It was my mother who first put the pen in my hand, insisting I write my feelings down rather than speak them. That effort either abiding or inaugurating a relationship with words which persists to this day.
Perhaps her plan to ensure a well-written elegy?
I first learned of the Women’s Suffrage movement and the presidential election of 1920 in the classroom of my 8th grade history teacher, Mister Hislop.
Though it ended up being Hislop who was taught the lesson!
Hislop told the class that it was the female vote which gave Warren Harding his landslide victory that year, opining that the freshly minted women voters were ill-informed and instead voted for Harding based on the candidate’s good looks.
Which for a few more hours, seemed like a reasonable explanation.
After school most days my mother engaged with my education prodding me to advance my learning beyond the classroom in any areas of interest, which even at that young age presidential history already was.
Likely explaining why I repeated Mr. Hislop’s “lesson” to my mother at home that night.
That next morning my mom drove me to school, which would have seemed unremarkable considering her frequent volunteering. As I walked into Mr. Hislop’s classroom my mother still in tow I was unaware that the woman had plans to re-write history; at-least Hislop’s version of it.
I don’t recall my mother’s words that day, though I’m sure Hislop never forgot them. To his credit Hislop listened without reply, perhaps knowing better than to interrupt my mother.
Which from my experience, was a good decision.
I still recall the awe I felt watching my mother take down Hislop that day. Her petite stature no impediment to her towering over the man. Or from teaching her son and his classmates a lesson fundamental in her views: that words matter. And that they can be used to bring change.
Beliefs I am vapid without.
I have never known an idea which failed to find a patron, nor written a word whose fate left it unread. I don’t know failure without reassurance nor do I suffer the self-doubts and insecurities so common among us.
Because always, there was my mother.
Barbara Carol Gersh Lipton
December 29, 1939-August 16, 2024
