Category: Personal

Hiram Walbridge of New York

Link to General Hiram Walbridge’s speech in New York

https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbaapc.32700/?sp=2  This link will take you to General Hiram Walbridge’s 1865 speech which is in the African American Pamphlet Collection of the Library of Congress.  If you go page by page (there are 22 pages), you can use 2 fingers to enlarge the image so you can read it.  

Hiram expresses that the North had a competitive interest in declaring slavery illegal because if they didn’t, other countries, which had already done so, holding slavery as abhorrent, would make commercial deals with the South—if the South outlawed slavery first (see pp. 12-14). Also, he makes some other important points relevant to the current situation in this country. It’s worth reading!

I don’t know whether we Walbridges are relatives of his, though I suggest we claim Hiram as one of our own!

Whole Food

Whole Food

I was employed at Whole Foods: Lincoln Park, Chicago for several years in the late nineties, and wrote about the experience, including conflicts and specific as well as philosophical ideas for improvement.  The Nutrition Team is responsible for the vitamins, herbs, supplements and body care items sold in this giant health food store, as I called it, and that was my team.  Whole Foods Market is still open today, and it has retained its focus on healthy food produce and grocery products, over the years, but its commitment to herbs and other supplements seems to have lessened (our large Edgewater store has no herbs in bulk, not enough space for a full range of vitamins and supplements and limited boxed teas, which make it a reduced-service instead of a complete health food store.  I bemoan this fact.).   

“‘The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.’  So spoke Thomas Edison, who bequeathed us so much; if he is right, the health food store will become ever more important as years pass.”  -“Plans for a Healthy Health Food Store, March 3, 1998

Here’s a quote from our higher up bosses: “To All Nutrition Team Members: Thank you all for everything you have done.  It is a privilege and honor to work with you all.”  -Bob C., Jim M, March 19, 1998

“My team is expected to suggest to our customers solutions for the healing of their bodies that they might in the past have paid a a traditional (Western) doctor good money to hear!  Our company doesn’t hire experts to dispense this wisdom, but poorly paid persons like myself…We are expected to learn and research healing possibilities on the job.”  -Report to Whole Foods: Lincoln Park Team Members, January 14, 1999

“Our whole society is suffering because nutritional knowledge is not in the hands of the majority of the consumers.  Whole Foods is a testimony to how shoppers will buy when they become somewhat educated and to their desire to get educated.  Whole Foods suffers in its mission because its food store consciousness lags behind its health food store consciousness: the store suggests powerful solutions, then frustrates customers when its hobbled limbs cannot keep up with their desires to buy, buy, buy!” and thus better their lives…

“The Whole Foods: Lincoln Park Nutrition Department puts power in the people’s hands and they respond by buying and feeling better about themselves and attaining better health.  Our wisdom needs to be disseminated: only greater service to the community and profit for the store can result.  It is a scandal that our medical care system continues to lag behind alternative health care; more and more consumers are turning away from doctors and to it for answers that traditional medicine is not equipped to provide, and, shamefully, many of these answers include nutritional knowledge, such as Whole Foods’ low-paid employees dispense at the drop of a hat.”  -“Store/Company/Industry Alert in Preparation for the Year 2000: Plans for an Expanded Healthy Health Food Store,” April 1998

“The commitment of my Nutrition [Team] co-workers is incredible; we must, for a small wage, act as therapist and doctor, oftentimes, which we do, out of love!”  -Email to Susannah Frishman-Phillips, subject: Inner Views news from Lincoln Park, Chicago, July 10, 1998

“We make so damn little money anyway, and besides, we care!  We in Nutrition are very knowledgeable, skilled, and patient, and we put up with such low salaries not because we are stupid or bad workers, but because we empathize with customers in search of an alternative to traditional American bullshit.”  

“If these ideas sound rational and hopeful, it’s because they are!…

“Even if there is no other alternative, we must desire to be the very best we can, for our eyes are in the future, and I predict that changes will come fast and soon; we must be sure that our feet also land there—on the Earth.”  -“Store/Company/Industry Alert in Preparation for an Expanded Healthy Health Food Store,” April, 1998

“Public ignorance of nutrition and natural healing seems, at this time, to reward big business more than new herbal, vitamin and alternative medicine products and services challenge it.”  -“Peasce Watch 1998: Radical Nutrition Information and Issues”

“It’s nearing the end of the millennium; let’s pretend that we are interested in making a new, improved version of an American health food store, shall we?  Here are my ideas on the topic.  They are not dependent on the assumption that the future will be the same as today.  I see a future that, for instance, might have a truly progressive American president—perhaps a woman, and perhaps in a less threatening world climate—and might see government subsidization of food stores as public services… such that all produce (fruits and vegetables) might be free to the public (this would a long way toward establishing a baseline of good public health, providing for the defense of our country from the inside out)…

“When employees really know food and herbs they become educators of needy customers, transporters into health and greater self-sufficiency.  The basic lesson of Utopianism when it comes to food products is that it never pays to keep a customer in the dark—knowledge is power and empowerment is good, for it leads to strength, the opposite of weakness; strength is what our new world needs!  You can serve me better if I can help you on to your own two feet—we can then work together…

“Were Whole Foods to convert to doing things the “Holy Foods” way, it could cut its executives’ salaries, which are not excessive, according to J[ohn] Mackey; while he contends that he must pay his executives salaries comparable to those they would elsewhere receive, they should be willing to take cuts and so should he, if they are willing to become involved in a public health project with the future as a core value rather than today’s superficial successes!

