Last year at Thanksgiving, I wrote a column thanking my parents for all the things I didn’t even know to thank them for when they were alive. A year later, the list has grown even longer.
I’ve covered in previous columns that I am a fourth-generation feminist and Democrat married to a lifelong Republican, although Olof and I have both voted across party lines on many occasions. It’s a dynamic that feels very familiar to me. My father was a conservative Republican and my mother a liberal feminist Democrat. It made for a lot of lively, but respectful, dinner table conversation at our house.
Conversations are pretty lively at our dinner table, too, but in the current era, for different reasons entirely. Olof and I have never been more politically aligned. My husband is still fervently hoping the Republican Party will return to what he thinks of as its former glory. I, of course, think it never had one.
We both feel failed by the parties we have supported our whole lives. But we are both committed to voting, even on the occasions our votes cancel each other out.
Both of my parents were avid community volunteers. My father ran the United Fund campaign in our area and we referred to ourselves as “United Fund orphans” during the major fundraising season.
My mother’s occupations, meanwhile, included teaching convicts at an area penitentiary, substitute teaching in junior high (is there a parallel there?) and leading Brownies and Girl Scouts. But the one she was most passionate about was not only teaching ESL (English as a second language) but tutoring, on her own time, many of her students to pass the written driver’s exam, which in that era had to be taken in English.
Given the lack of public transit in our area, a driver’s license was essential to getting any kind of good job. Her efforts included teaching the students to drive in our car. I think my mother could yell “Stop!” in eight languages.
Having immigrants in our house regularly meant that we kids got to learn about other cultures and the challenges they faced surviving in a new land without knowing the language. It was one of the most valuable educations I’ve ever had. I’ve never known people who worked harder.
It was largely from this immigrant influence that I was inspired to apply for a student exchange program to spend my senior year of high school in a foreign country, which is, in fact, where I met my now-husband, Olof, who was a fellow student on the same program in Brazil.
Inga’s father served in the Army Air Forces (now the Air Force) in World War II. (Provided by Inga)
I wrote this column on Nov. 11 — Veterans Day — and realized that last year I failed to thank all the people in my family who have served in the military, including Olof, who was an Air Force pilot for 10 years.
My first husband served two years as a Navy doctor under the Berry Plan (which was how we ended up in San Diego in the first place).
My father served in the Army Air Forces (now the Air Force) in World War II; Olof’s father was a Navy pilot in the Pacific — an incredibly high-hazard assignment. My grandfather served in the Army in World War I. All of these men were clear in their mission and put their lives on the line for it.
My father and Olof’s were among 16 million fellow Americans who served in the U.S. armed forces during the Second World War — 407,000 of whom lost their lives in the process. It just seems that saying “Thank you for your service” — however well-intended — doesn’t begin to acknowledge the sacrifices that so many men and women have made to keep this country a democracy. I am especially grateful this year.
My parents, like everyone else, were flawed people making their share of mistakes. My mother, a smoker, died of lung cancer at 54. My father, like most of the neighbor men, could have done with fewer martinis. But there were three things I think my parents did extremely well.
Top among the things I am grateful to them for: They didn’t hate. Whatever their prejudices might have been, we never heard them. They never referred to anyone by race or religion, and to this day, when I hear gratuitous (or even flat-out biased) references to people based on those factors, it immediately stands out to me in a very sad way.
Secondly, I consider one of the major gifts they gave their children was the concept that people could disagree — that over respectful (I can’t emphasize the word enough) debate, one’s view of the world could evolve and change. But you had to be willing to listen. And to vet your information to the best of your ability. And then make your case.
And finally, one of the concepts my parents emphasized that seems especially important involves the philosophy that what you accept, you teach. I’m guessing I’m not the only person who still talks to their dead relatives, but I can still put myself at our dinner table and hear them, if they were still alive, soliciting our opinions on current affairs and asking us: Is this what you want? And if not, speak up.
So this Thanksgiving, thank you, Mom and Dad, and all the family members who have served to protect this country. I so appreciate all of you.
Inga’s looks at life appear regularly in the La Jolla Light. Reach her at inga47@san.rr.com. ♦