Piling on and a shout out.

Good morning.

How are things going for you?

My head is spinning.

I find myself wanting to crawl back under my warm covers and wait for the "all clear" signal.

Too much. Too much.



Last week I was basking in the warmth of the Schoettler family reunion, the beauty of nature at Yosemite National Park, being with old friends and the soothing of memory.

This week - the world has gone to hell in a hand-basket.

1. The Brits had some kind of referendum so that morons could vote and pull the rug out from under       the world so that they could take their country back and boot out the immigrants.

2. Donald Trump had his daily issue of world wide television coverage to promote his golf club in Scotland while making the US look unbelievably stupid because he is a presidential candidate, and scaring the world with the possibility that Americans may show that they have lost their smarts and elect him. The world trembles.

3. Like many I am carefully watching my widow's mite in our pension account drip away.  This drip, drip, drip. makes me feel helpless because I cannot put my finger in the hole in the damn dam and stop it.

4. Oh, did I mention this whole thing makes me a bit nervous?

Then I take my eyes off my navel and look at the pictures of the flood and devastation in West Virginia  - -

and I swallow hard and offer a prayer -

a shout out to God.

HELP!

P.S. Thanks for the messages but not to worry about me losing my energy.

I did not say it very well but in the ending I was aiming for - look around and see where others are and then measure against your problems and issues.

Reunion = family connections

Wow! Its been a fast two weeks filled with many good things and building memories.

This time last week I was at the Schoettler reunion in Madera, CA, wrapped in the 2016 Schoettler tee-shirt and celebrating my pre-birthday surrounded by the warmth of a large and wonderful family.

I came to Madera in 1959 for the first time - where the family reached out to the new member - me - with wide open arms. Jim and I had married on the East Coast and by the time we had the money to come to CA we had two young kids and another on the way.

I was 23 years old. Jim and I had carefully planned the trip from San Antonio, where he was stationed in the Air Force, to have him introduce me to his family. The Air Force stepped in and over-rode our plans with an assignment for him to go to the old Cape Canaveral in Florida for two weeks. Rather than delaying the trip - Jim sent me to CA with the children on my own until he could get there. An adventure - the first leg - an early morning flight from SA to Houston, then I transferred to a Pan Am Constellation for the flight to Los Angeles, and finally a third connection on a smaller plane to Fresno where a crowd of all the family met me at the airport. By my 10 pm arrival I was exhausted, the kids were tired and irritable, and we all looked a rumpled mess but we were welcomed by warm loving hugs - as Jim had known we would be.

Since then the little children of that time have grown into grand-parents and there are several layers of new generations added.  Dear ones are remembered and missed when the crowd gathers - but the feelings of strong family connections have not changed. I am so grateful to be a part of it.

In July I have a significant birthday waiting for me. Sweetly thinking ahead, my daughter Robin 

arranged for this splendiferous, delicious 

cake at the reunion and they all sang the Happy Birthday greeting. Lovely. It felt truly right as Jim's birthday was also that week in June. 

Jimmy and Robin and Brad were there and we missed Karen and the various grandchildren - but gathering young adults is like herding kittens.  - especially across 3,000 miles  - 

maybe you know how that is

Now that I am  home - my heart is filled with happy memories  - memories that want to pop loose - because they bring up other times. Over 80 years  I have quite a few - so I a going to write about them for the next stretch of time. I want to capture them for me and for my family.

.

Back to reality!

First - - before I can please myself by doing that I have to focus totally on Ready to Serve, my new story for the Capital Fringe. 

The Fringe Preview was last night. 20 shows , each with 4 minutes to do a sample of their show. Actually reducing to 4 memorable minutes is a tough assignment. I was glad to be included and I felt that it went fine. I hope folks will come.

Nice surprise for me on Twitter the next day. Thanks @Sonia Zamborsky.

There was lots of energy and excitement last night. New faces and it is nice to see the familiars and to reconnect. I have already picked out a few shows I hope to see. 

I was grateful to have a high-school friend who was passing through town come to the Preview with me and help out by giving out cards and chatting it up with folks. But even more, being in this memoir mood, I particularly enjoyed the laughter bubbling up as we roused up memories of the past when we were crazy teen-agers. 