“The Holy Foods employees need to be educated about nutrition.  They need to work for their entire store, not just for their departments.  For example, a customer with a question about ginger supplements for anticipated seasickness who asks a Nutrition Department worker about her options should never be shown only the (most expensive) ginger pills, but should also be told about the fresh ginger root in the produce section of the store.  A caring employee will always have the best health of customer and planet in mind when he or she responds to a customer question.

“Let not a corporate body claiming to be progressive try to hold back change for the better!” -“Plans for a Healthy Health Food Store,” March 3, 1998

“Dear Jenny,…

“[Whole Foods] is an accessible public forum (as a capitalist enterprise) in which ideas about health are often exchanged, which is beneficial to both the customer and myself.  New avenues of perception are often opened as a result of these interactions, assigning meaning to Whole Foods as a place of enlightenment and its commodities as talismans to guide one on these new paths of consciousness.  The ultimate lack of appreciation at this job for what we are truly doing is a great source of frustration for me, and I keep a tenuous balance between this frustration and the satisfaction I get from actively and consciously participating in whole foods as a public health project.”  -Seanna, Nutrition Team Co-worker,  ~1999

“The phenomena at the store cried to me, elicit us!” 

 -Job Dialogue, April 1998

“education, this refueling, I say, reach for it!  And in the mean time, visualize whirled peas!  bee-(a)-cause GREEN IS GOoD, as seedleSs Skateboard Company says!

From the desk of Jenny Walbridge

This, I Believe

The Zoroastrian belief holds that one is constantly struggling with the devil who wants to kill one’s inner child through one’s own behavior, says a friend raised in one of their schools.  For a long time, I didn’t understand that simple actions could be in harmony with the natural order of things—could contribute to the ease of the world, or, alternatively, cause inelegance, stuckage.  The Asian art of feng shui, that of placement, shows that energy can flow around and open up your spaces and your psychological life.  Brooks Palmer is a best-selling author for his classic book, Clutterbusting, which describes the process of “Can we let this go?”  Another author, Julia Mossbridge, coined the term, “Let’s all be more like ourselves!” 

All Unitarians, I believe, can fight the good fight and save ourselves as human beings, and become world citizens.  When all people live in consciousness of our full  energies, and nothing is holding us back from being ourselves, we can embrace the whole of Life and be much happier.  Yet to do so, we need the inspiration of each others’ spirituality, and to appreciate that there is a big world out there with human differences galore.  But one thing we all have is yin—feminine, passive, and dark—and yang, masculine, active and light—energies. 

“The light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not.”  ~John 1:5,  Bible.  This is the story of my life until recently.   Always a peace-lover, I initially figured, unconsciously—because of parental screwups at an early age—that by rejecting yang, the world would be helped—strength could come only from yin beauty.  But there is a place for the male, as I have found.  Sexuality is great, and to be cultivated, not to be frightened of.

My mission: to be a spiritual leader: ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord,’” John 1:23,  Bible.  This seems to me to be my purpose: helping yin be yin and yang be yang, and the two to attract yet stay different from each other, initiating a spiral type of movement, working and playing together!  As Pope Francis said in 2015 (as recorded in the book, Give Us This Day Our Daily Love: Pope Francis on the Family, Boston: Pauline Books and Media), “This is what marriage is all about: man and woman walking together, wherein the husband helps his wife to become ever more a woman, and wherein the woman has the task of helping her husband become ever more a man,” (p. 13).

“I’ve spent all my life looking for the answer: are we human, or are we dancer?” goes the Killers’ song “Human:”  Who named us Homo sapiens sapiens (Man wise wise)?  Do we really think we are that smart, or should be?  What would a deity like to see, looking at Her/His creation?  Life reading a book, never moving around?  Let’s be Homo sapiens dancer!  We can use my favorite proverb, an Estonian one: “The work will teach you how to do it!” 

Goat Poem

Just to let you know, I’d rather be with a goat

Than here inside writing, though I may need to quote

These lines when I call up to see if you’re home

To go outside, run around, and, with me, roam,

And rhyming can maybe catch your attention

If I’m on stage at some goat farm convention!

