Ed and I watched a PBS program last night, a retrospective of the news program of the late 30’s and early 40’s called the "March of Time". The program would choose two or three topics of the day -- dust bowl, European changes, Poland’s politics just before they were invaded, etc. They also showed the USO canteens in New York, the celebrities who often volunteered their services. The voice over was always a male with a deep, pompous voice. These men always sound as if they are instructing a 10-year-old.

Images of women of the day, as we entered WWII, show them as being faithful and devoted, and struggling to maintain the household while their husbands are away in the service. The more progressive ones do war work. The series laments the toll that separation wreaks on the family. Women became more independent (they had to), children become delinquent with dad away and mom at work. Women, basically, unlearned the joys of home-making (when they had a contrast, there was no contest) and it is really nice to have your own money instead of waiting for it to be doled out by the only earner. That “very special” (and incidentally often only role) that women were trained to aspire to lost its glamour.

I can’t say that I didn’t buy this aspiration when I was in my teens. By the time I was 24, it had soured. One reason was the lack of viable partners. My eyes were too big for my station in life – slum kid. I wanted intelligence and humor and literacy and settled for street guys, but was growing out of that by the time I moved to New York. My last serious boyfriend in Chicago wanted a traditional female. He was 14 years older and dropped me because I was “immature”. I think he dropped me because he had discovered his bisexuality. What, he thought I didn’t notice? Anyway, the thought of doing housework and meekly following direction from a male authority figure, wasn’t all that appealing. I moved to New York to be on my own and met Jay soon after. And yes, he was a male authority figure, but he was so unusual that the dynamic of the marriage was not traditional, and he was emotionally generous, so that my life never became the stuff of Lucy Ricardo’s world. (Incidentally, watching re-runs of “I Love Lucy” that I chance upon from time to time, makes me want to vomit.)

Some, or many, of my contemporaries who did live the dream, marrying the upscale yuppie of the day, soon learned that they weren’t interesting enough being home-makers to hold on to their husbands when they could have someone younger and foxier, someone they worked with, perhaps, who “understood” them. The seeds of the women’s lib movement grew out of the disaffection of discarded home-makers, women who had to reinvent themselves at 45 or 50, who had long ago given up their own development in the service of the family and now had to play catch-up.

I thought all of these things watching this program that was so dated, I could hardly believe I was around, albeit very young, at the same time all this stuff was going on.

Incidentally, Ed sometimes remarks that I “live in the past”. He might even say, when I recall some old incident, “Is this going anywhere?” I say, you married a creative personality. This is how we think. Get used to it.

xx, Teal

P.S. Jeri, any thoughts? You wuz there, yes?