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40 years of America
Jan. 28th, 2004 10:35 amI got an email from my Mom this morning:
January 28, 2004 is the 40th anniversary of my emigrating to you United States. I landed at JFK on January 28, 1964.
My Mom came over from England in her early 20's. She landed in New York not knowing anyone. She became a secretary. She moved to San Francisco. She met my Dad, got married, raised two kids, got divorced, and became a secretary again.
She's a strange contradiction in "can-do" and "can't-do." She never got a college degree, and she's never shot for any job higher than admin. But she can argue the pants off a bishop; she was once the bane of the Palo Alto Unified School District, and now the Palo Alto City Council trembles at the mention of her name.
You know when you exit the 280 freeway at Page Mill Road and drive up the hill, only to get stuck at that stupid stoplight in the middle of nowhere? You can blame my Mom for that one. That's the Jean M. Wilcox Memorial Stoplight (no she's not dead, just an old family joke). When I was a kid I rode a school bus that had to enter Page Mill Road from that side street there, so Mom successfully crusaded to get the light installed so that the bus wouldn't be in danger (which at the time it was, it was a wild and woolly intersection).
Nowadays she's battling to make sure they don't narrow Charleston Avenue to just 2 lanes for "traffic calming" purposes. She's fighting to keep the city's existing excellent library system instead of tearing out other much-loved city recreational facilities to spend millions to build a new monster library. She's a hellion, and she can do it.
I think I get a lot of my ability to communicate, to discuss, to argue from her. I don't think I got a lot of her "can-do" ability, nor did I pick up a crusading streak. Certainly I have a love for England from her; thank goodness I didn't pick up her funky Queen's-English-crossed-with-40-years-of-California accent.
40 years in America, today. Welcome home, Mom.
January 28, 2004 is the 40th anniversary of my emigrating to you United States. I landed at JFK on January 28, 1964.
My Mom came over from England in her early 20's. She landed in New York not knowing anyone. She became a secretary. She moved to San Francisco. She met my Dad, got married, raised two kids, got divorced, and became a secretary again.
She's a strange contradiction in "can-do" and "can't-do." She never got a college degree, and she's never shot for any job higher than admin. But she can argue the pants off a bishop; she was once the bane of the Palo Alto Unified School District, and now the Palo Alto City Council trembles at the mention of her name.
You know when you exit the 280 freeway at Page Mill Road and drive up the hill, only to get stuck at that stupid stoplight in the middle of nowhere? You can blame my Mom for that one. That's the Jean M. Wilcox Memorial Stoplight (no she's not dead, just an old family joke). When I was a kid I rode a school bus that had to enter Page Mill Road from that side street there, so Mom successfully crusaded to get the light installed so that the bus wouldn't be in danger (which at the time it was, it was a wild and woolly intersection).
Nowadays she's battling to make sure they don't narrow Charleston Avenue to just 2 lanes for "traffic calming" purposes. She's fighting to keep the city's existing excellent library system instead of tearing out other much-loved city recreational facilities to spend millions to build a new monster library. She's a hellion, and she can do it.
I think I get a lot of my ability to communicate, to discuss, to argue from her. I don't think I got a lot of her "can-do" ability, nor did I pick up a crusading streak. Certainly I have a love for England from her; thank goodness I didn't pick up her funky Queen's-English-crossed-with-40-years-of-California accent.
40 years in America, today. Welcome home, Mom.
