Who is an American?

Holidays like the Fourth of July cause me to become reflective. In a society currently sensationally polarized by a number of issues, I hope tomorrow can be a day that we can all share with, I hope, less rhetoric about what separates us and more about what makes us all Americans.

Quite by chance, I am currently reading a book about the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The Last Stand , written by Nathanial Philbrick, is a well-researched and well-written account of that infamous meeting between the Seventh Cavalry, led by George Armstrong Custer, and Native Americans, led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Philbrick has obviously done his homework, checking his sources and collecting facts. He has a knack for turning all of that into a fascinating series of stories that all add up to the larger saga, detailing not just what went on in battle, but what was going on in the country.

One of the revelations of the book for me was finding that Sitting Bull, learning that white men were headed to his village, initially told his warriors to hold back because it might be an effort to make peace. As we all know now, it was not a peace initiative and it ended badly with plenty of blame to go around on both sides.

Somehow, this story of two cultures at odds in 1876, the year of our nation’s centennial, seems timely. Each side believed it had rights, including the right to its own beliefs. Both were frustrated by the other side’s inability to “live and let live.” It’s a parable for our time in that our search to protect our rights seems to require that, in order for one side to be right, the other must be proved wrong and, often, denied its rights.  Then, as now, uncertainty engendered fear and fear drove actions that had disastrous results.

Many of those killed near the Little Big Horn River that late June day in 1876 were veterans of the U.S. Civil War, including Custer and several of his family members who rode with him. Those men had endured horrific battles over whether the United States would even survive as a nation less than a hundred years after its formation.

"If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, and in my heart he put other and different desires. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows." -- Sitting Bull

We were then, as we remain today, a nation of immigrants, a human tapestry of differences. Philbrick describes one point in the battle in which several of the Seventh Cavalry took refuge in a buffalo wallow, among them an Italian, an Irishman, a quarter-blood Blackfoot and an American of French Canadian heritage. Though Sitting Bull was of the Hunkpapa people, his village that day included members of many tribes, including Cheyenne, Oglala and Minneconjou and others.

The hostilities then, as now, were about who were the “true” Americans. The progress of settlers and gold miners ever westward spoke to their dreams of a life better than the one they had known. With them came their sensibilities about civilization and railroads that would bring more of them faster than ever before.

On the other hand, their dreams had created a tipping point for the nomadic tribes whose lives depended on keeping their natural lands free for buffalo herds and other game. Many of the warriors who rode against Custer’s men had left reservations to gather with Sitting Bull because there was not enough food on the reservation to sustain their families.

Laws were made and broken. Treaties were signed and broken. Out of the brutal defeat suffered by Custer and his troops came not a victory to be savored by the native warriors, but instead a stronger and equally brutal crackdown from the growing majority white population in the nation.

Maybe what America will always be about is this tension, this angst about who among us are the “true” Americans. At our best, we come together in moments of great challenge. At our worst, we splinter into factions, each so hungry to have dominion that we must diminish any who disagree. Somewhere in the middle there is, we must hope, room to respectfully disagree about some things, while protecting always the rights of all, whether "eagles or crows."

Photo by Mike Lumpkin

Remembering a Special Father

I’ve been lucky so often in life, never more so than when I married my husband who has been our son’s father, steady and true for almost 30 years. I often say that Mike married me so that he could be Michael’s father. When Mike and I married, Michael stood snuggled between us and told everyone at the wedding that “we got married today.”

In marrying the father our son has relied upon for all the years since, I got a very special father-in-law. Father Hayward and son Mike looked so much alike that anyone who knew either of them could be sure of their relationship without being introduced to the other. Not only did they have the physical resemblance, but they shared the same devilish sense of humor.

My name for Hayward Lumpkin was “Wayward” because of his constant effort to slyly mislead and misdirect all who came his way. A career in the military had not changed his sense of fun. A World War II veteran who had surely seen much that he would never forget, he never brought darkness to those around him, instead lighting the room with the twinkle in his eye.

One of my fondest memories of “Pappy,” as the grandchildren called him, was at a lake in Alabama where he spent an afternoon fishing with Michael. The two of them were thick as thieves from the moment they met, sharing hours and days of loving camaraderie. Their time as fishing friends was something both treasured. The photograph of that day is one of our favorites.

