Bad-mama-of-the-year award goes to ...

 A column I wrote, not used by the Herald-Times, so just sharing with friends.

This column was written by Lynne Foster Shifriss of Bloomington.

There is a girl in New York City
Who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I’m falling, flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Whoa, so this is what she means
She means we’re bouncing into Graceland ...
                                             -- Paul Simon

I often think of the above lyrics when I'm contemplating how far the actual me is from the person I want to be.
I think that is especially true of my role as mom to three kids.
 Jordie and I often say -- "Boy, we really lucked out with those kids!"
They're all IU graduates, working at jobs they can feel good about.
And I know some of it is luck. Possibly good DNA. But one thing it isn't is having had perfect parents.
This is one mama who made a heck of a lot of mistakes.
The kids actually do a little routine in which they mimic -- using first initials only -- a stream of curse words I supposedly shrieked at them. I used to be embarrassed but now I just say "If I did do that, you must have richly deserved it" or "It'll be good material for your therapist."
But the sometimes-too-quick temper was not the worst of it.
High on the list of ways I screwed up was my lack of organization.
In my professional life at the Herald-Times as assistant to the editor, features copy editor and early morning web mistress, I learned to juggle a myriad of tasks, prioritize, handle pressure and breaking news.
The very first morning I worked the early shift alone, there was a shooting. I heard it on the police scanner and snapped into automatic -- consulting with police, the editor at a sister paper, posting a short story to our website, Facebook, Twitter. Calling the editor at home, and the police reporter. Times like that were easy, work-wise. Common sense.
But the day-to-day stuff ... piled-up papers and too many unopened emails could be a real problem. I had to work to get better at organizing all the information.
At home, there was no boss to hold me accountable.
I never finished writing everything in their baby books.
Where's that paper? Probably in the pile on the dining room table.
A recipe? Just look it up on the iPhone.
I was the mom who carried a bag with wrapping paper, tape and scissors in my car trunk to take care of the birthday present we would buy at Target on the way to the party.
I once flew to New Jersey because of a death in our family. The kids -- all grown -- were to follow a day later, parking my mini-van at the airport. They had a little visit with a (luckily) sympathetic cop on the way, because I'd forgotten to renew my license plate.
Probably the worst thing I did, though, what really earns me that "bad mama" title, was to lose the kids' Social Security cards.
That has also been the source for comedy routines in our home.
Of course, as I said, the kids turned out all right. And our oldest is the most organized person I've ever met, which goes to show it's not genetic.
As others coo over a new baby, uttering wisdom like "Be sure and take a nap while the baby sleeps!" and "Don't worry, they all talk at different ages!" I've been known to give out this bit of advice: "Buy a file cabinet right now and use it!"

It's been a pleasure to be part of the newsroom gang

Lynne Foster Shifriss retired from The Herald-Times Friday. She was, in recent years, the editor of the Neighbors and Religion pages as well as webmistress in the early morning. She can be reached at lshifriss@yahoo.com.

Early July, 1995. I stood, shifting nervously from foot to foot. After all, I didn’t really belong in the middle of the H-T newsroom. I had been turned down there before for not having a journalism degree — mine was in English.

Still, I had always been interested. I had taken journalism classes in college, but was shy. When my dad, who worked in downtown Indy, spoke to “Old man Pulliam” of the Indianapolis Star about a summer job or internship, I could not bring myself to follow up on his offer to come over and talk.

For the couple of years before my interview at the H-T, I had been doing a paper delivery route in the country, out East Ind. 45 and Mount Gilead Road. A couple of fellow Harmony School moms who were artists told me that if I wanted time at home, which I did (to be with toddler Abby) doing a paper route was a great idea. And that did work out just fine. Good money. Driving around in the middle of the night, seeing owls, deer, bluebirds. Soaking in the quiet, so different from my daytime life. When a newsroom job came open, Tim Smith, head of Circulation, went upstairs and put in a good word for me with the big boss, H-T editor Bob Zaltsberg. And so I got an interview. And, a job.

At first, I was Shirley Bushey’s assistant in the library.

Over the years, after Shirley retired and I became full-time, I worked for Bob Z, processing letters to the editor and doing the editorial page. I became editor of the Neighbors and Religion pages. And the past few years, I have been the early morning webmistress, updating the H-T website and using Facebook and Twitter to spread news about road closings, weather, crime, school closings and more.

