December 23, 2008--The Ladies of Forest Trace: Bertha and Governing From the Left

This time I initiated the call.

“I’m really upset.”

“With what darling?”

“About Barack Obama’s choice of who to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.”

“You mean that minister who doesn’t believe in gay marriage?”

“Not that. Obama himself doesn’t believe gays should be allowed to marry. I disagree with him but I can at least understand his position.”

“So what’s the problem?” I knew my mother had been distracted by medical problems and hadn’t been following the news as closely as usual.

“It’s the rest of his views about homosexuality.”

“Like what sweetie?”

“I heard him call it equivalent to pedophilia. That goes beyond marriage, which I can force myself to understand is supposed to be about procreating. Though God knows many of us who are married have chosen not to have children. So what is so different about gays being married and Rona and me?”

“The girls here have been talking about this too. You know for those of us who are very old,” my mother is about the be 100 and six months, “this is not a comfortable subject. We never talked about these matters the way you and your generation do.” I chose not to remind her how old I actually am. I liked the fact that she still thought of me as one of her two young children.

“Bertha hasn’t stopped talking about it since Obama made the announcement. She had a brother who never married. What they used to call a ‘confirmed bachelor.’ But everyone knew or at the very least suspected that he might have been that way. Though she loved him more than life itself. When their mother was sick with stomach cancer,” when speaking with my mother it never took more than five minutes for us to be talking about medical things, “when she couldn’t take care of herself anymore and they didn’t want to put her in a nursing home, Stanley, that was his name, poor dear, he moved into her bedroom (he was still living at home) and nursed her day and night. For six months until she died. I can’t tell you the things he did for her. I know you don’t like these kinds of details, but he was the most loving of sons.

“Bertha told us many times about the things he had to put up with because of the way he was. He taught English to 7th graders and they tormented him. The names they called him. Even to his face. He was very, how do you put it, effeminate. A gentle soul. They were very cruel. I met him a few times before he died. He came here twice a year and stayed with Bertha. And stayed with her to take care of her, like he did their mother, when she had her own cancer. I told you about that, didn’t I?” Indeed she had—every hospitalization and every chemo treatment.

“I know you’re not feeling well mom, you’re having a shaky morning, so I won’t keep you. I don’t want to hold you on the phone. I just wanted to tell you what I’ve been feeling about Rick Warren, the evangelical minister from that California megachurch.”

“As I told you I haven’t been watching too much TV lately. I haven’t been myself. And I understand Wolf is on vacation.” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer she meant. Her favorite. “So let me tell you what Bertha has been saying. You know what a tender subject this is for her.”

I could only imagine. Also, I knew that Bertha was the most liberal, the most progressive of the ladies of Forest Trace. She had been a suffragette, had helped organize chapters of the garment workers union in New York City—she herself had sown shirtwaists, and probably had been a communist or at least a fellow traveler back in the 30s. So if any of the ladies would be upset with Obama it would be Bertha. I had been hearing that she had been quite upset by some of his cabinet choices. Especially about his economic team—“too many Wall Street retreads” my mother said she snorted when they were announced. Considering her life history and her politics she was the most likely to be feeling that Obama had been moving to far to the political center.

“So what’s Bertha’s take on this?” I suspected she would have feelings similar to mine.

“I think you will be surprised.”

“And?”

“She thinks having him speak at the inauguration is a good idea.”

“Really?” I was amazed by this.

“Bad politics. That she says. How, how do they call it, how his base is very upset and that’s maybe not good politics—you want to hold onto to your base Bertha says. But she also says that Obama has two bases. Maybe more. The progressives are a big part of it for certain. They gave him all that money didn’t they, but then she reminded the girls last night at dinner, didn’t he also win most of the suburban votes. So they are his base too. And Bertha went on to say that if he is going to be able to get Congress to go along with his big plans he will need some Republican support, particularly in the Senate. Isn’t that true? You too have been saying this. That he will need 60 votes there. So he has to add to this base.”

“I’m not following this mom. I thought you said that Bertha thought choosing Warren was bad politics. It’s sounding as if she feels Obama by picking him is being politically smart—that Warren will help build Obama’s political base. The gays and those on the left who are upset about his selection will not abandon Obama—where are they going to go?”

