiography of Malcolm X, another of Haley’s well-known works, one of the 10 most important nonfiction books of the 20th century.

Speaking of his writing’s impact, Haley once said, “To this day, people, particularly African-American people but white people as well, will just totally, unexpectedly walk up and not say a word, just walk up and hug you and then say ‘Thank you.’”

Thank you from me, too, Mr. Haley.

Reading: Better than Prozac

Nate Bolt

Are books good for you? In a recent Boston Globe article, Leah Price examined a British program aimed at helping people read their way to psychological health.

My feeling was that if you could read your way to mental health, that would be great news. Because usually when I read about non-pharmacological psych treatments, they all involve running miles every week, which would depress the hell out of me if I had to do that.

So I’ve always felt extremely lucky that my psychological health is usually okay. Reasonably often I’m relatively happy. I tilt either way on that scale on occasion. I know what it means to be in the dumps sometimes, and I know that when I am, there’s nothing I like better than to lie on the sofa with a cup of tea and a great book. So when I saw this article, I thought, yes.

A little bit about depression: Price says that more than 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression; fewer than half receive treatment of any kind; and even fewer have access to psychotherapy. Antidepressants are the most prescribed type of drug in the United States, and in the United Kingdom, one in six adults has taken them.

Britain’s National Health Service launched the reading program based on a psychiatrist’s observation that sometimes reading self-help books actually helps patients improve. In this program, books are “prescribed.” The doctor diagnoses you with a condition, and you take the “prescription” to the library for specific books on managing depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, fear, worry, or over-eating.

I was thinking more along the lines of Pride and Prejudice, but whatever.

The NHS program is an example of “bibliotherapy,” which is enjoying a boom in Britain these days, evidently. In London, nonprofits and at least one for-profit recommend books (self-help, fiction, and poetry) that will fit your taste and cheer you up, sometimes in groups. I’ve always relied on my local librarian for recommendations, but whatever works.

Price’s article ultimately asks questions about society’s values when reading is asked to take the place of medicine. I’ll let you read the article for that and more. Rest assured, I was really happy to find out that if I’m depressed, it’s sound medical advice to lie on the sofa and read Pride and Prejudice. Maybe in a group.

Plus, it’s a lot more fun than running.

A modern-day Rip Van Winkle, plus football

Does everybody remember the tale of Rip Van Winkle? Written by Washington Irving in one night in 1818 while he stayed with his sister in Birmingham, England, the story was published in America as part of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, and was an immediate success. Rip Van Winkle was a cheerful but lazy farmer who was plagued with a nagging wife. One day he met up with some curious people, and they, well, drank our Rip under the table. When he woke up, his gun was rusted, his beard was long and gray, and when he returned home, his friends and—somewhat to his relief—his wife had died. However, there’s a happy ending: he made friends with the young folks and lived a long life spinning yarns for travelers.

We are in the midst of football playoff madness, and I’ve just returned from a visit to Wisconsin, where Packer fans are like no fans on earth. And everybody is a Packer fan. While I was there, I talked to someone whose son had just received word from Packer management that his number had come up for the privilege of buying season Packer tickets. I suppose this happens for all teams, right? You call and say you want tickets. If any are available, you fork over your card. If the tickets are sold out that year, you get a number, and when it comes up, you buy or not, depending. This Wisconsin man had taken a number for Packer tickets on the day his last child was born, thinking that he’d be able to go to games with his three kids. How old is this youngest child now? Twenty-two. That’s right—in Wisconsin, you’ll wait 22 years to buy Packer tickets.

Now I know he didn’t just sit around by the phone, waiting like a jilted suitor for Packer management to call, so the Rip Van Winkle analogy isn’t perfect. But holy cow, people. That’s a long time to wait for Packer tickets. On the other hand, now he can spend some quality time with his adult kids. So, like Rip, the result was probably worth the wait.