Reminded me of a few new stories to tell - - - 

as soon as the WWI Nurses of Ready to Serve are launched and on their feet. 

Reunion = family connections

Wow! Its been a fast two weeks filled with many good things and building memories.

This time last week I was at the Schoettler reunion in Madera, CA, wrapped in the 2016 Schoettler tee-shirt and celebrating my pre-birthday surrounded by the warmth of a large and wonderful family.

I came to Madera in 1959 for the first time - where the family reached out to the new member - me - with wide open arms. Jim and I had married on the East Coast and by the time we had the money to come to CA we had two young kids and another on the way.

I was 23 years old. Jim and I had carefully planned the trip from San Antonio, where he was stationed in the Air Force, to have him introduce me to his family. The Air Force stepped in and over-rode our plans with an assignment for him to go to the old Cape Canaveral in Florida for two weeks. Rather than delaying the trip - Jim sent me to CA with the children on my own until he could get there. An adventure - the first leg - an early morning flight from SA to Houston, then I transferred to a Pan Am Constellation for the flight to Los Angeles, and finally a third connection on a smaller plane to Fresno where a crowd of all the family met me at the airport. By my 10 pm arrival I was exhausted, the kids were tired and irritable, and we all looked a rumpled mess but we were welcomed by warm loving hugs - as Jim had known we would be.

Since then the little children of that time have grown into grand-parents and there are several layers of new generations added.  Dear ones are remembered and missed when the crowd gathers - but the feelings of strong family connections have not changed. I am so grateful to be a part of it.

In July I have a significant birthday waiting for me. Sweetly thinking ahead, my daughter Robin 

arranged for this splendiferous, delicious 

cake at the reunion and they all sang the Happy Birthday greeting. Lovely. It felt truly right as Jim's birthday was also that week in June. 

Jimmy and Robin and Brad were there and we missed Karen and the various grandchildren - but gathering young adults is like herding kittens.  - especially across 3,000 miles  - 

maybe you know how that is

Now that I am  home - my heart is filled with happy memories  - memories that want to pop loose - because they bring up other times. Over 80 years  I have quite a few - so I a going to write about them for the next stretch of time. I want to capture them for me and for my family.

.

Back to reality!

First - - before I can please myself by doing that I have to focus totally on Ready to Serve, my new story for the Capital Fringe. 

The Fringe Preview was last night. 20 shows , each with 4 minutes to do a sample of their show. Actually reducing to 4 memorable minutes is a tough assignment. I was glad to be included and I felt that it went fine. I hope folks will come.

There was lots of energy and excitement last night. New faces and it is nice to see the familiars and to reconnect. I have already picked out a few shows I hope to see. 

I was grateful to have a high-school friend who was passing through town come to the Preview with me and help out by giving out cards and chatting it up with folks. But even more, being in this memoir mood, I particularly enjoyed the laughter bubbling up as we roused up memories of the past when we were crazy teen-agers. 

Reminded me of a few new stories to tell - - - 

as soon as the WWI Nurses of Ready to Serve are launched and on their feet. 

The Moth Balls of Memory

Going to California next week will be a trip into memory.

and as you may have experienced that can be joy and it can be painful. I expect my trip to be a bit of both.

Thinking about that brought back a memory of a trip Jim and I made to California a dozen years ago when we, along with our daughter Robin, - discovered the Steinbeck Museum in Salinas, CA. Last time I heard it was closed now and that is a shame. The way they exhibited and portrayed his stories so that the came to life was amazing.

Robin and I each bought a paperback copy of  Travels with Charley and dove into them for the next few days of our journey. There was a particular quote toward the end of the book when he describes his return visit to Monterey - where he had lived as a young man that moved me.  Now I wanted to see that quote again. I thought there was a hard-back copy of Travels with Charley in my office, found it with its stained cover and pulled it off the shelf.

When I opened the book I fast-traveled back further than our trip to Salinas.  Inside, on the fly-leaf, written by me, was inscribed Ellouise and Jim Schoettler, 1962. 

