Category Archives: lessons learned

communication, family, lessons learned, narcissists, psychology

My mom confirms something important to me…

The featured photo is a picture of Mom and me in Sousse, Tunisia, over the New Year’s holiday in 1978. I was five years old. We lived in England at the time, so it wasn’t a super long journey.

Last week, I tried to call my mom a couple of times. I had forgotten that she was going to be having knee surgery. She had told me about it in March, I think, and it slipped my mind. My mom lives alone in a senior apartment community in Hampton, Virginia. The community was formed out of what was once a grand hotel. It overlooks the Chesapeake Bay. She has a wonderful view from her two bedroom apartment, where she’s lived since 2009. My dad shared the apartment with her, until he died on July 9, 2014.

My mom is going to be 85 years old this year. She’s still quite independent. Her mind is sharp. She still drives, though not as far as she used to. She doesn’t go out much, though, so I was a little worried when I called her three times and didn’t get an answer. Our neighbor’s mom is my mom’s age, and she’s been having some problems lately. She broke her leg, and a few weeks ago, she picked up the wrong keys to her house and got confused. Not being able to reach my mom caused me to to worry a little. I hoped she wasn’t suffering with the same things our neighbor’s mom (who is also a neighbor) does.

I sent one of my three sisters a private message on Facebook, asking her if she knew if Mom was okay. She reminded me about the surgery, but then contacted another sister– the eldest of the four of us– to confirm. Oldest sister said Mom was doing fine. The sister I contacted also called Mom’s apartment community to check on her, and they confirmed that Mom was okay. So that was that.

This sister and my mom have always had a lot of interpersonal issues. I don’t know what they stem from, but they’ve had difficulties for as long as I can remember. It’s too bad, too, because both my mom and my sister have things in common. They are both extraordinarily artistic. My mom can do almost anything with needles and thread. For years, she owned her own business, in which she sold cross-stitch, knitting, needlepoint, and other supplies. She taught many people how to do these needlecrafts (although I’m not among them). My mom, even in her 80s, has made some extremely beautiful things by her own hand. When I was little, she used to make clothes for me. She also knitted sweaters, hats, socks, and scarves.

My mom and one of her many incredible creations… She is a very gifted artist.

My sister, likewise, is very talented with needles and threads. She sews and does needle crafts, like our mom does. She’s also a legitimately gifted artist in the way most people think of artists. She paints, draws, and creates true works of art through many different mediums. In addition, she’s a skilled writer, having earned a master’s degree in journalism, and she has excellent taste in music. My sister introduced me to some of my favorite artists, including Kate Bush.

Really, though, my sister is probably best known as an artist. I’ve been to a lot of art museums, and I can tell you that I would expect to see something my sister did hanging in an art museum. Below are a few examples of her work:

You’d think my mom and my sister would get along famously. They have some things in common. But they don’t really get along. My sister seemed to mesh better with our dad (most of the time). I, on the other hand, have always gotten along with our mom. My dad and I fought a lot.

Back in July 2007, while Bill was in Iraq doing his “patriotic chore”, I attended my paternal grandmother’s funeral. Granny was almost 101 years old when she passed. She was much beloved by everyone in her community. I had to bring my dogs with me, because it wasn’t possible to board them. Consequently, when I stayed at the Natural Bridge Hotel (for the last time, it turned out), I got a room in the “cabins”, which were motel rooms on a hillside. My uncle ran the Natural Bridge Hotel for years, and I’ve stayed there many times. The last time I stayed, it was pretty uncomfortable. I think they’ve renovated since 2007, but I haven’t been back… in part, because it was uncomfortable, and in part, because of something my sister said to me that brings back traumatic memories.

After Granny’s funeral, my sister and I were talking. She was also staying in a “cabin”. For some reason, she chose that time to tell me that she’d always believed I wasn’t my dad’s daughter.

Keep in mind, we had just buried our grandmother, who was my father’s mother. If I wasn’t his daughter, that would have meant that Granny wasn’t my actual grandmother. She was pretty much the only grandparent I’d ever known, since my other grandparents died when I was very young. I do remember my mom’s father, but he had severe dementia when I was conscious of meeting him, and he didn’t really know who any of us were. I also met my paternal grandfather’s mother– my great grandma– but she was also very elderly and died when I was about nine years old. I didn’t have much of a relationship with her. So, as you might realize, Granny was very important to me– more so than she would have been in any case.