To sleep, perchance to dream

Many avid readers remember forever the novels that deeply affected them. Stephen King has said that Lord of the Flies changed his life, because it had a point to make and was at the same time a great adventure story. I couldn’t name just one book that changed my life, but several still haunt me decades after I read them.

So I was interested to learn that researchers at Emory University devised a study to see if reading a novel could trigger measurable changes in a student’s brain. And they found out that it does—and those changes can linger for up to five days after the student stopped reading.

The study worked like this: The 21 participating students all read the same book: Pompeii, a thriller by Robert Harris that was published in 2003. For the first five days of the 19-day study, participants did no reading, but had their brains scanned for baseline measures. Then at a fixed time of day for the next nine days, the students read a portion of the novel. The next morning the researchers scanned their brains. After nine days when the students finished the novel, researchers scanned their brains for another five days.

The results: researchers measured heightened connectivity in the brain and neurological changes that persisted in a way similar to muscle memory, and these changes continued during the five-day post-reading phase of the study. The changes registered in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain associated with receptivity for language.

“The neural changes that we found associated with physical sensation and movement systems suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist,” said neuroscientist Professor Gregory Berns, lead author of the study, in an interview with The Independent, a newspaper based in the UK.

“We already knew that good stories can put you in someone else’s shoes in a figurative sense,” he said. “Now we’re seeing that something may also be happening biologically.”

Writers have always tried to create protagonists and antagonists that readers identify with, and to write books that people get caught up in. Now we know that if we succeed, we can literally change the minds of our readers. Cool. But spooky.

Stephen King would love that.

Writing obituaries

In my younger days, I wrote a few obituaries. Every time I did, I thought about that person’s life. What they must have experienced. How it felt. Who they left behind. How they’d be remembered.

The other night on the news, somebody interviewed two guys in the San Francisco airport who were bound for Green Bay, Wisconsin, to attend the Packer/49er playoff game. They were dressed in tee-shirts and their 49er (lightweight) jackets.

I don’t have to tell you how cold it’s been in the Midwest. The predicted wind chill factor for tomorrow’s game is -40. That’s right, minus 40. The actual air temperature by the end of the game will be below 0. People watching from the stands, if they stick it out to the end, will be sitting outside in those conditions for up to three hours.

The interviewer said, “How are you preparing for the cold?”

One guy said, “We have our Jerry Rice tee-shirts and our team spirit!”

The interviewer said, “Packer management is issuing hand warmers to all 70,000 fans—Packer and 49er. What about that?”

One guy said, “We won’t need hand warmers! We have our team spirit!” He might also have mentioned he’d be clapping too much. I might have over-interpreted his remarks.

I’m worried about those guys. To sit outside and watch that game, they need long underwear, lined pants, snowmobile suits, insulated boots, thermal socks, heavy mittens, fur hats, heat packs, foot warmers, hand warmers, blankets, and something warm to sit on. And probably other things I’m not thinking of. Living in the Bay Area, those guys probably don’t own that stuff. And they looked like they were traveling light.

As much as I admire—if “admire” it is—their courage and team spirit, those guys won’t survive the weather conditions in Green Bay wearing Jerry Rice tee-shirts and their team spirit. They just don’t have a clue about how cold -40 is. I’m worried about them, and I’m worried about their families.

I’m even worried about the obit writers. Just thinking about what it must feel like to freeze to death in -40 conditions is enough to send a chill down my spine.

So stay warm, my friends. Sometimes team spirit just isn’t enough.

Happy New Year!

Best wishes to everyone out there in reading land. I hope you have the book and beverage of your choice, the football game of your dreams, or the party of the century. Whatever turns you on for the first day of the new year.

It’s very cold today here in Wisconsin, not exactly my kind of weather. But I’m warm and dry, which is huge, there’s a fire in the fireplace, and I have a cup of tea and my laptop. So all is well in my universe.

Best of all, my one resolution for 2014 is simple: make no resolutions. Last year I went with “Be a better person,” and we all know how that turned out. So with the no-resolution resolution, I’m expecting a happy new year. And I hope the same for all of you!