~J. 2019

Book Introduction

Following Directions

Artist J. has painted 66 11”x14” and 9” x 12” canvases in acrylic.  The images and words portrayed suggest reflections she came up with during talk therapy.  The aim is that the pictures and words give voice to her inner issues, struggles and successes in the work of growing a self.  This task needed the therapist (K.) to co-create a safe, creative space for J. to complete the stages of psychological development that she had missed out on as a child, due to inappropriate parenting of both mother and father as well as a confused society and world.  The work took 25 years; J. stuck with it, following the directions of her world to heal—to do the therapy—while failing to comprehend how exactly to grow herself, and even what work needed to be done.  There was no manual to consult—she and K. figured out the appropriate procedure on their own.  The work represents a dual commitment to life, the world, hope and mercy by both J. and K., as well as her parents’ faith in the therapeutic process, which they demonstrated by funding it.  The issues expressed may reflect societal and worldly conflicts, suffering and successes, as well as J.’s personal ones.  

Family Expressions

Our parents used certain expressions that are colorful and I remember.  For example, “First things first,” said our father often, and “Darn right!” or “Right you are!”  They’d both say, “More power to you!” and “I see whatcha mean, peaches and cream!”  and “It’s an oldie but a goodie” and “Hold your horses,” and “What’s your story, morning glory?” and “It’s time to get this show on the road,” and  Dad, “See ya later, alligator…After awhile, crocodile” (though Dad turned this into “See you later, prestidigitator!”) and Dad and Mom both, “Poor bunny,” and “Forge ahead,” and, as our father’s dad said a lot, too, “Carry on.”  

Mom would use the expressions, “What more do ya want?” and “Let’s give credit where credit is due!”  as well as “There but for the grace of God go I.”  She would also say, “So you did good,” when we had done the right thing, and, when we were fortunate, “Praise the Lord” (i. e., “Nobody’s fallen off the ladder yet, praise the Lord.”).  Occasionally she’d say, “Well, I’ll be damned!” if she was surprised.  She said, “Fools that they be,” and “Ain’t it the truth,” as well as ‘I’ll go there tomorrow “God willing and the river don’t rise.’”  She’d sometimes say, i. e., “Put your dirty clothes in the washer or forever hold your peace.”  Mom would say, “Broccoli, well not exacully, is within an inich of  being spinach!” and, “I’ve got it in my hot little hands,” and “Bless your heart!” Our mom also said, “God rest their souls(s),” and “(I. e., Our nation) is going to hell in a handbasket” sometimes.  She would also say, nonsarcastically, when we had done something intelligent, “Well, aren’t you smart!”  Mom would call us “Honey,” “Sweetie,” “Punkin.’”  Karen, another part of the family, called us “Dear heart.”  

Our father, when frustrated, would cry, “What the devil!” or “Jesus!” or “Hell!” or “Dammit!” When he made a mistake and wasn’t upset, he would say, “I goof-fed.” (His brother’s first wife, Lucy, made up the name “goofballs” for his experimental soybean burger balls.)

My sister and I used some of these expressions; we also said “Don’t fuss, Daddy, don’t fuss” when our father was getting compulsive.  And we said “I get it” or “I got it” or “I don’t get it” when understanding—or not—something, especially someone’s feelings.   We often used the term “cool;” we still do, and we’ve adopted the occasionally Valley Girl “like” to some extent (“She said, like, I can’t believe you prefer that color”) and we say “goes” for “says”—as in, “Ruthie goes, ‘blah blah blah.’”  My sister and I both use the Midwestern “go with” or “come with,” as in, “I’m going to the store, you wanna go with?”  We found “No thank you for green beans,” or whatever we didn’t want, useful.

I remember one of the shows on public TV would start out with a teenager yelling to the camera, “HEY YOU GUYS!” “You guys” was the term we grew up with for addressing more than one person, male or female.  Our parents used it and we did, too.   “Y’all” is better because it’s more gender neutral, but we weren’t raised with it.  Before “cool” came around, we would say something was “neato!”  “Groovy” was the expression the previous generation used, and was a little outdated for us, though we’d heard it used.  If we didn’t like something, it was “stupid,” or “dumb.”  If something hurt, it “killed.”  Our curse was “Dang it!”  

Later, we would say “yah hey,” which I think we got from  Bob and Doug MacKenzie, the Canadian comedians who wrote the Canadian version of “The First Day of Christmas—On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me—a beer in a tree,” etc.  We also listened to “Uncle Lar’ and Li’l Tommy’s Animal Stories” on WLS radio during those years: priming ourselves for Steve Martin’s humor.  We loved the wonderful Smothers Brothers’ Aesop’s Fables record, and I, Bill Cosby’s “Bill’s Best Friend,” an early one of his masterpiece records.  Both parents would say, “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!”