When my sister made that declaration to me, I will admit there was a part of me that wondered if what she was saying could have been true. My dad and I fought a lot. I don’t look much like him. Instead, I really favor my mom’s side of the family. But I only wondered about it for a moment…

My sister was telling me about how she formed this idea that maybe I was a “bastard” child. She said our mom was friendly with a neighbor in Hampton, Virginia, where I was born. She said he had blond hair and blue eyes, like mine. My dad had black hair and brown eyes.

I decided to gently challenge my sister. I say “gently”, because I didn’t want to fight with her, especially at Granny’s funeral. I asked her how it was possible that our mom could have had an affair. At the time, our dad was away on Air Force missions a lot. They had three children– my sisters are 13, 11, and 8 years older than I am. How would our mom have the time for adultery?

Also, our mom is painfully honest. I mean, she’s honest to a fault. I just couldn’t see her cheating on our dad. She isn’t the most demonstrative person, although she’s definitely friendlier and more demonstrative now, than she was when our dad was alive. There are a lot of things a person might say about my mom’s rather laid back mothering skills. The truth is, she was kind of neglectful to me– and she’d probably be among the first to admit it. I think she would have been better at mothering had she not been married to an alcoholic during the Vietnam War era, and had she not had four kids. But she has a strong moral compass and a very deep sense of loyalty and duty. She took excellent care of my dad until the bitter end of his life. I know she truly loved him, too, even when he wasn’t very lovable.

Finally, I suggested asking our mom point blank about it. My sister very quickly backpedaled, and said she had a wild imagination. It was clear she didn’t like that idea. Uh huh…

Still, for a long time, I wondered if there was any truth to my sister’s theory, because it was true that my dad and I had a rather contentious relationship. I didn’t know the people who were our neighbors in Hampton. I was a baby, and we left Hampton when I was about six months old, and moved to Dayton, Ohio, where my dad took a job at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I only have the barest memories of Ohio. It’s probably a blessing. 😉 Dad and I didn’t share very much in terms of physical similarities. Now that I’m older, I think bone structure in my face looks like his, somewhat. Actually, I think I look a little like this particular sister, in terms of facial bone structure. She looks more like our dad, though, while I am very obviously my mom’s daughter.

Years later, I submitted my DNA to both 23&Me and Ancestry.com. I saw that a number of my DNA matches came from my dad’s side of the family. Obviously, I am his daughter.

Which brings me to last night’s chat with my mother. We’d been talking for about an hour and were about to ring off. Mom said the surgery and the drugs she was taking were causing her to need the toilet more frequently than usual. Before we finished our conversation, I asked her if she’d watched the coronation of King Charles III. Mom loves watching British ceremonies. She said she had, and that led to another rabbit hole of discussion.

The topic turned to Prince Harry and Meghan, and she brought up their children, Archie and Lilibet. I said that some people were speculating that perhaps the kids weren’t actually conceived between them (not that I believe that myself– it’s not really my business). I added that since everybody is getting their DNA tested these days, it would be hard to lie about something like that.

My mom said, “Well I want you to know that your dad and I are your parents.”

I thought that was kind of a weird thing to say, and before I knew it, I said “Well, thank you for that. There was some doubt at one point. But then I got my DNA tested.”

Naturally, Mom wanted to know what I meant. So I told her about that toxic conversation I’d had with my sister back in 2007… right after Granny’s funeral. I didn’t mention her name… but Mom quickly guessed who had said that to me. It turns out my sister had directly accused our mom of having had an affair. Mom thought maybe she was talking about the young Black male nurse who had been helping to take care of Dad in his last years. At the time, the nurse was an 18 year old nurse’s aid, and our mom was in her 70s. Dad had accused them of having an affair; he had severe dementia at the time. The idea of Mom having an affair with a teenager was ridiculous and laughable, and she did laugh about it. But no… my sister said Mom would have had an affair with a white person.

For sixteen years, I never mentioned to my mom that conversation my sister and I had. I hadn’t meant to mention it last night. To my mom’s credit, she was pretty cool about it and even apologized to me that my sister had said that. It was pretty hurtful.