Lazy Holidaze

I’m visiting family in Wisconsin for a few weeks, so of course Wisconsin is having record snow–a foot more than average. According post-to the Green Bay weather station, it’s snowed 19 days of the last 26, and I swear I’ve been here for every one of them. My mother has a snow guy, who frees us from the frozen prison we call our house. Otherwise, it would be grim, indeed. At least for someone like me, who’s used to California weather.

Something about the holidays—the cookies, the central (over)heating, the inadequate clothing, I don’t know what—I’m struck by lethargy. I don’t want to do the work I brought along, I don’t want to put away the decorations or sweep up, and—heaven forbid—I certainly don’t want to shovel snow. I just want to lie on the sofa and read. Post-Christmas shopping sprees are not only not for me, just the thought of them gives me hives. Of course, my family isn’t big on gift-giving, so we don’t have any pressure to go out and find stuff for next year.

So, I think I’ll just pour myself a refreshing adult beverage, grab  a cookie, and check out my Kindle. Hope you all are enjoying your holiday!

Happy Boxing Day!

I’m too late to wish everyone merriness for Christmas, Hanukah, the Solstice, Kwanzaa, and no doubt many other December holidays, but I’m just in time for Boxing Day. The day after Christmas is celebrated by most countries in the Commonwealth—historically, by charitable giving. Today, though, it seems to be mostly about resting from the Christmas frenzy, and shopping. It’s a mystery why Americans haven’t adopted it.

The origins of Boxing Day are shrouded in mystery. One theory says that “Good King Wenceslas” was out surveying his land on St. Stephen’s Day — Dec. 26 — when he saw a poor man collecting wood in a snowstorm. Moved, the King gathered surplus food and wine and carried them through the blizzard to the peasant’s door, thus institutionalizing a tradition of alms-giving.

A second theory is that during Advent, Anglican parishes collected donations in a box, which was broken open the day after Christmas and its contents distributed among the poor. Also on the day after Christmas, the aristocracy traditionally distributed presents (boxes) to servants and employees.

Boxing Day has been a national holiday in England, Wales, Ireland, and Canada since 1871. Boxing Day fox hunts were held all over the English countryside for hundreds of years, but in 2005 Parliament banned the traditional method of using dogs to kill the prey. Hundreds of thousands of people still turn out at Boxing Day fox hunts around Britain.

The Irish refer to the holiday as St. Stephen’s Day, or Wren Day, which supposedly commemorates the Battle of Kinsale in 1601. The Irish tried to sneak up on the English invaders, but were betrayed by the song of a wren. Most historians find this story to be an excellent example of the Irish story-telling tradition.

The Bahamas celebrate Boxing Day with a street parade and festival called Junkanoo, in which traditional rhythmic dancers called gombeys, wearing elaborate costumes and headdresses, fill the streets.

So, my friends, have fun: hunt for a fox, parade with a wren, dance down the street, or even watch a bit of football on TV. It’s Boxing Day!

Thanks to Time Newsfeed for the info.

 

Malingering…

All right, I had major surgery, then I had a setback. Then I got bit by a tick. Then I got busy at work. Still, I wrote most days during NaNoWriMo, the first time I ever joined. I surpassed my personal goal. (Okay, goal was 15K words, and I hit 16K. Not earthshaking, since NaNo’s goal for writers is 50K for the month. But it’s been surgery, setback, tick, work.) I can’t say I’m a huge fan of NaNo, but I thought it would put me on the Right Track. Get me Moving again. Help me Set Up A Schedule.

Yeah, that didn’t work.

I haven’t written for a week, since the close of NaNo. I’m really busy, I’ve still had the surgery, the setback, and the tick. In a week I’ll leave for a long and complicated family holiday visit. But no more fooling around. I’m going to get up and get going and write. Most days. If I can surpass my personal goals in November, I can surpass them in December, too. They aren’t huge.

But if they’re steady, I’ll finish the book.

And that’s the Pep Talk to Me. Just like from NaNo!