[Gregory] ‘Mom, What Did You Do?’

by Lori Gregory
April 9, 2008

Recently, at a flea market in a town a little south of here, I dug into a bin of old newspapers and found a copy of the Jackson Daily News printed 35 years ago to the exact date. Besides reinforcing all my superstitious beliefs, I decided that there was a reason I was led to this exact spot, in this exact time, to read this paper. That may seem a little strange to some of you, but I watch enough bad horror and am just Catholic enough to hold on to a whole barrel of irrational beliefs concerning fate, destiny and black cats—and I actually own two black cats.

I paid the woman who owned the booth 75 cents for the paper while openly ruminating about the rising cost of dailies. It lies in a basket under the coffee table, and I read it about once a day. Besides the JCPenney ad proclaiming ladies' underwear on sale at the bargain price of “3 for $1.99”, the rest of the stories both comforted and frustrated me about the current “State Of The Union.”

My daily news-watching over the past few months has led to a desire for a heavy Xanax prescription and a lease on an underground bunker already stocked with canned foods and gas. It’s freaking scary watching the morning economic updates on CNN, much less segments concerning the war in Iraq and presidential elections. I’ve debated a news black-out. But, like most other horrific events, I just can’t take my eyes off this train wreck. My grocery bill won’t let me.

The articles on the front page of this Jackson Daily News were eerily similar to a contemporary paper I purchased two days previous to this expedition. They spoke of soldiers returning home from war and inflation causing grocery prices to skyrocket. The old paper listed bulletin points from one of President Nixon’s speeches including high meat prices, boycotts, the withdrawal from Vietnam, returning veterans and their difficulties, and federal spending issues. Another article discussed an extension of the Mississippi Legislature’s regular session due to fights with the current governor. Yet another spoke about the DeSoto County school district and its refusal to comply with integration reforms.

The paper was published three years before I was born, but included many of the same themes as current papers that convince me there is definitely a place in our not-so-distant future requiring underground bunkers and large supplies of canned peaches. Surprisingly enough, we seemed to have made it through that economic crisis just fine. I mean, we even eventually got rid of poly-blend suits with pants rocking wide belt loops and flared bottoms (On sale at JCPenney for the low price of $59.50). If we can make it through that, we can definitely withstand this storm, right? Then I started thinking that maybe that wasn’t the point. Maybe it wasn’t just about weathering this storm only to face another. Maybe it was about changing what we do so that it doesn’t happen again in another 35 years.

I don’t know if this old paper was meant to comfort me as a reminder that things are cyclical in nature and the nation will right itself (or “left” itself). Or if this was a call to arms alerting me that in the 35 years since then, have done nothing to teach us that each year is an invitation to “try something different.” It’s an invitation we keep deliberately tossing in the garbage and then talking badly about behind its back.

Last week was the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination and only the second anniversary of the legislation making civil rights curriculum mandatory in Mississippi’s public school system. It took us 38 years to get that point. Maybe our learning curve is somewhere in the area of 38 years, and we are holding out for the next three until we catch up to the lesson where we learn that racial harmony is a noble quest in the evolution of truly “civil society,” and that unnecessary wars only kill thousands of innocent young men while making it increasingly difficult for the underprivileged to feed their children.

After reading this paper, I truly understood George Santayana’s quote, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” I don’t know about you people, but I’m thinking it's time we did some learnin’. I don’t want my children to read a yellowed paper in 35 years and turn to me to ask the question they have every right to ask, “Mom, what did you do?”

I would be ashamed to tell them that I thought about how horrible all of it was while I watched cable and fancied about on the Internet. I would have to tell them that I did not engage in face-to-face dialogue to further racial healing. I would have to tell them that I did not vote in the last presidential election. I would have to tell them that I failed them. I would have to tell them I got scared.

I’m just hard-headed enough to know that there is no way I’m telling my hypothetical unborn children that their mom was a big fat wussy. I want to tell them that I picked up that often-discarded invitation and did something different. And, I would like to tell them that other people did the same. I want them to read that paper in 35 years—the paper that says we all got less scared and did something different.

posted by C.W. on 04/10/08 at 08:36 AM

posted by Lori G on 04/10/08 at 10:02 AM

posted by L.W. on 04/11/08 at 11:49 AM