“She thinks, and Bertha is very smart about these things, that though they are not going to become Republicans, that’s silly to even think about, that they will lose some of their enthusiasm for Obama and won’t be as active in supporting his policies and what he needs Congress to do. That enthusiasm is very important because the Republicans, she says, are feeling very pessimistic about themselves and will want to flex their muscles when Congress comes back after the new year. So he is taking a big political risk—she says maybe an unnecessary one, a self-created one—by doing this. So that’s the bad politics.”

“That’s my point too. I agree with Bertha. Why does Obama need to cause so much upset and give the media this to talk about—on top of the Blagojevich business—at a time when he should stick to his appointments and develop his programs? No drama Obama.”

“I’ve heard that but let me tell you the rest of what Bertha is thinking.”

“I’m eager to hear.”

“Again, you need to remember what I have told you about her life—in Poland before they came here, the way they lived on the Lower East Side, how none of the girls went to school beyond the 5th grade, how her father worked 12 hours a day like a slave in a bakery, how she and all her sisters had to work when they were 16 in the sweatshops, and then the war and how many of her people who had stayed behind—all of them—wound up in Auschwitz. Then there was McCarthy right here in America and how her husband, who was a history teacher in Newark, lost his job because of the investigations. And of course her brother Stanley. I already told you about him.”

“Yes you did. Today again but also previously. It’s a sad story.”

“From all of this Bertha feels that most of our problems, most of the world’s problems are caused by intolerance which turns quickly into bigotry and hatred. Especially when times are hard. Like during the Depression, which was worldwide and helped launch Hitler in Germany and the KKK in America, and maybe like today with so many people losing their jobs and their savings and their homes. And the rest of us worried that we may be next to have to move out of Forest Trace and move in to live with our children.”

“Are you saying . . .?”

“No, not to worry darling, I’m fine, I have my money and will not be having to move in with you or your brother, though I know both of you would be happy to have me.”

“It’s not that . . .”

She chuckeld at that. The first time in a few days I had heard her familiar laugh. “Look, I have to take my morning medication in a minute so let me tell you what Bertha said.”

“Please.”

“She feels strongly that everything life has taught her during her own nearly 100 years is that unless we come up with ways to overcome these violent feelings we have toward each other, with the means we now have to do harm to each other, we will continue to torment and destroy each other. In a small though hurtful way the way Stanley was tormented. And so back to that minister with his big following. Bertha reminded us that Obama said that he was going to try to be president of all Americans, especially, she quoted him as saying, those who did not vote for him. That would include people like what’s-his-name.”

“Warren, Rick Warren.”

“Yes him. This medication is causing me to lose my short-term memory. Or maybe I have Alzheimer’s.”

“No you don’t mom. For someone your age you’re doing very, very well.”

“We can talk about that another time. Who better than me knows how I’m feeling?”

“You have me there.”

“Again, according to Bertha it’s worth the immediate political consequences of having him—again I forget his name—speak at the inauguration because maybe in reality and symbolically this will begin to narrow some important differences that divide Americans. She feels that if Obama had invited him to, say, an interfaith meeting about these kinds of issues it would hardly get noticed. Maybe Obama is seeing this, she feels, as the beginning of a much longer, more public dialogue about . . .”

She couldn’t say the word so I did, “Sexuality.”

“Yes that and other things too. That if after January 20th Obama spends more time with him and other ministers like him—what’s the word?”

“Evangelicals.”

“That’s it.” She stumbled when trying to pronounce it. I could hear her again becoming exasperated with herself—her own decline. “Maybe he and others would come to narrow some of their differences with Obama and the rest of us. Maybe this minister, given such a prominent role, will feel a responsibility to rethink some of his more extreme views.”

“If that were to happen it would be wonderful.”

“And this could maybe set an example of how we have to negotiate with those we disagree with—and often by disagreeing turn into enemies. Rather than turn violent toward those who hold different views we might be able to find ways to live with rather than kill each other. We need to do this here and all around the world.”

“Perhaps that’s the hope Obama offers.”

“And which we desperately need. I don’t know about you, but I’m inclined to trust Bertha about this.”

“I’ll try. But as you always have said to me when you feel I’m being a little overoptimistic, ‘We’ll see.’”

“Yes, we will. We’ll see. I have to go now. I’ll talk with you later. I have to take my Xanax.

“And remember. It’s very cold out so be sure to wear a hat.”