And maybe I shouldn’t write about this here… Some people would find it inappropriate and too personal. On the other hand, abusers thrive on secrecy. They say and do mean things, counting on their victims remaining silent. In spite of what some people might think, I’ve been silent about a lot of things. It’s not really my nature to be silent, either. One of the gifts I inherited from my mom were, after all, the gifts of music and communication. Actually, I inherited both of those from my dad, too… Music and writing are a couple of a few things I got from him, even if I don’t resemble him physically.

I’m not angry with my sister. I don’t know why she has these issues with our mother. Some of the things she says seem rather fictitious to me… and in fact, she often reminds me of other people in my life with whom I’ve had to do battle. Perhaps dealing with her is one reason why I am so “saturated” when it comes to narcissistic types, like former landlady and Ex. My sister, by the way, thinks she’s an empath. Personally, I don’t really see it. Bill is an empath. I am not, and neither are any of my sisters.

I’m not sorry Mom and I had that talk. Thanks to DNA tests, I already knew that my sister’s conspiracy theory was utter bullshit. I never really believed her theory, even before I had my DNA tested. However, it was good to hear it from my mom, who even told me about the time I was conceived. Apparently, it happened after my dad had taken a “round the world” trip in the fall of 1971, escorting generals to different embassies. Mom said they used to joke that they were going to name me “Ethiopia”. She said she’d told me about that once, and I thought it was “terrible”. I swear, though, I don’t remember the story. She also said the person my sister thought she’d been messing around with was just a neighbor who, along with his wife, had kids the same age. They were just neighborhood friends. In fact, the wife of the couple recently sent Mom a letter. She’d tracked her down in Hampton.

We ended our conversation on a really lovely note. Mom said she loved me, and reminded me that I’d been a good kid who never got into trouble. I guess buying me a horse worked… (and my sister tried to take credit for that decision, too). I wished Mom a happy Mother’s Day, and said I’d call her before we go on vacation next month. It’s a gift to me that she and I can be friends now. She might be one of the few people in my family with whom I would probably choose to be friends, even if we weren’t related.

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communication, language, lessons learned, narcissists, YouTube

Are you experiencing envy, or is it actually jealousy?

As the days get closer to King Charles III’s coronation, YouTube personality, H.G. Tudor, has been making more videos about Meghan Markle’s inevitable narcissistic response to the “ballyhoo”. H.G. Tudor claims to be a narcissistic psychopath, and he makes many videos about other people he deems narcissists. Personally, I’m not sure he’s as narcissistic as he claims he is. I’m sure he’d argue with me about it… and I could be wrong. I just don’t think a really hardcore narcissist would care about sharing knowledge and personal experiences with the public, to “educate” them about their “kind”. He claims he does it because it “suits him”, and it’s for his own purposes. Maybe… and I do think he is very narcissistic. But as to the extent of his narcissism, who knows? And who cares? That’s not the main idea of this post, anyway…

One thing I notice and appreciate about H.G. Tudor is that he’s very precise about language and word usage. That happens to be one of my idiosyncrasies, too, although I confess there are times when I use words incorrectly. It’s just that I find words fascinating, so when I am corrected, I try to remember the correction and mend my ways.

Recently, I’ve noticed H.G. Tudor pointing out the difference between the words “envy” and “jealousy”. Many people think of those two words as synonyms and use them that way accordingly. However, they actually have distinctive meanings. And true to his narcissistic nature, H.G. Tudor sneeringly points out the difference every time he runs across comments in which someone dares to use the word “jealousy” when they really mean “envy”. It seems like people more often use jealousy in place of envy, rather than vice versa.

For those who don’t wish to look it up (for the love of GOD!), here’s a quick rule of thumb. The word “envy” is correctly used when you want something someone else has. For instance, you might feel envy if your best friend comes home with a brand new sports car or gets a big promotion at their job. You might be envious of a friend who gets to travel to exotic locations or has a really good looking partner.

“Jealousy”, however, is properly used when you feel protective or territorial toward something or someone. That’s when you feel like your position is threatened somehow. For example, you might “jealously guard” your property, or feel jealous when a potential romantic rival flirts with your significant other.

