June 6, 2026 – From the Far Side of '70

I’ve been thinking lately about how frequently I see/hear privilege (white or otherwise) raising its head. IN particular we have been having a lot of road construction nearby and that has resulted in deviations, and closures and my, oh my, how folks like to get on their high horses and whine and whinge about how things

“used to be”
“should be”
“would be if…”
“don’t have to be”
and a few other “’be’s”.

The fact is that in Wisconsin when you hear the word “privilege” it’s pretty much assumed that you are talking about white privilege and that the intended message is one of racial equality. With that presumption a great many people walk away from conversations thinking privilege is something other people should deal with but isn’t anything for me to worry about.

But in the daily run of things I hear examples of privilege — whether white or not doesn’t matter — because it’s the exact same place in your brain that gives rise to the idea that you personally shouldn’t have to deal with something that a lot of other people are dealing with — presumably because you don’t deserve to be inconvenienced.

What a crock of baloney. And what a child of the whole American Individualism attitude. I can do anything I want, because… well,… for no good reason, just because I think I shouldn’t have to deal with that. From drivers who break out of traffic and go tearing up the shoulder of the road to get ahead of traffic to the patient. in E.R. with a cut who is offended that someone with a heart attack is being seen before them. We can conjure an infinite number of reasons why WE should not have to put up with what lots of other people not only put up with, but have to live with day in and day out their entire lives. Where do we get such an attitude of superiority, or exclusivity from? It can be the result of parenting, but I know plenty of folks who grew up with parents who would never condone the behavior of their spoiled and privileged offspring. So that’s not it.

Wherever it comes from I”m ready for it to be over — but it won’t be. And I see no indication that many folks even care.

The world changes and I must change with it. I”m doing my best, But I”m not happy about it. And there is no way to change it. I can’t live other people’s lives, and staying out of their way is getting harder and harder.

I know others my age who have either given up on driving, or have started limiting their driving to certain types of roads, and perhaps avoiding other kinds of roads completely — like Interstate Highways — because with their current perceptions and reaction times perhaps they aren’t alert enough or fast enough to react to the stupid actions of thoughtless drivers — or reckless drivers (because some people do those things intentionally, not accidentally). Thus far I’m not bothered — though I am more careful at points of interaction — ramps, interchanges, intersections, etc.. I don’t know how long I’ll feel the same, and whether the time will come that I stop driving certain places or at all.

I know I dreaded the day when I would have had to tell my dad that he wasn’t a safe driver and to surrender the car keys. AS it turned out he passed before that day came — peacefully in his sleep — after a lovely weekend with the entire family and a 100 miles drive back home. I don’t know how I’ll react if my time comes for our daughter to have that conversation with me? I hope I’m gracious about it. And, by the way, that’s another area where privilege is a huge issue among the public.

OK — I’m gonna stop here. I’ll be back tomorrow. and we’ll see what’s on the agenda then….

Our great grandson turned 4 years old a week ago. Our granddaughter married into a big, big, big family and she was saying she’s never known a kid have so many 4th birthday parties before.

Somehow that reminded of his baptism. It seems that the baptismal clothes he wore had been worn by 67 previous family members for THEIR baptisms! Now, being an only child, having fathered an only child I have to admit that LARGE FAMILY life is totally foreign to me. I give the granddaughter heaps of credit for coping with a family that does everything together even when spread over 1/2 a continent. There are so many family gatherings one might be tempted to think they alone were responsible for greenhouse emissions, but you know that’s not true. And if my joking about it gives away my bewilderment about how you deal with so many people who want so much of your time you’re right: I’m totally clueless.

But 67 wearers of one costume is an aspect of tradition that I had little considered. And the fact that the family has kept track of all the people baptised in that outfit is even more curious. James’ father was one of them. So, I guess it’s close enough to home for it to be nostalgic to him. “The first dress I ever wore” is how he puts it!

As a parallel line of thought we see parades — Memorial Day, Independence Day, European communities that have their abundance of Saints’ day parades, etc… And I am reminded that traditions aren’t just traditions. They are the source of group pride. Whether it’s national, religious, family, or sectarian — people who repeatedly practice rituals achieve a group mindedness that can be good, or it can be the source of great evil.

Traditions are also the incubators of pride — group pride — of being part of something valuable (to the adherents) whether it is valuable to anyone else or not. Nations have traditions and pride. Take the Alsace region of France/Germany — it has been fought over repeatedly and way too many soldiers and civilians have lost their lives and livelihoods defending or retaking their homeland. Indeed, what we see in Palestine and the horrors inflicted upon those people by the Jewish State only serves to remind us that “pride” can get any of us into a lot of trouble. Racially, sexually, politically, nationally: pride causes a lot of problems — and it all starts with very simple, very basic traditions.

I’m sure I’m part of my share of traditions. I don’t like to think about them, and my family knows that I take holidays slightly differently than most of them do. And whether traditions are universally good or bad isn’t the question. They are a part of the way we humans cope with life, with separation, with physical and biological needs, etc.. But that being the case does not mean that we ought to embrace every opportunity to celebrate anything that happens.

If we humans weren’t so quick to add alcohol to our celebrations it might be a different story. It seems as if there is such a terrific sense that we need to escape our day-to-day regular lives and a little bit of alcohol smooths the way to Escape Town. Combine a long standing tradition with a need to escape and a little liquid encouragement and the number of belligerent conversations and confrontations that can take place multiply rapidly. And with them all manner of extensions of our traditions to violence.

There is no cure. Traditions will continue. Pride will rise and pride will fall. And we’ll all wonder about why we got ourselves into this mess, or that mess, or some other mess. But nothing arises without a seed. Everything has a starting point. The starting point may be very innocent — just like a baptismal gown — but the ends sometimes prove to be very different from the beginnings and we shrug our shoulders wondering what went wrong.

That’s it for today. Take care of yourself and yours. I’ll be back tomorrow for another chat.