There are so many vivid memories. I was so proud to work at the H-T on that Sunday, July 4, 1999, when a Korean graduate student, Won-Joon Yoon, on his way into a church on East Third Street, was shot and killed by Benjamin Smith, a neo-Nazi. At the H-T, somewhere, there’s a photo of staffers working together — including Bob Z in his summer shorts — to get out an extra edition that terrible afternoon. “Hate Hits Home” was distributed later in the day, responding to a community’s need to know and to bond over shock and sadness.

Again, on that sunny September morning in 2001, when news spread that planes hit New York’s World Trade Center, H-T staff jumped into action to get accurate information out as quickly as possible, understanding the media’s role as part of the community. I remember employees standing silently in front of the cafeteria TV or the one in Bob Z’s office, then rushing off to work some more. Then back again, to stand silently and watch.

In smaller ways, too, I’ve felt pride to be part of the H-T newsroom. You don’t get much more “local” than the Neighbors page, with news submitted by readers about new babies, senior citizen birthdays, charitable contributions, upcoming events and more. I always figured that when something appeared on my Neighbors page, somebody was cutting it out and putting it on the fridge. And I liked that.

And my goal with the Religion page has been to reflect the diversity of faith in our area.

I’ve been happy and fulfilled with both of those missions. I wish I’d been able to do more.

I always wanted to reach out, to help local nonprofits and faith communities get their information into print and online — but at the paper, there’s always a deadline, and mine always seemed to be coming up too fast.

I could tell stories about many fine people I have worked with here. But you know who you are. It’s been a pleasure to be a part of the newsroom gang for almost 22 years.

Relative View

Balancing tasks, attitudes part of a family's story

Abby Shifriss | courtesy photos

Abby, our youngest, volunteering in Americorps before she went to college, ended up stripping bark from trees as her team helped to construct a nature center in Oregon.

I watched a PBS interview Bill Moyers did with anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson years ago.
She spoke of leaving Iran, where her husband was teaching, when the 1979 revolution happened: “I had friends who were happy to go back to the veil, because at least then their roles were defined. In our country, men and women are struggling with who does what.”
I loved that interview so much that I wrote Bateson a letter, asking if she were teaching any classes in the Boston area, where we lived then. (I had read “Blackberry Winter,” the autobiography of Bateson’s mother, Margaret Mead, and knew that she lived in Boston.)
I explained that I was at home with my baby son, thinking about next steps in my work life.
She called and offered me a job as her assistant.
Bateson has written about women and work and juggling time and needs, especially in “Composing a Life.” But for the couple of years that I worked for her in Boston while she was teaching in Washington, D.C., during the week (opening her mail; doing errands or trips to the airport; walking her big Akita dog, Shizou — all with my little son in tow), I learned from seeing her home life that she and her husband found ways to both have demanding jobs and take care of some needs at home as well.
For instance, they lived in a big triple-decker house. They had the top two floors and the bottom floor was an apartment, usually rented to a couple of graduate students at a good price, with the understanding that someone would be there when their daughter came home from school.
And being her assistant worked well for me, needing to make some money as well as take care of my toddler, as well as for her and her husband, working long hours as professors.
I don’t know what the background was in their house, but over the years, so much of trying to juggle tasks and demands in our home ... let’s just say there has been plenty of talk about just who does what.
And hiring help, as Bateson hired me? Not possible for us.
We tried, as our Shifriss Adventure Team (the name my husband, Jordie, gave to our family even before the kids were born) grew up, to emphasize personal responsibility and teamwork, non-sex-role-related.
I was heard to say, “Laundry is not brain surgery!” and then when I took a few journalism classes, “I abdicate as Queen of this kitchen!” Then, conversely, I would expect my husband to take care of car problems. (I am ashamed of that.)
Though I’ve often found myself stuck in old patterns, the kids don’t seem to be.
For instance, Adam makes a really fine pie crust (which he learned in nutrition class at Bloomington High School North). And he’s the only member of the family to routinely use an iron.
Amalia, in Los Angeles, has been involved in several accidents in which her car was rear-ended. One was especially challenging: “The man who hit me tried to say I hit the car in front of me first. I don’t know if he thought I would just cave and not fight it because I am a woman, and was dealing with it on my own, or because he was part of a very famous family. But I fought, I got a lawyer and we went to arbitration. It took a long time, but I won.”
And Abby, our youngest, volunteering in Americorps before she went to college, ended up stripping bark from trees as her team helped to construct a nature center in Oregon. Although I call myself a feminist, I felt shocked when she told me she had been trained to use a chainsaw. She said “That’s why I didn’t tell you until afterwards.”
Change does happen, even if it takes a while. I’m still learning.

