How has your experience of societies paradigm changed since you were young?

Sorry Judi, I meant for you to pass the note to Rosalind. She was loose from what I heard.

I wonder if Tracy Apple (the boy who sent the note) ever even got a call home? I’m going to go see if I can find that jerk on facebook!

I don’t have a story to share, but that’s just nuts!

My middle class but very liberal neighborhood has had a block party every year for 16 years. Its a little bit of Americana neighborhood friendliness that is not typical in California suburbs. It was started by the two women that had just had their first baby.

Even more of a paradigm shift is that one of those two women had an affair with another woman up the street who was divorcing her husband. The divorcee and the philandering lesbian and the divorcee’s three kids all lived together, with the lesbian’s daughter from the previous relationship walking up the street for visitation with her other mom. The new couple got married during the time that marriage equality existed in California. They also have twin boys from the same father as the daughter.

The local elementary school took it all in stride, for a while all three moms were showing up for back to school night and open house.

It’s fun this time of year because they lead the Christmas Caroling.

Getting the strap by the teacher in the old one room school house. She had the red one “Old Bess” and the black one “Old Black Joe.” This had nothing to do with ethnicity, just the colour of the rubber.

I suppose there was a drastic change from the time I was a child in Russian to be a pre-teen in the U.S. – I’ve distanced myself quite drastically from my parent’s racist, sexist, homophobic ways simply by being a kid of Brooklyn. I then drastically changed my paradigm around gender and sexuality once I’ve entered NYU.

In the late seventies and early eighties, I used to be a door to door canvasser. We had crews of people who would drive out to the burbs, canvass from 5 until 9, and then drive back to the office. Often times, we’d pick up a sixpack to share in the car on the way back to the office. Driver included.

However, that wasn’t all. Thursday night was bar night. It was pretty much mandatory that you go out and fraternize with your coworkers. It was a way of developing esprit du corp. Of course, you had to buy your own beer and smokes. Then you proceeded to get as drunk as you possibly could. Sometimes stoned, too. Then, if you were a field manager, you were required to drive the car home. No one thought anything of it.

One night, I was so drunk I couldn’t see straight. I told my boss I couldn’t drive, but she told me I had to. I was driving along downtown and a cop put on his lights and pulled up next to me, pointing to the right. After a while, it dawned on me that the road I was on had turned from one way to two way and I was now driving in the wrong lane.

“Thank you, officer.” I pulled to the right and continued to drive home, dropping off various canvassers at their respective abodes. Yeah. My boss was in the car when it happened.

A few years later, after MADD got big, they pulled the plug on bar nights. No more drinking in the car, either. Me? I’m just glad I survived.

Mr. Kring, my 7th grade homeroom teacher was exhaulted for his ability to run a disciplined classroom. He was given awards.

His technique? He would slam a short 2×4 on his desk to get our attention, swear at us (“Are you fucking stupid”), and would throw blackboard erasers at us (often hitting kids in the head).

Can you imagine a teacher running a classroom like that today?! And being praised for it??