Occasionally when Mike and I had to be away from home, Pappy eagerly volunteered to come to stay with Michael. He loved to take our little one to Shoney’s where kids ate free. Pappy enjoyed the amazement the staff expressed as Michael turned up again and again to refill his plate at the buffet. He was the proverbial “bottomless pit” and Pappy claimed that Michael might single-handedly put them out of business. Pappy prided himself on pinching his pennies and sought bargains wherever they were to be found.

Pappy and the love of his life, Willie Mae, raised three wonderful children, encouraging them to learn and pursue higher education. They glowed with pride in each child and in the grandchildren who followed. They embraced me as a daughter-in-law, as they did their sons-in-law. They welcomed friends and family into their home and even went out of their way to help an elderly couple with a myriad of needs from driving them to doctor visits to helping them pay their bills.

I miss Pappy and will for the rest of my life. Like my father, he was a source of strength and joy. He encouraged me to be myself, even when my unorthodox approach to playing as his bridge partner occasionally baffled him and caused us to lose. He was an excellent card player and played to win, but indulged my rebelliousness, perhaps because he recognized my individuality as he prized his own.

I am much blessed this Father’s Day. It has been my great good fortune to know the love of father and father-in-law and to see that shared with our son. I am gifted with the love of my husband, a good father himself. As my son said to me recently, “I look forward to having children who know Dad because I think he will be the kind of grandfather to them that Pappy was to me.” I can’t imagine higher praise.





Ma. Mike, Linda, Ramona, Hayward



Honoring My Father (1908-1986)

For all the years that he has been gone, my father’s presence in my life is with me every day. I hear his voice in my own with the words that he used. I see his eyes in my face and in my son’s. I feel his sense of humor rippling through me as I laugh and I recognize it in the spirit of fun that has been a part of my son almost from the day of his birth.  John William Armstrong, Jr., lives on in us.

He resides in me today, not just as a memory, but as the spirit imbued in me through his example. He taught me so many things, some of them seemingly contradictory. His compassion for others was evident in many ways. He would answer a call any time of day or night to help someone to whom he felt responsibility. He gave his heart to those who needed someone to believe in them, even when their frailties or disabilities might bring him to tears when he returned home from working with them.

He could be intimidating to us as children. His expectations for us were high. We were in awe of his edgy intelligence, a breadth of knowledge drawn from living and from voracious reading. Unable to attend more than a few months of college, he educated himself while working in a myriad of jobs. When we were growing up, he worked long hours and was often up long before we arose, then home in the afternoon when we finished school.

Even as he hungered for knowledge, he remained bound for too long to some of the ways of the past. He clung to the mores of a rural South he learned from relatives with bitter memories of Reconstruction.  Ultimately, he would admit that he had been wrong about many things, but in his wrongheadedness, I never knew him to treat anyone unkindly or cruelly.  He would not allow us to treat anyone as our inferior.

He espoused a level of cynicism that was hard for me to understand as a child. I can relate to it better now, having experienced more of life, including the disappointments, as well as too many views “behind the curtain,” where I’ve discovered flawed human beings are seldom wizards or heroes. Though an avowed cynic who often told me: “you’ll see,” Daddy showed an enormous faith in human nature throughout his life.

So what is this heritage that fathers leave their children? Is it the way we look, or the training we’re given? Is it the biases and prejudices we carry forward into our own lives? Is it their beliefs? Is it their questions? Is it the talents witnessed or the manners ingrained? It is all of these, I believe. Those of us fortunate enough to have a loving father in our lives, one we might honor this Father’s Day, take away a gift.

It is the gift of love, given freely and generously in the best way our dads know how. They give themselves in risking parenthood at the start, in being our role models throughout and in leaving us with the grace and courage to go on if they pass on before we do. Sadly this year, as during so many wars and other armed conflicts in the past, many will miss a father who gave his life for our country.

My wish for them and for all of us is to have the memories that allow us to have our fathers, though gone before us, living in us. May we know that grace this Father’s Day 2012.

Tuesday Morning with Mike

I awoke very early this morning, my head full of thoughts about the month just past. I was missing my dear friend Dale, feeling that loss anew with the realization that her friends in New York City gathered to remember her yesterday. As tears fell again, I reminded myself that she would want me to be happy with those memories rather than sad. I could hear her voice once again, saying as she so often did: “Are you okay? Are you sure? I want to know you’re okay.”