I must confess that although I did know the difference between the two words, like a lot of Americans, I mix them up all the time. But H.G. Tudor is correct, so I shall try harder to use those words properly. It’s good for the brain to keep these things in mind, and my brain needs all the help it can get.

My personal pet peeve is when people misuse (and overuse) the words “use” and “utilize”. There is also a difference in the meanings between these two words, but people frequently interchange them. I distinctly remember one time, telling a friend on Facebook that there’s a difference between the two words, only to be taken to task by another one of his friends who insisted that I was wrong (I’m not, by the way… For the love of God, look it up!).

The word “use” means to “consume from a limited supply or take something to achieve a result.” The word “utilize” means to use something beyond its intended purpose or in an unexpected way. They are NOT synonyms, although so many people mix them up that they’re probably by now considered synonyms in many dictionaries based only on popular usage.

You’d use a frying pan to cook your eggs. You’d utilize a frying pan to knock your husband unconscious for coming home drunk. You’d use a spoon to eat pudding. You’d utilize a spoon to open a can of paint. See what I mean?

A lot of people seem to think that “utilize” is a more “advanced” word, so they employ it as a means of sounding more formal or educated. Maybe it is a more advanced word, but only when it’s used properly. There are also situations in which both words will work. For instance:

I use old newspapers to line my cat’s litter box.

I utilize old newspapers to line my cat’s litter box.

Utilize works in that case, because newspapers are originally meant to be read, not spread in litter boxes for absorbing cat waste. But you wouldn’t correctly employ the word “utilize” in a situation in which you’ve employed an object for its intended purpose. For instance:

I utilize a curling iron to curl my hair.

Curling irons are meant for curling hair, so it would be more correct to write:

I use a curling iron to curl my hair.

Ditto:

I use a rake to gather the leaves in the fall, but I utilize a rake to beat my neighbor’s ass through the fence. (That would be quite an unexpected way to use a rake, right?)

I already have a lot of rather uptight language pet peeves like this… but I have to confess that H.G. Tudor has added another to my list. I will now make a point of using the words “envy” and “jealousy” properly. It’s the right thing to do.

Now… Mr. Bill has to leave town today, and I have some other stuff to get done. So, I think I shall end today’s blog rantings and get on with the day. I do hope you’re able to use the information I’ve provided in today’s post to good effect somehow. Maybe you’ll even be able to utilize it somehow, too.

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blog news, lessons learned, money, overly helpful people, YouTube

Time to say farewell to the Blogger platform?

I’m sitting here thinking about what I’d like to write about today. I originally thought maybe I’d breathe some new life into an old post from 2016. It was about an interaction I had with someone I used to “know”, who regularly gave me grief on the now defunct review site, Epinions.com. Regular followers who knew me on Epinions know that sometimes I write about a man I like to call “Papa Smurf”. I know at least one person, who knows of whom I write, has also co-opted that nickname for him. He’s one of those people who tries to be all wise and act like other people’s “daddy”, and shit…

Papa Smurf is not who I was thinking of writing about this morning…

Instead, I was considering writing about an unpleasant run in I had with …tom… And if you followed me on Epinions, and are still following me today, you almost certainly know who …tom… is. That’s how he signs his “name” on just about everything on which he leaves his mark.

I long ago left …tom… in the dust, mainly because of the annoying interaction we had seven years ago today that prompted today’s memories. That incident wasn’t the last straw, but it was the beginning of the end of my tolerance for his highly obnoxious and unwelcome input. Most of my followers who know …tom…, also know of what I write. A lot of us had the same complaint about his irritating and provocative comments, even though he could be entertaining sometimes.

So this morning, I went to the Blogger platform to have another look at that old post and decide if I wanted to rehash it today. But, before I made it there, I decided to look at my AdSense earnings. I knew I was getting close to the necessary $100 level that would allow me to finally cash out, probably for the last time– ever– on Blogger.

I signed up for AdSense years ago. Back when I was using Blogger for my three blogs, I even got paid somewhat regularly. In order to cash out on Blogger, you have to make at least $100. I think I cashed out a few times during my blog’s “heyday”, which was when we still lived in Stuttgart, and a lot of people were reading about our travels. Some folks had also started reading the main blog, which attracted the most hits out of the three.

