When the Salvation Army Kroc Center first opened in Ashland, our welcome center staff fielded a variety of phone calls. Potential visitors inquired about the hours of operation and the feeding program menu for the day. One of my favorite calls asked if Ray or Joan Kroc was in, and another wanted to know if we did exorcisms. No. For quite some time, the daily calls included a complaint from Jim Becker, aka Mountain Man, telling us “there’s no such thing as homeless.”
As part of the county’s Homeless Coalition and heavily involved in ACCESS, the church-based sheltering program, we knew Jim’s premise was incorrect – there definitely were unhoused and precariously housed people in Ashland. To pretend there weren’t was a disservice to those who needed stable housing. But as I look back on his words from the perspective of a decade, on some level, Jim was correct and perhaps even prophetic in his words. Vocabulary is changing, and now we are more likely to speak about people without homes, or unhoused people, rather than “the homeless.”
It’s happening in other fields as well. American Indians became Native Americans and are now spoken of as indigenous or First Nations people. Mental retardation services are now programs for those who are developmentally disabled, adjusting our language to use descriptors rather than shaming labels.
It’s a good reminder to me that words matter. How we speak about each other and how we speak about ideas make a difference. For the past fourteen years, I’ve had the absolute privilege of crafting words to offer my perspective on all kinds of topics, with the hope there might be a reader or two who responds, “I never thought about it quite that way.” Early on as a newspaper columnist, I came to grips with Brett Stevens’s guidance: “What a columnist owes his readers isn’t a bid for their constant agreement.” Judging by a few vocal critics, I succeeded in that.
I’ve written as a smitten immigrant to Ashland, and as an even more smitten grandmother to the lovely Madelyn Simone, the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday, the charming Henry Kyle and the sweet Emma Belle. Nearly every year, I’ve claimed that hope springs eternal for the Browns, the Cavs, and the Indians. Together we’ve grieved the loss of Ashlanders we’ve loved, and celebrated amazing accomplishments within the community. Although not primarily a column on faith, a columnist writes from where they sit, so that’s been present as well. It’s been a good run, much longer than I expected when I first stuck my head into Ted Daniels’ office with a hesitant question about an occasional column. Thanks for saying yes, Ted.
However, this will be my last column for the Ashland Times-Gazette. I’ve written before about the struggles of small town newspapers, and now that struggle has impacted regular contributors to the paper, myself included.
I’ll miss writing about the food at the Ashland County Fair, the Cleveland Guardians, Ashland’s incredible Women of Achievement, and the excitement of the Kroc Center’s upcoming production of Frozen Jr. And what about Bishop Sycamore, the high school that’s not a high school? I was hoping to tackle the topic of how I am becoming my mother – and mother-in-law, and wanted to be able to write about Lizzie’s on-going wish coming true – the end of the Corona. But as Elsa of Arendelle knows so well, sometimes we just have to “let it go.” Ingrained habits are hard to break, however, so I may be writing and posting for families and friends on Facebook, keeping up a blog for lack of a better platform at the present.
Rogers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music” was one of the first movies I saw in a theater, and I still have the dog-eared copy of its tunes that I played day after day on the piano. Madelyn, Lizzie and I listen to its soundtrack often, so I’ll conclude with a song. With deep gratitude for the opportunity and for my faithful readers, I join with the von Trapp children to say, “So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye, I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye.”
No comments:
Post a Comment