When Mike woke up, we had that first cup of tea and headed to the park along the lake for our morning walk. That was what my soul needed. With few sounds other than the occasional honking of geese and the rattle of Mike’s cart on the boardwalk, I was enveloped in the peace of this place.

Above and around the lake, the lush green cloak that spring rains have brought to the mountains lends a softness to their rocky sides. The sun, still low in the sky, gleams and glistens on the lake’s surface. We pass a neighbor’s garden where deep blue hydrangea blossoms cascade down a slope.

As we follow the path through the park, we see a wood duck with her ducklings on the far side of the pond. She seems to be tucking them into the foliage along the bank, perhaps hiding them from our view until she is sure we aren’t there to harm them. A couple of mallards share the path with us briefly, keeping up an incessant quacking. We dub them “the bachelors in search of girlfriends” and leave them to their quest.

An evergreen along the path catches our eyes with its dark green branches liberally tipped with new yellow-green growth. Most things here are thriving, drawing up the abundant rains from recent storms into branches and leaves.

A flock of geese is noshing on the grass, more than a dozen adults watching over six or eight young ones. These goslings still have some of their baby yellow, but are more a fuzzy brown now, wobbling around on legs than seem too long for them.  Just a couple of weeks ago the babies were still yellow, practicing swimming with their parents.

It’s the first morning in a week or so that we haven’t seen fishing boats heading out into the lake, but we do spot the fellow who brings his single skull here to skim across the water many mornings. Along the river’s edge, chairs on the docks await those who will come today or tomorrow to sit for a spell and enjoy the water and the wildlife as we do. Here and there canoes are on their racks, their red and green sides still now, but we know they will be in the water when Memorial Day weekend fills them with vacationers.

We pass the gazebo, quiet now, but I can almost imagine a time-lapse film of the weddings that have taken place here on the lakeshore. A few days ago, there were rose petals in the grass nearby, left from weekend nuptials. It’s a beautiful spot for happy ceremonies.

As we leave the park after making our circuit around the path, we see again the wood duck and her babies on our side of the pond, counting six. As they swim out into the middle of the water, five little ones stay close to Mama’s right side, but one ventures out on his own from the left until she gathers him back closer. It’s wonderful to watch how the waterfowl care for their little ones. They know the dangers of predators and attempt to hold their young close and safe for as long as possible.

Back along the boardwalk we find our way to the car again, now noticing how the traffic has picked up. It’s almost time for school and kids are being ferried to schoolyard or bus. Others are headed for work. The Lake Lure Arcade, built in the mid-1920's, centers the town, overlooking the beach and settled into the curve of the mountains rising behind it.  

Our day starts with this panorama of life and nature, blended into something that seems almost magical .  There’s that great sense of beginnings that each morning brings, somehow made oh-so-special in this little mountain lake enclave we love.

All photographs by Mike Lumpkin

The Madness of Mommies

Why, you ask, would I associate madness with motherhood? Ask any mother and she can probably offer an answer unique to her experience in attempting to nurture, guide and advise offspring. Give her time to bring out the album and she’ll have the pictures to prove it.

For me, the madness occurred without warning at the birth of my son, just over 33 years ago. I had no idea that the moment I heard his first cry, I would instantly be so unconditionally mad about him. He re-centered my universe, taking my heart outside my body to beat with his forevermore.

In anticipation of motherhood, whether by birth or adoption, we expect to be caretakers, sure. What we don’t know is that we are to be emotionally committed beyond any capacity before understood.

How could I have known that I could be made to weep so easily when his elementary school teacher told me what a good student he was? No one told me how hard it would be to remain quietly in the stands when a coach benched him, even when reason told me the coach was right. I wept again as he crossed the stage to receive his college diploma and burst with pride as his grandparents congratulated him after the ceremony.

When I was blissfully coasting on the hormones of pregnancy, how could I know that I had a life ahead of me so full of fear and pride, second-hand pain and utter joy? There were the “boo-boo’s” of the toddler years, the more serious injuries and illnesses of later years. Though none was life-threatening, there was always in me the wish that I could kiss away the hurt, soothe the angst, and make it all better.

And, as my mother wisely told me, “your child will be your child all your life, even when he is an adult.” And so it is, each disappointment and heartache he knows sets my nerves tingling. Each achievement and happiness he gains warms my heart with that glow I felt the first time I saw him. I revel in seeing the man he has become, the woman he has found to share his life and be his children’s mother. I anticipate happily the fatherhood that is to come for him when the time is right.

