Julie Pippert: Using My Words

I've been subtly correcting my children lately. Persistence has anger management issues, which I realize is the definition of a four year old, but directing that from anti-social to acceptable communication is the definition of mother. "Stomp your foot, say I feel angry! That's okay! It's not okay to hit or say hurtful things!" If I had a dollar for every time I said that the private school tuition would be paid for. We used to say mad. But the phrase "I'm mad" began to get under my connotation, denotation, and grammatically OCD skin. I did not like picturing Ophelia. I did not like being put in mind of a mad bull, someone enraged; greatly provoked or irritated; angry; abnormally furious; ferocious; extremely foolish or unwise; imprudent; irrational. Although upon reflection, perhaps mad is the right word, after all. But we've stuck with anger. Angry sounds like something you can get under control. Mad, enraged, fury does not. Betty Draper is wa...

In 1984 I was a teen, but not old enough to vote yet. That didn't keep me and my peers from being interested in the election that year. For those of you who don't recall (or weren't born yet) in 1984 Democrats Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro challenged Republican incumbents President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush. It was unprecedented: a ticket with a woman. The nation was sort of flummoxed, and everyone was talking about it, a lot. That was the year then Colorado Senator Gary Hart, former Vice President Walter Mondale and Illinois minister Jesse Jackson all ran for Democratic nominee. Hart lost after Mondale mockery of his new ideas, and Jackson lost because...well, we can all speculate why. History will probably attribute it to his bigoted remarks, largely about Jewish people. History is rarely completely wrong, but it also doesn't always tell the whole story. Once Mondale secured the nomination, he selected Ferraro as his running mate, and the Wom...

This is part of the Monday Mission. We're to leave a voice mail. Check out Painted Maypole's spot for more... "Hi...umm...Mitch? It's Julie, Julie from high school. I doubt you remember me; we only knew each other for about five minutes. You mowed our lawn a few times, dated my friend's sister, and were in my AP English class senior year. That's why I'm calling---about what you did in the English class. It made a lasting impression, really made a difference in my life. That probably sounds dramatic but it's true. You see, I'd spent a lot of years being the kid who fell through the cracks in school. I think by high school I'd gotten tired of being the good enough and compliant student. Senior year, I was one inch from dropping out, and I probably would have if I'd had the guts or I thought my parents would let me get away with it. Instead, I just created a lot of unnecessary sturm and drang for myself, and cut school so much that by the end ...

Deborah Kerr's obituary appeared in the newspaper today. I read it and felt sad. A generation of people---influential, culture-altering, gentle boundary breakers---are vanishing and their time is fading away, relegated to the past. It creates in me a sense of urgency to capture them and their time before the chance is lost. I have a deep interest in doing this. It's not gone or lost if we still know it and remember it. Just think about it for a minute. Deborah Kerr was 86 when she passed away. That means she was born in 1921. In some ways, 1921 was much like 2007: * The Boston Post exposed the swindle schemes of Charles Ponzi (namesake of the Ponzi Scheme) * Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence won the Pulitzer Prize. * Politicians and politics were up to the usual posturing and scandal. Today it's Larry Craig, and in 1921 it was North Dakota Governor Lynn Frazier, who was recalled based on a dispute about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota and State Mill and Elev...

When I studied Old English in college, I not only learned a new language, I gained insight into my own culture and its past through its history of languge. I remember the strange and yet familiar words, the complex and myriad meanings, the grammatical rules, the hours groups of us spent translating and seeking the best modern word for an ancient concept. But most of all, I remember the professor. The course was taught by a former Jesuit, who left to marry a Russian emigre (please recall this was the 80s and early 90s, so that was actually noteworthy back then). I was recruited in college for a job, and this professor steered me away from it. I subsequently took a different job, which happened to be with his wife. During a major crisis at that job, we were evacuating and had a matter of seconds before contamination. I happen to be the sort who keeps a cool head during such times, and the professor's wife was not. Who knows her history or why the event affected her so much. She panic...