  In an instant I remembered the day I bought this book at the fabled, wood-floored Intimate Bookstore on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, NC. The Intimate burned down in the 1990s - a terrible loss to countless students of UNC and people who loved Chapel Hill. At the time it was lost it was owned by Charles Kuralt's brother. That block of Franklin Street was forever changed by the loss. You never know when or what will launch another trip to the past. I had read the book and enjoyed it. That's what I told Robin the day we stood together looking at the truck Steinbeck drove across country in which then parked on the floor of a large hall in the museum in Salinas.

Once in my hands from the bookcase, I read a little in my old book  - fingering the yellowed pages and feeling the dried paper - making a connection with my time in Chapel Hill. In 1962 I was 26 years old, married to Jim Schoettler and a mother of 4.  Jim was in the Psychiatry Residence at UNC Memorial Hospital. Our youngest daughter - only a few months old, was a Downs Syndrome baby with a severe heart defect.  Jim and I were trying to adjust to her reality.

Yikes. When I go back to that place in time its  prickly so nothing else from that story today.

I do remember reading Travels with Charley - being a bit young to fully understand Steinbeck and his need to make the trip - but something obviously stuck with me because I never forgot it and I kept the book - 54 years. That's a connection.

Back to the quote:
When he reaches his old and familiar place - Monterey - he finds an old friend and they talk of the old days, memories, and other friends. Steinbeck writes:

"I distorted his picture, muddied his memory. When I went away I had died, and so became fixed and unchangeable. My return caused only confusion and uneasiness. Although they could not say it, my
old friends wanted me gone so that I could take my proper place in the pattern of remembrance - -
and I wanted to go for the same reasons. Tom Wolfe was right. You can't go home again because home has ceased to exit except i the mothballs of memory."

Yes, just as I remembered it - - The quote has not changed.
But, I think I have - because I understand that quote more than before.

Kindred Spirits

I have said before that this has been an exciting week for me as Hillary Clinton won the Democratic Primary and is now the Democratic Party presumptive Nominee for President of United States. 

I have also thought about the days when I worked on the Campaign to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and the women I worked with who laid ground work for this years ago but who will not see it.

Marilyn Heath was a political strategist and a journalist.  She taught me to read and listen to the news with my eyes wide open and to try to detect what the real story was. "don't stop with the front page - often you can tell the real story from a small connecting story on the back page".  I wonder what she would say about all the furor around these days with Donald Trump's antics and how Bernie Sander is a spoiler who keeps hanging on. What do you think is likely to happen? 

I don't work in politics these days and can only imagine what's going to happen based on things that happened in other days. And those days were before there was social media and the internet.

Wonder what Mariwyn would have thought about that and how she would think it best to watch and figure out the news.

Maybe she would have some advice on how to keep yourself from drowning in the dense and repetitive coverage on CNN.  I do wish I could talk with her about it.

Remembering MARIWYN HEATH

Mariwyn Heath was a legend before I met her but I did not know it. She was a founder of ERAmerica and had devoted herself fully to passing the Equal Rights Amendment for seven years before I came to the League of Women Voters of the US in 1979 as their newbie ERA Campaign Director. Mariwyn took me under her wing. She taught me what I needed to know - even when I did not know I needed to know it - so that I could do the job and keep the League folded effectively into the ERAmerica national and state strategy.

She did that for me - just as she had done it for many before me and continued to do it for many more after that. I still read the newspaper by Mariwyn's rule - read between the lines, and read the back pages to see how those stories connect with what's on the front page. That's how you find out what's really going on.

Mariwyn was a born mentor. She was one of those gifted women who also helped other women find their own talents and strengths. Ask the women nationwide in Business and Professional Women (BPW) who revered her and named awards for her.

Mariwyn was a powerful woman, advising the White House and top State elected officials, but she wore her power lightly in a town that flaunts and covets power. She was not just about business. She was a wife and mother. She was an excellent cook who made time to bring delicious goodies to pot luck gatherings and staff meetings. She had busy hands - wielding knitting needles or stabbing at a needlepoint canvas.

She laughed that no matter how the campaign went she would have accomplished something with her time - sweaters, baby caps for all the pregnant staff , and a collection of needlepoint canvases covered with vibrant color. What a role model.