The nice thing about AdSense is that users can put all of their blogs on one account. On WordPress, users must have separate ad revenue accounts for each blog. I have already been paid once for the current version of OH, but I will probably die before I get anything for my travel blog. The travel blog hasn’t made ad revenue in a few months. I’m actually thinking about removing ads from it.

If not for a certain meddlesome reader, I’d probably still be posting on Blogger, conveniently getting AdSense revenue on the three blogs. Back in 2019, the Blogger version of my blog went through a crisis of sorts, when we were having trouble with our former landlady. Her ex tenant, a fellow American, brazenly admitted to “monitoring” me, even though she claimed she didn’t enjoy my writing.

I suspect she had enjoyed the blog for awhile, but then started to dislike it when I started to vent about the unfair way ex landlady treated me. I don’t know for certain if the ex landlady is mentally ill, or if we simply had a personality clash. But she was driving me crazy with her entitled, intrusive, and disrespectful attitudes toward Bill and me. She was especially rude and abusive to me. On rare occasions, I would vent about it on my blog. Yes, I now know that was unwise… but then, it never occurred to me that anyone, including the former tenant, would care about such things.

In retrospect, I think the former tenant knew full well that the former landlady is the way she is. She just wanted me to deal with it in silence, because my speaking out about it made it unpleasant and inconvenient for her. I think she flat out lied to us. And instead of just minding her own business and moving on, grateful that she got out of that situation relatively unscathed, she decided to monitor me, and attempted to shame me into being quiet.

It was an especially bizarre form of gaslighting– ex landlady was insisting that Bill and I are awful people who made her life hell by renting her duplex and expecting to actually live peacefully in it. And how dare we expect her to act like a mature businessperson, rather than some warped, dysfunctional version of our mamas?

Former tenant was insisting that ex landlady is always a sweet, fair, and kind woman, and if she was acting like an entitled harridan, it MUST be all because of me. Never mind the fact that she and her husband, themselves, only lasted about 18 months in that house, while Bill and I were there for a little over four years.

Never mind that ex tenant was insisting that I respect her privacy, while she totally shat all over mine, and encouraged an actual smear campaign. And never mind that former tenant, who was trying to make me out as some kind of crazy, mean-spirited, disruptive person, exited life on her own terms last year.

Prior to therapy, I might have kept quiet about the unpleasant and uncomfortable situation we were in, but as a confirmed truth teller, I don’t keep abusers’ secrets anymore. Because of those circumstances and the ensuing small claims lawsuit over the deposit that was predictably and illegally withheld from us, I moved the original OH blog to WordPress, which offers functionality that Blogger doesn’t. Now, I pay to post my blog, and it doesn’t make me any money. But I have a lot more security here than I did there. Moving the blog meant starting over, which was hard for me, since it had taken several years to build a meaningful readership on Blogger. Thankfully, it took a lot less time to get this blog going at full speed.

In the wake of the minor blog stalking incident, I decided to keep my music blog going on Blogger. The music blog had very little personal information about me, and practically none about the situation we were in back in 2019. The other two blogs– this one, and my travel blog– were relaunched on WordPress. Once the situation with the landlady was settled, I made my old travel blog public again, but no one really looks at it. It’s not connected to AdSense. The old original OH blog is still hidden and probably always will be, since there’s some dated, useless stuff on there that doesn’t need to be public.

I told myself that once I hit $100 on Blogger, I’d discontinue the music blog, which is mostly about the campy music I loved when I was a kid. I haven’t updated it since New Year’s Day 2023. Most of the traffic comes from a handful of posts, mostly about Richard Carpenter’s daughter, Mindi.

It’s taken me ages to finally hit the last $100 I needed to cash out. Most of that $100 was made from the original OH blog prior to February 2019, before I moved it to WordPress. So… that means that to get those last painful bucks from Blogger, I had to wait several years, earning pennies from AdSense every month. As you can see from the featured photo, I finally managed to reach that goal today… and it’s exactly $100! How often does THAT happen? I figure it must be a sign.

