Feeling Like a Schlump

Sometimes I feel old, and tired… not sure that I want to hang around for what looks to be a very bleak future for the world. Everything has changed since I was a young idealist growing up in a small Oregon logging town in the 1940’s and 50’s. Then I believed that anything was possible, with dedication and hard work. No dream was too big. This was America, the land of opportunity and freedom. And indeed, I have had the freedom to do much with my life. It is only in the past decade that I have begun to look around and see that this is no longer the America I once knew. But I still believed that with others, and through the democratic process, we could become again a society that is just, participatory, sustainable, and peaceful. That belief has been shaken lately, and I like many others have become discouraged and disheartened. I have found it increasingly difficult to write about hope. Today I read a speech that Doris “Granny D” Haddock, 98, (photo above) just gave in Gettysburg. She concluded with this statement:

Let’s not be tired. Let’s not be old. Let’s make a new beginning by getting together with our neighbors more often. How about next week? Let’s plant some more vegetable gardens. Let’s make some furniture or art. Let’s fix up some bicycles. Let’s get the whole neighborhood to go down to visit the local office of our elected people and get them on board or scare the hell out of them.

This is our democracy if we can keep it. This is a grand planet if we can save it. It really is up to us. Each person is the hero of the world, and, in saying that, I do not joke or exaggerate. Every one of you has the power to do this, to start something big … and necessary … and beautiful.

The late Molly Ivins once said, “The problem with Granny D…is that she makes the rest of us look like such schlumps.” Well, I feel like a schlump. Granny D was twenty years older than I am right now when she began a 3,200-mile walk across the country to demonstrate her concern for campaign reform. She walked ten miles each day over fourteen months. As described on her website, “Doris traveled as a pilgrim, walking until given shelter, fasting until given food. With the unflagging generosity of strangers she met along the way, Doris never went without a meal or a bed. She trekked through over 1,000 miles of desert, climbed the Appalachian Range in blizzard conditions and even skied 100 miles after a historic snowfall made roadside walking impossible. When she arrived in Washington D.C., Granny D was met by 2,200 supporters representing a wide variety of reform groups. Several dozen members of Congress walked the final miles with her.” In 2000, Doris was arrested at the Capitol for reading the Declaration of Independence. In 2004, she became the Democratic nominee to the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire four months before election day, and managed to capture 34% of the vote. And she continues her activism to this day.

More than likely, there have been times when Granny D has felt discouraged and disheartened like all of the rest of us. But she has not given up. How can I? I have years to go before I reach Granny D’s age, and there is work to do.

... P. L. Morningstar
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