In 1980 the Democratic National Convention was held in NYC. I was part of an ERAmerica group that went to the convention to lobby for ERA. When we wrnt to the Democratic Convention in New York City in 1981 Mariwyn and I shared a hotel room and in our off-time one evening she taught me how to needlepoint. " Start with something small." she counseled. I bought an eye-glasses case. It was the first of four I made before the campaign ended - one for each of my daughters, one for my mother and one for Jim's mother. We also hashed over all that was going on on the floor of the convention.

A week after the ERA campaign ended and we had lost Mariwyn and I had lunch together at the Tabbard Inn on N Street. We talked over the campaign and our sense of loss. At one point she said, "You know, Ellouise, I consider you one of my successes."
"You do. Why?"
" Because when you proposed the National Business Council for ERA I thought it was a dumb idea that would never work - - but I did not discourage you."
"Discourage me - you helped me, encouraged me - I never had any idea you did not think it would work."
"And look what happened - - you did it! "

I have always remembered that conversation as a lesson in real leadership and mentoring.

I still have the eyeglasses case we started that evening. A lovely reminder of a very warm and caring woman who was the brains behind a national campaign for equal rights for women. A woman who will be remembered and missed by many.

Most of all I would like to tell her I have joined BPW so that I could find women who want to talk politics and who know the history that brought us to this chance to see a woman in the White House.

A Week to Remember!

This has been quite a week.

Hillary Clinton won the Democratic Primary and is now the Democratic Party Nominee for President of the United States.


Go Hillary GO!!!!

Let's help her break that glass ceiling that has held women back for so long.

Along with Hillary's win  - something else was happening. In California the Judge ruled on a rape case where the jury convicted a Stanford student who raped a defenseless young woman who had imbibed too much alcohol and passed out. The jury said guilty on five counts. The Judge passed a shockingly lenient sentence of 6 months.

There is nationwide outrage. Finally - voices cry out against calling the victim guilty and letting the rapist go free.

The sentence for the rapist cannot be changed but here is the big surprise. The Judge is under scrutiny. People across the country are calling for his removal from the Bench. Jurors have refused to serve in his court. 

Finally - a door opens for real justice for women who are victims.

Then something wonderful and totally unexpected comes out and electrifies the internet networks. Vice President Joe Biden sends an Open Letter to the rape victim - a letter of comfort and encouragement  and vindication for her and all women - and it also it cautions men young and old - "rape is never never never never the fault of the woman." 

  Please read this letter which I predict will be a classic for women, parents, educators, attorneys and judges. 

Thank you Joe Biden for speaking out on behalf of women.

D-Day and Remembering Veteran Harry Catchpole

Ellouise - circa 1944

D-Day Today. Two years ago I met a veteran who was there in person and could tell the story. Meeting Harry Catchpole was a very important encounter for me - to know a person who was an eyewitness to history and enjoyed sharing the experience.

This year Harry is no longer "among us"and we cannot reach out to him to bring D-Day alive for us on this important day - but thanks to Andrew Hiller he leaves a story. Andrew is a friend of mine and I admire his skill as an interviewer so I put the two of them together knowing he would catch Harry's story. Unfortunately the station where his voice was recorded has archived his tape and its not available to us right now.
Hoping Andrew has saved it.

In 1944 I was 9 years old and I have such a vivid memory of that day. We lived in a 12 family apartment house in Charlotte, NC. My daddy was in India. Each family in the 'Virginia Apartments" had a family member somewhere overseas and all were hoping this meant that the war in Europe was coming to a close. And that the end of the war in the Pacific would soon follow. There was excitement in their voices as the adults talked about the D-Day invasion while they studied the newspapers. Radios blared out the story from every apartment. It was a hopeful day.

Meeting Harry was an inspiring connection for me because talking with him furthered my belief in asking questions and uncovering history from eyewitnesses - and when that is not possible for me and I come across a story - I pursue letters and other personal documents to capture an unknown first hand story.

That's why I do what I do with bits of women's history - remembering unknown women whose lives  have been forgotten and lost in the shadows of history. For some reason I have wrapped myself in the purpose to tell their stories if I can for as long as I can.

Is there someone in your family who was part of D-Day that you are remembering today?

To honor D-Day and remember Harry I am reviving this blog post I wrote about Harry two years ago.