Now… do I delete Dungeon of the Past, or just leave it up for posterity? I do still get comments on it, but they’re mostly bizarre comments from Carpenters’ fans. There’s one person who has repeatedly posted that Richard Carpenter and his wife, Mary, are biological first cousins. Their official story is that Mary was adopted. I don’t know if she was adopted or not, but I figure it’s none of my business. They’ve had five healthy children together. What difference should it make to me, or anyone else, if they’re biologically related? I occasionally get other comments. Like, I wrote a review of Belinda Carlisle’s book and reposted it on my Dungeon blog. I got a comment from one of her half sisters, which I thought was interesting. I have since moved that post to this blog.

I may decide to move some of the more interesting Dungeon posts over here, and just delete my Blogger account. Life is short, and even though I have lots of time on my hands, that account is just one more thing to keep track of. I don’t think I have any true regular readers there, who eagerly look forward to new posts, though some content continues to attract hits. I’ll take some time to think about it, as Bill and I also decide where to go on vacation, and whether or not to get another dog… and when it should happen.

Lately, I’ve been having some fun on YouTube. I don’t know how long it will last… but it’s fun for me to make videos of songs I want to try. My latest video is actually doing surprisingly well. I think some people get a kick out of women who sing Led Zeppelin songs.

This was fun to do. I just have trouble lining up the video and audio parts.

Music is less controversial… except people like to see singers on camera, and I’m not very comfortable on camera. Still, I’m kind of proud of some of the videos… and they seem to attract a lot fewer idiots. So maybe instead of writing about music, I’ll just make it. I hope at some point, I can write my own song and play it. Baby steps… however, although the friend who encouraged me to record a couple of Zeppelin songs thinks I should dance and wear a boa, I won’t be doing that. I won’t dance. Don’t ask me. 😉

Maybe later I’ll actually write about the post that ultimately led me down this divergent rabbit hole that took me in a totally different direction. Or maybe not. The sun is out today. Noyzi might enjoy a longer walk.

Edited to add: I see that almost a year ago, I wrote about being paid by WordPress for the first time. In April 2022, I had $98 on Blogger. So, you can see, it took me a year to make $2. I hope certain people will remember that the next time they try to accuse me of exploiting anyone for money on this blog. 😉

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lessons learned, memories, nostalgia, sports

“Come give your Uncle Charlie a kiss, baby!” Eeeew…

Happy April Fools’ Day, folks. I was originally thinking maybe I’d write something in the spirit of the day… like falsely post that I’m finally pregnant, or Bill and I are divorcing. But then I realized that I generally find April Fools’ Day annoying, at best. I mean… sometimes, the jokes and stunts are relatively amusing, but I mostly think silly fake postings about major life events are kind of stupid.

I will admit that it’s funny when Ritter Sport comes up with gross sounding chocolate combinations. Below is a screenshot of what they did in 2019…

Who says Germans aren’t funny?

Euro Wings also had a funny April Fools’ joke today…

Okay, so this is a good one, too, I guess.

And some time ago, NPR had a pretty good joke about people who don’t read before they react or comment. I used that joke at another time during the year, and sure enough, I got someone… Then, I promptly blogged about the phenomenon.

But I don’t want to write about April Fools’ or the inane shit I’m going to see as my fellow Americans wake up and start posting their crap. I posted last night that I think more Americans should zip it. And I stand by that opinion. 😉 You readers might think I ought to zip it, too, but since this is space I pay for, I’m going to preach on with my bad self. 😀

So what about that title, then? What’s it about? Well, it’s about a 1979 era gymnastics video I watched on YouTube yesterday. I love to watch old school gymnastics, which were less about powerful tumbles and more about artistic expression. I also find the former Soviet Union fascinating.

I happened to catch this video that featured some of the greats of that era– Nadia Comaneci, Emilia Eberle, Kathy Johnson, and Elena Naimushina. Sadly, Ms. Naimushina died suddenly in 2017, but in 1979, she was about 14 years old. She was a great gymnast, so she was interviewed by American sportscaster, Charlie Jones. Charlie Jones was born in 1930, and died in 2008. In 1979, he was pushing 50.

At about two minutes into this video, with the help of a Russian translator, Charlie Jones interviews young Elena Naimushina. Then, he becomes inappropriate…

At about the 2:36 mark, Jones says “Every pretty girl that I interview, always kisses me right here on the cheek.”