Being his mom has taught me, I believe, more than I’ve taught him. I had to learn more patience, less vanity. While I have imparted some of my “neatness mania” to him, I did adjust my standards so that I could merely sigh when I felt swamped by the diapers, the toys, the playpen, the car seat and the never-ending laundry chores. Small children have to be changed more than runway models at a Paris fashion show. It’s not just about keeping them clean, it’s a sanitary issue. Those “oops” moments are odoriferous!

My history is all wound up with his. I was fortunate to have a wonderful career that I remember with pleasure and pride. One of my favorite memories of those years was reaching into my purse during a meeting and finding that I had stuck my hand into the gooey remains of a peanut butter and banana sandwich that had been discarded there. The initial “yuck” response was almost immediately followed with laughter. Wherever I went, he went, too, sometimes in the most unexpected ways.

He came, this child, with a sense of humor that has broadened my own, not just because it included the potty humor for which little boys are infamous, but because his blue eyes see the world in their own special way and I’ve been allowed to share that perspective. He can still make me laugh despite any attempt I might make to remain serious. One of our games when he was little was trying to see who could be cracked up first. Although I was occasionally the victor, he won more often. How could he lose when his very presence could make me smile?

This Mother’s Day I celebrate the great fortune that allowed me to know this “madness of mommies.” I will relish the best gift I get each year on this day (and the days in-between), the pleasure of that big bear hug and that sweet voice, saying, “I love you, Mom.”

Rest in Peace: Eleanor Dale Davis

Dale at Home

I hope I will be forgiven for indulging myself in speaking with love of our dear Dale, who left this earth just over a day ago. May she rest in peace and may all whose lives she touched find solace in their memories of a remarkable woman, an indomitable spirit.

When death comes to someone we love, there are so many conflicting emotions that it’s hard to sort them all out. If that person has endured a long struggle with illness, we can certainly take some comfort in knowing that they will no longer suffer.

There is an almost surreal quality to this loss, an inability to comprehend that the spirit, however vibrant it has always been, has moved from the body to another realm. Whatever our religious beliefs, we balk at that passing on to someplace we cannot go just yet. We feel bereft. We feel alone and confused, moved to a sadness that takes our breath away. We deny this new reality. We grieve.

There is, too, even anger at the loss of the physical presence. There is that one more thing we would want to say, one more kiss or hug to give, one more laugh to share. One more moment, please, just one more. Why are we denied this one last connection in this life? Why have we been left without this presence that has left us? Whether expected or not, at the moment of the leaving, we feel the shock of loss.

As days pass, what do we do with the grief that steals up at the most unexpected moments, bringing physical anguish for the hole left in our lives. Just when we think we’ve grappled with the loss, seeming to have achieved a sort of stoicism, the tears come unbidden, spilling down our cheeks like a sudden rain.

We use the phrase “larger than life” about some personalities. When we begin to cope with our loss, we learn what these words can mean in a new context. The one who is gone returns to us in memories of shared experiences, in the stories we recount of times gone by. The spirit echoes for each of us in a different way, but it brings with it again that confusing mix of loss and comfort. We laugh with a memory, only to shed a tear with the laughter.

Having just lost a dear friend and an extraordinary personality, I find myself writing this to attempt to cope with all these feelings. I can almost hear her dulcet voice, saying “Darling, just do whatever makes you feel better and, by the way, have a drink for me.” I know she would encourage all of us who loved her in life to love each other now. She would want us to celebrate her life rather than mourn it.

She was, in fact, larger than life. As one of her many friends points out, she was one of many people’s “two or three best friends.” She nurtured young people seeking a career in performance. She encouraged mature performers as they continued the pursuit of their careers. She loved her city, New York, and she loved the theatre with passion. With all her years of experience, she remained unjaded in the face of talent and its expression in every form of art. She had the hard-nosed wisdom of a veteran and the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a novice. She told me last week that a friend told her once that she was “all ages at once.” She was, indeed.

She embraced a legion of friends, maintaining close relationships over decades, also touching people’s hearts within hours of their meeting her. Through the long months in and out of the hospital this past year, friends came, they called, they sent cards and flowers, presents that might please her. A friend from California gave her a pedicure in the hospital and those perfect pink toenails were a source of joy that she remarked on more than once. Other friends sent artwork made especially for her. They sent creams to soothe her skin, perfumes to transform a medicinal environment with the scents of gardens.