Contact Lynne Foster Shifriss at lshifriss@yahoo.com.

To be of use

By Marge Piercy

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy, "To be of use" from Circles on the Water. Copyright © 1982 by Marge Piercy. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Source: Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy (Alfred A. Knopf, 1982)

A perfect caketopper

Amy and Barb

I attended a lovely party yesterday, a wedding reception for Amy Ira and Barb Ralls (Barb is a long-time editor at the H-T.) I had to leave because we had tickets for a play with our family, but I had wanted to make a toast, and so here are the words I had in my mind to say.

**********************

Twenty years ago, when I came to work at the Herald-Times, our youngest child Abby was just three. Over the next few years, we attended parties at Barb and Amy's house, and most memorably, I would always take Abby trick-or-treating over to Barb and Amy's house, where they would have set up a table in the driveway, hospitably handing out candy to kids. 

Abby said back then, "Why can't Barb and Amy get married?" 

I told her "They ARE married, in every way except legally."

Now, all these years later, that time has come. Even in Indiana, people's rights are being recognized. 

And I am a very proud mama that yesterday, our son Adam, in Indianapolis for a friend's wedding, walked in the Gay Pride parade downtown with his former boss, Baron Hill, and other friends.

And our Abby was walking in the Gay Pride parade, too, with the group PRISM, a Bloomington group for teens, celebrating all sexual orientations and gender identities and expressions. We are proud that she is being an intern this summer for PRISM.

Times change for the better, and I am so happy to be celebrating Barb and Amy's marriage, after so many years of being wonderful partners for each other. Here's to many more years of happiness for Barb and Amy!

Amy and former H-T newsroom jill-of-all-trades, Carol Thompson

Birdie — oh, we'll call you Richard if you insist! — Johnson and Bob Zaltsberg

Getting ready to cut the cake, and thanking sister Carla for everything

Carol Thompson, Jane Hanser and Joyce Thomas

Rainbow cupcakes couldn't be more perfect!

Laura Lane, Bethany Nolan Knight and Carol Kugler admire Bethany's baby pix!

Happy 2014 from the Shifriss family Lynne's update: In summer, I gave up wheat for a while, inspired during our stay with friends Barb & Craig Benson on Capitol Island, Maine. Think I am going back to that for awhile. I felt light and more energetic. Why are so many delicious things made of wheat? Never mind, I will learn new patterns. I have been walking and walking more, which is great for my mind and body. The name of the game for me, this coming year, is discipline. As Emily, the daughter of our friends Audrey & Ken Heller, wrote on her blog, Triumph Wellness, "Self-discipline has to be developed like a muscle." I'm going to work on that in many areas of my life this year. To explain our family collage of scenes from this fall ... clockwise from the top left corner, Amalia & Abby taking a family walk on the Clear Creek trail, with Jordie & our dog Sadie, during Thanksgiving time; next two pix are Jordie, Abby & Amalia, then Adam doing Thanksgiving prep, when it was really fun, working together; next two are our family and my sister Lee, husband Eric & twins Ruthie & Gracie, together for a long brunch at Shapiro's; then Abby, Donna Baron, Amalia & Bonnie Gordon-Lucas, during a fun Chanukah night; next three are art that we love ... the red frame is a sculpture by Jordie in our front yard; then a hamsa work by Bonnie, a very special gift to us; then the painting by our neighbor Meg Lagodzki, a gift from Lynne to Jordie for Chanukah (see below ... there are several chanukiot made by Jordie, & the crocheted tablecloth was given to our family— and made by — my grandma, Amy Violet Foster); then is me, ready to go and support the Hoosiers (our three kids gifted Jordie & me with four IU basketball games); then is Jordie with our cat, Motek (which means "sweetie" in Hebrew), who always likes to "help" Jordie when he's working on the computer. Finally, the last photo is a reminder. The time is now. Whether it's time with family, reflection time for yourself, paying attention to a friend, being good to yourself as far as exercise & eating, whatever. I will turn 60 this summer. I am looking, more than ever, at what makes life worthwhile. Realizing that the little things are what's important and practicing gratitude are at the top of my list. Do I sound like Emily from "Our Town?" Yes. I mean to. Her monologue is one of the truest things I've ever read: Emily: ... But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another! ... I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. ... Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it –every,every minute? Stage Manager: No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some. And this little reminder – that the time for happiness is now – is my gift for 2014 for you, friends. A happy and blessed year to you all.