6/04/2014

Harry Catchpole Remembers D-Day and tells us about it 

June 6 this week, marks the 70th anniversary of D-Day, the start of the defining battle in Europe of WWII. Washington reporter for Voice of Russia Andrew Hiller has a very special interview for D-Day.

Hiller's D-Day interview is with Harry Catchpole, an eye-witness American soldier, who in England days before Operation Overloardand in France for the battles that ensued. After being shipped to France from his job in England as a clerk on General Eisenhower's staff he was assigned to the Third Army under General George Patton.

Hiller's interview with Catchpole is a GEM  - - - not-to-be-missed.

Today Harry Catchpole is 101 years old. And he vividly remembers 1944, D-Day - and the days after when he was in France.

He is a US Army veteran who crossed the beach at Normandy in the squishy footsteps of those who landed on June 6. Listen to him tell of having to walk between the "white lines" to avoid the mines on the beach the morning he landed in Normandy. Listening to the former Sergeant describe those days takes you right to the spot - right into that history.

Hiller's interview brings a moment in the past to life.


Harry lives in Athens, GA where he and my sister Kathy McGill (mentioned in the audio) know each other well through the Univ. of Ga Catholic Center.  When I met Harry a year ago and heard him bring those days of 1944 to life I was totally mesmerized. I kept asking him questions - questions which were fueled by a need to grab the real story from someone who was there.

Listening to him I really understood the enormous importance of asking veterans for and listening to their stories. They have the history. They have the truth of the place. They have stories to tell, if they are willing, which we need to hear.

It is even more important to talk with the veterans in our families - to know their stories and to hear them tell us about their experiences. Many people tell me they wish they had asked. I wish I had asked my father more about his overseas service.

When I met Harry I was still working on my Arlington National Cemetary story. Hearing his stories ignited my interest in reaching out across for the breadth of stories at Arlington. I began wandering beyond Jim's and my spot - 7424 Roosevelt Drive.. into a new world.

This pursuit of veteran's stories has brought me now to The Hello Girls, the story I will be telling at the DC Capital Fringe in July in Washington, DC. They are gutsy women who stepped up and volunteered for military service when they were needed for WWI.

Their words make the story. Like Harry, they were there, but because they were women  - few heard their stories. I ask you, how fair is that?

Today listening to the audio tape of Andrew Hiller's conversation with Harry Catchpole I am so grateful Hiller captured him -

Now on D-Day we can all share this history -  on June 6 we can go to France with Harry,  And, thank them all for their Service.

Harry's comments about his recent visit to Arlington and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - about the loss of all those killed in WWII - brought me to tears. "What would the world have been like if their possible contributions had not been lost."

Why do we remember June 6? For the WIN - or to remember those who sacrificed their lives that day?

Traveling to Myself

Last night I watched a movie I had seen before but only sort-of remembered -
Night Train to Lisbon with Jeremy Irons.
I watched it because I did not recall the story but I felt that there was something in it I wanted to "catch' again.

And - there was.

The story is a mix of mystery, romance, and discovery set in Lisbon - in a non-specific modern time. The characters too are rather universal and yet non-discript- soft identities that do not take away from the story itself. The Irons character , a middle-age professor, saved a girl from jumping off a bridge in Bern, she runs away and he impetuously hops on a train to follow her to Lisbon to find her and discover her story. You guess soon into the movie that who he eventually finds, along with an interesting story, will be himself.

The key to the search for the girl is a haunting memoir by a young doctor - the other driving character. The heart of the story rests in the book.

All of this was familiar to me as I re-visited the movie - but then in the ending - - AH, HA - I found what I was looking for - a piece of verse:

I spent some time this morning capturing it - I don't want to lose it again because the poem speaks to why I am tied to memoir and to capturing my past. Its the reason for my own personal searches  - and at 80 years old I have a lot of ground to cover as I find bits of myself and quilt them together.

From the movie: Night Train to Lisbon

This is the passage one of the characters writes into his journal which will become his book.

  

We leave something of ourselves behind in a place we have been

We stay there even though we go away

There are things in ourselves we find again only by going back there

We travel to ourselves when we go back to a place where we have covered a stretch of our life

No matter how brief it may have been.

Ah, yes.