Shortly after her unanticipated and mercifully quick death, hospital personnel, some of whom had just met her within the week, came by her room to express their sense of loss and to speak of her kindness to them and her humor. They were moved by her endurance, the courage that spurred her to respond to the encouragement of her wonderful physical therapist, Golda, and get into the wheelchair that last day.

She took a short ride through the hospital halls, greeted along the way by staffers who had come to know her through her stays there. We stopped for a time at a wall of windows where she looked at the skyline of her beloved New York under a perfect spring sky the color of her favorite seas in Greece, a sky animated by perfectly fluffy white clouds sailing by.

Teddy and Dale

She napped a bit, waking to talk of her boundless love for her nephew, Teddy, and “her babies,” his daughters, Corrie and Gracie. Moments before she passed away so suddenly, she spoke to her dear business partner and friend of decades, Harris, wishing him a good weekend. Then, too soon, she was gone without warning.

A few days ago, glancing out the window of her hospital room, she said: “I want to talk to my Mama.” It is my belief that she is with her Mama now, basking in the assurance of the deep and abiding love of Eleanor Hobson Davis, from whom her first name came, our Eleanor Dale Davis.

I am reminded of what Dale wrote about her mother in a little book we published in 2008: “When I am told that I remind someone of my mama, I know I am a pale carbon copy, but humbled and thrilled to have even a trace of whatever it was that made her who she was.”

Rest in peace, dear Dale, who was never a pale carbon copy, rather a woman who lived life in glorious color and with gusto. We who grieve your passing from this place would be humbled and thrilled to have even a trace of whatever it was that made you who you were.

I Heart New York Redux

One of the pleasures of this city is its diversity and the self-expression of its endlessly inventive citizens. There are those whose attire is designed for simple survival at this time of year when spring is still a flirt and winter won’t completely go away. There are others who ignore the weather and wear what feels right for the. On any day one might see people in boots and full-length wool coats scurrying along the sidewalks, brushing against people in sandals and shorts, maybe topped by at least a lightweight jacket.

A joy of my hospital visits this past week were the fantastic hose worn by one of the researchers working on my friend’s floor. These stockings were works of art, an impressionist’s view of legs on which oranges, blues, greens and reds swirled. I was so moved by their unique statement that I had to ask the wearer about their origin. She had, she said, purchased them in Barcelona and regretted that she bought only one pair. They obviously gave her as much joy to wear as they provided those of us who saw her that day.

One of my favorite restaurants in New York is Rosa Mexicano. I had a wonderful lunch today with friends at the Lincoln Center location where we were seated by a window with a close-up view of a newly leafed-out tree. The conversation was fun, the food was delicious and the frozen pomegranate margaritas were sublime. I’m exhilarated anew by the bond that has grown so quickly with these women, friends of my friend. I am still getting to know them, but already clear that I want to know them always.

Then I had my first experience on the cross-town bus, a quick trip from the restaurant to the hospital. I loved the inclusiveness of the riding population. People of all ages and walks of life were crowded together in a shared need to move around the city. There seemed to be a loose camaraderie among us and an acceptance of one another for this brief time together. Some who must be regulars acknowledged one another; others of us kept more to ourselves, but without shutting out the others the way we often do on plane rides.

The sounds of the city continue to amaze me. As I write this with windows open to the deliciously cool night air, I hear the occasional siren on 8th Avenue amid the continuous hum of traffic all around. I can’t say I miss the nearby construction sounds that are part of the daytime symphony in the neighborhood. There are two buildings going up a block or so away and other projects closer by. Crews begin their drilling, banging and clanging before 8 weekday mornings. Fortunately, I’m usually up well before they begin or that could be a rude awakening!

I’m taking some photos with my phone, but have been too technologically lazy to upload them to my laptop to add to the blog. “Maybe later,” I think each night. Then I find myself doing something else or just flopping down to read or watch TV or blog rather than play with wires and geeky stuff.

For those who read this, you have my apologies for rambling. Writing is the best therapy for me and, particularly when I am away from home, it is more than communication, it is companionship. When I think that those who know me are reading this and, I hope, sharing a bit of my experience as they read, it is comforting. I can only hope it brings a bit of pleasure on your screen as well.