Elena laughs as the translator does her job. Then, after a shy giggle, she says “That is something that you can look forward to after the competition.” Then Jones and Elena share a laugh… har-dee-har-har-har!

I was actually a little shocked as I heard Mr. Jones request a kiss from the young gymnast. But then I remember the 70s, and how kids were often pressured to let adults kiss them. Eddie Murphy had a whole 80s era routine about it.

“She got a mustache!”

To Elena’s credit, she managed to handle that awkward moment with grace and charm. Still, it was pretty creepy and inappropriate. Of course, that shit would never fly in 2023, especially given the whole Larry Nassar scandal. I guess it’s just crazy to realize that I was seven years old in 1979, and this kind of thing was quite common. Old guys would not hesitate to ask for intimate gestures of affection from kids. It happened to me a lot when I was coming of age. It was an especially common thing to see on games shows like Family Feud, especially back when Richard Dawson was the host.

Eeew…
OMG!
“My lovely wife Karen… her equally attractive sister, Jan… Jan’s husband Randy, who’s not so good lookin’, and our sweet niece and their daughter, Jill. Jill is 12 years old.” Then Richard asks Jill if she has a boyfriend. EEEEW!

Nowadays, people wouldn’t necessarily assume that Jill prefers males. Or that Jill is, in fact, a female herself… By now, Jill is probably someone’s grandmother. And, of course, today we’d worry about spreading COVID-19.

Isn’t it interesting how times change? At what point does a person stop being considered “young”? Does it happen at a certain age? I swear, it seems like yesterday that I was a teenager. Now I’m getting old enough to live in a retirement community!

I do think it’s a good thing that requests for kisses and comments to twelve year old girls about boyfriends are best left in the past. But watching these clips, posted when I was a child myself, are a reminder that time marches on, customs change, and things that once used to be okay to say or do can eventually evolve into something very taboo. And that’s no April Fools’ joke!

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book reviews, lessons learned

A review of Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors, and Phonies behind the College Cheating Scandal, by Nicole LaPorte…

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post about a young lady in Atlanta who applied to 70 colleges and got into 54 of them. That post, titled “I would not want to be 18 years old in 2023“, was inspired by comments I read about Daya Brown’s decision to apply to so many colleges. It made me recall my own days as a high school senior, trying to decide where I would go for my undergraduate degree. I remember those days were pretty challenging, especially since I was mostly navigating the whole process by myself.

When I was in high school, we didn’t have the Internet readily available. I went to a rural, public high school, with four guidance counselors handling about 1600 students. My parents, already well into middle age, with three already “grown and flown” daughters, weren’t all that invested in helping me find the “right” college. No one, other than me, pressured me to get excellent grades. I didn’t take any prep courses for the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test).

I don’t even think anyone looked over my applications before I submitted them and checks for application fees to Dr. Porter, the guidance counselor I barely knew. I don’t think Dr. Porter even said a word to me about where I was applying, and whether or not they were “appropriate” choices for me. I think I would have done fine at the other schools I applied to, but I was competing against people with better test scores and grades, and more school activities.

Consequently, I had one choice in the fall of 1990– the one school that admitted me out of the four I applied to. It turned out to be a fortuitous choice for me, as I did well at Longwood College (now Longwood University). But maybe if I’d had someone like Rick Singer in my pocket, I might have gone somewhere else… Somewhere a lot better known, more prestigious, and more expensive.

In March 2019, I was just as shocked as anyone when I saw the photos of actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman being arrested by the FBI in their fancy homes. A lot of people were outraged when they heard about what the famous actresses had done for their daughters, but they certainly weren’t alone that day. They simply had the misfortune of being the faces of the Varsity Blues scandal, a “sting” operation that resulted in dozens of arrests of wealthy parents who wanted a “side door” to prestigious universities for their children. They’d hired Rick Singer, a hustler who had convinced them that if they did what he said and paid enough money, their little darlings would be accepted to universities like the University of Southern California, Yale, and Georgetown. The parents were unaware that after years of hustling, Rick Singer was about to go down… and they would be going with him as their children, most of whom were completely unaware of any shenanigans, would watch in horror and humiliation.

