Bucks
Gore Separation, Henrietta Jahnsen, Helen Thomas, Prop14 Qband Schedule
Dear Friends,
Good morning. I thought of Al and Tipper Gore’s 40th wedding anniversary as I contemplate Mighty Betsy’s and my marriage…50 years tomorrow. MB deserves gold medal, don’t you agree?
When a
devoted couple like the Gore’s separate, no marriage is safe, I thought. So,
with considerable trepidation, I read the Deidre Bair column in the New York
Times (June 6). Ms. Bair is the author of “Calling It Quits: Late-Life Divorce
and Starting Over.” Her
For her book, Bair interviewed 126 men and 184 women who divorced after being married 20 to 60-plus years. “Are all marriages doomed to whither and die” was her rhetorical question?
“Men and women I interviewed insisted they did not divorce foolishly or impulsively,” Bair wrote. “Most of them mentioned “freedom.” Women had grown tired of taking care of house, husband and grown children; men were tired of working to support wives who they felt did not appreciate them and children who did not respect them. Women and men alike wanted time to find out who they were.”
I gasped when I read Bair’s account of what anthropologist Margaret Mead had to say 50 or so years ago. “Margaret Mead thought every woman needed three husbands,” the Bair column continued, “one for youthful sex, one for security while raising children and one for joyful companionship in old age.”
MB liked that idea and reminded me that Margaret Mead was a Bucks Countian, too. She graduated from Doylestown High School before it became Central Bucks West and is buried in the Trinity Episcopal graveyard in Buckingham. Doylestown High has at least two famous grads…James Michener and Mead.
Mead was a cultural anthropologist and a champion of broadened sexual mores within a context of traditional western religious life. She also played a considerable part in drafting the 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. Mead was an early feminist.
And how many husbands did she have?
Three, naturally, and all were anthropologists. Her daughter is an anthropologist too. Mead apparently had intimate relations with women as well. She must have kept Bucks Countian tongues wagging.
I asked one of my wife’s female friends about Margaret Mead’s advice to women? Her answer was inspirational.
“I didn’t need three husbands,” she purred sweetly. “My lesser half has been all three!”
It’s enough to make one weak. I hope MB doesn’t get wild ideas.
And now for something safer.
The Quakertown Band has a busy summer schedule. The 133-year-old concert band is Bucks County’s oldest musical organization and makes for wonderful listening.
Eight concerts remain: July 4 at Quakertown
Memorial Park,
Item.
One of my favorite Quakertown teachers died two weeks ago. Approaching 94, Henrietta Landis Jahnsen left this world for the next. Any one who went to Quakertown schools from the 1940’s to the early 1980’s had the good fortune to have Henrietta for vocal music.
Henrietta had no children of her own so the thousands of students whom she taught became her surrogate family. One of the reasons why I’m still singing is due to her influence. Her memorial service will be on September 11 at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Richlandtown. As we get closer to that date, I’ll write about her again.
Item.
I’m sorry that reporter Helen Thomas has retired after 67 years. The 89-year-old Thomas had a front row seat in the White House briefing room for 10 presidents. She was a bulldog and always seemed to be cranky. I remember sitting with her for breakfast during a newspaper meeting in Washington, D.C. Ronald Reagan was the President at the time.
Thomas could be charming, though prickly. Most important, she led the way for women in journalism.
Thomas held the unofficial title of dean of the White House press corps. “Her front row seat bears a small plaque with her name, the only seat in the briefing room designated by the name of a person, not a news organization,” the New York Times said (June 8).
President Kennedy once remarked that she’d be a nice girl if she’d ever get rid of that pad and pencil. And Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State once jokingly griped, “Isn’t there a war somewhere we could send her to?”
But she stepped over the line when she quipped, “Tell them [the Jews] to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. They should go home.”
Where’s home, Helen Thomas?
“Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else,” she replied.
Journalists did not come to Thomas’ defense. Richard Cohen writes columns for the Washington Post and was particularly critical. In reference to Thomas’ statement that the Jews should go home, Cohen made this observation:
“Well, I don’t know about “everywhere else,” but after World War II, many Jews did attempt to go home to Poland,” Cohen wrote (June 8). “This resulted in the murder of about 1,500 of them- killed not by Nazis but by Poles, either out of sheer ethnic hatred or fear they would lose their (stolen) homes.”
Thomas was the daughter of Lebanese immigrants and did little to hide her pro-Arab views. But that’s no excuse for her behavior. Still it’s too bad that her career came to a jarring end after so many years of doing excellent work.
Next week, I’ll get to Proposition
14, which will change
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith