Things I Learned This Week

Jim, Kris, John, Helene, books, music and more

What a gut punch of a week. I hope everyone is safe and sound. Here’s some cream (and obits) that floated to the top.

• Jimmy Carter is 100! I remember being really, really small—like knee-high to a grasshopper small—when he ran against Gerald Ford in 1976. I would have been four years old, and we lived in Indiana in the middle of a cornfield. I have distinct memories of thinking they would run an actual race like a running race. I pictured them in marathon gear, crossing a finish line. A fundamentally good person, he is without a doubt one of the most kind and hardworking presidents this country has ever had. The best kind of moral leader. I hope he lives as long as he cares to.

• A year after Carter was elected, my parents were divorced, and we moved in with my grandparents to South Carolina. In their living room, I watched the Roots miniseries at five years old. John Amos played the adult Kunta Kinte after Norman Lear fired him from Good Times for making waves about stereotyped scripting. I remember watching that show and being jealous of those kids. They lived in Cabrini–Green in Chicago and always discussed money issues and struggles. It seems naive now, but that house seemed so warm and normal. There were so many shows we watched with Black families back then, I don’t even think that came into play when I watched it. John Amos wasn’t my dad, but he showed what a patriarch looked like in a firm but loving way. This was important to a girl in a house full of girls. When they killed him off on the show, now that was a childhood trauma. RIP John.

• I only saw Kris Kristopherson perform once on a bill with Merle Haggard in New York in 1999. Born in Brownsville, Texas, his website gives a proper synopsis of all he was. “An Oxford scholar, a defensive back, a bartender, a Golden Gloves boxer, a gandy dancer, a forest fighter, a road crew member, and an Army Ranger who flew helicopters. He was a peacenik, a revolutionary, an actor, a superstar, a Casanova, and a family man. He was almost a teacher at West Point, though he gave that up to become a Nashville songwriting bum.” Boy, did my mother love that man. He was lovers with Jane Fonda, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, and Rita Coolidge and stayed married to the same woman for 41 years. He was all the things she taught us to think sexy was back then. Check out this great piece from the Oxford American a few years back. RIP, man.

• I just finished Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled, and boy, was it great. It was written in the style of a lot of authors I loved as a young person, like Kafka, Nabokov, and Dostoevsky. (I am thinking about writing about my youthful, bad habit of only reading male authors next week because of all the feels it stirred up in me this week, so stay tuned.) This is book four of the nine books of his we are reading, and it is the first time I’ve done a survey like this on a single author. We are also reading chronological interviews along with the books, and it is interesting to see someone evolve both as an artist and a person.

• Did you know that people prepare differently for hurricanes depending on whether the storm has a male or female name? Female names of severe storms tend to be taken less seriously and are, therefore, more deadly. This tidbit is based on a flawed study, but why does this not surprise me? If you haven’t read the prolific Heather Cox Richardson from a few days ago on Helene, it’s worth a read.

• Music recs of the week? From my son, there is Alesis by Mk.gee, the new it-boy singer-songwriter. From my husband, Lucinda Williams’ Pineola, about the death of a family friend. And for old-time's sake, we’ll go out with Janis singing Kris’ Me and Bobby McGee, the anthem of my senior year.

Quote of the week?

“I don’t want people to feel that their childhood needs to be their life story. You can write your own story. You are not who your parents thought you were, or whatever bad thing that happened to you.” — Ina Garten

‘Til Tuesday kids.

Burgin

(I’m finishing college at 50+, follow along and read my story here.)