I see I downloaded Nicole LaPorte’s book, Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors, and Phonies behind the College Cheating Scandal, in early March 2021, about two weeks after it was published on February 23, 2021. I just finished reading it this morning, after some concerted effort. It’s not that it wasn’t an interesting read. On the contrary, I was often flabbergasted by LaPorte’s juicy stories about Singer and the many people who were caught in his web. It wasn’t just parents who got burned by his scam, either. Singer talked coaches, “smart” people, and admissions officials into going “rogue”, accepting money Singer coaxed out of powerful and wealthy parents to make sure their children got into the “best” schools.

LaPorte explains the high pressure environment of southern California, where even very young children are pressured to attend the best private schools that will give them the best shot at going to a big name university. As I read Guilty Admissions, I learned about elite private high schools like Buckley, Marlborough, Marymount, and Harvard-Westlake, all of which had their own vibes.

Each of those private schools have highly qualified guidance counselors, many of which had encountered Rick Singer’s “independent consultation” work and weren’t too keen on their students using it. Singer specialized in gaming the system, and as it’s become incredibly obvious, wasn’t honest in his dealings. But it hadn’t seemed like Singer had started out that way. In the beginning, he seemed more like a legitimate operator who actually spent time with the teens he worked with, helping them get better grades and test scores themselves, rather than falsifying their college applications, lying about their races, paying people to take their college boards for them, or inventing sports teams for them to claim.

Guilty Admissions is definitely a page turner. LaPorte writes well, and to a “nobody” like me, the story is astonishing enough that I don’t need to be “sold” on it. However, there are a few glitches in the book. For instance, at one point, LaPorte refers to “Seaton Hall University”, when she means “Seton Hall”. It was probably a typo, rather than a reflection of LaPorte’s knowledge or lack thereof of the subject matter, but given that she was referring to a university, that mistake was a very noticeable whopper. I also want to point out that it’s already 2023, so some of the information in the book is dated, which is to be expected. Thankfully, we have the Internet for updates.

However, LaPorte includes plenty of footnotes, photos, and other useful tools for readers who want to learn more. I got the sense that she interviewed a lot of key people in this scandal, even as she also watched the same news coverage we all did. When I finished reading Guilty Admissions, I wanted to read more, from a different perspective. I ended up downloading 2020’s Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit & the Making of the College Admissions Scandal, by Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz. I don’t know when I’ll get around to reading that book, but at least one Amazon reviewer wrote that he thought it was a better book with a different perspective. LaPorte mostly focuses on southern California and the University of Southern California, with some mentions of other elite universities like Yale and Georgetown. I think it’s important to realize that there were more people and schools involved. This is a widespread issue.

I mentioned in my previous post that I had the “privilege” of being a temp in the admissions office at the College of William & Mary in the late 90s. William & Mary is a highly selective school, so I saw a lot of materials from very exclusive and expensive private high schools. It really opened my eyes… and that was in 1998! Nowadays, I think the prospect of choosing a college is worse than it was back then. So many young people think they need to go to a “brand name” college! It’s absolutely crazy!

LaPorte also adds that COVID-19, ironically, has really messed up the college game. Fewer young adults are opting for college now, as it’s gotten so expensive. COVID-19 made the experience less appealing, as students were expected to wear masks and take classes on Zoom, rather than have the immersive experience so many of us older folks have had. I often like to say that every cloud has its silver lining. What I mean is that every situation, no matter how horrible, has the potential to bring about something positive. I don’t think COVID-19 is, overall, a great thing at all… but maybe it has acted as sort of a bucket of water of sorts– cooling off the insane pressure to attend a certain university, or even to go to university at all.

I certainly don’t regret going to college or grad school. I got a lot out of both experiences. But the cost of attending is getting harder and harder to justify, especially for people who end up like I have. 😉 I just think it’s sad that so many people seem to think that it’s worth risking prison to get their kids into certain universities, especially when I know from personal experience that there are MANY excellent schools of higher learning in the United States. I think the Varsity Blues scandal is a good reminder to us all that chasing an image can lead to ruin… or at least uncomfortable familiarity with the sensation of wearing handcuffs outside of a movie set or a bedroom.

Anyway, I would recommend Nicole LaPorte’s book, Guilty Admissions. I’d give it four stars out of five, and recommend additional resources. I look forward to comparing this book with Unacceptable by Korn and Levitz, whenever I get around to reading it.

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